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A Visiting Star Jostled Our Solar System 70,000 Years Ago

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Re: A Visiting Star Jostled Our Solar System 70,000 Years Ago

#81

Post by c-smile »

NeoBasilisk wrote: post #77
c-smile wrote: post #76

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why either one of options? Why not to do that at the same time? Just take resources from military spendings and put them on both tasks. But right, humans need to learn first how to trust each other... As one wise gentlemen in Russia once said "большая беда нужна" / "we need a big trouble" for all of us to work on such global task. Is this the only option for creating humanity deserving motivations? Not a star but [re…

The one event that would unite humanity like no other (even taking advantage of our xenophobia) would be contact with other intelligent life.

If we will survive until that moment.

We already know at least 5 extinction events on the Earth : https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Extinction_event#Major_extinct....

But no proven contact with extraterrestrials.

Probably because life forms on other planets didn't care at their time - didn't pass the Great Filter : https://waitbutwhy.com/2014/05/fermi-paradox.html

Re: A Visiting Star Jostled Our Solar System 70,000 Years Ago

#82

Post by andrewflnr »

24gttghh wrote: post #9

I was going to ask if perhaps ancient humans saw this new red star and if it drove them to an elevated state of being superstitious and chaos but: >When Scholz’s Star was in the neighborhood, it would have been a 10th magnitude star (red dwarfs are very dim). That’s about 50 times fainter than what can be seen with the naked eye at night. Under normal circumstances, it would be invisible. But because red dwarfs are m…

If humans then were anything like us, they were looking up at night. If it happened at night, I bet someone saw it.

Re: A Visiting Star Jostled Our Solar System 70,000 Years Ago

#83

Post by wallace_f »

rhapsodic wrote: post #34
vanattab wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I have never been able to understand why so many other scientists and "rationalist" look back on humans early "superstitious" ideas with contempt. To my mind these superstitious ideas are the beginning of the rationalist mindset. These ideas are people's attempts to explain and understand how the world works. I am certain that some of the ideas that many of us hold now will be thought quite silly in a few hundred yea…

> am certain that some of the ideas that many of us hold now will be thought quite silly in a few hundred years. Yes, like the theory that we're actually living in a simulation, espoused by Elon Musk and other respected, ostensibly science-minded people. It's basically Creationism in modern form.

If people fear responsibility to acting immorally, the probability of becoming an inter-planetary species likely increases.

So it makes sense for Musk.

Re: A Visiting Star Jostled Our Solar System 70,000 Years Ago

#84

Post by wallace_f »

squozzer wrote: post #73
vkou wrote: post #63

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What about the opportunity cost? What about the long-term? Maybe we should make our ecological footprint steady-state sustainable, first.

I think your idea is more practical, given the state of spaceflight technology - BUT, should it succeed, then little incentive would exist to leave Earth. Given the impulses of people in power now, coupled with whatever steps the future takes to make Earth sustainable, it's hard to imagine a future government allowing people to leave. It would, after all, be setting up a competitor. Paranoid, you say? Imagine an Engl…

>It would, after all, be setting up a competitor

There is nothing paranoid about that.

Evolution is not some magical 'forward' direction where every species becomes more technologically capable, or even more dignified.

It might be true that our species' now has a limited opportunity to become multi-planetary.

The first person to get to the moon was Korolev, and he would have continued rotting in a gulag had the urgency for a space program not been there.

And before you say the US is so much unlike Russia--our competing Vanguard program should, from an industrial standpoint, have won, but it was a massive failure, and embroiled in politics of its own.

Humanity needs competition to keep us honest, in the same way that the veracity of ideas needs to be tested by experiment to keep them honest.

Re: A Visiting Star Jostled Our Solar System 70,000 Years Ago

#85

Post by Merad »

antisthenes wrote: post #54
ninkendo wrote: post #35

I'll take this opportunity to recommend Universe Sandbox[1], which is pretty cheap on steam and worth every penny. Turning on projected orbital lines in an N-body simulation of our solar system and seeing what happens when you toss a star in there is really enlightening... the rings all shift in tandem in a visceral way that really helps me "feel" what happens. There's a simulation that comes out of the box that simu…

> Most orbits remain stable but very deeply shifted from where they were (earth's aphelion ends up far out where Jupiter was, with its perihelion much closer than before...) That's incredibly terrifying. Although from what I see in the book description, it focuses more on the drama aspect. I wouldn't mind someone exploring the technical aspect in more detail, e.g. what would be possible to do to prepare for such an e…

The scenario described is almost certainly the end of human civilization and the majority of life on earth. Assuming I’ve done the math right, an aphelion of ~5 AU and perihelion of ~0.9 AU gives a highly eccentric (e = 0.69) orbit taking 5 years.

I’m just guessing here, but I imagine each orbit would start with 6-8 months of relatively normal temperatures as we made or closest pass by the sun, a year or so worth of dropping temperatures, 2.5 years of deep, deep freeze, and a year of slow warming as we approach the sun again. Each orbit is probably going is probably going to see the planet spending at least 3 years competely outside the habitable zone. I’d expect virtually all life as we know it on the surface to die in the first orbit.

With enough warning we might be able to dig some deep facilities that could harness geothermal energy to generate power and avoid freezing. They might be able to use hydroponics or something to sustain themselves for a long time, but to what end?

Re: A Visiting Star Jostled Our Solar System 70,000 Years Ago

#87

Post by meric »

Merad wrote: post #85
antisthenes wrote: post #54

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Most orbits remain stable but very deeply shifted from where they were (earth's aphelion ends up far out where Jupiter was, with its perihelion much closer than before...) That's incredibly terrifying. Although from what I see in the book description, it focuses more on the drama aspect. I wouldn't mind someone exploring the technical aspect in more detail, e.g. what would be possible to do to prepare for such an e…

The scenario described is almost certainly the end of human civilization and the majority of life on earth. Assuming I’ve done the math right, an aphelion of ~5 AU and perihelion of ~0.9 AU gives a highly eccentric (e = 0.69) orbit taking 5 years. I’m just guessing here, but I imagine each orbit would start with 6-8 months of relatively normal temperatures as we made or closest pass by the sun, a year or so worth of…

There’s life beneath deep oceans that thrive on geothermal - I think it’s possible some life can survive.

Re: A Visiting Star Jostled Our Solar System 70,000 Years Ago

#88

Post by tehsauce »

shock-value wrote: post #49
ninkendo wrote: post #35

I'll take this opportunity to recommend Universe Sandbox[1], which is pretty cheap on steam and worth every penny. Turning on projected orbital lines in an N-body simulation of our solar system and seeing what happens when you toss a star in there is really enlightening... the rings all shift in tandem in a visceral way that really helps me "feel" what happens. There's a simulation that comes out of the box that simu…

Space engine http://spaceengine.org/ is also worth mentioning

Space engine doesn't have nbody or collisions yet, but if you want to explore a beautifully rendered and endlessly exolorable universe, highly recommend space engine. It's also developed almost entirely by a single guy in Russia.

Re: A Visiting Star Jostled Our Solar System 70,000 Years Ago

#89

Post by burnte »

always_good wrote: post #59
maskedinvader wrote: post #56

Earlier quoted context omitted.

if you are going to bite the bullet and get this game, Id recommend the 2nd iteration of the game, think they call it Universe Sandbox^2 (squared) . Nicer graphics and speed improvements in the second version.Its got a steam VR version too for those with VR hardware.

Looking at the link, what else are people going to buy? I'm confused as to what you're clarifying.

If you search Steam, there used to be V1 and this is V2, so there's that potential confusion.

Re: A Visiting Star Jostled Our Solar System 70,000 Years Ago

#90

Post by apotheothesomai »

vog wrote: post #74
sjburt wrote: post #52

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That is not the meaning of the Allegory of the Cave at all! The metaphor is that human experience is limited by our senses (like living in the cave) and so to understand eternal, absolute truths you need to use pure reason (leaving the cave), not experience.

Not sure what you argue against, but exactly that aspect, "human experience is limited by our senses", means that everything could be a simulation. Plato named those "shadows", but that's only because people weren't used to good simulation technologies back then. Today we have 3D cinemas, flight simulators, VR headsets, etc. But if you still don't like that example, here's another historic example of a philosopher wh…

Plato's shadows have absolutely nothing to do with living in a simulation. He was talking about degrees of true knowledge and their alignment with his idea of a multi-layered existence.

No multi-layered metaphysical construct in the ancient world discussed simulations. There isn't even a vocabulary that could describe an abstract simulation rather concrete reenactment, like drama or a physical model.

Some ancient religions spoke of the physical world as an illusion, but that too does not mean anything like a simulation.

A simulation is a virtual reality created by a higher intelligence in a real-world environment with great real-world power. Plato's forms weren't discussed as beings who did anything, and in the end were just reifications of predicates.

Descartes' skepticism is the foremost example of a simulation issue, but in addition to the great flaws in his arguments in the Discourses, saying you can't absolutely prove that your senses are not an elaborate deception is no indication that it is.

Profound ignorance and misunderstanding of philosophy is, for me, the most salient feature of the latest discourse on world-as-simulation.

2 weeks of an intro to philosophy college course would correct most peoples' thoughts on the matter, as examining Descartes is the most basic first step in learning philosophy.

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