Group of scientists suggest that octopuses might actually be aliens • Hacker News Board

Re: Group of scientists suggest that octopuses might actually be aliens

#121

Post by flukus » Mon, May 21, 2018, 11:02 AM UTC

TimTheTinker wrote: post #120

flukus wrote: post #119

Earlier quoted context omitted.

God created everything directly and indirectly, everything includes evil. Even if it was indirect, being omniscient makes him ultimately responsible for it. Either that or you start to get into pantheistic territory.

He created several classes of beings with the capacity for free will, since love freely chosen is the only kind of real love. Knowing that some would choose to hate him (or do anything else, for that matter) doesn’t shift responsibility away from them for that choice. Actually, the existence of evil is one of the biggest arguments for God’s existence via showing that there are universal, objective moral values and du…

> He created several classes of beings with the capacity for free will, since love freely chosen is the only kind of real love. Knowing that some would choose to hate him (or do anything else, for that matter) doesn’t shift responsibility away from them for that choice.

If you knew your child was going to be the next Hitler would you conceive a child? If I told you I was buying a gun so I could go on a shooting rampage would you sell me a gun? Knowing the outcome of your actions makes you at least partially responsible.

> one cannot call some actions evil except by contrast with what is morally good

But if evil didn't exist we wouldn't need to contrast it with anything, it's not like it makes being good any better than it would have been in an evil free world.

Re: Group of scientists suggest that octopuses might actually be aliens

#122

Post by chrisallenlane » Mon, May 21, 2018, 1:27 PM UTC

Tomminn wrote: post #107

Nomentatus wrote: post #103

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I share your discouragement with the present state of "science" (see the Replication Crisis) but the trouble with your comment that it applies to everything ever written, not this article in particular, not to mention that Theodore Sturgeon said it first, as a still more general rule.

I assumed the HN crowd was familiar with the fact that "90% of everything is crap" is someone else's idea. This was probably not a good assumption to make.

I don't know why people are giving you a hard time here. The quote is widely-known, and I appreciated your remark about the troubling lack of falsifiability criterion.

Re: Group of scientists suggest that octopuses might actually be aliens

#123

Post by Nomentatus » Mon, May 21, 2018, 3:00 PM UTC

mirimir wrote: post #113

Nomentatus wrote: post #99

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes - a bit at a time, I take it whereas some bacteria can swallow whole chromosomes entire (so-called "competence"); so I was skeptical about so much DNA transferring to just one kind of creature, at once. But now I think about it, the frozen octopi or eggs would bring a lot of alien octopi viruses along with them that might be able to do the job for all I know.

Sure. But this isn't science. It's fiction. Or religion. If it's not testable, it's not science.

We don't have spacecraft? We never will? It's recently been found that Europa sprays out detectable water to great distances, and that traces of amino acid would be preserved at such temperatures. So we may have one answer re life soon.

https://www.theguardian.com/science/2018/may/14/europa-moon-...

If you're assuming that life from, say, Europa, even if we found it, and it was the point of origin for octopi, would have altered so much as to have no genetic or chemical similarity to octopi now, I have no idea what your evidence is for that. To the contrary, there are plenty of very highly evolutionarily conserved proteins, hormones, etc - melatonin is one (it was originally an antioxidant for one-celled creatures.)

Refusing to entertain hypotheses by reason of expense isn't science.

Re: Group of scientists suggest that octopuses might actually be aliens

#124

Post by Nomentatus » Mon, May 21, 2018, 3:08 PM UTC

Orbital decay means planets were more distant from the sun in the past. As well, solar luminosity was lower. It's also likely that water and has accumulated on, say, Venus. So although not a likely harbor for life now, perhaps Venus was the first batter up for the evolution of life.

Against this, there are definitely other heat sources, especially for large planets, and more water (from impacts carrying water, especially) is available at a greater distance from the sun.

Re: Group of scientists suggest that octopuses might actually be aliens

#125

Post by Nomentatus » Mon, May 21, 2018, 3:54 PM UTC

chrisallenlane wrote: post #122

Tomminn wrote: post #107

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I assumed the HN crowd was familiar with the fact that "90% of everything is crap" is someone else's idea. This was probably not a good assumption to make.

I don't know why people are giving you a hard time here. The quote is widely-known, and I appreciated your remark about the troubling lack of falsifiability criterion.

See elsewhere here, there's no shortage of experiments to be done that could be determinative in this case. Also, Karl Popper's rule is a great rule of thumb, it really is; but there's an immense bibliography in philosophy of science about whether it's a shoe that fits all circumstances.

Re: Group of scientists suggest that octopuses might actually be aliens

#126

Post by khazhoux » Mon, May 21, 2018, 7:13 PM UTC

TimTheTinker wrote: post #106

khazhoux wrote: post #84

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You're right. It's not nearly as clean a solution as "God did everything, QED"

I’m not saying “God is the origin” removes all the unknowns or difficulties, or is sufficient to explain every detail. Quite the opposite: it adds another dimension of unknowns and mystery, because it allows “why?” to be a meaningful question (speaking of ultimate meaning/purpose, beyond natural preconditions and mechanisms) in scientific inquiry, in addition to “what”, “how”, etc.

It doesn't really add many unknowns or mystery. It's quite simple: "God created everything". Now you're left with only one unknown, "who/what/how created God?"

But the answer to that can't be a "who" or you have the problem of a Super-God, which (by convention) is disallowed. So instead, people say "God is eternal both into the past and into the future" and neatly tie up any possible question. God always was and always will be and he created everything -- a clean solution where if you accept the premise of God, then any and all follow-on questions just point back to the premise.

Re: Group of scientists suggest that octopuses might actually be aliens

#127

Post by mirimir » Mon, May 21, 2018, 10:07 PM UTC

Nomentatus wrote: post #123

mirimir wrote: post #113

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sure. But this isn't science. It's fiction. Or religion. If it's not testable, it's not science.

We don't have spacecraft? We never will? It's recently been found that Europa sprays out detectable water to great distances, and that traces of amino acid would be preserved at such temperatures. So we may have one answer re life soon. https://www.theguardian.com/science/2018/may/14/europa-moon-... If you're assuming that life from, say, Europa, even if we found it, and it was the point of origin for octopi, would h…

Well, by all means look for fossils of such alien octopai. But just how would you know that they were alien? Preserved artifacts, maybe?

Basically, I'm arguing that going from problematic features of octopus evolution and genetics to alien octopai is quite the stretch.

Re: Group of scientists suggest that octopuses might actually be aliens

#128

Post by TimTheTinker » Mon, May 21, 2018, 10:35 PM UTC

khazhoux wrote: post #126

TimTheTinker wrote: post #106

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I’m not saying “God is the origin” removes all the unknowns or difficulties, or is sufficient to explain every detail. Quite the opposite: it adds another dimension of unknowns and mystery, because it allows “why?” to be a meaningful question (speaking of ultimate meaning/purpose, beyond natural preconditions and mechanisms) in scientific inquiry, in addition to “what”, “how”, etc.

It doesn't really add many unknowns or mystery. It's quite simple: "God created everything". Now you're left with only one unknown, "who/what/how created God?" But the answer to that can't be a "who" or you have the problem of a Super-God, which (by convention) is disallowed. So instead, people say "God is eternal both into the past and into the future" and neatly tie up any possible question. God always was and alwa…

> Now you're left with only one unknown

That doesn't make any sense to me. "God created everything" is nearly content-less even if you assume it. If you stop there, you're left with nearly zero understanding of how the world/nature/universe works. Inquiry of all sorts (scientific included) is still indispensable for discovering content about the world.

> "who/what/how created God?"

The only way to know anything about the Christian God, at least, is to look at what he’s done and what he says about himself - again a line of inquiry involving discovery, questions, deductions.

> a clean solution where if you accept the premise of God, then any and all follow-on questions just point back to the premise.

Agreed, it does tie it up neatly. But again, assuming the Christian God, we have no ability to know anything about him unless he chooses to reveal it (him being an infinite being). And assuming everything that begins to exist has a cause, there must be something that did not begin to exist -- which must then be defined as having no beginning. You might be familiar with logical systems if you're a developer. At the most basic levels, where everything is bootstrapped, a lot of self-references are often involved.

Re: Group of scientists suggest that octopuses might actually be aliens

#129

Post by Nomentatus » Tue, May 22, 2018, 5:41 PM UTC

mirimir wrote: post #127

Nomentatus wrote: post #123

Earlier quoted context omitted.

We don't have spacecraft? We never will? It's recently been found that Europa sprays out detectable water to great distances, and that traces of amino acid would be preserved at such temperatures. So we may have one answer re life soon. https://www.theguardian.com/science/2018/may/14/europa-moon-... If you're assuming that life from, say, Europa, even if we found it, and it was the point of origin for octopi, would h…

Well, by all means look for fossils of such alien octopai. But just how would you know that they were alien? Preserved artifacts, maybe? Basically, I'm arguing that going from problematic features of octopus evolution and genetics to alien octopai is quite the stretch.

You've misunderstood Popper's falsification doctrine - if any experiment (of the hypothesis OR null hypothesis) that risks falsification can be devised, you're on the side of the angels.

You're welcome to say "Yuk! Yukky idea I just hate it!" but don't please don't peddle a false version of philosophy of science instead of just saying that.

You should also be civil enough to mark your change in position in the last missive.