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Have we already been visited by aliens?

newyorker.com

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Re: Have we already been visited by aliens?

#61

Post by cgriswald »

Xcelerate wrote: post #41

Tangential to the article, but I’m not sure why more isn’t mentioned about what I consider to be the most likely reason we haven’t been visited by aliens: they probably exist somewhere due to the sheer size of the universe, but the speed of light is indeed the fundamental limit to classical information transfer as our current understanding of physics predicts, and therefore we are simply too far away from any sort of…

The solution to distance isn’t energy; it’s time. Even at speeds much lower than the speed of light, a civilization could have spread across or explored the Milky Way in a few millions of years. These needn’t have been biological creatures. Von Neumann probes, “Genesis” machines, or just flinging rocks with sensors on them to tour the stars would do the trick.

Re: Have we already been visited by aliens?

#62

Post by StavrosK »

throwanem wrote: post #58
StavrosK wrote: post #38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I remember watching Babylon 5 when I was young, but I was probably too young to grasp all the meanings. I will rewatch it, thanks!

Oh, do! I also saw a few early episodes as a kid, but didn't really have a chance to get what they were trying to do; it wasn't until years later, when I had a chance to watch the full series straight through thanks to a friend's carefully made VHS tapes, that any of what I was seeing really made sense to me. Nothing since then has even come close to replacing B5 at the head of my SF TV affections. Reflecting on that…

I'll definitely watch then, thank you. As a sidenote, I think that the TNG I watched has remastered CGI. I remember remarking how good the CGI looked for the 90s, and realized/heard later than they redid all the CGI. The new CGI was definitely not out of place, if not fairly good, but I'm not entirely sure that what I'm saying is true. Just mentioning it in case you wanted to look into it.

Re: Have we already been visited by aliens?

#63

Post by SuoDuanDao »

I've long thought the starseeder hypothesis was a good bet from purely statistical grounds. What are the odds of intelligent life arising ex nihilo? We'd assume infinitesimal.

Given that it happened once, what are the odds that life will successfully expand to other planets? I at least would assume better than it happening independently again, we've never seen autogenesis but we have sent tardigrades to the moon.

Re: Have we already been visited by aliens?

#64

Post by 6gvONxR4sf7o »

AnIdiotOnTheNet wrote: post #35

> Loeb, though, explicitly rejects the Sagan standard—“It is not obvious to me why extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence,” he observes—and flips its logic on its head: “Extraordinary conservatism keeps us extraordinarily ignorant.” So long as there’s a chance that 1I/2017 U1 is an alien probe, we’d be fools not to pursue the idea. “If we acknowledge that ‘Oumuamua is plausibly of extraterrestrial-techno…

There seems to be a giant mismatch about what side is open minded. People who think its most likely aliens think it’s closed minded to assign that low probability, presumably because we’re this tiny corner of the universe. People who think it’s most likely not aliens Think it’s closed minded to assign everything else low probability, presumably because aliens are a tiny corner of everything else.

Is it a misapplication of the anthropic principle to say there are probably gazillions of advanced aliens, given that we appeared and therefore life probably is common? Or is it a misapplication to say it’s probably just another of the gazillions of non-alien things we’ve seen?

It’s all differences of opinion over which claim is the extraordinary one. It is bold to claim confidence about the impossibility of FTL travel, or bold to claim confidence about the possibility of it? Is it bold to say we’re a freak occurrence or bold to say we aren’t? Most generally, is it bold to say we know a lot or bold to say we don’t?

Re: Have we already been visited by aliens?

#65

Post by notahacker »

ErikVandeWater wrote: post #56
wait_a_minute wrote: post #39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's one of the biggest problems I have with Star Trek. If we were literally gods by comparison to some fledgling species, the only ethical approach would be to elevate them and cure their diseases and advance their knowledge as quickly as humanly possible.

Humans can't manage that on earth.

Not even for other humans, and not just because we can't or won't foot the bill for more education and medication, but also because encouraging relatively primitive tribes to abandon their traditions and join the modern world is widely seen as unethical.

Re: Have we already been visited by aliens?

#66

Post by rtx »

bostonsre wrote: post #54
eloff wrote: post #45

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I don't think very many people are saying it is impossible that Oumuamua was an alien construct and actively discouraging science based on the idea it could be. Actually yes. You'll be laughed out of the virtual room, not get funding, and potentially damage your career. As he points out in his interview with Lex (linked elsewhere in the comments here) is fine to propose a multi billion dollar experiment to detect o…

Ridiculing scientists for plausible hypothesis seems very unscientific.

Yet we find this to be a recurring theme, I wonder when this switch happens. From a curious boy/girl who becomes a scientist to a conservative.

Re: Have we already been visited by aliens?

#67

Post by clort »

wait_a_minute wrote: post #39
mrbonner wrote: post #17

I just started to watch the 1993 series Star Trek new generation. The show has some interesting ideas regarding advanced civilizations vs the primitive ones. One of which is called the prime directive prohibiting any star fleet from intervening with the evolution of primitive people. In one of the episodes “who watches the watcher” the USS enterprise travels to planet Minkita 2 for a rescue mission and encounters a p…

That's one of the biggest problems I have with Star Trek. If we were literally gods by comparison to some fledgling species, the only ethical approach would be to elevate them and cure their diseases and advance their knowledge as quickly as humanly possible.

see also David Brin's Uplift novels, which deal with this by having more advanced species engage with undeveloped species and be responsible for their upbringing, as it were.

Re: Have we already been visited by aliens?

#68

Post by irrational »

rtx wrote: post #66
bostonsre wrote: post #54

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Ridiculing scientists for plausible hypothesis seems very unscientific.

Yet we find this to be a recurring theme, I wonder when this switch happens. From a curious boy/girl who becomes a scientist to a conservative.

Grad school.

Re: Have we already been visited by aliens?

#69

Post by cronix »

Xcelerate wrote: post #41

Tangential to the article, but I’m not sure why more isn’t mentioned about what I consider to be the most likely reason we haven’t been visited by aliens: they probably exist somewhere due to the sheer size of the universe, but the speed of light is indeed the fundamental limit to classical information transfer as our current understanding of physics predicts, and therefore we are simply too far away from any sort of…

> but the speed of light is indeed the fundamental limit to classical information transfer as our current understanding of physics predicts

I used to think that as well, but with all of the recent proof of quantum entanglement, I'm not so sure anymore.

https://www.extremetech.com/extreme/295013-scientists-captur...

Re: Have we already been visited by aliens?

#70

Post by scythmic_waves »

cronix wrote: post #69
Xcelerate wrote: post #41

Tangential to the article, but I’m not sure why more isn’t mentioned about what I consider to be the most likely reason we haven’t been visited by aliens: they probably exist somewhere due to the sheer size of the universe, but the speed of light is indeed the fundamental limit to classical information transfer as our current understanding of physics predicts, and therefore we are simply too far away from any sort of…

> but the speed of light is indeed the fundamental limit to classical information transfer as our current understanding of physics predicts I used to think that as well, but with all of the recent proof of quantum entanglement, I'm not so sure anymore. https://www.extremetech.com/extreme/295013-scientists-captur...

My (relatively uninformed) understanding was that you couldn't transfer information via quantum entanglement. Is that not correct?
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