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Aliens and the Enlightenment

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Re: Aliens and the Enlightenment

#21

Post by hypertele-Xii »

short_sells_poo wrote: post #16
renox wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not really comparable. Flying cars are not technological fiction, they're just called helicopters, it's just that from a economic/ecology POV they make no sense. Space travel between worlds is SF.

But we have sent probes to other worlds? What is science fiction about this? A manned mission to Mars is entirely feasible with current technology. In fact I'd argue it'd have been feasible with 1980s technology, it was simply costly. If we (we as in humankind) wanted, we could have a base on Mars for some time now. Who is to say what our capabilities will be in 50 years? In 100 years? A manned mission to another sol…

> But we have sent probes to other worlds? What is science fiction about this?

Probes aren't space travel for humans.

> A manned mission to Mars is entirely feasible with current technology.

As no manned missions to Mars have ever proven this conjecture, it is still entirely speculation on your part.

> A manned mission to another solar system is going to be very-very difficult, we'd need generational space ship/habitats. Note that difficult is not the same as impossible.

No, it is impossible. Humans cannot survive in space that long. Never have, currently can't, and there's no precedent to assume it ever becomes possible. Pure speculation on your part.

Re: Aliens and the Enlightenment

#23

Post by motohagiography »

odd to say Newton wrote nothing about "celestial" life when the volme of his esoteric work outweighs his scientific work by orders of magnitude. aliens don't really break any theologies either, as the idea of people being vehicles for God's ethics vs. that of the rest of nature tracks across most of them.

I love alien theories because they are the perfect example of a critical theory that provides a post-hoc explanation to literally everything as the logic of the idea. Astrology is another one, conspiracy theories about a malignant state is another, dialictic materialism and its transhumanist descendents just happen to be the prevailing one, simulation theory is an emergent one.

whats nice about the aliens one is that if there were aliens among us, the implications about how we must seem to other beings on earth is an analogy, and it asks us to consider how we would hope for our own stewards to behave toward us and what ethical ownership should be.

Re: Aliens and the Enlightenment

#24

Post by mehphp »

hypertele-Xii wrote: post #21
short_sells_poo wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

But we have sent probes to other worlds? What is science fiction about this? A manned mission to Mars is entirely feasible with current technology. In fact I'd argue it'd have been feasible with 1980s technology, it was simply costly. If we (we as in humankind) wanted, we could have a base on Mars for some time now. Who is to say what our capabilities will be in 50 years? In 100 years? A manned mission to another sol…

> But we have sent probes to other worlds? What is science fiction about this? Probes aren't space travel for humans. > A manned mission to Mars is entirely feasible with current technology. As no manned missions to Mars have ever proven this conjecture, it is still entirely speculation on your part. > A manned mission to another solar system is going to be very-very difficult, we'd need generational space ship/habit…

>As no manned missions to Mars have ever proven this conjecture, it is still entirely speculation on your part.

But we do have manned missions to other celestial bodies, and we have sent and landed probes on Mars. I'm confused as to how a manned mission to Mars is "entirely speculation".

>no precedent to assume it ever becomes possible

This isn't a qualifier for what is possible. We knew it was possible to go to the moon before there was precedent. If anything, you calling it impossible is pure speculation. OP is right, difficult is not the same as impossible.

Re: Aliens and the Enlightenment

#25

Post by FrustratedMonky »

Sometimes reading things like this from the Enlightenment period, I wonder how humans can move backwards so much. Within last 100 years we developed atom bomb, went to moon and yet we can still have the current anti-science religious radicals in the US. They can be driving a car full of technical marvels, and have an iPhone, but still believe in creationism and that the earth is 6000 years old.

Then, see article like this, and realize, people were having some pretty advanced ideas in the 1800's.

Re: Aliens and the Enlightenment

#26

Post by TimTheTinker »

hypertele-Xii wrote: post #21
short_sells_poo wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

But we have sent probes to other worlds? What is science fiction about this? A manned mission to Mars is entirely feasible with current technology. In fact I'd argue it'd have been feasible with 1980s technology, it was simply costly. If we (we as in humankind) wanted, we could have a base on Mars for some time now. Who is to say what our capabilities will be in 50 years? In 100 years? A manned mission to another sol…

> But we have sent probes to other worlds? What is science fiction about this? Probes aren't space travel for humans. > A manned mission to Mars is entirely feasible with current technology. As no manned missions to Mars have ever proven this conjecture, it is still entirely speculation on your part. > A manned mission to another solar system is going to be very-very difficult, we'd need generational space ship/habit…

Agree that interstellar travel is impossible with current tech.

But based on what I know, I don't see any reason to believe a manned mission to Mars is impossible with current technology.

Do you have specific reasons we can't, or examples of technological gaps?

Re: Aliens and the Enlightenment

#27

Post by mcculley »

FrustratedMonky wrote: post #25

Sometimes reading things like this from the Enlightenment period, I wonder how humans can move backwards so much. Within last 100 years we developed atom bomb, went to moon and yet we can still have the current anti-science religious radicals in the US. They can be driving a car full of technical marvels, and have an iPhone, but still believe in creationism and that the earth is 6000 years old. Then, see article like…

Humanity has not moved backwards. Just more people vulnerable to certain kinds of memes have the ability to publish them to a big audience. Even if we have billions of people believing nonsense, we still have billions moving forward.

Re: Aliens and the Enlightenment

#28

Post by repelsteeltje »

short_sells_poo wrote: post #16
renox wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not really comparable. Flying cars are not technological fiction, they're just called helicopters, it's just that from a economic/ecology POV they make no sense. Space travel between worlds is SF.

But we have sent probes to other worlds? What is science fiction about this? A manned mission to Mars is entirely feasible with current technology. In fact I'd argue it'd have been feasible with 1980s technology, it was simply costly. If we (we as in humankind) wanted, we could have a base on Mars for some time now. Who is to say what our capabilities will be in 50 years? In 100 years? A manned mission to another sol…

Sometimes Science Fiction is confused with Fantasy, but as far as it means "fiction about things that are scientifically possible but don't exist" I'd say traveling to other planets is SF. Traveling to other worlds (ie. interstellar) is fantasy. And living on other planets (terraforming) or outer space is somewhere in the middle: technically not impossible but very undesirable without major future tech.

Fans of space colonization are encouraged to read: a City on Mars by Weinersmiths, https://www.acityonmars.com/

Re: Aliens and the Enlightenment

#29

Post by the_af »

boomboomsubban wrote: post #2

The idea that other worlds would be your deal breaker on Christianity is strange. They were fine with two continents needing over a millennium to first hear about Jesus, but a plurality of worlds would be "irreconcilable." Maybe they couldn't imagine space travel ever being possible?

> They were fine with two continents needing over a millennium to first hear about Jesus, but a plurality of worlds would be "irreconcilable."

I think there's many ways to think about this.

First, the place where Christ was supposed to have been born is "special". Clearly he (or god) chose to be born in some continent and not another. Now multiply to... how many planets are there in the universe? What's the chance that Earth in particular was a special planet to be born in?

Second, I think the tale of Christianity is meant to be both unique and universal. It's not "this is the shape it happens to have taken in our world", it's meant to be "this is the shape it universally takes" (e.g. "love one another [...]", what if aliens are biologically incapable of love? What if they are a hive mind? Etc). The lessons are meant to be for the cosmos. This excludes all other worlds, or at the very least it'd require a fundamental revision of what Christianity means.

Third, look at the time frames. How long did it take from Christ being born to natives in other continents being "saved"? Very little given the time life (not even human life) has existed on Earth. So if we're going with the "missionary" hypothesis, i.e. that people of Earth are supposed to evangelize to aliens all over the universe, how long is this going to take? Is this even technologically possible before the universe ends? Does this mean some aliens are doomed no matter what, because they live so far from us they'll never get to hear about Jesus?

I'm an atheist but I can see some sort of religion being created that encompasses all of the universe. It would have to be different to Christianity though. I think this is why these thinkers thought the "multiple worlds" hypothesis was at odds with their religion.

Re: Aliens and the Enlightenment

#30

Post by itsanaccount »

I wonder how much articles like this are popping up as the hive mind of humanity becomes aware of the phenomenon that exceeds our physics watching us as years of government suppression finally cracks. Watching Lue Elizondo going on the daily show with his clinical understatement being met by the interviewer yelling "you're talking about fucking aliens man!"

Its been wild to me to see people start to grapple with the evidence. Good to know the thought of life elsewhere has a long pedigree.

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