Why We'll Never Meet Aliens • Hacker News Board

Re: Why We'll Never Meet Aliens

#111

Post by akiselev » Sat, Apr 27, 2013, 6:36 AM UTC

SiVal wrote: post #109

old-gregg wrote: post #87

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And this is the top rated comment? None of these "misconceptions" have much to do with the main point OP is making: we think too small, and we pick the wrong analogies and frameworks when we discuss an alien visit. If anything, your post is yet another manifestation of this. It simply doesn't matter what happened to native americans, when the entire Columbus story does not apply. And what do your comments about googl…

My biggest quibble with the OP is that you can never say that there are no black swans out there just because you've never seen one. No matter how advanced the aliens might be, they wouldn't be able to predict everything they would find here based on theory alone. What if their theory didn't include something they hadn't yet encountered? They would have to see for themselves by some means that, if quantum limits are…

We're not talking about the lottery here, we're not talking about the probability that you will be hit by a bus or the chance you have of starting a company and making it big.

We are talking about the vastness of an entire GALAXY and a level of technological advancement that comes with consequences that no one can even begin to imagine let alone predict. The entirety of human science fiction doesn't even scratch the surface as to what is possible (and due to our own biases and the need to entertain a television audience/readership is probably far more tame and boring than what is really out there) at those levels.

You're talking about quantum limits but you have to realize, to make the vast majority of science fiction watchable/readable, you have to almost entirely throw out our knowledge of modern physics. For example, every real world attempt at theorizing FTL travel has lead either to needing ridiculous amounts of energy (equivalent to the mass of Jupiter for the original Alcubierre drive which would be about a billion billion billion kilograms each of matter and antimatter) or particles with properties which we have NEVER come close to seeing (and by never, I mean not a shred of experimental evidence or even a suggestion that it exists outside of a theoretical framework). If an alien race has FTL, it's knowledge of the universe is well above ours and any attempts we can make to predict the limits of their technology is useless. For all we know, FTL travel might be as difficult as building your own solar system from scratch.

In order for us to have an alien visit that is even close to any imagined encounter in science fiction, many things that we can't speculate on would have to work out. We're not talking one black swan, we're talking about an unknowable number of factors and events that would have to work out just right.

It's might be possible (we don't even know if FTL is possible), just like it might be possible for wild pigs to evolve to fly without any artificial intervention in a few thousand years, but it's so unlikely that it's worth putting into the "Just not going to happen pile," all the while working to prove yourself wrong :)

Re: Why We'll Never Meet Aliens

#112

Post by akiselev » Sat, Apr 27, 2013, 6:44 AM UTC

jessriedel wrote: post #98

RyanMcGreal wrote: post #56

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The author's central thesis - that aliens who are advanced enough to send an invasion to earth but not advanced enough to get the resources they need by other means is highly implausible - doesn't rest on the throwaway points with which you're quibbling.

If you don't understand enough to know that the extremely small probabilities that have been argued for abiogenesis can completely overwhelm the large number of planets in the universe--so much that you dismiss it out of hand--this is a bad sign of the author's competence on this topic.

I don't think anyone is dismissing abiogenesis, just that the likelyhood of life evolving on a planet, then evolving to be intelligent, then developing technology way outside our knowledge of the world (like FTL), then deciding to go out and explore in our small part of the galaxy (and with 400 billion stars in the Milky Way and billions more galaxies, I do mean small as in a cluster a few hundred light years in radius to detect human radio signatures at the very least), and THEN, deciding to come down and meet us/trade with us/invade us/destroy us/take our resources (which are very human things to do. considering how different psychologies of cultures can be on this planet, I don't think these are the only options).

I don't think anyone disputes that any of those things on the list are "possible," just the odds stacking up in our favor.

Re: Why We'll Never Meet Aliens

#113

Post by akiselev » Sat, Apr 27, 2013, 7:11 AM UTC

ebbv wrote: post #2

The idea that advanced aliens wouldn't bother talking to us / visiting us if they could because we're too primitive is obviously wrong. We still have tons of interest and even affection for animals on our own planet who are far less advanced than ourselves. And it's obvious that if we could travel around the galaxy and we detected life forms on another planet, we would obviously go visit them and check them out. The…

The interest and affection we have for pets is a very different situation than that of an intergalactic civilization's view on intelligent life. If they respect other life, intelligent or not, in the galaxy, chances are they would be very unwilling to interfere. I'd be very excited to visit a planet with other life on it but I would give an extreme amount of thought about whether I wanted to risk introducing pathogens or exposing an intelligent civilization to knowledge and technology far beyond its time (the immediate philosophical and psychological impact of discovering that you are not alone in the universe cannot be predicted, especially with alien races).

If, on the other hand, they didn't respect other life not as advanced as them, why would their actions be any different than that of humanity for thousands of years when dealing with less intelligent life forms?

Re: Why We'll Never Meet Aliens

#114

Post by akiselev » Sat, Apr 27, 2013, 7:16 AM UTC

nlh wrote: post #28

aegiso wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> We still have tons of interest and even affection for animals on our own planet who are far less advanced than ourselves. Actually, as far as our interactions with other life forms go, we either ignore them (intestinal bacteria), keep them away (diseases), exterminate them (pests), or harvest and devour them (farming), or kill them for sport (hunting). The utterly insignificant fraction that become objects of our a…

I wouldn't, but I can assure you there are lots of scientists on this planet who would care. Your examples involve creatures that we already know about and have interacted with and "integrated" into our lives (one way or another). But I suppose the counter-example is "it depends who finds us" -- if it's an intergalactic scientific exploration team of aliens, they'll probably be as nice as can be. If it's an intergala…

Comparing a few (not "lots of" as you claim) specialists scattered around societies around the world is not a good representation of civilizations around the universe (or at least, we can't assume it to be).

As human as it is, most exploration has been grounded in financial and egotistical needs, not scientific exploration. Maybe the civilization is just as curious as we would be and thus would come for selfless reasons, but that's a pretty big assumption.

Re: Why We'll Never Meet Aliens

#115

Post by givan » Sat, Apr 27, 2013, 9:28 AM UTC

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_religious_populations

92.35% of human population is religious, in every religion there are gods that can be easily associated with aliens.

Looking at some religios beliefs the coming of gods means all kind of things, some religions interpret them as the end of the world, the return of christ etc.

Aliens showing up will have a big impact on people beliefs, most of us will be very scared, many will believe the end of the world version and panic.

The social impact of alien existence on our current society is huge and if advanced aliens really discovered us then they sure know this and wait for our society to get more mature to be ready to meet them.

Re: Why We'll Never Meet Aliens

#116

Post by api » Sat, Apr 27, 2013, 11:03 AM UTC

powertower wrote: post #91

api wrote: post #43

This is just a bunch of idle speculation. We can't speculate on the motives of aliens at all. Look at how hard it is to discern the motives of other humans, and now tell me you're going to discern the motives of something biologically completely unlike us? You can't assume they're rational motives either. Why should aliens be incapable of something like religion, egotism, mass delusion, or hedonic desires? As far as…

> You can't assume they're rational motives either. Why should aliens be incapable of something like religion, egotism, mass delusion, or hedonic desires? I think the question would be if irrationality, egoism, delusion, and hedonism allows (or prevents) a species to advanced to FTL travel. They might also have an idea that the only life that should exist in this universe is theirs. Or they might believe that connect…

People always thought that, but I don't find what's happening here encouraging. It seems perfectly possible to compartmentalize to such a degree that one can excel at engineering while maintaining alarmingly irrational beliefs in other areas. I've known some brilliant engineers who were seven day / 6000 year creationists, for example.

Re: Why We'll Never Meet Aliens

#117

Post by bearcatfish » Sat, Apr 27, 2013, 3:29 PM UTC

asdfadfs wrote: post #30

ebbv wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There are people who are interested in the contents of those ponds, and they already have been studied. The people who are curious about the ponds (planets) are the ones that would be put on the ship. Not to mention your analogy is terrible. Those ponds aren't interesting to me because they are nothing special. They don't contain anything that we aren't constantly surrounded with everywhere. On the other hand in the…

>>There are people who are interested in the contents of those ponds, and they already have been studied. But has every single pond been studied no matter its size. Do people rush to study a new discovered pond 5 meters in diameter? Is it that novel that people will rush to it? No, because there are millions of ponds just like it. That is who we are, a little pond maybe 1 meter in diameter (probably should call it a…

The analogy doesn't really hold because ponds in the forest are going to be much more homogenous than planets. If every pond we looked was unique, we would probably be more interested in individuals.

Of course, there's no reason to assume that life on different planets is more diverse than different ponds, but it seems more likely.

Re: Why We'll Never Meet Aliens

#118

Post by summerdown2 » Sat, Apr 27, 2013, 6:27 PM UTC

Interestingly enough, this argument seems self defeating. Let's think what he's saying:

a) Aliens who can get across space to us would be far in advance of us in all dimensions of technology.

b) They would also be far smarter than us because technological evolution would act much more than biological and therefore give them machine-brain interfaces.

c) With their great science they would be able to know what we're like (so far below them) and have no need to come here.

except as far as I can see, c) is overruled by b)

If aliens have got so far by technological evolution and use machines to augument their bodies and minds, they're not really that far in advance of us - they just have better tools. They wouldn't see us in that case as insects - rather as cripples who just need a wheelchair. If they used their science to augument our bodies and minds in the same way as they do with their own, we'd be perfectly able to have conversations with them.

Re: Why We'll Never Meet Aliens

#119

Post by kamakazizuru » Fri, May 03, 2013, 9:58 PM UTC

the largest logical fallacy among many that this article suffers from is that alien species would necessarily need to be technologically advanced to reach us. This probably comes from another flawed line of thought that aliens need to be like us in some way (hence requiring things like figuring out how to survive radiation, last for long periods without food and so on). This doesnt really make sense since on earth itself there are species that can do things we humans couldnt do (cockroaches can cope with tremendous amounts of radiation for example, and bacteria that live near geysers etc - thrive at extremely high temperatures). So why isn't it possible that an alien species that just about figures out how to ride a rock in space and doesnt really need all the advancement that we need to survive - comes floating by planet earth and decides to check us out sometimes?! Don't back up a lack of imagination with flawed logic ;)

Re: Why We'll Never Meet Aliens

#120

Post by kamakazizuru » Fri, May 03, 2013, 10:00 PM UTC

akiselev wrote: post #111

SiVal wrote: post #109

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My biggest quibble with the OP is that you can never say that there are no black swans out there just because you've never seen one. No matter how advanced the aliens might be, they wouldn't be able to predict everything they would find here based on theory alone. What if their theory didn't include something they hadn't yet encountered? They would have to see for themselves by some means that, if quantum limits are…

We're not talking about the lottery here, we're not talking about the probability that you will be hit by a bus or the chance you have of starting a company and making it big. We are talking about the vastness of an entire GALAXY and a level of technological advancement that comes with consequences that no one can even begin to imagine let alone predict. The entirety of human science fiction doesn't even scratch the…

this argument - just as that of the OP fails in its assumption that some alien species would need FTL To get here. maybe theyre just a species that lives for millenia in earth years - and can manage without gravity or limited gravity. You just dont know.