life out there?

[IainT]

ash73 said:

They worked backwards from observations to create it

Observations give rise to a theory.
A theory generates further predictions beyond the original start point.
Those predictions are checked against new observations.

As understanding is increased the theory evolves. There's no wibble and no fudging. Just poor understanding of the process.

[Eric Mc]

Sometimes it's the other way around. The theory of neutron stars and black holes was postulated well before any such things were observed.

[IainT]

Eric Mc said:

Sometimes it's the other way around. The theory of neutron stars and black holes was postulated well before any such things were observed.

True but that would have come from other theories - all one big knowledge pump. I was keeping it simple(ish).

It's part of the drive for the LHC - each experiment and obs. drive new theories.

[Eric Mc]

Yep - new knowledge generates new questions and new puzzles.

[mudflaps]

Eric Mc said:

Yep - new knowledge generates new questions and new puzzles.

Indeed and from that perspective we live in great times where we actually have a chance of answering such questions/puzzles and not simply just shrugging our shoulders whilst staring blankly and putting it down to 'God'.

I'm just distraught that I won't be alive long enough to see the resolution of many such puzzles in the medium and far future.

[Moonhawk]

Eric Mc said:

Sometimes it's the other way around. The theory of neutron stars and black holes was postulated well before any such things were observed.

But they weren't really theories in their own right (at least not at first). They were predictions for things that had not yet been observed that fell out of an existing theory (General Relativity) which itself was based on observation.

Very few scientific theories start with a blank sheet of paper - they either evolve out of existing theories - or are the result of trying to explain observations.

[Eric Mc]

Never said that ideas emerge from absolutely nothing. Each generation of thinkers has the knowledge gained from their predecessors to rely on. As Isaac Newton himself said, "I was standing on the shoulders of giants".

[IainT]

ash73 said:

Theories such as Einstein's SR/GR made all sorts of useful predictions. What does the theory of dark energy predict?

So, because you don't know what the theories around DE predict, those theories are wrong/untrue/useless/a bodge? Your (and my) lack of understanding is not a bar on correctness or usefulness.

[SpudLink]

ash73 said:

Anyhow getting back to life out there, just finished reading Fred Hoyle's The Black Cloud and thoroughly enjoyed it. Very interesting concept.

This brings us back to another problem. This thread has discussed the possibility of a civilisation becoming advanced enough to start using the sort of telecommunications that we can detect. If we detect that we'll recognise it as 'intelligent life'. Any conventional scientist that asked for funding to detect intelligent space clouds would be laughed out of the profession.
So it's really only science fiction writers that talk intelligently about life other that "as we know it".

[MrBrightSi]

SpudLink said:

ash73 said:

Anyhow getting back to life out there, just finished reading Fred Hoyle's The Black Cloud and thoroughly enjoyed it. Very interesting concept.

This brings us back to another problem. This thread has discussed the possibility of a civilisation becoming advanced enough to start using the sort of telecommunications that we can detect. If we detect that we'll recognise it as 'intelligent life'. Any conventional scientist that asked for funding to detect intelligent space clouds would be laughed out of the profession.
So it's really only science fiction writers that talk intelligently about life other that "as we know it".

Mankind is egotistical as fk, we put our image on the rest of the universe or even worse think the entire thing was made around us.

Theres the Fermi Paradox that deals with this, space is just so massive, the scale beyond anything biblical or imaginable by most. The big problem is, we're watching billions of years into the past, life might exist but even if that nippy bd light cant reach us for a few thousand/million/billion years, we're gonna miss the big show out there.

[RobM77]

SpudLink said:

ash73 said:

Anyhow getting back to life out there, just finished reading Fred Hoyle's The Black Cloud and thoroughly enjoyed it. Very interesting concept.

This brings us back to another problem. This thread has discussed the possibility of a civilisation becoming advanced enough to start using the sort of telecommunications that we can detect. If we detect that we'll recognise it as 'intelligent life'. Any conventional scientist that asked for funding to detect intelligent space clouds would be laughed out of the profession.
So it's really only science fiction writers that talk intelligently about life other that "as we know it".

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SETI_Institute

http://www.seti.org/seti-institute/major-new-fundi...

http://www.scientificamerican.com/article/stephen-...

[ukaskew]

MrBrightSi said:

Mankind is egotistical as fk, we put our image on the rest of the universe or even worse think the entire thing was made around us.

I've always been fascinated by this, my thought process has always been that if there is some sort of life out there, it's possible/likely that it's utterly incomprensible to us, it could be all around us but we simply don't have the knowledge/technology to see/detect it.

We're making a huge number of assumptions to search for life elsewhere (I guess we have to start somewhere), but when you consider how our understanding of, well, everything, has changed in an obscenely short amount of time, the likelihood of us finding/communicating with something that we understand to be intelligent life right now is infinitesimally small.

We have an unshakeable belief that what we know to be 'correct' right now must be the ultimate truth, we look back and laugh at some of the things people used to believe and don't for a second think that in 200, 500, 1000 years from now people will look back at our knowledge and wonder how we could be so naive.

[Simpo Two]

MrBrightSi said:

Mankind is egotistical as fk

To be fair we are the most advanced life form in the known universe

The next most advanced lifeform is a chimpanzee and they still eat termites on sticks. And don't get me started on whales and dolphins, all they do is swim around and squeak.

[SpudLink]

Simpo Two said:

To be fair we are the most advanced life form in the known universe

The next most advanced lifeform is a chimpanzee and they still eat termites on sticks. And don't get me started on whales and dolphins, all they do is swim around and squeak.

Hitchhiker's Guide To The Galaxy said:

For instance, on the planet Earth, man had always assumed that he was more intelligent than dolphins because he had achieved so much—the wheel, New York, wars and so on—whilst all the dolphins had ever done was muck about in the water having a good time. But conversely, the dolphins had always believed that they were far more intelligent than man—for precisely the same reasons.

[MrBrightSi]

This video has always helped me try to get a grip of our insignificance: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o8GA2w-qrcg

I urge you to watch it.

[jbudgie]

MrBrightSi said:

This video has always helped me try to get a grip of our insignificance: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o8GA2w-qrcg

I urge you to watch it.

Nothing new , but anyone with a bit of thought will know that.

[Blackpuddin]

ukaskew said:

MrBrightSi said:

Mankind is egotistical as fk, we put our image on the rest of the universe or even worse think the entire thing was made around us.

I've always been fascinated by this, my thought process has always been that if there is some sort of life out there, it's possible/likely that it's utterly incomprensible to us, it could be all around us but we simply don't have the knowledge/technology to see/detect it.

We're making a huge number of assumptions to search for life elsewhere (I guess we have to start somewhere), but when you consider how our understanding of, well, everything, has changed in an obscenely short amount of time, the likelihood of us finding/communicating with something that we understand to be intelligent life right now is infinitesimally small.

We have an unshakeable belief that what we know to be 'correct' right now must be the ultimate truth, we look back and laugh at some of the things people used to believe and don't for a second think that in 200, 500, 1000 years from now people will look back at our knowledge and wonder how we could be so naive.

This is exactly how I feel. Even our ultra-fast (by cosmic standards) evolutionary process has seen us change from microbes to what we are now. To suppose that countless other civilisations haven't gone through massively longer evolutions, creating utterly unrecognisable life forms in the process, is extraordinarily arrogant. What's to say dark matter isn't one possible end result for evolution?

[Simpo Two]

I'd prefer 'possibly ill-advised' rather than 'arrogant'. Let's not kick ourselves up the arse eh?

[IainT]

Blackpuddin said:

What's to say dark matter isn't one possible end result for evolution?

I'd hazard a guess at the fundamental nature of the universe - aka physics.

[Blackpuddin]

IainT said:

Blackpuddin said:

What's to say dark matter isn't one possible end result for evolution?

I'd hazard a guess at the fundamental nature of the universe - aka physics.

As you understand physics, that is. Again that's a terrestrial view taking no account of the literally infinite possibilities.