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Hey amigo - I've lost track of the where-and-when on that? If you wouldn't mind directing me ...
Konspiracy Korner: The Great Silence
Could have solved the whole Q with this Image Just In!
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MisterJonez has studied this shtick wayyyy more than I have. His expertise on the subject dwarfs mine.
Though he's on the other side of it, he's also got a wonderfully objective, and friendly, and nuanced tone. So we'll cheerfully transfer ownership of this discussion to him. If he's so inclined, naturally.
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Jonez remarked that the Great Silence doesn't bother him much because radio silence is to be expected. Dr. D replied that radio waves wouldn't be the end of the discussion. Mr. Jonez, setting the hook firmly in the corner of Dr. D's maw, sat up brightly, cracked his knuckles, and started typing ...
My own initial 30-second summary of the Great Silence issue was:
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On the radio silence -- that makes all kinds of sense, that the "shell" of radio waves might only be about 300 years "thick." Thath high-quality H2O.
My issue is, though ... supposing that radio 'bandwidth' had to converge in time, and we put "Paid" to the idea of detecting anybody else's radio transmission. (This might occur if nobody were looking for each other ...)
The Great Silence is concerned with the fact that we haven't seen evidence of ANY kind that there are advanced civilizations. For example, a civilization that was 10,000 centuries past ours could and would:
- ... Re-engineer some of its local stars to its advantage (visible to us across the galaxy)
- ... Set up a Sagan-style transmission beacon that was triggered by our own light or radio (none exist within 50 light years)
- ... release a "berserker"set of self-replicating machines (expanding exponentially) as an imperative defense system
- ... Set up some type of EMP (light) beacon system
- ... or be interested in letting us know they're here, in any way they chose ("Uniformity of Motive" problem)
- ... Colonize, organize, and fill up the Galaxy to (benignly) take advantage of all resources in it
- ... re-engineer the COSMOS, if they're really 1 billion years ahead of us :- )
- ... etc etc etc
Instead, we look and listen out into the galaxy and there's nuttin'. Absolutely nuttin'. And we can see all the way across the whole thing.*
- See more at: http://seattlesportsinsider.com/comment/157204#comment-157204
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Whereupon MisterJonez went into a hypnotic trance, channeling the spirit of Carl Sagan:
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Good reading material there. I'm just going to go free-flow on your points, because you did a great job of outlining so many of the same things I've wondered. Don't mind the incoherency if you can help it ;-) And, to be clear, I'm not arguing with you here; I'm trying to keep from tripping all over my own shoes out on the dance floor :-)
To your #1 point: this is a significant issue, but I think it might be less of a 'problem' than we are led to believe. I love stories which involve star lifting or other forms of stellar engineering which, if carried out, would actually extend the lifespan of the universe that we see around us. By draining away their mass and converting stars to red dwarfs (the primary form of star lifting I've seen discussed), the ongoing fusion process at their cores is balanced to the point where they could sustain their red dwarf phase out to 100 billion (with a B) years or more*. There would be some telltale signs of this behavior going on, if it was taking place, but those signs would currently only be visible to us in relatively close stars, if I understand the limits of modern telescopy half as well as I think I do (which is to say, not very well but well enough that I can't be off by more than an order or two of magnitude, which wouldn't really change the equation that much).
*incidentally, red dwarf stars are really, really hard to detect via our modern telescopes. this would seem to negate *some* of the concern that we can't currently see evidence of stellar engineering because, for the most part, it would result in stars being shrunk to red dwarfs, which are...you know...hard to see ;-) So, while it *could* be occurring, by its very nature it would be difficult to detect unless it was relatively early in the process, and relatively close by, in cosmological terms.
Point 2 is trickier, because it does imply motive to the intelligence, or at least it implies some degree of commonality with our current attitudes/behaviors. I'm not sure I can really tackle that one, but I will say that it would seem extremely odd, logically, for a super-advanced civilization to NOT set up a galaxy-wide comm. network, if only for the purpose of keeping tabs on developments in the region. However...
Point 3 is where it starts getting juicy, especially when viewed in the same light as Point 2. Some would naturally view such a set of berserker/conformity probes as a pro-active defense system, just as you suggest. But others would likely be more cautious, and that caution would almost certainly stem from the fact that intelligence (at least as far as we can tell) is unpredictable to a large degree (you frequently reference super chess programs that behave in utterly inexplicable ways that even panels of grand masters do not understand). If you build the berserker probes, what's to stop them from turning on you and giving YOU a hard time? Even assuming they aren't a threat to wipe your civilization out, due to some kill switch you have hidden under the driver's seat, is the risk worth the reward? By unleashing something like that on the universe, you'd essentially be declaring war on everything, including creation itself, and that type of behavior strikes me as unlikely - even for an artificial intelligence. It's self-serving without an end goal in mind, and I doubt that AI's - which are almost certainly inevitable on our own Life Tree - would undertake such a grand exercise simply for the purpose of restructuring reality.
Point 4, again, assumes a couple of things that give me pause, but it's interesting to think about, for sure. The first bump in the road, for me, is that we would be able to observe such a system; who's to say they aren't communicating via highly-focused particle beams that aren't broadcast omnidirectionally? I mean, if conserving resources is important - and I think any civilization which was as advanced, or more advanced, than we are would think it was - you wouldn't really want to be wasting all the energy required to send a readable signal out in *every* direction when you could do it via what amounts to a high-powered, ultra-advanced, whisker laser network. But even assuming they built said network; again, the fact that we can't *see* it would seem to suggest that we aren't meant to. Keeping something like that secret, until a young civilization has reached a certain level of advancement, seems consistent with how *we* behave with regards to younger people or less-developed societies when it comes to game-changing technology (no 9mm Beretta's for eight year olds - and no nukes for you, Iran!).
Point 5 you address well enough that I will just agree that Uniformity of Motive is an issue, but just for fun I'll take a swing at it. Let's say they actually are interested in contacting us...the first question we would need to answer is: why? Easiest way to do that, given our limited perspective, is by assuming their role to the best of our ability and thinking about it from what we think is their position. It boils down to two possibilities: either they want to cooperate with us, or they want to compete with us. If cooperation, it might reasonably be for a United Federation of Planets style, galactic community induction. It could be. I mean that seriously - it really could be. That would actually explain a lot of the our inability to find evidence of advanced intelligence in our own galaxy. The community passes tech laws which ensure that all members operate above the 'radio bubble' detection level where we're currently at, which makes their actions undetectable by lesser species (like Earthling humans in 2015) and this keeps the playing field level for those species to go through their own developmental process. Obviously, this is the Gene Roddenberry version, but like all great sci-fi minds his ideas were rooted in reasonable logic (even if his tech was mostly hand-waving). If they were interested in contacting us for another reason, it would almost certainly be for competition or, more succinctly: to wipe us out. You're either going to cooperate, or you're going to compete; there is no middle ground as far as we can tell when it comes to life's behavior on any scale.
Point 6 is actually easier than most people (I'm assuming this would not include you, but I'll spew my thoughts here, anyway ;-) ) might think to debunk, at least when dealing with parochial concerns like living space, food production, energy harnessing/utilization, etc.. Most of the problems we stress over, here on Earth, are pretty small beans in the grand scheme of things. I can't find the image, but there is a beautiful picture of an artist's interpretation of how a massive hab ring (or it might have been a bubble) could be made by stripping the Earth from the inside out and maximizing the mineral content to create a hab ring that could comfortably house either hundreds of trillions, or quadrillions, of people (I forget the number, but it was absurd). So, to actually take advantage of *all* the resources in the galaxy seems, at best, a megalomaniacal plot and, at worst, an actual attempt to pretty much destroy everything as we know it. If the concern of a highly-advanced species was essentially just to persist and grow at an 'organic' (I hate that term, but I'm tired and having difficulty coming up with a better substitute) rate, there would be essentially no reason to leave their own solar system, physically, for several thousand years once the first energy hurdle (fusion**) is well-and-truly cleared. So, again, colonizing the galaxy seems like it wouldn't be that high on a hyper-advanced civilization's agenda. Especially if the light barrier can't functionally be broken.
**The amount of water on the Earth would power humanity's aggressive growth curve for, essentially, ever (or at least long enough for us to figure out a more efficient energy generation method, like micro black holes, which might take us a few tens of thousand years but we'll get there if we survive that long). Once we've got fusion power, the whole ballgame changes into something that nobody, not even those with once-in-a-generation brilliance, can imagine. Nobody could have predicted what the internet would do to humanity within three points of the compass, and fusion will be an even bigger deal in the long run.
Point 7 is taken right on the jaw, however, and I don't have much I can say on that particular subject. If you've got a civilization which, at year one of our hypothetical calendar, was where we are today and had a billion years to progress...first off, I have no idea what the agenda would be for such a life form. Bacteria haven't even been around on Earth for HALF a billion years; what in the world would a billion-years-on evolved human think was important? The only answer which is consistent with there being advanced intelligence out there for that long, which doesn't result in such large-scale engineering, is that they don't want to. I'm pretty good at empathy and understanding other people's positions (a pretty key attribute for a D&D GM/fiction author, I think) but I wouldn't even *think* about trying to climb inside that creature's mind. Even if their raw intellect was still on a scale we could comprehend to some significant degree...I just...no. I can't do it.
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Let me be clear: I'm much closer to what seems to be your position, regarding advanced intelligence, than I am to several (but not all!) prominent physicists, who seem absolutely convinced that such is hanging out just around the corner. The above was just me trying not to fall hopelessly behind in the conversation :-) In my mind, there's no way to rationally declare that the Great Silence isn't a whale of an issue for several important existential, philosophical, and scientific questions.
A random thought: sanctity of life does seem to be inextricably linked, as a core value, to any nonviolent advanced intelligence existing nearby which hasn't come to wipe us out (which, I assume, hasn't yet happened...). This, to me, is why Gene Roddenberry's utopian (or dystopian, depending on your perspective) future can't just be dismissed out of hand. It's entirely possible that any species which is a hair too violent would turn its own lights out before it could join any kind of galactic community. So a 'waiting period' of sorts would seem to be warranted on the part of such an advanced civilization/society before making contact with the beings. I've got in mind a story where that's exactly what happens: first contact doesn't take place until *after* the radio bubble goes quiet for a period of time, then the ambassadors come in and answer the question: did they blow themselves up, or did they pass that particular hurdle and prove they're ready to join the greater community in some capacity?
Either way, I just spent an hour or more on this ridiculous post. Sorry for wasting y'all's time...
- See more at: http://seattlesportsinsider.com/comment/157211#comment-157211
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Ridiculous post? If anybody ridiculed that, they'd be commenting on themselves only. Like not voting Randy Johnson into the Hall :- )
That's one of the great things about the Think Tank, is that there is always a legit specialist who can bring his studies to bear.
Warmly,
Jeff
Comments
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Your reply on point #6 is my favorite among several; your position on "galaxy exploitation" is my new position on it.
That's not to lessen your other replies. Point #4 is quite convincing also. And they're all tough. :- )
It's just that "brilliantly argued" and "true" are different things. ;- ) If you're limited here, it's not by your own virtuosity, it's by the side of the debate you're on. Heh.
:: daps ::
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We gave a sample of 8 ways in which we might easily find evidence of Galaxy Colonization -- by plagiarizing it, of course. :- ) Dr. D isn't an astronomer or even very interested in UFO's.
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Though Jonez does a brilliant job of coping with all 8 of them ... it is the coherent impact of the whole argument that I did (and do) find irresistible:
Why don't we find any fish in the sea?
"Well, we don't find them in the Columbia* because of sedimentation."
"We don't find them in the Arctic Sea because it's too cold."
"We don't find them in the Mediterranean because shipping disrupts their habitat."
"We don't find them in the Dead Sea because it's too salty.
"We don't find them in the Great Lakes because of the topography and low amounts of plant life."
Yeah, but why are they missing everywhere? ... there have been these rumors of scaly things with fins, swimming around, but there's not a scrap of evidence of any kind about them.
I'd be very interested in hearing not only Jonezie's reply to that, but also Mojician's. In terms of how this "cumulative force" paradigm plays out in a courtroom. And as to where Mojo, as "Judge," sees this Great Silence question jelling. He's a legal expert whose judgment I value highly.
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Remember, Fermi's paradox is that:
1) The Milky Way Galaxy must have been colonized to completion, and that being eons ago.
2) Yet it was not.
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There are a few things I would take as "givens" about alien races, even though we are whistling in the dark on a lot things.
For example, if they can build starships, they can communicate with each other. Let's not push our "How can we assume we know ANYthing?" humility TOO far. :- )
I believe you could make a long list of givens. Humility is great, but so is inference.
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Let's take it as a given that a starfaring species has motivation / emotion / locomotion / preferences / free will. There are things they want. They are "made in the image of God," above the animal kingdom, in that they can reason, they can decide, and they have noble/ignoble desires.
The term "motivation" is a very broad one. We start thinking of aliens as very advanced Macintoshes, we are guilty of becoming nonsensical. (The problem of "consciousness" might be a good Konspiracy Korner in a few weeks.)
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A race that is very, very old would have come to the conclusion that Love / Altruism is the only fuel that makes the engine of our hearts and minds run forever. That's my opinion, and it's one I regard as a given. Reasons:
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1) As a lifelong counselor, I've seen self-interested people become gradually but inexorably unhappier as they get older. I've seen loving, altruistic people do the reverse: they're more at peace, and happier, as they get older. I haven't seen any exceptions to this, though I'm sure there are -- humans don't live long.
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2) CS Lewis explained this whole problem of "deteriorating self-interest," in the 1950's, and applied it to the concept of angels and demons. "If you become slowly unhappier with each passing decade, what will be your fate in 10,000 years? You would become a being that men conceive only in their nightmares."
Whereas the "lore" about angels -- there is a ton of it -- always pictures them as benevolent. There is SOME first cause for this lore, even if it's only the instinct of man.
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3) All the world's religions teach the principle.
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4) The "inner voice," the conscience, whispers it to us.
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5) Everything we see around us -- Gandhi and Mother Teresa vs Saddam Hussein and Hitler -- is consistent with it.
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6) etc.
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Those things, to me, are the facts of the case. A very, very old man needs love, or he's going to crack up eventually. :- )
Here's the inference, and it could be wrong: if there were an alien species -- or a Federation of them -- that made it through 1 billion years? -- it would have helped us out by now.
Even the U.S.A. intervenes in foreign societies, and does so out of "humanitarianism." Tweak that word a bit and you've got what MUST be the driving motivation of any species that prospers for a billion years.
or not,
Jeff
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...there is some combination of two problems:
A) the distance is too great (it took us 11.5 billion years to evolve in the Milky Way...to reach a point where our galaxy was even capable of supporting stable climate planets around stable mid-sized stars. The first 8 billion years of the Milky Way were hot, violent and radioactive. Too much mass smashing into too much other mass. Life takes a lot of time to evolve. Any galaxy younger than ours probably contains no intelligence yet. Any galaxy older than ours we can't see in present day...we see it billions or years in its own past. Meaning...when it didn't have intelligent life.
That is the problem we have when trying to find life outside the Milky Way.
B) It's inherently dangerous to try to make contact with another intelligent life form.
For within our own galaxy, if there are lots of sentient lifeforms here for us to find, I believe it follows that they would be suspicious of meeting others even if they desired to do it...and I believe they would choose carefully how best to make contact and when.
Look how fast our technology is exploding...in a few hundred years, we may not be emitting any clear signs of our existence because our tech may have reached a state where it is in harmony with the surrounding environment while harvesting benefits from that environment. The radio era has ended, more or less, in relevance. The cable television era is about to end. Soon, our communications will all be by fiber optics...and then by direct neural linkages and then by some other unimaginable form. Soon, the radio bubble will pop and our signals won't go out there unless we want them to.
There is, of course, one other theory...we might be the first.
Not the only...but the first...with life evolving elsewhere in the Milky Way, but not having reached that critical threshold.
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And it's an honest question, not a counter.
If the idea of danger weighs heavily -- and it probably does -- wouldn't *one* of those alien races have fired off a "berserker" network of self-replicating machines to sterilize the universe and protect itself?
1) After all, one of the other species is going to come and make contact with YOU :- )
2) You don't have to imagine EVERY species doing that. It only takes one species to nuke Hiroshima, as it were. And it would be very, very easy to program, and to decide on -- even if you regretted it later.
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And wouldn't we (our own species, Man) therefore not be here?
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This one's rhetorical :- )
So you see man as the *first* "alien species" in the Milky Way?
This year* just happens to be the pivot point for the galaxy, the knife's edge on which it hangs?
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...but we, in our own societies, have embraced the opposite position repeatedly. Or...more accurately, have tried to embrace love while at the same time actually embracing tyranny. It's happening in the U.S. as we speak - we are constantly lectured at by both political parties as to the importance of caring for the less fortunate or the environment or the Constitution or the churches or those with dangerous jobs or the sick and dying or the suicidal or (etc) (and we all agree it's important)...but this motivation is used, all too often, as a pretext for limiting freedom by force of government regulation and government spending/taxing.
It seems to be the eternal nature of man to desire the higher truths you have eloquently described here while acting, as a society, for only selfish, surface desires like security and wealth. I don't think that aspect of humanity is going to vanish...our history, thus far, seems cyclical at all scales. Powerful families rise on good intentions, to the point where they detach from the concerns of lesser men, and fall in disgrace. Cities come together, strive, build greatness, and then collapse under their own weight. Companies do great services for the world by making great products or offering great services...then they get too big and too stagnant and collapse. Whole societies rise to the top, become decadent and fat, and topple. That is in our nature. I see no reason to believe a billion years from now that, should there still be humans, they don't still suffer from the same disease.
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Having read the story of the history of the Milky Way, I believe that life would not have even begun to evolve within it until around the time that it did so here on Earth. Seriously...I've seen simulations of the formation of the Milky Way and read a lot of expert testimony from the rare earth crowd as to why life would have been difficult or impossible even in the spiral bands of the Milky Way until around 7.5 to 8 billion years ago.
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...would have to not only replicate and destroy, but communicate over vast (millions of light year) distances, travel much faster than light, and have MASSIVE power capacity to have reached us in a billion years since your theoretical development date.
For all we know, the "replicators" might be on their way to this galaxy as we speak. But it may take a very long time.
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I think that the Earth is flooded with love if you look for it -- that you, I, and President Obama act nobly 99% of the time.
Almost all mothers would sacrifice their lives for their children, and maybe for your children. People flock to places of worship in droves. Peace Corps volunteers are all over the globe. When there's a Tsunami, shiploads of money arrive. When people suffer in a 9/11 attack, everybody cares. When the SPCA shows a hungry dog on TV, everybody sighs.
What the world would look like, if love didn't predominate, can be seen at the end of "The Matrix" ;- )
X) If this universe were nothing more than a mechanical dance of uncaring atoms, an unspeakably cruel situation would emerge. Lions don't care about the suffering of antelope.
or Y) If this universe IS something more, than the Source of Love is infusing a key element of altruism and will continue to do so.
or Z) If the earth were "hell," where hatred had already won over love, then (1) there would be no point to the Creation (just go with 2 places, not 3!) ... and (2) things would look a whale of a lot worse than they do.
Despite my hilarious medical problems -- 12 more hours in the hospital, Wednesday, with no satisfaction -- I'm having a pretty good day in Hell, myself. You?
Good stuff Matty.
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And, as a separate issue, I was referring to what would EVENTUALLY happen to a species, as the number of its years of self-awareness increased towards infinity. Man's just gotten started; it's not a given that we'll be prospering in 1 billion years.
:: daps ::
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Why would you have to travel much faster than light, to cross the Milky Way (100,000 light years) in 1,000,000,000 years?
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And if you fire off cruise missiles with nukes, why would the missiles have to communicate with each other?
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That changes the ballgame :- )
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Doc,
The universe is 13.7 billion years old.
The Milky Way is 11.5 billion years old.
For the first 8 billion years, the Milky Way was probably rather inhospitable for life...the first 5 billion years, most of the stellar formation was hot and fast and near the core where gravitational and radiation anomalies rule out life. The next 3 billion years saw stellar formations in the spiral bands as the interference patterns created by the activity in the rotating core led to mass aggregation in places...enough to form stars. But the first stars were mostly in big clusters, not single-star systems and those multi-star systems are more prone to high levels of radiation and/or no good habitable zone. Our sun formed in an era when good unary star systems were just beginning to become more common in the spiral bands of the Milky Way.
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I was not arguing that the Milky Way had to be teaming with sentient life. I was arguing that other galaxies might be. Those distances are massive.
As for communication, you display a lack of clear understanding about how searches are performed in the military. If you fired off killer drones...millions of them...each bound for a different part of the visible sky from your home planet...how would you control the information? How would you know what they were up to? How would you gather intelligence? How would you know they were still functioning? Any mission of that scale (cleanse the universe of life that might be hostile to me) would require record-keeping...all of the missiles would have to talk to YOU at least..if not to each other...but if they're self-replicating drones, they will need to talk to each other to fill gaps in the net they're creating...to make sure all space is covered and coordinate when replication must occur.
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Doc asks to get my arbitrator thoughts on who has the better case on whether there are aliens. He has only himself to blame.
There are the two types of evidence, direct and circumstantial. The definition of this is as follows:
"A fact may be proved by direct evidence, by circumstantial evidence, or by both.
Direct evidence is given when a witness testifies about an event which the witness personally saw or heard.
Circumstantial evidence is given when a witness did not personally see or hear an event but saw or heard something which, standing alone or taken together with other evidence, may lead a juror to conclude that the event occurred. Both types of evidence are admissible and may be considered by you.
Neither is entitled to any greater weight than the other."
Alaska Uniform Jury Instruction 1.14
The two pics above are examples of evidence supporting the proposition that rabbits sometimes live in the snow. Circumstantial evidence is the picture of rabbit tracks. Direct evidence is a picture of a rabbit in the snow. One type of evidence is not inherently better than another. There are situations where circumstantial evidence is far better than eyewitness accounts. Rabbits and rabbit tracks are one of these situations. This is because rabbit tracks are unmistakeable and impossible to replicate, while a number of brown objects or small furry creatures can be mistaken for a rabbit, and also, a rabbit in the snow is an easy thing to stage.
If I understand the two positions, Jones is stating that aliens probably have no motive, means or opportunity (all circumstantial evidence) to contact humans, or even if they are we aren't looking for them in the right way. Doc is stating that we haven't turned over any direct or circumstantial evidence of aliens despite hundreds of years of looking for them, so there aren't any aliens.
I think Jones has the stronger position. Points 4, 5, and 6 are especially convincing, and for all we know, interstellar travel or communication may be impossible, due to distance and things we don't understand. Scientists have not demonstrated any ability to manipulate gravity or time in any meaningful way that would create hope that time travel or warp travel may be developed in the future by humans or aliens. Also, Jones' point about the motive an alien race might have of beaming signals to earth rings especially true. Beaming an alien code would presumably be difficult and expensive for an alien to do, and as many of the stars we see are thousands or millions of light years away, there would be no point of sending a signal to earth, because even if it did arrive and was read, the time lapse delay would preclude meaningful alien-earthling conversation.
Doc states that there is no direct or circumstantial evidence of alien life, but this is not entirely accurate. It seems much more likely that Earth was seeded with biological life from an extra terrestrial source than life spontaneously formed on its own. Earth is part of outer space and spontaneous formation of biological life is science fiction at this point. Terrestrial life seems to be powerful circumstantial evidence that there is extraterrestrial life. Also, if life did somehow spontaneously evolve on Earth, then it stands to reason that the same thing happened somewhere else with similar conditions. Though Earth is especially suitable for life, it is made out of the same material that are found in the rest of the universe, and cannot be considered unique.
Judgment to Jones.
You axed :)
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I am not arguing that the universe is physically material and nothing more, nor that God's grace isn't present and keeping us from driving off the cliff into pure moral relativism. What I'm arguing is that original sin is a very serious problem that man, thus far, seems unable to overcome...that we try to do good most of the time, but in the name of good intentions, do horrible things all too often, and that I see a cyclical pattern in our behavior that economists, urban planners, and anthropologists are just now reporting on scientifically...a tendency to fail the instant we succeed too well. The height of American power brought with it certain assumptions and attitudes that are leading to the demise of American power. That seems to be the way for us. And I think it would be the way for other aliens too.
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Although we have not been able to actually carry out any experiments...there are at least two different working theories in search of funding at the moment for producing warp speed travel.
Here's one of them:
http://www.superrelativity.org/html/WarpDrive_SR.html
Under this theory, it would take the equivalent energy to the entire mass of Jupiter to make a magnet strong enough to create a slip stream. But that's an engineering problem, not a theoretical limitation.
What is holding us back isn't the shortage of ideas...it's the lack of funding to pursue research.
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Those judgments alone might be the Magic Pixie Dust that makes Konspiracy Korners work. For me, at least.
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And, like certain Counselors I know in the great State of Sarah, I reserve the right to believe that His Honor is out to lunch :- )
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Since we've vacated the courtroom and are now dining on fish and chips down the block: Did you need any *positive* evidence that rabbits existed, to come to your judgment? ;- ) I missed the part where Jonezie showed me the photo of rabbit tracks.
The argument that "we haven't proven they don't exist" -- ABSOLUTELY, we did not! -- carries us how far? In the reductio ad absurdum, why couldn't I argue that pixies have no motive, means or opportunity to reveal that they swipe my socks?
The Court's paradigm seems to be that the entire burden of proof is --- > on the guy proving the negative. Or, more likely, the entire thing is over my head. In any case, how do I appeal this travesty of justice!?
:: heh ::
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Quite aside from this particular issue ... I'd be interested in a followup as to what happens in court if/when one side is bound to prove a negative. What do the precedents say here?
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It seems to me that you could (maybe!) compare this, loosely, to a "Smith vs Central Intelligence Agency" court case. Smith (Jonez) believes that the CIA uses Remote Viewers, and wants the CIA to pay reparations for spending tax money foolishly. Dr. D heads the CIA and says, wow, you would expect to see some elephant tracks in the snow, if there really were Remote Viewers employed in our Company.
(There are such tracks, because the CIA did employ these fellows.)
In the Alternate Star Trek World where the CIA didn't (or maybe didn't) use Remote Viewers: no tracks are found. But Smith / Jonez argues that the CIA still could conceivably have used Remote Viewers. Dr. D points out the 8 most likely places that Remote Viewing would have left tracks in the snow, proves to everybody's satisfaction there are no rabbit tracks on record, and invites the plaintiff to propose any additional places we might SEE such rabbit tracks.
Plaintiff produces no evidence, but argues brilliantly that there could be good reasons why we haven't seen them.
Obviously the plaintiff would lose that court case?, if he produced no positive evidence of tracks. No? But I'm missing something here. What might that be?
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In any case, I'd be fascinated to hear about the closest judicial analogue to --- > putting the burden of proof onto someone who has to prove (51% confidence) a negative. I have no doubt such cases exist.
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The question you are asking about is my current legal task. I have trial on Monday. One of the facts I have to prove is that the Defendant did not have auto insurance. How do you prove that? Well, he and his lawyers admitted it, and no insurance company has stepped in to represent him, but if those things did not happen, then it beats me how you prove a guy doesn't have insurance. I suppose you could depose every insurance company that is licensed to issue auto insurance in the State of Alaska to see if they have records of any policy for the defendant. That would be absurdly too much work.
You could issue a defendant an interrogatory asking for discovery of any insurance agreement that he has.
In the case of proving the negative of insurance, the law requires an admission at some point. In criminal cases, the driver has to show a policy to the police man. In civil cases, the driver does not have the fifth amendment to hide behind.
Of course, in the case of Doc vs. Jones, we don't have to worry about Jones carrying his burden of proof, becasue procedurally, Doc was the original poster, Jones responded, and then Doc issued a rebuttal. Doc's the plaintiff!
22
Sorry, there is no appeal from arbitrator opinions. Enter at your own risk. Ask Alex Rodriguez about that. :)
My problem with the characterization that there are no aliens, is that the Earth is just as much a part of outer space as the next place. Carbon, hydrogen, oxygen and the like are all by products of stars. Jones himself is the rabbit track. The fact that there is terrestrial life makes it more likely than not that there is extraterrestrial life. Jones came from somewhere, and it probably didn't involve a bolt of lighting randomly hitting some coal.
Conclusive proof as it were. At least from my point of view.
23
I never comment, but I just LOVE this place!! I visit this site at least 3 times a day....but I am full-on lurker. Why I came out for this I dunno...
I don't have much, or anything intellectual to add, but I find the April, 1561 Nuremburg, Germany 'battle' so unique. What proof exists that it happened; none. It only lasted an hour, yet took 4 years just to paint a representation of it. Who knows, maybe it was a check-up or something... Is it possible they have been here and decided we needed 'more time in the oven'?
Love this place...sorry if I diluted the wonderful thought experiment.
24
Love this qoute by Doc:
"A race that is very, very old would have come to the conclusion that Love / Altruism is the only fuel that makes the engine of our hearts and minds run forever. - See more at: http://seattlesportsinsider.com/article/konspiracy-korner-great-silence#..."
Side note: I cannot believe how much I share in common with Jonez.
Can't wait to read more.
25
Great stuff Mojo. Thoroughly edifying.
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You're a district judge, one level shy of Alaska State Supreme Court.
I'm not asking whether I can appeal. I'm just asking how. 'cause if I don't, this will be the only discussion on DOV I ever lose ....
27
Nothing intellectual to add? That may be my favorite 'put in this whole discussion. *That* I could at least remotely visualize, that a bunch of alien species made friends and the Board voted to conceal itself from us.
Still don't buy the idea that they'd be able to erase every fingerprint over the past 1,000,000,000 years, or that they wouldn't step in to ease suffering, or that some renegade species wouldn't have done something catastrophic, and all that stuff. It's as quiet as the tomb out there, which looks more like "nothing's there" than "they're real good at hiding."
But there are a few scenarios like this that at least don't sound *to me* like Pixies Stealing the Socks. :- )
28
"Love makes life, in the long run, worth living" ... it says here that this is the irreducible component of all human philosophy. I'm pretty sure that everything else is just transient distraction, and/or complementary to the Maypole of love / altruism. But that's just my understanding.
If it were true, it would bear on (solve?) every problem -- such as the question of what Aliens would be likely to do. For me that's the bottom line here: if Super-Dee-Dooper Aliens existed, they'd have lent a hand in 1941. Am not dogmatic about it, but Love In the Long Run is as good a phil. compass as any.
Very cool that you'd pull that line out of all this shtick.
........
The High Court hath spoken, so it may be on to the next Konspiracy Korner :- ) ... taking suggestions, or even better, Guest Posts ...
29
I'm not sure I have much to add to the discussion, really. I mean, I could blather on some more but I'm definitely having more fun watching you guys go at it :-)
Honestly, though, I pretty much shot my wad on the first go 'round - and I'm still chuckling as I re-read y'all's comments. I will absolutely agree with Doc that Love is, ultimately, what separates *us* from the lower animals of our Earth Life Tree. And you can see the progression of that particular attribute throughout the animal kingdom, from the least complex animals (single-celled organisms) all the way up to us. Single-celled organisms display absolutely zero love that we can comprehend, which I think makes it fairly safe to say that it's not an attribute they possess. But if you slide just a rung or two down from us, and you look at the other Great Apes, or even whales, and dogs, and rats, you end up seeing remarkably similar behaviors to our own. I've never actually *seen* a mother chimp sacrifice herself for her children, but I *have* seen them take severe, *potentially* life-threatening beatings to protect them. Ditto with dogs; how many of us have seen a mother dog ready to attack her human companion/boss/master during the first few hours/days of her puppies' lives? She's not suddenly stupid about the fact that she weighs 15lbs and you weigh 150lbs; she genuinely is willing to place herself in harm's way to do what she believes is best for her young.
Same thing with mother whales; I've seen footage of a Humpback mother and her calf making the dangerous trek from the birthing bay to the feeding 'grounds' several hundred miles away, and Orca will attack the pair. The mother willingly places herself in harm's way to protect her calf, because she knows that she has a better chance of surviving the pod's assault than her young one does. This, to me, is Love at a less-developed, but no less meaningful, level. Now head down the animal tree a few more rungs and you find the reptiles who, essentially, lay their fertilized eggs and leave them to their own devices. Sometimes the entire clutch gets dug up and eaten, and sometimes they survive, but the parent(s) seem(s) to have absolutely no concern for the well-being of the offspring. This is, I think, the absence of Love. So, for me, it's actually kind of easy to see where Love first takes root in our own version of the animal kingdom. It's present in many mammals, but to largely varying degrees (cats, for example, are considerably less concerned with their youngs' well-being than are dogs, while rats and meerkats form lifelong relationships with their family members - and that bond often extends two or three steps beyond their direct lineage. To me, this is pretty compelling evidence of love.
Personally, I hold absolutely zero possibility that this behavior is 'instinctive,' or 'unthinking' any more than I think a human mother clutching a newborn to her bosom during a crisis is 'instinctive' or 'unthinking.' It seems all-too-obvious that this is Love, scaled down to a dog's level, and true love involves willing sacrifice. Naturally, I would welcome a rebuttal on this particular point if someone is inclined to present one :-)
So, for me, there is genuine hope that any civilization which is significantly more advanced than ours would actually be MORE loving than we are. But, much like parents who sometimes must dole out physical sanctions to their children, or take other actions which may seem incomprehensible to a five year old, it seems to follow that these ETI's would behave in a *nearly* incomprehensible fashion from a cursory glance. But I do think it is entirely possible that cooperation, and not competition, would be the primary driving force of such a society.
As I said in the previous comment, which Doc so kindly front-paged here: I think the galaxy - let alone the universe! - is a big, big place. There really isn't much need for alien species to go to war with each other over resources (although I'll be writing several science fiction novels where that's exactly what happens!) unless it's driven by an artificial super-intelligence whose primary purpose is to literally extend the 'life' of the universe as we know it (via stellar engineering). Then, humans - and our ilk - would be unwanted variables in the equation, and would require termination.
30
Our actions throughout history are the dye; they're eye-catching, and the part that we all pay attention to, but without Love there really isn't any of what we see around us.
Great 'put, Doc.
31
Love the new insights and ideas I'm getting from this discussion, especially about focused beam communications and other tidbits that make this place so much awesome.
Me, I'm more or less settled with the facts that the Universe, even when just considering the Observable Universe, and Time (which is sort of scaled with the Universe) are extremely, unfathomably, impossibly large.
When the volume of space and the length of time is considered, I don't consider the lack of detectable life particularly perplexing because of the fact that our detection of any said species is passive to begin with at this time.
At the same time, because of the fact that even our civilization is such a tiny sliver of the existence of the rest of the universe, I wouldn't be surprised that we may have entirely missed another civilization's signals during the Ice Age or the Crusades or the Dark Ages or whatever.
32
Too cool :-)
I'll just slip out sideways, now, before I do something foolish and find myself in contempt...
33
I'd love to see a discussion about VR, AI and technology in general. I find Singularity and the arguments peripheral to it to be very interesting... Also a big fan of Jaron Lanier's writings about technology's impact too.
34
That the difference between 13 billion and 8 billion - or even *1* billion - years is next to nothing in the grand scheme of things.
Neil deGrasse Tyson has a beautiful byte that he uses frequently at lectures. I don't think I can find a snippet, but he had a lecture at the University of Washington which is over two hours long where he discussed several of these things, along with the widening tech gap between the USA and countries like Brazil, Japan, and China. It's a great lecture; I have it saved on my hard drive :-) And while he's remarkably less caustic than any other public-speaking scientist I know of (I'm looking at YOU, Richard Dawkins), he does get in the occasional shot at religion, although I don't remember if this one had very much of that in it...I think it didn't.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wp6cnp1kZBY
35
Welcome to the conversation, Montucky! I'll let you in on a secret: we were ALL lurkers at one point ;-)
And I'll happily concede, Doc, that the actual evidence (or lack thereof, I suppose) involved in ETI existence does tilt things your way. But I think if we discovered bacteria on Europa, even if it was just extremophilic bacteria, would probably tilt the conversation away from 'if' there is life out there, and move it in the direction of 'why can't we see it?!' I personally find great value in both questions, and I think they'll be around - rightly so - until either or both are conclusively answered, which will be a long, long, time in all likelihood.
And I don't mean to be contrary, but when I wonder about aliens 'stepping in to ease suffering,' I often wonder just how that would look. I mean, many of us have had toddlers, so here's a 2-D example of what I'm talking about. If your toddler is fascinated by your family's woodstove (not many of us have those any more, do we?) and is always interested to go touch it, to experience it in a tactile sense - especially when it's glowing cherry red! - you will always step in and stop them from doing so. You don't want your toddler to get badly harmed, so you protect the little tyke. But the toddler just won't stop going toward it, so you concede that the kid is going to have to get burned - you just want to control the situation to keep the burn from being anything serious. So you wait until the woodstove is only hot enough that it would, at worst, blister a finger with prolonged contact and then you essentially allow your toddler to touch it. The kid does so, pulls the hand back in shock, the eyes go wide, and you probably never have to worry about your kid touching the hot woodstove again. At worst, your little angel gets to wear a bandaid for a couple days on a blistered finger. You controlled the situation, passively - as it were - and the kid probably doesn't even realize you did it.
So, while I seriously doubt that alien intelligence *is* aware of us today - due to the cosmological distances involved in even using one of Sagan's comm. relay networks - I don't think that their lack of interaction in a specific moment in human history is compelling evidence against their existence. At least, not for me.
But I wholeheartedly agree that, according to simple probability models, it would seem that we're missing something when it comes to the theoretically ~guaranteed proliferation of life throughout the universe. There *should* be some signs of its existence, but there aren't any that we can see. Still, it's more *fun* for my mind to wander down the path opposite your own, so that's what I do and, ultimately, it ends up shaping my day-to-day thoughts/beliefs :-) You do, however, have the advantage of a couple extra decades of thought on the subject compared to me, and that's a very real advantage which I will cheerfully concede.
Love talking with you about this stuff.
36
But I'll drop a couple links here :-)
Incidentally, if you want to get a hold of me, Doc, it's my full, actual name at rocketmail: (firstlastrocketmailcom)
Here is my Author Page at Amazon.com
All of my books, all of my brother's books (for which I serve as front-to-back editor), and a couple of joint collaborations in another universe (started by mega-indie-powerhouse Christopher G. Nuttall, where I served in a very, very light editorial capacity) are listed there. My own, actually 100% written-by-me, novels are:
Sphereworld - Joined at the Hilt: Union
Sphereworld - Joined at the Hilt Origins: Between White & Grey (novella; origins story for one of my main characters in the JatH story)
The above is a pretty typical fantasy story: boy has rough life in the big city; boy gets fed up with living in oppression; boy comes into possession of a magical sword; magical sword saves boy's life, and life of his friends; boy embarks on a journey of self-discovery with the most unlikely companion he could have imagined possible; boy finds the real value of friendship where he least expected it. Ok, so maybe not 100% typical, but it's just meant to be a fun story. There are four or five books in that series that I have yet to write, but it's taken a back seat for the time being; gotta pay them bills!
Spineward Sectors - MIddleton's Pride, Book One: No Middle Ground
Spineward Sectors - Middleton's Pride, Book Two: Up The Middle
This is easily my most successful series. It's a quasi-spinoff from my brother's mainline novels, The Spineward Sectors Novels (which all begin with 'Admiral' in some form or another). The story is about a crew of a starship as they embark on an impromptu mission to patrol nearby star systems following a mass pull-out by the proper military, who have gone off to wage war on the opposite side of the galaxy. Our commander is a former tactical officer who had been on his way out prior to the Imperial withdrawal, hoping to retire from military life and head off to an Outer Rim colony somewhere, and just a few weeks into the 'routine patrol mission' he uncovers a conspiracy so profound that the further he goes, the stronger his belief that it needs to be dealt with. He picks up some interesting crewmembers along the way, including a teenaged hacker with an IQ somewhere between 180 and 220, and a genetically-engineered super soldier who was a professional smashball player (think American football, but with a killer twist involving the ball being both a severe liability and a weapon). Oh yeah, and said super soldier is a 16 year old girl who chooses to name herself Lu Bu, after the famous Chinese warrior from Romance of the Three Kingdoms, while our hacker fancies himself the inheritor of Zhuge Liang.
Spineward Sectors - Admiral's Lady, Book One: Eyes of Ice, Heart of Fire (novella; origins story for one of my brother's main characters in his Spineward Sectors saga)
I wrote this to help add some backstory to my brother's character, Akantha, who is the Admiral's Lady in his mainline space opera/military sci-fi novels. She's from a strange, backwater planet with largely Greek customs, Nordic bloodlines that have clearly been extensively modified by outside forces, and they live in a medieval society without access to higher technology. The story is how she came to find herself on the River of Stars (as her people call it) aboard warships which possess enough firepower to level her entire civilization in minutes. It's really meant as a companion novella to his first book, Admiral Who?, since I cut it off abruptly at the point where she meets her future 'husband.'
Imperium Cicernus - The Chimera Adjustment: Ure Infectus
Now this one is near-and-dear to my heart ;-) The setting is several thousand years from now (five thousand, I believe) and humanity has colonized the entire galaxy using a vast network of wormholes. But the expertise needed to maintain that network is waning, and humanity's interest in innovation has also waned. Inevitably, some of the wormholes will collapse and, when they do, what might happen to any society that is cut off from the rest of the Imperium? This is the story of one such star cluster - the Chimera Sector - some two hundred years after their wormhole collapsed. At first glance, things are running more smoothly than one might expect, but there are machinations at work which nobody can suspect, and this book introduces us to a cast of characters who will unravel that mystery, and so much more. The main character is an Adjuster, whose constitutionally-dictated job is to act as a check against corruption, tyrrany, and treason against humanity itself by dealing the only censure which can be guaranteed to make a difference: assassination of any public official who willingly betrays the people who put him or her into power, be it for personal gain or any other reason. He's joined by a young police detective, who finds herself caught up in events which are way above her pay grade, and has no choice but to follow him down the rabbit hole. I really like this story, and the characters, but it's a pretty grim one with mild adult themes and not a lot of humor...outside of a feisty little computer program who provides the two support.
Seeds of Humanity - The Cobalt Heresy, Book One: Revelation
Seeds of Humanity - The Cobalt Heresy, Book Two: Reunion
This one is weird, I'll readily admit. At first glance it's a pretty standard fantasy series about a wizard and his allies, but it's really quite a bit more than that - starting with the fact that the wizard is from *our* world, and nobody around him seems to know it. The series maybe isn't even worth reading until I've finished books three and four, to be perfectly honest. The whole series is a setup, and it's a pretty risky one on my part since I'll have written nearly 700k words before I'm finished with it, but I'm hoping it turns into quite a bit more than a four book series :-)
Please nuke this, or pull it down and put it elsewhere, if it's too much, Doc. I couldn't find your email address in my contacts folder, thus the spillage :-(
37
I had a whole thing typed up, ready to be the second poster and kick-start the conversation about Fermi's paradox and the Drake equation. When denied, I am taken through a wormhole in the internet to this thread that is 35 posts deep and apparently 2 or 3 days in the future. I guess time travel is possible...
38
Can't argue with that, however, I won't begin to fathom what an advanced civilization would be capable of. Erasing landmarks, sheesh, we can do THAT. ;) I appreciate the pat on the back and I'll let you get back to much more important and desirable SHTICK. Oh how we loves it so...
39
Sagan wrote a novel titled "First Contact". It is about humans meeting an alien ship, for the first time, in deep space. The book was about how they tried to find a way to communicate with out hostility. I found the concept, of what he was trying to say, interesting. One area, that I think would be problematic, would be viruses. A lot of diseases that have been suppressed, through natural selection or powerful drugs, could wipe out a species that has not developed an immunity to it. The devastation to the Hawaiian people, after the Europeans introduced themselves, is proof of that. There are so many other obstacles that would have to be overcome. It would be a poser.
I have mixed feelings about contact with aliens.....if they are benevolent and helpful, that would be great, but if their idea is turn us into entrees for their home planets dining tables, I think I'd have to pass. That old adage comes to mind when I think of SETI trying to make contact, Be careful what you wish for because it might come true.
Even so, I am a huge SciFi fan.
40
I just feel that the universe is too vast to not have life out there more intelligent than ours.
It is humbling to think that in 30-40M years life will likely have evolved to the point that current humans would seem like the equivalent of house pets. Think of an alien speciies that has evolved 2-3 billion years beyond that. We'd be so inferior that we wouldn't even be on their radar. It would be a human not really paying attention to an ant hill.
I would go even further and say that any advancements in science or technology that our species make is utterly irrelevant. We are hiccup away from chimps. There has to be another rung or two (or three and beyond) left in the evolutionary ladder. Our #1 objective as a species should be to accelerate evolution and maintain a healthy environment for the planet.
41
Right. I've read that we would relate to a species that managed to solve interstellar travel roughly like a dog relates to a human. Think of how incomprehensible a modern human and our technologies would seem to a B.C. era human and that's only been a couple thousand years.
I often wonder why people assume that an alien species would be benevolent and helpful. Our own history certainly hasn't shown much but exploitation and extermination when we've encountered a culture of humans that are less evolved technologically. Why would we assume an alien culture any different?
42
Jonez, had no idea you turned into a writer. Good luck man! :-)
43
I agree. Apes emerged only 40M years ago, gray wolves less than 10M years ago. When you are talking a billion years of evolution beyond that, the gap will get closer to human and bug. I wouldn't be surprised if life started taking a different form at that point.
At the same time, I'm of the belief that any alien species capable of visiting us would be benevolent in nature. Our predator nature is a result of our 'winning' out in evolution on earth. But since we've only won recently, our instincts and nature haven't had time to catch up.
I think the next level of evolution will require a spiritual evolution in addition to a physical one. If it doesn't happen, I could easily see humanity killing each other off and/or destroying the planet before we go any further. I think that would be true of any other species that got to our level of evolution. Love is a necessity to move any further.
As to why an alien species wouldn't help despite being benevolent in nature? I think its due to them being far too advanced to the point that we probably can't even communicate with them and we likely aren't even capable of receiving their help. How do you help a mosquito? Or show compassion to a beetle? We are likely too irrelevant to even pay attention to yet. There are still a few major hurdles we need to clear.
44
There's a filtration process at work, Taro, whereby a species that figures out how to deal with the relatively limited 'low-hanging fruit' resources of their birth world in a repeatable fashion. This, I think, requires - above all else - compassion toward their fellow species' members, and a genuine desire to do what's best for the group FIRST, and what's best for the individual SECOND. There can be a very, very narrow gap between those values, but I think that eventually a species runs out of freely-available resources and they have to figure out how to cooperate with each other. That moment of unification may be (probably IS) preceded by untold suffering and conflict, but once it's been achieved there's really no limit to what a species could do.
That attitude would, necessarily, gain in prominence over time, since technological advances primarily bring about more efficient ways of destroying things. To actually ride the tech curve, a species *probably* has to get past Competition as the primary driver of society and embrace Cooperation. Otherwise, they'd likely wipe themselves out.
45
it remains to be seen if I'll survive widespread exposure, or if I'll drown in a pile of putrefying vegetable matter after the mob has its way with me ;-)
46
Hardcore Mariner fan, MMA fan, and into SF. Is there another person on the planet with more similar interests?
47
I've never met you, nor have I seen a pic of you, but I'm scared to look at one for fear of discovering that you are, in fact, my disentangled quantum pair-mate, and that after learning of your location I'd have no choice but to make best possible speed to your location so we could annihilate against each other and set the universe back to something resembling a balance.
This 'verse aint big 'nuff fer the both of us, feel me?
48
what did you think of the Jones vs. Cormier aftermath? Ever seen a warrior-to-the-bone like Cormier so utterly defeated after a loss? How about Jones' getting popped for cocaine metabolites(!) in the pre-fight drug tests? I'm biased toward Jones, since I've been following him since his second pro fight (not UFC, but pro) but even I've got to shake my head at the guy's decision-making process these days.
49
at this particular poker table :-). But, as you alluded in the progenitor post to these Konspiracy Korners, going through the motions of attempting to answer, or invalidate, these questions is such a great workout for the brain.
I've often been accused of arguing for argument's sake. I shoulda been a lawyer, I tell ya...
50
That is, for those not familiar, "the natural process of life arising from non-living matter such as simple organic compounds. " As your probably familiar with, the Miller-Urey experiment to "create amino acids from atmospheric conditions similar to early earth." Interestingly from the same Wiki-page, "Extra-terrestrial complex organic molecules, including RNA precursors, have recently been discovered to be relatively common both in interstellar space and in the solar system, and may have assisted in the development of more complex chemicals on Earth".
Which says, to me, that you don't even have to put your full belief in the Miller-Urey experiment, only that it is successful in creating basic chemicals. Then, somewhere along the line, more complex chemicals are added from 'extra terrestrial' sources, which moves the whole process along exponentially. Still, we're a long ways from an ameoba at that point, but that's where 3.5 bill in the oven is supposed to help.
My favorite part of the wiki-page on abiogenesis...right at the top..."Origin of life" redirects here. For supernatural views on the origins of life, see Creation myth."-HA!
We are here, so they must be there....simplified and unproven, but it works for me.
'Cos this thread needed another tangent...