Anyone believe in UFO's?

We can “see” about 46 billion light years into the universe

ooooh.. aren’t we flippin’ brilliant.. :lol:

OK.. so we’re earthworms that occasionally flop onto the pavement to look at the sky when there’s some wet weather.. until we drown, or get eaten by a bird or run over by a Toyota Prius

Problem with that viewpoint yunki is that it gets really tedious really fast. Not that it’s wrong though. No one has ever observed any element in the universe that is out of line with the periodic table. Well, you might say, what if we’re just the equivalent of planarians and there’s actually 100 periodic tables beyond our ken? Well….yeah? It’s a total cul-de-sac of thought.

Yes we are rather. For hairless monkeys wearing trousers we are able to work out some pretty interesting stuff about the universe.

Yunki I suggest you learn some stuff about chemistry and how elements are made and constructed rather thna just imbibe them :wink:
Perhaps you could explain to me how say gravity is not a universal truth?

it may be true to say we have only scratched the surface but that is not to say somethings we have found are universally true.

does the earthworm know universal truths about high definition televisions.?

don’t be so daft.
I never said this could you respond re gravity or elements?

wow.. just wow at the narrow mindedness..
awesome

are you guys for real..?

I always had you two down as the bright sparks on here..

maybe you are right.. maybe our little rock and it’s tiny parasites can look up into the sky and say without doubt that 2+2=4 amen..

but maybe we are just trying to find explanations to fit our mayfly like existence.. with a beginning a middle and an end.. and maybe we are little more than parasites in the Earthworms gut.. wriggling about in the worm poo and professing to know all..

why does intelligence only have to exist in the neat little carbon package that we understand..?

yunki earlier:

exactly

Well, you might say, what if we’re just the equivalent of planarians and there’s actually 100 periodic tables beyond our ken? Well….yeah? It’s a total cul-de-sac of thought.

fair enough.. that’s an intelligent response.. all this ‘yes it is cos I say it is and you’re Keanu Reeves if you don’t agree’ riles me a bit though.. :oops:

And so what if it is?

The rules and theories would still stand for “our universe”.
Likewise if we are just one permutation in an infinite multiverse.

all this ‘yes it is cos I say it is and you’re Keanu Reeves if you don’t agree’ riles me a bit though..

Good. All the mystic hand-wavey “ah but how can you really know” bollocks riles me right back :lol:

I’m with yunki on this one.

We know a lot about things close to us, yet are still discovering things we didn’t know about the little lump of rock (speck of dust) we are scurrying about on.

We know some things about the vessel that contains our little speck of dust, but there is far, far more to be learned.

Beyond that, we know nothing – absolutely nothing at all – not a little bit, not even an inkling. To assume we do is extremely arrogant and by it’s very nature, a very human trait.

F*** me – the world was flat a few hundred years ago.

In fact time only exists because we decided it does.

I just don’t see how you can steadfastly assert that our understanding of science is right.. full stop

that’s like some of the stuff on ‘the other thread’

The patterns here seem to work well for us.. but we’ve only gotten samples from Mars in the last decade and we haven’t heard half of what there is to hear about that yet.. that much is certain..

what if we’re wrong.. I don’t think our tiny glimpse (or 80 billion light year stare) is enough to get smug about just yet

EDIT: thanks STR – you put it so much more plainly than I can manage..

I can’t deal with arrogant folk too well.. dey is fick like rock

ET life could be very different, but chemically there’s only one periodic table in the universe, and carbon’s the only game in town for prospective lifeforms. So they could indeed be based on completely different carbon-based building blocks, but they won’t be SF-stuff like a talking cube of iron or a sheet of silicon.

There have been other biochemistries worked out that would work. One with silicon instead of carbon and one using ammonia instead of co2. Both give yo the same sorts of chemical reactions as we have

edit – there you go

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

what if we’re wrong..

Define wrong.

If we come up with rules that hold for the entire Observable Universe then they are arguably “right enough”.

You can argue that it is possible that something beyond the observable universe, possibly even in another dimension or multiverse, does not meet those rules but as this is something we can never observe, so what?

You can argue that it is possible that something beyond the observable universe, possibly even in another dimension or multiverse, does not meet those rules but as this is something we can never observe, so what?

We will probably have killed ourselves off before we find that out.

And it will begin again.

I wonder if evolution will come full circle again creating humans if we do die off/self destruct, or if in a few million/billion years (if the Sun and Earth still exist) another predominant life form will have evolved.

If we do survive, what form will we have taken? It certainly doesn’t stay this way.

Define wrong

well..like.. what if all the electro magnetic spectrum analysis coincidentally makes the same patterns that we understand but for reasons that we don’t..?

maybe those substances out there that we can also NEVER touch are just reacting that way because of what they are in and not because of what they are..? Or because of what they weigh.. or because of what they like for breakfast..?
why is it any more likely that it’s because they are exactly the same as the stuff we know and understand and have found on our rock..?

our science is built on supposition and guesswork and observing patterns .. so guessing that what we can see out there must be the same as what we’ve got here just because it looks the same, to me, is ok.. ish
but to then proclaim it as undeniable truth like what you are doing is err.. arrogant..

which is all I was saying like.. I don’t wish to argue with boffins about nerdery.. it’s not in my nature

what if the real out there is reachable by ways that are not connected to our carbon cult..?

Beyond that, we know nothing – absolutely nothing at all – not a little bit, not even an inkling. To assume we do is extremely arrogant and by it’s very nature, a very human trait.

its just not true we do know stuff. Not everything we know is true and will never be changed but we understand some stuff, gravity, motion of planets, star formations, elements, constituents of elements and these are all likely to be universally true. It is not arrogant to think that we actually know some stuff it would be arrogant to think we knew everything, We dont know plenty of stuff , dark matter /energy, higgs boson, combining quantum and classical world etc

F*** me – the world was flat a few hundred years ago.

actually thousand of years ago they new the world was round but the bastards burned the library at alexandria. I assume you think the world will remain round for ever and that is universally true for everything?

In fact time only exists because we decided it does.

Cause and effect and the passage of time is not a man made construct. the fact everything living ages over “time” should let you know it does really exist.

I just don’t see how you can steadfastly assert that our understanding of science is right.. full stop

the wise dont what they say is that science [ more widely empiricism] is a far superior approach to knowledge and understanding than doing using thought alone, not least in the elimination of infinite error.
no one things we know everything or that everything we think now is true…the beauty is you can convince people with actual evidence and they WILL change their views.

We know a lot about things close to us, yet are still discovering things we didn’t know about the little lump of rock (speck of dust) we are scurrying about on.

We know next to jack about some of our deeper oceans. There’s probably things living down there that we’ve never seen, and it’s a hell of a lot closer to us than the nearest other planet.

I just don’t see how you can steadfastly assert that our understanding of science is right

Paraphrasing Dara O’Briain: “people say, ‘ah, science doesn’t know everything.’ Science knows it doesn’t know everything, otherwise it’d stop.”

You can argue that it is possible that something beyond the observable universe, possibly even in another dimension or multiverse, does not meet those rules but as this is something we can never observe, so what?

aye you can argue what you wish bit you need to prove it :D

we understand some stuff, gravity,

Do we? Could you explain that one to me, cos I’m farked if I understand it.

There is this thing called spectroscopy

With it, you can work out what elements are found in the bodies that make up different solar systems.

There is only one periodic table, that is it.

what if the real out there is reachable by ways that are not connected to our carbon cult..?

Solipsism is a soft fluffy minded viewpoint for those unable to understand physics or chemistry.

There is this thing religious cult called spectroscopy

Paraphrasing Dara O’Briain: “people say, ‘ah, science doesn’t know everything.’ Science knows it doesn’t know everything, otherwise it’d stop.”

V good.

our science is built on supposition and guesswork and observing patterns ..

Of course it is. Nowt wrong with that. That’s what the clever scientist folks call “theories”.

to then proclaim it as undeniable truth like what you are doing is err.. arrogant..

Erm.. where did I do that exactly?

Science is built on theories. Some are more tested than others. All should be questioned when required.
You seem to be conflating a belief in science and scientific method with the belief that every scientific theory and model is absolutely true.

There is this thing religious cult called spectroscopy

Idiotic argument, science and spectroscopy is derived from observable phenomena. Religion is not, you sir are nothing more than a post-modernist.

A school of thought for those who could never get science at primary school and who then spent the rest of their lives trying to diminish it whenever they could on whatever vacuous humanities undergraduate course they did because they didn’t get it.

bwaarp, stop it, I’m going to get accused of creating you as an alter log in. I like it though.

the geeks are winning the sarcasm contest if not the argument :D

listen my little sunbeams..

my only assertion is that the belief that we know all universal chemistry and that the only lifeforms can be carbon based.. as asserted by Garry Lager.. is arrogant..

you have all jumped in to defend him and try to prove me wrong or discredit me..
that’s all this debate is about.. I have fielded your oblique tangents with aplomb

roll over.. play dead.. let me tickle your tummies :lol:

the geeks are winning the sarcasm contest if not the argument

Years of practice, mate.

V good.

It’s on youtube. I’ll dig it out, hang on.

Here.

*rolls over*

You were being a bit po-mo then though weren’t you. It’s a nasty disease, easily curable with a bit of rational thought..

But of course Toys19…. I mean Science was made up by bunch of idiotic humans who really have no clue what they’re talking about…after all, they’re only humans right, who ever wants to listen to them? I mean sure, I admit they were right about the world being round…and the planets going around the sun… and lightning being caused by opposite charges between the earth and the sky, not Zeus…and worms and rats not appearing out of nowhere…and stars being balls of gas burning millions of miles away, not holes in heaven…and the brain being the center of the nervous system, not the heart…and lead poisoning being able to kill you…and cigarettes being bad for you, and everything else ever discovered or invented, but still! They’re wrong!

They’re all a bunch of crackpots who have a political agenda, so who wants to listen to them?

its just not true we do know stuff. Not everything we know is true and will never be changed but we understand some stuff, gravity, motion of planets, star formations, elements, constituents of elements and these are all likely to be universally true. It is not arrogant to think that we actually know some stuff it would be arrogant to think we knew everything, We dont know plenty of stuff , dark matter /energy, higgs boson, combining quantum and classical world etc

Nope – stuff beyond what we can see is just assumption. Maybe very well educated assumption, but assumption nontheless.

actually thousand of years ago they new the world was round but the bastards burned the library at alexandria. I assume you think the world will remain round for ever and that is universally true for everything?

I couldn’t be arsed to research, so covered ‘thousands’ with a ‘few hundred’ – define few. I would imagine the world will remain round, just as I’d imagine if it doesn’t then we won’t still be on it.

Cause and effect and the passage of time is not a man made construct. the fact everything living ages over “time” should let you know it does really exist.

One event leads to another and I suppose it’s undisputable that ‘time’ of some element does actually happen, however our concept of it is manmade. A billion years as conceived by us, could be a millisecond in another conciousness.

Well do there AsSTR, you managed to write several sentences stating absolutely f*ck all.

What can’t we see, stars? The Higgs boson? If the latter, we think it’s there, so we are now looking for it (aka imaging it, so we can see it).

The concept of time is not man made either, care to be blasted into space at 1G constant acceleration for 20 years on a return journey? You’ll come back around 2500.

Artist by any chance?

bwaaarp.. have you missed the rest of the thread..? are you a bit drunk and looking for a fight..?

silly billy

go to bed…x

No, I just like winning.

I also have a psychotic hatred for hippies and post-modernists.

You took ‘see’ too literally there bwaarp, however you are showing the arrogance I (and yunki) have been talking about.

What the hell do you know is beyond what anyone, even NASA scientists (let alone MTB riders) can even comprehend….erm see??

bwaarp, we need to get a room, we have so much in common.

A billion years as conceived by us, could be a millisecond in another conciousness.

well as year is one earth orbit of the sun so they would need to be using a different scale. The time it takes to orbit is fixed*

* it varies a bit lets not get too complicated here.
Ps atomic clocks and please lets not get into relativity here :wink:

double post