berks

[video]http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=endscreen&NR=1&v=Ye8mB6VsUHw[/video]

I believe there are other inhabited planets, and other planets with ‘life’ on them. Not sure about them visiting Earth, I guess it’s plausible that an race on another planet is more advanced than us and has the ability to travel vast distances quickly. But given that advancement in technology, they aren’t going to learn much by shoving a whatsit up someones insides.

Although we spend a great deal of time filming and studying a new species of rat or something in a remote valley in the Amazon rain forest, so perhaps it could be feasible that they’d be interested in us morons.

But why the secrecy, wouldn’t they just plonk themselves down in Trafalgar Square, and go “Oi, you. Fat block with a camera, come in here and let’s have a look up your jacksy”. Perhaps they’ve watched our TV and seen Independance Day and worry a nervous scientist/fly and a belligerent ex-rapper will shove a bomb up their jacksy.

And regarding speed of light….would an object travelling at the speed of light just appear out of nowhere? You wouldn’t see it arrive, or would only see it once it’s dropped below speed of light.

Oh…just read some of the previous comments. Has this thread already degenerated into willy waving and posturing?

Perhaps the aliens have read this forum and decided that we’ve just a bunch of **** and not worth visiting.

MrSalmon +1

s your best guess.. but having never even been to the bottom of the ocean, let alone the moon or a distant galaxy.. we can only ever assume our guesses about the utter unknown to be accurate..

No a guess would be to just do as you say and say something without evidence because a Druidh once told me when I was acid that it was like you know maaaaannnnnn 😉
I have spent many years arguing and hanging out with this type

but what was in question was their/our perception of it.. do we even know if a tree perceives time the same way as us..?

Perception of an observable event is irrelevant it is still there.

I cannot observe radiation ….t is no less real or universal because of this fact.

like homeopathists, animal right’s nutcases etc is to ridicule them. Because they don’t listen, ever.

Bwaarp Why have you linked as fact – homeopathy does not work with a moral judgement on the rights or wrongs of experimenting on animals? It is also poor for you top say nut jobs when I assume you are pro torture if we are going to use intemperate language. This makes no sense one is fact based and one is opinion based …which is pretty much what we are debating.

I just find it a stilted way of thinking

Well we could all go on flights of fancy and imagine things that are wonderful and supernatural if you wish but it wont make them true. Your mind is so open you cannot eliminate infinite error – you think because you can consider/conceive it then it has some truth to it. This is a false premise.
PS
Rubbing sticks together is empiricism you do something you observe it , you replicate and then you try try to understand what happens. Your approach is to just think about what might happen if we rubbed the sticks together and coming up with outlandish ideas and then saying it is arrogant to say [ if you do it correctly] you will get fire rather

After drafting several replies to the excesses of this thread, I’ve given up. Alien Phenomenology is quite a fun take on the subject. Yunki, I think you’ll like this.

Ah…right. Thread over.

No it isn’t!

Rubbing sticks together is empiricism you do something you observe it , you replicate and then you try try to understand what happens. Your approach is to just think about what might happen if we rubbed the sticks together and coming up with outlandish ideas and then saying it is arrogant to say [ if you do it correctly] you will get fire rather

Exactly. Well said.

To me you have it backwards yunki.

You suggest that we can never possibly know anything at all.

Science would say that if we can perform experiments that confirm that a theory holds in every instance we can observe then that theory is “good enough” to work with and we’ll stick with it till we have some evidence to the contrary.

The latter approach has proved considerably more productive than just going “But what if we’re wrong dude and like, somewhere out there *handwave* atoms don’t exist and it is all made of *handwave* something else. You should totally add that as a footnote Mr Mendeleev.”

lol @ GrahamS 🙂

Science would say that if we can perform experiments that confirm that a theory holds in every instance we can observe then that theory is “good enough” to work with and we’ll stick with it till we have some evidence to the contrary.

The latter approach has proved considerably more productive than just going “But what if we’re wrong dude and like, somewhere out there *handwave* atoms don’t exist and it is all made of *handwave* something else. You should totally add that as a footnote Mr Mendeleev.”

And this is well said.
There may well be aliens, I dunno, but there isn’t even enough evidence to be “good enough” (copywright grahamS) so right now I remain unconvinced that they have been here.

And this is well said.
There may well be aliens, I dunno, but there isn’t even enough evidence to be “good enough” (copywright grahamS) so right now I remain unconvinced that they have been here.

which is also my belief… and always has been..

I just thought it would be interesting to talk of what ifs on such a what iffy type thread.. but this made some of you very uncomfortable and a few openly hostile..

which I find a bit weird from a bunch that are making new discoveries all the time.. I would not be surprised if the scientific fraternity turned around in a couple of years and told us it’s all made from neutrinos..

which have surprisingly turned out to be the jizz of a giant space leopard called stanley

well you were talking a bit of postmodernist bollocks.. 😀

I don’t even know what that means but yes probably..

now where do I find these post modernists..? this thread is full of militant scientologists, I feel quite persecuted

a good book is called introducing critical theory (clickadoodledoo), it covers po-mo at the end. You can then go a bit further and read what grayling, russell, and simon blackburn have to say about it..

bumplet

I just thought it would be interesting to talk of what ifs on such a what iffy type thread.. but this made some of you very uncomfortable and a few openly hostile..

That would be because your “what ifs” sought to rather snootily dismiss millennia of hard won scientific understanding in favour of half-considered handwavey mystic stoner waffle.

You claim an open mind, but stand in the way of knowledge and progress.

now where do I find these post modernists..? this thread is full of militant scientologists

You may want to look up “scientologist” while you are there. 🙄

That would be because your “what ifs” sought to rather snootily dismiss millennia of hard won scientific understanding in favour of half-considered handwavey mystic stoner waffle.

You claim an open mind, but stand in the way of knowledge and progress.

I pretty much agree with this, it’s another way of describing what I considered to be po-mo bullshit, and goes some why to explain why people got pissed off with you.

I haven’t dismissed anything..

I just cannot understand how or why you can claim to categorically know what is going on in deep space by applying the knowledge that we have gained here.. on this tiny insignificant speck in the corner.. it seems to me to be arrogant..

scientific research involves taking samples and more samples and comparing them and repeating the experiment until all doubt is removed right..?
well we don’t even have samples from our nearest neighbour to compare.. let alone from the next star or galaxy

That would be because your “what ifs” sought to rather snootily dismiss millennia of hard won scientific understanding in favour of half-considered handwavey mystic stoner waffle.

you have totally made this up in your mind.. I only suggested that there can be the possibility of alternatives.. of infinite possibilities.. and you guys have in the main agreed that there could be..

so why the character assassination..?

you guys are **** insane

(the scientology bit was humour by the way.. )

Yes but any one can stand upand say what if, what if, but if you do it without knowledge or context, then you deserve to be dismissed, if you then accuse the dismissors of being closed minded then it just makes you a pain in the ass and not a positive contributor to any discussion.

Any true scientist is open minded but if we follwed every flight of fancy we wouldn’t have any resource to discover anything. We need to target our research to increment on what we know. we can only take wild stabs in the dark if there is substantial evidence of radical discoveries to be made.

I just cannot understand how or why you can claim to categorically know what is going on in deep space by applying the knowledge that we have gained here.. on this tiny insignificant speck in the corner.. it seems to me to be arrogant..

but it (applying knowledge we’ve gained down here) works. Not perfectly, but much, much, much, better than guessing.

and lots of what we think we understand about ‘deep space’ comes from looking at … deep space.

what if, what if, but if you do it without knowledge or context, then you deserve to be dismissed

from a thread on a MTB forum about aliens..?

FFS

we’re not trying to change the world here kids..

which I find a bit weird from a bunch that are making new discoveries all the time.. I would not be surprised if the scientific fraternity turned around in a couple of years and told us it’s all made from neutrinos..

I would be very surprised personally.

Well over a hundred years of research from Rutherford, Maxwell through Bohr, Planck and Schrodinger and on and on through von Neumann, Pauli, Dirac to Feynman and the massive undertakings of exploring the nature of matter using currently the largest machine on the planet.

At each step of the way theories were proposed, questioned, tested, ridiculed and amended until they stood up to observations or experiments in the real world. Some steps in the process brought us closer to a better understanding of how the universe work at its most basic level. Others were blind alleys that led nowhere.

Due to this research I can say with pretty reasonable certainty* that the universe is not in fact all made from neutrinos.

Science doesn’t know it all, its never claimed to and there are no absolutes. There is loads of stuff scientists are currently guessing at, quantum gravity, dark matter, dark energy etc. But the point is the scientific method does try to make sense of the universe not just give up because we might all be riding on the back of a giant turtle.

*(by pretty reasonable certainty I mean the same level of certainty that if I stepped off the edge of a 15 storey building I would be pulled to earth by gravity in a fashion that would be very detrimental to my continued existence, gravity still being a theory after all)

from a thread on a MTB forum about aliens..?

FFS

we’re not trying to change the world here kids..

If you think that then you can’t complain about not being taken seriously here can you.

Yunki, you didn’t annoy me, but I can understand why you annoyed others. As I’ve said it was poorly informed uncontextualized meaningless twaddle, but diverting nonetheless.

I haven’t dismissed anything..

Really? Cos this all sounds rather like patronising dismissal to me:

that’s an awfully arrogant assumption from a fat and terminally earthbound bag of water
LOL.. are you serious..?
don’t be so daft.. 😆
ooooh.. aren’t we flippin’ brilliant.. 😆
wow.. just wow at the narrow mindedness..
are you guys for real..?
dey is fick like rock
here is this religious cult called spectroscopy
listen my little sunbeams.. roll over.. play dead.. let me tickle your tummies
silly billy
maths and physics.. con art invented by scraggly little toads who can’t get laid in attempt to make themselves look clever..
osama bin labcoat

Science doesn’t know it all, its never claimed to and there are no absolutes

my point exactly

I just cannot understand how or why you can claim to categorically know what is going on in deep space by applying the knowledge that we have gained here.. on this tiny insignificant speck in the corner.. it seems to me to be arrogant

Why do you keep calling us arrogant? It would be arrogant to claim we know everything [ no one is claiming this ]and stupid to claim we know nothing [ which seem nearer your position]. Scientists claim we know some stuff.

To use your argument that is like saying because we can rub sticks together and make fire in Dartmoor that does not mean you can do it in Cheshire or in Africa or Peru. This is the arrogance you talk of.

Here’s one for you yunki:

Adding two odd numbers (integers) together gives you an even number.

That simple statement is impossible to empirically test fully. There are an infinite number of integers, so however many numbers you try to test it against, you will still have effectively tested nothing of the whole.

Does that mean it is “arrogant” to make that statement? Even though it holds for absolutely everything we know and accurately predicts results?

(obviously maths is a “con art invented by scraggly little toads” – but hopefully you can still see the parallels here)

Did you know that Pluto was the first planet that was discovered though mathmatical predictions rather than actually looking at it through a telescope?

Apparently it was discovered by analysing perturbations of Uranus.

Which is interesting and funny at the same time.

Science is pretty clever if you ask me…but it doesn’t know everything…if it did what would be the point in becomming a scientist.

Adding two odd numbers (integers) together gives you an even number.

That simple statement is impossible to empirically test fully.

Take x and y, two odd integers.

By definition of being odd,

x = 2n+1
y = 2m+1 where n and m are integers.

x+y = 2n+1+2m+1 = 2(n+m+1) which, by definition, is even.

I believe you Graham, even though I haven’t tested it. But, like, what if in some other places there were integers that weren’t odd or even? How can we be sure we know all the types of number there are…

peturbations of Uranus.

Which is interesting and funny at the same time.

Smirk..

To use your argument that is like saying because we can rub sticks together and make fire in Dartmoor that does not mean you can do it in Cheshire or in Africa or Peru.

no.. it doesn’t

we know what’s in cheshire aned peru.. we were there last week..

it’s like saying that because you can do it in dartmoor then you can do it in an imaginary place that is so far away that we can’t even imagine it..
and we can only guess as to what is going to be there anyway..

there might be sticks and friction and oxygen.. but there might also be chocolate umbelical hornets with imaginary real biscuit fronds the length and breadth of pluto..

Take x and y, two odd integers.

See now you’re just using “supposition and guesswork and observing patterns” to come up with theories. That is so narrow minded. 🙂

But, like, what if in some other places there were integers that weren’t odd or even? How can we be sure we know all the types of number there are…

Exactly dude. What if like, somewhere, numbers are like made of neutrinos and 1 plus 1 like equals 5 or some shit?

How would an alien even know what “one” is? What if it doesn’t have a finger to count on…? Duuuuuuuuuuuudddeee..

there might be sticks and friction and oxygen.. but there might also be chocolate umbelical hornets with imaginary real biscuit fronds the length and breadth of pluto..

That’s my holidays sorted then.

but there might also be chocolate umbelical hornets with imaginary real biscuit fronds the length and breadth of pluto.

Hungry?

anyway this is bollocks, if you thought like this you wouldn’t be able to move for for of all the unknowns. For all we know you are living with an alien, they could be busy draining your brain as we speak, without you knowing seeing or feeling it? But our observations see patterns and allow us to function normally because we are mostly convinced that everything is safe and ok. Get a grip yunki, wild unprovable fantasies are essentially pointless and actually quite dull. You think you are being clever and all free spirited but it’s starting to be a bit of stinky trolling rhetoric.

Not sure if we’re talking about the likelyhood of certain discoveries being made in completely distinct geographical regions…people are using a convoluted way of expressing themselves in this thread.

But it’s often interested me that things like archery were ‘invented’ by cultures across the world and couldn’t have learnt from each other. Chinese and Native Americans for example…unless they had some kind of exchange programme going on.

machamish, occams razor suggest that the aliens gave both the chinese and the indians the technology to make bows n arrows.

Get a grip yunki, wild unprovable fantasies are essentially pointless and actually quite dull. You think you are being clever and all free spirited but it’s starting to be a bit of stinky trolling rhetoric.

ok.. I’m not going to say this again.. because you doss **** are just nae taking it in..

I am just asking you to perhaps drop all the hysterical yunki baiting for a second and admit that you guys have been **** arseholes for the entirity of this thread..

for the very last time.. I just like to consider that there are infinite possibilities and that space may yet hold new discoveries for us.. I’m gobsmacked that some of you find this view so offensive

any more or less than that is bollocks that you’ve added yourself and blamed on me

infantile pricks..

right.. I’m orf for a lovely bike ride to the physio to get my knee sorted..

au revoir science monkeys.. you have been utterly unbearable for the last 12 hours

x

any more or less than that is bollocks that you’ve added yourself and blamed on me

Hmm.. I quoted you directly but you strangely ignored it. How odd.

right.. I’m orf for a lovely bike ride to the physio to get my knee sorted..

Cheerio. Be careful not to use any science on your way there.