What about The Others?

[lo_res_man]

This thread is MEANT to discuss any questions and ponderings any people, and AGS users, might have,about aliens.  Lets say we finely meet some, what will we do then? Will they exterminate us, will they answer all our big problems? Will we even be able to understand them? Will they in any way be like us? Some say they will be benevolent, and I think that's bull. But I don't think they will be slavering monsters from beyond, cuz we are not slavering monsters and we've barely got our feet off the ground. AS a personal though I think they will likely be benevolent, TO THEMSELVES, but will be very resource hungry. But what are your thoughts? Are some  UFO's alien spacecraft? who knows? I think its most likely bogus, but hey I could be wrong. One thing that irks this Homo Sapiens is the common reason to live in harmony with the rest of the human race is... that we are all brothers. All well and good, FOR US. But what about when we meet something that is in no way related to us WHATSOEVER. What then? Does that give us license to kill them all, does it make them not PEOPLE?. These and other questions as they arise are what I hope to talk to you all about. SO get a chair and start typing, could be a long night.

[Nacho]

Unless they have "hyperspace technology" (Our knowleadge about physics tell us they don' t), or a very good cryogenization tech (and desires to be cryogenizated for zillion of years for trevelling in the space, our knowleadge about psycology tell us they don' t), or live for zillion years (Our knowleadge in biology tell us they don't), Aliens shouldn' t worry you.

[Radiant]

Recommended reading: Xenocide, by Orson Scott Card.

Recommended realization: in Star Trek, every alien is conveniently a human-sized biped with some silly make-up. Actual aliens are highly unlikely to look like any of that.

If they are "resource hungry", they have no reason to come here - on a galactic scale, there aren't any resources worth mentioning on planet Earth.

And, as Nacho says, they can't practically reach us. Astronomic physics tells us that interstellar travel takes decades or centuries. Now contrary to popular belief this does not mean "it can be done faster but we don't know how yet", but it means that it is, on a very deep level, completely and utterly impossible.

[lo_res_man]

yes I've read xenocide, great book, Enders game and the one were they discover ftl travel I didn't like the end of Enders game felt like it squashed two characters into one. anyway, ya its impractical, but that's not the wonderment. SF is based on the what  IF... question.. I actually liked the star trek human like aliens. okay sure yes its so wrong technically, but what it did do was make it easy for the aliens to be people, characters, not metaphors nor space goblins. and about ftl for real? Well according to the laws of physics, as we know them yes, complete bogus. but the atomic bomb would be complete bogus to a mid 19th century physicists, atoms after all were the "indivisible ones" and maybe not.   the Alcubierre drive is completely impractical at this point, but maybe there is a way of weakening space so that it bends more easily.

[Nikolas]

long night? It's day over here in London, and early morning in the States, and late afternoon in Japan. What night?!?!?!?!

I, personally and without any facts I could give to you, feel that most things out there have been "explained" and "discovered". There is sure no end to discovering new things and logic says that there could be a BANG! in science with something totally new, since either way, we are bassing everything we know to older stuff. Einstein did something like this. He decided that what he was taught was not enough so he came up with new stuff. I hear people frequently say that Einstein is wrong in lots of senses... Dunno.

Now about aliens. The one thing I know is that intelligence doesn't come in human or animal form. If there are aliens, or could be alines here as well, they could be completely out of phase with us humans or the human world.

A silly example: Humans have a range of hearing up to around 16,000 Hz. Dogs go higher, and thus the do wistles are not heard by humans but by dogs. Fair enough. What if there were sounds around... 1,000,000,000 Hz or something. What if there were communications going on at such high fq? They live their own high fq. world and we live ours. sound everywhere but nothing there to listen.

Same could be with vision. Or touch, or whatever.

Anyways, what I mean is that if there are aliens anywhere, they could somehow reach us, they wouldn't be of the physical matter that we are made, or carbon based, or whatever simmilar. We have too limited insight to what other things other there.

And actually, chemsitry, keeps coming up with theoritical, not natural new bodies (don't know the british word). You get oxygen, Helium, Hytrogen and X756 or something... which can be constructed.

In the end, I have 24 hours every day and have to deal with plenty of stuff either way. Until someone knocks on my door with tons of doubt or trouble, I'm sticking to my own problems for now...

[m0ds]

Cooool! I thought this was going to be a stupid Lost thread  :

Whatever happens, I'm hoping Will Smith will be there to help us through an invasion of any kind to shout convincingly witty remarks at aliens like HOPE YA GOT AIRBAG and WELCOME TO EARTH etc

I like Nikolas' theory about hz and stuff. I think it boils down far deeper than just sound too. Life being its own kind of frequency! But thats too deep and this isn't the thread about shrooms...but yes, I believe there are aliens out there and one day contact will be made. But Patrick Moore will probably miss it

At the moment I'm still convinced a lot of UFO's are time-machines, probably built by our human race sometime in the future. They don't crash anymore like Roswell because they know it'll mess stuff up, and we'll probably end up learning far more than we should far too soon, and ask too many questions!!I think Area 51 is probably just a testing facility for 4th dimension stuff. I can't remember what I was reading up on but there was that interesting stuff about that boat where they rigged it all up and apparently made it appear somewhere 40 years later, only all the crew merged into the walls & died and stuff, lol. Still the jist of that experiment seemed to be to me that it was really easy, and scientists could do it without many problems. But it could just be a load of bull

Finally, aliens or no aliens, who's to say we aren't the master race, the master planet? We are fudging lucky thats for sure But, the perfection of our eclipses just make me feel a little on edge. In a good way though Interesting thread lo_res

[Shane 'ProgZmax' Stevens]

Aliens probably have better things to do than float over a blue planet and randomly pick people up for dissection/study.  It's one of the many romantic notions that self-important humans have, really, that an alien is going to have enough interest in humans to start sticking things up their butts and down their throats. 

Communion/Fire in the Sky are just weird sex fantasy scenarios if you ask me!

[veryweirdguy]

Unless they have "hyperspace technology" (Our knowleadge about physics tell us they don' t), or a very good cryogenization tech (and desires to be cryogenizated for zillion of years for trevelling in the space, our knowleadge about psycology tell us they don' t), or live for zillion years (Our knowleadge in biology tell us they don't), Aliens shouldn' t worry you.

But Nacho...aren't you a Futurama fan? That was a documentary you know.

[Nacho]

In futurama time-space is not warped, they only move all the universe while the spaceships are stationary, foool!!!

And Mark... are you aware that time, according to the latest investigarions is like a pice of rubber, which can be pulled and pushed, but nothing else? We can' t travel in time, since time is attached to space. 

[MrColossal]

Mods: http://skepdic.com/philadel.html the Philadelphia Experiment, not really that amazing. Just some people being silly.

lo_res_man: http://www.wnyc.org/shows/radiolab/episodes/2004/06/25 give that show a listen. It's pretty interesting and halfway through they talk about extra terrestrials and the possibility or impossibility of meeting them.

[Darth Mandarb]

Given the sheer volume/vastness of space and time; I find it highly unlikely that any other civilizations have found us and/or are visiting us.

The analogy I usually make (when discussing this topic with friends - and yes, it happens quite often) is that if there were only two humans on the entire planet and they both spent their entire lives wandering around looking for eachother, the odds of them actually meeting are so incredibly remote it's not unreasonable to say, "it's impossible they'd ever meet".

Now multiply those (already astronomical) odds by a factor of several trillion (to account for the size/scale of the universe) and you've not even incresed the odds of finding another specie(s) somewhere out there in space by even 1%.

I'm totally convinced there are other species out there.  I just don't think we'll ever chance to meet them.

[nihilyst]

If there'll ever be an alien nation pestering the planets they visit ... it's probably us.

[Ghost]

I thought this would be about the movie starring Kidman and her face of stone.

Go ahead and read "The Mask" by Stanislav Lem. Not a SF story in the meaning of "aliens and starships", but one that shows how alien we ourselves can be to each other. I would not trust any alien to even wanting to visit us.

[Candall]

Cooool! I thought this was going to be a stupid Lost thread

I thought the same thing, but I was excited  :'(

I rather like LOST.

[lo_res_man]

I thought this would be about the movie starring Kidman and her face of stone.
Go ahead and read "The Mask" by Stanislav Lem. Not a SF story in the meaning of "aliens and starships", but one that shows how alien we ourselves can be to each other.

Oh I agree, I think each of us is locked in our own skulls, in absolute loneliness, struggling to make some kind communication, with among other things, modulated sound waves and meat sticks. The fact we communicate some portion of our souls/mind desires to others never ceases to amaze me. Its magic to me in the sense of inspiring wonder. If we do ever meet aliens, wether we make them ourselves through engineering or genetics, or meet them upon the yawning gulf of space, we are gonna have a hella time communicating with them. But if we do, I think that though they will not be human they will be people, with goals and loves and hates that will be all there own, and there will be something familiar too. They are most likely to still be organisms, despite all that 2001 monolith, science gods stuff. And organisms wether asexual or multisexual to a point beyond human comprehension, will still reproduce, still feed, still love still hate, even if they do it in ways we can't understand. They ,I hope, will be people. I also fear this. For we, with all our damning ways, are also people.

[voh]

I'm totally convinced there are other species out there.  I just don't think we'll ever chance to meet them.

I have the same conviction, though I don't share your belief that we'll ever meet. Our generation won't, of course, but what if, in time, radio technology evolves into something strong enough to reach 'the others'? What if they don't have the tech to pick it up? Good point, but what if they do?

It is impossible to say there are no aliens, and it's impossible to say there'll ever be a ping?/pong! between us and them.

In addition, I take slight offense to Nacho's first post.

Unless they have "hyperspace technology" (Our knowleadge about physics tell us they don' t), or a very good cryogenization tech (and desires to be cryogenizated for zillion of years for trevelling in the space, our knowleadge about psycology tell us they don' t), or live for zillion years (Our knowleadge in biology tell us they don't), Aliens shouldn' t worry you.

Our knowledge about phsyics tells us they don't have hyperspace technology? WRONG! Our knowledge about physics tells us WE don't have hyperspace technology. Our knowledge about phsycology tells us WE don't want to be cryogenized for zillions of years (and this is entirely debatable. If cryogenics were safe, there's always cooks and crazies willing to give up all they have for a chance at something new and exciting). And last, but not least, our knowledge about biology tells us WE don't live for zillions of years.

All these things say nothing about anything but ourselves and what WE know, based on OUR world and OUR rules concerning science.

There's no saying what other 'species' far out there may or may not have. You're extending knowledge we have about ourselves to supposed knowledge of others.

[Ghost]

And organisms wether asexual or multisexual to a point beyond human comprehension, will still reproduce, still feed, still love still hate, even if they do it in ways we can't understand. They ,I hope, will be people. I also fear this. For we, with all our damning ways, are also people.

Wise words indeed. Doesn't the "Uncertain Valley" principle imply that we fear most what is not us, but looks like us? I definitely enjoy your enthusiam, and I too think we are "not alone". Our universe is a good one for life to evolve. There are spores on Mars for example, that is already a different life form. But I find it a bit arrogant to discuss about us being able to comprehend alien life.
I spend my days working with multiple-disabled teens. They all are of my species. A good deal of them is of my gender. A few are even of my age. I wouldn't dare to say that I can even begin to comprehend *them* and their view on the world. Now how would I even start to understand a different species?

[MrColossal]

If cryogenics were safe, there's always cooks and crazies willing to give up all they have for a chance at something new and exciting)

The one thing all those crazies will need when they make contact in 5 million years with another species are cooks. Good idea to send them along!

[Nacho]

Eric... How can you have this attitude in this thread towards space travelling? Ain' t you the living evidence that time travels are possible?

[lo_res_man]

I sometimes ponder whatever other forms of  intelligent tool using life forms could  take. Some of my faves are centaur like ( think of the advantages, hands and your fast) it allows for diverse body plans from praying mantises, lobsters and crabs, to elephants. (yes I think of elephants as centurion life-forms. Why? Trunks=hands) On a world with high air pressure, I imagine something of a crovid nature would develop perhaps. that is a winged tool user that uses its beak as much as its claws.
oh and actually the uncanny valley is actually when something looks ALMOST like us. when it acts ALMOST like us. want a good example? Most modern 3d game cutsceings and
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