Contact with ET: How would humanity react?

[Admin]

The knowledge that we're not alone in the universe could have far-reaching effects on our view of ourselves and our place in the universe. But it's tough to get more specific than that.

Contact with ET: How would humanity react? : Read more

 

[rod]

E.T. keeps trying to phone home

I read this report today. 10 incredible findings about aliens, https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/tech...cvid=626eec913c6b41708053601f05da58b8#image=1

It amuses me to read popular science reports like this. Just look at the title, *10 incredible findings about aliens*. Here is a fact of science. No one has demonstrated biological life on any planet in our solar system or among the stars, other than here on Earth so we really have no incredible findings about aliens Today we have some very good exoplanet sites documenting confirmed examples. http://exoplanet.eu/ showing 5192 exoplanets orbiting 3830 unique stars. https://exoplanetarchive.ipac.caltech.edu/index.html site shows 5171 confirmed exoplanets found orbiting 3870 unique stars, unique names eliminate duplicates in the lists. In the early 1930s, we had about 10^21 stars in the universe, e.g., de Sitter papers on cosmology. Today if you use Google search, perhaps 2 x 10^23 or 10^23 stars, may be some 10^24 stars. Out of the more than 5,000 exoplanets documented now, how many have atmosphere composition studied, confirmed, and surface temperatures? 120 - http://research.iac.es/proyecto/exoatmospheres/index.php

I find it good to keep facts like this in mind when reading reports promoting belief in aliens in the press, somewhere in the universe today

 

[billslugg]

Executive summary of the Ten Incredible Findings:
- Aliens might exist
- Radio signals from Proxima Centauri might be from aliens
- They might live in the clouds of Venus
- Oumuamua might have been sent by aliens
- Omaha Steaks lobster tails 6 pieces 5 oz per piece
- Declassified UFO videos might be aliens
- Milky Way might be teeming with ocean worlds hosting aliens
- Earth bugs breathe hydrogen, alien bugs might also
- Life might live around black holes
- There are 1000's of places might be
- Why did Phil Mickelson leave?
- Most aliens might be dead
- We might should keep an open mind

 

[rod]

"- We might should keep an open mind"

I am interested in reports like this. Space.com opens with "The knowledge that we're not alone in the universe could have far-reaching effects on our view of ourselves and our place in the universe. But it's tough to get more specific than that."

Turning this thinking around, what will happen to the scientific community and others if Earth is the only place in the universe where biological life and intelligent biological life exists? What *far-reaching effects* could this knowledge have?

So far, I do not see reporting like this. When it comes to being open minded about aliens in the universe, Tycho Brahe was not opened minded about Copernicus and others challenged the heliocentric solar system, thus those scientists needed to show that Earth moved around the Sun before they could win the debate between geocentric vs. heliocentric solar system.

I was taught that the scientific method requires rigorous testing and the ability to falsify an argument, not just keep an open mind about claims about nature or the universe. However, media reports in others seem to practice an open-minded approach when it comes to E.T. phoning home today.

 

[billslugg]

There are 100 billion stars in each of 100 billion galaxies in the universe. There are undoubtedly billions upon billions of intelligent civilizations. The distances involved are immense however, which greatly limits potential contact between them. I think we might detect potential life within the next decade, given the rate at which our telescopes are improving. Stay tuned.

 

[Unclear Engineer]

I am waiting to see if there is any indication that life developed on Mars. Mars seems to be the one place that we can actually visit to look for signs of it. If it developed there and died out, it still means that there is a high probability of it developing in places that are warm and wet, but otherwise not having all the other attributes of Earth.

I don't think I will live long enough for humans to actually visit any of the giant planet moons that might have very non-terrestrial types of life in very non-terrestrial environments. But, if something like that is found, it would up the probability of life developing in other planetary systems by a huge amount.

As for alien technological societies, that is another factor in the Drake Equation that we would have to contend with at great levels of uncertainty. How long does it take to develop? Does it require a very stable environment for a very long time? Or, does it require a changing environment that fosters intelligence to deal with it? Does it require a "Goldie Locks" environment that is just challenging enough to require intelligence to survive, but not so challenging that the probability of survival long enough to develop technology is vanishingly small?

Personally, I expect that life will be found to initiate in places like Mars once was, and perhaps other places that are much different. But, even a technological society might never realize that there is a whole galaxy outside their environment if that environment has a dense, cloudy atmosphere, or maybe a planet-wide ocean that has no land above the liquid surface. And, on more massive planets with thick atmospheres, even using balloon technology to get high enough to see the stars might still leave the inhabitants unable to get space ships out of the atmosphere and the strong gravity well into space, even to a low orbit moon, if they are lucky enough to have such a low-hanging target.

So, I divide this issue into 2 steps: (1) life elsewhere, and (2) technological development elsewhere. I hope to see the first step reach a positive conclusion in my lifetime. But, I expect that the second step my not have an answer in an extremely long time.

 

[Helio]

Executive summary of the Ten Incredible Findings:
- Aliens might exist
- Radio signals from Proxima Centauri might be from aliens
- They might live in the clouds of Venus
- Oumuamua might have been sent by aliens
- Omaha Steaks lobster tails 6 pieces 5 oz per piece
- Declassified UFO videos might be aliens
- Milky Way might be teeming with ocean worlds hosting aliens
- Earth bugs breathe hydrogen, alien bugs might also
- Life might live around black holes
- There are 1000's of places might be
- Why did Phil Mickelson leave?
- Most aliens might be dead
- We might should keep an open mind

I like 12 of those 10.

 

[Helio]

"- We might should keep an open mind"

I am interested in reports like this. Space.com opens with "The knowledge that we're not alone in the universe could have far-reaching effects on our view of ourselves and our place in the universe. But it's tough to get more specific than that."

Turning this thinking around, what will happen to the scientific community and others if Earth is the only place in the universe where biological life and intelligent biological life exists? What *far-reaching effects* could this knowledge have?

That’s too hard to imagine. That much real estate and no life? It’s a little easier for me to assume a lot of gardens and wonders await the diligent.

So far, I do not see reporting like this. When it comes to being open minded about aliens in the universe, Tycho Brahe was not opened minded about Copernicus and others challenged the heliocentric solar system, thus those scientists needed to show that Earth moved around the Sun before they could win the debate between geocentric vs. heliocentric solar system.

I was taught that the scientific method requires rigorous testing and the ability to falsify an argument, not just keep an open mind about claims about nature or the universe.

Yes, and those tests have been applied as much as possible as in some cases such as the worm-like fossil from Mars.

Galileo falsified Ptolemy’s Geocentric model. He originally taught thus model but was open-minded to Tycho’s and Cop’s models. He quickly dropped Tycho’s without much mentioning why, but this model is more a contraption than a model. Cop’s model presented a level of unification that gave it the elegance favored in science. But it took time to accept that the stars were too far for any measurable parallax. This was made worse because Tycho, greatest pre-telescope astronomer ever, argued that the brighter stars had greater radiu. This would make those stars unimaginably large. He failed, however, to test how the eye handles different intensities of point sources.

But just as it took a telescope to falsify Ptolemy.l, so too will better and better instruments be needed to falsify any no-life elsewhere hypothesis.

However, media reports in others seem to practice an open-minded approach when it comes to E.T. phoning home today.

Yeah. Fast and loose, all too often. I still get a kick out of recalling the time I watched my neighbor launch something that produced a UFO report on the local radio station we were listening to. [Also, those were my worse use of preposition days, as well, Cat *wink*]

 

[rod]

Helio post #8 brings up some interesting points. Helio said, "That’s too hard to imagine. That much real estate and no life? It’s a little easier for me to assume a lot of gardens and wonders await the diligent."

When it comes to scientific testing, how many negative test results are required to falsify the above thinking about life somewhere else in the universe? My opinion, no matter how many negative tests are reported (and this needs to be shown to the public too, all the failed tests), the life is somewhere else in the universe paradigm can never be shown false, only views like mine apparently Galileo observations of the tiny lights at Jupiter moving around Jupiter never demonstrated that the Earth moved around the Sun. So far, all searches for biological life on other worlds remains unconfirmed including ALH84001 meteorite said to be from Mars. So rather than media hype and a belief system presented over and over again as science to the public, confirm these claims by showing necessary demonstration in nature that biological life is located somewhere else in the universe, other than what we plainly see here on Earth. At the same time, make a list of all the failed experiments and plainly disclose like I can see for the confirmed exoplanet sites. That includes all failed abiogenesis experiments (hint, all such tests fail) done since the 1950s.

 

[Unclear Engineer]

Logically, it is not possible to prove a negative, so no number of negative findings for life on specific locations elsewhere will absolutely prove that it arose nowhere but on Earth.

However, objectively, there is a datum that life occurs in the one place that we know is "just like Earth", namely here, on Earth itself. So, we have a sample of one positive already.

Thus, the objective question is whether life occurs only on Earth in the entire universe.

Until we have found multiple other places that are "just like Earth" and have determined that there is no life on any of them after a thorough search, the objective odds will remain that there is probably life elsewhere.

On the other hand, finding any sort of life, or its remnants, anywhere else in the universe would falsify a theory that life arose nowhere but on Earth.

So, we have some reasonable hope to falsify a theory that Earth is the only site of life in the universe, but we have no hope of falsifying a theory that life exists somewhere in the universe that we have not yet completely searched.

 

[rod]

Logically, it is not possible to prove a negative, so no number of negative findings for life on specific locations elsewhere will absolutely prove that it arose nowhere but on Earth.

However, objectively, there is a datum that life occurs in the one place that we know is "just like Earth", namely here, on Earth itself. So, we have a sample of one positive already.

Thus, the objective question is whether life occurs only on Earth in the entire universe.

Until we have found multiple other places that are "just like Earth" and have determined that there is no life on any of them after a thorough search, the objective odds will remain that there is probably life elsewhere.

On the other hand, finding any sort of life, or its remnants, anywhere else in the universe would falsify a theory that life arose nowhere but on Earth.

So, we have some reasonable hope to falsify a theory that Earth is the only site of life in the universe, but we have no hope of falsifying a theory that life exists somewhere in the universe that we have not yet completely searched.

One problem I see here is that the geocentric teachers were under no obligation to accept that the Earth moved around the Sun until necessary demonstration from nature showed this, that is how the science methodology worked. Applying to life somewhere else in the universe other than here on Earth, the central tenet required for this paradigm as science is abiogenesis for the origin of life. Like the Earth moving around the Sun, abiogenesis must meet the same standard of science verification and be shown true in nature.

So, in my view two critical tests are required for life somewhere else in the universe paradigm to be as secure in science as the Earth moves around the Sun. 1. Show that life is out there somewhere, that is biological life with DNA and cell structure in the past or present. At some point, this must be established as true in science and nature supports this, not just endless claims that it must be true.

2. Show that abiogenesis is the correct and factual explanation for the origin of biological life. This is a central tenet of the Drake equation I feel.

So, I will be like Tycho Brahe now. Show me in nature your paradigm is true, otherwise I move on

 

[Unclear Engineer]

Rod, you can "move on" whenever you desire. What I do with unproven theories is to look at them probabilistically. I can entertain multiple theories and more or less rank them with my own deductions/opinions about their relative credibility/probability of being true. When new info becomes available, I just "recalculate" my probabilities. I don't rule anything out unless there is proof that it can be ruled out. I don't feel a need to believe one possibility/plausability to the exclusion of others.

Regarding abiogenesis: Yes, if we can prove that is how life came to be here, then that does increase the probability the life also came to be somewhere else similar to here.

But, finding life elsewhere is not inconsistent with religious beliefs about "creation", nor the more recent musings about our universe being an experiment by an extremely powerful species, or even a computer simulation. The question just becomes whether that powerful species is replicating its experiments or whether the creator of our simulation can resist making more than just one simulation version.

No matter how you want to think about it, there seems to be no available logic or proof that there cannot be some life somewhat like us somewhere else in the universe. So, looking for it makes scientific sense.

 

[rod]

"No matter how you want to think about it, there seems to be no available logic or proof that there cannot be some life somewhat like us somewhere else in the universe. So, looking for it makes scientific sense."

Applying what Unclear Engineer said here in post #12 to the geocentric vs. heliocentric solar system debate, the heliocentric view had to demonstrate in nature that indeed, the Earth was moving around the Sun. I apply the same standard to claims the universe has some form of biological life populating other locations. Looking for such life can be viewed as a science search, but the model used must be supported by factual observation in nature - at some point, otherwise we could still have the flat earth model taught in science classes today and that the Earth does not move around the Sun. You must provide necessary demonstration from nature that biological life is out there somewhere other than here on Earth. So, far this remains to be confirmed as fact like the heliocentric solar system model.

I will use the term, heliocentric certainty here. That is the level of verification needed to show biological life exists somewhere else in the universe today other than here on Earth. Presently the teaching does not qualify as science validated and determined with heliocentric certainty, abiogenesis does not either.

 

[Ed Stauffer]

“These are not the droids you are looking for. “ this message was paid for by governments everywhere.

 

[Helio]

Applying what Unclear Engineer said here in post #12 to the geocentric vs. heliocentric solar system debate, the heliocentric view had to demonstrate in nature that indeed, the Earth was moving around the Sun.

Yes, “necessary demonstration” was the phrase Bellarmine (1616) expressed of Galileo to argue for any model contrary to the Geocentric one that had survived 2000 years of favorability, though serious tweaks were needed to be useful. Since Galileo had already falsified this model (~Dec 1610), but not the Tychonic model, he falsely assumed he could prove the Cop model.

He stumbled by not only using, erroneously, tides for proof, but he also attacked the Pope’s view. Trying to “prove” any theory is problematic, but embarrassing the boss makes things worse. This got him permanent house arrest.

What Galileo should have done, IMO, is apply Kepler‘s eccentric model to produce a superior math model. The Aristotle/Ptolemy/Thomist model was very limited in being a physical expression, but it served as a math model in predicting astrological events.

Galileo, as did Cop, could argue gravity as the key, making the Cop model superior to any Geocentric one. The strong unification aspects of Cop’s physical/math model, when tweaked with eccentricity, could sway the leadership to allow it, in time, I think.

 

[Helio]

My point got deleted, accidentally. Abiogenesis is a supposition, not a hypothesis, unless it makes specific testable predictions. I don’t think it does.

But evolution theory gives it some credibility; from something little to big.

Cop’s model was always the more scientifically favorable, and for similar reasons m, so too is the supposition of abiogenesis compared to any supernatural one.

Ultimately, however, a Creator becomes the more reasonable answer to creation, vs. something from nothing.

 

[billslugg]

Except who created the Creator? Or is it: "Creators all the way down"?

 

[publiusr]

I don’t think most people would care if Shostak had squiggles on a graph…I’m sorry to say.

 

[Helio]

Except who created the Creator? Or is it: "Creators all the way down"?

Yeah, there’s that issue. If tens of millions of claims, however, of only one, and many of these claims lie between being subjective and objective arguments, then can science lean one way or the other?

I think that it shouldn’t lean, thus requiring objective arguments to be testable, separating itself from both religion and philosophy.