homocentric thinking is killing us.

[Skyskimmer]

Is it just me or homo sapien centric thinking is killing our imaginations. I mean in terms of populating the galaxy. People always get bummed out when there told it'll take thousands of years to see just a small part of the galaxy which does seem overwhelming.

However when you look at it in terms of life it's not overwhelming at all. It took humans about 10-20 thousand years to populate each continent that we know of. If homo habilis our ancestor 2-3 million years ago set out to the stars at 1/1000 th c, there would thousands of star systems with humanoids running arounds.

Now of course Homo habilis had no abilty to do such but from that prespective a genetically modifided humans could quite easily populate several hundred star systems within 100 thousand years.

I know this seems like some wierd science fiction idea, but so would us descending from monkeys 100 years ago in the south(jk).

 

[Skyskimmer]

Just to be clear I'm talking about explaining the size of our galaxy to people. Every day people, or in the class room.
Ironically we need to put these distances into human terms. Evolutionary terms I think would work best. As it's a time scale I think most people can think in, as it's far more relevant in time period than say geology, or distances of 10^45 km.

 

[kpstinga]

It's ANTHROPOCENTRIC, btw.

Anyway, why populate the galaxy with humans? to what purpose?

 

[Skyskimmer]

It's ANTHROPOCENTRIC, btw.

Anyway, why populate the galaxy with humans? to what purpose?

Why anything it's what we do. If you can't sell that aspect to people space will remain, an obscure interest for the rest of time. This is my point most people relate to knowledge in social terms, not abstract theorectical.

 

[csmyth3025]

Is it just me or homo sapien centric thinking is killing our imaginations. I mean in terms of populating the galaxy. People always get bummed out when there told it'll take thousands of years to see just a small part of the galaxy which does seem overwhelming...

Overwhelming indeed!. So, let's concentrate on selling the idea of populating the solar system for now. A thousand years from now people can debate the merits and practicality of populating other solar systems in our galaxy.

Chris

 

[Skyskimmer]

Is it just me or homo sapien centric thinking is killing our imaginations. I mean in terms of populating the galaxy. People always get bummed out when there told it'll take thousands of years to see just a small part of the galaxy which does seem overwhelming...

Overwhelming indeed!. So, let's concentrate on selling the idea of populating the solar system for now. A thousand years from now people can debate the merits and practicality of populating other solar systems in our galaxy.

Chris

I guess it's more or less a frustration with education and public outlook. In the sense you try to teach people about the galaxy and all we can do is cite Irrelavant numbers. It's a neurological cultural problem, not directly science based. You need to present the distance in ways that are relatable to humans, I think evolution is one that is the most human, and it there's alot of relavence between evolutinary events(comets solar flars) etc and were we are today.

 

[SpeedFreek]

It takes the light from the Sun over 8 minutes to reach us, but it takes the light from the other side of the galaxy 100,000 years.

 

[Skyskimmer]

It takes the light from the Sun over 8 minutes to reach us, but it takes the light from the other side of the galaxy 100,000 years.

I'll be sure to keep that in mind, thanks for the input

 

[bdewoody]

Is it just me or homo sapien centric thinking is killing our imaginations. I mean in terms of populating the galaxy. People always get bummed out when there told it'll take thousands of years to see just a small part of the galaxy which does seem overwhelming.

Did you mean see or seed? We can see it all now but it will take thousands of years to seed just the local star group.

 

[ZenGalacticore]

It's ANTHROPOCENTRIC, btw.

Anyway, why populate the galaxy with humans? to what purpose?

For the same reason that Presbyterians and Roman Catholics have large families:

To make more Presbyterians and Roman Catholics! (Catholics got us beat on that one.)

 

[Skyskimmer]

Is it just me or homo sapien centric thinking is killing our imaginations. I mean in terms of populating the galaxy. People always get bummed out when there told it'll take thousands of years to see just a small part of the galaxy which does seem overwhelming.

Did you mean see or seed? We can see it all now but it will take thousands of years to seed just the local star group.

I meant like see rome in person got loads of photo's here.

And expanding life and humanity would seem like a pretty noble goal, in my opinion, it's the whole point of life to live long and prosper . Now of course some people take that to the extreme and over expand at the expense of tomorrow but I'm talking about a great migration.

 

[adrenalynn]

idd fwiw

 

[bdewoody]

Is it just me or homo sapien centric thinking is killing our imaginations. I mean in terms of populating the galaxy. People always get bummed out when there told it'll take thousands of years to see just a small part of the galaxy which does seem overwhelming.

Did you mean see or seed? We can see it all now but it will take thousands of years to seed just the local star group.

I meant like see rome in person got loads of photo's here.

And expanding life and humanity would seem like a pretty noble goal, in my opinion, it's the whole point of life to live long and prosper . Now of course some people take that to the extreme and over expand at the expense of tomorrow but I'm talking about a great migration.

Oh I see, you mean see as in visit.

 

[StarRider1701]

Anyway, why populate the galaxy with humans? to what purpose?

Who or what would you populate the galaxy with, if not humans???

I realize there is no current science for it, but I still firmly beleive that we will discover or invent FTL drive sometime within the next few hundred years.

OH NO!!! :shock: I said FTL! That means MW will be consigning this thread to the deepest, darkest depths of... ssshhhh, whisper it, ... THE UNEXPLAINED. :lol: :lol: :lol:

 

[EarthlingX]

For humans is kinda natural to be anthropocentric, i think. At the end it doesn't really matter, since wherever we will go, life from Earth will come with us.

We are the means of Life to spread out in the Universe, with a couple of 'ifs'.

There is no need to go to other stars for expansion, plenty of room and material in our own star system, we just need to adapt to the new environments with our technology, as we do through out our history, starting with tools and fire.

Eventually we will go to other stars, but i would like to emphasize it one more time - our solar system is a big place and has many things to offer without any need for FTL.

Why ? Because it is in the nature of Life to grow, to push frontiers, and since we can, it's up to us.

 

[a_lost_packet_]

Humans are not wired for big numbers.

We really aren't. We're wired just right to understand daily activities, things relating to our immediate survival and maybe.. just maybe, we're wired tight enough to figure out correct change at the drive-thru.

But, beyond that, we're virtually clueless. With some practice, we can understand the significance of 100,000. With a bit more practice, we might even be able to deal with a million. But, that's our limit. After that, we're sort of just running on guesses and not a lot of real comprehension. In order to actually comprehend something, you must understand it. It takes years of intense practice to comprehend the significance of large numbers.

We have trouble imagining the distances involved when we're discussing other stars and even other planets in our own solar system. We fantasize about trips to other stars that only take thirty minutes or so on our favorite television shows, but that would take like hundreds of thousands, if not millions and billions of years to make the real journey. We just don't "get it."

It wasn't too long ago that a few hundred miles was an insurmountable distance for most people. Today, not so much. Today, we can just get in a car and go. But, if you break down, you're suddenly confronted with the realization that distance is truly meaningful.. and walking a few hundred miles would likely put you in the hospital long before you reached your goal.

When we eventually escape off this rock, we're still going to be walking, figuratively speaking. It will take us several hundred years of constant effort if we're ever to start truly utilizing the resources within our own solar system. I expect within that time we will have sent at least one manned exploration to another star system. But, it's probably going to take a fairly long time for us to benefit from the knowledge gained there and several hundred more years to begin any serious effort outside of our own solar system. Yes, they're all just guesstimates. I can only prognosticate so far. But, I'm willing to concede that it's very possible we won't see any of our fanciful notions of space travel and colonization for a thousand years or more.

Space is ginormous. It will take equally ginormous efforts in order to exploit it and equally ginormous advances in technology and capability in space for us to realize even a portion of its potential. If we're serious about it, we're going to have start coming to grips with very large numbers. It took us a couple of hundred-thousand years or more to get where we are today. That's just one planet.

 

[Skyskimmer]

For humans is kinda natural to be anthropocentric, i think. At the end it doesn't really matter, since wherever we will go, life from Earth will come with us.

We are the means of Life to spread out in the Universe, with a couple of 'ifs'.

There is no need to go to other stars for expansion, plenty of room and material in our own star system, we just need to adapt to the new environments with our technology, as we do through out our history, starting with tools and fire.

Eventually we will go to other stars, but i would like to emphasize it one more time - our solar system is a big place and has many things to offer without any need for FTL.

Why ? Because it is in the nature of Life to grow, to push frontiers, and since we can, it's up to us.

My personal opinion is that if hummanity has any hope what so ever within 1000 year we'll have atleast a trillion people in our solar system. If we span out at 1/1000 the speed of light on asteriod with solar sails(or whatever not the point) we'd be populated a few hundred stars long before we even evole into a new species of humanoid. That might seem like scifiction to some, but to me it's just the natural course of evolution, it took us 10k's of year to migrate across the world, that same arc shouldn't be so overwhelming in cosmos.