boeing247 wrote on Aug 4^th, 2012 at 5:28am:

CoolP, you seem to have completely misinterpreted my point.  ;)

Apologies. But you should work on the better understanding for your readers. Well, you are not posting for yourself, right?


Quote:

My point was that, if life exists elsewhere, it wouldn't be [b]life as we know it[b], which means that it probably wouldn't be building spaceships to come visit us in.

I can't agree or disagree. I just don't know about the motives, regardless of the direction of thinking. So stating that they would travel is as wrong as stating the opposite. But that's the very nature of the unknown stuff and no news I guess.

I even think that 'spaceships' limits you on the thought level. We may call it traveling since it leaves open the ways of the actual process. I could also think of not doing it in person but sending surrogates in all directions. And some science fiction authors had a nice idea about, indeed, not traveling aliens but ones making sure that we develop in the lines they had in mind. Means that, sooner or later, we will come to them, not matter what.

Thoughts are free, that's the idea.


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I didn't talk about life as we know it, because the odds of that developing on other planets are nearly nonexistent,

Yes, you did state that before. And there's no problem with that Bram's theorem. It's just that you wanted to prove your point with using a more known name, of another theory (AP). But that special one just refers to life as we know it and the odds involved so it doesn't fit your more universal case.

Perhaps make more clear what you are talking about and cite other people's theories in full context if they are meant to support you.  :)


Quote:

But to give you an idea, The Physics Book (which is a great book, by the way), says that if the rapid expansion that occurred one second after the big bang had been one part in one thousand million million (not sure what number that's supposed to be) off, the Universe would either have collapsed in on itself, or would have expanded too rapidly for subatomic particles to form atoms.

Interesting. But I'm sure that the book calls it the big bang theory for a reason and I don't understand what the uniqueness of the assumed process is able to prove. Does it say 'only humans can come out of it?' or does it restrict life to a single planet? I haven't read that one but I doubt your book states anything like that.

I still have your sentence with the 'if we were the first life forms' in mind. How did you come to that thinking? That book? Doubts.


Besides, how would you personally justify any space programs looking for life on other planets or using large antennae arrays and a lot of computer power to just scan random signals for signs of intelligent transmissions? It's not like we send our spaceships out for developing PTFE coated cooking equipment as it seems.

And why did people at NASA, experts on their case, use such things and others? http://www.captainsim.org/yabb2/YaBB.pl?num=1343918518/14#14

You may like to read about the background and the people involved. Some of the names will surely be known as very intelligent persons with a scientific background. So how come they kept pushing the programs up to now? Dreaming? Or do they look 'at the odds' in a different way?  ::) Just asking because there's a lot of tax money involved and they usually have to justify exactly that.