Is humanity really ready for alien contact ?

[Hawken]

Is that actually possible though? Can information remain organised for long periods in that state?

The universe is a big place P. A very lot of unknowns out there.

Uncle Sam had a point and I was just expanding on it.

[Frank Merton]

Hrrmzzz, no, not really, they are as varied as our imaginations are:

People think "Different planet Musty be different" but what we all keep forgetting is not any planet can harbour life, and life needs the right conditions to meet intelligence. I feel that extraterrestrial life is going to shock everyone by being remarkably recognisable. If we ever see it.

A think even though religion is beginning to accept other life may exist it is still the stumbling block.

If you look closely you can see both of your creatures have human characteristics and characteristics of other animals we are already familiar with.

Religions are a waste of time when it comes to talking about things like this; at best they just confuse the issues.

[Frank Merton]

I figure if we see something living we will recognize it as such, even if it lives on a different time frame from ours. Of course, if we don't recognize it, we won't know we didn't recognize it. Some rock we kick may seem lifeless until it protests.

[Hawken]

Very good point on this segment of Star Trek

We have so much to learn about the universe.

http://youtu.be/kBwoEXlTph0?t=5m30s

Edited May 9, 2014 by Hawkin

[zoser]

http://youtu,be/kBwoEXITph0?t=5m30s

Very good point on this segment of Star Trek

We have so much to learn about the universe.

Bad link?

[Hawken]

Bad link?

Try again in post 79. I was having trouble typing the ulr

[zoser]

Try again in post 79. I was having trouble typing the ulr

Q was definitely one of the more entertaining characters in the New Generation.

Edited May 9, 2014 by zoser

[Hawken]

Q was definitely one of the more entertaining characters in the New Generation.

Whoever wrote that script for John De Lance's character to recite seem to know his stuff.

[Oppono Astos]

Whoever wrote that script for John De Lance's character to recite seem to know his stuff.

Well Gene Roddenberry was involved in Phyllis Schlemmer's channeling of the supposed Council of Nine...

[cuchulain]

I think we would be naive to assume that any civilization evolved enough to travel the unimaginable distances required would be doing so as a matter of exploration. It would have to be done through necessity, i.e. expansion of their habitable space, lack of natural resources or cataclysmic events at their point of origin.

We cannot think that other advanced beings have the same inmate curiosity human beings do as a matter of fact. However I think it is reasonable to assume that life elsewhere, like on Earth, has the natural instinct to reproduce and on a fundamental level, survive. Which would be an excellent reason for them to consume the valuable resources needed to travel to other life bearing worlds.

In short we would not be prepared for contact as it would likely entail at the very least sharing of our finite natural commodities if not giving them up entirely. Ultimately the decline of humanity.

I may may seen as pessimistic but it is a realistic and pragmatic view which should push us to prepare for such an event.

[Frank Merton]

I dunno about Q. I found him pedantic and tiresome and unbelievable. Not the actor; he did a good job; but the character and his lines. Also, as with many of the characters of the series, he changed as the series developed. He went from being a god-like character at first to something pathetic. This was fiction and so the characters once established should be allowed to evolve but we should see the reasons; here it just happened because it was convenient to the stories.

Oh well, I suppose this could happen when we make first contact -- they will seem godlike -- but then as we get to know more details the shine will diminish.

[cuchulain]

Will there be enough time though for the shine to diminish...

[TheGreatBeliever]

ya im ready do they whatsapp?

[Myles]

Oh boy. A discussion of how humanity would handle the news of aliens contact is now infected with Star Trek.

All down hill from here.

[Junior Chubb]

Oh boy. A discussion of how humanity would handle the news of aliens contact is now infected with Star Trek.

All down hill from here.

Exactly...

lets bring in some examples form Star Wars.

[Frank Merton]

Oh boy. A discussion of how humanity would handle the news of aliens contact is now infected with Star Trek.

All down hill from here.

I think scifi has more to say than we do if we pay attention. Their main job is to entertain but their audience is such that they can't get away with just entertaining as is with most media.

[Myles]

I think scifi has more to say than we do if we pay attention. Their main job is to entertain but their audience is such that they can't get away with just entertaining as is with most media.

sure they can.

[DONTEATUS]

Its why we have Kling-ons ! and Baby wipes Were Human afterall ! Now wipe that smirk off your faces !

[psyche101]

The universe is a big place P. A very lot of unknowns out there.

A lot of knowns too though. Enough to make educated guesses.

Uncle Sam had a point and I was just expanding on it.

But as I said, does he? Is it possible for information to remain organised under those conditions, and can something like that achieve sentience?

I am not sure if it is or not myself. I would not say "energy beings might be able to exist" because it's entirely possible that they cannot at all.

Edited May 12, 2014 by psyche101

[psyche101]

If you look closely you can see both of your creatures have human characteristics and characteristics of other animals we are already familiar with.

Not really, that's anthropomorphism, just eyes and appendages are common. Our minds do the rest. Just like dogs that look like their owners.

Religions are a waste of time when it comes to talking about things like this; at best they just confuse the issues.

Ohh I agree, at best, they are trying to serve two masters, the tradition of scripture, and the reality of science. That's never going to be easy.

I figure if we see something living we will recognize it as such, even if it lives on a different time frame from ours. Of course, if we don't recognize it, we won't know we didn't recognize it. Some rock we kick may seem lifeless until it protests.

We imagine life being so diverse that it can take such forms, but it cannot. If I was to kick a rock, and it was to protest, what is it going to do about it? Nature cannot and does not work that way. Such a living organism is not capable of moving, let alone attaining top predator under any condition.

[psyche101]

I think we would be naive to assume that any civilization evolved enough to travel the unimaginable distances required would be doing so as a matter of exploration. It would have to be done through necessity, i.e. expansion of their habitable space, lack of natural resources or cataclysmic events at their point of origin.

We cannot think that other advanced beings have the same inmate curiosity human beings do as a matter of fact. However I think it is reasonable to assume that life elsewhere, like on Earth, has the natural instinct to reproduce and on a fundamental level, survive. Which would be an excellent reason for them to consume the valuable resources needed to travel to other life bearing worlds.

In short we would not be prepared for contact as it would likely entail at the very least sharing of our finite natural commodities if not giving them up entirely. Ultimately the decline of humanity.

I may may seen as pessimistic but it is a realistic and pragmatic view which should push us to prepare for such an event.

That's not why we started stepping out. We have nothing to conquer on Mars or the moon and we extract no resources from them. Curiosity was our motivator.

Edited May 12, 2014 by psyche101

[Hawken]

A lot of knowns too though. Enough to make educated guesses.

But as I said, does he? Is it possible for information to remain organised under those conditions, and can something like that achieve sentience?

I am not sure if it is or not myself. I would not say "energy beings might be able to exist" because it's entirely possible that they cannot at all.

P, the reason why I'm open to possibilities (even though our human minds find it hard to comprehend) is something an elderly woman shared

with me. True Story. When she was a teen in school back in the 1940's, She was sitting in class and the teacher was talking about travel to the moon.

He told the class that it would be impossible to put man on the moon because there was no oxygen to breath. Well as you know, that impossibility

became a reality. Several times. You see the point I'm trying to make? Something might be inconceivable to us now but it could possible be conceivable

in the future. As a species we have managed to land man on the moon and send out probes to gather data but that's the very tip of the iceberg.

[psyche101]

P, the reason why I'm open to possibilities (even though our human minds find it hard to comprehend) is something an elderly woman shared

with me. True Story. When she was a teen in school back in the 1940's, She was sitting in class and the teacher was talking about travel to the moon.

He told the class that it would be impossible to put man on the moon because there was no oxygen to breath. Well as you know, that impossibility

became a reality. Several times. You see the point I'm trying to make? Something might be inconceivable to us now but it could possible be conceivable

in the future. As a species we have managed to land man on the moon and send out probes to gather data but that's the very tip of the iceberg.

Thanks for sharing that, these epiphany moments in life do shape our views, and yours is indeed a valid one, I must say though I feel like I have walked that path. I believed too many people, and found out that most of them were not telling the truth. Like your teacher, we have certain misconceptions that we promote as truths, as they seems so blatant and idiot could understand what we portray, yet tiny little things all around us prove our misconceptions wrong. As an example, I would cite Lord Kelvin. He said heavier than air flight is impossible, the papers loved the quote and spread it far and wide. Lord Kelvin did not open his eyes. All around us were birds, insects, seed dispersion happening all around us - heavier than air flight. How can something that happens everyday be impossible? We never learn, again. people said man cannot get past the speed of sound, cannot happen, yet the mantis shrimp does this all the time, as does a man made invention - the tip of a whip. It most certainly could be done. Fringe likes to make people think that is was thinking outside the box that solved the conundrums, it was not, it was men of science who also saw these examples in nature and said BS - look it happens. They refused to give up, they came up with ideas and experimented, then others took that work and expanded it - they stood on the shoulders of giants. And here we are with plasma tellies. It was not "an average joe" it was not fringe, it was the dogged determination of scientists who put nature before mans preconceptions. Examples in nature impress me a great deal, none exceed the speed of light, none cross space in a sound time frame, none say ET Is here. That is the mind of man, well, I cannot think of anything else, what could it be if not a higher power i.e. ET? The Zosers of the world are the Spanish inquisition. They want answers NOW, and that's how we got God. The shortcut to an answer - make it up. Science has taken centuries to overcome the mindset of man to finally be recognised as more valid than religion when it comes to explaining the world around us. Some see ET as an academic step up from God, it's not, it's a substitute.

Then of course some just like a story because it appeals to us. And we spread these tales of amusement. Like your teacher, other have certain misconceptions, some based in mirth altogether, ever heard about Neil Armstrongs neighbour? This one does the rounds just because it's funny, not an ounce of truth to it though.

When Apollo mission astronaut Neil Armstrong first walked on the moon, he not only gave his famous "one small step for [a] man, one giant leap for mankind" statement, but followed it by several remarks--[mostly the] usual COM traffic between him, the other astronauts, and mission control. Before he re- entered the lander, he made the enigmatic remark, "Good luck, Mr. Gorsky."

Many people at NASA thought it was a casual remark concerning some rival Soviet cosmonaut. However, upon checking, there was no Gorsky in either the Russian or American space programs.

Over the years, many people have question [Armstrong] as to what the "Good luck, Mr. Gorsky" statement meant. On July 5, in Tampa Bay, Florida, while answering questions following a speech, a reporter brought up the 26-year-old question to Armstrong. He finally responded. It seems that Mr. Gorsky had died and so Armstrong felt he could answer the question.

When he was a kid, Neil was playing baseball with his brother in the back yard. His brother hit a fly ball which landed in front of his neighbors' bedroom window. The neighbors were Mr. and Mrs. Gorsky. As he leaned down to pick up the ball, he heard Mrs. Gorsky shouting at Mr. Gorsky, "Oral sex? Oral sex you want? You'll get oral sex when the kid next door walks on the moon!"

I couldn't reach Neil Armstrong, not that I killed myself trying. However, NASA denied this story categorically and, I might say, somewhat huffily. (Guy didn't so much as chuckle when I read it to him. Whatsamatter, nobody appreciates a good ******* joke anymore?) Finally, not that it proves anything, this apparently first showed up on the Internet on rec.humor. But I personally believe every word, dangling participles and all.

LINK

Not sure how that will end up after censoring, but it's a great example to illustrate what I am saying. The same sort of false epiphany has been construed by media to say that Edgar Mitchell knows about aliens, he had is own samadhi in space, like your epiphany that led to a more open view, his led to one that made him aware that we are not alone. Read about Edgar's epiphany here LINK

I like to think we are at a the of development where we can validate questions instead of taking a guess at them. Traditionally, man is not so great at these guesses. And that is 100% what the ETH is. Space sys we cannot travel space, man is the one challenging nature, and I look forward to seeing how that goes. In the meantime, my money is sitting on mother nature.

Cheers.

Edited May 12, 2014 by psyche101

[kane9]

I can't help but think that actively trying to contact an extraterrestrial civilization is the rough equivalent of an uncontacted Amazonian tribe leaving a map to their village alongside a logging road. Pre-determining the motivations of an advanced, alien species seems dicy at best. It would even be an assumption that an alien contact would be with a biological entity. What would motivate an alien AI? I think that the best and maybe most likely outcome would be indifference on the part of an advanced alien civilization but who really knows.

[AtlantisRises]

I don't know if an Alien will necessarily be ready to meet us. We assume that anyone that happens upon the Earth will have been cruising through space for thousands of years and have seen everything and be used to seeing new lifeforms. But if life, particularly intelligent life, is as incredibly rare as seems likely then it is quite possible that we would be the first other species that the ETs have ever encountered. If they have been in space for a long time in generational space ships or something similar then who can know how they would react.

Assuming that we humans don't kill ourselves or end up in a technological recession, and also assuming that interstellar travel is actually possible, then at some stage, be it in 200 or 500 or 5,000 years we will head out into the stars in what ever way turns out to be possible. During those travels, assuming there is someone to find, we will eventually come across a planet with complex life on it. Perhaps intelligent, perhaps just starting to make fire or instigating an industrial revolution or even starting their own fledgling space program. The first time we encounter such a thing it is impossible to say how we will react. Will we have spent 1000 years travelling in space, reinforcing old religious beliefs related to our uniqueness and destroy the demons, will we try to assist them in their struggles and help them to live as comfortably and freely as possible. Or will we observe from afar and attempt to avoid their being able to detect us in an attempt to understand how another species evolves as a society.

I don't know. It is a very enjoyable thought exercise to speculate on but at the end of the day speculation is all that it is.