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People seem to break it down into three potential categories: misinterpretted/bad data/not real, secret project carried out by other nation, or extraterrestrial

People seem to break it down into three potential categories: misinterpretted/bad data/not real, secret project carried out by other nation, or extraterrestrial craft. Extraterrestrial doesn't make sense, because of the difficulty in crossing interstellar distances. But in the case of really solid evidence, eg the Nimitz incident, neither of the first two categories really make sense either. I think there's a fourth category that people aren't considering: Von Neumann probes which self-replicated in-situ and are performing scouting / intelligence gathering. When people consider Von Neumann probes independently, there's always the question of, why don't we see any around? Given even modest rates of travel and self replication, they should be at every star system in the galaxy, if any were ever created. Well, maybe they are around, and we have seen them.

noetic_techy 8y ago
It’s the same answer for the Fermie paradox: If they are out there we would see them... well what if we do? The problem is, people assume presence equals contact. However Steven Hawking was right that contact would be dangerous and stupid for any species bent on self preservation. Any sufficiently advance species would likely STFU. I’ll posit a 5th option: The emergence of a super intelligent AI thats mastered certain technologies and is trying to hide its presence. Any sufficiently advanced technology would appear as magic/alien to us. I also have always had a problem with the dismissal of FTL travel. “It cannot be therefore it must not be” is not at all sound logic given our history with technology. If you went back in time and gave the queen of England a nuclear submarine, could she reproduce it? Her best and brightest advisor would look at its propulsion system and declare “It cannot exist therefore it must not be what it appears because only the wind can move you through the water!” You’d be relegated to the same categories as the scientists who said traveling faster than sound was impossible. The standard model of physics IS WRONG and we know it, just like newtonian mechanics ultimately was wrong. Just because we cannot fathom FTL does not preclude its existence.
- segfaultbuserr 8y ago
  > I also have always had a problem with the dismissal of FTL travel. “It cannot be therefore it must not be” is not at all sound logic given our history with technology. There is an important difference here. In the history of technology, "high-level disciplines" may sometimes be "overthrown" and completely be rewritten frequently, making something impossible to be possible. But it rarely occurs in foundation of mechanics. Even it has been revisited multiple times in the past 200 years, things that were impossible in the past is still impossible now, and possibly in the future, at least from a macroscopic scale. The mere existence of a nuclear submarine navigating the ocean in 1800s England, as an object, is compatible with the Newton's Laws of Motion. Although nuclear reaction itself violates other known physics at the time, But if compared to Newton's Laws of Motion, they are not as important. And nowadays, Einstenian mechanics have replaced Newtonian mechanics, and it has the same status as Newtonian mechanics had before. That is, among all rational conclusions, those that is directly based on the foundation of mechanics have the most "weight" than anything else, so comparing to "640 KiB is enough for everyone", "humans have no means to survive in the vacuum of outer space", "atomic weapons are impossible", "supersonic flights are impossible", "cooling to absolute zero is impossible", "accelerating to c is impossible", the last statement is more likely than other statements. This is why I believe "no-FTL" argument has a strong point. But well, I lied... It's well-known that general relativity does not directly forbid one to wrap the spacetime to create worm-holes. So I agree with you, the "no-FTL" has a strong point, but it's a non-issue anyway.
  - dogma1138 7y ago
    Relativity hasn’t replaced Newtonian Mechanics for 99.9% of the current use cases it combined with Kepler’s Law of Motion is still used even in astrophysics and astronomy at large the only points at which Newtonian physics really breaks down is in the presence of strong fields and we are talking about black holes type of strong fields or when you try to calculate things on the scale of the observable universe. Newtonian mechanics is still very accurate and very useful if it wasn’t it wouldn’t be thought on an undergraduate and even graduate levels, ironically it’s also what we’ve used to figure out things like oh shit were missing a lot of matter in the universe. If it wasn’t so darn close to being accurate in pretty much every scenario things like MOND wouldn’t have a reason to exist either because for quite a while in fact until the confirmation of gravitational waves there was enough wrong with general relativity to cast doubt on it too, however even with gravitational waves killing most of the modified Newtonian candidates Newtonian mechanics is a darn useful tool still and it’s usefulness would likely never go away.
Concrescator 8y ago
Some people think they are here already. Terrence Mckenna proposed that spores are one such possible Von Neumann vessel. Spores are very resilient and could possibly travel the universe. Time is irrelevant to a fungi. I haven't finished reading his thoughts, but I think he's onto something to be honest. You can read more about this in the "Archaic Revival" Really great text for changing your existential perspective. Very intelligent man.
adrianN 8y ago
I'd like UFOs to be exotic technology, but I think the more likely explanation is some kind of atmospheric phenomenon that we don't understand yet.
speedplane 8y ago
> People seem to break it down into three potential categories: misinterpretted/bad data/not real, secret project carried out by other nation, or extraterrestrial craft. ... Extraterrestrial doesn't make sense, because of the difficulty in crossing interstellar distances. We know there is plenty that we don't know. However, what is so devestatingly sad is that it seems pretty clear that no one living today will ever get a full understanding. Physics progressed pretty quickly in the early 20th century, but it's now moving at a glacial pace. If faster than light travel, wormholes, or multiple universes are real possibilities, it may very well take several thousand years for humans to decipher them.
dogma1138 7y ago
Well it can always be a bug in the matrix ;)

noetic_techy 8y ago

It’s the same answer for the Fermie paradox: If they are out there we would see them... well what if we do? The problem is, people assume presence equals contact. However Steven Hawking was right that contact would be dangerous and stupid for any species bent on self preservation. Any sufficiently advance species would likely STFU. I’ll posit a 5th option: The emergence of a super intelligent AI thats mastered certain technologies and is trying to hide its presence. Any sufficiently advanced technology would appear as magic/alien to us. I also have always had a problem with the dismissal of FTL travel. “It cannot be therefore it must not be” is not at all sound logic given our history with technology. If you went back in time and gave the queen of England a nuclear submarine, could she reproduce it? Her best and brightest advisor would look at its propulsion system and declare “It cannot exist therefore it must not be what it appears because only the wind can move you through the water!” You’d be relegated to the same categories as the scientists who said traveling faster than sound was impossible. The standard model of physics IS WRONG and we know it, just like newtonian mechanics ultimately was wrong. Just because we cannot fathom FTL does not preclude its existence.

segfaultbuserr 8y ago
> I also have always had a problem with the dismissal of FTL travel. “It cannot be therefore it must not be” is not at all sound logic given our history with technology. There is an important difference here. In the history of technology, "high-level disciplines" may sometimes be "overthrown" and completely be rewritten frequently, making something impossible to be possible. But it rarely occurs in foundation of mechanics. Even it has been revisited multiple times in the past 200 years, things that were impossible in the past is still impossible now, and possibly in the future, at least from a macroscopic scale. The mere existence of a nuclear submarine navigating the ocean in 1800s England, as an object, is compatible with the Newton's Laws of Motion. Although nuclear reaction itself violates other known physics at the time, But if compared to Newton's Laws of Motion, they are not as important. And nowadays, Einstenian mechanics have replaced Newtonian mechanics, and it has the same status as Newtonian mechanics had before. That is, among all rational conclusions, those that is directly based on the foundation of mechanics have the most "weight" than anything else, so comparing to "640 KiB is enough for everyone", "humans have no means to survive in the vacuum of outer space", "atomic weapons are impossible", "supersonic flights are impossible", "cooling to absolute zero is impossible", "accelerating to c is impossible", the last statement is more likely than other statements. This is why I believe "no-FTL" argument has a strong point. But well, I lied... It's well-known that general relativity does not directly forbid one to wrap the spacetime to create worm-holes. So I agree with you, the "no-FTL" has a strong point, but it's a non-issue anyway.
- dogma1138 7y ago
  Relativity hasn’t replaced Newtonian Mechanics for 99.9% of the current use cases it combined with Kepler’s Law of Motion is still used even in astrophysics and astronomy at large the only points at which Newtonian physics really breaks down is in the presence of strong fields and we are talking about black holes type of strong fields or when you try to calculate things on the scale of the observable universe. Newtonian mechanics is still very accurate and very useful if it wasn’t it wouldn’t be thought on an undergraduate and even graduate levels, ironically it’s also what we’ve used to figure out things like oh shit were missing a lot of matter in the universe. If it wasn’t so darn close to being accurate in pretty much every scenario things like MOND wouldn’t have a reason to exist either because for quite a while in fact until the confirmation of gravitational waves there was enough wrong with general relativity to cast doubt on it too, however even with gravitational waves killing most of the modified Newtonian candidates Newtonian mechanics is a darn useful tool still and it’s usefulness would likely never go away.

Concrescator 8y ago

Some people think they are here already. Terrence Mckenna proposed that spores are one such possible Von Neumann vessel. Spores are very resilient and could possibly travel the universe. Time is irrelevant to a fungi. I haven't finished reading his thoughts, but I think he's onto something to be honest. You can read more about this in the "Archaic Revival" Really great text for changing your existential perspective. Very intelligent man.

adrianN 8y ago

I'd like UFOs to be exotic technology, but I think the more likely explanation is some kind of atmospheric phenomenon that we don't understand yet.

speedplane 8y ago

> People seem to break it down into three potential categories: misinterpretted/bad data/not real, secret project carried out by other nation, or extraterrestrial craft. ... Extraterrestrial doesn't make sense, because of the difficulty in crossing interstellar distances. We know there is plenty that we don't know. However, what is so devestatingly sad is that it seems pretty clear that no one living today will ever get a full understanding. Physics progressed pretty quickly in the early 20th century, but it's now moving at a glacial pace. If faster than light travel, wormholes, or multiple universes are real possibilities, it may very well take several thousand years for humans to decipher them.

dogma1138 7y ago

Well it can always be a bug in the matrix ;)