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>But the existence of aliens would in no way contradict any physical laws or scientific consensus. The existence of aliens, sure. But the presence of aliens on

>But the existence of aliens would in no way contradict any physical laws or scientific consensus. The existence of aliens, sure. But the presence of aliens on Earth pretty much does. There's no reason to think FTL travel is possible, and it's economically unreasonable to think some species is going to invest in generation ships to cross the great interstellar gulfs just so that they can fuck around with pilots and anally probe hayseeds.

ElFitz 4y ago
That would probably depend on the scale. I'm pretty sure, to the extent they could imagine anything, ants would find it unimaginable and economically absurd for any creature to spend monstrous (to them) amounts of energy just to fuck around with them 10 minutes and then leave. For us, it's just another 5 years old.
- wpietri 4y ago
  Sure, if we imagine that there are gods, then we can imagine that they would be superior to us in interesting ways. Imagination's neat like that.
  - danenania 4y ago
    We don't have to 'imagine' aliens though. We can deduce from the size of the galaxy/universe and the fact that we ourselves exist that they are at least reasonably likely to exist, and some of them are reasonably likely to be more advanced than us. There is no similar chain of logical deduction based on empirically observed facts that can lead you to the existence of gods or ghosts or demons. Aliens are not like 'gods', they are like black holes after we realized they probably exist but before we found physical evidence for them.
    - wpietri 4y ago
      There is absolutely zero data on the presence of life in the universe. You are imagining that life out there. Which is fine! I sometimes imagine it too. It's fun to imagine, but we are just filling in gaps with imagination. As an example, note that people imagined life on Mars based on "evidence". Life with canals and everything. [1] But once our telescopes got better, those same alien civilizations got pushed back just out of their range. A process strikingly similar to what religious people do with gods, angels, etc. There's also no real data on where the universe comes from, so they can imagine that it is due to god(s). God used to be on a high mountain, or just above the sky. But like the Martians, He has had to up sticks and move to loftier realms. I'll also note that some of the alien-imaginers use exactly your reasoning to derive gods. Statistically, aliens must exist, and they must have existed long before us, and they must therefore be so technologically advanced that UFOs are real and we can't prove it just because they are so superior. Or, alternatively, that those aliens caused us in one way or another, from shaping our evolution to seeding our planet to creating the universe. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Martian_canals https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Martian_canals
      - danenania 4y ago
        According to your reasoning, black holes, neutron stars, and gravitational waves were also like gods and angels before we found physical evidence for them. This is a weak argument. You can doubt the existence of intelligent aliens. But they obviously aren’t in the same category as religious beliefs. On the other hand, assuming we are somehow special and must be the only intelligent life is quite in line with religious thinking. We do have data on life in the universe: earth. Very few natural phenomena occur a single time and never again. Apart from early universe events like the big bang and expansion, I can’t think of an example.
        wpietri 4y ago
        > According to your reasoning, black holes, neutron stars, and gravitational waves were also like gods and angels before we found physical evidence for them. This is a weak argument. Nah. All of those were things that there were specific reason to believe based on theory and evidence. But it can be a fine line. Look at how quickly quantum mechanics went from abstruse high theory to being used to support absolute woo. [1] Or look at how black holes went from interesting mathematical concept to magic plot device. [2] Do I grant the theoretical possibility of intelligent life somewhere? Sure, and I never said otherwise. Do I believe it's a lock? Not at all. If we somehow survey the universe and discover we are alone, then our theories will adjust just fine. There is no evidence to the contrary to be overcome. So yes, in terms of an explanatory device for phenomena observed on earth, aliens and gods are in exactly the same category of "unevidenced anthropomorphic agents that people have been inappropriately using as explanations for millennia". Because people are like that. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quantum_mysticism https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quantum_mysticism [2] e.g.: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Black_Hole_(1979_film) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Black_Hole_(1979_film)
        danenania 4y ago
        Again, according to your argument, because some people employ quantum physics in pseudoscience and woo, that makes quantum physics like religion. Sorry, you’re just wrong. The possibility of intelligent aliens is on firm scientific ground, which is why we have projects like SETI running. Aliens aren’t like gods or angels, regardless of how many times you repeat it. Certain people might treat them that way, just like people abuse all kinds of scientific concepts. That doesn’t merit a categorical dismissal.
anon7725 4y ago
> There's no reason to think FTL travel is possible This seems like fairly closed thinking. We’ve observed strange behavior at the quantum level. We have plausible theories of wormholes and multiverses. It’s conceivable that some civilization has assembled FTL travel from these and other natural phenomena yet unknown. > it's economically unreasonable to think some species is going to invest in generation ships We’re working on AI and we can sequence DNA. A sufficiently advanced civilization could send a ship that can synthesize its crew upon arrival. We have observed quantum entanglement. Perhaps information can travel faster than light and all you need to send physically is the equivalent of a quantum modem attached to a Star Trek replicator.
- wpietri 4y ago
  This is exactly how the spiritualists sounded in their day. They had facially plausible theories of the phenomena they claimed to observe with no actual evidence described in ways that fit in with the gaps in understanding of the moment. I too consume a lot of science fiction, but it's important to remember that it's just writers making shit up. Perhaps FTL is possible. Perhaps angel are real. Both are things people want to believe in, and both have facially plausible literary explanations, but they have equally good scientific evidence at the moment.
  - krageon 4y ago
    The fact that there is no way to know means that at most we should say "no idea". It is also the least knowledge we should pretend to have on the subject.
    - wpietri 4y ago
      Well, we do have some idea. Take gods. Even most theists don't believe in most gods. An atheist, as the saying goes, is just a person who disbelieves in one more god than average. In theory, everybody has to admit that all gods are possible. Does Zeus exist? No idea. Does Bast exist? No idea. Does Yahweh exist? No idea. It's not like we can prove that they aren't out there somewhere. But what we do know is that a lot humans have made up a lot of gods. We know that people make up and believe in all sorts of things with no evidence at all. So if something fits the same pattern, then we actually have reasonable evidence that it's just another one of those things. So in a world of people who will take "no idea" as permission to rant more about their theory of chemtrails or ZOG or how the true Messiah lives in a heavily fortified compound outside of Waco, TX, I think an honest and accurate "no idea" isn't enough. Would that it were.
ikrenji 4y ago
until there is a theory of everything i don't think its reasonable to rule out the possibility of FTL travel. even physicists got all worked up few years ago when they detected FTL neutrinos at CERN (which turned out to be a sensor malfunction but still)

ElFitz 4y ago

That would probably depend on the scale. I'm pretty sure, to the extent they could imagine anything, ants would find it unimaginable and economically absurd for any creature to spend monstrous (to them) amounts of energy just to fuck around with them 10 minutes and then leave. For us, it's just another 5 years old.

wpietri 4y ago
Sure, if we imagine that there are gods, then we can imagine that they would be superior to us in interesting ways. Imagination's neat like that.
- danenania 4y ago
  We don't have to 'imagine' aliens though. We can deduce from the size of the galaxy/universe and the fact that we ourselves exist that they are at least reasonably likely to exist, and some of them are reasonably likely to be more advanced than us. There is no similar chain of logical deduction based on empirically observed facts that can lead you to the existence of gods or ghosts or demons. Aliens are not like 'gods', they are like black holes after we realized they probably exist but before we found physical evidence for them.
  - wpietri 4y ago
    There is absolutely zero data on the presence of life in the universe. You are imagining that life out there. Which is fine! I sometimes imagine it too. It's fun to imagine, but we are just filling in gaps with imagination. As an example, note that people imagined life on Mars based on "evidence". Life with canals and everything. [1] But once our telescopes got better, those same alien civilizations got pushed back just out of their range. A process strikingly similar to what religious people do with gods, angels, etc. There's also no real data on where the universe comes from, so they can imagine that it is due to god(s). God used to be on a high mountain, or just above the sky. But like the Martians, He has had to up sticks and move to loftier realms. I'll also note that some of the alien-imaginers use exactly your reasoning to derive gods. Statistically, aliens must exist, and they must have existed long before us, and they must therefore be so technologically advanced that UFOs are real and we can't prove it just because they are so superior. Or, alternatively, that those aliens caused us in one way or another, from shaping our evolution to seeding our planet to creating the universe. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Martian_canals https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Martian_canals
    - danenania 4y ago
      According to your reasoning, black holes, neutron stars, and gravitational waves were also like gods and angels before we found physical evidence for them. This is a weak argument. You can doubt the existence of intelligent aliens. But they obviously aren’t in the same category as religious beliefs. On the other hand, assuming we are somehow special and must be the only intelligent life is quite in line with religious thinking. We do have data on life in the universe: earth. Very few natural phenomena occur a single time and never again. Apart from early universe events like the big bang and expansion, I can’t think of an example.
      - wpietri 4y ago
        > According to your reasoning, black holes, neutron stars, and gravitational waves were also like gods and angels before we found physical evidence for them. This is a weak argument. Nah. All of those were things that there were specific reason to believe based on theory and evidence. But it can be a fine line. Look at how quickly quantum mechanics went from abstruse high theory to being used to support absolute woo. [1] Or look at how black holes went from interesting mathematical concept to magic plot device. [2] Do I grant the theoretical possibility of intelligent life somewhere? Sure, and I never said otherwise. Do I believe it's a lock? Not at all. If we somehow survey the universe and discover we are alone, then our theories will adjust just fine. There is no evidence to the contrary to be overcome. So yes, in terms of an explanatory device for phenomena observed on earth, aliens and gods are in exactly the same category of "unevidenced anthropomorphic agents that people have been inappropriately using as explanations for millennia". Because people are like that. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quantum_mysticism https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quantum_mysticism [2] e.g.: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Black_Hole_(1979_film) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Black_Hole_(1979_film)
        danenania 4y ago
        Again, according to your argument, because some people employ quantum physics in pseudoscience and woo, that makes quantum physics like religion. Sorry, you’re just wrong. The possibility of intelligent aliens is on firm scientific ground, which is why we have projects like SETI running. Aliens aren’t like gods or angels, regardless of how many times you repeat it. Certain people might treat them that way, just like people abuse all kinds of scientific concepts. That doesn’t merit a categorical dismissal.

anon7725 4y ago

> There's no reason to think FTL travel is possible This seems like fairly closed thinking. We’ve observed strange behavior at the quantum level. We have plausible theories of wormholes and multiverses. It’s conceivable that some civilization has assembled FTL travel from these and other natural phenomena yet unknown. > it's economically unreasonable to think some species is going to invest in generation ships We’re working on AI and we can sequence DNA. A sufficiently advanced civilization could send a ship that can synthesize its crew upon arrival. We have observed quantum entanglement. Perhaps information can travel faster than light and all you need to send physically is the equivalent of a quantum modem attached to a Star Trek replicator.

wpietri 4y ago
This is exactly how the spiritualists sounded in their day. They had facially plausible theories of the phenomena they claimed to observe with no actual evidence described in ways that fit in with the gaps in understanding of the moment. I too consume a lot of science fiction, but it's important to remember that it's just writers making shit up. Perhaps FTL is possible. Perhaps angel are real. Both are things people want to believe in, and both have facially plausible literary explanations, but they have equally good scientific evidence at the moment.
- krageon 4y ago
  The fact that there is no way to know means that at most we should say "no idea". It is also the least knowledge we should pretend to have on the subject.
  - wpietri 4y ago
    Well, we do have some idea. Take gods. Even most theists don't believe in most gods. An atheist, as the saying goes, is just a person who disbelieves in one more god than average. In theory, everybody has to admit that all gods are possible. Does Zeus exist? No idea. Does Bast exist? No idea. Does Yahweh exist? No idea. It's not like we can prove that they aren't out there somewhere. But what we do know is that a lot humans have made up a lot of gods. We know that people make up and believe in all sorts of things with no evidence at all. So if something fits the same pattern, then we actually have reasonable evidence that it's just another one of those things. So in a world of people who will take "no idea" as permission to rant more about their theory of chemtrails or ZOG or how the true Messiah lives in a heavily fortified compound outside of Waco, TX, I think an honest and accurate "no idea" isn't enough. Would that it were.

ikrenji 4y ago

until there is a theory of everything i don't think its reasonable to rule out the possibility of FTL travel. even physicists got all worked up few years ago when they detected FTL neutrinos at CERN (which turned out to be a sensor malfunction but still)