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_NOBODY_ said:
@Nilgiri @RescueRanger @Joe Shearer @Panzerkiel I believe that if an extraterrestrial civilization exits, it must never discover us. Do you gentlemen disagree?
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N.B "Close by" vs "Far away" can only be determined in any comprehensive objective way with hindsight far in the future.


"Close by" :

Premise: There's nothing close by we can perceive to matter (regarding amount of immorality or other issues that may then exist/arise that would be problem for our existence).

If they exist and are close by, but we cannot perceive them, they have not made it known our existence warrants attention or intervention. So again its not a problem (even if they are immoral or dangerous to us by accident/circumstance or another fashion).

If there has been and is attention and intervention in some way (but we cannot perceive those), again there's nothing we can do about that even if we found about it at some point later.

If they are close by, and at similar stage to us (no economical expedient traversing) or more primitive etc....then again their immorality et al. doesnt matter to us at the current juncture.

"Far away" :

Premise: If they exist but are far far away (regd this galaxy or other galaxies or even intergalaxial void etc) and communication/perception has not established in either direction at this juncture. Doesn't matter if they are advanced or not, moral or immoral.

If they exist and are advanced to traverse great distances easily (with little consequence of spacetime effects upon them etc).... they most likely are aligned to greater truth that needs great morality. This would likely have something within it very much like the prime directive of star trek.....to not interfere in developing civs. They would also have an idea of the % rate of life in the galaxies at large to begin with that shapes this.

The issue is we simply don't know enough at this current stage, these are open ended speculations that fit our knowledge so far (that we cannot detect, perceive or communicate in objective rational way and nothing exists in this bubble we have so far regarding this).

Engineering wise, there is signal attenuation that kicks in as well over great distances, we have radio only for 100+ years....its a 100 light year bubble that signals our existence if say interested passer by has the sensitive antenna for it.

Signal attenuation from the distances (close by or far away) of other source civs that exist in our perceptible framework/space time physics also could account for what has not reached us....given our current estimates of the universe age and general star ages that run in the billions of years.

Or the distances are simply too vast at the moment till we find new types of highways for transmission and travel and plug in there to listen or directly explore etc.

Or the only life that exists in the universe is only found on this planet. Its unlikely to me, but possible and an assumed operating principle to have anyway till falsified (as Karl Popper would put it)....however flawed the assumption was in hindsight.
 
_NOBODY_ said:
Lmao :ROFLMAO:

On a serious, I was thinking about this and here's what I wrote. Please ignore the first paragraph and feel free to disagree.

@Joe Shearer
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Oh goodie, now I can compare with what I just wrote myself without peeking :P
 
The thing with the dark forest hypothesis, is you could not expect every civ to think the same way.....or control the length of time they transmit in the EM spectrum while they are "developing"....or how long this lasts on average for the typical civ in the universe (Assuming highly advanced ones relative to us exist).

There could be other reasons why we dont hear EM arriving to us, the distances are too vast compared to the time civs out there take to find more expedient advanced pathways (and they all communicating to each other on that). EM could be archaic to them, and something that became quickly archaic.

Then the signal attenuation that kicks in (especially for our antennas we have). How do we detect an infinitesimal blip of EM thats lost in the cosmic background signal etc.

Does that computation power and filtering and processing arrive to us before we figure out something beyond EM that bypasses its limitations (and same with spacetime). Or we stuck with EM + spacetime constraints forever, we dont know.

The thing is we have no idea where we are in the ladder, what our bubble of knowledge is compared to others bubble of knowledge and so on.

We could literally be on ladder rung 3 or 4, with ladder rung 1 being very basic sentient life of some kind. Would a civ on say ladder rung 100 be interested in such rungs from say 1 - 10, especially if they are not particularly rare or unique....or is there more to do with other high rung guys they know....wars, politics or great cooperation and so on. That I guess depends how long they live, the time at hand in a life that determines lot of psyche. Humans would be a totally different kind of being if we were immortal.....our whole reference of time would be different. How do other advanced civilisations perceive time and age? So many things to speculate about.....but its inductive exercise in the end. Interesting, but not all that useful.
 
Nilgiri said:
Or the only life that exists in the universe is only found on this planet.
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This touches upon one of my pet peeves why I roll my eyes at modern physics. (There are many, many reasons.)

Chapter 1 of any intro stats book will tell you that you cannot extrapolate from a single data point, yet we have 'esteemed' physicists on national TV pontificating upon the odds of finding extraterrestrial life.

On what basis, exactly, do they claim these odds, other than wishful thinking, since we know precious little about how life originated on Earth, let alone elsewhere? Abiogenesis is still a fairly young field and full of controversies.

They are like circus charlatans blaring sensationalist quips with no basis in science. Anything for a buck, to sell a book, to gain audiences for their media appearances.

Many of them, university professors, will repeat falsehoods like 'in quantum mechanics, a particle can be in two places at once', which is a complete falsehood. Quantum mechanics never says that. A particle has the potential to be in several places at a given time but, when measured, it is always always always in exactly one place.
 
Developereo said:
This touches upon one of my pet peeves why I roll my eyes at modern physics. (There are many, many reasons.)

Chapter 1 of any intro stats book will tell you that you cannot extrapolate from a single data point, yet we have 'esteemed' physicists on national TV pontificating upon the odds of finding extraterrestrial life.

On what basis, exactly, do they claim these odds, other than wishful thinking, since we know precious little about how life originated on Earth, let alone elsewhere? Abiogenesis is still a fairly young field and full of controversies.

They are like circus charlatans blaring sensationalist quips with no basis in science. Anything for a buck, to sell a book, to gain audiences for their media appearances.

Many of them, university professors, will repeat falsehoods like 'in quantum mechanics, a particle can be in two places at once', which is a complete falsehood. Quantum mechanics never says that. A particle has the potential to be in several places at a given time but, when measured, it is always always always in exactly one place.
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Yes its why I said I find it unlikely. But its possible. Our knowledge is greatly limited to know.

Now I remember old English teacher spending one class telling us the difference between possible and plausible. Its possible, but is it plausible?!?!?

Lot of advanced physics from the 70s/80s onwards unfortunately suffered from the string theory syndrome and other such syndromes.

The heavy induction-only flights of fancy that occupied too many minds that could have been better served elsewhere. There is a heavy politicization that crept in as well (longer subject).

This has percolated downwards to the mass media and what appeals there. It was maybe inevitable given the fast pace from 19th to 20th century that has its impulse inertia still playing out.

But I'm an engineer with a great love of pure physics (and falsifiable basis + application to prioritise and chart discovery routes), so I'm also biased.
 
I wanted to talk a bit more about China and East Asia in here (from earlier book and some other convos I had elsewhere in interim)....and also US politics in that thread. Then theres whole strategic munir doctrine thread I need to revisit again.

But you all got me talking about aliens instead lol.

Anyway I'll get to the other topics later.

Take care everybuddy.
 
Nilgiri said:
Lot of advanced physics from the 70s/80s onwards unfortunately suffered from the string theory syndrome and other such syndromes.

The heavy induction-only flights of fancy that occupied too many minds that could have been better served elsewhere. There is a heavy politicization that crept in as well (longer subject).
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Oh, it goes back farther than that, back to the 1900s at least.

When Einstein proposed his Relativity theory, it was said that only three people in the world understood the theory. When Eddington did his famous expedition to validate General Relativity, he only collected 10% of the data and wrote in his journal that he wouldn't bet his life on the results. There were open questions whether the quality of glass in those days was good enough for the necessary resolution in the first place. Yet the NYT proclaimed front page that Eddington had confirmed Einstein's theory.

Later in life, Einstein found himself on the other end and complained that he was sidelined by colleagues and dismissed as a doddery old man, not to be taken seriously, because he had criticized the more fanciful aspects of quantum mechanics as 'God does not play dice with the universe'.

Physicists have been seduced by the allure of mass media stardom.
 
Nilgiri said:
The thing with the dark forest hypothesis, is you could not expect every civ to think the same way.....or control the length of time they transmit in the EM spectrum while they are "developing"....or how long this lasts on average for the typical civ in the universe (Assuming highly advanced ones relative to us exist).
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If they don't think pragmatically then they don't deserve to survive. The need for survival should be put above all else. Forget potential war, just one simple virus can be enough for the extinction of an entire species.
Nilgiri said:
The thing is we have no idea where we are in the ladder, what our bubble of knowledge is compared to others bubble of knowledge and so on.

We could literally be on ladder rung 3 or 4, with ladder rung 1 being very basic sentient life of some kind. Would a civ on say ladder rung 100 be interested in such rungs from say 1 - 10, especially if they are not particularly rare or unique....or is there more to do with other high rung guys they know....wars, politics or great cooperation and so on. That I guess depends how long they live, the time at hand in a life that determines lot of psyche. Humans would be a totally different kind of being if we were immortal.....our whole reference of time would be different. How do other advanced civilisations perceive time and age? So many things to speculate about.....but its inductive exercise in the end. Interesting, but not all that useful.
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All the more reason to stay hidden and pray for isolation. Even if we were the most advanced civilization in the entire universe, we must avoid contact. The risks of a potential contact far outweigh any benefits it may provide for a contact may result in our extinction.

You should have clarified what you meant by immortal before writing all of that as immortal can mean very different things. Would you consider the tech priests of the Adeptus Mechanicus from Warhammer 40,000 to be immortal? Would you consider the Necron lords and crypteks to be immortal? In case you are unfamiliar with the lore, the reason why I specifically chose to mention the Necron lords and crypteks is because they are the only ones who fully retain their consciousness among the Necrons.

@Joe Shearer @Panzerkiel @AJKashmir1 Would you gentlemen like to contribute to this discussion?

_NOBODY_ said:
Lmao :ROFLMAO:

On a serious, I was thinking about this and here's what I wrote. Please ignore the first paragraph and feel free to disagree.

@Joe Shearer
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Before engaging in this discussion, I would suggest you gentlemen read my journal entry that I have shared in post #257.
 
Developereo said:
Oh, it goes back farther than that, back to the 1900s at least.

When Einstein proposed his Relativity theory, it was said that only three people in the world understood the theory. When Eddington did his famous expedition to validate General Relativity, he only collected 10% of the data and wrote in his journal that he wouldn't bet his life on the results. There were open questions whether the quality of glass in those days was good enough for the necessary resolution in the first place. Yet the NYT proclaimed front page that Eddington had confirmed Einstein's theory.

Later in life, Einstein found himself on the other end and complained that he was sidelined by colleagues and dismissed as a doddery old man, not to be taken seriously, because he had criticized the more fanciful aspects of quantum mechanics as 'God does not play dice with the universe'.

Physicists have been seduced by the allure of mass media stardom.
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Yes I suppose like the 19th/20th century "impulse" thing I mentioned.

In a bookish sense (given the thread), scout and jem debating where it all started with his broken arm...was it really just "the Ewells"....or did it start with Dill coming over and his role with bringing Boo out more....or as far back as Andrew Jackson and his war against the Creeks.

Have to start somewhere 🤣
 
_NOBODY_ said:
If they don't think pragmatically then they don't deserve to survive. The need for survival should be put above all else. Forget potential war, just one simple virus can be enough for the extinction of an entire species.
Click to expand...

If they are intelligent and unlocked vast space travel (and/or suitably directed EM comms) that way (and we are somehow the very first other sentient life they come across), its very unlikely they have not developed a moral architecture and reasoning that would have made the dangers (of other species to them and vice versa) well known to them already. Technologies w.r.t remote sensing, stealth and protection protocols would be lot easier than vast space travel if human life is of some unique interest in grand scheme of things.

If they are not so intelligent/advanced (and thus some level of undeveloped moral and reasoning system similar or relative to ours) and simply have space travel/comms by intrinsic essence unknown to us (i.e lifeforms in dimensions, diffuseness totally inconceivable to us from what we know of life on earth as our reference).....then we (one or both) are simply kind of screwed if the tiny possibility of vectored contact arises by some random chance.

_NOBODY_ said:
All the more reason to stay hidden and pray for isolation. Even if we were the most advanced civilization in the entire universe, we must avoid contact. The risks of a potential contact far outweigh any benefits it may provide for a contact may result in our extinction.
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Definitely agree. But what exactly would it mean to "avoid contact" in what we can do today? Near zero. Our current contact means (I mentioned the 100 light year radio bubble) is extremely new and extremely small....and extremely attenuated when it reaches to any light year distance of consequence w.r.t even this galaxy. Its why I dont see much great results from SETI long term tbh (unless we get seriously lucky or intelligent life is far more prevalent than presumed after all).....given amplitude of background radiation among other things.

We dont have the energy or interest to do high amplitude broadspectrum spherical transmissions of great amplitudes to get past the attenuation factor at the tech level then (to then wait 1000s or even millions of years for a potential directed response from another). We wont have this kind of energy "to spare" (past all the other things we could do with it) for some very long time.

When we do, yes the dark forest hypothesis kicks in then for us (and any others)....it would be dumb to broadcast expecting the best.

But anything that bypasses EM and space time to begin with (to make this topic somewhat more feasible to begin with given the galaxy size and then local galaxy system and universe size)..... and what benefits these offer to the civilisation then (and then things set into motion by that then w.r.t things not fully understood while harnessing it etc), how we stumble across all of that (and how others did etc)..... well we cant model that now with what we stuck....so why bother trying. It happens when it happens, if it happens.

Humans are often over-curious, greedy and ignorant especially in hindsight (when it comes to something new/unexpected)....even with moral system and reasoning improving over the ages. That's putting aside what happens unwittingly by blind chance.

_NOBODY_ said:
You should have clarified what you meant by immortal before writing all of that as immortal can mean very different things. Would you consider the tech priests of the Adeptus Mechanicus from Warhammer 40,000 to be immortal? Would you consider the Necron lords and crypteks to be immortal? In case you are unfamiliar with the lore, the reason why I specifically chose to mention the Necron lords and crypteks is because they are the only ones who fully retain their consciousness among the Necrons.
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Forget the absolute definitions. Just relative one suffices to get to the bit im coming from....i.e if human life as we know it lasted even 150 years (double the average we have now by the raw biology constraints baked in) with youth, adult and old age all scaled to that etc.

i.e a biologically superior being, our psyche would be different in some crucial ways from that with twice the time available essentially having impacted it over the generations that developed the systems we have now in our snapshot.

This was the fundamental reason for the difference between the elves (eldar) and humans (edain) in the LOTR. To the degree that sometimes it was intuited the elves due to their essential relative immortality did not have true free will (with which they could be judged), rather they were part of the flora and fauna of middle earth (just a very advanced form of it) that drove the whole arc/need for valinor in the early age.

i.e only with limited lifespan of the Edain....life being bright but relatively short, could you develop the psyche from the virtue you had to carefully cultivate and prioritise and act out to be judged.....for free will to be truly imbued as a factor in the first place for life.

These things can be scaled as thought exercises for just the human species hypotheticals....and thus what other life possible psychological consquences could be relative to ours.....thats what I meant with perception of time, aging (and life itself, including its value) when you have a looming mortality as fairly close guaranteed backdrop at all time.

i.e If we meet relative "first born" "elves" out there, we cannot assume things are 1:1 the same in some fairly deep ways.

Gene Rodenberry just bypassed this by making the vulcans (first contact wise for us) fundamentally good. For that story arc with the klingons and later the romulans et al, it had to go that way....because again the story just doesnt progress if it was the opposite.
 
Nilgiri said:
If they are intelligent and unlocked vast space travel (and/or suitably directed EM comms) that way (and we are somehow the very first other sentient life they come across), its very unlikely they have not developed a moral architecture and reasoning that would have made the dangers (of other species to them and vice versa) well known to them already. Technologies w.r.t remote sensing, stealth and protection protocols would be lot easier than vast space travel if human life is of some unique interest in grand scheme of things.

If they are not so intelligent/advanced (and thus some level of undeveloped moral and reasoning system similar or relative to ours) and simply have space travel/comms by intrinsic essence unknown to us (i.e lifeforms in dimensions, diffuseness totally inconceivable to us from what we know of life on earth as our reference).....then we (one or both) are simply kind of screwed if the tiny possibility of vectored contact arises by some random chance.
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My sincerest apologies for the late reply. Right now, I am feeling snug as a bug on a drug so it is only fair that I reply to your detailed post ASAP.

I disagree about them developing superior moral architecture if that involves being benevolent and guiding us to prosperity without getting anything valuable in return. Of course, if the level of technological prowess is too stark then they can afford to be significantly bold. Also, We need to logically asses as to why they should even keep us alive. Cold-heart reasoning will always be at the core of these things. No sentient species can survive and advance this much without it.

I would also like to add that if the extraterrestrial civilizations are indeed smart which they most definitely are, they will assess our potential before making contact. Our potential will play a critical role in their decision-making process. I believe that we have the potential to challenge even the most advanced extraterrestrial civilizations imaginable.
Nilgiri said:
Humans are often over-curious, greedy and ignorant especially in hindsight (when it comes to something new/unexpected)....even with moral system and reasoning improving over the ages. That's putting aside what happens unwittingly by blind chance.
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Trueeeeeeeeeeeeeeee! Curiosity and greed are good things for a civilization to have, dare I say even essential but when you pair them up with shortsightedness, catastrophes occur.
 
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