General / Off-Topic Did we just miss this HUGE news about FTL travel???

[adoredtv]

There could be various reasons for the lack of evidence of course but I just feel that the galaxy - and possibly the entire observable universe - would have been colonised by another species before now. The lack of alien signals on top of that tells me that there are no aliens.

It's a sobering thought regardless of how you look at it. I would like to believe in aliens simply because it would be extremely cool, however the lack of evidence is pretty telling. What's more, if we do find aliens out there - regardless of their stage of development - it's almost certainly bad news for humanity as a species.

Just found this very interesting link on that subject - http://www.nickbostrom.com/extraterrestrial.pdf . He's basically saying everything I am and that's the first I've read it.

Brian Cox is also saying "no aliens in the Milky Way". Bostrom hopes there are none. For me the "Great Filter" is likely to be the evolution from prokaryote to eukaryote as mentioned in the link (more here) - meaning we are likely to be the only multi-cellular life in the galaxy, and possibly the observable universe (single-celled life should be extremely common, however if that were so we'd expect to find it on Mars or elsewhere in the Solar System). That might not sound very exciting but it does mean that we are set to colonise the universe so long as we don't destroy ourselves first. To end up destroying ourselves after passing the Great Filter...what a tragedy that would be.

That said, if we colonise just one more world or one more solar system, we're basically home and dry as a successful species. We'd have to be trying really hard to destroy ourselves so completely on multiple worlds.

 

[Hilight]

Same with less pessimistic (or optimistic, depends on your point of view ) tone:

There are no messages, nothing, not because every single alien in the galaxy doesn't want to talk to us, not because every single alien species send messages in methods we can't understand - but because there are no aliens right now to send any kind of messages.

Technological civilization may be an extremely rare phenomenom. How rare? Maybe one such civilization rises once in a billion years in one in a billion galaxies? Or maybe our technological level is more common than that, one such civilization once in every 10000 years in every galaxy, but 999999 out of million manage to destroy themselves within 1000 years of attaining the level (nuclear weapons, nanotechnology, genetic manipulation)? Or maybe we're the first one ever, maybe even first and last ever?

The truth is, we don't know.

You're exactly right-- In the end, we just don't know. Any amount of speculating, results in only more speculation.

Someone once said that the two most terrifying thoughts known to Man are "We're not the only ones here," and "We're the only ones here."

 

[pippo]

You're exactly right-- In the end, we just don't know. Any amount of speculating, results in only more speculation.

Someone once said that the two most terrifying thoughts known to Man are "We're not the only ones here," and "We're the only ones here."

“Two possibilities exist: either we are alone in the Universe or we are not. Both are equally terrifying.” - Arthur C. Clarke
I remember this from the X3 loading screen

 

[Hilight]

“Two possibilities exist: either we are alone in the Universe or we are not. Both are equally terrifying.” - Arthur C. Clarke
I remember this from the X3 loading screen

Smart dude, Clarke

 

[metatheurgist]

Confirmation. The test has been replicated in a hard vacuum.

http://www.nasaspaceflight.com/2015/04/evaluating-nasas-futuristic-em-drive/.

 

[Pomerlaw]

If we don't hear about aliens, maybe it is because once you get a high tech civilization, you realise space travel is too hard or unpractical. It is better to create VR realities and live inside them in the comfort of your home. Consciousness unleashed is infinitly more powerful than the Galaxy at creating worlds?

Just a thought. Who would leave everyone they love behind in the prospect of dull, incredibly long and dangerous space travel when they can realize all their fantasies in a computer? lol

There could be various reasons for the lack of evidence of course but I just feel that the galaxy - and possibly the entire observable universe - would have been colonised by another species before now. The lack of alien signals on top of that tells me that there are no aliens.

I find your conclusion premature at best. First, do you really think aliens would communicate with us by radio signals? Secondly, the Earth is just a speck of dust lost in space (albeit a pretty, precious one). From afar, there are absolutely no reason to send us a signal or come to see us. Doesn't mean they aren't there.

Brian Cox is also saying "no aliens in the Milky Way".

Its settled then! lol...

FOR LAST TIME: I think life is common in universe. We MAY be only civ. in Milky Way. There WILL be other civilisations in univ.

-Brian Cox

 

[Jpotter]

Aha....I never said it wasn't possible to warp space etc - since anything with mass warps space - however It's still not possible to move faster than light.

The problem isn't light its information. I'm on a bit of shaky ground here as I don't fully understand how this works but you cannot exchange any information from point A to point B instantaneously. It violates another law of physics since you could have two beams of light, one in a warp bubble one out. When you warp and instantly travel to point B, the information at A is sent there instantly. Violating causality for the light beam not in the warp bubble.

What may happen is once the warp bubble collapses, space expands and you are back at your starting location. So you can travel anywhere but it would take the same time it takes the other beam to reach you to collapse the bubble. Maybe relatively - so you collapse the bubble in your frame of reference instantly but when you do, the relativistic effects kick in so that the original unwarped beam arrives at the exact same time your bubble collapses.

Totally theoretical - just thinking aloud.

Don't forget the time aspect of space travel - time is relative to speed. It has always intrigued me. Perhaps, since time seems to be tied to speed as you approach the speed of light -> the greater the effect. I.e. Time Dilation: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Time_dilation


The information issue of not being able to instantaneously travel from point A to point B because irrelevant when you include the time aspect of light issue not able to be. What I mean, is they have found that as a spacecraft travels from Earth - the faster it goes, there is an impact on the clocks on-board the spacecraft. The faster and farther you travel from an object (Earth lets say) - they have found that the time that passes on the spacecraft and object is not equal. For everyone the time passed would be linear to all involved - but when the atomic clock on the craft and on Earth were checked, it was found that the spacecraft clock was consistently behind the atomic clocks on Earth - yet they matched when the spacecraft left. The farther and faster away traveled - the greater the impact. When looking at the clocks - you realize that in fact, the spacecraft had actually traveled forward in time compared to Earth (i.e. earth's clock was faster - therefore the spacecraft traveled to the future).

So back to the fact you cannot instantaneously travel from point A to point B - the time aspect solves it. Since the object would in theory traveled extremely fast and far away so quickly it seems to be instantaneous and FTL when in fact it wasn't. It was the time aspect of the equation manipulated. So in this case when you arrived, it seems no time has passed to the traveller- but actually potentially hundreds of thousands of years have passed depending on the distance. So all the relative physics theories stay happy.

In this sense, I fully believe time travel is possible - but only in the manner described above. We may be able to travel so fast we can reach the farthest edges of galaxies - but it costs time. You want to travel that fast - you leave the current age behind and travel to the future as well... kinda a catch-22.

 

[Mercury Shift]

Man, I am super sorry I was late to this party, it looks like it was a blast!

My opinions:

1. I agree with a few folk who posted that this should be treated with a carefully cautious, but open mind. There seem to be two armies here facing off in the "ZOMG! I need to start saving for my Asp NOW!" vs. "Einstein say no, nener nener" War. I am not about to start my 5 year old in flight school to give him an edge for when he goes off to Fleet, but I am excited and curious.

2. The best part about all this, is that this is that drive theory that Roger Shawyer theorized and was initially laughed at for. He came up with a theory and working prototype of reactionless propulsion, but was dismissed by the relevant scientific communities because it violated the conservation of momentum. Even after multiple independently confirmed results, he still was criticized, but slowly they started to give the idea more consideration. Then NASA started its own evaluation group to see if Shawyer was a snake oil salesmen or not. And what happens? NASA's team claims that while testing the drive they have observed data that indicates FTL properties. And people are dismissing them or immediately jumping to some error factor.

I may not be smart enough to understand even half the science involved here, but I am smart enough to recognize the hilarious irony in this story.

 

[adoredtv]

I find your conclusion premature at best. First, do you really think aliens would communicate with us by radio signals?

Yes, as does SETI otherwise they wouldn't be listening for them.

Secondly, the Earth is just a speck of dust lost in space (albeit a pretty, precious one). From afar, there are absolutely no reason to send us a signal or come to see us. Doesn't mean they aren't there.

Yup as already discussed - all the aliens don't want to meet up/talk whatever. It's just us that would consider colonising the galaxy or attempting to communicate with other beings. Sounds legit.

 

[Mercury Shift]

Yup as already discussed - all the aliens don't want to meet up/talk whatever. It's just us that would consider colonising the galaxy or attempting to communicate with other beings. Sounds legit.

In my total hobbist opinion on the matter, I think that there are several levels of rarity in terms of our evolution. The astrological conditions being right, the timeline and events within our planets ecological evolution, and even our own society. In my opinion this planet has hosted the evolution of two species that could potentially have or will attain interstellar travel. Us and certain species of dinosaurs, but they were wiped out early by a random event. But there are more on this planet than us. If I were a betting man, I'd say we will discover alien life at some point in the future, but not necessarily spacefaring or even sentient in our eyes.

 

[adoredtv]

In my total hobbist opinion on the matter, I think that there are several levels of rarity in terms of our evolution. The astrological conditions being right, the timeline and events within our planets ecological evolution, and even our own society. In my opinion this planet has hosted the evolution of two species that could potentially have or will attain interstellar travel. Us and certain species of dinosaurs, but they were wiped out early by a random event. But there are more on this planet than us. If I were a betting man, I'd say we will discover alien life at some point in the future, but not necessarily spacefaring or even sentient in our eyes.

I'm not sure that multiple sentient species would be able to coexist in harmony on a single planet. The first one to get the real upperhand (ie us) would likely wipe out the others before they became a threat.

I mentioned earlier that I believe the "Great Filter" to be the evolution from Prokaryote to Eukaryote. It's not very exciting to think about but for me if alien life exists it'll be single-celled. As soon as you're over that barrier you're on your way to sentience, but that's a hard barrier to cross and it's only ever been done once (that we know of). Abiogenesis is also a pretty good bet I'd suggest - we haven't been able to create life where there is none up till this point - for example out of organic compounds - which is how the theory of evolution goes.

 

[Mercury Shift]

I see your point, but I would disagree with your comment about evolving past single cell status being "on the way to sentience". We have many species alive today, or are only a few evolutionary steps further on, that existed in the eras of the dinosaurs. Certain species of crocodiles and sharks for example. They are still no closer to sentience but are apex predators. I imagine that there are many evolutionary strategies or paths to lead to a successful species, but very few that need or lead to sentience.

On the other hand, I suppose sentience could be a fairly relative idea. Dolphins could very well be just hanging around for our ample supply of fish.

 

[metatheurgist]

Dinosaurs were around for 165M years, presumably they weren't very intelligent. At least no-one's dug up any evidence of it. Humans have been around for 2M. I wonder where we'll be in 163M years time?

 

[Hilight]

I'm not sure that multiple sentient species would be able to coexist in harmony on a single planet. The first one to get the real upperhand (ie us) would likely wipe out the others before they became a threat.

I mentioned earlier that I believe the "Great Filter" to be the evolution from Prokaryote to Eukaryote. It's not very exciting to think about but for me if alien life exists it'll be single-celled. As soon as you're over that barrier you're on your way to sentience, but that's a hard barrier to cross and it's only ever been done once (that we know of). Abiogenesis is also a pretty good bet I'd suggest - we haven't been able to create life where there is none up till this point - for example out of organic compounds - which is how the theory of evolution goes.

Considering the fact that we don't really know what sentience is or even if we are the only sentient animals on this planet, how could we ever expect to figure out if there is sentience on other planets or how often it might happen to arise? Most of the ways that we've supposed humans to be unique in times past have fallen by the wayside with our increasing knowledge. For example, we once thought humans to be the only animals to use tools, or to create cultures--both of which turned out not to be true. By what metric do you measure sentience?

 

[Surly_Badger]

Considering the fact that we don't really know what sentience is or even if we are the only sentient animals on this planet

There are plenty of animals on Earth that are sentient. Including Humans, Elephants, Dolphins, Pigs, Octopi, Orangoutans, dogs, etc. We're in the process of wiping them out, but that doesn't make them any less sentient. Animals are quite intelligent, and some of them have pretty good vocabularies. There are border collies that are capable of basic grammatical constructions, indicating advanced logic (i.e: "fetch the blue ball that is on the green box" and the dog will not fetch the blue ball that is on the floor) Octopi have demonstrated the ability to learn by observing other octopi solve problems, which is pretty cool, really - it's a trick many humans have trouble with. There is an octopus (google "octopus photographer") who figured out how to use a Go Pro camera and takes pictures of the weirdos looking in the side of his tank. Back in the 70s there was an orangoutan who was quite good at rowing a boat. What we are seeing is creatures that are fairly intelligent, but non-technological. They can't make a Go Pro camera. But then, neither could we until fairly recently.

Sentience is sometimes defined in terms of self-awareness, but that definition would mean that many primates are sentient, as well as some other animals. A famous example of self-awareness is the "spot test" - if you paint a white spot on a chimp's forehead and show it its own reflection in a mirror, the chimp will reach up and rub at its forehead. Elephants also do this.

Unfortunately, attempts to define "sentience" often seem to be "trying to come up with a definition that excludes all animals except humans" - so you wind up with some rather bizzare criteria like that sentient creatures must speak with a brooklyn accent. But, seriously - if you look at tool-use, we've known that primates use tools for a very long time, human-centric advocates simply say that those tools aren't tool-y enough (ignoring the tools that early humans made, which are ... basically the same) Eventually you wind up with silly definitions of "sentience" in order to shore up human's superiority.

What many people mean by "sentience" is often "sapience" - the ability to engage in rational thought. I'm not a big fan of that term because I know a lot of humans that aren't sapient, and a few dogs that are.

 

[Hilight]

There are plenty of animals on Earth that are sentient. Including Humans, Elephants, Dolphins, Pigs, Octopi, Orangoutans, dogs, etc. We're in the process of wiping them out, but that doesn't make them any less sentient. Animals are quite intelligent, and some of them have pretty good vocabularies. There are border collies that are capable of basic grammatical constructions, indicating advanced logic (i.e: "fetch the blue ball that is on the green box" and the dog will not fetch the blue ball that is on the floor) Octopi have demonstrated the ability to learn by observing other octopi solve problems, which is pretty cool, really - it's a trick many humans have trouble with.

Sentience is sometimes defined in terms of self-awareness, but that definition would mean that many primates are sentient, as well as some other animals. A famous example of self-awareness is the "spot test" - if you paint a white spot on a chimp's forehead and show it its own reflection in a mirror, the chimp will reach up and rub at its forehead. Elephants also do this.

Unfortunately, attempts to define "sentience" often seem to be "trying to come up with a definition that excludes all animals except humans" - so you wind up with some rather bizzare criteria like that sentient creatures must speak with a brooklyn accent. But, seriously - if you look at tool-use, we've known that primates use tools for a very long time, human-centric advocates simply say that those tools aren't tool-y enough (ignoring the tools that early humans made, which are ... basically the same) Eventually you wind up with silly definitions of "sentience" in order to shore up human's superiority.

What many people mean by "sentience" is often "sapience" - the ability to engage in rational thought. I'm not a big fan of that term because I know a lot of humans that aren't sapient, and a few dogs that are.

Yes exactly. Many animals on the planted are very intelligent, quite self aware, grieve the loss of loved ones, use symbols for language (for ex. some primates use hand signals), have cultures, and use tools (for example, Magpies use tools- primates aren't the only ones) If you use intelligence as your metric for sentience, then, yes lots of species on Earth are sentient. I think one of the only measures of intelligence left is the notion that humans are the only creatures on the planet who are aware that one day they will die, but I'm not so sure even this is true as Koko the Gorilla that was taught sign language seems to have a pretty fair conception of death

 

[adoredtv]

Yes sorry I do obviously mean the ability to think rationally and visionary, which is something no other animal can do (currently). I guess my point on being on the way to sentience is pretty flawed as well. Hard to tell but yes there are a lot of ancient species who are basically not moving forward at all in those terms, as mentioned above ie crocs, certain species of fish etc.

I guess tool use is extremely important also. Maybe there are just a lot of great filters and we've so far passed them all. It's certainly a viable theory in my mind and would go a long way to explaining why there is nobody else around that we're aware of...

Think of environmental factors too. If I had to pick one advancement by humans that set us on our way to technological expertise, I'd probably go with electricity. Would we even have had the concept of it had the Earth been a planet without clouds or lightning? That sort of thing. Just boggles the mind thinking of all the potential alignment factors that probably had to come around for us to get to where we are now. Silicon chips another one...the possibilities are endless with those really. For all we know we could be living in a simulator already of course.

Would we have been able to get here without electricity? I can't see how. We'd be living in some kind of dark age still. How many more of these kind of advances were "must do" to get us to this stage where we're actually capable of sending and receiving space signals?

 

[Magic Man]

In my total hobbist opinion on the matter, I think that there are several levels of rarity in terms of our evolution. The astrological conditions being right, the timeline and events within our planets ecological evolution, and even our own society.

Only if you choose to see rarity based on just one example we know of evolved life.

Life on Earth evolved according to the conditions available to it. Nothing to say that countless other astrological conditions, timelines and events within other planets ecological evolutions around numerous other solar systems couldn't evolve 'life' of other forms or types.

 

[Mercury Shift]

Only if you choose to see rarity based on just one example we know of evolved life.

Life on Earth evolved according to the conditions available to it. Nothing to say that countless other astrological conditions, timelines and events within other planets ecological evolutions around numerous other solar systems couldn't evolve 'life' of other forms or types.

Actually that was my point. I did say "of our evolution". My point is that those conditions allowed us to evolve as we did, but other conditions could give way to evolution that we can't even conceive of as a possibility. That's one think I look for in a Sci Fi author, the ability to describe a lifeform or evolutionary path that is so outside our "box" that the "box" is actually a "PB&J sandwich".

Edit: As I was sitting here reading and eating lunch at my desk I thought up a colorful analogy:

1. Think of our own evolution as the making of a plain ol' PB&J: bread, PB, and J. Sliced or not, crust or not, these things are our own differences in interpretation of our own evolution.
2. Now consider other species evolutions that we have witnessed or studies firsthand as variations to that preparation that are familiar: Toasted PB&J, additional ingredients like bananas or nuts. Things that evolved wildly different than us, but we still understand and recognize it would be like deep frying a PB&J (cause you know someone has tried it somewhere), or eating the two sides of the sandwich separately.
3. Evolutionary paths that we could never even imagine due to how different they are would be like completely deep freezing a PB&J FOR consumption, or worse, intentionally letting the jelly soak into the bread.

That's why I don't like the "if then" outlook on evolution, we don't have the proper perspective to judge evolution outside of our own field of view.

 

[Hilight]

Actually that was my point. I did say "of our evolution". My point is that those conditions allowed us to evolve as we did, but other conditions could give way to evolution that we can't even conceive of as a possibility. That's one think I look for in a Sci Fi author, the ability to describe a lifeform or evolutionary path that is so outside our "box" that the "box" is actually a "PB&J sandwich".

Edit: As I was sitting here reading and eating lunch at my desk I thought up a colorful analogy:

1. Think of our own evolution as the making of a plain ol' PB&J: bread, PB, and J. Sliced or not, crust or not, these things are our own differences in interpretation of our own evolution.
2. Now consider other species evolutions that we have witnessed or studies firsthand as variations to that preparation that are familiar: Toasted PB&J, additional ingredients like bananas or nuts. Things that evolved wildly different than us, but we still understand and recognize it would be like deep frying a PB&J (cause you know someone has tried it somewhere), or eating the two sides of the sandwich separately.
3. Evolutionary paths that we could never even imagine due to how different they are would be like completely deep freezing a PB&J FOR consumption, or worse, intentionally letting the jelly soak into the bread.

That's why I don't like the "if then" outlook on evolution, we don't have the proper perspective to judge evolution outside of our own field of view.

I think part of the difficulty with imagining what other forms of sentient life might be like is our preoccupation with human abilities to create tools (everything from hammers to computers to spaceships). This filter blinds our perceptions of what it is to be sentient. It is very easy for one to equate this sort of intelligence with sentience. But doing so only moves the question. 'What is sentience?,' becomes 'What is intelligence?'


Personally, I agree with Surly Badgers post-- Often when we say sentience we really mean sapience. I think many of the skills we equate with intelligence (therefore sentience) are just a group of abilities humans possess for adapting to environmental changes.


Viewing intelligence in this manner opens up the possibility that other forms of adaptability might also be called intelligent. For example, the rapid shifts of DNA that some species use for adaptation (such as cockroaches) could be viewed as 'intelligent' as they allow the species that use them to adapt even more quickly than humans can using our technological methods for adapting to change. In this way, the metric for sentience becomes “How well can you adapt to change,” rather than “How many tools can you make.”


It's also worth noting that humans have not been around long enough to determine if our way of adapting to change will see us through long term environmental changes such as the periodic mass extinctions that plague our planet while many other species who use other forms of adaptation have proven their ability to do so. In the end, I think that when Douglas Adams joked about such things as intelligent shades of blue light he was probably nearer the truth than those who equate sentience only with the ability to create a huge variety of tools.