Do you believe?

Rroff said:
I'd agree with the last bit - the first is somewhat more complicated. There is as much supportive evidence that one day our own level of technology will reach a point where we could simulate a fully immersive sub-universe as there is for the existence of life elsewhere in the universe which logically would raise the question of our own existence.
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thing is we're straying away from the realms of verifiable science and into philosophy here.

the thing with all these theories is that without any empirical proof of their truth you have to assume it's not true, this applies as much to us being simulations, products of sentient creators, or the creations of the previous universe's achievements a la Asimov.

all of these are "possible" but beleiving in any one possibility over the others with no evidential basis for that beleif is a bit stupid.

hell i could say that the events of the star wars films are all absolutely true and did in fact happen in our universe a long time ago in a galaxy far far away, you can't prove me wrong but that doesn't make me right.
 
adolf hamster said:
thing is we're straying away from the realms of verifiable science and into philosophy here.

the thing with all these theories is that without any empirical proof of their truth you have to assume it's not true, this applies as much to us being simulations, products of sentient creators, or the creations of the previous universe's achievements a la Asimov.

all of these are "possible" but beleiving in any one possibility over the others with no evidential basis for that beleif is a bit stupid.

hell i could say that the events of the star wars films are all absolutely true and did in fact happen in our universe a long time ago in a galaxy far far away, you can't prove me wrong but that doesn't make me right.
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Evidence for the potential for life on other planets, etc. is still a best fit for the evidence we have and the direction what we know tends to point towards - no difference to what I'm talking about - there is a lot less philosophical in what I'm saying if you look at it objectively from the perspectives of more recent progress in science and tech.

Only the last bit is perticularly philosophical but has a fairly solid basis as something to postulate if the rest turns out to be possible - and it would be somewhat naive at this point to bet against that level of progress.
 
I'm not saying it's impossible that we're constructs of a simulation ourselves, just that there's no more evidence for that than for a god (and tbh if you think about it those who created the simulation would fit all the classifications to be "god", so it's sort of the same idea anyway).

although this conversation is starting to sound an awful lot like an episode of rick and morty, so i'd better get back to my flubel crank!
 
Sliver said:
Do you think we are alone in the universe or do you think the universe is full of life?

This is something I often think about. Nature doesn't do things once. If something can happen then it will happen again. I think there is extra terrestrial life, however it is a little worrying that we have no sign of it yet. Maybe advanced civilisations capable of emitting radio waves or other such communications, only arise now and again. So it might be that we are the most advanced civilisation in our local area.

All in all, Hubble reveals an estimated 100 billion galaxies in the universe or so, but this number is likely to increase to about 200 billion as telescope technology in space improves. Surely with 200 billion galaxies and countless planets within them, life must be in some of them.

I do fear that if extra terrestrials finds us that they will be hostile. Humans are apex predators. With our intelligence and weapons we can hunt, kill and eat anything we want on our planet. Imagine an alien species far more advanced than us visiting Earth. It could be the end of days.

Finally, how do you think finding extra terrestrial life may impact on religions? After all, holy books tell us god made man in his own image and that we are divine. So why make aliens? Will the religious just back track and say aliens are all part of gods plan? Probably.
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Given the vastness of the Universe, it seems highly unlikely that we're alone. As to why we've not heard from anyone else (the Fermii Paradox), there are possible reasons. One would be that there's something out there that deals with rival species that it detects - an early species that doesn't like newcomers for example). Another would be that we simply don't recognise it - perhaps radio waves have an obvious and superior replacement just a little further down the "tech tree." A third would be that there is some scientific "booby trap" similarly just a little ahead of where we are. Some obvious "let's create this strange matter" that has almost no way of predicting the disastrous consequences of building it. Most likely, perhaps, is the simple scale of the Universe and the brevity of our existence at this level of technological development. We've had the capacity to detect other species by radio emissions or similar for less than two centuries. That's an eyeblink.

Will aliens be hostile to us? If there's no scarcity of resource, what is the reason for hostility? Sure, there are some reasons, but it's none that are inherent. Europeans massacred Native Americans, but then the Native Americans had something we want. Why come all the way out to our little neck of the galaxy to steal our rocks when they have their own rocks? A species that has evolved from very competitive roots might want to wipe out others? But if they've developed to the point of being space faring, hopefully they have also developed to the point of self-modification and will do so along logical lines.

As to the effect on religions? Religions will adapt. Especially if the aliens turn out to be called Xenu. ;)
 
Sliver said:
All in all, Hubble reveals an estimated 100 billion galaxies in the universe or so, but this number is likely to increase to about 200 billion as telescope technology in space improves. Surely with 200 billion galaxies and countless planets within them, life must be in some of them.
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I like that we tell the universe how many galaxies it has :)
 
I refuse to believe there isn't someone in a galaxy far away sitting on their computer arguing about if we exist or not :p
 
adolf hamster said:
I'm not saying it's impossible that we're constructs of a simulation ourselves, just that there's no more evidence for that than for a god (and tbh if you think about it those who created the simulation would fit all the classifications to be "god", so it's sort of the same idea anyway).

although this conversation is starting to sound an awful lot like an episode of rick and morty, so i'd better get back to my flubel crank!
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In the same vein as there is no more evidence of life out there - in both cases the science and technology points in a particular direction but we don't have a definite answer.

Problem is a lot of people's understanding of the relevant fields is about 10 years behind the reality - the progress in things like neural interfacing and super computing have come on massively in the last few years and the current trajectories potentially make it feasible even within our life times. A common misconception is that we need to build a simulation that exactly mimics the laws and scale of our own universe to prove the concept but we don't.
 
Rroff said:
Problem is a lot of people's understanding of the relevant fields is about 10 years behind the reality - the progress in things like neural interfacing and super computing have come on massively in the last few years and the current trajectories potentially make it feasible even within our life times. A common misconception is that we need to build a simulation that exactly mimics the laws and scale of our own universe to prove the concept but we don't.
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the problem with that statement is just how complicated does a simulation need to be in order for it to count? because that's kind of important.

i mean can video game ai count? after all it's a simulation albiet with not exactly all the parameters we have in our universe, just enough to make a semi-convincing parody.
 
There is as much evidence for life on other planets as there is proof of god's good deeds and creation.
 
adolf hamster said:
the problem with that statement is just how complicated does a simulation need to be in order for it to count? because that's kind of important.

i mean can video game ai count? after all it's a simulation albiet with not exactly all the parameters we have in our universe, just enough to make a semi-convincing parody.
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To be comparable you'd need some degree of sentient entity that is fully immersed - don't forget that if we either synthesised something or did something somewhat unethical like taking a newborn (or even someone that was brain damaged) and entirely tapping its neural senses before it had any awareness of our universe all it would know is what we show it and it would take a very long time for something like that to figure out the limits of a relatively simplistic simulation never mind even something a fraction as complicated as our own existence if it didn't know anything different.
 
Rroff said:
Vast numbers though are gas giants or balls of rock that are either way too hot, way too cold or way too exposed to radiation, etc. even those in the hospitable zone are often tidally locked or other things like that which reduce their chance of supporting life or limit what kind of life could emerge. Then there are those that might be in the perfect place and condition but their parent star is too short lived for any civilisation to emerge and survive long enough to come to anything of consequence.

It isn't impossible that there are barely single digit numbers of planets per galaxy that could support any kind of life that could become remotely advanced.
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Even those that are gas giants might support life. Jupiter appears uninhabitable to us yet it has over a dozen moons, four of which are huge and one of which appears to have liquid water! That's just a gas giant in our own system. And even if we allowed you to dismiss all gas giants which we should not, there's still a huge number of smaller planets out there. You realise that the reason we have found more gas giants than smaller bodies is because gas giants are... giant. Right?

skaif said:
Islam teaches us that there may be life out there other than ours. The quran even states that Allah is the lord of all universes. Plural.

I think we are probably not alone.
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That's pretty cool.

Sliver said:
Why should anyone believe in what islam says? Just another fairytale with no evidence to back it up.
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nitram100 said:
This. Absolutely no evidence for any of the religions, I really don't know how anyone of adult age can take them seriously.
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You both realise that Skaif was simply responding to the OP's question about how religions would handle it by pointing out that the Koran already allows for multiple worlds? No need to jump on people.

Rroff said:
In the same vein as there is no more evidence of life out there - in both cases the science and technology points in a particular direction but we don't have a definite answer.

Problem is a lot of people's understanding of the relevant fields is about 10 years behind the reality - the progress in things like neural interfacing and super computing have come on massively in the last few years and the current trajectories potentially make it feasible even within our life times. A common misconception is that we need to build a simulation that exactly mimics the laws and scale of our own universe to prove the concept but we don't.
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Evidence that we are in a simulation? My quick three responses would be:
  • "Planck Constant" (a simulation I would expect to be granular, reality need not be. And Planck showed that we exist in a granular universe).
  • Speed of Light (a simulation presumably has upper limits built in, reality need not. And Einstein showed that we exist in a universe with upper limits).
  • We are alone. Given how unlikely it seems, simulation would be one answer to why we appear to be alone. The real question becoming - why does the simulation need to conceal from us that it is a simulation?
 
Rroff said:
To be comparable you'd need some degree of sentient entity that is fully immersed - don't forget that if we either synthesised something or did something somewhat unethical like taking a newborn (or even someone that was brain damaged) and entirely tapping its neural senses before it had any awareness of our universe all it would know is what we show it and it would take a very long time for something like that to figure out the limits of a relatively simplistic simulation never mind even something a fraction as complicated as our own existence if it didn't know anything different.
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You seem to believe in sentience as a discrete thing. Rather than froth on the ocean of physical processes.
 
Rroff said:
Vast numbers though are gas giants or balls of rock that are either way too hot, way too cold or way too exposed to radiation, etc. even those in the hospitable zone are often tidally locked or other things like that which reduce their chance of supporting life or limit what kind of life could emerge. Then there are those that might be in the perfect place and condition but their parent star is too short lived for any civilisation to emerge and survive long enough to come to anything of consequence.

It isn't impossible that there are barely single digit numbers of planets per galaxy that could support any kind of life that could become remotely advanced.
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This however is due to technology and time. As we spend more time looking we are finding more suitable planets. The larger and closer to the sun it is the easier they are to detect. As you need several orbits to confirm, and the bigger the planet the more star light is blocked. Also the closer they are the more likely they are to be tidally locked.
 
h4rm0ny said:
Even those that are gas giants might support life. Jupiter appears uninhabitable to us yet it has over a dozen moons, four of which are huge and one of which appears to have liquid water! That's just a gas giant in our own system. And even if we allowed you to dismiss all gas giants which we should not, there's still a huge number of smaller planets out there. You realise that the reason we have found more gas giants than smaller bodies is because gas giants are... giant. Right?
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I had somewhat overlooked moons but in terms of advanced lifeforms they are generally fairly low down the candidates for supporting it - the vast majority are extremely hostile to life. Obviously I'm aware gas giants are kind of big and hence easier to detect :s my comment was that the vast number of detected bodies aren't well suited to it.

h4rm0ny said:
You seem to believe in sentience as a discrete thing. Rather than froth on the ocean of physical processes.
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More I don't believe in a specific definition we know relatively so little about it.
 
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