Pentagon releases UFO footage

[Angilion]

Some species did survive like I think crocs snakes and sharks. A great watch anyway if you can find it.

The only dinosaurs that survived were some of the smaller avian dinosaurs. Hence the recent popular comment that chickens are the closest living relative to T-rex. Which might be true (I don't know which modern bird is the closest relative) but is meaningless because the relationship is so distant.

Many non-dinosaur species went extinct at the same time. Maybe most of them. My memory is telling me that the global extinction rate was about 50%, but I'm not sure off the top of my head. Not the worst extinction event(*), but well up there.

Despite looking like the well known (and probably mostly wrong) image most people have of dinosaurs, crocodiles are not dinosaurs. Crocs are remarkable for how little they've changed over such a long period of time (almost no evolutionary selection pressure because they're already so well suited to their environment) and were contempory with dinosaurs, but they're not dinosaurs.



* That was the end...something. Permian, I think. Permian-Triassic? That one almost ended life on Earth. IIRC it was total extinction of ~70% of land species, ~70% of avian species and ~90% of marine species. With massive population reduction in the surviving species. Or it might have been the great oxygenation event, depending on how you look at it. That was before there was any life more complex than single cell prokyrotes, but it would have killed almost all of them. Bah, I'll have to look the other one up...yes, it was the end of the Permian and the beginning of the Triassic. AKA "The Great Dying". Probably caused by aliens, obviously.

 

[gpuerrilla]

Nonetheless.. we wouldn't be here if that asteroid did not hit. That's chance for you! There is no way dinosaurs would have evolved like we have but there will obviously be other life out there. This is why although intelligent life can/does exist, it will be so far way and under a different timeframe, I want to believe in ET but.. you get the rest!

 

[dpbadger]

What if... it is future humans coming back to tell us something or to stop us doing something or they have been here all the time as interdimensional beings.

 

[Angilion]

Nonetheless.. we wouldn't be here if that asteroid did not hit. That's chance for you! There is no way dinosaurs would have evolved like we have but there will obviously be other life out there. This is why although intelligent life can/does exist, it will be so far way and under a different timeframe, I want to believe in ET but.. you get the rest!

Why is it obvious that there is other life out there, let alone intelligent life?

I think that we don't know enough to be making any statements about anything to do with life elsewhere being obvious. Or even to assign any meaningful degree of probability to it. The asteroid hitting when it did and where it did was only one unlikely event in a chain of unlikely events that led to us. We don't even know how life begins, so we can't assign any meaningful degree of probability to life existing, even the simplest form of life. Then there's a whole slew of necessary things from the simplest form of life to intelligent life. To pick one example of many - as far as we can tell, the evolution of eukyrotes from prokyrotes happened only once on Earth, ever. That's an essential step to even the simplest multicellular life and it seems to have only ever happened once. Other things have evolved multiple times (eyes, for example, evolved independently at least 4 times) but that step of evolution, a step crucial to the existence of any life more complex than a simple bacterium, only seems to have happened once. Then there's all the requirements in terms of environment. As far as we can tell from our extremely limited information, the evolution of intelligent life requires a vast amount of time of relatively stable conditions after the existence of the simplest forms of life. A couple of billion years in the only known example. How common is that? We don't know, but it doesn't look like it's at all common. Maybe Earth is unique in that respect. Maybe the solar system is unique in some way crucial to the development of intelligent life. Maybe it's uniquely stable. Maybe having a bizarrely over-sized moon is required to keep a planet's environment stable enough for long enough. Earth's moon is ludicrously massive compared with Earth and has a significant stabilising effect on Earth's environment. Maybe a particular configuration of planets is required for there to be enough stability for long enough. Jupiter, for example, has stopped a lot of rocks from hitting Earth. Without that, Earth would probably be uninhabitable to any form of life let alone stable enough for long enough for intelligent life to evolve. I think we don't know enough.

It's maybe possible that dinosaurs would have evolved in a somewhat similar way to us, maybe. Convergent evolution happens. Maybe not that much, but maybe that much. The 4 limbs thing was already very common and arranging that as 2 for movement and 2 for handling things is useful. With that, an upright stance works best. Head at the top fits well too - best fit for sight and to a lesser extent for hearing. Maybe there would have been some bipedal tool-using dinosaurs by now. Perhaps.

 

[SexyGreyFox]

Great post Angilion.

 

[ik9000]

What if... it is future humans coming back to tell us something or to stop us doing something or they have been here all the time as interdimensional beings.

Wasn't that Al Gore? Either way, no one listened and here we are, climate crisis and lacking the green infrastructure we would have been setting up over the last 20 or so years.

 

[Gerard]

Why is it obvious that there is other life out there, let alone intelligent life?

I think that we don't know enough to be making any statements about anything to do with life elsewhere being obvious. Or even to assign any meaningful degree of probability to it. The asteroid hitting when it did and where it did was only one unlikely event in a chain of unlikely events that led to us. We don't even know how life begins, so we can't assign any meaningful degree of probability to life existing, even the simplest form of life. Then there's a whole slew of necessary things from the simplest form of life to intelligent life. To pick one example of many - as far as we can tell, the evolution of eukyrotes from prokyrotes happened only once on Earth, ever. That's an essential step to even the simplest multicellular life and it seems to have only ever happened once. Other things have evolved multiple times (eyes, for example, evolved independently at least 4 times) but that step of evolution, a step crucial to the existence of any life more complex than a simple bacterium, only seems to have happened once. Then there's all the requirements in terms of environment. As far as we can tell from our extremely limited information, the evolution of intelligent life requires a vast amount of time of relatively stable conditions after the existence of the simplest forms of life. A couple of billion years in the only known example. How common is that? We don't know, but it doesn't look like it's at all common. Maybe Earth is unique in that respect. Maybe the solar system is unique in some way crucial to the development of intelligent life. Maybe it's uniquely stable. Maybe having a bizarrely over-sized moon is required to keep a planet's environment stable enough for long enough. Earth's moon is ludicrously massive compared with Earth and has a significant stabilising effect on Earth's environment. Maybe a particular configuration of planets is required for there to be enough stability for long enough. Jupiter, for example, has stopped a lot of rocks from hitting Earth. Without that, Earth would probably be uninhabitable to any form of life let alone stable enough for long enough for intelligent life to evolve. I think we don't know enough.

It's maybe possible that dinosaurs would have evolved in a somewhat similar way to us, maybe. Convergent evolution happens. Maybe not that much, but maybe that much. The 4 limbs thing was already very common and arranging that as 2 for movement and 2 for handling things is useful. With that, an upright stance works best. Head at the top fits well too - best fit for sight and to a lesser extent for hearing. Maybe there would have been some bipedal tool-using dinosaurs by now. Perhaps.

Do you know how utterly depressing that would be if in all the Universe THIS is it and everything else is just taking up space? There's meant to be around 400 billion planets in the Milky Way alone, and near 22 trillion planets in several neighbouring galaxies, i'd say numerically the odds are pretty good there's life out there.

 

[mrk]

I don't believe for one second that we are the only living beings out there as mentioned before. With access to every piece of scientific and astronomical information you can manage the time to read, watch and listen to the odds point to a universe that is more likely teaming with life rather than not. The problem is (also as mentioned) that the universe appears to be infinitely large and flat and the further out you look towards the Hubble Volume (the edge of the observable universe) the faster the things out there move away from us due to the universe's expansion (aka the Hubble Constant).

On one hand some scientists theorise that in this style of universe you could travel across the universe for an infinite amount of time and come across an infinite number of things, basically if you can imagine it then you would encounter it, as complex as that is to even comprehend for us really. our observable universe is some 13.4 billion years old, but the Hubble Volume as a whole is over 90 billion years old --as far as astronomers currently can estimate--.

There are other theories as well and each one has equal possibility of being right or wrong. The math more often than none checks out but the means to test it is impossible and will likely always remain impossible because beyond the Hubble Volume, once light passes that boundary, we will never ever see those things again from our vantage point and long into the future every single light source in the night sky will dim because everything has gone beyond the observable universe.

Ultimately we will be in total darkness and if humans are still alive then, will only hopefully have a historical record of what the sky was like at one point in the past because otherwise they will think they truly are alone in the universe.

Sadly space is just so damn huge that any meaningful way to get anywhere or communicate is simply meaningless unless a day comes when humans are able to make use of the powers of quantum mechanics and somehow entangle particles from one end of the universe to the other and use those pairs to communicate information, what Einstein dubbed Spooky Action at a distance.

 

[SexyGreyFox]

What if... it is future humans coming back to tell us something or to stop us doing something .

They are not doing a very good job of it then, all they have done for millennia is fly around in 1000s of different shaped spacecraft without doing any talking.

i'd say numerically the odds are pretty good there's life out there.

Life yes, intelligent life is a different level of belief.

 

[Gerard]

Life yes, intelligent life is a different level of belief.

Even then, the numbers of planets involved make it a good possibility. Its harder to believe that with trillions of planets involved in just several galaxies there isn't another few civilisations out there somewhere. If anything it's more like human arrogance to think we're somehow that special.

 

[Angilion]

Do you know how utterly depressing that would be if in all the Universe THIS is it and everything else is just taking up space?

No, I don't. Why would I? I don't believe in any gods with any plans for the universe, so why would I be in any way disappointed by the plans I don't believe in made by gods I don't believe in? Nor am I relying on hyper-advanced aliens as substitutes for gods (and thus effectively gods). So I feel no need to believe that some sort of higher entity has some sort of plan for the universe. Your position is based on faith. Mine is based on lack of faith. You'd be depressed if your faith is wrong. I wouldn't be depressed if your faith is wrong. It's your faith, not mine.

There's meant to be around 400 billion planets in the Milky Way alone, and near 22 trillion planets in several neighbouring galaxies, i'd say numerically the odds are pretty good there's life out there.

What are the odds of abiogenesis? What are the odds of compatible circumstances for abiogenesis? What are the odds of sufficient stability for sufficient periods of time? What are the odds of the evolution of eukyrotes from prokyrotes? What are the odds of multicellular life evolving from single cell life? What are the odds of intelligence evolving? Etc, etc. We have no idea what the odds of almost everything to do with life are. Maybe there are a trillion species at least as intellligent as humans. Maybe only us. Maybe anything in between. Maybe there were others in the past who are now extinct or who have evolved into something beyond our understanding. We have no evidence and no understanding - nothing to base a meaningful assessment of odds on. Maybe there is an omniscient and omnipotent god or gods and they created the universe and they created life on Earth and the whole of the universe is for humans. Scale means nothing to omnipotence. Creating an entire universe as an activity mat for the life they created would be no different to creating a single planet for that life. Maybe a federation of thousands of species of people with interstellar travel (somehow) has been debating whether or not to reveal themselves to humans for the last 100 years. Or the last 100,000 years. Maybe we're all related - maybe abiogenesis happened somewhere else and the idea of panspermia is correct. Maybe all sorts of things. I don't know and I'm OK with admitting that.

 

[Angilion]

Even then, the numbers of planets involved make it a good possibility. Its harder to believe that with trillions of planets involved in just several galaxies there isn't another few civilisations out there somewhere. If anything it's more like human arrogance to think we're somehow that special.

I think it's more arrogant to assume knowledge that doesn't exist. There's nothing arrogant about acknowledging the possibility that our existence is merely a freak of chance, the result of a long chain of circumstances that we had nothing to do with. How on earth can anyone consider that arrogant?

 

[Gerard]

No, I don't. Why would I? I don't believe in any gods with any plans for the universe, so why would I be in any way disappointed by the plans I don't believe in made by gods I don't believe in? Nor am I relying on hyper-advanced aliens as substitutes for gods (and thus effectively gods). So I feel no need to believe that some sort of higher entity has some sort of plan for the universe. Your position is based on faith. Mine is based on lack of faith. You'd be depressed if your faith is wrong. I wouldn't be depressed if your faith is wrong. It's your faith, not mine.

Funny that as I have zero religious faith or belief in 'higher beings". My position is based on there being so many planets and galaxies that the odds are there are other forms of intelligent life out there. And I think most rational people would also consider that as a good possibility.

 

[Angilion]

Funny that as I have zero religious faith or belief in 'higher beings".

If you don't have faith in higher beings with a plan for the universe, why would you be depressed at the lack of such a thing? Everything is just taking up space unless a lifeform has a plan for it or assigns a value to it and even then the value of it is wholly subjective and limited to that lifeform.

My position is based on there being so many planets and galaxies that the odds are there are other forms of intelligent life out there. And I think most rational people would also consider that as a good possibility.

Your position that I replied to is that it would be "utterly depressing" if there wasn't any other intelligent life. So you believe that there is in order to avoid the depression you would inflict on yourself if your belief was wrong. Which is circular and not rational.

As for your other position, your position regarding the odds of other intelligent life, I think it's over-stating the case to say that the odds are in favour of it when we have no idea what the odds are. It's a possibility, but I disagree that it's rational to assign a >50% chance of it without any knowledge of how likely it is other than non-zero. I also disgree with the idea that it's "utterly depressing" to be wrong about something you can't possibly know about.

EDIT: Come to think of it, we don't even know for certain that the chance of intelligent life elsewhere in the universe is non-zero. We only know for certain that intelligent life can exist. It's possible that this universe is a creation and the creator(s) made it with intelligent life on one planet only.

 

[Pottsey]

No, I don't. Why would I? I don't believe in any gods with any plans for the universe, so why would I be in any way disappointed by the plans I don't believe in made by gods I don't believe in? Nor am I relying on hyper-advanced aliens as substitutes for gods (and thus effectively gods). So I feel no need to believe that some sort of higher entity has some sort of plan for the universe. Your position is based on faith. Mine is based on lack of faith. You'd be depressed if your faith is wrong. I wouldn't be depressed if your faith is wrong. It's your faith, not mine.

What are the odds of abiogenesis? What are the odds of compatible circumstances for abiogenesis? What are the odds of sufficient stability for sufficient periods of time? What are the odds of the evolution of eukyrotes from prokyrotes? What are the odds of multicellular life evolving from single cell life? What are the odds of intelligence evolving? Etc, etc. We have no idea what the odds of almost everything to do with life are. Maybe there are a trillion species at least as intellligent as humans. Maybe only us. Maybe anything in between. Maybe there were others in the past who are now extinct or who have evolved into something beyond our understanding. We have no evidence and no understanding - nothing to base a meaningful assessment of odds on. Maybe there is an omniscient and omnipotent god or gods and they created the universe and they created life on Earth and the whole of the universe is for humans. Scale means nothing to omnipotence. Creating an entire universe as an activity mat for the life they created would be no different to creating a single planet for that life. Maybe a federation of thousands of species of people with interstellar travel (somehow) has been debating whether or not to reveal themselves to humans for the last 100 years. Or the last 100,000 years. Maybe we're all related - maybe abiogenesis happened somewhere else and the idea of panspermia is correct. Maybe all sorts of things. I don't know and I'm OK with admitting that.

People call it arrogant thinking humans are special as anything that happened by chance at least once can happen again. Most people don’t really understand the sheer size of the universe so even with extremely low odds rare events have likely happened multiple times if not a great many multiple times. None of the events have a chance of zero of happening and some of them have a chance we can only estimate. So the most common math used is

From a math point of view the Drake equation says its extremely unlikely that Earth hosts the only technological species that has ever occurred and that's technological as none technological life is all but a given at this point. Plus as we are exploring our own solo system there is growing evidence that microbial life is wide spread not just on Earth. Which greatly increase the chance humans are not unique.

 

[Angilion]

People call it arrogant thinking humans are special as anything that happened by chance at least once can happen again.

People who are arrogant enough to assume their own belief in aliens is the deciding factor in reality call people who don't share that belief arrogant. It's obviously silly to claim that "I don't know" is an arrogant thing to say, but that's what happens. Even if humans happen to be the most intelligent life in the universe, that's just chance. It's not an achievement of humanity. There's no arrogance involved.

Humans are special, anyway. Just as any other species of people would be, if any exist.

Most people don’t really understand the sheer size of the universe so even with extremely low odds rare events have likely happened multiple times if not a great many multiple times. None of the events have a chance of zero of happening and some of them have a chance we can only estimate. So the most common math used is

From a math point of view the Drake equation says its extremely unlikely that Earth hosts the only technological species that has ever occurred and that's technological as none technological life is all but a given at this point.

The Drake equation isn't really maths and doesn't say anything because we don't know the value of any of the variables. Drake created it as a talking point to promote discussion of the potential existence of other civilisations. It was never intended as an actual equation, let alone anything of any predictive value. Getting even roughly accurate values for the variables would only be possible after the question has already been answered.

Plus as we are exploring our own solo system there is growing evidence that microbial life is wide spread not just on Earth. Which greatly increase the chance humans are not unique.

We haven't found microbial life anywhere other than on Earth. Not a single microbe, let alone widespread.

 

[SexyGreyFox]

Even then, the numbers of planets involved make it a good possibility. Its harder to believe that with trillions of planets involved in just several galaxies there isn't another few civilisations out there somewhere. If anything it's more like human arrogance to think we're somehow that special.

I don't know why you think it's a given that just because there are a load more rocks floating around in space that some will have intelligent life on them.
The ingredients to make the cake of intelligent life in the correct order, in the correct amounts, in the correct timescale is likely to never happen again.
We arrogant humans only exist because of millions of things happening in the right order, even after the death of the dinosaurs there would have been millions of different things happening that eventually made the so called missing link where we went one way and apes went the other.
Even at that point so many things occurred where we got to us debating on a forum and you think all this could happen again in the same order.

Of course all this could have happened somewhere else first and Aliens dropped us onto Earth around that missing link period which is one of the main points of Ancient Aliens.

 

[gpuerrilla]

Three things.

One is (not my input by the way just remember absorbing the info) there is a black hole not that far from us that will engulf our galaxy.
Second is apparently the universe could also at some point reverse and collapse back in on itself.
Third, bit of an obvious one but the Sun dies/something happens to it then well Earth is doomed.

Some of these theories seem to change over time just like when people thought the Earth was flat or revolved around the moon!

The ingredients to make the cake of intelligent life in the correct order, in the correct amounts, in the correct timescale is likely to never happen again.
We arrogant humans only exist because of millions of things happening in the right order, even after the death of the dinosaurs there would have been millions of different things happening that eventually made the so called missing link where we went one way and apes went the other.
Even at that point so many things occurred where we got to us debating on a forum and you think all this could happen again in the same order.

Which is pretty much what I said a few posts up but Angy get all the back slaps!!

 

[SexyGreyFox]

Three things.

One is (not my input by the way just remember absorbing the info) there is a black hole not that far from us that will engulf our galaxy.
Second is apparently the universe could also at some point reverse and collapse back in on itself.
Third, bit of an obvious one but the Sun dies/something happens to it then well Earth is doomed.

There is a belief black holes are all over the place and one in the centre of every Galaxy.
The last I heard the Universe is still expanding at the same rate so a collapsing Universe is just a theory.
The Sun has got around 5 billion years before it burns out but humans will die out way before that.

Which is pretty much what I said a few posts up but Angy get all the back slaps!!

because he has repeated it over and over again over the years and puts it in a really good way.

 

[gpuerrilla]

because he has repeated it over and over again over the years and puts it in a really good way.

Just pulling your leg man. I like anyone's input.