Possible SETI candidate

On Wednesday, August 31, 2016 at 12:11:53 PM UTC-4, Davoud wrote:
Mike Collins:
http://www.centauri-dreams.org/?p=36248

Davoud:
Nonsense worthy of "Nostradamus" and Velikovsky.

Mike Collins:
http://www.seti.org/seti-institute/a-seti-signal

Low probability but not comparable with the Velikovsky insanity.

Purely personal: I think the entire SETI scheme is a load of nonsense.
Evidence is ET is probably not out there.

There is no evidence one way or the other.

If ET is, we probably won't
find him. If we find him it will most likely be by accident.

Chance tends to favor the prepared mind and yours isn't.

And
finding him would lead to 1) conspiracy theories on what the government
isn't telling us

And?

2) speculation as to whether he is Christian

Or Jewish, Buddhist, Hindu, Muslim, Wiccan, Pastafarian, etc.

3) a
trillion-dollar preliminary study on how to make war on him

Not a bad idea to be prepared.

4) great
frustration as we realize we will never meet him or even talk to him.

So?

On Wednesday, 31 August 2016 19:27:14 UTC-4, Chris L Peterson wrote:
On Wed, 31 Aug 2016 16:00:04 -0700 (PDT), RichA
wrote:

On Sunday, 28 August 2016 18:24:26 UTC-4, Mike Collins wrote:
http://www.centauri-dreams.org/?p=36248

Never trust Russians. Born liars and cheats. They claimed to have achieved temperatures in a lab on the order of 3 billion degrees. LIE!

Particle physics labs routinely achieve temperatures of billions of
kelvins (in some cases, trillions). Depending on the details of their
claim, there's nothing about 3 billion kelvins that strains belief at
all.

They claimed they did it in 1975 using "OGRA Injection mirror equipment." The claim was never proved.

On Wednesday, 31 August 2016 19:27:14 UTC-4, Chris L Peterson wrote:
On Wed, 31 Aug 2016 16:00:04 -0700 (PDT), RichA
wrote:

On Sunday, 28 August 2016 18:24:26 UTC-4, Mike Collins wrote:
http://www.centauri-dreams.org/?p=36248

Never trust Russians. Born liars and cheats. They claimed to have achieved temperatures in a lab on the order of 3 billion degrees. LIE!

Particle physics labs routinely achieve temperatures of billions of
kelvins (in some cases, trillions). Depending on the details of their
claim, there's nothing about 3 billion kelvins that strains belief at
all.

Liars, all:

http://edition.cnn.com/2016/08/31/mi...led/index.html

On Wed, 31 Aug 2016 20:51:08 -0700 (PDT), RichA
wrote:

On Wednesday, 31 August 2016 19:27:14 UTC-4, Chris L Peterson wrote:
On Wed, 31 Aug 2016 16:00:04 -0700 (PDT), RichA
wrote:

On Sunday, 28 August 2016 18:24:26 UTC-4, Mike Collins wrote:
http://www.centauri-dreams.org/?p=36248

Never trust Russians. Born liars and cheats. They claimed to have achieved temperatures in a lab on the order of 3 billion degrees. LIE!

Particle physics labs routinely achieve temperatures of billions of
kelvins (in some cases, trillions). Depending on the details of their
claim, there's nothing about 3 billion kelvins that strains belief at
all.

They claimed they did it in 1975 using "OGRA Injection mirror equipment." The claim was never proved.

The Ogra device was a magnetic mirror plasma trap. Such devices are
capable of energy densities that can be standardized to billions of
kelvins. And have been for decades. So I don't know what you find so
unlikely.

In any case, scientific claims are not, and cannot be "proved".

On Wednesday, 31 August 2016 19:03:11 UTC+2, Chris L Peterson wrote:
On Wed, 31 Aug 2016 09:54:43 -0700 (PDT), "Chris.B"
wrote:

Interstellar travel assumes the ability to manipulate time.

No it doesn't. It assumes the ability to operate stably over long
periods of time. Something that would be reasonably expected of a
mature civilization, a long-lived species, or robots.

I wonder about that. Can you imagine the ancient Egyptians sending out travelers to discover the entire world and their descendants still traveling in the same, cramped coach and horses? Now multiply that long search by ten, one hundred or one hundred thousand.

Information only has value if it has currency. We took barely 50 years to break the sound barrier from building the first string and canvas human lifting "kite." The technology came from the humble bicycle. Only a few more short years passed before we had mass human transport around the globe. We went to the Moon as an act of war to raise a flag to human folly. Marconi's work seems a far cry from our spamming, mobile telephones.

Who is to say that our rigid acceptance of the Light Speed Limit cannot be overcome? Or that time itself is not subject to some unforeseen manipulation? Perhaps subject to some quite accidental discovery? The assumption that we know everything has been repeatedly disproven over time. The arrogance of the present knows no boundaries. The terrifying ignorance of "The world's greatest experts" unfathomable.

AI may soon release us from our time bonds. Or build ourselves a prison with no escapees. The psyche of the dominant species is a terribly fragile thing and always subject to the waft of a single butterfly's wings. The vast majority of those alive today are deliberately performing habitual self harm.. The majority of humans are unhappy and find no real reward from their existence.

Culture and religion no longer hold answers to the meaning of our lives. We need a sea change in our species behaviour, attitudes and organization if we are to survive more than a few more generations.

Our present leaders and their paths to power is such a broken concept that few care who receives the empty fanfares today or tomorrow. Power always corrupts. History has it carved in stone for all who bother to read the glyphs. Smugness and paranoia are poor bed fellows for those who claim to steer our sinking ship away from the abyss. The more lunatic the owner of the garish and outdated uniform the greater their power.

Society is split into pointless tribal factions. Where differences can only be measured in fractions of a badly distorted light wave. We are constantly subjected to a gale of life threatening toxins and torpid leadership inaction. Our human organization rewards the damaging and some truly evil sociopaths. Those who commit slow and deliberate genocide on the entire human race. All for a Bottom Line which can now, only be measured in nanoseconds across a pointless bunch of optical fibers.

As a race we thrive on measuring difference between us. Yet pray for the grey mediocrity of anonymity in the waiting crowds. Jostling forever, and a day, just to save a lousy buck. A billionaire with an art collection is a fool who knows the price of everything and the value of nothing. Yet all would imitate him. If only they could break through the chains he always builds to isolate himself from mere, tawdry humanity.

Great wealth is not an accumulation of anything much at all, except a fierce concentration of irrational greed. It is more the deliberate denial of life and happiness from those they would prefer to ignore. As being forever unworthy of their aloof condescension.

A man who claims he is worth his weight in gold has no inkling of care and love and sorrow amongst his countless slaves. The lies flow out of his speech writers' poison pens like glistering quack-silver. We have only to wait now for the luster to go out of his ornamented eyes. For the seething, volcanic hatred, for all of humanity, to erupt from every pustule of his being! Give him real power and you will soon hear the trump, trump trump of the inevitable jackboots! What a way to run a [whole] world.

On Wed, 31 Aug 2016 23:04:52 -0700 (PDT), "Chris.B"
wrote:

No it doesn't. It assumes the ability to operate stably over long
periods of time. Something that would be reasonably expected of a
mature civilization, a long-lived species, or robots.

I wonder about that. Can you imagine the ancient Egyptians sending out travelers to discover the entire world and their descendants still traveling in the same, cramped coach and horses? Now multiply that long search by ten, one hundred or one hundred thousand.

Ancient Egyptians? No. But what about a million-year-old civilization
that doesn't undergo social change, where there's no science left to
discover, where technology is near perfect, where the people don't die
of anything except rare accidents? What would be a 100,000 year
journey to them, assuming an interest in other stars?

Who is to say that our rigid acceptance of the Light Speed Limit cannot be overcome? Or that time itself is not subject to some unforeseen manipulation?

Such things are possibilities, of course. But I think our fundamental
understanding of the Universe is substantial, nearly complete. These
things are very unlikely, and probably not worth serious
consideration. There's a difference between knowing everything, and
having a large jigsaw puzzle with a lot of missing pieces, but well
enough constructed that the overall picture is obvious.

On Thursday, September 1, 2016 at 12:38:01 AM UTC-6, Chris L Peterson wrote:

On Wed, 31 Aug 2016 23:04:52 -0700 (PDT), "Chris.B"
wrote:

No it doesn't. It assumes the ability to operate stably over long
periods of time. Something that would be reasonably expected of a
mature civilization, a long-lived species, or robots.

I wonder about that. Can you imagine the ancient Egyptians sending out
travelers to discover the entire world and their descendants still
traveling in the same, cramped coach and horses? Now multiply that long
search by ten, one hundred or one hundred thousand.

Ancient Egyptians? No. But what about a million-year-old civilization
that doesn't undergo social change, where there's no science left to
discover, where technology is near perfect, where the people don't die
of anything except rare accidents? What would be a 100,000 year
journey to them, assuming an interest in other stars?

I think such a civilization couldn't exist without some common goal. One
might be to help other budding civilizations along. Another might be to
work toward survival when the stars burn out. More likely, we have no
concept of what their goal might be at our present stage of development.

There might be other ways to reach distant stars than by brute force v = dE/dp
(Alcubierre-type drive, brane theory, etc.).

Who is to say that our rigid acceptance of the Light Speed Limit cannot
be overcome? Or that time itself is not subject to some unforeseen
manipulation?

Such things are possibilities, of course. But I think our fundamental
understanding of the Universe is substantial, nearly complete.

Actual scientists have said this type of thing before :-)

These things are very unlikely, and probably not worth serious
consideration. There's a difference between knowing everything, and
having a large jigsaw puzzle with a lot of missing pieces, but well
enough constructed that the overall picture is obvious.

I think the analogy is flawed, being more like we have enough pieces to
know what half of the puzzle looks like overall, but the other half is
sparsely populated and could contain many surprises (and probably does).

On Thu, 1 Sep 2016 04:31:28 -0700 (PDT), Gary Harnagel
wrote:

Ancient Egyptians? No. But what about a million-year-old civilization
that doesn't undergo social change, where there's no science left to
discover, where technology is near perfect, where the people don't die
of anything except rare accidents? What would be a 100,000 year
journey to them, assuming an interest in other stars?

I think such a civilization couldn't exist without some common goal. One
might be to help other budding civilizations along. Another might be to
work toward survival when the stars burn out. More likely, we have no
concept of what their goal might be at our present stage of development.

I wouldn't presume to make any assumptions about whether a
civilization requires goals. But I doubt that any such civilization
would be beyond our understanding, or would think in a substantially
different way.

Such things are possibilities, of course. But I think our fundamental
understanding of the Universe is substantial, nearly complete.

Actual scientists have said this type of thing before :-)

Yes. But at some point it becomes true. And I think we're near that
point now. While our rate of acquiring knowledge continues to grow
exponentially, the rate at which we uncover fundamental truths that
impact everything else is declining. We've worked out most of that
stuff.

These things are very unlikely, and probably not worth serious
consideration. There's a difference between knowing everything, and
having a large jigsaw puzzle with a lot of missing pieces, but well
enough constructed that the overall picture is obvious.

I think the analogy is flawed, being more like we have enough pieces to
know what half of the puzzle looks like overall, but the other half is
sparsely populated and could contain many surprises (and probably does).

I think there will be many surprises. But they will be along the lines
of "there's a bird on that branch!" and not "that's not even a tree!".

On Thursday, 1 September 2016 13:38:47 UTC+2, Chris L Peterson wrote:
On Thu, 1 Sep 2016 04:31:28 -0700 (PDT), Gary Harnagel

I think the analogy is flawed, being more like we have enough pieces to
know what half of the puzzle looks like overall, but the other half is
sparsely populated and could contain many surprises (and probably does).

I think there will be many surprises. But they will be along the lines
of "there's a bird on that branch!" and not "that's not even a tree!".

I shall make absolutely sure I have my towel handy at all times.

Aliens are like buses. You can wait for millennia and then 3 million all come along at the same time! ;}

On Thursday, September 1, 2016 at 5:38:47 AM UTC-6, Chris L Peterson wrote:

On Thu, 1 Sep 2016 04:31:28 -0700 (PDT), Gary Harnagel
wrote:

I think such a civilization couldn't exist without some common goal. One
might be to help other budding civilizations along. Another might be to
work toward survival when the stars burn out. More likely, we have no
concept of what their goal might be at our present stage of development.

I wouldn't presume to make any assumptions about whether a
civilization requires goals.

Goals have been natural to the development of civilization and have been
centered on survival prehistorically. Historically, it has been geared
toward protection and convenience (some sleep while others watch, trade,
free time, etc.)

Given an advanced civilization that has no need of protection and little
need of trade, most members would have nothing to do if there were no
unifying goal to keep them together and would likely self-destruct.

But I doubt that any such civilization would be beyond our understanding,
or would think in a substantially different way.

They would have to think differently than the rabble-rousers of our planet.
We have kooks that would throw out the baby with the bathwater. True,
some of our people in an advanced way. Not many, though.

Such things are possibilities, of course. But I think our fundamental
understanding of the Universe is substantial, nearly complete.

Actual scientists have said this type of thing before :-)

Yes. But at some point it becomes true. And I think we're near that
point now. While our rate of acquiring knowledge continues to grow
exponentially, the rate at which we uncover fundamental truths that
impact everything else is declining. We've worked out most of that
stuff.

I think string theory (actually, M-theory or brane theory) will represent
a significant leap forward, but it hasn't been worked out yet. And I
don't believe we'll understand much about the universe until we do.
Have you noticed that physicists are coming up with a lot of really
bizarre ideas that are outrageously far out? Like Max Tegmark's idea
that mathematics is at the foundation of the universe? Or the many-worlds
concept of QM? That one can lead to mental breakdown, as it apparently
did to Hugh Everett.

These things are very unlikely, and probably not worth serious
consideration. There's a difference between knowing everything, and
having a large jigsaw puzzle with a lot of missing pieces, but well
enough constructed that the overall picture is obvious.

I think the analogy is flawed, being more like we have enough pieces to
know what half of the puzzle looks like overall, but the other half is
sparsely populated and could contain many surprises (and probably does).

I think there will be many surprises. But they will be along the lines
of "there's a bird on that branch!" and not "that's not even a tree!".

How about confirmation that mirror matter (also called shadow matter or
Alice matter) exists? Or confirmation of adjacent branes?