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Neil DeGrasse Tyson headed down same loony road as Carl Sagan?



 
 
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  #221  
Old October 3rd 18, 09:42 PM posted to sci.astro.amateur
Quadibloc
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Default Neil DeGrasse Tyson headed down same loony road as Carl Sagan?

On Wednesday, October 3, 2018 at 7:24:01 AM UTC-6, Chris L Peterson wrote:

It is because it isn't what I'm talking about as "knowability". There
are certainly "things" we can't know. That's not important. The
question is are there rules of nature we can't know? I don't see
evidence of that. I think our understanding of nature can be complete.


It took a long time, and it was awfully hard, to find out that Fermat's last
theorem was true. The Riemann hypothesis still awaits solution.

But math is endless, whereas physics presumably proceeds from a few basic facts.
So, indeed, perhaps we could know all of them. But until we do, and know that we
know all of them, how much complexity nature has is open to question.

John Savard


  #222  
Old October 3rd 18, 11:43 PM posted to sci.astro.amateur
Chris L Peterson
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Posts: 10,007
Default Neil DeGrasse Tyson headed down same loony road as Carl Sagan?

On Wed, 3 Oct 2018 13:42:30 -0700 (PDT), Quadibloc
wrote:

On Wednesday, October 3, 2018 at 7:24:01 AM UTC-6, Chris L Peterson wrote:

It is because it isn't what I'm talking about as "knowability". There
are certainly "things" we can't know. That's not important. The
question is are there rules of nature we can't know? I don't see
evidence of that. I think our understanding of nature can be complete.


It took a long time, and it was awfully hard, to find out that Fermat's last
theorem was true. The Riemann hypothesis still awaits solution.

But math is endless, whereas physics presumably proceeds from a few basic facts.
So, indeed, perhaps we could know all of them. But until we do, and know that we
know all of them, how much complexity nature has is open to question.


Certainly. But I'd say the evidence is that our knowledge is
approaching complete. That we have a finished jigsaw puzzle that's
just missing a few pieces. They're some very important pieces, of
course, but not ones that are going to make the whole picture look
different.

I note that our core theories have been stable for a very long time
now. New discoveries (e.g. dark energy) result in tweaks to existing
theory, not throwing out major areas of physics and replacing them
with something completely different (the sort of thing that did happen
150 years ago). I take that as in indicator that our theories are
converging on ground truth.
  #223  
Old October 4th 18, 12:33 AM posted to sci.astro.amateur
Quadibloc
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Posts: 7,018
Default Neil DeGrasse Tyson headed down same loony road as Carl Sagan?

On Wednesday, October 3, 2018 at 4:43:36 PM UTC-6, Chris L Peterson wrote:
On Wed, 3 Oct 2018 13:42:30 -0700 (PDT), Quadibloc
wrote:
On Wednesday, October 3, 2018 at 7:24:01 AM UTC-6, Chris L Peterson wrote:


It is because it isn't what I'm talking about as "knowability". There
are certainly "things" we can't know. That's not important. The
question is are there rules of nature we can't know? I don't see
evidence of that. I think our understanding of nature can be complete.


It took a long time, and it was awfully hard, to find out that Fermat's last
theorem was true. The Riemann hypothesis still awaits solution.


But math is endless, whereas physics presumably proceeds from a few basic facts.
So, indeed, perhaps we could know all of them. But until we do, and know that we
know all of them, how much complexity nature has is open to question.


Certainly. But I'd say the evidence is that our knowledge is
approaching complete. That we have a finished jigsaw puzzle that's
just missing a few pieces. They're some very important pieces, of
course, but not ones that are going to make the whole picture look
different.


I note that our core theories have been stable for a very long time
now. New discoveries (e.g. dark energy) result in tweaks to existing
theory, not throwing out major areas of physics and replacing them
with something completely different (the sort of thing that did happen
150 years ago). I take that as in indicator that our theories are
converging on ground truth.


Yes, but that much has been true since Newton. Relativity and quantum mechanics
are also "tweaks" that didn't overturn the basic physics on which most of our
technology is based. To say that they overturned everything, while dark matter
is a "tweak" is debatable.

Although it is true that relativity and quantum mechanics did revise the very
roots of physics, even if the outcome in everyday life didn't change much. But
then, what about the much later discovery of quarks?

John Savard
  #224  
Old October 4th 18, 02:55 AM posted to sci.astro.amateur
Gary Harnagel
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Posts: 659
Default Neil DeGrasse Tyson headed down same loony road as Carl Sagan?

On Wednesday, October 3, 2018 at 5:33:13 PM UTC-6, Quadibloc wrote:

On Wednesday, October 3, 2018 at 4:43:36 PM UTC-6, Chris L Peterson wrote:

Certainly. But I'd say the evidence is that our knowledge is
approaching complete. That we have a finished jigsaw puzzle that's
just missing a few pieces. They're some very important pieces, of
course, but not ones that are going to make the whole picture look
different.


I note that our core theories have been stable for a very long time
now. New discoveries (e.g. dark energy) result in tweaks to existing
theory, not throwing out major areas of physics and replacing them
with something completely different (the sort of thing that did happen
150 years ago). I take that as in indicator that our theories are
converging on ground truth.


Yes, but that much has been true since Newton. Relativity and quantum
mechanics are also "tweaks" that didn't overturn the basic physics on
which most of our technology is based.


I think QM did. Semiconductor technology depends on it.

To say that they overturned everything, while dark matter is a "tweak"
is debatable.


Since we don't know what dark matter and energy are, we have no certainty
about what understanding them is going to do. If they're anything like
what I think they are, they will be much more than a tweak. I don't think
their de-masking will change technology, but they will change our philosophy
and understanding of the cosmos

Although it is true that relativity and quantum mechanics did revise the
very roots of physics, even if the outcome in everyday life didn't change
much.


Umm, looked at your I-phone lately?

But then, what about the much later discovery of quarks?

John Savard


We really haven't done much with quark technology (technology is where physics
impinges on our everyday life).
  #225  
Old October 4th 18, 05:29 AM posted to sci.astro.amateur
Chris L Peterson
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Posts: 10,007
Default Neil DeGrasse Tyson headed down same loony road as Carl Sagan?

On Wed, 3 Oct 2018 16:33:10 -0700 (PDT), Quadibloc
wrote:

Certainly. But I'd say the evidence is that our knowledge is
approaching complete. That we have a finished jigsaw puzzle that's
just missing a few pieces. They're some very important pieces, of
course, but not ones that are going to make the whole picture look
different.


I note that our core theories have been stable for a very long time
now. New discoveries (e.g. dark energy) result in tweaks to existing
theory, not throwing out major areas of physics and replacing them
with something completely different (the sort of thing that did happen
150 years ago). I take that as in indicator that our theories are
converging on ground truth.


Yes, but that much has been true since Newton. Relativity and quantum mechanics
are also "tweaks" that didn't overturn the basic physics on which most of our
technology is based. To say that they overturned everything, while dark matter
is a "tweak" is debatable.


I disagree. Both relativity and quantum mechanics were radically new
physics that completely changed our understanding of the Universe.
Dark energy (and even less, dark matter) are nothing at all like that.

Although it is true that relativity and quantum mechanics did revise the very
roots of physics, even if the outcome in everyday life didn't change much. But
then, what about the much later discovery of quarks?


Quarks were proposed on purely theoretical grounds as the Standard
Model was approaching its current (and presumably nearly final) form.
Again, jigsaw pieces within a picture that could be broadly seen, not
an entirely new picture at all.
  #226  
Old October 4th 18, 07:24 AM posted to sci.astro.amateur
Paul Schlyter[_3_]
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Posts: 1,344
Default Neil DeGrasse Tyson headed down same loony road as Carl Sagan?

On Tue, 2 Oct 2018 14:09:34 -0700 (PDT), Gary Harnagel
wrote:
On Tuesday, October 2, 2018 at 2:02:36 AM UTC-6, Paul Schlyter

wrote:

On Mon, 1 Oct 2018 18:41:05 -0700 (PDT), Gary Harnagel
wrote:

On Saturday, September 29, 2018 at 3:55:55 AM UTC-6, Paul

Schlyter
wrote:

Back then the galaxies were some 3 times closer to one

another than
today, so the typical intergalactic distance were perhaps

about a
million instead of millions of light years.

But, more importantly, back then there were few if any

population I
stars in existence. All stars back then were population II

stars,
which have very little, if any, elements heavier than H and

He. Those
heavier elements are required to form life. So back then

there was no
life in the universe, that we can say with great certainty.

Back
then, our Sun and our Earth did not even exist. Life, of all

kinds,
formed later.


9 billion years ago there certainly WERE stars with heavy

elements:


http://www.astronomy.com/news/2016/0...rly-galaxies-c

hallenges-star-forming-theory

Although their metallicity was only 20% of stars near us,

that's pretty
good for 11 billion years ago, wouldn't you say?


Lower metallicity means less material from which life can form.


Less, but not zero. You have NO idea how much less prevents life

and neither
do I, so this is just yammering.


Neither do you have any idea about it. So you have no basis
whatsoever to claim it is "almost certain" such civilization will
form and succeed in interstellar travel. It is just fantasies and
wishful thinking from you. The "law of big numbers" doesn't help you
here since there are too many unknown and possibly extremely small
numbers involved.


Such as wormholes? Or did you have something else in your

mind?

Wormholes, Alcubierre=type drives, transit to other branes, and

ways not
even a glimmer in the eyes of theoretical physicists.


Now you've entered the realm of science fiction...


So you believe only scientists can have new ideas? You DO realize

that
some SF authors ARE scientists, don't you?


These are by now quite old ideas. Yes, SF ages too as time passes.
However, wild hypotheses are definitely "almost certain" to be true.
Dream on, and get back if and when solid evidence for the existence
of these phenomena appears. And note that science fiction is not
science fact.


Not by much. Since the big bang happened 13.5 billion years

ago, 5
billion years ago the intergalactic distances already had

about 60%
of their current value.


And maybe there's a way to "wink out" there and "wink in" here

vitually
instantaneously. We haven't had millions of years of scientific
development yet.


More sci-fi...

More lack of vision.


Having vision is easy, you just fantasize. Making it actually happen
is much much harder.


Do you consider one to be a large number? One is the number

of
planets known to have life...

The law of large numbers say that if you repeat an experiment

a large
number of times, the outcome will be very close to the

expected
value. But, in the case of life in the universe, we have no

idea what
the expected value is. So the law of large numbers does not

help us
here.

Sure it does. We don't have to know the expectation value. We

KNOW it
happened ONCE. Given ENOUGH chances, it will happen again.


Sure, but have there been ENOUGH chances? We don't know, we can

only
guess or believe.

I BELIEEEVE!


I know, that's why you also are religious.


Given what we know about planetary systems today, about the

number of
stars in our galaxy, about the number of galaxies in just the

VISIBLE
universe and the tininess of the visible universe, you don't

believe it
hasn't happened MANY times? If so, you are an amazing

pessimist!

You see? All we can do is believe, we don't know. We are getting

to
know the first few factors of the Drake equation, but several

factors
remain unknown to us. And these unknown factors are the hardest

to
get to know. For instance, what is the typical lifetime of a
technologically advanced civilization? Apart from beliefs and
guesswork, hov can we actually get to KNOW that value?


It comes down to how much vision you have vs. how big a pessimist

you are.

And in what way could VISION alone give us knowledge?


That's your guess, and it is a far cry from "absolutely

certain" that
it actually is so.

YOU are the only one talking about "absolute certainty." I'm

talking about
probabilities.


Even if you call it "very high probability' it's really the same

thing. One
thing about extraterrestrial life is that ve cannot be "almost

certain"
about anything.


I am.


Without any solid base, you are. It is easy to get caught up in
wishful thinking. But even a visionary must distinguish what we know
from what we merely believe, or else his visions will at some stage
fall flat to the ground.


You and I are working from different assumptions. Are you

familiar
with Paul Steinhardt's Ekpyrotic theory?

https://arxiv.org/abs/hep-th/0103239

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ekpyrotic_universe

It posits a cyclic universe. If it has any credence it

means that past
universes existed. If intelligent life is as rare as some

here believe,
it becomes a virtual certainty that it developed in a

previous genesis,
maybe millions of times. If some couldn't find a way to

transport
itself from one genesis to the next, one would have.

Imagine, a
civilization billions of years old appearing on the scene

13 billion
years ago!

But what if it doesn't have any credence? We don't know if it

has, so
we can only guess. And you must do much better than guesswork

to be
able to reliably claim that something is "almost certain".

Don't be such a pessimist! It's bordering on a mania :-)


Don't be such a dreamer...


Why not? Dreamers make reality happen. Pessimists just sit around

moping.

Nope. Realists are those who make reality happen. Dreamers just
dream, and when one dream fails they switch to another dream. To make
things happen you must be careful about distinguish speculation from
knowledge. But regarding extraterrestrial civilizations we humans
cannot make that happen. It either has happened or has not happened
and we cannot do anything about that. Your dreams can never create
extraterrestrial civilizations billions of years into the past.


When you talk about extraterrestrial life, don't you mean real

life in the
real universe and not just your fantasies and wishes?


I believe in ET. Why wouldn't you?



You can fantasize as much as you want, but please stop trying

to
misuse probability to claim something is "almost certain"

when it
actually just is a guess of yours.

Pessimist!


No, I'm a realist.


No, you're a mope-around. And you cannot possibly be a "realist"

since you
admit that we don't know.


The reality **is** that we don't know...


There are no alternatives today that match empirical data so

well.

Irrelevant since we're talking about billion-year-old

civilizations.

You are then talking about something neither you nor anyone else

on
Earth know anything about.


So you admit that calling yourself a realist is just as nonsensical

as my
calling myself a visionary :-))


Calling yourself a visionary is clarifying, since it says you are
talking about your visions, not about reality. And, no, your visions
will never be able to create extraterrestrial civilizations billions
of years into the past.


The discovery of the cosmic background radiation made the

"big bang"
win over the "steady state" cosmology. But note that this is

not
final. If and when a cosmology appears that matches empirical

data
even better, then it will replace the "big bang" as the

standard
cosmological model.

The standard model assumes inflation. There are scientists

that dispute
that.


https://www.wired.com/2008/02/physic...ng-wasnt-the-b

eginning/


There are always people questioning, that's a natural part of the
scientific process. Time will tell who is right.


Indeed. As a human being, however, I want to have a "world view."

It's
important to me. I have developed mine over many years and I'll

hold it
until and if the evidence refutes it.


That's fine, however you should admit that it's just a vision.
Reality itself can be very different.
  #227  
Old October 4th 18, 07:30 AM posted to sci.astro.amateur
Paul Schlyter[_3_]
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Posts: 1,344
Default Neil DeGrasse Tyson headed down same loony road as Carl Sagan?

On Wed, 3 Oct 2018 18:55:39 -0700 (PDT), Gary Harnagel
wrote:
Although it is true that relativity and quantum mechanics did

revise the
very roots of physics, even if the outcome in everyday life

didn't change
much.


Umm, looked at your I-phone lately?


Far from everyone has I-phones. As a matter of facts, some 90% of all
smartphones are not I-phones.
  #228  
Old October 4th 18, 07:38 AM posted to sci.astro.amateur
Paul Schlyter[_3_]
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Posts: 1,344
Default Neil DeGrasse Tyson headed down same loony road as Carl Sagan?

On Tue, 02 Oct 2018 07:01:20 -0600, Chris L Peterson
wrote:
You sound like a physicist from the late 1800's. Back then,

physics
was believed to be understood almost completely. Only a few minor
details needed to be clarified. However, those "minor details"

soon
expanded into relativity and QM, making physics quite different
compared to earlier...


Back then we lacked the knowledge to know what knowledge we lacked.
That doesn't appear to be the case anymore. We have a good
understanding of where the holes in our knowledge are, and we have
good ideas about the sort of things that are likely to fill them.


If you would live for another 100-200 years I think you'd become
quite surprised about the development in physics more than once.

The current situation is really the same as the situation 150 years
ago: now, as well as back then, we don't clearly see the holes in our
knowledge. In the future, we'll be able to see it more clearly - but
of course it is always easier to be wiser after the fact...
  #229  
Old October 4th 18, 09:28 AM posted to sci.astro.amateur
Martin Brown[_3_]
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Posts: 189
Default Neil DeGrasse Tyson headed down same loony road as Carl Sagan?

On 03/10/2018 14:23, Chris L Peterson wrote:
On Wed, 3 Oct 2018 10:23:50 +0100, Martin Brown
wrote:

Conjugate variables in Heisenberg's uncertainty principle is the most
obvious counter example. You cannot simultaneously know the momentum and
position of a particle in phase space to arbitrary precision.

Yes, but that's a triviality.


No. It isn't.


It is because it isn't what I'm talking about as "knowability". There
are certainly "things" we can't know. That's not important. The
question is are there rules of nature we can't know? I don't see
evidence of that. I think our understanding of nature can be complete.


In practice there are potentially whole regions of physics at ultra high
energies and very short length scales where we can never know what
really happens since it is not possible to probe them experimentally.
(and never will be)

We can make conjectures about the underlying structure but never test
them in any meaningful way so it will be impossible to choose between
any competing physical theories that make the same predictions for all
of the things that we can actually measure.

The Godel incompleteness theorem probably also applies to the real world
every bit as much as it does to mathematics. There are always some true
things that can't be expressed in any formal grammar or world model.

Succinct explanation of the incompleteness theorem for others:
https://blog.plover.com/math/Gdl-Smullyan.html

You should also recall that every time some eminent physics has stood up
at a major event and said "physics will be solved in the next twenty
years" some new observation has completely up turned the apple cart.

Last time was when radioactivity and relativity were discovered.

Science is always an approximation to reality that is as good as our
mathematical models will permit but since physics rests on mathematics
and we know mathematics can't describe everything you are always in a
position where there could be true statements about the universe that we
cannot know and will remain forever inaccessible.

--
Regards,
Martin Brown
  #230  
Old October 4th 18, 10:55 AM posted to sci.astro.amateur
Martin Brown[_3_]
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Posts: 189
Default Neil DeGrasse Tyson headed down same loony road as Carl Sagan?

On 04/10/2018 07:24, Paul Schlyter wrote:
On Tue, 2 Oct 2018 14:09:34 -0700 (PDT), Gary Harnagel
wrote:
On Tuesday, October 2, 2018 at 2:02:36 AM UTC-6, Paul Schlyter

wrote:

formed later. 9 billion years ago there certainly WERE

stars with heavy

elements:

http://www.astronomy.com/news/2016/0...rly-galaxies-c

hallenges-star-forming-theory

Although their metallicity was only 20% of stars near us,

that's pretty
good for 11 billion years ago, wouldn't you say?
Lower metallicity means less material from which life can form.


Less, but not zero.* You have NO idea how much less prevents life

and neither
do I, so this is just yammering.


Neither do you have any idea about it. So you have no basis whatsoever
to claim it is "almost certain" such civilization will form and succeed
in interstellar travel. It is just fantasies and wishful thinking from
you. The "law of big numbers" doesn't help you here since there are too
many unknown and possibly extremely small numbers involved.


Since the biggest stars burn out the fastest I think that locally a few
places may have been favoured with high metallicity very early on and
you only need enough to make a few planets here and there to get going.

But the early universe was a much more violent place than today and
things closer together so any developing life would be more likely to
get zapped and reset by a close supernova or merging black hole pair.

Such as wormholes? Or did you have something else in your

mind?

Wormholes, Alcubierre=type drives, transit to other branes, and

ways not
even a glimmer in the eyes of theoretical physicists.
Now you've entered the realm of science fiction...


So you believe only scientists can have new ideas?* You DO realize

that
some SF authors ARE scientists, don't you?


These are by now quite old ideas. Yes, SF ages too as time passes.


Some of it ages quite well. When Kubrick flat imaging tablet devices for
watching TV in 2001 the idea was ridiculous but today they are
everywhere likewise for "communicators" in Star Trek. Partly I think
because the engineers and scientists who grew up watching these programs
thought they were cool ideas and tried to make them in reality.

However, wild hypotheses are definitely "almost certain" to be true.
Dream on, and get back if and when solid evidence for the existence of
these phenomena appears. And note that science fiction is not science fact.


However much you wish to make a wormhole it isn't going to happen
without a heck of a lot of energy and some very exotic matter. And even
if you could make one its stability and unwelcome tendency to spagettify
things near it is an open question.

Not by much. Since the big bang happened 13.5 billion years

ago, 5
billion years ago the intergalactic distances already had

about 60%
of their current value. And maybe there's a way to "wink

out" there and "wink in" here

vitually
instantaneously.* We haven't had millions of years of scientific
development yet.
More sci-fi... More lack of vision.


Having vision is easy, you just fantasize. Making it actually happen is
much much harder.


Chances are that any civilisation that has been around for so long will
be unrecognisable to us - we could even be living inside one of their
computer simulations of universes.

Sure it does.* We don't have to know the expectation value.* We

KNOW it
happened ONCE.* Given ENOUGH chances, it will happen again.

Sure, but have there been ENOUGH chances? We don't know, we can

only
guess or believe. I BELIEEEVE!


I know, that's why you also are religious.


Believing doesn't make it true. It just means that believers will stick
to what they think they know in the face of all evidence to the contrary
(even to the extent of being burnt at the stake as a heretic - popular
with the two most prominent brands of Christianity in the middle ages).

Given what we know about planetary systems today, about the

number of
stars in our galaxy, about the number of galaxies in just the

VISIBLE
universe and the tininess of the visible universe, you don't

believe it
hasn't happened MANY times?* If so, you are an amazing

pessimist!
You see? All we can do is believe, we don't know. We are getting

to
know the first few factors of the Drake equation, but several

factors
remain unknown to us. And these unknown factors are the hardest

to
get to know. For instance, what is the typical lifetime of a

technologically advanced civilization? Apart from beliefs and
guesswork, hov can we actually get to KNOW that value?


It comes down to how much vision you have vs. how big a pessimist

you are.

And in what way could VISION alone give us knowledge?


Show me a hyper advanced space faring civilisation or a signal from one
and I will be the first to agree that they exist. Until that time they
are at best a figment of your imagination. I am inclined to think that
the energetics and timescales for interstellar travel are so great that
very few if any civilisations ever expand beyond the confines of their
own solar system. Space is big - really really big. HHGG

http://www.quotationspage.com/quote/33085.html

Even if you call it "very high probability' it's really the same

thing. One
thing about extraterrestrial life is that ve cannot be "almost

certain"
about anything.


I am.


Without any solid base, you are. It is easy to get caught up in wishful
thinking. But even a visionary must distinguish what we know from what
we merely believe, or else his visions will at some stage fall flat to
the ground.


No they can persist in the face of all the evidence to the contrary.
we can only guess. And you must do much better than guesswork

to be
able to reliably claim that something is "almost certain".
Don't be such a pessimist!* It's bordering on a mania :-)
Don't be such a dreamer...


Why not?* Dreamers make reality happen.* Pessimists just sit around

moping.

Nope. Realists are those who make reality happen. Dreamers just dream,
and when one dream fails they switch to another dream. To make things
happen you must be careful about distinguish speculation from knowledge.


Dreamers and creative people can think of things but it takes engineers
and scientists to make something that will actually work.

But regarding extraterrestrial civilizations we humans cannot make that
happen. It either has happened or has not happened and we cannot do
anything about that. Your dreams can never create extraterrestrial
civilizations billions of years into the past.


If there was one they would probably be so abstract by now that we
wouldn't recognise them anyway. They would almost certainly have made
the transition to being a self improving AI singularity.

When you talk about extraterrestrial life, don't you mean real

life in the
real universe and not just your fantasies and wishes?


I believe in ET.* Why wouldn't you?


I consider it possible that they exist.
But I'm not expecting to see LGMs shopping in Tesco's any time soon.

You can fantasize as much as you want, but please stop trying

to
misuse probability to claim something is "almost certain"

when it
actually just is a guess of yours.
Pessimist!
No, I'm a realist.


No, you're a mope-around.* And you cannot possibly be a "realist"

since you
admit that we don't know.


The reality **is** that we don't know...


I think the evidence is tilting towards the idea that simple life might
be more common than we thought but unless and until we find an
independent occurrence on Mars, Enceledus or Europa there is no evidence
one way or the other. It is all about belief in the absence of evidence.

There are no alternatives today that match empirical data so

well.
Irrelevant since we're talking about billion-year-old

civilizations.
You are then talking about something neither you nor anyone else

on
Earth know anything about.


So you admit that calling yourself a realist is just as nonsensical

as my
calling myself a visionary :-))


Calling yourself a visionary is clarifying, since it says you are
talking about your visions, not about reality. And, no, your visions
will never be able to create extraterrestrial civilizations billions of
years into the past.


Chances are they died with their star anyway. Interstellar travel for
life forms is in the seriously too difficult category. Interplanetary
travel for humans is still very very tough with only the moon having
ever been visited (and that was done 50 years ago).

The standard model assumes inflation.* There are scientists

that dispute
that.

https://www.wired.com/2008/02/physic...ng-wasnt-the-b

eginning/
There are always people questioning, that's a natural part of the
scientific process. Time will tell who is right.


Indeed.* As a human being, however, I want to have a "world view."

It's
important to me.* I have developed mine over many years and I'll

hold it
until and if the evidence refutes it.


That's fine, however you should admit that it's just a vision. Reality
itself can be very different.


I don't think you can alter the world view of a true believer they have
proved willing to be burnt at the stake for their beliefs in the past.
(often by a rival group of believers in the same "One True God")

Now Mr Galileo do you believe that the Sun goes around the Earth or
would you like more house arrest and a molten lead ear wash?

--
Regards,
Martin Brown
 




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