I Feel Like Ranting !

rant

Yeah i do!

For years i've been reading and watching movies and TV
shows that are sooooo HOPEFUL about finding ETI life.
Maybe it's a *good* thing that we haven't made any "known"
or "provable" contact yet?

I mean... we can't even get along with each other! How can
we expect to get along with aliens???

Religions get in our way... hell, aliens would probably bring
their own religion(s) along with them. AND -- they would be
wrong, and we would be right, right? Of course, from *their*
point of view, WE would be wrong and THEY would be right!

Politics also keep us from getting along... would aliens be
more conservative? or more liberal than we are? Would
their politics entitle them to a piece of our pie? I mean... we
might be able to live with "two spaceships in every garage,"
but would we be enhanced by aliens who make us slaves to
work in the diamond mines of Venus?

Race is another major roadblock to our mutual love and
respect. So if blacks and whites and reds and yellows can't
get along, how would we feel about beings who are pink with
purple polkadots? And farque it, we may actually have to
deal not with just another race, but a whole 'nother species!
How would THAT go over here on this peaceless planet?

Not to mention the SEX wars... even sex tears people apart
here on Earth! And who KNOWS what the differences will
be if we ever make contact with ExtraTerrestrial Intelligent
life? They may have three or more sexes of their own! or
maybe no gender differences at all!

Nope... there are just too many things that separate us from
each other, things that cause us to argue, fuss, fight and to
kill each other. Maybe it's best that the galaxy and universe
are so large that the small pockets of life are so isolated
from each other...

We'd NEVER be able to get along with alien life!

*N*E*V*E*R*

/rant

happy days and...
starry starry nights!

--
Our heads up in the sky,
We're so clueless of our worth...
Whose sky no longer shines
As we lose our Mother-Earth?

As people we must learn
About the care of planet parts,
To leave the world a better turn--
Empower brand new hearts!

Paine Ellsworth

Painius wrote:
rant
snipped stuff about our obvious shortcomings when it
comes to dealing with differences like race, religion
and politics.
We'd NEVER be able to get along with alien life!
/rant
We may never get the chance.
We have that much room for improvement in the intelligence area
that "alien life" may not even recognise us as an intelligent life form.

Bookworm I think aliens would see us as intelligent life forms.
Reasons are we can create fusion just like the stars. We can with our
lasers create heat greater than the stars etc. If the aliens
civilization is 20 million years older than ours they could teach us how
they lived together so long. I don't think they would want to teach us
all they know. That would not be fair to them. They over time had more
Einstein's. In the next 20 million years we will have our share. I'm
sure these aliens before they leave will share some of their technology
with us. Bert

Painius wrote,

Religions get in our way... hell, aliens
would probably bring their own
religion(s) along with them. AND --

Yeah, aliens would be most bemused by the Earthlings' science being
founded on the *religion* of void-space. oc

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"Bill Sheppard" wrote in message...
...

Painius wrote,

Religions get in our way... hell, aliens
would probably bring their own
religion(s) along with them. AND --

Yeah, aliens would be most bemused by the Earthlings' science being
founded on the *religion* of void-space. oc

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I remember the account of a son of a preacher, who used
to watch (unbeknownst to his dad) as he would read the
Bible and weep. Turned out that he was crying because
he found it so hard to reconcile the Bible's teachings with
the real world he had to deal with everyday.

This is the scientist today. S/he is schooled well in the
teachings of the science "bibles" but then when s/he is
confronted with the real world... what CAN s/he do?

Even the Big Bang... i mean, c'mon now! Before the BB,
there is nothing??? And then...

*B*L*A*M*

time and space come into being, and space begins to
expand eventually to its present size?

How ungodly...

or should we say, "How TOO Godly this is." Science is
really big on separating itself from the incredible -- stuff
like Min and his astrology are unwelcome here, religion
subjects are frowned upon, anything that cannot be based
upon "good science" ought to go find an appropriate
newsgroup and stay out of science groups.

And yet "good astronomy" is founded upon such an
esoteric thing like the Big Bang. Every book on the Big
Bang ought to begin like this...

"In the beginning..."

because the BB is fundamentally no different than "... God
created the heaven and the earth..."

And i don't think many of those wise, intelligent scientists
even realize this!

Or even sadder... maybe they DO realize it?... and they weep
in private?

happy days and...
starry starry nights!

--
Gaia shadow come November,
Does this bode well for December?
Moon aglow as I remember,
Tremble, tremble glowing ember,
Seems my life's a severed member.

Paine Ellsworth

Painius wrote,

Even the Big Bang... i mean, c'mon now! Before the BB,
there is nothing??? =A0 =A0 =A0 And then...
=A0=A0=A0=A0=A0=A0=A0=A0=A0=A0=A0=A0=A0=A0=A0=A0= A0=A0=A0=A0=A0=A0=A0=A0=A0=
=A0*B*L*A*M*
........
How ungodly...

This is where it becomes much more rational and intuitive to see the
singular BB as a 'tic mark' within a larger, overarching Process that's
perpetually running (think of a tic mark on a reticle line). 'Our' tic
mark is simply the point at which our visible cosmos came into being.
Using the freon cycle analogy, 'our' visible cosmos would be like a
cluster of freon molecules embedded in the flow, and it perceives only
the 'bang' of coming thru the continuosly-running compressor. oc

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During a perfect moment of peace at Sun, 31 Aug 2003 19:23:13 GMT,
"Painius" interrupted with:

And yet "good astronomy" is founded upon such an
esoteric thing like the Big Bang. Every book on the Big
Bang ought to begin like this...

"In the beginning..."
snips
Or even sadder... maybe they DO realize it?... and they weep
in private?

A basic premise in science is that everything has a natural
explanation that we can discover and learn. Prior to the Big Bang
theory being promoted (circa 1927/30) the only explanation for the
Universe was,

"God done it"

The Universe was static, unchanging, infinite. It always was and
always will be. There was no creation except creation ex nihilo. It
was not science at all.

Einstein and Hubble showed the Universe was expanding, it was dynamic.
Working backwards it must have come from a point, it was created ergo
no creation ex nihilo. Current theories may not be able to explain why
the Big Bang occurred but we know it did. So maybe we can find a
cause, which is highly scientific.

If you read the Journals they are now full of attempts to explain why
the Big bang occurred. Put another way, science knows this is a
sticking point and is trying to redress it. Something that no 'Godly'
explanation every will.

I know which approach I prefer.

P.S. When I studied Cosmology in the 1980's a classic joke was that
anything that could not be adequately explained was due to initial
conditions. That is, we don't know yet and likely never will.

Dave Barlow wrote:

If you read the Journals they are now full of attempts to explain
why the Big bang occurred. Put another way, science knows this is a
sticking point and is trying to redress it. Something that no
'Godly' explanation every will.

I know which approach I prefer.

P.S. When I studied Cosmology in the 1980's a classic joke was that
anything that could not be adequately explained was due to initial
conditions. That is, we don't know yet and likely never will.

Well, "never" is a long, long time. Some people think we're close to
understanding everything about the universe, but I tend to think
we're barely scratching the surface, simply because the number of
questions and complexity are still expanding... like the universe.
What went on before the Big Bang? What will be the ultimate fate of
the Universe? We resort to religion when science can't answer the
question and then as science comes up with the answers we push
religion back to the realms of the unknown.
The journals are full of attempts to explain why the BB occurred
because it's one of the next big questions. It's not much fun
talking about the stuff we already know. is it?!
There's always Goedel's Incompleteness Theorem. If the Universe can
be a mathematical system, then there has to be something else to
define it, a further dimension or a "meta-system" of some sort, until
we get to a level that can be complete, either because Goedel was
working with a special case, or because "God" says so. (ie, we're no
longer dealing with a mathematical system). There may be no way to
prove of disprove that the current universe is a mathematical system,
but I'm hoping that this is not all there is. It doesn't make a
whole lot of sense just sitting here expanding and running down to
entropy. What's the point?
No, I think there must be something better and bigger out there.

--
Regards
Fred

Remove FFFf to reply, please

"Fred Williams" wrote...
in message ...

. . .
The journals are full of attempts to explain why the BB occurred
because it's one of the next big questions. It's not much fun
talking about the stuff we already know. is it?! . . .

Good stuff, Fred! Let's see if we can make talking about the
"stuff we already know" more fun!

For nearly two thousand years following Ptolemy, people
"already knew" that Earth was the center of the Universe. The
only ones who thought it might be fun talking about it were
people like Copernicus, Galileo, Shapley, Hubble.

Can we think of more examples where talking about the stuff
we already know can be an exceeding pleasure?

--
Regards
Fred

Remove FFFf to reply, please

Sure we can!

happy days and...
starry starry nights!

--
Gaia shadow come November,
Does this bode well for December?
Moon aglow as I remember,
Tremble, tremble glowing ember,
Seems my life's a severed member.

Paine Ellsworth

"Dave Barlow" wrote in message ...

During a perfect moment of peace at Sun, 31 Aug 2003 19:23:13 GMT,
"Painius" interrupted with:

And yet "good astronomy" is founded upon such an
esoteric thing like the Big Bang. Every book on the Big
Bang ought to begin like this...

"In the beginning..."

snips

Or even sadder... maybe they DO realize it?... and they weep
in private?

A basic premise in science is that everything has a natural
explanation that we can discover and learn. Prior to the Big Bang
theory being promoted (circa 1927/30) the only explanation for the
Universe was,

"God done it"

Granted...

The Universe was static, unchanging, infinite. It always was and
always will be. There was no creation except creation ex nihilo. It
was not science at all.

Einstein and Hubble showed the Universe was expanding, it was dynamic.
Working backwards it must have come from a point, it was created ergo
no creation ex nihilo. Current theories may not be able to explain why
the Big Bang occurred but we know it did. So maybe we can find a
cause, which is highly scientific.

How can you be so certain that the Big Bang occurred? It's
the "working backwards it **must** come to a point" that
sticks in my craw. Why do scientists automatically assume
that the Universe has always expanded? therefore it **must**
work backward to a singularity? Aren't there just too many
variables that can happen in 14 billion years???

Nature loves OSCILLATION, vibration, back n forth, up n
down, in n out, frequency, wavelength, lambda...

but all of a sudden the natural Universe just goes one way?

Upon what precisely do we base the premise that we can
reverse time and follow back about 14 billion years to a
singular point of infinite mass and infinitely small volume???
How can such an assumption be "good science?"

What came before that?...

"LET THERE BE LIGHT" (?)

If you read the Journals they are now full of attempts to explain why
the Big bang occurred. Put another way, science knows this is a
sticking point and is trying to redress it. Something that no 'Godly'
explanation every will.

I know which approach I prefer.

P.S. When I studied Cosmology in the 1980's a classic joke was that
anything that could not be adequately explained was due to initial
conditions. That is, we don't know yet and likely never will.

Makes me think of Asimov's "The Last Question" !

happy days and...
starry starry nights!

--
Gaia shadow come November,
Does this bode well for December?
Moon aglow as I remember,
Tremble, tremble glowing ember,
Seems my life's a severed member.

Paine Ellsworth