This is way cool:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/technology/7041183.stm
I hope they find something soon to shut up all the naysayers ;-)
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/technology/7041183.stm
I hope they find something soon to shut up all the naysayers ;-)
Scanning for Alien Life
Miscellaneous Forums/General Discussion/Scanning for Alien Life Europa, one of jupiter's moons could potentially have alien life under its ice. There's a high probability of water being under europa's ice, and generally, where there's water, there's life. If anything at all, though, It's probably be bacteria, not anything complex :(
They should just point that thing at Southern California.
Funny thing is that `life` in this universe is not actually life, it's death. Life means consistency, not change. Life means permanence, not decay. Life means joy, not hatred. This world we live in is not alive, anyway. Our bodies also are not alive. Looking for signs of life in the existence of other bodies or other seemingly organic life forms, for me is no longer a proof of the existence of life other than on Earth. I'm sure there are aliens out there in physical forms, and all levels of `life forms` from bacteria to plants to animals etc, but all of these things are not really life, anyway. To be alive means to be free from death, which clearly we are not because it is inevitable for the body to die. If it's inevitable then it's built into the body at all times, so the body is wired for death. How can that be life? Life is eternal. Life is ongoing. Life cannot be interrupted. Life is so consistently real and alive that it does not know of death at all, and that is something entirely outside of the physical universe.
ok.. and who told you that? :p
Don't encourage him!
I'll take an ounce of whatever ImaginaryHuman's been smoking :P
I'd make it half an ounce to play on the safe side.....
I think they mean biological life, not whatever the hell ImaginaryHuman is talking about.
Life is not what you describe it as; even if you're thinking of what the ideal representation of life is, undying is still not it. Death is as much a part of the cycle of life as living is. For example, we are made of dead animals and plants. Life is just like a lumbering cloud; a cloud may be a perpetual emergent behavior of water particles rising and falling, but it's not an object in itself, it's just a group of particles at that point of time, neither living nor dead, but a perpetual phenomenon; same too of life, you are not the same person you were a month ago, all particles in your body have been replaced over stretches of a time period. Not even your brain is the same in time, the memories within your head change, and you learn, always an undoing of previous thoughts. You seem to have quite some human-chauvinistic thoughts on life, almost religious in vigor. Perhaps we're explaining the same phenomenon from different points of view? Individual life is not eternal; as a group, life is not eternal; as a cosmic promise? Life is eternal.
Back to the topic of whether dying is part of life, soon perhaps, we may defeat human death, but things in our bodies will still die -- they will just be replaced.
Back to the topic of whether dying is part of life, soon perhaps, we may defeat human death, but things in our bodies will still die -- they will just be replaced.
OK , well I'm talking about ALIENS, call it life or not, that's what I wanna see in CLOSE UP - tentacles and all!
Sorry Grey, that was pointing towards ImaginaryHuman. :)
I want to /eat/ some aliens, tentacles and all!
I want to /eat/ some aliens, tentacles and all!
What? Haven't you watched MIB?
...that was a documentary, right?
...that was a documentary, right?
ImaginaryHuman: I like the way you think. You should team up with Nebula - your philosophy coupled with his holograms would be a real winner!
Makes me wonder why they try to look this far away at other
galaxies (Andromeda Galaxy and the Triangulum Galaxy) when they could first try to listen to our own galaxy.
If you want to see really spectacular beings you could
just watch what's living deep into our oceans. Most of these
creatures (and there are so many) are always plunged into darkness living under extremely harsh conditions and are really freaky to look at !
galaxies (Andromeda Galaxy and the Triangulum Galaxy) when they could first try to listen to our own galaxy.
If you want to see really spectacular beings you could
just watch what's living deep into our oceans. Most of these
creatures (and there are so many) are always plunged into darkness living under extremely harsh conditions and are really freaky to look at !
Funny thing is that `life` in this universe is not actually life, it's death. Life means consistency, not change. Life means permanence, not decay. Life means joy, not hatred. This world we live in is not alive, anyway. Our bodies also are not alive. Looking for signs of life in the existence of other bodies or other seemingly organic life forms, for me is no longer a proof of the existence of life other than on Earth. I'm sure there are aliens out there in physical forms, and all levels of `life forms` from bacteria to plants to animals etc, but all of these things are not really life, anyway. To be alive means to be free from death, which clearly we are not because it is inevitable for the body to die. If it's inevitable then it's built into the body at all times, so the body is wired for death. How can that be life? Life is eternal. Life is ongoing. Life cannot be interrupted. Life is so consistently real and alive that it does not know of death at all, and that is something entirely outside of the physical universe.
we didn't ask for a philosophical analysis of life lol
ok.. and who told you that? :p
Nah, he read it. Same as last time.
Ok so now who's doing the smoking, Mr Z?
Life *as you are familiar with it* seems like it is biological and physical and comprises changes and that there is as much `living` going on as there is `dying`, and then you jump so some weird conclusion to say that all of this together is life. It is not.
If Life+Death=Life Then Living=Dying
Like you say, that would have to mean that life is just a meaningless cloud of nonsense where you're in a limbo state of being half dead and half alive. That's what the universe *appears* to look like, and all `life` in it is tainted with death.
But this so called `life` is only the illusion of life, the appearance of it. This kind of life is only in contrast to death and could not exist without it. Life and death are not opposite. Life has no opposite. Death is an illusion. `Life` in the universe is the illusion of death masquerading as life, as a substitute for real life, which is spiritual and has nothing to do with biology.
Sorry Gray, hijacked your thread and turned it into a bizarre-fest.
Have you guys considered how likely it is that aliens will look weird? Some of them do, but some of them look like humans.
*tucks his tentacle into his trouser*
Life *as you are familiar with it* seems like it is biological and physical and comprises changes and that there is as much `living` going on as there is `dying`, and then you jump so some weird conclusion to say that all of this together is life. It is not.
If Life+Death=Life Then Living=Dying
Like you say, that would have to mean that life is just a meaningless cloud of nonsense where you're in a limbo state of being half dead and half alive. That's what the universe *appears* to look like, and all `life` in it is tainted with death.
But this so called `life` is only the illusion of life, the appearance of it. This kind of life is only in contrast to death and could not exist without it. Life and death are not opposite. Life has no opposite. Death is an illusion. `Life` in the universe is the illusion of death masquerading as life, as a substitute for real life, which is spiritual and has nothing to do with biology.
Sorry Gray, hijacked your thread and turned it into a bizarre-fest.
Have you guys considered how likely it is that aliens will look weird? Some of them do, but some of them look like humans.
*tucks his tentacle into his trouser*
Why we waste are time with this is pathetic. Humans like to find, conquer and destroy. Big deal if we find bacteria on a moon millions of miles away. Hopefully we'll have become extinct before we get a chance to takeover another world.
ps The aliens in movies we see, where they come to earth and destroy everything, that seems to be a representation of us and what we would to, even to a peaceful alien race.
ps The aliens in movies we see, where they come to earth and destroy everything, that seems to be a representation of us and what we would to, even to a peaceful alien race.
We boldly waste our lives searching for that ultimate question of 'Why?' :)
It is a big deal, a bacteria on a moon millions of miles away disproves creationism and the potent fundamentalism distraught in today's society. I'll answer the rest later. Hmm.
Who's smoking what? I never said you were smoking anything there, Imaginaryhuman. :)
It is a big deal, a bacteria on a moon millions of miles away disproves creationism and the potent fundamentalism distraught in today's society. I'll answer the rest later. Hmm.
Who's smoking what? I never said you were smoking anything there, Imaginaryhuman. :)
a bacteria on a moon millions of miles away disproves creationism
Ah, to see all the bible thumpers explaining that one away would be a day to cherish. :PTBH, I've never understood why evolution is supposed to dispel the existence of 'God', anyway. Prolly not a discussion for this forum, tho...
PLEASE don't start that one ;-)
oops, sorry. :P
Not to disprove God, just to disprove taking the Genesis account literally. Which fundamentalists hold as one of the key points to their beliefs.
Its a waste of money. They could have just phoned any political party on the face of the earth to find alien life, because no politician comes from this planet.
We are all just one big chemical reaction, that has lasted for millions of years.
I have to say ImaginaryHuman (by the way I prefered your last nickname better) that this idea of yours that life is essentially death is utter nonsense. Don't you know that life is a state? So if living is a state how can it be another state, the state of dying or being dead?
WTF happened to this thread?
It's cool that they are still eager to go searching for other life. I am of the firm belief that life on Earth is not life unique.
If I was able to live in a universe of my own I'd be sitting in Quarks bar waiting for Sisco to give the command "Battle Stations" for us to defend against the Dominion invasion. Plus Dax would be my girlfriend instead of that lumbering Klingons.
Anyway, feel free to make fun of me. Remember this though. StarTrek will happen.
:)
It's cool that they are still eager to go searching for other life. I am of the firm belief that life on Earth is not life unique.
If I was able to live in a universe of my own I'd be sitting in Quarks bar waiting for Sisco to give the command "Battle Stations" for us to defend against the Dominion invasion. Plus Dax would be my girlfriend instead of that lumbering Klingons.
Anyway, feel free to make fun of me. Remember this though. StarTrek will happen.
:)
The Aliens are already among us.
I wouldn't be surprised if they find nothing.
I have a suspicion that civilisations may follow two general paths;
one is that very few civilisations actually sustain a technological high long enough for their radio emissions to be obvious. In other words, as we're finding, they reach the limits of their planet's resources and their society effectively collapses.
Or, the period in which a civilisation uses radio and other 'visible' radiation is relatively short. Thereafter radio communications are replaced with 'invisible' quantum effects such as particle entanglement - which we can't listen in to. If that's the case, the galaxy might actually be abuzz with messages, but we wouldn't know anything about it.
I have a suspicion that civilisations may follow two general paths;
one is that very few civilisations actually sustain a technological high long enough for their radio emissions to be obvious. In other words, as we're finding, they reach the limits of their planet's resources and their society effectively collapses.
Or, the period in which a civilisation uses radio and other 'visible' radiation is relatively short. Thereafter radio communications are replaced with 'invisible' quantum effects such as particle entanglement - which we can't listen in to. If that's the case, the galaxy might actually be abuzz with messages, but we wouldn't know anything about it.
It's kinda funny. When you think about all the movies where advanced foreign species come in an invade earth, it'll probably be us being the advanced foreign species invading another planet. Humans are so destructive :)
Hey Markcw. ... It's a little confusing reading your response because, to an outsider, there is so much switching of meanings between the thought system that you're believing in and the thought system that you're talking about me believing in, that it sort of gets lost in the jumble. But I think I know what you're saying - that `life as we know it` in the universe really is life.
For me it comes down to this... some people at some point in their lives start to realize that they are not a body. They start to embark on a spiritual journey where everything they know and value and think is real is gradually turned upside down and its true nature is revealed. As they approach this inner truth, they start to see everything from that vantage point. What they're really doing is waking up. Waking up means returning to what is real, and all the dreams they have when they thought they weren't awake simply disappear. `Living` in this physical universe, thinking you're a body, is a dream. It's a state of immense unconsciousness where we're pretending that life is death and death is life. We ARE life, and we're playing at being dead. Compared to how alive we would be upon being spiritually awake to what is truly real, this `life` that we're `living` can't really be called anything other than a form of death. And within that form of death we've carefully deluded ourselves into having immense dreams which include dreams of being alive. But these dreams of being a live are a mere shadow of what it means to really be alive. To really be alive means to be awake to the reality of the One, which is spirit and has nothing to do with this dream universe that we all think is so real. Being awake is life, being asleep is death. We are walking around asleep, with our eyelids raised, thinking that we're wide awake and that we only sleep during the dark periods. This is a spiritualization of the world, where we're trying to say that some parts of the world are true and real and other parts are not. None of it is true or real. Truth doesn't live here. What happens when your body dies? You keep on living. We escalate death to be some kind of terrible thing to fear because it means the end of the body but its actually a liberation from the body back into life. Everything in the physical universe is back to front, upside down, inside out and it's all a lie invented by the egotism in our minds. We're not even really here having this conversation!
If aliens have bodies in this physical world, so what. It's where their minds are at which determines whether they are alive or not. Okay so you get open minded enough to seriously consider that aliens may actually `really` exist and maybe you might actually meet some and maybe you'll be okay with that, and then it wont be a big exciting drama. We're only all excited about the possibility of finding them, because that searching actually puts off us making contact. Making contact with aliens is not a big Earth shattering deal. Making a big Earth shatterring deal out of whether or not that's going to happen IS the problem. So what will we think when we've opened up to accepting that aliens exist and they live among us openly and are on the Oprah show? You'll just change the channel. Seen it all before. We're only thinking that discovering alien life would be amazing, because we haven't done it, and all our excitement would fizzle away when it stopped being a fantasy and became a reality. Funny that it being a reality is actually less of a hot topic than all the conjecture about what it `might` be like.
For me it comes down to this... some people at some point in their lives start to realize that they are not a body. They start to embark on a spiritual journey where everything they know and value and think is real is gradually turned upside down and its true nature is revealed. As they approach this inner truth, they start to see everything from that vantage point. What they're really doing is waking up. Waking up means returning to what is real, and all the dreams they have when they thought they weren't awake simply disappear. `Living` in this physical universe, thinking you're a body, is a dream. It's a state of immense unconsciousness where we're pretending that life is death and death is life. We ARE life, and we're playing at being dead. Compared to how alive we would be upon being spiritually awake to what is truly real, this `life` that we're `living` can't really be called anything other than a form of death. And within that form of death we've carefully deluded ourselves into having immense dreams which include dreams of being alive. But these dreams of being a live are a mere shadow of what it means to really be alive. To really be alive means to be awake to the reality of the One, which is spirit and has nothing to do with this dream universe that we all think is so real. Being awake is life, being asleep is death. We are walking around asleep, with our eyelids raised, thinking that we're wide awake and that we only sleep during the dark periods. This is a spiritualization of the world, where we're trying to say that some parts of the world are true and real and other parts are not. None of it is true or real. Truth doesn't live here. What happens when your body dies? You keep on living. We escalate death to be some kind of terrible thing to fear because it means the end of the body but its actually a liberation from the body back into life. Everything in the physical universe is back to front, upside down, inside out and it's all a lie invented by the egotism in our minds. We're not even really here having this conversation!
If aliens have bodies in this physical world, so what. It's where their minds are at which determines whether they are alive or not. Okay so you get open minded enough to seriously consider that aliens may actually `really` exist and maybe you might actually meet some and maybe you'll be okay with that, and then it wont be a big exciting drama. We're only all excited about the possibility of finding them, because that searching actually puts off us making contact. Making contact with aliens is not a big Earth shattering deal. Making a big Earth shatterring deal out of whether or not that's going to happen IS the problem. So what will we think when we've opened up to accepting that aliens exist and they live among us openly and are on the Oprah show? You'll just change the channel. Seen it all before. We're only thinking that discovering alien life would be amazing, because we haven't done it, and all our excitement would fizzle away when it stopped being a fantasy and became a reality. Funny that it being a reality is actually less of a hot topic than all the conjecture about what it `might` be like.
Hi, I didn't realize that your metaphysical argument was an attempt to point out that you think it is pointless spending a great deal of money on looking for signs of intelligent alien life.
I'm not going to argue with you again!
We're not even really here having this conversation!
I'm not going to argue with you again!
Oh, here's what I meant.
The metaphysics of Thomas Aquinas holds that all real beings have both essence and existence.
"This world we live in is not alive, anyway. Our bodies also are not alive."
Then who or what just typed that? ;)
Then who or what just typed that? ;)
We're only thinking that discovering alien life would be amazing, because we haven't done it, and all our excitement would fizzle away when it stopped being a fantasy and became a reality
I disagree - I don't know about the 'excitement' angle, but I think it would represent a major realignment in our thinking about ourselves and our place in the universe. In fact I think it would be a paradigm shift roughly equal to our acceptance that the sun does not revolve around the earth.
I'm not so sure, MadJack
I think that atheists happily accept the possibility of life in some form on other planets. Moderate religous believers will simply retrofit their beliefs in order to incorporate the fact. I'm sure that there are skewed inerpretations of most religious texts that can explain it. Extremists will denounce it all as blasphemous lies and misinformation. Business as usual.
Human beings have an unexhaustable capacity for comforting self-delusion. It's constantly amazing to me.
I think that atheists happily accept the possibility of life in some form on other planets. Moderate religous believers will simply retrofit their beliefs in order to incorporate the fact. I'm sure that there are skewed inerpretations of most religious texts that can explain it. Extremists will denounce it all as blasphemous lies and misinformation. Business as usual.
Human beings have an unexhaustable capacity for comforting self-delusion. It's constantly amazing to me.
"This world we live in is not alive, anyway. Our bodies also are not alive."
Sounds a lot like the Buddist(?) mantra.
"Life is the illusion and death is the reality" or words to that effect.
Sounds a lot like the Buddist(?) mantra.
"Life is the illusion and death is the reality" or words to that effect.