Possible warp drive may allow Alpha Centauri to be reached "in a mere two weeks"

[Synobun]

My belief that aliens don't exist has more to do with how I view the world than it does actual science. There's no real evidence that aliens don't (Or do) exist. Its mainly philosophical and theological.

Regarding science, I'm not sure what the creation/evolution debate has to do with this at all. And I don't really think of myself of "rejecting" any part of science. I just think they are wrong on evolution.

I don't think there's any other discoveries that I explicitly reject other than anything directly related to evolution. I don't THNIK physics qualifies.

In any case, even if you have to use evolution to make your claim for some reason, I'm still interested in the scientific reason why. Since as far as I'm concerned right now given enough time they will likely find a way around any and every problem.

Right, well, if you believe in nothing that involves some form of evolution, then I won't really bother trying to prove the existence of alien life.

Peter was right.

 

[bhsup]

well wait now. You cannot prove the existence of alien life anymore than ghostwriter can prove its nonexistence. It is rather pointless to say you won't bother trying with both POVs are not based any any observations outside of earth.

That said, my personal view on the matter is entirely religiously based. I think it is the height of arrogance (sorry, ghostwriter, no offense intended!) for humans to assume that of all creation God chose only this pathetic little backwater speck of mud and iron to populate with life.

 

[Synobun]

well wait now. You cannot prove the existence of alien life anymore than ghostwriter can prove its nonexistence. It is rather pointless to say you won't bother trying with both POVs are not based any any observations outside of earth.

That said, my personal view on the matter is entirely religiously based. I think it is the height of arrogance (sorry, ghostwriter, no offense intended!) for humans to assume that of all creation God chose only this pathetic little backwater speck of mud and iron to populate with life.

If by prove you mean we have met and collected actual specimens from another world, then no, it can't be proven.

 

[GhostWriter16]

Right, well, if you believe in nothing that involves some form of evolution, then I won't really bother trying to prove the existence of alien life.

Peter was right.

I accept micro, not macro.

Macro hasn't actually been observed, scientists just assume its happened since its micro on a larger scale. But if the world is really, due to supernatural creation, only a few thousand years old (And not likely to last millions/billions more) macro would simply never have happened.

That said, my personal view on the matter is entirely religiously based. I think it is the height of arrogance (sorry, ghostwriter, no offense intended!) for humans to assume that of all creation God chose only this pathetic little backwater speck of mud and iron to populate with life.

This is actually an interesting alternative perspective. I've have about a million new theological questions if it were proven that aliens did in fact exist.

You could be right here. And if you said man was given dominion over earth, rather than the entire universe, you'd be right.

I still don't believe they exist, but I think this is a good alternate perspective and does deserve repeating for anyone (Like me) who hasn't considered it before

 

[Thedrin]

GhostWriter16:
I don't think there's any other discoveries that I explicitly reject other than anything directly related to evolution. I don't THNIK physics qualifies.

In any case, even if you have to use evolution to make your claim for some reason, I'm still interested in the scientific reason why. Since as far as I'm concerned right now given enough time they will likely find a way around any and every problem.

Are you just referring to biological evolution, or do you reject scientifically accepted theories on the evolution of the cosmos, e.g. the big bang theory and the age of the Universe. If it's the latter, it very definitely means rejecting important theories in physics which are related to the concept of space time and the light speed barrier.

 

[Winner]

As if we needed another demonstration of how RELIGION is... (let me savour this) ... UTTERLY AND COMPLETELY INCOMPATIBLE with modern science.

---

Now, why don't you either continue discussing FTL, or let this thread die and move your religion crap to one of the other 5 thousand dedicated religion threads on this forum...? Just saying...

 

[Ailedhoo]

Now, why don't you either continue discussing FTL, or let this thread die and move your religion crap to one of the other 5 thousand dedicated religion threads on this forum...? Just saying...

We can just ignore Ghost. His lack of (quality) reasoning in many areas is noting that he is not a contributer to a debate but rather disrail it for dogmatic rheotric.

Anyrate the techology's use will depend on its possibility. If impossible then at least we have ideas being set forth. If possible then we have possibilities to discover, for the Earth is the cradel of the mind but no one should stay in the cradel forever. We may discover other life, although we need remember:

Two possibilities exist: Either we are alone in the Universe or we are not. Both are equally terrifying

Still... we have indeed evolved far the moment we set figures into space. We are further entering considerations on ourselfs.

If this warp techology does have possibility (although there are good physical reasons to question the possibilities) then we are going to expand in will.

Just be sure to invent special mental protection in case of Chirion mind worms...

 

[Leoreth]

How do we know FTL travel, or any other scientific technology, is impossible to discover?

The answer is that technology is only capable of using the laws of physics, not breaking them. Our current understanding of the universe tells us that FTL travel and communication are impossible. That's not just the result of one thought experiment. If FTL travel was possible, it would have consequences on many other things we think to know about physics, one of them causality: things could happen before the event that caused them.

Now of course all of these assumptions could be wrong, causality doesn't necessarily always need to exist (but then the universe would be an even weirder place than now!), but that's a lot to throw out of the window for no reason - and there's no reason to think that FTL travel is possible and all the rest is false.

Scientific theories have often been proven wrong, but usually the theories that replaced them tended to place more restrictions on what is possible rather than less.

And it's either wishful thinking or a lack of understanding to think that scientists are able to figure something out given enough time, just because some things were figured out in the past (which is easy to say in hindsight), especially if these are the same scientists that say it's impossible.

 

[Gatsby]

I heard somewhere that unicorns excrete exotic matter

 

[Truronian]

And I don't really think of myself of "rejecting" any part of science.

I cannot think a single element of science that you (as a YEC) do not reject. Certainly the vast majority of modern biology, physics, chemistry and geology have to be ignored if you want to believe in biblical creation... archaeology, sociology, palaeontology, anthropology as well.

Really the problem is that you have no real understanding of science... the fact that you think your world-view is in any way compatible with any scientific discipline is evidence of this.

 

[Thorgalaeg]

The answer is that technology is only capable of using the laws of physics, not breaking them. Our current understanding of the universe tells us that FTL travel and communication are impossible. That's not just the result of one thought experiment. If FTL travel was possible, it would have consequences on many other things we think to know about physics, one of them causality: things could happen before the event that caused them.

Now of course all of these assumptions could be wrong, causality doesn't necessarily always need to exist (but then the universe would be an even weirder place than now!), but that's a lot to throw out of the window for no reason - and there's no reason to think that FTL travel is possible and all the rest is false.

Scientific theories have often been proven wrong, but usually the theories that replaced them tended to place more restrictions on what is possible rather than less.

And it's either wishful thinking or a lack of understanding to think that scientists are able to figure something out given enough time, just because some things were figured out in the past (which is easy to say in hindsight), especially if these are the same scientists that say it's impossible.

i would not take things as before, after or causality too seriously, and yep universe could be a much weirder place than we thought. As the great profesor Farnsworth teach us "quantum physics means anything can happen at any time for no reason".

 

[aelf]

And it's either wishful thinking or a lack of understanding to think that scientists are able to figure something out given enough time, just because some things were figured out in the past (which is easy to say in hindsight), especially if these are the same scientists that say it's impossible.

That's what I said about global environmental/resource problems, but then there's a significant section of people (even posters here) who always point to innovation and "human ingenuity" to quash my "alarmism".

 

[peter grimes]

well wait now. You cannot prove the existence of alien life anymore than ghostwriter can prove its nonexistence. It is rather pointless to say you won't bother trying with both POVs are not based any any observations outside of earth.

That said, my personal view on the matter is entirely religiously based. I think it is the height of arrogance (sorry, ghostwriter, no offense intended!) for humans to assume that of all creation God chose only this pathetic little backwater speck of mud and iron to populate with life.

We can, at least, say that we haven't found any non-terrestrial life compatible with the searches we've performed to date. The easiest example to see is the SETI program. They've been scanning areas of the sky in specific frequencies that they feel are more likely to be used for radio communication between intelligent groups. They haven't seen any signal that is clearly of intelligent non-terrestrial origin.

That doesn't mean alien life doesn't exist, for sure.

I'm still haunted by Fermi's question. If the odds of life and intelligence arising are so great, then the galaxy should be swarming with alien cultures. But we have seen precisely zero. So, well, where are they?

 

[Winner]

Two possibilities exist: Either we are alone in the Universe or we are not. Both are equally terrifying

I love this quote; as always, Clarke summed things up extremely precisely.

If this warp techology does have possibility (although there are good physical reasons to question the possibilities) then we are going to expand in will.

Just be sure to invent special mental protection in case of Chirion mind worms...

The possibility of FTL travel only makes the Fermi Paradox more baffling.

 

[uppi]

I don't think there's any other discoveries that I explicitly reject other than anything directly related to evolution. I don't THNIK physics qualifies.

But if the world is really, due to supernatural creation, only a few thousand years old (And not likely to last millions/billions more) [...]

And there's your explicit rejection of physics right there (not to mention all the other scientific disciplines).

The possibility of FTL travel only makes the Fermi Paradox more baffling.

In my opinion, the Fermi paradox is one of the best arguments against the feasibility of interstellar travel.

 

[Thorgalaeg]

Well dont forget Pascua island inhabitants thought they were alone in the world and there is isolated tribes in the amzon even today. I think the Fermi Paradox is not such, it may be only that we live in a remote place in the galaxy. Dont forget how BIG the universe is.

 

[uppi]

Dont forget how BIG the universe is.

Big is meaningless without some scale to compare to. And in this case the scale is given by the achievable speed of interstellar travel. If there were aliens able to zip around between stars like we do between cities, there is a high probability that they would turn up here at one point. But if interstellar travel was slow and very expensive, the galaxy might be full with intelligent life forms without us ever meeting them.

 

[Winner]

In my opinion, the Fermi paradox is one of the best arguments against the feasibility of interstellar travel.

You mean *any* form of interstellar travel?

Well dont forget Pascua island inhabitants thought they were alone in the world and there is isolated tribes in the amzon even today. I think the Fermi Paradox is not such, it may be only that we live in a remote place in the galaxy. Dont forget how BIG the universe is.

There are many possible explanations. Maybe the average "lifespan" of a civilization, or the period during which it is interested in actually flying around and colonizing is rather short (a few thousand years). Maybe evolution doesn't lead to true sentience/sapience as often as we think. Maybe complex life is uncommon on top of it. Maybe the galactic civilization which is the closest to us haven't got to us yet. Maybe they know about us, but since we're of no use to them, they ignore us. Etc. etc. etc.

If FTL was possible AND relatively easy to achieve, though, then the Fermi Paradox becomes a bit stronger an argument.

 

[strijder20]

Macro hasn't actually been observed, scientists just assume its happened since its micro on a larger scale. But if the world is really, due to supernatural creation, only a few thousand years old (And not likely to last millions/billions more) macro would simply never have happened.

It's possible the universe was created a few thousand years ago, and was made to look like it was billions of years old. But believing the latter is the more sensible thing to do in this situation. You could say that gravity is a hoax and that another, unknown force is causing mass to attract other mass, which would be very hard to disprove (if not impossible), but still just accepting gravity is the sensible thing to do.
Or do you think that all proof for our world being billions of years old is wrong(ly interpreted)?

 

[hobbsyoyo]

There are many possible explanations.

There are an infinite number of explanations for why we haven't encountered ET, and many of them we can't even conceive of at this point.

It's always fun to speculate on it the possiblities, but in the end it's always an exploration of our own ignorance - at least until we have a better understanding on how the universe 'works', so to speak.

We can, at least, say that we haven't found any non-terrestrial life compatible with the searches we've performed to date.

The searches we've done to date are unfortunately pitiful when compared to the scale of the problem we are trying to solve.

We can just ignore Ghost.

On the one hand, he has every right to debate and to be debated. On the other, every conversation with respect to science that involves him becomes a pages-long dogpile by the CFC community where both sides dig their heels in because they both have firmly-held beliefs that will not ever change due to a debate on a website. YMMV

I didn't know that. I just assumed they were trying to look cool with the special effects.

Me too!

Does he know the ways disparate theories of forces, fields, and matter all coalesce into a uniting model of the universe?

We don't have a unifying theory yet and up till now, the more we learn about the details of the how the universe works, the farther away from such a theory we've gone.

It's easy to say he doesn't, since he doesn't "believe" in evolution - but should that matter?

I think it does.

Before engaging an evangelical on topics of scientific matters it might be a good idea to first establish which laws of physics, which guidelines of logic, and which axioms they accept. Otherwise you might be wasting your time and his.

Hahaha I tend to think that before engaging an evangelical on topics of scientific matters, it's a good idea to recognize you will not change their mind and adjust the trolling accordingly.