The Religion of Aliens

mickrock

Logical Fallacy wrote: »

Actually, it's not more plausible. Intelligent Design leads to a constant implication that the intelligent creator needed to be intelligently created and to a logical mind a few iterations of said cycle should just lead to the conclusion that the intelligent design concept is flawed at it's very root.

But you're separating out a supreme being from the rest of the universe, while I think intelligence is a property of the universe itself.

Logical Fallacy wrote: »

"Random chance" as you put it is far more logical, but it was never random and it was never chance. The very fact that you exist implies a degree of inevitability about your existence.

If it wasn't random and it wasn't chance that would imply some degree of intelligence behind the process, wouldn't it?

Wereghost

Tomk1 wrote: »

But if the planet is near say a million light-years, then it won't be for another million years before we might be able to spot them, given that faster than light speed currently theoretically impossible, that would be say 2 millions years before contact, unless they developed say 5 million years ago...have to stop, my brain is really starting to hurt.

That's why I limited it to this galaxy, which is only about 100,000 light years across. The nearest "proper" galaxy to us is Andromeda, which is about 2 million years distant. Long way to ravel. But even if you take out intergalactictravel, there are one or two arguments in favour of there being no space-faring civilisations there either.

Ellis Dee

starbelgrade wrote: »

It strikes me as quite odd that some are absolutely certain that there is no God, but seem to be very open to the fact (or totally believe that) aliens exist.

What is odd about refusing to believe in the existence of a god/deity/sky fairy when there is absolutely no evidence that such a thing exists? Or about being open to the possibility that aliens (by which I assume you mean extraterrestrial living beings) may well exist?

starbelgrade wrote: »

I mean there is no proof that either exist. The retort that there "must be more intelligent life" is as convincing to me as "there must be a God".

Your first sentence is absolutely correct. The retort that you mention is not one you would get from a scientist or a person with a scientific mindset. To claim that there "must be" intelligent life elsewhere is going too far. However, it is perfectly reasonable to claim there is a good chance that extraterrestrial life (intelligent or primitive) will be discovered in the future. Technology is developing all the time, telescopes (optical and radio) are getting better, probes are increasingly sophisticated and going further and further into space. Until 1995, it was often said that "there must be planets around other stars", but no one had actually detected one. Now nearly a thousand have been confirmed and the number is growing by the day.

By contrast, god-o-meters have not developed at all in that time. In fact, none has ever been invented.:rolleyes::rolleyes:

starbelgrade wrote: »

So is the belief in aliens just like a religion for the science fiction enthusiasts or is there more to it than that?

"Belief" in aliens is indeed just like a religion insofar as no verifiable, checkable evidence of their existence exists, but believing that they may yet be detected is quite reasonable.:)

mconigol

Does anyone ever consider that maybe we're the most advance life in the universe?

Carter P Fly

Since were not as advanced as our lizard overlords the answer is NO

Ellis Dee

mconigol wrote: »

Does anyone ever consider that maybe we're the most advance life in the universe?

It is, of course, a possibility. However, given that there are supposedly more stars in the universe than there are grains of sand on all of the world's beaches and in all of the world's deserts, and that many of them may well have planets capable of supporting life as we know it in orbit around them, it would be indeed strange if we are the best the universe could come up with.:)

Or, and hardly to coin a phrase, it would be a huge waste of space.

Ray Palmer

NiallSparky wrote: »

Anyone who claims to be certain there is no God is just as wrong as anyone who claims they're certain there is one.

You see that is massively flawed logic. Somebody who beleives in something without absolutley any proof is not the same as somebody who doesn't beleive something in the absent of any proof.

What we do know is that religious orders have lied and cheated people into belief. So the proof we have is that religions have and do make up stuff. It is more than faith to ignore what is actually known

thirtythirty

I actually answered this ultimate question in bed last night.


We are all part of an MMORPG. It would explain a lot:

- the big bang was just the game/server being switched on and our universe being activated. Hence we can't fathom what was before
- the "creator" that people think exist but can never see is the game designer
- sleep is either the players shutting down their game or server downtime
- natural death is completion of the game, tragic deaths are people who are bad at the game
- the expanding known universe and scientific discoveries are just the game progressing or being updated
- relative success of people are just those who's players are better at the game
- "free will" is the AI
- it also explains health, wars, growing populations, natural disasters, and everything in between.


So there you have it. I challenge you to prove that isn't the case

mconigol

Ray Palmer wrote: »

You see that is massively flawed logic. Somebody who beleives in something without absolutley any proof is not the same as somebody who doesn't beleive something in the absent of any proof.

What we do know is that religious orders have lied and cheated people into belief. So the proof we have is that religions have and do make up stuff. It is more than faith to ignore what is actually known

Religious orders have noting to do with the possibility of there being a supernatural being.

Ray Palmer

spottyelephant wrote: »

We are all part of an MMORPG. It would explain a lot:

You know this isn't in a way too far fetched. Not that we are part of it but the first intelligent non human is probably going to be part of our own creation. It is also the most likely thing we will send out to explore the universe. So the first signs of intellignet aliens will be something they created and not themselves due to the distance. They may even already dead.

THere is also the possibility alien life could have a religion that makes them think we should be destroyed for effecting their religion. They could actually be more inteligent than us or even less intelligent just ahead of us with technology.

Wibbs

Logical Fallacy wrote: »

Life doesn't need to be "intelligent" as most people understand the word.

So yes, i believe that there is a high likelihood that in an big universe of which we known very little about there is a good chance that on another planet a single cell organism or better exists.

I do not believe some dude with a beard exists and he made the Universe.

Occam's Razor.

Agree with this.

The problem with aliens and trying to figure out if they're out there is that we have an example of one. The earth(and us). That's it. Even here which appears to be ideal for life, it appears we only had one event. All earthly life so far found is related. We don't even have "aliens" here. Plus life was nearly wiped out on earth a few times. Then we come to intelligence/technology/external evolution. In the 4 billion years, life became complex quite late in the game. When it did a number of life "types" came along. IE the "fish" type, the "flying" type etc. Ichthyosaurs look like sharks, like dolphins, like fish. Similar basic design shaped by the niche. In all that time only one "Brainy" type came along. So on this planet complex life is rare, intelligent life is the rarest of all. I could imagine a universe filled with single celled "goo" alright, but the odds for the rest seem to get longer and longer.

Solair wrote: »

It's likely that any aliens could be radically different from any life on Earth.

I dunno S. Again the aforementioned types above. If there are oceans out there with complex life, chances are they'll look "fishlike" and in atmospheres conducive to flight, they'll look "birdlike". I'd reckon it likely that intelligent life won't look that different in basic body shape to us. Medium size, binocular vision, limbs/hands that can manipulate objects and the environment and out of that they'd require such limbs to be free so likely upright/bipedal.

starbelgrade wrote: »

This is all a bit like the chicken and the egg question.

Not really, the answer is it was the egg.

paulosham

starbelgrade wrote: »

It strikes me as quite odd that some are absolutely certain that there is no God, but seem to be very open to the fact (or totally believe that) aliens exist.

I mean there is no proof that either exist. The retort that there "must be more intelligent life" is as convincing to me as "there must be a God".

So is the belief in aliens just like a religion for the science fiction enthusiasts or is there more to it than that?

Aliens would be natural beings, don't be a moron.

Ray Palmer

mconigol wrote: »

Religious orders have noting to do with the possibility of there being a supernatural being.

Actually they do. The entire concept is so ingrained that you think of their as being a "supernatural" being. If there is a being that created everything it would be by it's own nature natural.

The concept itself is the creation of religion. Would you have come up with the idea without religion? The same religions that intentionally lied and mislead to inforce such beliefs

FrostyJack

spottyelephant wrote: »

We are all part of an MMORPG. It would explain a lot:

There was a BBC Horizon episode about time travel that came to the conclusion it is statisical probability we are programmes running around in a Matrix type environment.

OldGoat

mconigol wrote: »

Does anyone ever consider that maybe we're the most advance life in the universe?

I've always liked this idea. We are after all at the oldest bit of our spiral arm of the Galaxy and have had more development time then the rest.
If we are the eldest lifeforms I really hope we get our **** together before the kids come along wanting to borrow the car and stuff.

seamus

Wibbs wrote: »

I dunno S. Again the aforementioned types above. If there are oceans out there with complex life, chances are they'll look "fishlike" and in atmospheres conducive to flight, they'll look "birdlike". I'd reckon it likely that intelligent life won't look that different in basic body shape to us. Medium size, binocular vision, limbs/hands that can manipulate objects and the environment and out of that they'd require such limbs to be free so likely upright/bipedal.

It wasn't really until I read about convergent evolution that this obvious outcome was clear to me.

In an earth-like environment, it's likely that most of the life will be "familiar" to us, in that we will see eyes, and legs and tails and fur and feathers and scales. Non-coporeal flashing lights and floating bags of goo are less likely. In the absence of any proof of telepathy, we should also assume that vocalisations will be common in these creatures.

As you say, intelligent life with power of technology equivalent to ours, will most likely be not dissimilar to us with a form of speech or complex audio communication, limbs with fine motor control and manipulating "hands".

In that regard, Star Wars probably comes about the closest to describing the variance that we would see in alien life.

"Intelligent Life" though is a slightly different thing, as even by our own standards that would include species like Whales, Dolphins and certain ape families, who aren't even within a million years of acheiving space travel. It's probably arrogant to think that spacefaring species would need to be "like us", but it would seem that you need things like fingers in order to manipulate your environment into technology and spaceships.

FrostyJack wrote: »

There was a BBC Horizon episode about time travel that came to the conclusion it is statisical probability we are programmes running around in a Matrix type environment.

I think the basis behind this was that as computers got more powerful, the better we should be able to recreate a statistical model of the universe for the purposes of exploring the universe and how things should have and may have turned out.
This would allow us to "watch" the big bang happening and "watch" the evolution of the universe. In lieu of actually travelling back in time, we would simply recreate time and watch it.

But since the model is just a statistical model, it would be run again and again and again (much like weather charts are done) in order to view the various outcomes and derive the statistical mean.

The assertion then was that there would be so many of these simulations run, that it was more probable that we are actually in one of these simulations, rather than being the actual life. I'm not personally enamoured with this theory as modelling the entire universe presents issues in itself, never mind doing it multiple times.

Seachmall

mickrock wrote: »

If it wasn't random and it wasn't chance that would imply some degree of intelligence behind the process, wouldn't it?

No.

If, when playing pool, you knock the balls in such a way that they will remain in motion forever you can guarantee those balls will take up every single possible position on the pool table given no time restraints.

It's not random because you can anticipate the balls' next positions by taking their speed, angle, etc. into consideration as one ball affects the motion of the next and it's not chance because it is inevitable. And obviously they're not moving intelligently nor were they set into motion in an intelligent way (by this I mean you just set them in motion with no intent other than to set them in motion).

The first cause in this instance is you, in terms of the universe the first cause was the big bang.

To suppose what came before the big bang is a big supposition.

Yahew

I am not convinced even with trillions of stars, that life is all that common, and intelligent life even less so, with scientific societies even less so. If there are any I think it impossible they will ever meet. Fermi's paradox is a strong one, and the answers to it are weak. Claiming that civilisations have a life-time, and then die out, and we are in a period of radio silence is a very weak argument. Firstly it uses the Earth as an example - but the Earth's history cant be that of interstellar races. Secondly in saying that civilisation dies out it mistakes the civilisation for the technology, if we are looking for electrical wave signals its hard to see how a civilisation would regress to not have that - the collapse of the Roman empire didn't lead to the loss of writing ( although literacy did decline) - the collapse of a galactic Empire would lead to the loss of all technology.

Too far away to hear their signals? Would a galactic sized empire not create obvious alien artefacts which we couldn't explain normally?

So cleary there are no large civilisations out there. Who knows why, but we have a sample size of one. Possibly the chance of life arising on a planet like Earth is One Million to one, the chance of it getting past simple celled molecules is one million to one, the chance of it getting out of the sea is one million to one, the chance of the Dinousaurs being destroyed ( if we even get to Dinosaurs) is one million to one, the chance of mammals producing an intelligent species with more intelligence than seems necessary is 100,000 to 1, and the chance of the scientific revolution happening rather than religion is 100,000 to 1. ( maybe there is are species with a Roman type civilisation, or Chinese pre-industrial revolution. Thats what most of the Earth has been like).

Multiply all those probabilities and your trillions of stars are not that much help to you.

mconigol

Ray Palmer wrote: »

Actually they do. The entire concept is so ingrained that you think of their as being a "supernatural" being. If there is a being that created everything it would be by it's own nature natural.

The concept itself is the creation of religion. Would you have come up with the idea without religion? The same religions that intentionally lied and mislead to inforce such beliefs

The idea of the existence of powerful beings came before religion. Religion is the worship of them ergo it had to have come second.

Yahew

I think we can rule out that 4th and 5th dimensions type life forms. That is religious. Of that which can't know we must remain silent. Saying that there is stuff out there we cant contemplate puts things outside scientific discourse, no different from talking about the incomprehensibility of God

mconigol

Yahew wrote: »

I am not convinced even with trillions of stars, that life is all that common, and intelligent life even less so, with scientific societies even less so. If there are any I think it impossible they will ever meet. Fermi's paradox is a strong one, and the answers to it are weak. Claiming that civilisations have a life-time, and then die out, and we are in a period of radio silence is a very weak argument. Firstly it uses the Earth as an example - but the Earth's history cant be that of interstellar races. Secondly in saying that civilisation dies out it mistakes the civilisation for the technology, if we are looking for electrical wave signals its hard to see how a civilisation would regress to not have that - the collapse of the Roman empire didn't lead to the loss of writing ( although literacy did decline) - the collapse of a galactic Empire would lead to the loss of all technology.

Too far away to hear their signals? Would a galactic sized empire not create obvious alien artefacts which we couldn't explain normally?

So cleary there are no large civilisations out there. Who knows why, but we have a sample size of one. Possibly the chance of life arising on a planet like Earth is 1 Million to 1, the chance of it getting past simple celled molecules is 1 million to 1, the chance of it getting out of the sea is one million to 1, the chance of the Dinousaurs being destroyed ( if we even get to Dinosaurs) is 1 million to one, the chance of mammals producing an intelligent species with more intelligence than seems necessary is 100,000 to 1, and the chance of the scientific revolution happening rather than religion is 100,000 to 1. ( maybe there is are species with a Roman type civilisation, or Chinese pre-industrial revolution. Thats what most of the Earth has been like).

Multiply all those probabilities and your trillions of stars are not that much help to you.

Depends on how big the universe is. If it's infinite then it is only a matter of when rather than if.

In an infinite universe "everything" happens and you should begin to get repetition. Although that's open to debate too I suppose!

Yahew

mconigol wrote: »

Depends on how big the universe is. If it's infinite then it is only a matter of when rather than if.

It isn't infinite, just very large. Which is why I said trillions.

In an infinite universe "everything" happens and you should begin to get repetition. Although that's open to debate too I suppose!

Yes it is :-) The infinite set of primes never repeats.

starbelgrade

Yahew wrote: »

It isn't infinite, just very large.

How do you know that?

mconigol

Yahew wrote: »

It isn't infinite, just very large. Which is why I said trillions.



Yes it is :-) The infinite set of primes never repeats.

Assuming we understand the nature of the universe, which we probably don't.

Seachmall

starbelgrade wrote: »

How do you know that?

We know the universe is expanding, it can't expand if it's infinite.

Can it?

Yahew

mconigol wrote: »

Assuming we understand the nature of the universe, which we probably don't.

Mind of God.

SO I think we can answer the OP. Some people who want to believe in Aliens use non-scientific arguments.

mconigol

Seachmall wrote: »

We know the universe is expanding, it can't expand if it's infinite.

Can it?

Well we could be in a locally expanding bubble of "something" in an infinite universe.

Yahew

starbelgrade wrote: »

How do you know that?

Science told me. the universe is finite but unbounded.

( if it is measurable - trillions of stars, and has a start and end, it cant be infinite).

http://answers.yahoo.com/question/index?qid=20090428092123AASNZFv

( This is one universe though - there is a theory of multiple multi-verses, which are infinite, but they run parallel to this one. Lets stick to the one we are in).

RichieC

I sure hope the ID proponents on hear are yanks...depressing to think I have country mates that dull

Ray Palmer

mconigol wrote: »

The idea of the existence of powerful beings came before religion. Religion is the worship of them ergo it had to have come second.

All evidence of the most primitive tribes show a religion. It only comes second to the person who created the religions no evidence that the others believed in a being first. Many religions believed in being that were able to be one real thing or another at will.

Most such being were used to describe natural occurances.

Given that there is no evidence of anything supernatural , not one thing, and there is evidence of people faking super natural things for religious reasons what is the most likely thing you can say about it.

As for a modern beleif which is what you have being from modern times your notions come from your up bringing. The religions you have been taught about are the ones that have faked, your belief will come from there. So your notion of a "supernatural" being comes from there as they couldn't tell you he makes wind as modern knowledge won't allow it.