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Megan
Skeptic Friend
USA
163 Posts |
 Posted - 03/09/2002 : 10:20:11
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Last night while having a conversation with my mother, some of these questions came up in my head.
1. Is it true that there are different dementions and that we can travel through them??
2. Some people say that aliens came here on earth and started life and that we eventually evolved from what life they had left behind. Well, could it be possible that we were the aliens?? Example: Say we do go to Mars. And say that someone on Mars decides to blow up Earth, leaving only a small amount of humans on Mars. Could it be true that a long, long time ago, the human species did the same thing but to another planet???
3. I did read the article here about modern myths, and I will have to agree on how they can seem pretty far fetched, but is it possible that these people are right?? My mom is that kind of person that believes in all the metaphysical stuff, when she talks to me about it, she can sound pretty convincing and give me some evidence about here theories. Maybe it's just because she's my mother.
4. Is there such thing as a parallel universe, where we are doing the exact same thing but in some other universe, some other time, and with either really good or really bad technology?? Does that even make any sense??
Well, this is all I can really think about for now, but will post more Q's.
~Megan~
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Gorgo
SFN Die Hard
USA
5310 Posts |
 Posted - 03/09/2002 : 10:38:00 [Permalink]
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My opinion is that none of these things are very likely.
Anybody catch Dateline last night about the non-existent Satanic cult? Pretty amazing.
"Not one human life should be expended in this reckless violence called a war against terrorism." - Howard Zinn |
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Donnie B.
Skeptic Friend
417 Posts |
Posted - 03/09/2002 : 13:11:15 [Permalink]
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[quote]
1. Is it true that there are different dementions and that we can travel through them??
[/quote]
Only in our imaginations. Which is pretty amazing in itself, but it's not the same thing as reality. (BTW it's spelled "dimensions".)
[quote]
2. Some people say that aliens came here on earth and started life and that we eventually evolved from what life they had left behind. Well, could it be possible that we were the aliens?? Example: Say we do go to Mars. And say that someone on Mars decides to blow up Earth, leaving only a small amount of humans on Mars. Could it be true that a long, long time ago, the human species did the same thing but to another planet???
[/quote]
There is very good evidence from DNA and fossils that we evolved right here on Earth over the course of time. Simple life forms appeared almost as soon as the Earth was a solid object. That's how things stayed for most of the time since. Complex organisms with hard parts (like shells) only began to get fossilized about 550 million years ago. And humans have been around for a just million years or so. But guess what? We have some of the same DNA as the bacteria and fish and amphibians that shared a common ancestor with us millions or even billions of years ago. It all hangs together and makes sense, with no need for an alien visitation.
[quote]
3. I did read the article here about modern myths, and I will have to agree on how they can seem pretty far fetched, but is it possible that these people are right?? My mom is that kind of person that believes in all the metaphysical stuff, when she talks to me about it, she can sound pretty convincing and give me some evidence about here theories. Maybe it's just because she's my mother.
[/quote]
It's always tough when you find that you don't share your parents' opinions about something. I had to go through the same thing, only in my case it was traditional religion. I hope she's willing to let you develop your own ideas and doesn't try to impose hers on you.
[quote]
4. Is there such thing as a parallel universe, where we are doing the exact same thing but in some other universe, some other time, and with either really good or really bad technology?? Does that even make any sense??
[/quote]
There's no evidence for such things. Some physicists think that the theory of quantum mechanics allows for multiple universes, constantly branching and dividing, and inaccessible to each other. But that theory can never be truly scientific until someone finds a way to test it. Until then, it's just a neat idea.
-- Donnie B.
Brian: "No, no! You have to think for yourselves!" Crowd: "Yes! We have to think for ourselves!" |
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@tomic
Administrator
USA
4607 Posts |
Posted - 03/09/2002 : 13:21:33 [Permalink]
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I agree with everything Donnie said but just want to add a comment to this:
[quote]
3. I did read the article here about modern myths, and I will have to agree on how they can seem pretty far fetched, but is it possible that these people are right?? My mom is that kind of person that believes in all the metaphysical stuff, when she talks to me about it, she can sound pretty convincing and give me some evidence about here theories. Maybe it's just because she's my mother.
[/quote]
Take a good look at the "evidence" produced to support metaphysical claims. Such a claim is extraordinairy because if the metaphysical has any evidence then all of science needs to be scrapped and we start over. So that evidence had better be extraordinary and beyond doubt. Also look at the source of the evidence. Some of the metaphysical crowd don't know what real evidence is and say "here, look at this evidence" and you look and it's just utter crap.
@tomic
Gravity, not just a good idea...it's the law! |
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Boron10
Religion Moderator
USA
1266 Posts |
Posted - 03/09/2002 : 14:08:34 [Permalink]
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[quote]but is it possible that these people are right?? [/quote]Of course, it is possible that some of those people are right; however, it is so bloody unlikely that we may just consider it untrue.
-me. |
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Snake
SFN Addict
USA
2511 Posts |
Posted - 03/09/2002 : 18:48:53 [Permalink]
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[quote]
Anybody catch Dateline last night about the non-existent Satanic cult? Pretty amazing.
[/quote]
Yes, and I was going to post something about it too.
Having lived through the news reports of the MacMartin case which unfolded here in California several years ago, in a community I used to be familar with, I knew from the beggining of last nights story it was too fantastic to be true.
This is related to what Megan is saying, it shows that people can twist facts and intimidate othes into believing something that has no true facts. It's important to be skeptical and ask questions. Ask more questions beyond the answers that might seem logical at 1st.
That officer who had to leave town because of what he was accussed of was completely cleared and STILL, some refuse to understand the facts and give him guilty looks. What is wrong with people??? sigh!
I think there's a parallel with religion here, do you see it?
*
Earth is the insane asylum for the universe.
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Chippewa
SFN Regular
USA
1496 Posts |
Posted - 03/09/2002 : 21:35:36 [Permalink]
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Hi there,
Here are some answers to your questions:
1. Some Physicists have reason to believe that there may be different dimensions on the quantum level, with string theory. We don't know yet - and we can't travel through them.
2. People love to believe extraordinary things. It makes life exciting. The fact is that there are extraordinary things out there in nature. But extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence. (There is a fun theory that life may have evolved on Mars billions of years ago, and when asteroids impacted Mars, these Martian microbes were shot out into space and eventually fell to Earth, where they seeded life on our planet. That would make all of us MARTIANS!) ;-) (But that's just a fun idea, not even a theory that can be tested or proven.)
3. A writer named Joseph Campbell has made the most interesting analysis of what myths really are. I recommend his book: "The Hero With a Thousand Faces." Modern myths like UFOs, ESP, and Mental Telepathy are basically "mumbo jumbo" created by people who want to sell you something.
Carl Sagan often stood in awe of the amazing things all around us, he studied them without superstition and popular myths. Remember what he said: "Extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence."
Hope this helps. (-;
Chip
"Speaking without thinking like shooting without aiming." - Charlie Chan
Edited by - chippewa on 03/11/2002 02:00:41 |
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Lars_H
SFN Regular
Germany
630 Posts |
Posted - 03/10/2002 : 23:44:20 [Permalink]
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OK I will try to recreate my deleted entry.
[b]1[/b] Yes, there are different dimesions. We have trivaila access to for of them. Through three of them we can travel more or less freely. A forth somewhat different dimension we can only travle onw way. We can change the speed at wich we travel through it slightly, but even that requires insane amounts of resources for very small results.
Currebt sciebtific models postulate that our universe has a number of further dimensions, but they are only of relevance on a subatomic scale.
I think you jave been the victim of to many bad Sci-Fi storys, where the they use dimension when they mean Universe.
[b]2[/b] The theory that life 'began out there' is called Panspermia. We have pretty good evidence that connects humans to every other living being on earth, so no respectable scientist would suggest that humans came from somewhere else. What is seriously considered is the idea that the basic bulding blocks of live were introduced to earth from outerspace. Possible in the form of a meteor. But even this theory does not stand the test of occams razor. It just places biogenesis somwhere else and does not help to explain it better.
Panspermia again is a topic popular in Sci-Fi where it is used (together with däniken's ancient astronauts) to explain why everyone looks like a human with make-up. It also is used by several new religions who like the seeded from outerspace idea. None of them use it correctly.
[b]3[/b] I am not sure wich Modern Myths you refer to, but generally it can be said that if there was something to them they would not be myths.
If a thing can be observed often enough, it becomes an unexplained phenomenon. If somone comes up with a way to explain what it is that is observed, it becomes a theory. If nobody comes up with a better way to explain it and evidence can be found to support the thory it becomes accepted.
If there was anything to 'alternate medicine' it would not be 'alternate'. If there was anything to 'paranormal events' they would not be 'para-' but just normal. If there was any evidence that legends were true they would be history.
There is no conspiracy of sientists or sceptics who want to supress a cretain aspect of the universe. If you think that there is a world of magic out there that is inherntly not explainable by science, but still follows it own rules that allow others to work with them then you have misunderstood what science and skepticism is all about.
[b]4[/b] There might be or there might not be other universe then our own. But it does nt really matter because our universe is defined as a closed system. You can't interact with the other universes. They are like the sound a falling tree makes when nobody is listening.
The theoretcal problem as with the dimension traveling from 1. is that in order to laeve our four dimensional universe you need something that is not four dimensional. You literary would need a lever out of this world to leave this world. You get into a catch-22 there pretty fast.
That ofcourse does not keep authors to use this concept in Sci-Fi storys. But even if it where possible, one would expect ther not only to be those interesting alternate Universes, where Hitlet has won WWII or the Roman empire never was defeated. There should be all possible universes ou there. Where things are practically exactly the same and only a single atom is just a few nanometers of. Also the vast majority of these alternate unverses would not have any humans at all. Our own existance is pretty unlikely in the grater scheme of things afterall.
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Slater
SFN Regular
USA
1668 Posts |
Posted - 03/11/2002 : 12:10:46 [Permalink]
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[b]
1. Is it true that there are different dementions and that we can travel through them??[/b]
If you are a fan of the special theory of relativity you have seven dimensions. If you are on the super string theory band-wagon you have at least ten.
You are already traveling through them as they are part of the world you live in.
When you get to people talking mysterious and spooky and absolutely ooky you find that perfectly ordinary words like ENERGY and DIMENSIONS cease to have the definitions that they usually carry and somehow stop being part of physics and become magic.
[b]4. Is there such thing as a parallel universe, where we are doing the exact same thing but in some other universe, some other time, and with either really good or really bad technology?? Does that even make any sense??[/b]
This isn't actually science or science fiction. It' s religion. It is one of the basic tenants of Druidism which was the classical religion of Celts of central Europe from the Alps to Scotland and from Spain to Turkey.
"The Other World" (or in Irish --Tir na n-Og) is another wold that exists along side of our own, occupying the same space at the same time. You can get to Tir na n-Og sometime by crossing water or by going into a barrow. If you've ever visited Ireland the hill of Tara has a tunnel (now with a beautiful artistically wrought bronze gate) into it. That is an entrance to the other world. The people who live in the other world are called the Tuatha De Danaan, the people of the goddess Danaan. In this other world time does not exist as it does in this one. You can go there and stay for years and come back and find that only an hour has passed. Or like Oisin you can come back after a year there only to find that four hundred had passed in our world.
All the stuff of modern science fiction but all from a religion thousands of years old.
And if you ask could this religion be based on fact? I'll give you the English name of the Tuatha, it's the Fairies. The other world is Fairyland.
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It will sometimes be necessary to use falsehood for the benefit of those who need such a mode of treatment.
----Eusebius of Nicomedia,
[i]The Preparation of the Gospel[/i] |
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James
SFN Regular
USA
754 Posts |
Posted - 03/11/2002 : 12:31:37 [Permalink]
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[quote]
[b]
1. Is it true that there are different dementions and that we can travel through them??[/b]
If you are a fan of the special theory of relativity you have seven dimensions. If you are on the super string theory band-wagon you have at least ten.
You are already traveling through them as they are part of the world you live in.
When you get to people talking mysterious and spooky and absolutely ooky you find that perfectly ordinary words like ENERGY and DIMENSIONS cease to have the definitions that they usually carry and somehow stop being part of physics and become magic.
[b]4. Is there such thing as a parallel universe, where we are doing the exact same thing but in some other universe, some other time, and with either really good or really bad technology?? Does that even make any sense??[/b]
This isn't actually science or science fiction. It' s religion. It is one of the basic tenants of Druidism which was the classical religion of Celts of central Europe from the Alps to Scotland and from Spain to Turkey.
"The Other World" (or in Irish --Tir na n-Og) is another wold that exists along side of our own, occupying the same space at the same time. You can get to Tir na n-Og sometime by crossing water or by going into a barrow. If you've ever visited Ireland the hill of Tara has a tunnel (now with a beautiful artistically wrought bronze gate) into it. That is an entrance to the other world. The people who live in the other world are called the Tuatha De Danaan, the people of the goddess Danaan. In this other world time does not exist as it does in this one. You can go there and stay for years and come back and find that only an hour has passed. Or like Oisin you can come back after a year there only to find that four hundred had passed in our world.
All the stuff of modern science fiction but all from a religion thousands of years old.
And if you ask could this religion be based on fact? I'll give you the English name of the Tuatha, it's the Fairies. The other world is Fairyland.[/quote]
Do you know if anybody has actually tried to visit this "Fairyland", Slater?
Sound like it might be fun to visit, but I doubt I'd want to live there.
"Believe nothing, no matter where you read it, or who said it, no matter if I have said it, unless it agrees with your own reason and your common sense." -Buddha |
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Lars_H
SFN Regular
Germany
630 Posts |
Posted - 03/11/2002 : 13:16:58 [Permalink]
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Slater: I don't think that idea of parallel or alternate universes has much connection to the old legends of farylands. It appears to have grown out of the fictional histories of old. Stories that told of worlds where things happened differently. The idea of traveling there and the pseudoscience and quantum stuff was added later on.
What you describe sounds more like the astral-plane then an alternate universe.
The time being of sounds a lot like what you get with UFOs. But then again there are many magical and hidden places on this world, where time works differently or people are timelessly immortal.
Edited by - Lars_H on 03/11/2002 13:20:03 |
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Slater
SFN Regular
USA
1668 Posts |
Posted - 03/11/2002 : 13:22:49 [Permalink]
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[quote]
Do you know if anybody has actually tried to visit this "Fairyland", Slater?
[/quote]
Well, I live in San Francisco...does that count 
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It will sometimes be necessary to use falsehood for the benefit of those who need such a mode of treatment.
----Eusebius of Nicomedia,
[i]The Preparation of the Gospel[/i] |
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Slater
SFN Regular
USA
1668 Posts |
Posted - 03/11/2002 : 13:30:56 [Permalink]
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[quote]
What you describe sounds more like the astral-plane then an alternate universe.
[/quote]
And sure I should point out that it was we Irish who invented what we called Wes-ca Lor. It means "the water of life."
When our uninvited guests came from England they couldn't get their tongues around so grand a word and ended up mispronouncing it as "Whiskey."
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It will sometimes be necessary to use falsehood for the benefit of those who need such a mode of treatment.
----Eusebius of Nicomedia,
[i]The Preparation of the Gospel[/i]
Edited by - slater on 03/11/2002 13:34:21 |
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Valiant Dancer
Forum Goalie
USA
4826 Posts |
Posted - 03/11/2002 : 15:18:47 [Permalink]
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[quote]
Last night while having a conversation with my mother, some of these questions came up in my head.
1. Is it true that there are different dementions and that we can travel through them??[/quote]
Yes, there are. We travel through them every day. Length, width, depth, and time. We don't understand the last one and tend to be pulled downstream. Anything beyond that is really iffy. Einstein postulated the existance of 10 dimentions, but didn't expand on it.
[quote]
2. Some people say that aliens came here on earth and started life and that we eventually evolved from what life they had left behind. Well, could it be possible that we were the aliens?? Example: Say we do go to Mars. And say that someone on Mars decides to blow up Earth, leaving only a small amount of humans on Mars. Could it be true that a long, long time ago, the human species did the same thing but to another planet???[/quote]
Ahhhhhhh. No. (now where did I put that XP25 Space Modulator?) (see Bugs Bunny for joke)
[quote]
3. I did read the article here about modern myths, and I will have to agree on how they can seem pretty far fetched, but is it possible that these people are right?? My mom is that kind of person that believes in all the metaphysical stuff, when she talks to me about it, she can sound pretty convincing and give me some evidence about here theories. Maybe it's just because she's my mother.[/quote]
People who really believe in what they are saying are quite convincing. It doesn't make them right. I've also studied metaphysics. Its all mental. I have some highly emotionally charged anectdotes of metaphysics working in unrepeatable circumstances. (Therefore unprovable and likely to be explained by chance.)
[quote]
4. Is there such thing as a parallel universe, where we are doing the exact same thing but in some other universe, some other time, and with either really good or really bad technology?? Does that even make any sense??[/quote]
Only in Sci-Fi. There are all sorts of ideas about when we make a decision(sp), the "time stream" splits and each split follows the result of the decision and it's alternates. "Sliders", a rather good series based on this concept, had all kinds of ideas on how this occurs. I had the idea that time travel is possible, but its one way. As one travels backwards in time, the decisions we make are "undone". This may change the future.
[quote]
Well, this is all I can really think about for now, but will post more Q's.
~Megan~
[/quote]
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Snake
SFN Addict
USA
2511 Posts |
Posted - 03/12/2002 : 00:22:37 [Permalink]
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[quote]
[quote]
Do you know if anybody has actually tried to visit this "Fairyland", Slater?
[/quote]
Well, I live in San Francisco...does that count
[/quote]
ROFLOL.
"Sound like it might be fun to visit, but I doubt I'd want to live there." Yes, James, that's what I always say after leaving SF, too. LOL
*
Earth is the insane asylum for the universe.
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Lars_H
SFN Regular
Germany
630 Posts |
Posted - 03/12/2002 : 12:15:08 [Permalink]
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quote:
Megan has a little quibble with this forum. Seems some of the folks here forget that she's only 15. She feels a little "scared off" sometimes. Can we have a Jr. SFN? And maybe remember some of the people asking questions might want the answers in simpler terms?
Lisa
Sorry. It was not my intention to 'scare off' anybody. I really did not think about Megan's age. She had not made any paticular childish posts that I could remeber and I did not think to look up the age in the member profile.
So here is a revised version of my answer. I don't think that I am very good at being this but I will try.
1. Is it true that there are different dementions and that we can travel through them??
The word dimension just means the size of something in a pticular direction.
You often speak of dimension like width, height and depth. A book for example might have the dimensions of 1x7x5 meaning that it is one inch thick, 7 inches high and 5 inches broad.
In science the word dimension gets a slightly more complicated meaning. You don't ask how thick an object is, but wether it has any width at all.
A dot has no dimensions.
A straight line has 1 dimension. It has lenght.
A square is an example of a two-dimensional object.
Our real-world is three dimensional. A cube is a good example of a three-dimensional object.
Some people think that we can count time as fourth dimension like we count height, width and lenght. More complicate scientific theories work with even more dimensions, but you should not let them brother you, since they don't actually have any effect on real life.
In Science-Fiction the word dimesion is often used when something different is meant. They also use the word for ideas that don't make any sense at all.
When they say things like dimensional travel. They mean travel to or through a world that lies next to our own. Just that they don't mean up&down, left&right or infront&behind our world, but in another fourth kind of direction; a fourth dimension.
Traveling through those new directions is completly fictional. But they make for nice Sci-Fi stories.
2. Some people say that aliens came here on earth and started life and that we eventually evolved from what life they had left behind. Well, could it be possible that we were the aliens?? Example: Say we do go to Mars. And say that someone on Mars decides to blow up Earth, leaving only a small amount of humans on Mars. Could it be true that a long, long time ago, the human species did the same thing but to another planet???
No matter what people might tell you. We have found enough fossils to be relatively sure that our ancestors have lived on this planet for a long time. We can trace our way back all the way back to the most primitive one-celled organismen.
Some scientist thing that maybe those primitive organism did not evolve here.
They could have come here inside a meteroite. So in a way we might be aliens. It is not very likely but possible.
Another thing
Your example abou the blowing up planets sound a lot like some old Sci-Fi stories.
There are many stories about a planet between Mars and Jupiter that got blown up and had its inhabitants forced to move to earth. Don't take those stories to seriously. They are just another version of the tales of Atlantis, the lost continent and even less likely to be true.
3. I did read the article here about modern myths, and I will have to agree on how they can seem pretty far fetched, but is it possible that these people are right?? My mom is that kind of person that believes in all the metaphysical stuff, when she talks to me about it, she can sound pretty convincing and give me some evidence about here theories. Maybe it's just because she's my mother.
A lot of people belive in strange things and when they try to convince you of them they can sound pretty convincing. It sometimes may take a lot knowledge and experience to tell whether thers is anything to them. The fact that most of the people who try to convince you are actually honstly beliving in the stuff themselves instead of lying can make it very hard to tell.
That is what being a Skeptic is all about. Knowing when not to believe somebody.
A lot of the 'evidence' given in support of fantastic claims is no evidence at all. For example: Just saying that it worked for somebody is not evidence that something works. It is an 'anecdote'.
It takes some trainig to be able to spot those things.
4. Is there such thing as a parallel universe, where we are doing the exact same thing but in some other universe, some other time, and with either really good or really bad technology?? Does that even make any sense??
The idea of 'parallel universes' or 'alternate universes' is again something that comes from science fiction.
People like to write stories about 'what if?' situations. There are many stories out there about what could have happened if Napoleon had not been defeated at waterloo or the south had won the American civil war.
They describe worlds that are completly like our own but with sometimes tiny differences.
Some of the worlds in those stories are almost like our own but with a much higher or lower technology, like you have suggested.
Some writers have used some ideas from 'quantum physics' to explain how such other world might actually exists. Their explanations sound good but mostly don't make any actual sense.
Theoretically it might still be possible that all those possible worlds are out there. But practically we don't have any evidence in favour of this. A nice idea to think about and tell stories about but nothing else.
I hope those answers were better and a bit more understandeble.
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