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Dude
SFN Die Hard
USA
6891 Posts |
 Posted - 10/03/2009 : 21:06:48 [Permalink]
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You can make a fair case for the existence of ET life, at least for microorganisms. We have many examples of extremophiles right here on earth, organisms that could very likely survive in some very harsh environments.
Sentient ET though? That speculation rests on a series of unevidenced assertions. I'm open to the idea (hell, I'm a huge fan of the idea), but it is nothing but an exercise in imagination until some evidence presents itself. Science is working on the question now though, in the right way. We have detected planets outside our solar system, many credible scientists think we'll find a planet in the liquid water zone of some other star in the near future (informed speculation there). Even if we do that, the leap from there to sentient ET is huge.
Kil said:
Well, no. The alien claim is not more absurd for the reason that there really are planetary systems out there, and probably, somewhere, life. We haven’t detected any life, let alone intelligent life, but we are reasonably confident, given the size of the universe, that life exists somewhere. Fairies, on the other hand, are about as likely as Ricky crapping out an SUV because there is no detectable realm of existence that would account for them.
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Maybe. But both ET and gravity fairies have the exact same amount of evidence supporting their existence right now.
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Ignorance is preferable to error; and he is less remote from the truth who believes nothing, than he who believes what is wrong.
-- Thomas Jefferson
"god :: the last refuge of a man with no answers and no argument." - G. Carlin
Hope, n.
The handmaiden of desperation; the opiate of despair; the illegible signpost on the road to perdition. ~~ da filth |
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jakesteele
New Member
USA
37 Posts |
Posted - 10/03/2009 : 21:24:10 [Permalink]
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Originally posted by Dave W.
Originally posted by jakesteele
Now, I can't stress this point enough. I am not saying they were flying saucers, I am simply asking questions about what appear to be unanswered questions about the Official Story. That's it, nothing more. |
Except for when you demand that scientists and other "debunkers" admit to the possibility that they might have been flying saucers. If you held no interest in such an explanation, you wouldn't be complaining when it's not examined.
By the way, the same site that you link to for the LUU-2 also has information on the LUU-4 (7 minute burn time) and LUU-19 (infrared).
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Where do you get this kind of stuff? I haven't demanded anything of anybody. I've asked for answers to a few basic questions. You are showing a classical debunker mentality. The instant anybody questions or dares to stray from the Official Story they are attacked, ad hominem'd and straw manned to death. It's almost as if you were striking a raw, primal, fundamentalists type fear.
I would still like an answer to:
1. What is the explanation to the first sighting.
2. How long did the lights hover/descend over Phoenix?
p.s. the LUU-2 information was from the blog of Skeptoid who reasearched this part of the story...5 minute burn time. So what if it was 5,7 or 9 minutes if the lights lasted longer. Did they, I don't know. |
Sacred Cows make the tastiest hamburgers |
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Dave W.
Info Junkie
USA
26022 Posts |
Posted - 10/03/2009 : 21:45:22 [Permalink]
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Oh, and here is a paper that claims that the very short transit time of tunneling photons is actually a completely different phenomenon which cannot be used to calculate a velocity. If correct, there are no superluminal speeds in photon tunneling, just another interesting quantum trick.
As I read more about this, my memory finally kicked in. The original article showing this effect was from 1994, and it's been almost as long that we've thought that it was just due to wave-front shifting, which would mean that even if photons were tunneling faster than c, the information they might contain was still poking along at 186,000 miles per second. As noted in the article I just linked, this stuff has been textbook fodder for a good long time already.
Just like the quantum entanglement article Jakesteele pointed us to. Hell, it was Einstein who called it "spooky action at a distance," and he's been dead for 54 years. The Alcubierre Drive also comes to us from 1994. The quantum teleportation paper comes from 1998, just a year after the long-distane quantum entanglement experiment. The "freezing" of a light pulse was done in 2003.
The only recent thing that Jakesteele's vaunted visionaries have brought us is the 2009 story of the improved ion drive, which (of course) is entirely classical and so holds no promise for ET's visits here. It's still a "take stuff and throw it out the back of the ship" propulsion system, and so is subject to the good old equation for kinetic energy, E=mv2/2. So if we wanted to take something with the mass of the Apollo Lunar Module (14,826 kg with two people onboard) and get it moving at 0.1c, we need to somehow supply 6,662,472,139,976,029,165.32 joules of energy (ignoring relativistic effects, which just make the number larger). While this may represent only 74.13 grams of matter "fuel" via E=mc2, we have nothing approaching a 100% efficient matter/antimatter space engine (and making antimatter requires more energy than we can get out of it at 100% efficiency, anyway). A nuclear fission reactor has an efficiency of less than 0.04% (according to Wikipedia), so we'd need at least 185,325 kg of plutonium to get our LM-sized vehicle going that fast.
In other words, the fuel is about 12.5 times as massive as the ship and its occupants (not including food). And (obviously) once we get our ship going that fast, we have to slow it back down to near zero again at the other end of the trip, doubling the fuel requirements. And since that latter half of the fuel has to be accelerated to 0.1c, we've just bumped the energy required to get up to 0.1c by another factor of 12.5.
A fast ion drive doesn't save us (or aliens) from these very real practical problems. Going to Mars at its closest approach in recent history in 39 days would be a speed of just 0.000098c, so the ion drives are still very slow. But Jakesteele seems to think that traveling from here to Alpha Centauri in 41,000 years somehow saves the alien visitation hypothesis. Obviously, I think he's very much mistaken, and being taken in by a romantic notion of on-the-cutting-edge scientists creating stuff that looks like miracles. |
- Dave W. (Private Msg, EMail)
Evidently, I rock!
Why not question something for a change?
Visit Dave's Psoriasis Info, too. |
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Dave W.
Info Junkie
USA
26022 Posts |
Posted - 10/03/2009 : 22:11:25 [Permalink]
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Originally posted by jakesteele
Where do you get this kind of stuff? I haven't demanded anything of anybody. |
I get it from what you have written. Specifically, "Getting a debunker to say that UFOs are possibly alien is like pulling eye teeth from a pissed off gorilla."| I've asked for answers to a few basic questions. |
Here on SFN, perhaps, but obviously you've goaded people into offering up aliens as an answer elsewhere (it just took a lot of work).| You are showing a classical debunker mentality. The instant anybody questions or dares to stray from the Official Story they are attacked, ad hominem'd and straw manned to death. It's almost as if you were striking a raw, primal, fundamentalists type fear. |
And here we see your hypocritical lack of civility once again, even though I've questioned the "Official Story" myself. This suggests that if I don't give respectful consideration to your preferred explanation, I will be attacked as a "debunker," regardless of what I say. It's as if you are being affected by a raw, primal, even fundamentalist sort of fear (see, for example, creationists' rejection of "theistic evolution").I would still like an answer to:
1. What is the explanation to the first sighting. |
Why don't you tell us again what, precisely, was the "first sighting?" Events are obviously being confused here.| 2. How long did the lights hover/descend over Phoenix? |
Which lights, specifically?| p.s. the LUU-2 information was from the blog of Skeptoid who reasearched this part of the story...5 minute burn time. So what if it was 5,7 or 9 minutes if the lights lasted longer. Did they, I don't know. |
"So what?" So what?! Are you kidding me?
First off, you didn't link to Skeptoid, you linked to another site with data on three different kinds of parachute flares, and you complained that you could only find data on one.
Secondly, if the flares lasted 5 minutes each, then 36 different people observing 36 different flare drops potentially covers the whole three hours. That's "so what." Even if there were flares that lasted three hours, at a fall rate of 10 ft/sec they would need to be dropped from 108,000 feet to be visible for that long, but since that's "outer space," it's an utterly ludicrous idea.
The point is that if you want to effectively "debunk the debunkers," you're going to have to come up with answers better than "so what?" and "I don't know." You're going to have to actually learn the answers to your own questions, rather than just asking them and getting self-righteous about the answers you receive. |
- Dave W. (Private Msg, EMail)
Evidently, I rock!
Why not question something for a change?
Visit Dave's Psoriasis Info, too. |
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jakesteele
New Member
USA
37 Posts |
Posted - 10/03/2009 : 22:27:58 [Permalink]
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Originally posted by Dr. Mabuse
Originally posted by Dave W.
Originally posted by jakesteele
4. A way to get around the speed of light. |
This last is the one that's at least a little interesting and new-ish, but not because the methods represent feasible mechanisms |
Making photons go slower than c isn't a feat. We've know about it for almost as long as we've know that light were photons. The most interesting is by how much.
The photon travelled slower than 3*10^8 m/s, but it travelled at the speed of light in that medium (because the medium was more dense than vacuum). The medium limits the speed: if you made a liquid that slowed a photon to 10 knots, you wouldn't be able to pilot a submarine through it at 11 knots.
To travel faster than a photon in vacuum, you need to travel in a medium less dense than vacuum.
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Just to clarify, the point I was making with the links is that if you went back 50,100 yrs. or more, this kind of stuff would blow people's minds. They would probably roll their eyes in their head and tell you to keep writing those crazy, wacky sci-fi stories, you might get one published. Whenever I've seen a debunker, Phil Plait, for instance, asked the question if they think there is life elsewhere, they will inevitably respond with some take off on the Drake equation. As I stated earlier, if you open the door to the possibility of live elsewhere and haven't the vaguest idea of what kind, then bacteria is just as feasible as sentience until we find out differently. |
Sacred Cows make the tastiest hamburgers |
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bngbuck
SFN Addict
USA
2437 Posts |
Posted - 10/03/2009 : 22:28:07 [Permalink]
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Dave.....
| The problem is even assigning a probability like "unlikely" to the hypothesis. We've got no evidence that aliens have ever visited Earth. None. |
What would constitute evidence of ancient alien visitation? |
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bngbuck
SFN Addict
USA
2437 Posts |
Posted - 10/03/2009 : 22:40:42 [Permalink]
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Kil.....
| The point is, we have no reason to believe that they have occurred. |
What could give one reason to believe that alien visitations have occured?
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jakesteele
New Member
USA
37 Posts |
Posted - 10/03/2009 : 22:43:27 [Permalink]
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Originally posted by Dude
jakesteele said:
The Scientific Method is only as far knowing and far seeing as its present limitations will allow it to be. The edge of the cosmological, quantum envelope is continually getting pushed out, but unfortunately, there are people that frantically keep trying to pull back until finally they loose the tug-o-war contest. Thank God for open minded, visionary people leading the charge.
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That may be one of the most ignorant things ever said on these forums, and we have had some people say some truly ignorant things here.
Jake, you seem to lack even a basic grasp of the scientific method. The rigor we impose upon all truth claims via the scientific method must be strict. If it isn't then the whole thing collapses into uselessness.
You don't get to make an assertion, as a scientist, and expect to be taken seriously unless other people can verify and replicate your results.
I won't even start in on you for using the word "quantum" inappropriately... yet, as you also clearly don't understand the definition of the word.
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You tell me my statement about the boundaries and limitations is ignorant, yet we don't know exactly what happened at the instant of the big bang. We haven't reconciled quantum mechanics with relativity to come up with TOE. We're still working on string theoy, dark matter/energy, etc. Are those not limitations and boundaries or do you think the S.M. is omniscient? If so, please tell me about the big bang, TOE, etc., and while your'e at it, could you give me a workable explanation for the first sighting that started out in Henderson, Nevada and how long the lights were seen over Phoenix. If they were seen for much more than 5 minutes, burn time of flare, then the flare theory has to be revisited.
p.s. you know exactly what I meant by the cosmological/quantum envelope. You know, kind of like the biggest and smallest areas of existence that we are exploring and discovering everyday in many new ways. |
Sacred Cows make the tastiest hamburgers |
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Dave W.
Info Junkie
USA
26022 Posts |
Posted - 10/03/2009 : 22:53:29 [Permalink]
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Originally posted by jakesteele
Just to clarify, the point I was making with the links is that if you went back 50,100 yrs. or more, this kind of stuff would blow people's minds. They would probably roll their eyes in their head and tell you to keep writing those crazy, wacky sci-fi stories, you might get one published. |
Unfortunately, the past performance of such things isn't a reliable predictor of any particular future technologies. In other words, the fact that top scientists 100 years ago would have been dumbstruck by today's incredibly easy access to online hardcore porn doesn't mean that 100 years from now, we will be similarly dumbstruck by overnight travel to Sirius.| Whenever I've seen a debunker, Phil Plait, for instance, asked the question if they think there is life elsewhere, they will inevitably respond with some take off on the Drake equation. As I stated earlier, if you open the door to the possibility of live elsewhere and haven't the vaguest idea of what kind, then bacteria is just as feasible as sentience until we find out differently. |
Of course, the plausibility of life on other planets has very little to do with the plausibility of travel between the stars, and especially not travel between the stars which ends in a few hours of hovering near a random city. |
- Dave W. (Private Msg, EMail)
Evidently, I rock!
Why not question something for a change?
Visit Dave's Psoriasis Info, too. |
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Dave W.
Info Junkie
USA
26022 Posts |
Posted - 10/03/2009 : 23:17:10 [Permalink]
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Originally posted by bngbuck
Dave.....| The problem is even assigning a probability like "unlikely" to the hypothesis. We've got no evidence that aliens have ever visited Earth. None. |
What would constitute evidence of ancient alien visitation? |
Anything ancient (pre-writing) with an unambiguous depiction of the first hundred primes would represent a slam-dunk, even if it's nothing more than a series of dots and separators, like this:..|...|.....|.......|...........|.............|................. Similar descriptions of any other scientific or mathematical truths of which we can be certain that ancient humans were unaware and for which there is no known natural generator would suffice. This is, in part, the reason for the Pioneer Plaque and the Voyager Golden Record. |
- Dave W. (Private Msg, EMail)
Evidently, I rock!
Why not question something for a change?
Visit Dave's Psoriasis Info, too. |
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Dave W.
Info Junkie
USA
26022 Posts |
Posted - 10/03/2009 : 23:29:38 [Permalink]
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Originally posted by jakesteele
You tell me my statement about the boundaries and limitations is ignorant, yet we don't know exactly what happened at the instant of the big bang. We haven't reconciled quantum mechanics with relativity to come up with TOE. We're still working on string theoy, dark matter/energy, etc. Are those not limitations and boundaries or do you think the S.M. is omniscient? If so, please tell me about the big bang, TOE, etc... |
The difference is that your speculation - that because we might be dumbfounded by what science tells us 100 years from now, we should keep the "alien visitation" option open now - depends upon our ignorance, whereas almost all the researchers in cosmology and quantum physics seek to end our ignorance.
In other words, yes, ignorance abounds, but scientists don't wallow in it. |
- Dave W. (Private Msg, EMail)
Evidently, I rock!
Why not question something for a change?
Visit Dave's Psoriasis Info, too. |
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bngbuck
SFN Addict
USA
2437 Posts |
Posted - 10/03/2009 : 23:34:07 [Permalink]
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Dude......
| You are saying that 10% of these events do not have a mundane explanation at all. Which is just something you pulled out of your ass. |
Correction. You let it crawl out of your tootchute. I am saying that somewhere around 10% of these events do not have as mundane an explanation as the other 90-odd% You made up the above and then swallowed your own bullshit so it naturally landed back in your colon!| As with all other such detrious, I suggest you flush and sanitize. |
As you obviously have problems with handling your own shit, I'll be glad to do that work of yours for you!| the position that any UAP is an alien spaceship is preposterous and psychotic (and stupid). |
Change that is to a could possibly be, write the sentence again, and I will comment. As it stands, I would write ".....is extremely presumptive and demands subtantiation with evidence."| There is a "high chance" that all 100% have a mundane, normal, rational explanation. |
I have no idea what you may mean by "mundane and normal" If all you are tortuously trying to say is "....high chance that all 100% are not alien visitations," I would agree with you.
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Dude
SFN Die Hard
USA
6891 Posts |
Posted - 10/03/2009 : 23:40:58 [Permalink]
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jake said:
| You tell me my statement about the boundaries and limitations is ignorant, |
The fact that you fail to comprehend my criticism is simply more evidence of your ignorance. I don't say this to be insulting (it is though, I know), but there is no kind way to point out willful ignorance in a person.
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Ignorance is preferable to error; and he is less remote from the truth who believes nothing, than he who believes what is wrong.
-- Thomas Jefferson
"god :: the last refuge of a man with no answers and no argument." - G. Carlin
Hope, n.
The handmaiden of desperation; the opiate of despair; the illegible signpost on the road to perdition. ~~ da filth |
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Dude
SFN Die Hard
USA
6891 Posts |
Posted - 10/03/2009 : 23:47:42 [Permalink]
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bng said:
| I have no idea what you may mean by "mundane and normal" If all you are tortuously trying to say is "....high chance that all 100% are not alien visitations," I would agree with you. |
Well, good. But that isn't what you said previously.
| Correction. You let it crawl out of your tootchute. I am saying that somewhere around 10% of these events do not have as mundane an explanation as the other 90-odd% You made up the above and then swallowed your own bullshit so it naturally landed back in your colon! |
Let me get that other sentence of yours for you, refresh your memory.
Here it is:
To confess the whole truth, these events fascinate me, along with hundreds of other odd, curious, unexplained, mysterious, and highly suspect phenomena. The chances are high that 90+ percent of all this shit is pure, unadulterated bullshit or else extremely ordinary occurences of one kind or another.
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I'm confident that even your crusty old brain can discern the alteration you have made between then and now.
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Ignorance is preferable to error; and he is less remote from the truth who believes nothing, than he who believes what is wrong.
-- Thomas Jefferson
"god :: the last refuge of a man with no answers and no argument." - G. Carlin
Hope, n.
The handmaiden of desperation; the opiate of despair; the illegible signpost on the road to perdition. ~~ da filth |
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Kil
Evil Skeptic
USA
13477 Posts |
Posted - 10/03/2009 : 23:58:30 [Permalink]
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Originally posted by bngbuck
Kil.....
| The point is, we have no reason to believe that they have occurred. |
What could give one reason to believe that alien visitations have occured?
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Evidence that would satisfy most reputable scientists working in fields where their knowledge would be considered expert in whatever evidence was brought forth for them to study. Since I am not one of those, I would have to rely on their expert opinions, published in peer reviewed journals, and not on internet blogs or forums. I really don't know exactly what that evidence would be, but I strongly suspect it will not be centered on mysterious lights in the Arizona sky.
That, or a spacecraft of undeniable alien origin, would have to land on the White House lawn, if you know what I mean. And even then, I would rely on the determination of scientists for verification of its extra terrestrial origin.
I will certainly not be convinced by interesting lights in the sky that appear every now and then, which include a few anomalies that have yet to be identified. And with most of them behaving differently, no less.
And wouldn't the earth be a long way to travel to, only to put on a light show?
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Uncertainty may make you uncomfortable. Certainty makes you ridiculous.
Why not question something for a change?
Genetic Literacy Project |
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Phoenix Lights flare debris
