Can Anyone Debunk this Theory?

Originally posted by OhZone
What are the chances among the gazillion galaxies in an infinite ageless universe that someone else did it first?

Actually, the odds of life originating somewhere else in the universe (which is not quite infinite nor ageless, BTW) are apparently just as good as they are for life originating here. And actually even better than most places, since we are pretty sure life exists here. There is, at the moment, no evidence to suggest that we are not the absolutely first and only place in the entire universe where there is life. We might be very special in that regard.

The basic problem comes with understanding how life comes to be. How does a batch of very complex chemicals magically form itself into a structure that has consciousness and can reproduce and evolve? We have no idea. You can throw raw DNA into a test tube, and it will just sit there. How does something as simple, yet complex, as a cell originate? No clue.

And until we figure that out, we have no way of knowing if it's easy or hard or how probable it might be given the right amount of water, warmth, sunshine, and so on.



[edit on 25-1-2008 by Nohup]

reply to post by mikesingh


You don't notice the disconnect between your statement that odds are that intelligent, advanced life has probably developed trillions of times in our gigantic universe... But that we did not develop like all those trillions of intelligent species, that we are some "special creation" of an alien race?

I'm sorry, I don't want to be part of your Stargate / BSG mystery cult, please remove me from the mailing list

You went from an interesting examination of the odds of intelligent life in the universe, to space opera. You repeat the dumb claims of Cremo and Sitchen, in defiance of estronomy, geology, paleontology, genetics, and anthropology, perhaps because it "sounds cooler." Rather than accept that you, me, and the rest of the people here are about half a chromosome shy of having blue butts and furry foreheads, you want the absolutely most complex, covoluted, and dramatic narrative for our species origins possible.

Personally, I find it much easier to beleive that a handfull of generations ago, my ancestors were cracking open logs to slurp out the grubs, than they were genetically engineered miners for a super-advanced space race that eats gold.

The original question is not well focused, in my opinion.

Let's just talk about the number of space-faring civs in our own galaxy.

I'd say there are none. There might be a few, sprinkled here and there, but they are stuck exploring their own solar systems, most likely.

Also, there's a tremendous time span. The likelyhood that a fast-traveling space-faring civilization at large within the last 100 years, to coincide with our own industrial society is virtually nil.

Originally posted by Badge01
Let's just talk about the number of space-faring civs in our own galaxy.

I'd say there are none. There might be a few, sprinkled here and there, but they are stuck exploring their own solar systems, most likely. Also, there's a tremendous time span. The likelyhood that a fast-traveling space-faring civilization at large within the last 100 years, to coincide with our own industrial society is virtually nil.

The only chance they might have is if some clever alien (with a really huge brain) manages to find a way around that distance problem. That's a pretty tall order, since distance doesn't appear to be something that can be manipulated like temperature or magnetic charge. They'll need to figure out some kind of "alternate route," either through something like subspace or timewarp. What little we know about those things tends to suggest that it would require massive amounts of power to accomplish.

Another possible way around it is to somehow find a way to eliminate the need for a thing, like a ship, or a photon, to cover the distance. Of course, then we're talking about things like consciousness, which we really don't have much of a handle on at all. But psychically traveling around the universe might be away around having to personally travel or send a signal. Maybe.

Otherwise, it wouldn't matter if there was some super-civilization even someplace as relatively close as the Andromeda Galaxy (forget about anything farther away). They would be just too damned far away to have any interaction at all with us, or us with them, even with a 10 billion year head start.



[edit on 25-1-2008 by Nohup]

Originally posted by Nohup
Otherwise, it wouldn't matter if there was some super-civilization even someplace as relatively close as the Andromeda Galaxy (forget about anything farther away). They would be just too damned far away to have any interaction at all with us, or us with them, even with a 10 billion year head start.

But you're forgetting that the universe, as we know it, is over 15 billion years old, give or take a few billions! Life originated on Earth probably >3 billion years ago. Till today no one knows for sure how it originated.

Cosmic Ancestry (panspermia) is a new theory pertaining to evolution and the origin of life on Earth. It holds that life on Earth was seeded from space, and that life's evolution to higher forms depends on genetic programs that come from space.

Well, there is the scientific theory of how the universe came into being - The Big Bang. But there is the other theory too, philosophical in content, which states that life has always existed. Alternating between long quiescent periods of waiting in space as mere wispy potential, and eventual emergence on planets everywhere, life may have always been.

But keeping out philosophy for the moment, and looking more through scientific paradigms, the Solar System is approx 4.5 billion years old. There undoubtedly exist systems billions of years older. It is therefore logical to assume that life commenced billions of years before the birth of our Solar System, probably a few billion years after the Big bang.

If so, life must have evolved eons ago, long before the birth of the Solar System. Evolution over billions of years would have resulted in advanced life forms, some millions of years spiritually and technologically ahead of us.

If they have evolved by natural and universal evolutionary processes, various civilization Types would have manifested into - like what Dr Michio Kaku has theorized – Type I to Type IV and beyond. We haven’t even reached a fraction of Type I at this juncture!

So, to say that due to the vast stellar distances, there could not have been any contact or interaction between extra terrestrial cultures may not be correct. Who knows where they have reached in technology? After all, even a million years is a long, long time to discover esoteric forms of propulsion! Look at what we’ve achieved in just 100 years. And we’re talking millions, if not billions here!!

Cheers!

Originally posted by Nohup
They would be just too damned far away to have any interaction at all with us, or us with them, even with a 10 billion year head start.
[edit on 25-1-2008 by Nohup]

This seems to be a tall statement that defies extrapolative logic(big bang anyone ?).

A million years is a long time, as in ape to man, with 10 billion years of evolutionary advance, why not "huge brain" that powers the warp drive thru the warmhole ?

Let's face it, despite our egoistic otherwise, human species are not that advanced, nor intelligent for that matter, given its self destructive tendencies. As has been said, man is the missing link between the ape and the human being. It is a grave mistake to equate our limitation to that of the universe, for we know very little.

reply to post by Nohup

It's an interesting theory, except for the fact that there is not one single piece of convincing evidence that proves there is life, much less advanced civilizations, anywhere but here.

Yes, but there isn't any evidence proving there isn't either. Also, as far as we know we don't currently have the means to obtain any evidence. I guess we'll have to "wait and see" so to speak.

reply to post by Badge01


In response to the odds you stated based on types of civilizations that is assuming we know all there is to know about energy. In my opinion humanity probably knows very little in the grand scope of things. We're very egotistical, we homo-sapiens.

reply to post by TheWalkingFox

Personally, I find it much easier to beleive that a handfull of generations ago, my ancestors were cracking open logs to slurp out the grubs, than they were genetically engineered miners for a super-advanced space race that eats gold.

I've read all Sitchin's books, and he doesn't say they "eat gold". He said they needed the gold to repair their atmosphere or something along those lines. Also, I find the derogatory tone of your post unnecessary. You find this theory ludicrous...duly noted.

Originally posted by Malynn
I've read all Sitchin's books, and he doesn't say they "eat gold". He said they needed the gold to repair their atmosphere or something along those lines. Also, I find the derogatory tone of your post unnecessary. You find this theory ludicrous...duly noted.

"Or something along those lines"? You've read all his books and apparently haven't gotten a clear picture of what these beings do with the gold? Yes, I DO find it ludicrous.

Fo' 'zample. We have a higher-intelligent interplanetary race capable of causing massive genetic changes successfully in multicellular complex organisms. They then use their great intellects, their high technology, and their spacefaring ability to do what? Apparently the apex of technological innovation is handing a pickaxe to a bald primate and telling it to look for shiny rocks in the dirt.

It doesn't make a lot of sense. It's the equivalent to humanity harnessing electricity, and then never using it for anything other than to make their hair stand up on end.

You may find the tone of my post derogatory, but I find the notion that the entirety of human history is the by-product of Babylonian god-aliens who for all their amazing technological and intellectual progress, couldn't figure out how to use it to harvest gold, much less save their atmosphere (or something like that) to be pretty derogatory. Bad history is bad enough. Ludicrous history is even worse.

Originally posted by Essan
Nice idea for a sci-fi story but ........ where's the evidence? There isn't any.

Why do people do this? He specificly stated in the beginning of his thread that this was a theory

It was an idea that he had that he wanted thoughts on. In no way did he state that this was fact.

Stop asking people where the evidence is! This is ATS, there isn't much evidence for a lot of things that are discussed on this site.

Originally posted by Malynn
reply to post by Nohup

 

It's an interesting theory, except for the fact that there is not one single piece of convincing evidence that proves there is life, much less advanced civilizations, anywhere but here.

Yes, but there isn't any evidence proving there isn't either. Also, as far as we know we don't currently have the means to obtain any evidence. I guess we'll have to "wait and see" so to speak.

Pretty much. However, there's no evidence that monkeys will fly out of your butt, either. So does that mean it's equally likely that they will or won't? And just because life coming into being happened once, here, doesn't say much for the probability that it will happen somewhere else. President Kennedy got shot in the head on this planet. Does that mean it's statistically bound to happen on some other planet, also, given how big the universe is?

[edit on 29-1-2008 by Nohup]

Originally posted by mikesingh
But keeping out philosophy for the moment, and looking more through scientific paradigms, the Solar System is approx 4.5 billion years old. There undoubtedly exist systems billions of years older. It is therefore logical to assume that life commenced billions of years before the birth of our Solar System, probably a few billion years after the Big bang.

There is where your logic falls short. On what do you base the notion that time is a determining factor when it comes to the development of life from non-living materials? Are you saying that if you wait long enough, life is bound to happen? You yourself said that nobody knows how life originates. Why is it that you think that life is practically guaranteed to occur given enough time?

If you put all the parts of a computer into a big box, are you saying that if you randomly shake it long enough, all the pieces will fall together at some point and become a working computer?

Originally posted by JackCash

Originally posted by Essan
Nice idea for a sci-fi story but ........ where's the evidence? There isn't any.

Why do people do this? He specificly stated in the beginning of his thread that this was a theory

It was an idea that he had that he wanted thoughts on. In no way did he state that this was fact.

Sorry but Theories require Data. You can't have one without the other.

With no evidence, what you have is blind speculation, not a "theory." With no evidence, there is no real worth to an idea other than what Essan said - as a fictional vehicle.

Originally posted by JackCashStop asking people where the evidence is! This is ATS, there isn't much evidence for a lot of things that are discussed on this site.

That's it folks! We have our new Motto:

Stop asking people where the evidence is! This is ATS, there isn't much evidence for a lot of things that are discussed on this site.

Harte

reply to post by TheWalkingFox

You may find the tone of my post derogatory, but I find the notion that the entirety of human history is the by-product of Babylonian god-aliens who for all their amazing technological and intellectual progress, couldn't figure out how to use it to harvest gold, much less save their atmosphere (or something like that) to be pretty derogatory. Bad history is bad enough. Ludicrous history is even worse.

You're antagonized by the notion that someone has come up with a theory of how we "began" that is outside the box of what is considered possible by our current standards? No one in this thread is suggesting that the theory postulated herein is the end-all be-all of the truth; is "history"; or should replace our currently accepted history. We're just discussing it, which we're certainly glad you came here to do as all voices are welcome on ATS last time I checked. However, as I said before your derogatory tone towards those of us willing to entertain the possibilities is unnecessary.

Originally posted by Nohup
On what do you base the notion that time is a determining factor when it comes to the development of life from non-living materials? If you put all the parts of a computer into a big box, are you saying that if you randomly shake it long enough, all the pieces will fall together at some point and become a working computer?

Well, You are there and I am here!! Living proof of development from non-living materials!!

Cheers!

Originally posted by Malynn
You're antagonized by the notion that someone has come up with a theory of how we "began" that is outside the box of what is considered possible by our current standards? No one in this thread is suggesting that the theory postulated herein is the end-all be-all of the truth; is "history"; or should replace our currently accepted history. We're just discussing it, which we're certainly glad you came here to do as all voices are welcome on ATS last time I checked. However, as I said before your derogatory tone towards those of us willing to entertain the possibilities is unnecessary.

As the poster above you noted, this is not a "theory." It's speculation, and has no data. It's not that it's outside the box that bugs me. Outside the box is fine. Speculation is fine. Making no sense at all? Not so fine.

Now first, we have to accept the idea of interplanetary war. Great stuff for movies perhaps, but the realities of it are somewhat less likely. You have three scenarios - Either you can have a long drawn-out war, or a fast, world-obliterating war, or a colony war.

In the first scenario, neither enemy wishes to do more than defeat the other to prove a point, i.e., a "normal" war. It would be slow. it would be expensive, and it would be very ineffective. Such a war, despite my descriptor of "long" would be over relatively quickly as all the participants realized the absolute futility of it.

In the second, it's a grudge match to the death, genocide at the highest scale. Whichever side manages to come up with a weapon that could decimate a worldwide population in one go is the victor here. The loser is never heard from again. The survivors, if any, inherit a ruined society and, in all likelihood, do not encompass the talents and skills needed for most of the more advanced stuff that may be left - they would be no more able to power a spacecraft than you would be to build a television from scratch.

The third, and most likely scenario, is two planets fighting over the resources of a third. This however makes the assumption that both of the competing planets are so starved for resources that they would commit to war for control of an entire world, when any rational being can see that there's plenty to go around. And if we're assuming resource starvation, then warfare becomes more unlikely.

Of these scenarios, only the second one has anyone coming to the brink of annihilation - and odds are, that annihilation will happen rather handily, with the survivors, if any, becoming obsolete.

The dramatic getaway would either be unneeded or impossible.

But okay. There's a genocidal interplanetary war going on, and some plucky survivors run away and just happen to reach the Solar system. They settle on Mars and Earth (As others have noted, there's simply not enough material for the asteroid belt to have ever been a planet - it's just space junk caught between the pull of Jupiter and the sun, and the Kuiper Belt has almost no "solid" material) and apparently built huge underground cities.

Now here's the thing about that... Where are these huge cities? We would have noticed them by now. Certainly a highly advanced enemy hounding them into the depths of space would have noticed!

Oh and by the way, they mutated a species of primate, just as a lark. That's us. No particularly sensible reason for it, it's just an attempt to make this the grand unification theory for the various life and social sciences.

reply to post by mikesingh


The definition of "life" is actually rather fuzzy. Nonliving matter manages to replicate the basic functions of life rather often - It's just that whenever a chunk of that matter manages to perform all those functions, we call it "alive". Of course, we're understandably biased. For all we know there are things that have even more qualities they define as "life" and we're just lumps of hydrogen, oxygen, and carbon that happen to display some intriguing properties.

Basically the distinction between "living" and "nonliving" is pretty artificial and arbitrary, as is the distinction between matter and energy. When the scale gets small enough, who can tell?

I agree. Why would any advanced civilization ever mechanically engineer autonomous lifeforms such as robots? We must have evolved from those nano-clusters which propogate the metallic substrate of our heavy metal planetoid.

After all, a sufficiently advanced civilization would have no need of developing synthetic organisms.

...

Wait, what were we talking about?

Sarcasm aside... maybe they were too hoity toity and lazy to use their technology to do it, and maybe having bio-organisms do manual labor is cheaper economically to them. Sure, there may be easier ways, but maybe there's red tape to go through. Licensing heavy metal extracting raybeams... or soemthing.

As for where all the evidence went to... maybe there was an uprising, and the aliens didn't want the know-nothing monkeys to grab a spaceship and blow up Sol with the antimatter engines, so they removed it all.

Or maybe the highly advanced technology is still around in some format that we'd recognize as being part of nature, that it has integrated.

Or maybe the solitary outpost had a reactor core meltdown and blew itself sky high and ocean deep. Maybe because of the silly monkeys and sticking a wrench where it doesn't belong.

Maybe Og pressed the wrong button and the nanites decided to unassemble the whole civilization, leaving just bioorganic entities behind until such a time that the programming degraded and the nanites became inert metals that have weathered into unrecognizable lumps over 10,000 years.

That intelligent people cannot come up with intelligent reasons why there may not be evidence shows a lack of imagination. There's a thousand reasons why there may not be evidence.

Absence of Evidence is not Evidence of Absence.

To those scholarly many who count themselves masters of the known world, it is inconceivable that their renowned disciplines could possibly overlook, miss, or just plain get it wrong. To the casual hobbyist of self-certainty, mankind's knowledge is unassailable.

While some may believe so strongly and quote at length books, papers, research and disertations that empirically murder the concepts of the strange and surreal, decrying ancient astronauts... atlantis... advanced, superior civilizations in the past... I prefer to think that Mankind really doesn't know anything. About itself, or the place where it resides in this universe.

We can certainly pretend we do in a jolly good capacity though. Our powers of prognostication and divination haven't improved much over the years, we're only slightly more careful with slightly more precise utensils for measuring things we think we may have a generally good idea about.

Originally posted by TheColdDragon

Absence of Evidence is not Evidence of Absence.

Absurd.

Of course absence of evidence is evidence of absence.

What the heck else could possibly be evidence of absence?

What if absence is true? What evidence of a non-presence could there possibly be, except for the absence of evidence for any presence?

I've had this argument, shortened of course, in my sig since I joined ATS.

And I don't wanna hear about how Carl Sagan was the one that said this. Sagan was using the phrase as an example of the absurd arguments used by pseudoscience.

Harte

Originally posted by JackCash

Originally posted by Essan
Nice idea for a sci-fi story but ........ where's the evidence? There isn't any.

Why do people do this? He specificly stated in the beginning of his thread that this was a theory

I apologise. I tend to use the word theory in the scientific sense where it requires evidence and should be testable and falsifiable. As opposed to 'common usage' whereby it can mean an idea not necessarily grounded in reality and requiring no facts to support it - ie the theory that 6ft fluffy pink bunnies run the fast food outlets on the moon (which is one I would not personally promote for serious discussion on ATS )

Originally posted by Harte
Absurd.

Of course absence of evidence is evidence of absence.

What the heck else could possibly be evidence of absence?

What if absence is true? What evidence of a non-presence could there possibly be, except for the absence of evidence for any presence?

Harte

There is no evidence that I am a highly efficient artificial mimetic intelligence. It also isn't likely... that does not mean that it is impossible that such could be true in another case. Indeed, one could posit that it is an eventual probability reaching towards 100% to occur some time in the near future.

No evidence of it occurring now, of course.

I recall science placing the wrong head on a set of bones and proclaiming it "Brontosaurus" for several decades. It was a misconception of evidence.

Likewise, in order to find evidence you must first look where evidence is likely to be. Then you must interpret the evidence. Often, evidence is interpreted vis a vis a previously existent understanding which may or may not be based off of specious understanding, biased also by previously held theories, thoughts, and ideas. Thusly, even the most detailed of world views is suspect if key components are found to be in error... much like a house of cards.

If you care to respond to the other postulates as to why there is lack of evidence, I think it would create a better dialogue than merely plucking out a phrase from my post and making a reductum ad absurdum argument to be dismissive of the rest.

Science at one point had no evidence of Black Holes, gravity, relativity. That did not mean they did not exist. Likewise, the currently held theories and ideas put forward by our race aren't necessarily accurate or true. They merely make the most sense to those who pretend at knowledge.