Dr. Neil DeGrasse - A fascinatingly disturbing thought

reply to post by BiggerPicture


We do have a long way to go.
I disagree with your second thought though. I believe any noble species would have gone through the same trials we have gone through and will go through. Think about it, how would one learn to be noble if the contrast of nobility had never been demonstrated. How would a society know the value of peace without ever having experience the horrors of war.

Look at Vulcans, yes they are fictitious, but follow me here. In Star Trek, their history was riddled with violence, war, death, and despair but through all of that they forged a new path. A path of logic, tranquility, wisdom, and nobility.

A race that has achieved such a level of nobility would look at us as if we were infants. Nothing more than toddlers venturing out in the back yard. However, I believe we would have a similar history and therefore a similar future.

Cool thread OP!!!

I am just getting into "Death by Black Hole" by Neil DeGrasse Tyson. This book is a collection of essays from the Natural History Magazine where he was/is a director/columnist for National History Magazine.

He is not only witty when it comes to his profession (astrophysics) but he has a lot of humor in his personality. I really like his style. I think teaching comes natural to him....

In regards to the video.... WOW! I do not expect anything less from him though like I said I think he is a GRRRREAT teacher!

My 15 year old son spoke this way of the periodic table... lol

Imo:

We are a part of the soup of life... we are not alone....thats certain. Its really....common sense right?

The chimpanzee analogy and the sharing of dna really doesn't and never has proven anything to ME.

Maybe everything we are is not as smart as we tell our self it is? Definitely!!!

We may not be as smart as we think we are to figure out something as vast as the Universe. But.... we try!!

Here's a thought... while this Dr. DeGrasse may be an extremely smart guy, and his circle of peers intelligent as well, consider the life on other planets, or hopeful life on other planets. We as humans from earth automatically seem to imbue extraterrestrials with a superior intellect. We for the most part, picture them with ESP capabilities, trans-dimensional abilities, or a host of made up abilities, but mostly by virtue of their ability to traverse great distances of space, somehow Genius-like mentalities.

I would guess they have political and social issues at home the same as everywhere where life exists. From the large eating the small to political affiliations or cultural differenced.

They could well have 'Fringe' thinkers or varying distinctions in their social/scientific makeup.
Just as we have highly intelligent thinkers here, and physicists/scientists, and sometimes these thinkers from polar opposites of the community. We could, and likely would have the same incidence of smart/crazy/political visitors from space. And in fact as Carl Sagan pointed out trying to elaborate on what three dimensional beings might see if a four dimensional being were to appear. There are deep and abstract complexities to consider here. not just an Alien hopping out of their saucer and greeting Earthlings, and automatically being benevolent friendlies.
www.google.com... QTOy9SaDg&usg=AFQjCNFkkzQHrZclGajIKQ0wGouhhw44MQ

This is the most enlightening audio I have heard in a long time....and far better and truthful than ANY church sermon I heard back when I used to be religious.

WE ARE STAR STUFF- Carl Sagan

Oh man. As an ultrageek black guy, this dude is my hero!

Honestly, it guys like this what make me want to pursue and complete my biology degree.. then i remember that i don't want to be up to my eyeballs in debt when i get out so i eventually come back to planet earth

And they say we aren't as smart as white folks, ha! Equal opportunity will give us an equal shoot. But anyways, yea. Huge fan of this guy.

Originally posted by Drunkenparrot
His position is that of most educated skeptics, i.e. there is presently no absolutely empirical evidence to support visitation and that the popular belief that UFO=Extraterrestrial is a product of human psychology.

Here is the video...

Im going to use this video a lot.

reply to post by FenderWolf

Panspermia has been around awhile. I rather like the idea that the elements that made life on this planet were forged in the heart of our local star (Sol)

lifeforms are more valuable than gold and the other rare elements that were forged in it.

Originally posted by ancientthunder
reply to post by Blue Shift

 

Any alternative intelligent/wise being would look at us and I will take a guess and say " they are pure potential, isnt that amazing" Now wether we waste that pp its another matter. Also any being who heard mozarts music would have to bow down in admiration.

Every particle in the multiverse is pure potential. To award that prize to humans alone is the height of arrogance. Humility is the way forward not arrogance. Its that kind of arrogant thinking that the sun rises and sets out of our backsides that starts wars in places they should start. If we are so great why is the planet in such a horrible state??? Our greed, self importance and sense of self entitlement which we feed and our empathy love and caring nature that we starve...disagree? Look outside your window at the by product of our collective actions. Oh dont get me wrong there are pockets of human beauty and compassion but they are far and few between.

I see it like this. For all those tree hugging hippies that love themselves so much they cant walk past a mirror without crying because they are so awesome I ask you this. If you're perfect as you are then there is nothing to improve correct? But at the same time you are human and capable of making mistakes... but if you THINK you're perfect you will never see the mistake and never learn from it instead keep repeating the same mistake over and over and over again thinking all your actions are perfect.

In a society that worships the ego be careful where you pray.

I tend to think humanity is probably a failed science experiment. So the Aliens are'nt so smart they don't screw up from time to time, just look at us.

Thank you to the OP for introducing me to this man's way of thinking. I couldn't agree with him more regarding his take on UFOs. People seem to forget the U in UFO stands for unidentified. And because it's unidentified it's automatically assumed it's alien.

Gonna go back and watch more of his clips. Good Stuff

m

Most moderately intelligent people have never heard of panspermia , Why because it isnt taught in schools !
The idea that life didnt evolve on earth first is something that would have profound effects upon religion and our understanding of this planet.

He does present the information in a rather interesting way , as science should be about understanding and if he makes it easier to understand that isnt bad , nor is selling a book about the understanding of science.
If it makes people more intelligent or more aware of the world and the science behind our world then thats great.

What conjecture did he make in reference to genetics ?

Mars being able to produce ejecta containing life , is not so hard to imagine , Olympus mons , the largest volcanoe in the known universe ! Well the theory is that that some of mars's moons may well be just that , ejecta from a violent volcanic eruption that spewed out large volumes of the planets core and subsequently destroyed the atmosphere of mars! just a theory though , phobos being the prim suspect with its tell tale giant scratch marks from being ejected from the volcanic vent

reply to post by Thisbseth


Starred and flagged a while ago but just gotta say the man has a brilliant mind. Also listened to his UFO views as well, completely reasonable and thought out. I saw a UFO myself but yeah, I've no proof.

This is not a joke....I heard a radio interview with DeGrasse where he laughingly said that he has received "urgent" and "priority" emails and messages from persons within the psychology community instructing him to "tone it down" in his lectures, because his talks about the cosmos make people feel "insignificant", and\or "unimportant", which could be "dangerous" and "damaging" to people.
He replied something like "I'm not responsible for your fragile little egos."

Thanks for this great video, it's so simple yet so brilliant. It's so true when he states that we're nothing special. Occam's Razor.

Originally posted by karl 12
reply to post by Drunkenparrot

 

Hey Drunkenparrot, whilst I'm sure he's a great man and there's no unequivocable proof as to the true nature of UFOs, Dr Tyson strikes me as a bit of an ignoramus when it comes to discussing the UFO subject.

Do you think he's even aware of some of the more compelling and unexplained cases?

Salutations Karl, good to talk to you. Its been a while

I believe that in all likelihood Dr. DeGrasse has explored the subject in a personal capacity at some length during his lifetime. I agree he comes off somewhat glib however, while he isn't my personal favorite among the current celebrity rock star physicists, I appreciate the few minutes of attention he publicly gave the topic.

Originally posted by Blue Shift

This whole "humanity is barbaric and not worth an alien's time" crap is so tiring. If you can't see how humanity is awesome in spite of our extreme limitations, then you're just a negativist from the get go, and filled with self-hatred. Aliens would be lucky to find us. We're great.

Sure, if you define "greatness" as worshiping money, ego, power, being extremely warlike and violent, and having such hyper-limited perspective and massive arrogance that it thinks itself the greatest thing in the universe, than sure humanity is great

Aliens HAVE found humanity. The fact they dont want to talk to you, should be telling about many things.

Intelligent man, but I believe life doesn't exist anywhere else in the universe. Reminds of my days when I used to want to be a theoretical physicist. Personally, I prefer Michio Kaku to DeGrasse

That is probably a good thing, as we (the more intelligent) species exploit our closest genetic relative (chimpanzees) in zoos and exploit them in circuses & the like, not to mention the animal testing that occurs on them in the name of science.

reply to post by UberL33t


So what's all this about aliens probing people they abduct????

Makes ya thing doesn't it?