Life on earth is living proof Extraterrestials exists.

Originally posted by Watcher26
reply to post by PhoenixOD

 

If there is no life elsewhere, what is this on Mars?

Green Man

A giant yellow stick pin labeled "GM". That's intuitively obvious to the most pedestrian of observers.

You are looking at the finger pointing at the moon, instead of the moon...

Originally posted by Watcher26
You are looking at the finger pointing at the moon, instead of the moon...

I thought you said it was Mars... and what finger?

Originally posted by Watcher26
reply to post by PhoenixOD

 

If there is no life elsewhere, what is this on Mars? It is quite clear to me that this is not a rock. It is plainly humanoid, with eyes etc where you'd expect to see them. But it appears to be naked. Check it out on Google Mars. It takes a bit of spotting, even if you go to the correct co-ordinates.

47°36'40.80"S, 4°23'7.58"E Elev 1231 metres

Green Man

Here it is enhanced slightly...

Green Man Green

That's Pareidolia .Our brains like to play these kind of games.

We may not even be capable of distingüish extra-terrestrial life at first glance since we cannot imagine things without "seeing" them first in nature (the whole or some of its parts). Aristotle knew this little limitation before us.

Originally posted by NewAgeMan

Someone else who I shared this with really got it and it freaked them right out, this notion of an intelligent design, but once you look at the data the conclusion, however extraordinary, is inescapable.

Sorry man, but i will have to disagree the universe doesn't adapt to life, it is life that adapts to the universe, that's way more "intelligent" & practical don't you think so? By understanding natural selection and how genes work this becomes obvious.

Some million years ago Earth atmosphere was filled with deadly gases, and the temperatures were high enough to kill modern bacteria, yet it was "perfect" for some organisms

Originally posted by Soylent Green Is People
For the record, I personally believe that other intelligent life almost surely exists elsewhere in the universe, but I don't presume or project the reasons behind my belief as being "Proof". It is simply evidence, and circumstantial evidence at that. I think that evidence is overwhelming in favor of life being elsewhere, but it isn't proof.

I'd agree with that. But in general, I'd just be careful with demands for 'proof' in the empirical world.

Even if you thought you had "proof," that would still just be a justified belief that you assumed was true - new physical evidence could always arise that would overturn what you thought with certainty was true. In other words, we're always dealing in probabilities.

There is no absolute certainty when it comes to inferences dealing with the empirical world because there is always the chance that counterevidence will arise. The empirical world is 'fuzzy' and our perceptual and belief faculties subject to error, no matter how certain we think we are. So to demand 'proof' in the empirical world is to me a misnomer. You can demand evidence, but not proof. When people demand 'proof' for things like alien life, they seem to be demanding something that would entail, with absolute certainty, that life elsewhere exists. But that kind of 'proof' is only found in logical or mathematical deductions.

But notice how even Euclid's geometrical proofs that we'd accepted for hundreds of years as absolutely certain were later discovered to rest of fallacious assumptions - in particular, the parallel postulate (axiom). The parallel postulate seemed so obvious that no one questioned it, until Lobachevski realized that it rested on an even deeper assumption - that of the structure of Euclidean space (based on the idea of flat, two-dimensional planes). But if you assume a different underlying spatial structure, like the surface of a 'saddle' (as in Lobachevski's hyperbolic geometry), the parallel postulate fails because there exists more than one line that passes through an external point (not on that line) that doesn't intersect that line.

In other words, what seemed to be an obvious and valid proof actually rested on further underlying assumptions that no one realized for over a thousand years. In other words, even what seems to be a totally rigorous and obvious proof can be overturned based on new information. This is to say that demanding absolute 'proof' might not be a reasonable thing to ask for, especially when it comes to the empirical world. That's why it's advisable to avoid demands for 'proof' when dealing with the empirical world, and to deal more in degrees of justification for belief, which can be ascertained through higher or lower probabilities with arguments by induction. And even in those cases, with very high degrees of probability on our side, we still could be wrong. On the other hand, it's more likely to be true.

So instead of claiming 'proof' or demanding 'proof', I think it makes more sense to present or demand an argument based on evidence or probabilities. It seems like people like to cower behind the concept of 'proof' as a means of not having to engage with the actual arguments that people are making. Let's just all agree that there will never be 'proof' in the sense of the absolute certainty of a logical deduction. Instead, it would be better for someone who disagrees with the OP's argument to explain how high the probabilities would have to be in order for them to feel as though they were justified in such a belief. And then we can talk about whether or not such demands are or are not unreasonable, maybe based on everyday analogies that we're more familiar with.

reply to post by TrueBrit


No it is a sound conclusion and very simple to understand if you do not think so however, I worry for this race very much more.

Originally posted by beautyofperil
reply to post by blahxd67

 

Ok, but this thread is not for that. What is your stand on topic at hand?

I wasn't trying to start anything. Just clarifying. But I agree life must exist elsewhere in the universe. A recent estimation was done that said in our galaxy alone, there's _100 billion planets_, _17 billion of those being Earth-like_. And our galaxy is rather small compared to others. There _has_ to be life somewhere else. And, quite honestly, you can't write off all these alien abductions as hallucinations, especially when they find stuff inside of their bodies that shouldn't be there.

I believe there are more than one way to show the general public with good confidence that the Earth is not the only game in town.

reply to post by beautyofperil


People will continue to be ignorant; I worry about this race as well. The more books that are published the more blind and oblivious to the possibilities we become.

The only thing we can do is watch as they present nothing to say that other beings do not exist out there, but by my calculations; the idea that other beings do exist out there over power the idea that they don't. Evidence will always surpass false belief.

Ignorance is, indeed, bliss.

Originally posted by draknoir2

Originally posted by Watcher26
You are looking at the finger pointing at the moon, instead of the moon...

I thought you said it was Mars... and what finger?

I think they are trying to quote Bruce Lee,

Slap across the head

"Do not concentrate on the fingerrr, or you will miss all that heavenly glory"

Originally posted by EL1A5
reply to post by beautyofperil

 

People will continue to be ignorant; I worry about this race as well. The more books that are published the more blind and oblivious to the possibilities we become.

The only thing we can do is watch as they present nothing to say that other beings do not exist out there, but by my calculations; the idea that other beings do exist out there over power the idea that they don't. Evidence will always surpass false belief.

Ignorance is, indeed, bliss.

edit on 6-2-2013 by EL1A5 because: (no reason given)

Can you find anyone in this thread making such a claim that life does not exist out there?

Most seem to agree, the evidence is overwhelming.

Originally posted by EL1A5
Evidence will always surpass false belief.

I've found the opposite to be true... at least on this forum.

reply to post by blahxd67


You set a very nice example many ATSers would do well to follow.

reply to post by InhaleExhale


I will give you the credit of understanding analogy...

The earth is flying in space, and we have almost countless stars around us in our galaxy, why again do people think other beings are not visiting us?

Because we don't have the technology?

That is thinking like the past - the world is flat, the sun revolves around the earth, etc.

Originally posted by greyer
The earth is flying in space, and we have almost countless stars around us in our galaxy, why again do people think other beings are not visiting us?

Because we don't have the technology?

That is thinking like the past - the world is flat, the sun revolves around the earth, etc.

Personally, I think it is certainly within the realm of possibility that an alien race would figure out how to travel to Earth...

...However, I think if they did, we would know about it (I mean really know about it, not just have reports of strange sightings). I don't necessarily count abduction stories as real evidence, either.

Another reason why I think it is possible we have never been visited id the fact that the earth could easily be overlooked in the vastness of space. Aliens may have no idea we even exist. We are basically just a spec of dust at the scale of the galaxy -- and we are even smaller at the scale of the known universe; at the scale of the known universe, Earth is so small that it could be considered virtually non-existent.

You may argue that they could know about us through our radio transmissions, but even our radio transmissions have gone basically nowhere in the past 100 years we have been broadcasting The tiny blue dot in the image bolw is the extent of our radio transmissions over the past 100 years:



Image Source

reply to post by beautyofperil


I look at it this way. Lets say that we are in a courtroom and a man is on trial, lets say for murder. In order to prove his guilt, one would have to prove that the man was at the scene, that he had handled the murder weapon, and likely as not, show physical evidence proving that not only was he in the room, handled the weapon, but show that he was the one that pulled a trigger, or swung the hammer, or what have you.

I see this the same way. We can theorise as much as we want, but until we have sifted the galaxy for the physical evidence that proves, beyond any doubt, that alien life exists, we cannot consider the job done, or any conclusion to be comprehensive, or utterly trustworthy. In short my approach is based in hard science, not guesswork and possibilities.

reply to post by TrueBrit


If what your implying is hard science, not guesswork and possibilities. By comparing this topic to a murder trial I'd like to see you prove that logical as this is entirely different.

First off my friend, say we are in a courtroom and I present my case about this topic. What verdict say you? (Guilty being I am guilty of being correct, but the question is not rhetorical.)

Secondly, in contrast to your comparison the universe has swung the hammer many times on this planet alone, so just look to your self for the proof.

reply to post by beautyofperil


Would you care to restate the reasoning you used in this post with a little more clarity? I find it difficult to understand what precisely you are getting at.