Are we alone?

[csb (Craig)]

And: People then ask, Where did God come from then? These people are often the scoffers mentioned earlier

[xelasnave]

Originally Posted by csb

Well, people wonder how did the universe start. The Big Bang is the current favoured theory. Then people wonder what caused the big bang. Many say the answer is God. You can call it the God theory. It is a legitimate theory?

Well you need to make testable predictions. If God theory is to work to model creation what evidence can we expect to observe. Can the theory make a testable prediction is what you need. I can think of one but I think many of us will be toast at that point.
Probably best to avoid religious matters as the rules here forbid it and politics so lets not make the moderators step in to enforce the rules. You have made your point and you have your opinion on the record thats a good point to leave the matter.
Alex

[GTB_an_Owl (Geoff)]

why are you always right Alex ?



i believe the theme is "are we alone"

geoff

[xelasnave]

Originally Posted by GTB_an_Owl

why are you always right Alex ?



i believe the theme is "are we alone"

geoff

Geoff it is you who is right to remind us, who have drifted off topic, to get back to addressing the op.

Alex

[csb (Craig)]

Sorry, I started on topic, saying that life probably does exist on other planets because whoever made the universe seems to have made many many planets also.

And saying that life has been caused by a supernatural being is not mentioning religion. For some reason Geoff brought up religion (Adam n Eve) in his reply to me - Geoff I'm not a bible bashing nutter.

[simmo]

Originally Posted by xelasnave

Simmo science is not interested in "truth" as such.
Alex

Deep Throat: Mr. Mulder, why are those like yourself who believe in the existence of extraterrestrial life on this earth not dissuaded by all the evidence to the contrary?
Mulder: Because all the evidence to the contrary is not entirely dissuasive.
Deep Throat: Precisely.
Mulder: They’re here, aren’t they.
Deep Throat: Mr. Mulder, they’ve been here for a long long time

[GTB_an_Owl (Geoff)]

please pardon my wicked sense of humor Craig

i was simply trying to find out whether your comments meant you believed in creation or evolution (or both)

geoff

[strongmanmike (Michael)]

I can never understand how so many people say they "believe" in something but without any evidence to support that "belief"? While human decency and decorum dictates that tolerance be extended without vitriol, you have no right to be taken seriously if you simply say you believe in something when you have absolutely no tested evidence or even plausible reasoning for that belief

Mike

[xelasnave]

Originally Posted by strongmanmike

I can never understand how so many people say they "believe" in something but without any evidence to support that "belief"? While human decency and decorum dictates that tolerance be extended without vitriol, you have no right to be taken seriously if you simply say you believe in something when you have absolutely no tested evidence or even plausible reasoning for that belief

Mike

Hi Mike you are talking about belief in other life in the Universe right?

Alex

[csb (Craig)]

We're still going? Great!

All ok, Geoff. I do think there is a being who has made the universe and put life in it. When I said God people often assume I'm referring to the bible.

Mike, the fact of life is my proof of a supernatural creator. How can you accept thinking beings, human and animal, starting for no reason at all. It seems illogical to believe that thought/consciousness started without a cause.

[Kunama]

I don't believe in the whole thing having started by a supernatural creator, but I do accept that there are people to whom this may be a valid 'theory'. I think that sometimes **** just happens, then evolution takes over.....

But we are indeed travelling into TOS Breach territory......

I just cannot imagine that life occurs only on one blue pixel in space when there are so many of them about......

[xelasnave]

Please everyone back off religion as it is breaking the site rules.
Any discussion will escalate and there will be the inevitable bad blood.
More over the topic is not religion, creation or evolution it is an invitation for folk to discuss the prospect of life in the Universe.
And please resist the temptation to have the last word on religion because there never will be a last word on the matter.
We need not care what another believes.
Please no more.
Alex

[Exfso (Peter)]

Going off topic is par for the course in most discussions.

[xelasnave]

Of course and that is ok but we cant stray into religion or politics.
Why doesnt someone post a photo of a funny cat?
Alex

[simmo]

Alex I think the idea of believing in something is relative to the conversation of the topic.

It is in the same as do we believe that there are others in the universe. At the moment we have no way of knowing if there are or are not. Based on that we have an assumption that there could be something so far as we have discussed probabilities of there being others. We are starting to create a "theory" if the term is correct. We are collecting data on likely planets where life could exist and for the moment that theory is backed up by the mathematics of the probability of something being there. This will be the theory that will be excepted today.

Problem is we have no real evidence that there is or is not anything there at the moment so people will chose to "believe" that there is something there or not.

[xelasnave]

Simmo I cant disagree with anything you say other than avoid the word theory.
Alex

[simmo]

Originally Posted by xelasnave

Simmo I cant disagree with anything you say other than avoid the word theory.
Alex

[steradian]

There are a growing number of accepted scientific 'schools of thought' with the prefix "exo" - ie exobiogy etc - I wish the same widespread of acceptance could be extended to SETI and the work they do. They exist only as a private, nonprofit organization but I wish the government would fund them.

[avandonk]

Mike is correct we can only go on the available evidence. To us Physicists a theory only becomes valid when all the evidence points to only one possible theory. In physics a theory is not a belief but is backed up by a vast amount of solid internally consistent evidence.

Now we come to the tricky bit. Any current theory is not the last word on any phenomena. Newtons theory of Gravity was replaced by Einstein's theory of General Relativity. This did not make Newtons theory invalid but improved it.

In the late 1890's science did not accept the existence of atoms as there was no evidence for them! Yet now atomic theory is taught in primary school.

The proof for the Higgs Boson by data from the LHC filled the last empty hole in the Standard Theory for all the matter that we are made of including all the visible Universe. This is only about 4% of the total as Dark Matter and Dark Energy make up the other 96%.

The evidence for the existence of Dark Matter and Dark Energy is irrefutable and yet we do not know what they are.

In the past the mathematics has given us clues about where to go next. Dirac postulated that there would be anti matter because of the mathematics. We routinely use positrons in synchrotrons rather than electrons as they stay focussed in the beam as they are repelled by the residual gas positive ions in the vacuum of the tube they fly in. A positron can be thought of as an electron travelling back in time.

String Theory currently has no way of being tested experimentally. The LHC at higher energies may give some evidence.

If you are worried about living in an infinite Universe where there are an infinite number of Earths and an infinite number of each of us it is even stranger than this.

The Mathematics of String Theory leads to an infinite, well not quite 10^500 universes, all with different laws of Physics. Our so called Big Bang was just one Universe of the very many that are being created continuously without beginning or end.

The fact that we exist and our mere existence depends on Our Universe having just the correct exquisitely tuned laws. As an example if any of the fundamental four forces were a tiny bit different we would not exist.

Bacteria blindly and randomly had about four billion years to do all the chemical experiments.

Our biology is built on the results of these blind random experiments. In fact quantum effects are at the basis of biology. The enzymes and molecules you use to burn sugar at 37 degrees C rely on quantum tunnelling for their efficiency. Photosynthesis relies on the energy from the captured photon being transported through all possible paths in the molecular complex and the deciding when 'it' gets there what path it took. This turns out to be the most efficient path.

There is a small bird a Robin that actually 'sees' the Earths magnetic field by using the sensitivity of quantum mechanically entangled particles in its optic nerves. This is extraordinary as we can only maintain and detect quantum mechanical entanglement in very simple systems at temperatures close to absolute zero.

Nature has had about four billion years of experimentation. We have at best a few thousand.

Our Universe has had about 13.7 billion years of blind experimentation. Other universes have potentially been at it for eternity.

I do not know for sure if we are alone as there is no direct evidence. The mathematics tell me life is everywhere in our universe. Fortunately they are far enough away to not be a problem to us, or us to them.

I have believed for a long time that the human brain must have quantum mechanical abilities somewhere/everywhere in the 100 billion neurons and 300 trillion synapses. I based this on our ability to get a solution to an intractable problem as if it came from nowhere. It could also explain this very strange ability we have called consciousness.


This is the best answer I could come up with for Alex's original questions.

Sorry if it is a bit long.

Bert

[astroron (Ron)]

Originally Posted by steradian

There are a growing number of accepted scientific 'schools of thought' with the prefix "exo" - ie exobiogy etc - I wish the same widespread of acceptance could be extended to SETI and the work they do. They exist only as a private, nonprofit organization but I wish the government would fund them.

I think that most of the studies you mention are funded by universities etc
I think there was telescope many years ago dedicated to Seti with government funding but was later withdrawn.
I think the private institutions are doing a good enough job as it is.
Space funding gets very stretched at times, and Seti would be quite far down the list on that score.
Cheers