Are we alone?

[simmo]

Definitely not superstition. Yes light bulb was checked. Coincidence definitely not based on what we experienced and I am not someone who is gullible to believe something as base as just superstition. Guys while it may not seem to you but going to school I ranked top 5 percent so don't play me like a fool.

This is the exact reaction I was referring to. Search yourself and tell me. You guys needed to try and explain and justify what is unexplainable no?

The reason for posting my experience is based solely on "what we believe" and exploring what it is that we believe which while not exactly the op question has become a bit of a side topic and interesting. In my life time I have noticed more and more people relying on science as an explanation of life.

And as you guys say there are many holes in the puzzle. If you have never experienced something that changes your life then how can you know or let alone try to understand or in that fact debase what someone has experienced.

I think it is perfectly fine to ask questions of what people consider mainstream.

[simmo]

Yes I believe your right about science giving a lot more in the future Alex. I hope that we can have an impact on people's health and serious disease. There is no doubt that it has had a huge effect in the last century and you and I have directly benefited.

One thing I do ponder about is are we learning too much without first understanding it.

I am not an expert on Physics or science as I channelled my skills into construction but to me exploring the very fabric of our existence are we in danger of setting of a chain reaction that we have no control over. It's just a pondering and probably something someone can answer. I realise that it's also a bit of a quandary as how can we understand something if we can not explore or test what it is that we wish to learn.

The other question is do we really need to know everything in life?
Does it really matter if we find life on another planet? What would we gain?

[simmo]

Good reading Alex. Very interesting.

The part about the mind filling in the blanks is something I can relate to and have to live with when riding my motorbike on the road. Here is the article.

http://www.londoncyclist.co.uk/raf-p...each-cyclists/

[bojan]

Originally Posted by simmo

.....The other question is do we really need to know everything in life?
Does it really matter if we find life on another planet? What would we gain?

Well...
Do we really need to believe in "un-explainable"?
What we will gain by accepting coincidences and explanations described earlier as "facts"?

My answers to those questions are implied, of course.

[xelasnave]

Simmo I appologise for any hint that I would play you for a fool.
I respect all folk. I am not perfect and I lashed out at religious folk a while back and I was very embarrassed but I had had dealings with a hypocrite who left me with a nasty taste in my mouth and in retrospect haas cost me the best part of 100k because I made the mistake of thinking his word was as good as mine.. But that was my fault certainly I did not need to curse all of chrisondom..
Anyways fools require no help to show their foolishness.
All I am trying to do for you is pass on little things I have learned as to how science works.
Now getting back to the question you raise why wonder about other life...
Well for me I am curious and I would like to know.
Clearly I believe there is more life out there than we can imagine in places we can not imagine and in forms we can not imagine.. But it is o ly a belief and I would like some proof to support my belief rather than just wonder.
To find life will have us asking more questions about the meaning of life I guess but that is what we do.. We are curious creatures... Meaning we want to know all the answers I guess.
Thank you for your compliment.
I also like bikes, I raced moto cross and a little short circuit and back then I could be described as bike mad... Now just mad.

Alex

[simmo]

No offence taken Alex and quite horrified to hear of your encounter with someone with a dishonest constitution. There are good and bad in every crowd. You are not alone and part of restoring ones self is letting someone else know about the situation.

That in mind I think I stand for everyone here on IIS in saying that we feel humbled and privileged that you chose us to confide in such a personal situation.

I think you have many friends here whether you know it or not Alex and you have won a friend here in the way you have led a thought provoking discussion in a very calm and sagely way. It has been one of the most interesting threads I have joined and it is rare to have a discussion as deep or as intellectual with so many great minds and points of view.

There is a reason for things and perhaps whether by chance, fate, physics or whatever, we may have been led here for this very purpose if you get my drift.

[xelasnave]

I have been able to think things thru.
I was wrong to blame that person for my bigotted outburst here.
I did not get my way and mouthed off like a fool.
It boiled down to a chap saying he would sell his place to me and I waited and got caught in a rising market and he could not find a home so it fell in a heap.
I blamed my bad behaviour on that and I was wrong and happily I see that now. And on the positive the place I finally got has 10 times the land and a better house it justcost me more thats all.
Maybe the reason is I was to realise my mistake and own it.
Funny I had a dream that unfolded the next day exactly as the dream played out.
And I have a way of getting whatever pops into my mind such that I am careful of what I think about but I dont believe in anything at all...
I am happy you have enjoyed the thread I start threads cause I sence folk get bored and a new thread gives opportunity for folk to have a chat.
Alex

[Shiraz (Ray)]

Originally Posted by simmo

The other question is do we really need to know everything in life?
Does it really matter if we find life on another planet? What would we gain?

As I see it, this is a key question. We set up the rules in society based on our understanding of the way humans work and the environment we live in. Ignorance will always be exploited by the unscrupulous to bend those rules in their own favour, so let's have as much real knowledge as possible.

At present we see ourselves as the only game in town and what we want is the only thing that matters. If we ever found out that we really are just a small cog in a universe filled with other life, it could totally change our perception of the environment that allows us to exist - hopefully we would become a little less arrogant and self centered. Any such change in perception could be a huge gain for us and for everything else around us.

[75BC (Brendon)]

Simmo, my response to your question “do we really need to know everything?” is that humans are curious creatures by nature and your own experience of the dimming light proves this because you came up with your own explanation for it. Otherwise no reason would be needed.

I think people ponder all sorts of things such as the subject we are discussing here (thoroughly enjoying it by the way Alex). No we don’t NEED to know, we WANT to know and it just seems to be the way our minds work.

[avandonk]

Originally Posted by simmo

Hi Bert,

I would like to write something in response to your post that may be of interest.

When I was younger I used to dream as most do every night however years/months later I would be somewhere and the surroundings and circumstance I found myself in I would recognise as one I had dreamt of years/months before.

People call it deja vu. I can't explain it and I have thought about it from time to time. I still get it from time to time but the occurrence is less as I have grown older.

I can't believe that we are just a cold or hot place with nothing greater than that.

It's a sad fact that the more and more we know our world the more people think that it is uninspiring and anything mysterious should be not trusted or believed as there's someway of explaining it.

There are some things that we are just not meant to understand. As much as that irritates. I embrace the mystery as it reminds of how wonderful and inspiring this world can be and perhaps that there is more to this life than what would seem on the outside and what can be explained by men and women.

Deja Vue is a bit like stuttering. Your brain goes into a loop you are not conscious of.

As for not knowing everything, Gödel proved this mathematically in the 1930's and really put the wind up the smug mathematicians who thought us Physicists were just playing in the dirt. We of course looked down on mere Chemists who really did the dirty work. I could go on with this human construct of infallibility but it is what it is, just a human construct.


Even though we can never know everything it is up to all of us to do the best we can.

It is a total cop out to say why bother if we cannot know everything!

If you want to go through life not bothering about the bits we can not understand then that is a very stupid strategy.

Remember that life is a sexually transmitted terminal disease. What you make of it is up to you.

Science has supplanted the dogma of bronze age thinking. We will be just as quaint in our current ideas to people a few centuries in the future.

Bert

[Stonius (Markus)]

Originally Posted by simmo

I used to dream as most do every night however years/months later I would be somewhere and the surroundings and circumstance I found myself in I would recognise as one I had dreamt of years/months before.

I get that effect too, like I've stumbled across some of the sets used in my dreams on a backlot. Had it last weekend, in fact. But I don't ascribe anything in particular to that feeling. The brain is an imperfect instrument, known to play all kinds of tricks on their owners with biases and cognitive defects in processing, or perception.

If someone says something is true because they feel it, great; good on them. But what if someone else feels differently? What makes one person's 'feel' better evidence than someone else's 'feel'? It's not a great basis for establishing objective fact.

If you try and come up with a method for eliminating individual bias and establishing a true and objective fact, then you'll just end up re-inventing the scientific method.

Originally Posted by simmo

It's a sad fact that the more and more we know our world the more people think that it is uninspiring and anything mysterious should be not trusted or believed as there's someway of explaining it.

I don't know; for some people the wonder lies in knowing and understanding the mechanism, then marvelling at the beauty of it in action. Mysterious stuff has a habit of getting explained eventually. What the stars are; How life comes into being; where the universe comes from. All things that used to lie in the realm of the 'mysterious' but now lie in the realm of science. It seems that God is increasingly outsourcing his responsibilities to science; a trend that I don't see changing anytime soon.

Originally Posted by simmo

There are some things that we are just not meant to understand. As much as that irritates. I embrace the mystery as it reminds of how wonderful and inspiring this world can be and perhaps that there is more to this life than what would seem on the outside and what can be explained by men and women.

There are some things we will not know in my lifetime, but that doesn't mean they can't be known. The idea that we are 'just not meant to know' presupposes a being who arbitrates what we can and can't know, which so far hasn't been shown to be the case. I'm sure in the past, the idea of exoplanets would have fitted in that category, yet a few advances in science and technology later and here we are.

I think it's the difference between seeing something we don't understand and saying 'we don't understand this yet' as compared to 'we don't understand this, so I'm going to interpose a mechanism of my choice'.

Cheers
Markus

[pmrid (Peter)]

Panspermia advocates might derive some encouragement from the Rosetta findings from 67P/Churyumov-Gerasimenko about glycine (and some precursors) and phosphorous being identified in the comet's surrounds. But before opening the champers, it's worth remembering that earlier findings reported that the heavy water ratios on this comet were way out of whack with earth's - three times heavier I think) somewhat dampening the ardor of those who were suggesting that such comets delivered our water and other life ingredients to us.

Still, the latest findings do seem to point generally towards life chemistry as being possible out there. Add a little heat or other form of energy and "hey presto ".

Peter

[xelasnave]

The idea has been around for longer than most folk may think.

http://www.panspermia-theory.com/

Alex