Do you believe in psychics, extraterrestrial life, time travel, other universes?

[Darththeo]

Do you actually know what the fermi paradox is?

Everything other thing you are posting is reinforcing it.

Universe = big numbers = sure thing (understood by you)

Life, literally any = not found

therefore in all likelihood:

Probability of life = very small (ignorantly asserted by yourself to ASSUREDLY be large enough to be offset by aforementioned big number indicating the sized of the universe)

Things which do help fermi but do not help you: Lots of planets in the goldilocks zone. Lots of rocky planets. Lots of exo planets. Lots of viable stars. Lots of universe. Lots of definitions of life. This is because the universe is still bagelled on that life part. Literally why it is called a paradox.

The only way to really start outdating the fermi paradox is to start finding life or start explaining why the universe is not teeming with life by demonstrating how improbable it is indicating a "miscalculation" not an invalidation of the drake equation hence no real paradox, is this something that you can understand?

First off, get your head out of your ass.

Secondly, again, still outdated. You assume outdated means wrong. As it relies on the assumption we are capable of detecting life, an assumption we have no reason to make when we still argue about what qualifies as life on this planet. And no, if we find life it would not make the Fermi Paradox outdated, it would make the Fermi Paradox no longer a paradox or potentially even wrong. (Akin to Zeno's Paradoxes).

It assume if life is out there we should possess the ability to detect it. This is literally the largest counterpoint to the alleged paradox. We know that there is zero reason to assume we possess the ability to detect life outside of we are alive.

Again, Darwin's Theory of Evolution is outdated. It is not wrong because we have improved our understanding since Darwin.

[Osmeric]

None, absolutely none of this is a REFUTATION.
It is 100% merely a REJECTION OF THE CLAIM.

100% rejection of the ARGUMENT. Not 100% rejection of the CLAIM.

I am not, and have not, from the very beginning, said your statement was false.

The only one rejecting a claim here is YOU. You statement rejects the claim (that I am not making) that life is unlikely, even though that claim is just as consistent with the evidence as yours is.

You didn't refute it. You haven't proved it to be false or even shown it to be false.

I have shown the argument was false. I didn't show (or argue) the claim was false. Do you understand this distinction?!

A 99% chance life doesn't exist is still a 1% chance it does, which given that the universe could be infinite still statistically likely. Even if the universe is NEAR infinite, it is still statistically likely.

Yes, the universe could be infinite. Or it could be finite. And if it is finite, there is a value of p below which it is unlikely other life exists in the universe. You are swerving off into bullshit false mathematics here again.

Even if the chance is 99.999999999% (that's not repeating), if the universe is infinite it exists. We cannot disprove an infinite universe, it is merely assumed because we assume nothing can be infinite.

Fortunately, I don't need to disprove an infinite universe, since I AM NOT TRYING TO PROVE WE ARE ALONE.

I have no problem if you were honest and say "I reject the claim for these reasons." That's fine, but you did not refute it.

Your refractory mental malfunction is trying my patience. Do please try to understand what I'm actually saying, and stop ignoring my repeated attempts to give you a much needed clue.

That life will be like life on Earth. All the fermi paradox gets you to is Earth like (or even down to Human like) life isn't detectable for some reason.
It does not get remotely close life is unlikely or doesn't exist. It is built on the assumption that we should be able to detect life, which we have no valid reason to assume given we don't know exactly where the line between life and not life is.

The Fermi argument doesn't require any of those assumptions. All it requires is that some life, somewhere, performs exponential interstellar colonization. It doesn't require that all life do that. Exceptions that do could be quite rare, and it would still be a problem, if life is sufficiently common.

[Darththeo]

-snip-

I am arguing against your claim that you have "refuted" life is statistically likely, which you literally have said you did.
Again, you rejected the claim or don't believe the claim. You haven't refuted it.

Saying it is possible for p to be so small that no life exists does not disprove life statistically likely, therefore is not a refutation of the claim. It is an accepted possibility, and everyone who accepts life is statistically likely accepts that contrary to your other claim.

The reasons we say life is statistically likely is because in order for life not to exist somewhere in the universe, the odds of life existing at all have to be for all intents and purposes functionally zero. We are talking about odds that would have to be so small it is practically immeasurable.

The Fermi Paradox relies not on interstellar colonization at all. It relies on life being detectable by us. That's the assumption it makes. We have no reason to assume we can detect life elsewhere. It assume intelligent life would become space faring or possess radiowave technology, neither of these are required to be intelligent life. We aren't "smarter" than the first Homo sapiens were (or if we are, it would likely not be a large margin.) Intelligent life has existed on this planet for not very long and the vast majority of that time there would have been no way for someone on another planet to detect it.

[Osmeric]

I am arguing against your claim that you have "refuted" life is statistically likely, which you literally have said you did.

I have not anywhere in this thread attempted to show that the statement "life is likely" is false. I have tried to show that the statement is not supported by the evidence. It could be true, or it could be false. I have brought up scenarios -- consistent with what we know -- in which life elsewhere would be unlikely.

I was objecting to your bald assertion that life is statistically likely. You are writing a check your evidence can't cash.

One of the definitions of the word "lie" is "to create a false or misleading impression". By that definition, your statement was a lie. It is misleading to state that life is likely when we don't have the evidence to support that claim.

[oplawlz]

I don't believe in psychics, but I do believe it's only a matter of time before science accomplishes something similar. Our thoughts are nothing but encoded electrical signals after all.
As others have said extraterrestrial life is almost certain given the size of the universe. Are they anal probing rednecks? Probably not.
Time travel, as in reversing time in the theory that time is linear, is a concept that more or less disproves itself - if the technology is ever invented it would eventually get leaked to the public and we would be seeing all kinds of crazy shit as a result.
I'm not opposed to the theory of multiverses, but it's also possible the data to support them is being misinterpreted. Until we can actually travel between them to record and analyze I'll remain highly skeptical.

[Darththeo]

I have not anywhere in this thread attempted to show that the statement "life is likely" is false. I have tried to show that the statement is not supported by the evidence. It could be true, or it could be false. I have brought up scenarios -- consistent with what we know -- in which life elsewhere would be unlikely.

I was objecting to your bald assertion that life is statistically likely. You are writing a check your evidence can't cash.

One of the definitions of the word "lie" is "to create a false or misleading impression". By that definition, your statement was a lie. It is misleading to state that life is likely when we don't have the evidence to support that claim.

Except it is supported by evidence. You reject the evidence because of the possibility there could be some unknown factor we are completely unaware of.

Stars are plentiful, planets even rocky planets are normal, growing evidence that a planet may not even be necessary but any sufficiently large body, the prevalence of organic compounds in the universe, the fact we have strong reason to believe that water is not a requirement for life (merely a liquid medium), etc ...

The more we know the more it moves that life must be likely to exist elsewhere. The fact there could be something we do not know that makes the odds smaller than we should expect is not a refutation, it is a statement of why you reject the claim. You have refuted nothing in this thread. Not any assertion of mine or statement made by anyone.

The statement life is statistically likely is a fact regardless of what you think. Just because we may not know something that could change that is irrelevant because there is no evidence, not even the Fermi Paradox, to support such a claim.

[meckeard]

As others have said extraterrestrial life is almost certain given the size of the universe. Are they anal probing rednecks? Probably not.

This will be my new signature.

[Afrospinach]

First off, get your head out of your ass.

Big words, big words.

I know you cannot possibly postulate the likelihood of life in this universe in any capacity because nobody can. It is unknown. This makes any claim for life in the universe other than ourselves conjecture, that is a fact, your input is not required.

This means you have absolutely no basis to make any of the claims you are making with any level of certainty.

Even your prior example of it being 1 / 100*N isn't actually statistically unlikely in the grand scale of things when we are talking about numbers this large. You have to get even smaller odds than that to move it out of being statistically likely.

this is grade A horseshit.

No matter how big you think the universe is you cannot possibly make any assertion without invoking an ignorant claim. Again, no matter how big you think the universe is we cannot prove that life is likely enough to be offset by that large number. No really, there is no number so large it cannot be multiplied down to 1 ergo you cannot possibly make this assertion with a straight face. That is what it being refuted. It is an ignorant, baseless claim and you know it is.

Then again you are still rambling on so maybe you don't. Sorry for that.

[Darththeo]

Big words, big words.

I know you cannot possibly postulate the likelihood of life in this universe in any capacity because nobody can. It is unknown. This makes any claim for life in the universe other than ourselves conjecture, that is a fact, your input is not required.

This means you have absolutely no basis to make any of the claims you are making with any level of certainty.



this is grade A horseshit.

No matter how big you think the universe is you cannot possibly make any assertion without invoking an ignorant claim. Again, no matter how big you think the universe is we cannot prove that life is likely enough to be offset by that large number. No really, there is no number so large it cannot be multiplied down to 1 ergo you cannot possibly make this assertion with a straight face. That is what it being refuted. It is an ignorant, baseless claim and you know it is.

Then again you are still rambling on so maybe you don't. Sorry for that.

Except for all intents and purposes the universe appears to be infinite; while it is possible it is not, there is no clear evidence it isn't.
So if you honestly believe that a near infinite universe means there it is reasonable to assume a non zero possibility does not happen, that's your failing.

There are ignorant people in this conversation, I am not one of them.

[Surfd]

Unfortunately things like the number of exo planets we find or the fact that earth has a fairly common composition relative the the universe in general feed into the idea that life is in fact rare considering we are 1 and 0 vs the known universe. It is impossible that the universe we live in is infinite, it is possible that earth is unique.

We are 1 and 0 vs the known universe is such an absolutely fucking stupid statement it boggles the mind.

The universe is incomprehensibly large, and has existed for a length of time that the human brain is simply not realistically equipped to handle. And the bit of it that humanity has quantified is infinitesimally small in comparison.

Saying "we are 1 and 0 vs the known universe" is absolutely meaningless as a statistic of comparison when dealing with that kind of sample size. It's like picking a single water molecule out of the ocean and declaring that because you found no evidence of life in THAT water molecule that there could not possibly be any in any of the rest of them......and even that is dealing with an order of scale many many many many many many times too small to be an accurate comparison.

[Hollycakes]

Just FYI, but "relativistic travel resulting in temporal de-synch" isn't really Time Travel by most accepted definitions of the concept.

Isn't this the idea he played with when writing Interstellar and the scenes where they go to the water planet.
I think maybe since it's our only known version of "time travel" it does get used sometimes yea.

[Osmeric]

Except for all intents and purposes the universe appears to be infinite; while it is possible it is not, there is no clear evidence it isn't.
So if you honestly believe that a near infinite universe means there it is reasonable to assume a non zero possibility does not happen, that's your failing.

There are ignorant people in this conversation, I am not one of them.

"Near infinite" and "infinite" are very different concepts. If you weren't beclowning yourself, if you were exerting even minimal quality control on your thinking, you would realize this. Thinking properly on this subject requires a certain level of mental rigor that you appear to be incapable of.

[Darththeo]

"Near infinite" and "infinite" are very different concepts. If you weren't beclowning yourself, if you were exerting even minimal quality control on your thinking, you would realize this. Thinking properly on this subject requires a certain level of mental rigor that you appear to be incapable of.

Yes, they are. But that doesn't discount my argument. As you approach infinity, for something have not occurred, the probability of it happening has to be nearing zero. So, in a near infinite universe even insanely small chances of things occurring statistically likely to have occurred.

And you think you refuted things. You haven't. You haven't brought up anything people like me haven't considered. You think merely rejecting a claim is enough to refute it. Just offering a possibility that it could be low which we have no bearing to even support outside we haven't found life at this time. That's not a refutation, it doesn't disprove even my assertion, despite you claims to the contrary.

We know the universe is near infinite. We know the probability of life existing in the universe is 1 (or at least our existence supports that claim). What we don't know is the probability of life existing in places other than Earth. However, there is currently nothing to support that anything is truly unique in the universe. We can't even prove that the universe itself is unique.

[Shadowferal]

"Near infinite" means a quantifiable number; a middle point somewhere.
"Infinite" is just that.
And ironically the mid-point to the argument is a big "I don't know." Alien life in my opinion isn't likely to resemble anything our imagination has already created. One of the reasons I thought the movie "Annihilation" was really horrifying was that the alien presence, this "Shimmer" was completely alien.

[Thrif]

That's a very clumped together poll. What does scamartist psychics have to do with the odds of there being extraterrestrial life, and what has any of those to do with higher physical possibilities like time travel and alternate universes?

[Utrrabbit]

Psychics? Nope. As far as I know, each and every so-called psychic around the globe has been debunked.

Extra-terrestrial life? Yes. As far as I understand it, the universe is way too vast for just one, singular planet to have sentient life.

Time travel? Nope. As far as I know, it's impossible to time-travel. Through FTL, it's theoretically possible to slow down time so that you "arrive in the future", but there would be no "way back".

Alternate universes? Nope. As far as I know, "alternate universes" is nothing science fiction.

The theory of alternate universes is scientifiy theoretically possible. Their is just no way to know of it is true. Math has not advanced far enough yet to properly prove or disprove the theory.

[Dch48]

Did you write these "prophetic dreams" down as soon as they occurred? Or did you just happen to remember having a prophetic dream that magically matches something that just happened?

No, as I said, I never know they're prophetic when I have them. I get a flash like "I've seen this before" when the event happens and then the dream comes back. I believe other people experience it and call it Deja Vu. I guess most don't remember dreaming it but I'm cursed with a very good memory. The idea that they're seeing things from past lives is just silly. I never thought it was special to me but I guess it's less common than I thought. A lot of people don't want to believe it and in some cases I put that down to jealousy or a reluctance to believe someone else can do what they can't or never have.

- - - Updated - - -

All these arguments about the existence of extra-terrestrial intelligent life that are based on statistics and probabilities are humorous in the extreme. Math has nothing to do with it.

[Ielenia]

The theory of alternate universes is scientifiy theoretically possible. Their is just no way to know of it is true. Math has not advanced far enough yet to properly prove or disprove the theory.

I'll direct you to my most recent reply.

[MoFalcon]

Depends on the negative claim. "There is nothing inside this box" is a negative claim that can be proven by opening said box and revealing the content (or lack thereof) in it, for example.

But there is never nothing inside the box....

[Amnaught]

James Randi offered a million dollars to anyone who could prove supernatural powers. Nobody claimed it.

There's no way life is unique to Earth.