we went from horse-drawn carriages to a moon landing in just 70 years.
Now imagine a civilization that has advanced for 70000 years, or 70 million.
And what do you imagine those engineering problems to be? Accelerate at 1 Earth gravity for one year on your clock and you're already traversing at more than one light year (as measured by those on your home planet) per year on your clock. Just 100 years beyond the horse-drawn carriage we can accelerate at more than 1 Earth gravity for several minutes. Now imagine for how long a civilization that has advanced for 70 million years might be able to accelerate like that.
It only lifted the car onto it's back wheels - get the facts right please MacGyver!We're they ufo's?...or were they 4-winged, giant, bio-luminescent dino birds that carry off cars?
That we are apparently in decline doesn't affect my point.So I don't quite get your point, unless it was that civilisations reach an apogee, and then decline?
They need not remain the same species. Why can't their knowledge continue to advance even as they evolve to become a new species? Nothing need wipe them out, esp. if they plan to mitigate catastrophic events.Again, I don't get your point, unless it's that species can become extinct in long periods of time, either via disease, or catastrophic event.
If you tried to convince Newton that we'd land on the Moon just a few centuries hence, safe to say he'd have big doubts too. They wouldn't need to send back info to the home planet; science isn't less valuable when the group of scientists is smaller. Multiple ships could spread across a galaxy and age at the same average rate if they plan it right, so they could meet up and exchange notes. Perhaps entire civilizations live exclusively on ships. We're on our way to finding extrasolar planets worth exploring. You need only a good telescope, which requires only a bunch of little telescopes, it turns out. If you found life on every nearby planet with the right conditions detectable from afar, you'd have high confidence of finding life on any planet with those conditions.Sounds simple when you just run numbers. But then you forget you need a living breathing entity in that vessel. Or a robot with AI, and then you think, 'what's the point of sending a probe so far, if everyone on the home planet will have died before it can send back any information, assuming it does so at all?' Also, how does the home planet find another planet worth exploring? Space is big. Candidates are far apart. How do they locate us, and decide we are worthy of exploration?
The answers are not unreasonable. Evidence of alien visitation is obviously beside my points, and a red herring on your part.Sorry, too many questions, no satisfactory answers, and of course ZERO evidence for alien visitation. But feel free to chime in when you have more than allegory.
That we are apparently in decline doesn't affect my point.
They need not remain the same species. Why can't their knowledge continue to advance even as they evolve to become a new species?
Nothing need wipe them out, esp. if they plan to mitigate catastrophic events.
You need only a good telescope, which requires only a bunch of little telescopes, it turns out.
If you found life on every nearby planet with the right conditions detectable from afar, you'd have high confidence of finding life on any planet with those conditions.
The answers are not unreasonable. Evidence of alien visitation is obviously beside my points, and a red herring on your part.
It only lifted the car onto it's back wheels - get the facts right please MacGyver!
:yawn:There are no facts in that case to get right, ....
:yawn:
The Higgs Boson isn't as simple as the standard model predicts - surprise, surprise. You're whole framework of thought is about to be shattered. Watch out blondie.
History doesn't prove that civilizations fall, esp. for another intelligent lifeform. That's good enough reason.You are missing the point, that history tells us that civilisations fall. You seem to be proposing that this alien society is somehow different, without any supporting reason.
Yet they need not suffer such. Perhaps they are more docile and cooperative with one another.Why do they advance? Perhaps they suffer a nuclear war, and lose their technology. It's quite possible, it's nearly happened on Earth several times.
It's certainly possible, without a death ray. A gentle push over time is all that's needed, given early detection. Perhaps they diversified on multiple planets and/or their solar system has no large asteroids. Once they achieve intersolar travel they could colonize multiple solar systems for virtual indestructability.Like build a death ray to zap meteorites? Extinctions due to meteorite happen. You think it's possible to prevent them? Please, do carry on and explain.
We can still infer stuff about those planets. After 70 million years of technology advancement, it's a safe bet we could infer more than we can today.We detect planets using several methods, occultation and wobble of host star usually. We can see the star, but not the planet.
That could be enough, giving high confidence of life if you found that nearby planets with the same atmospheric composition all had life. They wouldn't even need high confidence if they were dedicated to space travel. Our history shows lots of explorers who took big risks, e.g. Polynesians who canoed thousands of kilometers to Hawaii, not knowing if they'd ever find land.But we cannot resolve planets in other solar systems, so we could not detect life. At best we could use spectroscopy to compare the changes in Fraunhofer lines when occultation occurs. That would give us an idea of atmospheric composition of the occulting body.
It's a red herring since I didn't say I thought we'd been visited, and whether those engineering tasks might be conquered isn't dependent on us being visited. I've shown that your belief is not as reasonable as it seems at first glance.The thread is about UFOs. One aspect of UFOlogy is the belief in alien visitation. It's not a red herring. I believe intelligent life to exist elsewhere in the Universe, simply based upon it's size, and probability. I do not however, believe those civilisations have conquered the engineering tasks and visited us.
All I've needed is logic so far. What else can throw against it?Maybe you should go and wave you hands over their technology, and make the vast problems go away.
Maybe the Vatican is really the Mother ship. They do dress like they're from another planet in there.
It's for the phosphorus contained within the urine of cows and goats stupid.....and many of them seem quite adept at anal probing.
Yes! It's all too clear now!
History doesn't prove that civilizations fall,
esp. for another intelligent lifeform. That's good enough reason.
We can still infer stuff about those planets. After 70 million years of technology advancement, it's a safe bet we could infer more than we can today.
I mean that history doesn't prove that civilizations must fall. Note that despite the fall of civilizations in our own history, knowledge still advanced worldwide on average. And those fallen civilizations often survived. For example the Mayans didn't die out; it was their gov't that fell. Descendants of the Mayans are alive today. Same thing with the Romans. Latin's still around too, able to be learned by anyone, so you're really not making much of a point.How's your Latin?
Absense of evidence is not evidence of absence. I can use logic and our knowledge to infer what's possible.Earth history sets the precedent. You have no evidence to the contrary for another planet.
Just an assumption on your part. Even if we evolve to become a new species, our knowledge could be retained.We won't be alive as a race in 70 million years.
I mean that history doesn't prove that civilizations must fall.
Note that despite the fall of civilizations in our own history, knowledge still advanced worldwide on average.
Same thing with the Romans. Latin's still around too, able to be learned by anyone, so you're really not making much of a point.
Absense of evidence is not evidence of absence. I can use logic and our knowledge to infer what's possible.
Just an assumption on your part. Even if we evolve to become a new species, our knowledge could be retained.