View Poll Results: do you believe in aliens(extra terrestrials)?

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  • yes

    32 76.19%
  • no

    7 16.67%
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Thread: Do you believe in aliens(extra terrestrials)?

  1. #91
    Reverse Engineer maxorator's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by cpjust View Post
    But how could it "exist" without time?
    Time cannot start without time, because an event (big bang) can only occur when time exists, therefore time has always existed.
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  2. #92
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    Quote Originally Posted by maxorator View Post
    Time cannot start without time, because an event (big bang) can only occur when time exists, therefore time has always existed.
    Maybe in your space-time continuum.
    If space & time are linked together, then how could time exist if there was no space?
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  3. #93
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    Quote Originally Posted by cpjust View Post
    Am I the only one that doesn't have the slightest clue what he's talking about?
    probably
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  4. #94
    Lurking whiteflags's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by Elysia View Post
    A law is not a definite thing, however. The physics laws have been changed over time, as well. And there are no less than two hypothesises, I believe, none of which are exact is describing how things work, so yeah, I'm believing that that law would probably fail when and if we get more understanding of how things work.


    Infinite / 10^(-1 000 000) = Infinite?

    Ah yes, there is also more to the time phenomenon than merely out perception. The body and all living things change over time.
    And yet, the closer we come to the speed of light, the less that changes over time.
    So it indeed a thing of our perception of one thing, yet it is not?
    Well let me be honest and say I'm having a hard time comprehending your English. I understand infinity as a concept, but it's rather illogical to think infinity exists as a real number. I mean, you cannot have an infinite number of finite things. If we had infinite mass in the universe then mass could not be a real constant.

    In response to your earlier confusion: Mass is also a different measurement from weight. Weight is proportional to the force of gravity. You could lose weight by going to the moon. So, even if something has infinite mass, which it shouldn't, but it should be weightless in space.

    These are more like annoying side discussions, really, than about the possibility of alien life. I could be wrong here, and still not be convinced that this makes alien life more possible. In my opinion we are all debating about separate things we don't understand; I've never been a proponent of that.

  5. #95
    spurious conceit MK27's Avatar
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    IMO whiteflags is just playing bug-in-a-rug.

    A commonplace, conservative philosophy of science would tell us there is nothing to be gained from hypothesizing "as if" the accepted, demonstrable (aka. "proven"), laws of physics were ad hoc or provisional.

    But dollars to donuts that was not how Einstein looked at the universe.

    ps. I don't see any problems in Elysia's English, either.
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  6. #96
    Lurking whiteflags's Avatar
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    IMO whiteflags is just playing bug-in-a-rug. [...] ps. I don't see any problems in Elysia's English, either.
    Really, I'd just like to see things get back on topic. As far as I'm concerned, Elysia's position is something like this: "Never discount a possibility, especially since there is an infinite amount of stuff in the universe. Because of this alien life is infinitely likely." That doesn't make any sense, and even if it does to someone else, it just seems like a convenient way to tie in all the other pseudoscience being discussed in the thread.

    I mean, ultimately, do you have to discuss this while discussing aliens? Hasn't anyone read Rare Earth? I'd just like to see the conversation move from the abstract bullcrap that we've spent so much time on. It's getting really uninteresting for me to read since we've strayed so far from the topic.

  7. #97
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    Quote Originally Posted by whiteflags View Post
    Hasn't anyone read Rare Earth?
    Oh god, is that one of those religious psueudo-science books that tries to convince people that we are the only life in the entire gigantic universe?
    "I am probably the laziest programmer on the planet, a fact with which anyone who has ever seen my code will agree." - esbo, 11/15/2008

    "the internet is a scary place to be thats why i dont use it much." - billet, 03/17/2010

  8. #98
    Reverse Engineer maxorator's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by cpjust View Post
    Maybe in your space-time continuum.
    If space & time are linked together, then how could time exist if there was no space?
    Time and space aren't linked - space is real, time is imaginary.
    "The Internet treats censorship as damage and routes around it." - John Gilmore

  9. #99
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    Quote Originally Posted by cpjust
    Oh god, is that one of those religious psueudo-science books that tries to convince people that we are the only life in the entire gigantic universe?
    Yep. Well, it's one astronomer's opinion, anyway. I dunno if I would call it pseudoscience... it more or less explains why everything's just right with Earth, and supposes that alien life would need similar protection in order to keep existing. For example, Earth has a big magnetic field which filters most of the harmful rays in sunlight. So in essence, if alien life existed, it's probably on another Earth-like planet (Mars? I'unno).

  10. #100
    The larch
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    Time cannot start without time, because an event (big bang) can only occur when time exists, therefore time has always existed.
    Time and space aren't linked - space is real, time is imaginary.
    There was noone to imagine time?
    I might be wrong.

    Thank you, anon. You sure know how to recognize different types of trees from quite a long way away.
    Quoted more than 1000 times (I hope).

  11. #101
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    Quote Originally Posted by maxorator View Post
    Time and space aren't linked - space is real, time is imaginary.
    Time isn't imaginary. It's a dimension, just like Length, Width & Height.
    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spacetime
    "I am probably the laziest programmer on the planet, a fact with which anyone who has ever seen my code will agree." - esbo, 11/15/2008

    "the internet is a scary place to be thats why i dont use it much." - billet, 03/17/2010

  12. #102
    Reverse Engineer maxorator's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by cpjust View Post
    Time isn't imaginary. It's a dimension, just like Length, Width & Height.
    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spacetime
    And my hair is green.

    Theories like that change every once in a while. The fact that noone has been able to prove it's not true doesn't mean it's true since noone has proved it is true either. I am waiting for more reasonable theories than the "let's smack time hard in the face so it bends and we travel 30 years back in time" theory.

    Time is imaginary. Prove me wrong.
    Last edited by maxorator; 03-06-2009 at 04:28 PM.
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  13. #103
    The larch
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    Time is imaginary. Prove me wrong.
    There certainly seems to be a subjective perception of time.

    But what do you mean by it being imaginary? Who imagines it?

    If you mean that time is just the passing of events, saying that non-event where nothing is or happens is also an event is completely beyond me. No events, no time.
    Last edited by anon; 03-06-2009 at 04:33 PM.
    I might be wrong.

    Thank you, anon. You sure know how to recognize different types of trees from quite a long way away.
    Quoted more than 1000 times (I hope).

  14. #104
    Reverse Engineer maxorator's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by anon View Post
    There certainly seems to be a subjective perception of time.

    But what do you mean by it being imaginary? Who imagines it?
    Being imaginary means that it's not part of physics itself, it's just a sequence of events. Therefore it is an imaginary part of phsyics, because really it has nothing to do with physics.
    Last edited by maxorator; 03-06-2009 at 04:35 PM.
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  15. #105
    The larch
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    And before or after all events - what leads you to think that there is time? Would it make any difference if we say there was or wasn't time? Note you can't measure the time when there are absolutely no events (there won't be you nor any watch ticking).
    I might be wrong.

    Thank you, anon. You sure know how to recognize different types of trees from quite a long way away.
    Quoted more than 1000 times (I hope).

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