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Originally Posted by Yakk
Or, we could become the first in the local area to figure it out.
It makes just as much sense to think that intelligent life, once it expands over the galaxy, will prevent intelligent life from appearing spontaniously like we did.
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Why is that? What makes you think that intelligent life would "prevent" additional intelligent life from appearing? Certainly, that goes against the grain of current humanist thinking.
I also disagree that it is (equally) likely that human life is the "first" to appear. If the circumstances for its appearance are agreed, then statistically it should have appeared already. It's not as if 14 billion years have needed to pass before these environmental factors came about. This is not a smooth, incremental process that takes that long throughout the galaxy. It just so happens that life arose on Earth 3.8 billion years ago. There's no reason why it could not have arose before that somewhere else.
Unless we believe, as I suspect, that life is so statistically uncommon as to be almost impossible; but for ourselves. In other words, as Gould suggested, there is absolutely no gurantee that is if we "reran" the historical clock that life would appear again. It was a statistical anomaly in the first place and highly unusual. The fact that we haven't come across it anywhere else supports that hypothesis.
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We send non-life. It arrives, and builds stuff. Mines asteroids and shit. Builds solar panels, seals a rock up. It then starts doing biochemistry, and builds an ecosystem.
Eventually it makes humans.
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Hmmm... I don't think that's likely or really useful apart from as a "thougth experiment".
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To pull this off successfully, we'd have to do some simply monsterous experiments -- raise humans without human interaction, experiment with what makes successful human-type beings, within the solar system, until we learn how to bootstrap human intelligence.
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We can't create a single self-replicating construct at all, let alone "life". Now you suggest that we simply build a "human making machine"?!
I doubt that's possible. And even if it
is possible, the technology is so far away that we won't last long enough to develop it. Most of your hyptotheses seem to be based upon an unwritten (and in my mind, unsafe) supposition. That is, that human life will last long enough to develop said technology that will ensure its perpuity. I think we will become extinct long before that happens. And I'm not even sure if it's possible in the first place.
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That's the strong anthropomorphic principle.
The weak one says "we are in the time and place in the universe where life can exist, because otherwise we wouldn't be here to see it".
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Yes, but I find the
weak anthropomorphic principle kind of useless also. It's akin to saying "You exist because I see you".
It's kinda stating the obvious. We exist because if we didn't, we wouldn't be here. Erm... so what? What does that prove?
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Most planets aren't suitable to life. Most starts aren't suitable to planets with life. Most periods of the universe aren't suitable to life. (by life, I mean 'life as we know it')
It is shocking how well designed Earth is to life -- far less shocking when you realize that if Earth wasn't good for life, we wouldn't be shocked by it.
Someone has to be first.
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I wouldn't say shocking. I really can't understand that hypothesis. Anthropomophism really bugs me. I just don't get it.
I could easily, and equally, say that "It's shocking that in the vast emptiness of the universe that something as beautiful as Mozart's Requiem came into existence. Therefore the universe must have been created for that to happen." Rather silly if you ask me.
We're here. We exist. That doesn't mean the universe was created for our existence. Was the universe created for the existence of pretty clouds? Nope. They just happen. Same way that life on Earth "just happened".
It was very unlikely. So what? So is getting a royal flush in poker.
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Now, it could be that the galaxy-occupying intelligence allows intelligent life to develop within fallow areas for whatever reason. But it would be a matter of doing it on purpose.
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Sounds too much like "space opera" science fiction to me. This kind of suggestion lies with 1950's style Hollywood movies (or Star Trek).
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Actually, Einstein's Theory of Relativity is one of the most proven laws of physics out there. It matches more of reality he hadn't had experience with than pretty much anything else I can think of.
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Agreed. See my links above.
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CCDs. Hubble CCD technology is used in breast cancer screening.
Various and sundery Semiconductor technologies.
Baby food (two essential fatty acids added, part of NASA long-term space ration research)
Water purificationsystems (Regeneratble Biocide Deliery Unit, uses Iodine instead of Cholrine)
Pool Purification
Ribbed Swimsuits, Better Golf Balls, Sports Training, Shoes, Flat Panel TV, Better Batteries, Trash compactors, freeze-dried foot, sports bras, smoke detectors
Solar power
Continuous Baroroator
Forest management
Fire-resistant material
Aluminized polymer film (thin, high-insulation, material, for homes)
Laser Angioplasty with 'cool' lasers
Child Ocular Screening
Magnetic Liquids (used in semiconductor manufacture)
Robotics (ex: welding sensor system)
Microlasers (mmm, fibreoptics)
Magnetic Bearing System (power generation, gas tranportation, oil refining, etc)
Computer training
High-pressure waterstripping
Variable Polarity Plasma Arc (advanced welding torch)
Personal Alarm System (used by prison guards, amoung other things)
Jaws of Life
Fireman's Air Tanks (20 lbs for 30 minutes of air -- double pressure, 33% of weight)
Doppler radar
Firefighter's radios
Better brakes
Toolbooth air purification
Lighter helicopters, better aircraft engines
Better wings on corperate jets
Better school buses
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You think the only reason we have "better school buses" is because of NASA? LOL
Well, first I was being satirical; at least in part. But your contention that improved technology will
only occur if NASA is funded is simply incorrect. That is supposing that technological advances only happen
a) In the US
b) As part of NASA's programs
c) Won't occur anyway
I disagree with all three suppositions.
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A good chunck of NASA is a bunch of extremely smart people solving problems and working on something they truely believe in. This means they do good work, and the solutions to the problems they run into tend to have other uses.
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Yes they do and yes it does. I never suggested otherwise.
Mr Mephisto
PS - Really enjoying this thread. Great contributions so far. It's nice playing the Devil's Advocate now and again...
