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 Overread wrote:

We live in the age of science fiction.

Wouldn't it be funny and fantastic if it turned out that all the 'alien' sightings were a bunch of future historians wearing pound shop gray alien masks and standing in front of LED lighting? It explains why they're bipedal, don't seem to carry supplies, can walk around outside and so on.



It could even account for some of the old 'aliens in past sculpture/artwork' chestnuts - historians wouldn't just be interested in our period alone after all.

I don't think time travel is possible. I just don't think it works like that.

time travel is possible, but only in one direction

 NinthMusketeer wrote:
I don't think time travel is possible. I just don't think it works like that.

By contemporary understandings of physics, certainly. But then again, our understanding of physics in 1850 ruled powered flight to be impossible. And even today, large areas of quantum and sub-atomic physics constantly break our carefully built up 'rules' of physics for the normal world, leaving much bafflement in their wake.

Who's to say what our understanding of things will be two hundred years from now? As pointed out by someone else above, I'm sitting next to a 3D printer which is a solid first step towards a Star Trek replicator. Scientific paradigms are continually overturned and challenged. Time travel may well be the tourism industry of the future. Instead of watching a documentary on WW2, why not go and see the Reichstag fall for yourself?

Frankly, time travel makes infinitely more logical sense than extra-terrestrials. That's not to say that either has much weight to it, but if we're going on faith, I'd be more inclined to believe the former than the latter.

I believe that science can tell us how things might work and what things we can and cannot do currently.

It cannot outright say what is impossible because by definition even if they have evidence to prove it; its only evidence based upon our current understandings and material access. New materials, new understandings even just approaching a problem from a different perspective - can all change science and change what is possible

 Ketara wrote:

 NinthMusketeer wrote:
I don't think time travel is possible. I just don't think it works like that.

By contemporary understandings of physics, certainly. But then again, our understanding of physics in 1850 ruled powered flight to be impossible. And even today, large areas of quantum and sub-atomic physics constantly break our carefully built up 'rules' of physics for the normal world, leaving much bafflement in their wake.

Who's to say what our understanding of things will be two hundred years from now? As pointed out by someone else above, I'm sitting next to a 3D printer which is a solid first step towards a Star Trek replicator. Scientific paradigms are continually overturned and challenged. Time travel may well be the tourism industry of the future. Instead of watching a documentary on WW2, why not go and see the Reichstag fall for yourself?

Frankly, time travel makes infinitely more logical sense than extra-terrestrials. That's not to say that either has much weight to it, but if we're going on faith, I'd be more inclined to believe the former than the latter.

Do you have a source for that claim? Also, we have always known that flight is possible--birds exist. We have always known it is possible for matter to travel through space--planets, comets, etc are doing just that. We know it is possible for life to evolve to an intelligent state--we exist. None of these things are analogous to time travel.

Imagine someone saying 30 years ago there is no way to create a dynamic model suspended by a tornado balanced on a base suitable for wargaming. Well those new Lumineth just proved them wrong. But imagine a person instead saying it is impossible to create a base that sinks the model down so its feet are lower than the surface of the table it stands on--no amount of advancement in model technology will change that.

The arguments against FTL and Time Travel rest on our current assumptions about causality. We’re pretty sure we’re right, but we haven’t found a way to really test the limits of causality. Things could get crazy if our assumptions are flawed.

Possible that everything is fixed anyways, but then unless one can actually see the future there is no difference between fate being flexible and fate being set in stone.

 NinthMusketeer wrote:


Imagine someone saying 30 years ago there is no way to create a dynamic model suspended by a tornado balanced on a base suitable for wargaming. Well those new Lumineth just proved them wrong. But imagine a person instead saying it is impossible to create a base that sinks the model down so its feet are lower than the surface of the table it stands on--no amount of advancement in model technology will change that.

You could make the table out of something else... non-Newtonian fluid or something.

 NinthMusketeer wrote:

 Ketara wrote:

 NinthMusketeer wrote:
I don't think time travel is possible. I just don't think it works like that.

By contemporary understandings of physics, certainly. But then again, our understanding of physics in 1850 ruled powered flight to be impossible. And even today, large areas of quantum and sub-atomic physics constantly break our carefully built up 'rules' of physics for the normal world, leaving much bafflement in their wake.

Who's to say what our understanding of things will be two hundred years from now? As pointed out by someone else above, I'm sitting next to a 3D printer which is a solid first step towards a Star Trek replicator. Scientific paradigms are continually overturned and challenged. Time travel may well be the tourism industry of the future. Instead of watching a documentary on WW2, why not go and see the Reichstag fall for yourself?

Frankly, time travel makes infinitely more logical sense than extra-terrestrials. That's not to say that either has much weight to it, but if we're going on faith, I'd be more inclined to believe the former than the latter.

Do you have a source for that claim? Also, we have always known that flight is possible--birds exist. We have always known it is possible for matter to travel through space--planets, comets, etc are doing just that. We know it is possible for life to evolve to an intelligent state--we exist. None of these things are analogous to time travel.

It took years for the concept of evolution to properly appear and even when it was proposed it took more years to be accepted. The idea that humanity was related to a "lesser" species was a hard pill for some to take (heck there's still many today who don't want to believe it).
The idea that flying is possible was never in question; it was the idea of making a human fly that was. Birds are freakishly light if you ever hold one, hollow bones, light structure and if you pluck them they are a lot smaller than their feathers let you believe. They are built for it; the idea that you could make a machine that would allow a human - thick bones, chunky muscle etc... - to fly (not just glide or fall with style) was for a long time a dream. It took hundreds of years to achieve.

 NinthMusketeer wrote:
Do you have a source for that claim?

Which claim? If it's the one about scientific paradigms, the book usually trotted out is Thomas Kuhn's 'Structure of Scientific Revolutions'. If you want one that goes into some detail about the problems science had accounting for/incorporating what the likes of the Wright brothers achieved on a theoretical basis, Hugh Driver did a wonderful book which touched on that whilst also detailing the British state's dicking about with the Dunne 'aeroplane'. If it's the one about current holes in physics, there's a whole goddam wikipedia page, including the 'Arrow of time' problem (which would be directly relevant here). I'm told the Standard Model is so holey when you know anything about it that it starts looking like a Swiss cheese - as it doesn't incorporate the primary force of gravity or dark energy or all sorts (though I'm no scientist and couldn't confirm/deny the details there).

Also, we have always known that flight is possible--birds exist.We have always known it is possible for matter to travel through space--planets, comets, etc are doing just that. We know it is possible for life to evolve to an intelligent state--we exist. None of these things are analogous to time travel.

You're mixing up two ideas here. The idea that something is scientifically impossible - which is defeated by the fact that science itself is flawed and continually overturned. And the separate idea that nobody knows a way to make something possible meaning no-one has seen it before - which is frequently defeated by someone who devises the first way to do it.

Bizarely, the second one of those often predates the first. Our entire history of technology is riddled with cases of men achieving something, and then science spending two decades trying to figure out how they did it and adapting scientific theory to match (look at Marconi's wireless radio for an absolutely classic example of that).

Funnily enough, if UFO's ARE time travellers, then we have actually seen proof of time travel. We've just been misinterpreting what we've seen as alien life.

What if they are alien time travellers?!

Land on a planet, study it and then go into the past and study that too!

 Overread wrote:
What if they are alien time travellers?!

Land on a planet, study it and then go into the past and study that too!

Getting it all in in one trip rather than commuting again and again? Sounds nice.

Hm, I did not communicate my point clearly and that is on me.

I am trying to express that Clark's third law has nuance to it. There are varying degrees of 'impossible' and it is ones on the lower end that get overturned. It was once believed to be impossible to make an aircraft travelling faster than sound, but comparing that to a belief that it is impossible to make a craft travelling faster than the speed of light and one can easily see that those two impossibilities are not equivalent.

To go further, theoretical FTL travel today does not even revolve around actually travelling faster than light but rather getting to the destination faster than light would via shenanigans. The craft undertaking this journey, from its perspective, never has a speed faster than the light around it but rather has altered the surrounding space so that the same rate of movement covers more ground. Like squishing a race track to the racers can do it faster at the same speed. But the idea that FTL is impossible, in this instance, remains true.

Bringing things back to time travel, and to emphasize this is entirely just personal opinion and conjecture; I feel like the past does not actually exist except as a concept. There is nothing to travel back to, there is no destination. Time is a state of being and not a line with many points along the way; one might as well try to travel into two-dimensional space.

Well hopefully its not aliens here. Travel between stars will be one way so they aren't here to take info back. If there were aliens here at best refuelling. At worst colonization and if they come here they have so much　bigger energy output and other tech ye ain't able to stop. At that point only defence is earth　is non-hospitable for them and they are interested in other planet like that. And that they won't just delete　humans for safety.

Why would it be one-way?

 NinthMusketeer wrote:
Hm, I did not communicate my point clearly and that is on me.

I am trying to express that Clark's third law has nuance to it. There are varying degrees of 'impossible' and it is ones on the lower end that get overturned. It was once believed to be impossible to make an aircraft travelling faster than sound, but comparing that to a belief that it is impossible to make a craft travelling faster than the speed of light and one can easily see that those two impossibilities are not equivalent.

To go further, theoretical FTL travel today does not even revolve around actually travelling faster than light but rather getting to the destination faster than light would via shenanigans. The craft undertaking this journey, from its perspective, never has a speed faster than the light around it but rather has altered the surrounding space so that the same rate of movement covers more ground. Like squishing a race track to the racers can do it faster at the same speed. But the idea that FTL is impossible, in this instance, remains true.

Bringing things back to time travel, and to emphasize this is entirely just personal opinion and conjecture; I feel like the past does not actually exist except as a concept. There is nothing to travel back to, there is no destination. Time is a state of being and not a line with many points along the way; one might as well try to travel into two-dimensional space.

You say all that, but wouldn't it be funny if Ron Mallett or someone like him succeeded?

Indeed!

I'm not an Xfile fan, really couldn't stand the show after trying an ep or two. Still....

Yeah, i want to believe.

If ET craft of advanced technology fay beyond our one are visting earth, it means that a lot of things may be possible. Energy sources beyond our current comprehension. Methods of movement beyond newtonian principles. Control of gravity and inertia directly. FTL travel.

it also means an intelligent species can evolve from animal origins and overcome it's animal nature, something humanity is at best struggling to do, and survive to become a nature intelligent species.

Yeah, i want to believe that's possible.

 Matt Swain wrote:
evolve from animal origins and overcome it's animal nature, something humanity is at best struggling to do, and survive to become a nature intelligent species

With all due respect, you reeeeallly don't understand that subject.

 NinthMusketeer wrote:
Why would it be one-way?

Because everyone in the known and unknown universe is beholden to our limited understanding of the universe and our precise technical advancement level. Apparently.

NinthMusketeer wrote:

 Matt Swain wrote:
evolve from animal origins and overcome it's animal nature, something humanity is at best struggling to do, and survive to become a nature intelligent species

With all due respect, you reeeeallly don't understand that subject.

I dislike how a lot of earlier sciences did try and separate mankind from the rest of the natural world. Even today we maintain terms like man-made and natural environments and the like. Whilst they can be understood their phrasing helps casually reinforce the idea that we are somehow separate from them. When in reality we are 100% just animals. Smart ones, but still animals and in part our smarts are enhanced by our ability to manipulate the world around us through our hands. Even then it took us thousands of years to go from sticks and stones to what we have today

Just Tony wrote:

 NinthMusketeer wrote:
Why would it be one-way?

Because everyone in the known and unknown universe is beholden to our limited understanding of the universe and our precise technical advancement level. Apparently.

There's theories - slingshots and catapult ideas - where faster than light travel would result in essentially a one-way trip to a specific target. However most of those methods also make the assumption that if you did that you'd send a ship large enough to locally construct its own return device so that it could get back. Basically creating the idea of jump-gates/slings/etc... Thus whilst the method might mean its one-way you can establish a network of one way connections thus allowing you to travel to wherever.

Closest I have gotten to a "UFO sighting" was seeing some sort of stealth-variant flying high over my house in Michigan a few years ago. It was flying South to North against an early evening sky, so was really obviously silhouetted (kind of shortsighted on their part) , but unlike known stealth planes, it was absolutely an equilateral triangle. It had nothing of the rear "cutouts" that common stealth fighters and B2 bombers have.

And it had wing blinkers on the two rear points, so obviously man-made, lol.

 Overread wrote:

NinthMusketeer wrote:

 Matt Swain wrote:
evolve from animal origins and overcome it's animal nature, something humanity is at best struggling to do, and survive to become a nature intelligent species

With all due respect, you reeeeallly don't understand that subject.

I dislike how a lot of earlier sciences did try and separate mankind from the rest of the natural world. Even today we maintain terms like man-made and natural environments and the like. Whilst they can be understood their phrasing helps casually reinforce the idea that we are somehow separate from them. When in reality we are 100% just animals. Smart ones, but still animals and in part our smarts are enhanced by our ability to manipulate the world around us through our hands. Even then it took us thousands of years to go from sticks and stones to what we have today.

It's more that 'animal-like nature' means a certain thing in pop culture, but in science doesn't mean anything at all. We are (obviously) distinct from other animals and most part separated as well, but that doesn't mean in science what it means in pop culture. Like many concepts the idea of 'the beast within' is a great staple for fiction but is just that: fictional.

Sidenote; humans were never at a sticks-and-stones level of technology. We didn't even invent fire use. Rather those were inherited from ancestral species who were using them before humans even evolved.

 NinthMusketeer wrote:

 Matt Swain wrote:
evolve from animal origins and overcome it's animal nature, something humanity is at best struggling to do, and survive to become a nature intelligent species

With all due respect, you reeeeallly don't understand that subject.

You make an assertion without showing any proof.

You reeeeaaalllllyyyy don't understand how to make a valid point.

The craziest technology older than humans, in my mind, has to be boats.

 Matt Swain wrote:

 NinthMusketeer wrote:

 Matt Swain wrote:
evolve from animal origins and overcome it's animal nature, something humanity is at best struggling to do, and survive to become a nature intelligent species

With all due respect, you reeeeallly don't understand that subject.

You make an assertion without showing any proof.

You reeeeaaalllllyyyy don't understand how to make a valid point.

We are primates, related to but not evolved from "monkeys", but we come from a common ancestor. We have many tendencies in common with animals. The survival instinct, the urge to reproduce, the desire to be the 'alpha", to dominate others, the tendency to use force to get our way, etc. the human brain has parts under the cerebellum that resemble the brains of lower animals.

Our DNA is ~98% identical to other primates. Our brains are slightly more sophisticated but of largely identical structure. We do have animal origin and are driven by many of the same needs and desires that are common in animals.

I think I've proven i reeeeeeally understand the subject after all.

Yes but you've not really elaborated on your concept of "nature intelligent species". Which I suspect is the issue. This concept that you've presented that humanity can evolve away from being "an animal".

 Matt Swain wrote:

 Matt Swain wrote:

 NinthMusketeer wrote:

 Matt Swain wrote:
evolve from animal origins and overcome it's animal nature, something humanity is at best struggling to do, and survive to become a nature intelligent species

With all due respect, you reeeeallly don't understand that subject.

You make an assertion without showing any proof.

You reeeeaaalllllyyyy don't understand how to make a valid point.

We are primates, related to but not evolved from "monkeys", but we come from a common ancestor. We have many tendencies in common with animals. The survival instinct, the urge to reproduce, the desire to be the 'alpha", to dominate others, the tendency to use force to get our way, etc. the human brain has parts under the cerebellum that resemble the brains of lower animals.

Our DNA is ~98% identical to other primates. Our brains are slightly more sophisticated but of largely identical structure. We do have animal origin and are driven by many of the same needs and desires that are common in animals.

I think I've proven i reeeeeeally understand the subject after all.

See here I was going to provide proof and you went and did it for me.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Overread wrote:
Yes but you've not really elaborated on your concept of "nature intelligent species". Which I suspect is the issue. This concept that you've presented that humanity can evolve away from being "an animal".

Even the concept of "overcoming our animal nature" is nonsense to begin with. It does not mean anything outside of pop culture. "Animal nature" does not mean anything outside of culture. It has no scientific basis. He might as well have said humanity is struggling to align our inner thetons.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MHUGkImz5V8

There's alien for you