ETI exists. How will it change the world?

[eveningsky339]

As long as we are on the topic of religion, I'm fairly certain that Christianity, Judaism and Islam are going to come out just fine. I have met many Christians who believe that ETI not only exists but has paid us a few visits from time to time.

Sura Al-Ma'arig (70) (The ladder to space):
70.2 ...it is from Allah, who has the ladder to space. 70.3 The angels and the angel Gabriel climb up to Him in ONE day, that last for 50.000 years 70.4 So stay patience 70.5 They say He is far away; 70.6 but we see He is near 70.7 at the day when the sky will be like molten metal... 70.10 they will be brought together in reach of their sight... (sounds to me like a discribtion of what EINSTEIN said about the relativness of time)

This sounds very similar to Jacob's Ladder in the Bible. Mohammed was heavily influenced by Judeo-Christian merchants in the area, so it's entirely possible that both of these stories are describing the same thing.

Other than Creationists starting to wine around about that it can't be because it's not writen in the bible, I couldn't really imagine that it would change ANYTHING...

Fundamentalist Christianity needs to be extinct anyway.

 

[jedidia]

@Aleinikov: You should consider joyning up with Erik VonDäniken!

 

[Aleinikov]

No contact in near future, but already made in the past...

@Aleinikov: You should consider joyning up with Erik VonDäniken!

You are right. I really like the ideas Mr. VonDäniken has. He is a searcher for the truth, trying to proove with his limited resources in a "scientific" way that the GODs we believe in are the aliens which visited us already. He made some errors in his thinking and his books, but always tried to correct them. But I think you all know the scene from "2001 - an oddessy in space" with the apes and the monolith. That also descripes in a symbolic way what he (and I) meant.

 

[Urwumpe]

Sorry, but von Dänikens works have little to do with actual science. Science does not work that way, that you choose a result and then select the facts you need to prove it.

His ideas may be fascinating, but they are not more true as Tolkien's Lord of the Rings.

 

[Aleinikov]

...von Dänikens works have little to do with actual science...

You are right Urwumpe. That is why I wrote scientific in quotes. But he is NOT a writer of fantasy stories. He is trying to explain some of the unsolved mysteries: How did the people of the past could be able to carve and move stones of weight more than 400 tons? Why has every religion on this planet a story about "flying" gods? Have you heard of the people which call themselves "Dogon", they say their "Gods" came from Sirius. etc.
I think most of the people does not like his ideas because if they are true, they will wake up from their fantasy dreaming of God and the angels sitting on a cloud in heaven...

 

[Urwumpe]

He is trying to explain some of the unsolved mysteries: How did the people of the past could be able to carve and move stones of weight more than 400 tons? Why has every religion on this planet a story about "flying" gods? Have you heard of the people which call themselves "Dogon", they say their "Gods" came from Sirius. etc.

This could all be a mystery. Or not.

When Däniken would write about a Nimitz carrier, it would also be a mystery to him how this 96500 ton ship can move with 55 km/h.

When he sees something, he can't explain, he claims something unproven supernatural helped the people at that time. Which is, honestly, a deadly insult to the people at that time. They had not been dumb, but they had been used to technology we don't use today. Also, I don't remember any reference to a 400 ton block in history... the heaviest pebble of that time was at about 86 tons. The heaviest piece from stonehenge had been mere 6 tons, the Inca used 1-3 ton stones.

When you, like Von Däniken, start from a desired speculative result, you don't do science. Real science for example, would take the fact of Stonehenge as result of a process and ask the questions from this point on - how could the process look like and which evidence would which step of the process produce? Does this evidence exist. if the evidence exists and the process is possible, what about things which don't fit into the process? How can these be explained?

Real Science is not less exciting as Von Däniken, but IMHO more rewarding, as you feel suddenly proud about your ancestors and start feeling a bit stupid yourself. You get an idea, how much knowledge the world must have lost, while the people stayed as intelligent as they are today.

I think most of the people does not like his ideas because if they are true, they will wake up from their fantasy dreaming of God and the angels sitting on a cloud in heaven...

Or, they are skeptical minds and don't like being made stupid by him.

 

[Aleinikov]

...Also, I don't remember any reference to a 400 ton block in history... the heaviest pebble of that time was at about 86 tons. The heaviest piece from stonehenge had been mere 6 tons, the Inca used 1-3 ton stones....

First, Stonehenge: "Der größte Trilith befindet sich im Südwesten, also gegenüber des Eingangs und mißt 7.3m Höhe. Einer seiner Pfeiler alleine wiegt 50t." "The biggest Trilith is in the SW, opposing the entrance and is 7.3m tall. One of its pillars alone weights 50t"

About that 400 ton block, I found this:
"...One of the construction blocks from which the pier was fashioned weighs an estimated 440 tons and several other blocks laying about are between 100 and 150 tons..."

Where are these blocks ???
Puma Punku ruins, Tiahuanaco (also called Tiwanaku), Bolivia
use google or other and search for related articles and lots of pics..
A good start may be here: ruins of puma punku with pictures(ger)(eng)(spa)

....When he sees something, he can't explain, he claims something unproven supernatural helped the people at that time. Which is, honestly, a deadly insult to the people at that time...

It is not v.Däniken who said this. An ancient legend by the indian gives the answer:
" Here first lived the gods, as these left the land,
they destroyed their "dwelling" in only one night."


And what about the Easter Islands and the "Moai"s standing there?
"...A total of 887 monolithic statues has been located by the survey to date on Easter Island..."
"...Size and weight of Moai : Measuring the size, weight, and shape of the 887 moai on Easter Island has been a 15-year process for Van Tilburg. The most notable statues are listed below:
Largest moai:
Location: Rano Raraku Quarry, named "El Gigante"
Height: 71.93 feet, (21.60 meters)
Weight: approximately 145-165 tons (160-182 metric tons)
Largest moai once erect:
Location: Ahu Te Pito Kura, Named "Paro"
Height: 32.63 feet (9.80 meters)
Weight: approximately 82 tons (74.39 metric tons)"

So you talked about a scientific approach to mysteries ?
First "google" or use "wikipedia" than post.

Or, they are skeptical minds and don't like being made stupid by him.

OK. So I take his job, and try to make you "stupid".... DURAK ! :rofl:

 

[Spaced]

Am I the only one (who in the absence of any other data) "chooses" to adopt the concept that there is no other life in the universe and that it IS a freak accident that occured on this planet alone. Notice I did not say believe there. I don't really "believe" anything because that's just a leap of faith. Anyway, I take comfort from that thought. Rather than compare myself to come hypothetical higher being that might judge me and my kind on all manner of levels. Just as we are so capable of.
Considering measurements show the universe to be roundabout 15 billion years old and the solar system one third of that, could we not be at the very beginning? The making of metals among the stars and then to spread them thickly enough so I have calcium in my bones and gold on my finger might take so long?

This line of thinking means we CAN'T but not necassarily won't drive ourselves to extinction. All other future civilizations among the stars will have to come from us (cockroaches,monkeys or sea-urchins) and then diversify as it has on Earth. Maybe billions of years from now a spaceship of advanced sea-urchins will visit the charred remains of a globe orbiting a white dwarf and through some means discover that this is where it all began. And maybe their distant, distant monkey cousins with pet cockroaches (whom they enslaved in the two billion year war) discoverr a little probe a few light years away with a gold disc on it, enscribed with some bloody ugly mokeys and when they played it strange hooting came from it. But then....... they re-discovered something...... music, art and genetic fragments that survived the cold of space and the ancient, ancient clean room in which it was once made. They discover a fraction of it matches their own, The first earliet portion of their own DNA. They then launch an attach on the Great sea-urchin-type-thingy Star Empire..... and history continues and everything adjusts. But in a strange, haunting way we are remembered and fascinate as much as old civilizations do with our own species.
Perhaps

That's no doubt written up in some sci-fi novel, but I don't read much fiction...... I'm aware it's probably not original thinking, but hey at least I didn't just get the thought from some pages, or even worse, a film screen. (Or some dude in a frock on Sundays)
It makes me feel all warm and glowy, more so than visiting spaceships and the almighty ever could.

But I'm also a very patient chap.

Give me solid evidence and I might "believe" differently.

EDIT* To clarify, the reason for the question "Am I alone in this thinking" was not to see if anyone just believes that as a bleak likelyhood, but actually welcomes the thought. Since every other group has a name, Aetheist, Agnostic, Monotheists, Polytheists and their derivitives.......... what are we called? Might I suggest Realist? lol (If that offends anyone's faith........ It wasn't an attack, just seems funny to me no-one's tried adopting it as a name for a belief..... Scientology....indeed. Show me the science.)

Sorry more to the topic....... it will be in the tabloids for a while, people will say "ere John, did ya hear this?" until every one gets bored with the news. There will be pockets of panic amongst minorities, but people will adjust. You show me an event in history people haven't adjusted to (I'll probably regret saying that)
There will also be the race to chat with them. I don't think it would be a national race, more of a scientific community race. With Nobel prizes at the end.
Long term - who knows.

 

[Andy44]

If we detect distant remote ETI, depending on how far away the source of the signal is they may already be extinct, and we will be alone anyhow. Given the inverse square law, any signals they send to us almost have to be aimed at us, so unless they keep an antenna trained on Sol for extended periods of time, we may only hear a brief peep out of them and that'll be it. The significance and authenticity of the received signal would be debated for years, decades even, and once authenticated it probably still won't be enough to tell us much about the ETs. Just enough to make them rumoured, mythical creatures that may be long extinct by the time we can contact them physically. Those who refuse to believe will just say it's a hoax, of course, and for the rest of us, we will make any necessary adjustments to our religious doctrines or personal philosophies and life will go on.

I think that the presumed disruptive effects of the discovery of alien life are way overestimated. People have been immersed in so much sci fi over the years that they expect it to happen anyway. Remember when the news said life was found on Mars back in the 90s? Most people said, "Well, of course. Big deal." Unless the aliens are actually coming here physically, daily life will of necessity go back to normal.

 

[Urwumpe]

First, Stonehenge: "Der größte Trilith befindet sich im Südwesten, also gegenüber des Eingangs und mißt 7.3m Höhe. Einer seiner Pfeiler alleine wiegt 50t." "The biggest Trilith is in the SW, opposing the entrance and is 7.3m tall. One of its pillars alone weights 50t"

About that 400 ton block, I found this:
"...One of the construction blocks from which the pier was fashioned weighs an estimated 440 tons and several other blocks laying about are between 100 and 150 tons..."

So you talked about a scientific approach to mysteries ?
First "google" or use "wikipedia" than post.

Actually, I used google, wikipedia and scholar.google.com.

http://scholar.google.de/scholar?q=Stonehenge+construction&hl=de&lr=&btnG=Suche&lr=

Still, the 15 trilithon stones only weight around 50 tons each and the blue stones weighted 6 tons maximal (My fault, took the wrong type of rock). Not 100-150 tons.

Also, for a 7mx1.5mx1.5m rock (volume 15.75 m³), can you imagine the density needed for getting 100 tons mass? 6.3 tons/m³! For reaching 150 tons, these stones would need to be made of something between Iron and copper.

The stones are actually made of sarsen, a kind of sandstone with about 3 tons/m³.

Now, the question is: Is it unbelieveable to transport 50 tons over a distance of 30 km? (That's where the trilithon sarsen stones are from, the blue stones are from 300 km away, but likely got transported by glaciers before) with mostly pure raw menpower? Even if you have to pull these rocks upwards a slope, you can do that with about 80 people. If you manage to transport the rock over "only" 500m each day, you can do the travel in 2 months.

 

[willy88]

Well, it depends on what the aliens are like.

If they are like us, they would take over our governments milk Earth of its resources, assimilate us into their weird culture, and generally be *******s.

If they're all happy-happy joy-joy, and give us some of their technology before humanity has matured, it would mean really bad things for the more mature interstellar civilizations.

If they're smart, they probably wouldn't contact us at all, or at least until we're mature enough.

 

[Eagle]

Any aliens that are waiting for humanity to be more 'mature' are a bunch of jerks. Let humanity learn that the stove is hot.

 

[Torgo]

I think there will be mixed effects. While there will be some people that just won't be able to accept that it is true, for most everyone else, it will have only a minor impact on daily life.

As for religion (and the religious) being able to handle it, again, some will take it better than others. However, the Catholic Church (of which I am not a part) has already done research into the possibilities and the outcome on earthlings.

http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_m1141/is_17_40/ai_114009577

"Christians have always understood that the entire cosmos is a creation of God, that any life anywhere is a divine creation," said Dominican Fr. Augustine Di Noia, undersecretary of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, the Vatican's doctrinal oversight agency

A lot of the reaction will be a direct result of how proof is established. A signal from another world, unless it comes out and says "We're coming to get you, Earth" is going to be mostly benign. There will be a glut of crappy sci-fi and sci-faux movies for a year or two, there will be some high level government and university research into duplicating the reception of the message and possible sending a message back. Obviously, the aliens won't be speaking an earth language, so we'd need scientists and linguists working to decipher what we heard. But all of that will barely affect 99.9% of the earth's population.

Of course, if ET lands on the White House lawn live during the 7pm news, lasers firing or not, THEN you'll get the mass hysteria, rioting, dogs and cats living together, 40 days of darkness, etc.

The best chance of proving non-terrestrial life is still finding solid evidence that life, even in microbial form, exists(ed) on Mars. Once it is proven life has been on 1 other planet, then it can (an probably does) exist in sentient and non-sentient varieties all over the universe.

 

[Spaced]

Actually, I used google, wikipedia and scholar.google.com.

http://scholar.google.de/scholar?q=Stonehenge+construction&hl=de&lr=&btnG=Suche&lr=

Still, the 15 trilithon stones only weight around 50 tons each and the blue stones weighted 6 tons maximal (My fault, took the wrong type of rock). Not 100-150 tons.

Also, for a 7mx1.5mx1.5m rock (volume 15.75 m³), can you imagine the density needed for getting 100 tons mass? 6.3 tons/m³! For reaching 150 tons, these stones would need to be made of something between Iron and copper.

The stones are actually made of sarsen, a kind of sandstone with about 3 tons/m³.

Now, the question is: Is it unbelieveable to transport 50 tons over a distance of 30 km? (That's where the trilithon sarsen stones are from, the blue stones are from 300 km away, but likely got transported by glaciers before) with mostly pure raw menpower? Even if you have to pull these rocks upwards a slope, you can do that with about 80 people. If you manage to transport the rock over "only" 500m each day, you can do the travel in 2 months.

There was a BBC program that tackled that question a few years ago.... using methods available at the time in the way that needed the least labour.
They made a full size stone buoyant with inflated goatskins. Many of them, but less than their calculations predicted. They then punted it from Marlborough Downs, the most likely Sarsen quarry. Around the Severn Estuary and inland via tributaries. They managed the journey with the Lintel sized stone, easily taking it up shallow brooks and streams, in just a couple of days. Then it only required a short amount of brawn to move it to the site. When they removed it from the water they discovered the goatskins made it easy to roll by a small team (ten men or so), even up inclines.

Maybe not what the original builders did, but it's a simple and elegant solution. Scale it up and it would prbably work with the larger Liths too.

 

[jedidia]

Am I the only one (who in the absence of any other data) "chooses" to adopt the concept that there is no other life in the universe and that it IS a freak accident that occured on this planet alone.

If it WAS a freak accident, I'd say it's improbable that it happened only on earth. The universe seems just too big to let any kind of accident happen only once.

Since I don't believe in the "accident" part, I am very undecided about the matter. What scares me of the most are the theological implications of another possible "fall of man" (or fall of whatever would live there). C.S. Lewis took that notion up in his "perelandra"-triology, and he did a fascinating job at it, from a story-telling point of view. But still, he didn't explore the consequences in a thourough theological way.

I wouldn't be the one to deny ETI, but it sure would raise alot of problems in my mind, problems I'd like to rather not dealing with unless necessary.

So, one consequence of proven ETI would sure be me locking himself in a room for a month and pondering theology... :lol: