Aliens Check Out the Earth

@Brandon9000,

It is a meaningless and niggling point to bring up that you have said way behind or way ahead. My objection is to your claim about a degree of discrepancy. You have caviled since then, attempting to say that you had only asserted that no two civilizations meeting under such circumstances would have exactly the same level of technological development. I don't have a problem with the principle, i have a problem with the degree as you apply it. Whether you say way ahead or way behind, you are making a statement for which you have no good logical argument, and are essentially making a statement from authority--an authority which i have no reason to assume you possess.

Now you are just being dishonest.

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@Cycloptichorn,

Absent certain knowledge that this is the case, this is just wool-gathering. The only plausible estimates we can make will have to be based on what we know, not what we hope might be the case when we indulge in speculation. I know it is intolerable for most people to think that there might actually be an insurmountable speed limit, but as it stands right now, that is the case as we know it.

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@Setanta,

Setanta wrote:

Absent certain knowledge that this is the case, this is just wool-gathering. The only plausible estimates we can make will have to be based on what we know, not what we hope might be the case when we indulge in speculation. I know it is intolerable for most people to think that there might actually be an insurmountable speed limit, but as it stands right now, that is the case as we know it.

Our 'insurmountable speed limit' is based on certain assumptions which may or may not hold to be true when applied to interstellar travel. I agree with you that we can only make projections based upon the knowledge that we currently have; however, we should keep in mind that our knowledge is limited and there very well may be ways of doing things that violate our ideas today.

If another species is advanced enough to travel between stars, it is entirely likely that they will have technologies which we have not currently conceived of; therefore, it doesn't hurt to keep in mind the possibilities that this higher technology may lead them to behave in different ways than we might expect.

Cycloptichorn

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@Cycloptichorn,

Cycloptichorn wrote:

If another species is advanced enough to travel between stars, it is entirely likely that they will have technologies which we have not currently conceived of . . .

What leads you to state that it is entirely likely? Speculation?

1 Reply

@Setanta,

Setanta wrote:

It is a meaningless and niggling point to bring up that you have said way behind or way ahead. My objection is to your claim about a degree of discrepancy. You have caviled since then, attempting to say that you had only asserted that no two civilizations meeting under such circumstances would have exactly the same level of technological development. I don't have a problem with the principle, i have a problem with the degree as you apply it. Whether you say way ahead or way behind, you are making a statement for which you have no good logical argument, and are essentially making a statement from authority--an authority which i have no reason to assume you possess.

Now you are just being dishonest.

You say that these two statements by me are inconsistent:

Setanta wrote:

Quote:
And I must repeat that I also never asserted something which you have mentioned at least twice, that anyone we encounter will be way ahead of us.

Yeah, you're saying that now. Above, Brandon, you write:

Brandon9000 wrote:
I didn't assert that. I asserted that it is improbable that a random encounter would bring together two civilizations at similar enough levels to make it a contest.

They are absolutely consistent. In the second post, I asserted that a random encounter would be unlikely to bring together two civilizations at a similar level. In the first post, I denied that I said anyone we encounter would likely be ahead of us. I denied it because, as you can see from the latter post, I said at a different level, which means either ahead or behind. Tell me how these two statements are inconsistent. You can't because they're not. You're merely wrong.

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@Setanta,

Setanta wrote:

Cycloptichorn wrote:
If another species is advanced enough to travel between stars, it is entirely likely that they will have technologies which we have not currently conceived of . . .

What leads you to state that it is entirely likely? Speculation?

A review of human history. At every point of our development we have discovered technologies which we previously couldn't conceive of, brand new ideas which spawn legions of sub-ideas and products. It is entirely likely that this trend will continue, based on available evidence. Therefore it is likely that species which would be MORE technologically advanced than we are, have experienced similar development.

When discussing alien encounters, a certain amount of speculation is downright necessary. Limiting our conceptions to the 'star trek' model, of aliens being basically like us with the capabilities and emotions we have, will lead to very limited and Homo Sapien-centric results.

Cycloptichorn

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@Cycloptichorn,

That 's absolutely right.

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Aliens Check Out the Earth

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