So before you downvote my post, why don't you write the sentence "Well gee I haven't thought about that because nobody can prove that anything bigger than a dinosaur or huge fungus really is alive" and yet you all like looking at the stars and you get enjoyment from them and their harmony, and you expect they are some puppet for your amusement. That's how a gentleman would do it and used to do it in England, I'm not sure what kind of "culture" this downvoting mechanic is but it's like everything else that is rotten on whatever side of the sea you live.
This is what I have to deal with every time I meet a scientist - quantum physics. I've yet to meet a single one of these so-called Einstein-level intellectuals that can take a hit without throwing formulas at me and the laws of what you can see with a human eye as working.
Let's say I create a system on my computer and throw one or two little pixel-shaped planets around a million times. A simple program. Spen the Scientist is going to sit there with all of his professors and associates and work out a thousand formulas to explain the system, the planets, the path, the trajectory, the limits, the patterns etc. It's chaos theory but nobody ever does this, you're right. This is how I see humanity and the level of intelligence we have, all prescribed to a single thread of logic.
Not a single one of them is going to say "hmm, I wonder what the program is?"
If someone sat on some other planet were to see that data it would look completely different. They'd probably have a completely different set of formulas to describe what was going on.
That's how good human intelligence is. Not a single scientist on this forsaken planet can explain his theory from the point of view of the very thing everybody is enveloped in - data. It's still formulas from 100 years ago.
So when I ask, who created these balls of rock that do such miraculous things... is it a religious question or is it a scientific question?
Somebody always pipes up with an answer about humans and that's not what I'm looking for.
Why is it always about humans? That's how egotistical and full of itself our own species is, and you only have to look at decline in wildlife to see it.
Where?
You don't see my point but I explained it. This is what I mean by cap on human intelligence. It is literally headache-inducing to start to conceive of a planet or anything larger as a conscious or alive being for nearly everyone you meet. It is similar if you describe humans or any life as being a program. And yet nearly everybody is looking down at their cellphone at the train station trying to not communicate outside of a little metal box. We are all programs by some design, much of the human body is visibly programmatic.
What is "computer"? Why is it we think we invented it? Why is it we think it needs a name? Computer is everywhere, it's data... if we can use it in sci-fi movies then why can't we conceive of everything as data? Or "computer". Why is it everything is described by a formula, and not by a program. Why is it, everything is not alive, if everything is data?
Which bits aren't data?
Does data need the name "data".
Or is it just "life".
So why can't most people conceive of a planet as "life"?