Intoscience

All good points and ones we should consider. I guess this is the scary scenario to face, an alien/species that considers us as "pests" - primitive, expendable, undeveloped, unintelligent, and a direct threat to their/its own interests. Our own A.I if is developed to self evolve may share a similar view. Lets hope that there is a universal evolutionary standard directly linked to intelligence that, for all our sakes, as intelligence evolves so does ethnic value of all things, especially other life.

I find it depends on the situation, the environment I'm in. If its a busy street with lots of distractions and I'm on my way somewhere then unexpectedly get stopped. My mind can go blank, I'm often too polite to ignore the person but find myself not in the right frame of mind to engage in the conversation with any interest or thought. As a result I have often got caught up or scammed (luckily not too expensively). But this is common and also a common tactic of the seller. Catching people off guard can sometimes be very fruitful, especially those that are polite or distracted. Age plays a part sure, but I wouldn't expect a healthy 30 odd year old to be suffering with cognitive problems unless there was an underlining issue. But your symptoms sound normal to me. One thing to note is lack of exercise and poor diet can have adverse effects on brain functionality, especially around focus and concentration. Also if you are feeling stressed or have a busy agenda, deadlines and all these sorts of things can also impair your thoughts and judgements. You may find being outside offers more distractions and also may be an environment that your subconscious brain feels less comfortable with. In this situation you are less likely to think clearly than being at home in your own space. I do all my deep clear thinking when I'm often at my most relaxed. This is where meditation activities can also help.

It seems I don't need to now, I was just making the suggestion so as not to derail this thread. Agreed, this is my view. But since I didn't make this clear when I stated I object to the infestation of the woke culture. It appears I have been categorised already as been, old fashioned, ignorant and hypocritical. So I'll make it very clear - I'm opposed to the corruption when abused that the woke culture brings. I'm opposed to the far left and the right, but this current wave of "wokeness" culture is infesting society in a way that is not productive and also in a way that was I'm sure was not intended by the original outset of ideas. I believe that people are now being forced into taking either side rather than finding a middle ground that is sensible and positive for society. I don't think that all this confusion is healthy for the younger generation, and yes extreme one way or the other creates either "snowflakes" (assuming I'm using the term correctly being an old man and all) and or (in Phi's words) stronger colonial thinking. Lesson learnt You know full well that I was aiming at the "image culture" that is rammed down people's throats through using social media as the platform. My social networking is spent on forums like this one, for topical discussion. Not posting photos of my egotistical image, there is a difference.

I'm most partial to the third option myself it makes logical sense and the odds seem much better. Yeah interesting, Though we may consider ourselves to place a high ethnic value on life in reality is this the case? (as you hinted to) We grow and harvest animals and other forms of life for food. We hunt and kill animals for sport. We eradicate entire eco systems to build cities and roads. We step on bugs, swat flies exterminate "pests". We have wars. The list goes on...

Would you like to split this off from this thread and create a new discussion around this? I'm happy to participate especially since I have strong objection against the current "woke" culture that seems to be infesting society in many countries across the globe.

Again, I don't disagree, this would make perfect sense from our own perspective and experiences. The optimistic view is not the one I share but an example of how some people assume things might play out, often popularised by tv and films. Though most films take the totally opposite approach and tend to depict the alien attack scenario.

Thanks for the link, This one of my favourite channels I watch on YouTube.

Though I don't share your idea around the term lazy I do share your view on modern politics and issues and I agree that at the heart of many of the issues there is a complex set of problems, especially around mind set. I think you are being too harsh on the folk who you consider judgemental. I don't believe all people label and/or judge the same, this just isn't true. But the reality is that self help plays a major role in overcoming challenges. Some people who just role over and blame everything else for their undoing without honestly looking at themselves.. If everyone stopped doing anything and spent all their time pondering what the key issues are then we would very quickly grind to a halt. Its also not healthy both mentally and physically to just give up because life has dealt you a poor hand. I remind my son that he is a healthy, loved, cared for human being with a good education a home and family there for support. He may have issues, agreed, but compared to many he is very fortunate. You know one of the problems with social media and all this exposure to glam and glitz creates a false sense of reality to many that demoralises them into thinking that they are a failure or misfortunate. So in reply to the OP, the best thing we can do is ban exposure to false realities, stop ramming down peoples throats fairy tales that just aren't reality.

like everything in life its a matter of balance, perspective and interpretation. Nothing gets done unless something is done - doing too much can be as non productive as doing too less - Hardship and suffering to one may mean happiness and contentment to another. I didn't put the bins out for collection yesterday. Today the bins are still full because the refuse collection date was missed. I now have to take the refuse in person to the local tip or just leave the bins overflowing or maybe for someone else to deal with. Maybe I was feeling unwell or had a mental block or, just completely unintentionally forgot, or was late for work, or the cat went missing, or the car wouldn't start, or I was late for my bus, or it was snowing, or windy, or raining, or, or, or... Or just maybe I was too "lazy" to do the sensible thing and put the bins out for collection. Now either I or someone else has to go to the added effort of dealing with the consequences. The world is full of people with genuine excuses, then there is just being lazy for no particular reason other than I can't be bothered. Yeah sure go ahead and look into the psychology of why I'm not bothered and you may find an underlining issue that needs addressing, fine. But in the short term the bins still need emptying.

I think this is an interesting point and one which may influence a person's reasoning. The optimistic view would be that an advance alien technology is/will visit us and become our friends/carers sharing their success's knowledge and technology. On the other hand, they could be totally hostile not interested in or consider humans as no value and just take what they want or could just ignore us completely with no consideration for any potential consequence to us detrimental or other influence. Walking down the street you tread on a few tiny bugs, does this raise your concern? Do you tread more carefully and avoid killing anything ever? Do you try and avoid and accept some loss? Do you carry on regardless with no concern to the bugs's life or their value and continue about you business? Are the bugs in the way of what you want and therefore you eradicate them in pursuit of your intended goal? They/it could have completely unrecognisable motivations that we cannot even begin to relate to. As you say, its all conjecture and speculation based upon our own experiences and imagination.

I would argue that they both might exist but may not act on each other. If so, a that moment both would cease to exist. But really its just non realist fanciful speculation so we can make the outcome what ever we want. My outcome is that they stop competing and start collaborating.

This question has been around for a long time in many forms. The most popular one being - An unmovable unbreakable object gets struck by an unstoppable unbreakable object, whats the outcome? There are many questions that pose paradoxical issues - What was before time? What happens if you go back in time and kill your grandfather before you were born?... They really make no sense, so one could argue that they are "stupid questions" as you said.

In what way do you feel threatened? The worst that can happen is that you get some ridicule or verbal attack on a social digital platform. Dealing with humility can often be a life lesson and make you more resilient. If not then you could always refrain from posting something that may provoke personal attack or ridicule. But to be fair the moderators do a pretty good job of policing such so you are protected to a certain degree.

I think we need to be careful not to make assumptions about how aliens would think and act. It may be just as likely that they'd hurl an asteroid at us to study how we'd respond to it I agree, I was just following the theme with aliens following a similar path and traits as humans. It will be interesting in the near future if/when A.I that we have created becomes sentient. Some may assume that A.I since it was created by us will have what ever agenda we program it to have. But this won't be guaranteed.

So what other term would you use? Seems to me that people are making a bunch of excuses to not do anything about anything.

Again, one person's success could be another person's failure. I guess success would be achieving a goal that was set out initially. Whether that goal leads to improvement etc... well that could be subjective. Don't say "define improvement"! Turtles all the way down. I don't disagree, but overcomplications are not going to solve the immediate issue. Self help is a place to start, delving deeper may take more effort and commitment and though shouldn't be ignored should be considered as a long term plan. It has been shown that a little exercise and a better diet can improve people mentally. I'm not dictating to my son, just offering my advice as a short term solution. I may need to invest in a deeper more thought out plan. He is complaining but not prepared to even consider trying to solve the problem. In my day this would be termed as lazy and I would get a clip around the ear and made to get on with it. People need to take responsibility for their own actions, if they are impaired in some way such as having a clinical mental illness, well fair enough. Encouragement to do self help is important though. One could even argue that if I didn't offer the advice to my son then I'm also being "lazy". That I don't value my son's wellbeing enough to invest the effort in trying to do something about it.

I think this depends. My son complains that he is feeling unfit and putting on a few extra pounds of fat. I recommend that he does some extra exercise and cuts back a little on the excess junk food. He can't be bothered to do either, but continues to complain. So I think he should do something about it, he is too lazy to do so. One could say that he values the lack of effort to make the change more than the result of such a change, fair enough, but then quit complaining and make better use of your time. Problem is not all agree on whats best, or how to tackle the issues that they do agree on. Working together for a common goal is always the first step to success.

Well time, or at least the manipulation of space-time could come under the banner of technological advancements. Temporal simultaneity, yeah I agree.

I think this makes sense. Logically you would not expect to see any sufficiently advanced technology. If it exists then you would expect some form of non intrusive perhaps invisible observational tactics applied. Whilst I agree with you regarding remote observational techniques and use of resources, I think though if "they" are inquisitive enough then they would want to acquire some physical samples. I'm not saying abductions or anything like, but much like we do, send at least probes to the surface of other worlds to either collect or analyse directly physical aspects. I guess likelihood of their detection depends on their level of advancement. I would expect that the more advanced they are then the less likely of detection by us and vice versa. For example, if an alien technology is just slightly more advanced than us. So say they are at the stage where they are able to send probes across interstellar space to other worlds. They may have the technology to easily do this but that does not guarantee the level of technology to cloak their presence to such a degree that we would never detect them. I think (my personal opinion) that the overwhelming vast majority of sightings are not extra terrestrial, I'd probably even say all . I would not though simply dismiss the possibility based on my opinion or belief. I remain skeptical because the logic (our logic) points strongly towards non extra terrestrial phenomenon. But I won't dismiss all claims simply because even after thorough investigation using modern understanding, theory and techniques some do remain - inconclusive / unidentifiable

We share the same view point and conclusion.Your post pretty much sums up my own stance I also agree that extraordinary claims require extraordinary verifiable evidence. But I also dismiss the premise that no verifiable evidence suggests no possibility, which sits at the other end of the scale. So in response to many of the claims, unless its completely obvious, or the evidence strongly points towards, that its a natural phenomenon or a hoax then I would refrain from complete dismissal. Even if we look at our own evolution, especially so as you said; over the past 300 years. Its not beyond the realms to imagine human kind, at some point in the future, via person or probe visiting other worlds (we have already done this within our own solar system using probes). For this reason I have no problem with the possibility in principle. I do however share the consensus that spacefaring aliens are likely to be extremely rare and also not likely to share temporal simultaneity with us. Thus even if they exist the likelihood of visiting Earth while humans are around would seem very doubtful. However the caveat being that if technological life is rare, an alien species is likely to be aware of this. In which case if they detect our existence then we are likely to be of some interest to them.

This is definitely going to be the case for many unexplained objects appearing on photographs. But an object picked up by accident on a photo that was intended for a specific content is not the same as a photo purposefully taken of an object itself. Though I agree with you this also works both ways. If an object is defined as "unidentified" using all known methods of investigation then asserting it's "got" to be something is incorrect without verifiable evidence, but likewise asserting that its "not" something is also incorrect unless you have evidence to support the dismissal, for example "its not a bird because its clearly not the shape of any known bird, its metallic in colour and saucer shaped and its flying in a way no bird has ever been seen to do so". However, "Could be" is just speculation, so to state that it could be something is also incorrect but makes for some fun investigation. So anything that remains inconclusive is self defining; Unidentified. Though I'm not a fan of alien visitation, I would not simply dismiss it based on my beliefs. I would remain skeptical based on the lack of verifiable evidence available. Also I would remain skeptical based on our current understanding of the laws of physics, the vastness of the universe and the low odds of temporal simultaneity. But I would not also out-rightly dismiss the possibility of such.

I guess it's a combination of a person's ego and/or how they value themselves at that time compared to their peers. I remember working for a company owner who once was in conversation with one of his employees who at the time was making around £30K a year. The company owner was complaining that the £150k a year wages and the £500k dividends he received was not enough and was pittance compared to that which his business associates from other similar sized companies were making (in the millions per year).

As far as we know "space" isn't composed of anything, its just a void separating things. What is theorised, is that empty space is not really empty, so its would be easy in this respect to image space being composed of something.

What are you suggesting? That scientific research from here on is is a pointless pursuit because the more we learn the less we understand? No one is arguing that the cost of the LHC is not immense, certainly from a personal perspective its unimaginably expensive. However, we are offering comparisons and potential benefits that may justify that cost. It may also be true that we have to draw the line somewhere because the cost to advance experiments like these is unwarranted. In fact this is exactly what happens in science all over the world many projects never get off the ground due to benefit analysis. There are budgets to work within, and trust me, investors want returns for their buck, in some form or another. Me personally, I'm biased and admit being so. This is because of my passion for science especially the astrophysics and cosmology side of things and my interest in the quantum area is growing also. So I'm all in favour of spending money on research, space travel... I get excited at the prospect of new discovery!

Ok, so really you are looking for personal views. That's fine, some, most on a science forum like this are likely to respond with objective mainstream views based upon scientific study and understanding. Some will also approach the subject from a philosophical view. But the fundamentals around the questions are still undefined with any verification, we can only propose what we theorise based on experiment and observation.