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MSDOS KAPITAL posted:The epilogue is that we keep blasting the fact and location of our existence anyway for the same reason we ignore / deny climate change and elect Republicans to public office. I mean realistically even if that scientist came forward with that, it would not unjustifiably be treated as a hoax without some kind of further verification.
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Jun 1, 2019 17:39
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Lightning Knight posted:I mean realistically even if that scientist came forward with that, it would not unjustifiably be treated as a hoax without some kind of further verification.
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Jun 1, 2019 18:04
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I vaguely remember some infographic about what to do if you get abducted by aliens, and the way to demonstrate to the alien that you are intelligent is to draw a representation of the pythagorean theorum, the argument being that if the alien is capable of interstellar travel then they are capable of understanding math. is math really that sort of a universal language?
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Jun 1, 2019 23:45
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A big flaming stink posted:is math really that sort of a universal language? I would say not really. Math is a system of tools we have created to formalize concepts and how they relate to each other with exacting specificity. Some of those relationships represent how reality seems to work, and those relationships seem to be universal, as far as we can tell. There are only so many forms a 2-dimensional, three sided shape can take, and that's all covered in the geometry of triangles. But the usefulness of this knowledge to an alien mind is an unknown quantity. It's important to us because one could make the argument that the creation of our system of mathematics is basically the Pythagorean theorem applied to increasing levels of abstraction. There's no reason to suspect that every system of mathematics that can be created will grow from the same concepts.
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Jun 2, 2019 00:19
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ashpanash posted:I would say not really. Math is a system of tools we have created to formalize concepts and how they relate to each other with exacting specificity. Some of those relationships represent how reality seems to work, and those relationships seem to be universal, as far as we can tell. There are only so many forms a 2-dimensional, three sided shape can take, and that's all covered in the geometry of triangles. But the usefulness of this knowledge to an alien mind is an unknown quantity. It's important to us because one could make the argument that the creation of our system of mathematics is basically the Pythagorean theorem applied to increasing levels of abstraction. There's no reason to suspect that every system of mathematics that can be created will grow from the same concepts. We also don't know how weird the universe is. We honestly don't know much of anything. Who can say the immutable laws of physics don't work differently elsewhere?
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Jun 2, 2019 00:35
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1glitch0 posted:We also don't know how weird the universe is. We honestly don't know much of anything. Who can say the immutable laws of physics don't work differently elsewhere? oh boy are we getting into the Problem of Induction now?? 
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Jun 2, 2019 00:43
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Well a quick glance shows that we have vehicles that combust hydrocarbons, we send radio signals into space, and we build structures that are hundreds of stories tall, so I think they already know we understand how triangles work.
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Jun 2, 2019 00:55
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A GIANT PARSNIP posted:Well a quick glance shows that we have vehicles that combust hydrocarbons, we send radio signals into space, and we build structures that are hundreds of stories tall, so I think they already know we understand how triangles work. Generally speaking the idea behind providing mathematical models as a basis for first-contact is via probes, or as a foundation for building a communication language. Once you establish the idea that you're conversing in mathematics, you can develop common representations for numbers, and eventually a full alphabet. Obviously xenosociology is a fairly untested field, but the idea is that you identify whatever commonalities you can find, just as explorers have throughout human history.
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Jun 2, 2019 01:06
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On that note, actually, is there a way to represent different sums besides something like grouped tally marks? I have an intuition that such tally marks are not a universal way of counting, but i'm legit struggling to imagine a different means to do so that is similarly irreducible. e: look I know that the specific alien abduction premise is stupid as hell but I'm legit curious about alternatives to symbolic language that appear axiomatic at first glance! A big flaming stink fucked around with this message at 02:04 on Jun 2, 2019 |
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Jun 2, 2019 01:21
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Yeah I’m sure the average forums user who takes the advice to draw a triangle in the dirt for first contact will be able to use underlying mathematical relationships to create a common language with an entirely alien species. In all honesty a society making first contact has probably been monitoring our communications and media for a while, so your best bet is to act like a generic human who is kind and friendly.
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Jun 2, 2019 01:30
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We have satellites in space - they know we know how to count to 20.
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Jun 2, 2019 01:31
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A big flaming stink posted:On that note, actually, is there a way to represent different sums besides something like grouped tally marks? I have an intuition that such tally marks are not a universal way of counting, but i'm legit struggling to imagine a different means to do so that is similarly irreducible. It seems like if you had an alien with way better working memory than humans that they'd end up with very different rules around abstraction. Like the way I can do mental math visually with numbers like 2 and 4. I can imagine 4 apples and imagine splitting them in two groups, or imagine taking 2 apples and doubling them, or whatever. If I could do that about 500,000 apples because I had a cool alien brain I'd definitely think about numbers differently. I might minimize entirely the amount of abstraction I ever bothered to think about. Like maybe you'd still take an 'abstract numerals" class in highschool you would forget, but like, I can imagine a race like that getting up to like 1800s math just not bothering to think much about abstraction of numbers too much. I am sure they would have a bunch of systems that really boiled down to being the equivalent, for book keeping and stuff, but I can imagine them not thinking of number abstraction as being super central to mathematics if they just had brains that could do the stuff directly and visually, and more of their abstraction would be about thinking of like, visualizing bushels of apples instead of individual apples or something, which again, would be similar, but wouldn't be something they necessarily thought of the same as us writing a "3" to mean ||| of something, they might just mostly draw 3 apples artistically every time, or like, have a big sheet of dots they carry around with little folds and flaps to show different numbers of things to visualize as a basic tool of mathematics you need to use or make every time, then write things in coordinate notation or something.
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Jun 2, 2019 02:17
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At its core, our system of math isn't about numbers, it's about relationships. Numbers are just a representation of some underlying structure.
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Jun 2, 2019 02:28
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Drawing things in the dirt also assumes the aliens you’re trying to communicate with use sight in our visual range as a primary sensory input. If their main sense is acoustic or touch or smell you’re not going to get very far by drawing in the dirt. Do you think you’d be able to pick out the Pythagorean theorem expressed as a series of smells?
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Jun 2, 2019 02:46
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A GIANT PARSNIP posted:There’s also enough uranium and thorium to power us for thousands of years. The economics may not work today and the public support might not be there, but drain our fossil fuel sources and give people a summer without air conditioning and that’ll change real fast. Who is 'us' in this scenario? The thousands of slave labourers digging up that thorium probably would have some complaints.
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Jun 2, 2019 03:11
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Owlofcreamcheese posted:It seems like if you had an alien with way better working memory than humans that they'd end up with very different rules around abstraction. oh yeah, I find it super interesting to think about just how much of our brain is wired to accurately predict the arc of spheroids and aim or intercept said spheroids. like throwing stuff is such a random ability so intrinsically tied to the circumstances that our ancestors evolved in.
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Jun 2, 2019 03:16
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A big flaming stink posted:I vaguely remember some infographic about what to do if you get abducted by aliens, and the way to demonstrate to the alien that you are intelligent is to draw a representation of the pythagorean theorum, the argument being that if the alien is capable of interstellar travel then they are capable of understanding math. Sure, if you want to have your brain scooped out and stuck in a mining droid, doomed to forever toil in the helium mines of Zeta Reticulon 8. As Lincoln said, "Better to keep silent and thought a fool, then to open your mouth so aliens can scoop out your brains for their mining robots."
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Jun 2, 2019 03:28
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The Geometers will come and will harvest this world. It is our destiny.
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Jun 2, 2019 06:31
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Given enough time I wonder how far a species could get just through practical engineering with no real understanding of the math or science theory of anything. Like some million year old species that just figured out nuclear power and rocketry by long long trial and error and really has nothing but an extremely hazy grasp of how anything works. Like humans understood how to make and use x-rays before knowing really anything about the physics or math of them,what if we never bothered to go past that. What if as a species we just decided that is how things went and stuff just worked how it worked and never had much mind to ever figure out the details. Like I wonder if you could meet an advanced civilization that just skipped math or theory and only developed through experimentation and trial and error.
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Jun 2, 2019 13:07
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There is a fun little science fiction story that is kinda about this, basically there's this super tech that once it's discovered everything else tech wise stagnates. Earth gets invaded by aliens with faster than light spaceships and......black powder muskets.
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Jun 2, 2019 13:32
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Owlofcreamcheese posted:Given enough time I wonder how far a species could get just through practical engineering with no real understanding of the math or science theory of anything. You can look at literally any species that doesn't transmit knowledge to know this. Turns out an individual horseshoe crab or whatever will not discover space travel.
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Jun 2, 2019 16:04
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Owlofcreamcheese posted:Given enough time I wonder how far a species could get just through practical engineering with no real understanding of the math or science theory of anything. You would need some level of mathematics to do even the most basic trial and error. Even if you blindly toss things together you need a concept of counting to know the size of the thing you want to recreate and a concept of measurement to recreate it.
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Jun 2, 2019 16:55
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A big flaming stink posted:oh boy are we getting into the Problem of Induction now?? Way above my intelligence and education level. I'm certainly not a flat-earther type and accept the science even if I don't understand it, but I still think the idea the laws of physics elsewhere might be different is possible and maybe very weird. And the Big Bang Theory doesn't make a bunch of sense. But it's the best we've got right now. Still curious about alternatives. Owlofcreamcheese posted:Given enough time I wonder how far a species could get just through practical engineering with no real understanding of the math or science theory of anything. I wonder a lot about something similar, like if we have missed something major and obvious just because of how our brains work and how our science evolved. Like entire tech trees we could easily have right now but just missed for whatever reason. Like if alchemy was actually a thing (I know it's not, just an example), or if time travel is actually super easy and common place in the universe, and we could do it with 1800s tech but just couldn't grasp one simple concept. Or maybe our galaxy just doesn't have some major elements that are available elsewhere in the universe in mass that would be incredibly helpful. It's interesting to think about.
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Jun 2, 2019 17:07
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A GIANT PARSNIP posted:You would need some level of mathematics to do even the most basic trial and error. Even if you blindly toss things together you need a concept of counting to know the size of the thing you want to recreate and a concept of measurement to recreate it. Humans invented lots of physical processes empirically and then worked out the math or basic theory on it much much later.
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Jun 2, 2019 17:07
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1glitch0 posted:Way above my intelligence and education level. I'm certainly not a flat-earther type and accept the science even if I don't understand it, but I still think the idea the laws of physics elsewhere might be different is possible and maybe very weird. And the Big Bang Theory doesn't make a bunch of sense. But it's the best we've got right now. Still curious about alternatives. I'm curious: what about the big bang doesn't make sense to you? There are things we're not 100% sure about, but we have direct evidence of the broad picture. Most of the contention comes down to incredibly, incredibly small periods of time after the very beginning of the universe.
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Jun 2, 2019 17:33
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Paradoxish posted:I'm curious: what about the big bang doesn't make sense to you? There are things we're not 100% sure about, but we have direct evidence of the broad picture. Most of the contention comes down to incredibly, incredibly small periods of time after the very beginning of the universe. I feel like I have to put a thousand disclaimers before I make a post like this so I disavow myself from flat-earthers or anti-science people, etc. I accept the science as is. But I have a very hard time wrapping my mind around the concept of existence in general. Like, it just happened? There was a big explosion for some reason and here we are? When I think about it I almost get vertigo. Why does anything exist and not nothing? What existed a second before the big bang? And if the answer is nothing, isn't that a bit of a cop out? How did that happen? It seems to be a giant thing no one talks about. The idea that the big bang just puked out everything and here we are doesn't really solve the question of where did the big bang come from. Where did the universe COME FROM? I'm an atheist so I don't have any easy answers. The math and the physics might work out, but why did a universe suddenly exist?
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Jun 2, 2019 19:04
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1glitch0 posted:I feel like I have to put a thousand disclaimers before I make a post like this so I disavow myself from flat-earthers or anti-science people, etc. I accept the science as is. But I have a very hard time wrapping my mind around the concept of existence in general. Like, it just happened? There was a big explosion for some reason and here we are? When I think about it I almost get vertigo. Why does anything exist and not nothing? What existed a second before the big bang? And if the answer is nothing, isn't that a bit of a cop out? How did that happen? It seems to be a giant thing no one talks about. Until we can at least make an educated guess I just don't see the point in worrying about these things.
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Jun 2, 2019 19:18
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I CANNOT EJACULATE WITHOUT SEEING NATIVE AMERICANS BRUTALISED!
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We're inside an opaque fishbowl, and unless we ever gain the power to leave the fishbowl (which as far as we know is literally physically impossible; hell, as far as we can tell, just leaving the Local Group for any other galactic group would be impossible), anything outside or before the fishbowl is "here be dragons" territory that is impossible for us to ever perceive, so there's no sense in worrying about it. The rules may well and truly be rigged against us on this one, and we'll have to learn to accept and live with that fact should that day come.
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Jun 2, 2019 19:37
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The laws of physics in this universe were probably established and baked in by the characteristics of the big bang singularity when it generated the observable universe but there's the possibility that that singularity is still moving through space with a shifting base state and creating new causally distinct universes with different laws. We might not be the first universe or the last but it's largely irrelevant because no part of this universe can ever interact with those parts of space.
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Jun 2, 2019 19:54
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Owlofcreamcheese posted:Given enough time I wonder how far a species could get just through practical engineering with no real understanding of the math or science theory of anything. Even if you can do something without knowing how it works, knowing how that thing actually works generally allows you to make much more effective use of that thing. Humans didn't figure out how X-rays worked out of some inherent biological drive, we did it because we wanted to figure out how to better utilize them. 1glitch0 posted:I feel like I have to put a thousand disclaimers before I make a post like this so I disavow myself from flat-earthers or anti-science people, etc. I accept the science as is. But I have a very hard time wrapping my mind around the concept of existence in general. Like, it just happened? There was a big explosion for some reason and here we are? When I think about it I almost get vertigo. Why does anything exist and not nothing? What existed a second before the big bang? And if the answer is nothing, isn't that a bit of a cop out? How did that happen? It seems to be a giant thing no one talks about. Define "anything". Define "nothing". What is existence? What is time? It's hard to wrap your head around because you have to accept that even the most basic fundamental assumptions we have about the way the universe works don't necessarily hold up when you get into that kind of extreme physics. Before the Big Bang, there very well may not have been such a thing as "nothing", because space as we know it today may not have existed, or may have existed in an entirely different form. There may not be any such thing as "a second before the big bang", because time as we know it may not have existed prior to the Big Bang. Rather than saying that the Big Bang is the beginning of the universe, it might be a little easier to digest if you think of it as the beginning of the universe as we know it, the origin of the laws of physics as we know them today. Before then, the fundamental forces of the universe acted so differently from how they do now that (with our current knowledge and theories) we can't even really say if "before" was a thing that existed, let alone what it was like.
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Jun 2, 2019 20:00
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1glitch0 posted:I feel like I have to put a thousand disclaimers before I make a post like this so I disavow myself from flat-earthers or anti-science people, etc. I accept the science as is. But I have a very hard time wrapping my mind around the concept of existence in general. Like, it just happened? There was a big explosion for some reason and here we are? When I think about it I almost get vertigo. Why does anything exist and not nothing? What existed a second before the big bang? And if the answer is nothing, isn't that a bit of a cop out? How did that happen? It seems to be a giant thing no one talks about. You can dive down rabbit holes with things like m theory - basically what we consider “the universe” is one of many objects in a 11 dimensional realm and the Big Bang was our object crashing into another object. We have zero evidence for this but it’s possible things could exist outside of our universe. In hand with this, the question “what happened before the Big Bang” doesn’t make any sense. You go backwards in time to reach the Big Bang. It’s where time starts. It’s similar to there being nothing north of the North Pole. That doesn’t mean things can’t exist outside of time. You can’t reach Saturn by going north, south, east, or west - you need a new coordinate system to get there. The same thing may apply here - there may be things that exist outside of our universe that we need a new coordinate system to discuss.
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Jun 2, 2019 20:03
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Main Paineframe posted:Even if you can do something without knowing how it works, knowing how that thing actually works generally allows you to make much more effective use of that thing. Humans didn't figure out how X-rays worked out of some inherent biological drive, we did it because we wanted to figure out how to better utilize them. Sure, clearly the deeper the understanding the better, but it's not like humanity hasn't had a million examples of knowing how to do things without knowing the science of how it works, sometimes for hundreds or thousands of years with complex industries around it. It's clearly not absolutely necessary. While it's clearly also the case actually knowing the concept of why things work is better and speeds development of what you are doing and all related tasks.
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Jun 2, 2019 20:13
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Owlofcreamcheese posted:Humans invented lots of physical processes empirically and then worked out the math or basic theory on it much much later. Yes but they had at least a simple level of math and measure for any kind of construction. You don’t need to understand the reason behind a certain ratio working for a bridge, but you do need to be able to measure a bridge that works and use those ratios on your next bridge.
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Jun 2, 2019 20:23
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And just to be clear, the Big Bang is the edge of that fishbowl in every direction. It’s not “the beginning of everything” exactly, it’s the furthest back into time we can see.
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Jun 2, 2019 20:27
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A GIANT PARSNIP posted:Yes but they had at least a simple level of math and measure for any kind of construction. You don’t need to understand the reason behind a certain ratio working for a bridge, but you do need to be able to measure a bridge that works and use those ratios on your next bridge. Only if you are a species that cares about that sort of thing. The "never thought too much about science or math" species could just brute force it forever, only build absurdly expensive and hard to make continuous span beam bridges that they eyeballed the dimensions on and just count that as good enough, and never get too ambitious about improving bridge making and just labeling any feature that a beam bridge wouldn't work on as being unbridgeable. They would probably come to our planet and be really wowed that we have more than seven bridges and that a ton of them use 1% the material theirs do, but if they wanted to cross a river and had resources to spend they could do it, even if they never did a single bit of math and just kept trying and just never used anything but the most simple and straightforward bridge design.
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Jun 2, 2019 20:51
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Owlofcreamcheese posted:Only if you are a species that cares about that sort of thing. The "never thought too much about science or math" species could just brute force it forever, only build absurdly expensive and hard to make continuous span beam bridges that they eyeballed the dimensions on and just count that as good enough, and never get too ambitious about improving bridge making and just labeling any feature that a beam bridge wouldn't work on as being unbridgeable. They would probably come to our planet and be really wowed that we have more than seven bridges and that a ton of them use 1% the material theirs do, but if they wanted to cross a river and had resources to spend they could do it, even if they never did a single bit of math and just kept trying and just never used anything but the most simple and straightforward bridge design. They’re not coming to our planet because space is really, really, really big and they’ll be floating in empty space forever if they launch without math to set a course.
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Jun 2, 2019 20:55
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Kerning Chameleon posted:We're inside an opaque fishbowl, and unless we ever gain the power to leave the fishbowl (which as far as we know is literally physically impossible; hell, as far as we can tell, just leaving the Local Group for any other galactic group would be impossible), anything outside or before the fishbowl is "here be dragons" territory that is impossible for us to ever perceive, so there's no sense in worrying about it. Similarly, it's strange to think that a sentient species that evolved billions of years after we are gone would presumably never see anything outside its own galaxy and would probably believe that the universe was much smaller than we know it to be.
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Jun 2, 2019 20:58
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Owlofcreamcheese posted:Only if you are a species that cares about that sort of thing. The "never thought too much about science or math" species could just brute force it forever, only build absurdly expensive and hard to make continuous span beam bridges that they eyeballed the dimensions on and just count that as good enough, and never get too ambitious about improving bridge making and just labeling any feature that a beam bridge wouldn't work on as being unbridgeable. They would probably come to our planet and be really wowed that we have more than seven bridges and that a ton of them use 1% the material theirs do, but if they wanted to cross a river and had resources to spend they could do it, even if they never did a single bit of math and just kept trying and just never used anything but the most simple and straightforward bridge design. If they can't figure out bridges, they're not making it to space. Our own industrial era is littered with corpses whose cause of death was some variant of "some rear end in a top hat figured there was no need to do the math, they'd just brute-force the simplest solution and eyeball the numbers". Hell, that still happens every now and then, due to the weakening of the American regulatory state. For example, the world's tallest water slide was built using trial-and-error methods by people who didn't actually know what they were doing, and barely lasted two years before the park owners couldn't cover up how much of a deathtrap it was anymore. Similarly, we didn't figure out things like metal fatigue or mechanical resonances due to a simple inborn thirst for knowledge - we figured them out because those problems were destroying our infrastructure. We got tired of unexplained bridge failures and train derailments, so we decided to explain them so we could stop doing whatever kept causing them. As it turns out, just eyeballing and brute-forcing your basic engineering is a good way to get a bunch of people killed in the pointless self-destruction of some very expensive and economically-important infrastructure.
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Jun 3, 2019 04:05
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Main Paineframe posted:If they can't figure out bridges, they're not making it to space. Our own industrial era is littered with corpses whose cause of death was some variant of "some rear end in a top hat figured there was no need to do the math, they'd just brute-force the simplest solution and eyeball the numbers". Hell, that still happens every now and then, due to the weakening of the American regulatory state. For example, the world's tallest water slide was built using trial-and-error methods by people who didn't actually know what they were doing, and barely lasted two years before the park owners couldn't cover up how much of a deathtrap it was anymore. Notice you are telling stories of stuff that got built anyway, we still built the slide and the resonant bridges. As a species we are like, a medium amount of good at not going on like that, but the fact we are imperfect implies a species could be much better or worse at it. Maybe they care much less about expending their people than we do, human history shows even we only sort of care.
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Jun 3, 2019 04:19
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It's pretty easy to imagine something with an octopus like life cycle making a go of it. Get real smart real fast, have hundreds of offspring, and have a lifespan of under ten years or so. Take big risks everyday because life is cheap. I think they would need to be incredibly good at transferring knowledge to be viable as an interplanetary species though, but that's well within the realms of speculative biology.
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Jun 3, 2019 09:49
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