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J Hume posted:I'm not aware of any evidence of that nature, although I hadn't thought about UFOs for many years (between the series finale of the X-Files and the recent UFO news) so I can't claim any expertise. Perhaps some kind of satellite data/images could confirm that theory, but it seems like any satellite data could still be ambiguous enough to leave room for disagreement. Alien abduction and greys are a cultural phenomenon best described by the social sciences--they're just a 20th-century interpretation of bog-standard states of altered consciousness via hypnagogia that humans have been experiencing since the beginning. The aliens are rapists because humans are obsessed with sex. The aliens are technological and have unknowable motives or are tied up in the destruction of the Earth or the new millennium because C20 Americans had a lot of anxiety about their systems growing beyond their control and generally felt like they were at the mercy of great powers that managed them without their consent. Grey aliens and abductions have fallen way off pop culture since 9/11 because that's when America's anxieties changed away from end-of-history malaise and vague Y2K anxiety toward specific human threats. UFOs as spaceships from other civilizations have some C19 instances, but it's very much a fantasy from a specific stage of technological development and an instance of particularly American optimism and technological utopianism. Once hope died for Americans, they fantasy changed, but it's very much tied to the machine age and the jet age. If there are actually aliens and we get to communicate with them somehow, it will be like how our relationship with robots developed along certain lines laid down by science fiction. There will be specific things we'll be worried about and certain things we'll want to check out, and it's because of a bunch of weird perverts and russian-jewish nerd boys who wrote for five cents a word to try to live through the depression.
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Jun 7, 2021 21:00
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Here’s proof for you: I can imagine an alien UFO. I, myself, am not a alien UFO. Therefore alien UFOs must exist. QED This proof was modelled on Descartes’ argument for the existence of god, so it has to be correct. Sorry everyone.
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Jun 7, 2021 21:45
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Tac Dibar posted:Here’s proof for you: I can imagine an alien UFO. I, myself, am not a alien UFO. Therefore alien UFOs must exist. QED That's not how the proof works.
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Jun 8, 2021 01:58
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Ok but what if we, like, built sails that captured particles of light and rode it Or lasers Can we decrease our own mass
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Jun 8, 2021 04:43
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Gatts posted:Ok but what if we, like, built sails that captured particles of light and rode it Goons have been asking that for years.
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Jun 8, 2021 05:26
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Raenir Salazar posted:That's not how the proof works. From the Stanford Encyclopaedia of Philosophy, entry on Descartes’ ontological argument: “God’s existence is inferred directly from the fact that necessary existence is contained in the clear and distinct idea of a supremely perfect being.” So, in the same way I infer that the necessary existence of alien UFOs is contained in my clear and distinct idea of creepy grey aliens kidnapping people to butt-probe them. See? It’s watertight.
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Jun 8, 2021 05:36
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Tac Dibar posted:From the Stanford Encyclopaedia of Philosophy, entry on Descartes’ ontological argument: That's not really a good summation of his argument, the wikipedia article I think gives a much better summary and explanation with a lot of food for thought: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Meditations_on_First_Philosophy The translation is also available online here: https://corescholar.libraries.wright.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1008&context=philosophy
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Jun 8, 2021 05:46
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Raenir Salazar posted:That's not really a good summation of his argument, the wikipedia article I think gives a much better summary and explanation with a lot of food for thought: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Meditations_on_First_Philosophy Thanks! Looking at the translation, it turns out Descartes already wrote about this problem: “There only remains, therefore, the idea of the UFO, in which I must consider whether there is anything that cannot be supposed to originate with myself. By an UFO, I understand a spacecraft infinite, [eternal, immutable], independent, all-knowing, all-powerful, and by which I myself, and every other thing that exists, if any such there be, are to be butt-probed. But these properties are so great and excellent, that the more attentively I consider them the less I feel persuaded that the idea I have of them owes its origin to myself alone. And thus it is absolutely necessary to conclude, from all that I have before said, that UFOs exist.”
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Jun 8, 2021 06:22
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I dunno about UFO's but I think by accident you've maybe proven Turing's thesis instead. 
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Jun 8, 2021 06:29
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Let's talk about the Epstein Drive. Do you guys think anything like it is possible? Something about the way it's depicted in the books and show make me suspect they're doing some fuzzy hand-waving when it comes to the Rocket Equation, but others seem to think it's plausible if we assume He-3 + Deuterium fusion (like in the article I linked). Thoughts?
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Jun 8, 2021 22:05
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DrSunshine posted:Let's talk about the Epstein Drive. Do you guys think anything like it is possible? Something about the way it's depicted in the books and show make me suspect they're doing some fuzzy hand-waving when it comes to the Rocket Equation, but others seem to think it's plausible if we assume He-3 + Deuterium fusion (like in the article I linked). Thoughts? The Epstein Drive as a concept kind of confuses me. Mostly because I grew up reading SF where fusion drives went into the exact opposite direction: The authors I've read, like K. H. Scheer, came up with systems that were plausible back in the 60s, and therefore seem rather low-tech today. No H3-fusion, and as engineering-oriented person Scheer sure as hell wasn't a fan of making low-density bubble ships like many authors today still do. Instead those authors created super-strong impulse drives that compressed the fusion medium so far it became essentially a particle beam. (They also used the same tech for the main weapon system of their ship: The "impulse cannons" were simply a weaponized version of their drive systems.) Seeing from today, where we started using extremely strong magnetic fields to contain fusion plasma in our test reactors, it seems like this down-to-earth approach is more realistic then just hoping some theoretical process may be achievable. I can certainly see a future development 1-2 centuries down the line were a similar containment system is used to create immensely strong sublight drives, using particle impulses as exhaust. Impulses which need containing energy fields to prevent them from just vaporizing the drive shooting them out. That kind of compression, if it becomes possible, would also allow the usage of similar technologies to transport more fuel than a ship's volume would suggest. Some plausible advances in materials and engineering tech seems more likely than the way the Expanse went with. Those hypothetical future ships would be chunky as all hell with all that extra mass from carrying tons of compressed matter and fuel around, though. They'll certainly need strong drives.  Sure I guess, if He-3 + Deuterium fusion is possible, we'd get something like the Epstein Drive instead and I wouldn't complain. Cheap and reliable instead of big and strong. (There's also no reason to not just combine that poo poo with other tech advancements like the ones I've talked about above.) Especially since I'm guessing a real life version would use more fuel and need larger tanks than the ships in the Expanse have. Edit: I haven't read the short story in question, how deep goes the author into detail of the Epstein Drive? Does it use containment fields like our modern test reactors? Does it make use of more advanced material science (heavily compressed metals/materials)? Or is it still rather vague in its actual engineering details? Libluini fucked around with this message at 22:31 on Jun 8, 2021 |
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Jun 8, 2021 22:29
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Don't the Epstein Drives use inertial containment. I remember in one of the later seasons they showed us a visual of a fuel pellet falling into a chamber with lasers. If you want to look at another interesting scifi space battle series that makes an effort at "hard" scifi is the anime Starship Operators; the plot is kinda boring as gently caress as its basically boring Hunt for the Red October; basically a space nation is forced at gunpoint to join the evil confederacy and "donate" its advanced fleet to the evil space empire as they try to build up their powerbase and the junior student officer cadets who happen to be on board (their teachers gtfo'd when the news went down) decide to steal the ship and fight on rather than surrender or scuttle the ship. But I watched the entire show because the space battles were super interesting and seemed relatively well researched. So instead of warp drivers or weird FTL they have EVE-Online esque "jumping" where the momentum is preserved when entering/exiting the jump; distances are at light-second distances and most of the fighting is with space lasers and such; the biggest issue is not actually taking hits per se; but discharging the heat that builds up as a result of being hit/firing their main weapons; and they win some battles literally just by outlasting the enemies ability to radiate out the excess heat. I think they primarily use lasers as the only things that are reasonably accurate at the distances they engage at. Also things like debris/micrometeorites are a huge hazard. They even deploy whipple shields as a means of protecting the ship; since they mostly move in a straight line it works. I'd recommend it if what you mainly care about is just watching an interesting show as it plays with scifi concepts in a novel way; but beware that the plot/drama has much to be desired. It's no Infinite Ryvius.
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Jun 9, 2021 03:55
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I believe Boston City Hall may have been designed by aliens.
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Jun 10, 2021 00:18
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What do people think about this proposal of a geodesic propulsion system being able to explain the UFO behaviour without violating laws of motion? It's an anonymous astrophysicist apparently, and they attempt to make predictable claims that can be tested, they want pilots to keep an eye out for their predictions. Was this posted in the thread? I dunno enough about Quantum Mechanics to know if they're technobabbling me on that, but their analysis of the 2013 UFO behaviour and its lensing has got me thinking. https://www.uaptheory.com/ Brendan Rodgers fucked around with this message at 14:55 on Jun 10, 2021 |
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Jun 10, 2021 14:50
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So how do ring worlds ostensibly maintain an atmosphere.
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Jun 10, 2021 14:56
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Raenir Salazar posted:So how do ring worlds ostensibly maintain an atmosphere. Walls
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Jun 10, 2021 14:57
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I do wonder if that would really work. Wouldn't they have to gradually infuse more gas into them over the long term, just because of diffusion in the uppermost levels of the atmo-....well it's not really a 'sphere' is it. Atmoannulus.
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Jun 10, 2021 15:20
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^I think that bit is hand-waved away in the first book by the postulation that the Ringworld Engineers have/had cheap transmutation. The later books explain (sort of...) why the answer is even dumber! Raenir Salazar posted:So how do ring worlds ostensibly maintain an atmosphere. If you want to have an afternoon of fun engineering a ringworld, consider computing the gravitational potential of a solid (rigid) ring structure around a star. Or what happens to the soil of a ringworld over millennia. Or how would you go about landing on one. Or what the physical properties of ringworld floor material should be vis a vis tensile strength and what that implies. Bonus points if you also figure out how to defend your ring against the occasional Oumuamua. You'll have a hoot of a time! 
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Jun 10, 2021 15:24
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DrSunshine posted:I do wonder if that would really work. Wouldn't they have to gradually infuse more gas into them over the long term, just because of diffusion in the uppermost levels of the atmo-....well it's not really a 'sphere' is it. Atmoannulus. The nerds over at stack exchange calculated 1000km walls could maintain a stable pressure for a million years or so. Beyond that you'd need to top it up gradually.
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Jun 10, 2021 16:16
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Rappaport posted:^I think that bit is hand-waved away in the first book by the postulation that the Ringworld Engineers have/had cheap transmutation. The later books explain (sort of...) why the answer is even dumber! I was thinking more along the lines of the rings from Halo as being more manageable; since they're merely ~moon or planet sized in diameter? For a magneto'sphere' I imagine maybe a ring of magnets/electro-motors spaced around around the outer shell of the ring; and for sunlight, maybe something like a giant tokomak in the middle? For additional structural strength maybe something like the spokes in a bike wheel, and bonus points they can allow for highspeed transportation across the ring? Bug Squash posted:The nerds over at stack exchange calculated 1000km walls could maintain a stable pressure for a million years or so. Beyond that you'd need to top it up gradually. Hrm.
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Jun 10, 2021 17:21
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Raenir Salazar posted:something like a giant tokomak in the middle? Combine these ideas and route everyone through the tokomak
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Jun 10, 2021 18:21
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Surely a huge light source at the center of a moon orbit sized object would be far less efficient than lighting directly above the inhabited areas thanks to the inverse square law. It'd also make trying to traverse the ring by taking the shortcut through the center a very *bright* affair.
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Jun 10, 2021 18:36
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Brendan Rodgers posted:What do people think about this proposal of a geodesic propulsion system being able to explain the UFO behaviour without violating laws of motion? i read through this entire thing and while they paint an interesting picture, ehhhhhhhh. i find it telling that they "have a background" in astrophysics (i.e., they're not an astrophysicist and i wonder if they've had more than a couple of classes) and that they hate peer review. they're also into some pretty crackpot theories: https://twitter.com/UAPTheory/status/1371882749758423047 https://twitter.com/UAPTheory/status/1371883674535346176 https://twitter.com/UAPTheory/status/1386696285495955457 i find it interesting that their twitter account was regged in 2018
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Jun 10, 2021 18:49
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mediaphage posted:
Past lives and reincarnation theories are no more crackpot than alien visitation theories
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Jun 10, 2021 20:15
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Fart Amplifier posted:Past lives and reincarnation theories are no more crackpot than alien visitation theories i consider it at least possible, however overwhelmingly unlikely, that some boogedy alien drones could come here some day. i don’t consider the rest of it even potentially possible
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Jun 10, 2021 20:38
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mediaphage posted:i read through this entire thing and while they paint an interesting picture, ehhhhhhhh. i find it telling that they "have a background" in astrophysics (i.e., they're not an astrophysicist and i wonder if they've had more than a couple of classes) and that they hate peer review. It's even more telling (to me) that the only place where there's any equations AT ALL is on a page where they put a bog-standard definition of the geodesic equation. And I get the feeling that they don't even understand what they're writing down. They note that "This symbol is a Christoffel symbol," which, yeah, but do they bother to note that "its purpose is to maintain the covariant derivative?" or "This allows us to use tensor calculus?" Nope. No derivation or explanation of their theory in any mathematical sense except linking to a paper they likely didn't read or some videos with popsci explanations of concepts. It's classic cargo-cult science: maintaining the illusion of science without any understanding of the background or any appreciable attempt at rigor. Like even that fringe guy with the "Geometric Unity" theory understands the field and wrote a long, detailed paper about it (That no one I am aware of can make heads or tails of.) At least he put in the effort. If you're serious about putting forth a scientific theory, then English is NOT the language you should use. It should be written in mathematics. The English is for the abstract. ashpanash fucked around with this message at 20:48 on Jun 10, 2021 |
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Jun 10, 2021 20:45
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mediaphage posted:i consider it at least possible, however overwhelmingly unlikely, that some boogedy alien drones could come here some day. i don’t consider the rest of it even potentially possible Please explain why alien visitation is possible and reincarnation is not.
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Jun 10, 2021 20:45
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ashpanash posted:No derivation or explanation of their theory in any mathematical sense except linking to a paper they likely didn't read or some videos with popsci explanations of concepts. It's classic cargo-cult science: maintaining the illusion of science without any understanding of the background or any appreciable attempt at rigor. completely agree Fart Amplifier posted:Please explain why alien visitation is possible and reincarnation is not. no thanks
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Jun 10, 2021 20:48
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mediaphage posted:no thanks Probably shouldn't call it crackpot then.
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Jun 10, 2021 20:52
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Fart Amplifier posted:Please explain why alien visitation is possible and reincarnation is not. I'll bite. Reincarnation requires immortal souls and actual magic. There's no trace that any such things exist. Alien visitations can be achieved in a purely material universe (like the one we live in). It just so happens that none seem to have happened, and the engineering required would be incredibly difficult.
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Jun 10, 2021 20:55
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Nitrousoxide posted:Surely a huge light source at the center of a moon orbit sized object would be far less efficient than lighting directly above the inhabited areas thanks to the inverse square law. Sometimes you're on a roll and want to keep things spinning! In my head I had the idea that there could be like a container encasing the reactor with an opening that slides open around it to mimic day/night and timezones. We're having the engineers deliberately leave a bulge in the ring to mimic the need for Daylight Savings Time. Having lighting directly above each segment might result in clutter?
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Jun 10, 2021 21:17
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Bug Squash posted:I'll bite. Reincarnation is to a single incarnation as extraterrestrial life is to terrestrial life. Reincarnation does not require an immortal soul or magic any more than a single incarnation.
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Jun 10, 2021 21:53
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Fart Amplifier posted:Please explain why alien visitation is possible and reincarnation is not. Alien visitation is conceivable with our current understanding of the nature of the universe and has technically happened a number of times in our own solar system: aliens from Earth have sent probes to a number of planets in the Sol system, which is technically visitation by a species not native to that planet. The only problems with another species coming to the Earth are practical in nature: they have to exist, they have to go to the trouble of making a probe that will come here, and the probe has to function correctly--but we know those things have happened once and so can conceivable happen again without revision to our understanding of the nature of the universe. Souls and reincarnation require the existence of things that do not seem to exist and that cannot be investigated empirically even if they did exist.
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Jun 10, 2021 21:58
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Fart Amplifier posted:Reincarnation is to a single incarnation as extraterrestrial life is to terrestrial life. Incarnation requires the construct of the soul in every instance. Otherwise, what is happening with the carnis that deserves remarking upon?
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Jun 10, 2021 22:00
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Antifa Turkeesian posted:Alien visitation is conceivable with our current understanding of the nature of the universe and has technically happened a number of times in our own solar system: aliens from Earth have sent probes to a number of planets in the Sol system, which is technically visitation by a species not native to that planet. The only problems with another species coming to the Earth are practical in nature: they have to exist, they have to go to the trouble of making a probe that will come here, and the probe has to function correctly--but we know those things have happened once and so can conceivable happen again without revision to our understanding of the nature of the universe. Whether something is crackpot or not isn't about whether you can imagine it based on what you know. Obama being a secret reptilian illuminati agent is crackpot, despite being entirely conceivable within my understanding of physics. In fact, it's easier to conceive than alien visitation. It's a matter of evidence. We don't know how life forms. We don't know how consciousness forms. We can only operate based on what we can observe. The evidence for both is the same. In addition, your last statement, that souls and reincarnation cannot be investigated empirically even if they did exist is false. Souls/reincarnation/alien visitation/reptilian conspiracy theories are not unproveable, they are unfalsifiable. That is the problem with them. Antifa Turkeesian posted:Incarnation requires the construct of the soul in every instance. Otherwise, what is happening with the carnis that deserves remarking upon? If a single incarnation requires a soul then reincarnation isn't much of a stretch. Regardless, we don't know what's "happening with the carnis" which gives rise to subjective experience, which is one of the reasons why we can't rule out anything like reincarnation any more than we can alien visitation.
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Jun 10, 2021 22:27
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There are a lot of things about the human brain, thought, and consciousness, we don't scientifically have a complete understand of. I could see reincarnation actually being real, that there is some connection in which information of what constitutes "you" gets split apart and recombined in a new vessel separated by however many years, generations, and geographical location. Like that "Cosmic Egg" story as an extreme version.
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Jun 10, 2021 22:27
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Fart Amplifier posted:Reincarnation is to a single incarnation as extraterrestrial life is to terrestrial life. Wh-what?  I ... I can't believe I'd ever ask this on here, but how would it work, physically? Like what mechanism could there even be??
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Jun 10, 2021 22:28
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Brendan Rodgers posted:What do people think about this proposal of a geodesic propulsion system being able to explain the UFO behaviour without violating laws of motion? This is not a theory. This is someone’s fan fiction disguised as science. They start by saying that UFOs would need to obey the laws of physics, and from that they get aliens. No poo poo a theoretical alien spaceship would need to obey the laws of physics. They assert that their understanding of quantum gravity is correct and make “predictions” based on that. They make further “predictions” based on their other predictions which they assert to be true. quote:Given the agreement of this theory with virtually all credible data over the last century, we consider the matter of the origin of these vehicles settled. I don’t even know how to respond to that.
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Jun 10, 2021 22:28
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Fart Amplifier posted:Reincarnation is to a single incarnation as extraterrestrial life is to terrestrial life. This is stoner logic.
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Jun 10, 2021 22:34
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Fart Amplifier posted:Whether something is crackpot or not isn't about whether you can imagine it based on what you know. Obama being a secret reptilian illuminati agent is crackpot, despite being entirely conceivable within my understanding of physics. In fact, it's easier to conceive than alien visitation. There’s no such thing as incarnation because there’s no such thing as a soul, which is to say that every model of the universe works just as well with it as without it. There’s no way to investigate the soul because no criteria can exist for its detection, the same as lizard people who change their shape and are identical to regular humans.
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Jun 10, 2021 22:38
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