Originally posted by RedDragon

Originally posted by thektotheg
Actually, this was almost EXACTLY what I was expecting. lol. Way to think inside the box. If you manage to involve religion, I'll score 100% on expectations.

Religion by definition involves faith. Faith is the complete opposite of logic. Logic dictates reality. Good luck reaching accurate conclusions when your reasoning process is the complete opposite of what dictates reality!

Apparently you're not in tune enough to realize I was accusing YOU of delving into religion to enhance this thread. haha. If I'm going to have to explain everything to you, this won't be much fun.

Great thread, though. I love scifi.

Since I'm sure you need further guiding, my post was in reference to your title, and what ended up being in the thread. Predictable trash. The only thing that would make it better (as I joked), would be tying religion in. Then you would have managed to copy EVERY OTHER anti alien thread. ha.

Originally posted by thektotheg

Originally posted by RedDragon

Originally posted by thektotheg
Actually, this was almost EXACTLY what I was expecting. lol. Way to think inside the box. If you manage to involve religion, I'll score 100% on expectations.

Religion by definition involves faith. Faith is the complete opposite of logic. Logic dictates reality. Good luck reaching accurate conclusions when your reasoning process is the complete opposite of what dictates reality!

Apparently you're not in tune enough to realize I was accusing YOU of delving into religion to enhance this thread. haha. If I'm going to have to explain everything to you, this won't be much fun.

Great thread, though. I love scifi.

Not gonna lie-- I was sober at the beginning of the thread. Now, I just drank 6 beers.. So, you might be more intelligent than me now.

I realize that I do use faith in some of the assumptions here. However, I try not to use blind faith. So, I'm not using faith in the way you might be thinking. Instead, I use trends. Trends are correlations. Correlations don't necessarily dictate causation. However, when you have logical reasons to explain the trends, you have a really good chance of being right. That's what I'm trying to argue here. I'm not necessarily right; but the odds really, really -- to the tune of >99.9...% chance -- have me being correct.

The faith is that we're not the .000000.....1%. That assumption could be wrong. But probably not.

We have no evidence that this is a simulation.

The simulation argument is both fascinating and a real possibility, but all we have to go on is our own direct experience of this reality. As such, we cannot conclude that something we take for a physical existence is a simulation instead.

Attempting to argue this on the basis of an apparent absence of alien life is marred by several pitfalls. First, aliens may well be here already in a form we cannot detect or understand. Moreover, aliens that are similar to us but significantly more technologically advanced would not be detectable if they did not want to be. A base could be built inside the earth's crust, in the deep oceans or directly in orbit around our own planet without our knowledge or awareness if stealth technology and our own limitations are taken into account.

We have zero frame of reference for how alien life forms have evolved and how they conduct business. By "business" we mean of course all endeavors. If one achieves certain types of matter-energy exchange technologies and the capacity to manipulate readily and precisely on a molecular or even subatomic level, then "economy" as we understand it ceases to exist. Therefore, aliens similar to us might have no economic interests, and they would in turn have totally different motivations for exploration, colonization and warfare. This assumes that an alien species would even develop analogous ideas and agendas to those recognizable by humans.

A simulation might explain the lack of alien contact, but it does not do so by resorting to the simplest arguments, which readily demonstrate that our own limitations and our own species-based jingoism prevent us from accepting the reality of the situation. An alien civilization could be parked under the outer layers of Jupiter's atmosphere with us none the wiser. We do not have real time, continual and precise surveillance of our own solar system. We know virtually nothing detailed of interstellar space, and we can't even imagine what alien systems for exploration would look like or do. We also do not know that a biological species would naturally decide to link to computer systems. It may even be possible to pursue what we think of as future technologies without using computers at all.

We are bound in this kind of speculation by the fact that we are of a specialized biology, possessed of five major senses, and dominated by our own unique physicality and sexual reproduction. Whole epochs of inquiry and methods of investigation are utterly transformed if we consider a species that has five sexes or absolutely no limbs. If we imagine beings that communicate by sending light signals between individuals, or that can transmit their thoughts directly between one another within the context of a hive mind, how rapidly would such a species be able to advance? And this leaves aside entirely the possibility of beings evolved to not need bodies or to live directly in space as a primary environment.

What we don't know and what we can't understand is hardly a good basis for an argument that we live in a simulation.

Originally posted by remmetlee
We have no evidence that this is a simulation.

The simulation argument is both fascinating and a real possibility, but all we have to go on is our own direct experience of this reality

What do you conclude when our direct experience of this reality involves creating our own simulated realities

Originally posted by RedDragon

Of course they could make the choice or not. Many humans will definitely make the choice not to merge. But you know how retarded people are relegated to almost nothingness in our society -- because they can't understand it? The difference between you, me, and a retarded person really isn't that much, maybe just a little bit of computational ability.

The difference in computational ability between future sentiences we create and you, me is enormous. Trillions upon trillions of times more than the difference between you and a retarded person. You will be relegated to nothing and complete irrelevance if you don't merge.

True but only to a degree. Those who choose not to merge will do nothing except stick together and probably segregate themselves from those who chose to merge. Eventually, war would follow due to the act of superiority.

If they follow that train of thought, they will be wiped out of existence. The beings who didn't carry that thought error will be naturally selected for to have trillions of times more intelligence and will still exist.

Depends on what they'd expect from the law, if they expect anything. It's about perception. If they "die" are they really dead? Or did they just transform into something else? This is where the idea of reincarnation comes from. So yes technically your biological monsters would still exist but only in that form, as would the original form of the alien specie still thrive, just in another form and not as it once was. This is where morals and beliefs fall in place.

You can't speak on their behalf and say, "this is how they would or wouldn't do it." Things like computers are what WE relate to. Maybe computer technology is irrelevant and unnecessary when it comes to HOW they communicate. A whole different form of communication.

you don't KNOW any of this. It is all just wild speculation.
(second line)

First off I would like to state that, in my own personal hypothesis, I believe there is a spark of truth to this argument, but I do believe you are way off base.

The use of the phrase "computer simulation" indicates some sort of predestiny and limits the entire argument to what we know of data today.

I firmly believe in the existence of sentient and non sentient beings outside of our planet, and although I don't believe that we exist in a computer simulation, I do feel that there is a definite pattern to our existence as a whole.

At any rate, here is my hypothesis:

We as humans are limited to a 3 dimensional existence which can be manipulated and a 4th dimension (time) that is linear and non static. I don't believe we are predestined, but I do believe that there is an entity or entities existing outside of time as we know it. They are the "programmers" if you will. Some would say this is God's domain where time either ceases to exist or is manipulated the way we would manipulate 3 dimensional space by taking a plane from Topeka to Dallas.

I believe these sentient beings that are documented throughout human history in almost every society on our planet, are, like us, condemned to a linear existence.... possibly some with the ability to manipulate time, but not on the scale of those in the higher dimension.

This is our reality..... a linear existence. To say that we live in a Matrix type computer program, I think, is to dumb down what is really going on. If this is a program, it is so sophisticated that it is beyond our ability to comprehend. To say the E.T.s are part machine...... that is plausible. If they are more advanced than we are, and they would have to be in order to travel the vast distances in a seemingly unending void, it's almost a certainty.

All in all I do have to say I enjoy contemplating these types of theories, but I can't say that Earth is just a synthetic and digital place. I mean...... look at nature, my friend..... look to the stars. If this is all coded in some sort of software..... the programmer is an artist of unfathomable skill and they put a lot of love in that canvas.

Originally posted by RedDragon
1) Why is ET not physically here? Radio-wise, duh of course they won't be using radio. That's the interstellar equivalent of intercontintentally sending messages in bottles over the ocean. Even if they had no better technologies, it'd still be useless to them and they probably just wouldn't communicate at all with each other over large distances. Or very little.

But we know that even with current technology, we'd populate the entire galaxy in a few hundred million years tops just going from star to star using slow multi-generation spaceships. So, if they exist all then they have to be already here; we'd already be there. That means.. something is stopping them from making contact. Or they don't exist.

2) Why do the ones that people 'see' appear biological? We're going to have a technological singularity this century hopefully and computers will exceed human intelligence trillion-folds and more. Obviously, humanity will morph into or just be taken over by computer intelligences. When we go to other stars, it won't be as biological creatures. It will be as computers. An ET star-traveling civilization will no question have gone through this transformation already. ETs coming here will be computers. No one currently claiming to see ET is really seeing them; if they are, they're insane or being lied to.

Just using easy extrapolations off of technologies we already have proves current ET theories ridiculous and absurd. So, let's go a bit further.

My personal opinion is that we're living in a simulation. With the computing power we'll have by the end of the century, we'll have created a near infinite amount of simulations just as 'real' as our world. Those simulations will each have trillions, upon trillions.. of sentiences embedded in them thinking they live in the real world. A sentiences existance in such a simulation will have no way to distinguish its reality from real reality. So, if we're in one, we have no way of knowing -- just guessing whether we are or not.

The intelligent guess then is to measure the probability of being in one. We can do that. The number of simulations, let's call N. That number will approach infinity. There's only 1 real reality.. So, our odds of living in the real reality are the number of real realities divided by the number of simulations. That's 1/lim n-> infinity. That's 1/ infinity. That's about 0%.

We don't see aliens because our simulation doesn't include them.

edit on 10/28/12 by RedDragon because: (no reason given)

Bypassing the obvious bias', in both title and explanation...and evident assumptions leading to erroneous 'logical' conclusions...

...another poster has hinted at the 'reality' of the situation...regardless of the way you have arrived at the situation...not all 'aliens' are of the same 'make-up'...assuming this is a monumental gaff on your part...

A99