Are we alone in the universe?

[andrew s]

22 minutes ago, Mr Spock said:

It's life Jim, but not as we know it.

We are still trying to define life and intelligence by our own limited perspective.

Life out there may even be non-corporeal. How could we comprehend such a being? The possibilities for life are unimaginable to us, we are simply too limited in our knowledge and thought processes.

I really don't understand such a position. How can we define anything other than by our standards? It's our language we define words meaning how else could it be? 

In science fiction  there are many examples of no-corporeal beings including Star Trek.

In making the statement "The possibilities for life are unimaginable to us..." you are imaging such life forms! 

Regards Andrew 

[Mr Spock]

5 minutes ago, andrew s said:

In making the statement "The possibilities for life are unimaginable to us..." you are imaging such life forms! 

In doing so we are limited by our imagination. What is out there may be beyond that.

[ollypenrice]

1 minute ago, andrew s said:

 

In making the statement "The possibilities for life are unimaginable to us..." you are imaging such life forms! 

Regards Andrew 

Not sure I agree with this. It is possible to envisage the existence of something without knowing what it is. 'I cannot imagine what made that noise outside.' Language allows us to hypothesize the unknown. You're the mathematician, but doesn't mathematics do the same? Are there not formal proofs of the unknowable nature of a term? 

Olly

[andrew s]

1 minute ago, ollypenrice said:

Not sure I agree with this. It is possible to envisage the existence of something without knowing what it is. 'I cannot imagine what made that noise outside.' Language allows us to hypothesize the unknown. You're the mathematician, but doesn't mathematics do the same? Are there not formal proofs of the unknowable nature of a term? 

Olly

I didn't say we know what it is just that we can imagine it. Of course you can imagine something made the noise outside that's all that's needed.

Godels theorems roughly say in theories based on axioms there are true statements which can't be proven from the axioms. We can not only imagine such statements but prove they exist. 

I am not saying we know exactly what these "unimaginable" life forms are like but it seems to me we can imagine them existing just just by being able to make the statement. 

Regards  Andrew 

 

[andrew s]

24 minutes ago, Mr Spock said:

In doing so we are limited by our imagination. What is out there may be beyond that.

Why is our imagination limited. Is there any evidence of this? Regards Andrew 

[Mr Spock]

3 minutes ago, andrew s said:

Why is our imagination limited. Is there any evidence of this? Regards Andrew

You cannot provide evidence of something you are unable to comprehend as it doesn't yet exist (in your mind).

There's no evidence to suggest this, but did primitive Man imagine space flight? I very much doubt it.

[andrew s]

5 minutes ago, Mr Spock said:

You cannot provide evidence of something you are unable to comprehend as it doesn't yet exist (in your mind).

There's no evidence to suggest this, but did primitive Man imagine space flight? I very much doubt it.

But.. ...they imagined gods, angles, celestial spheres and much more.

We will have to agree to differ

Regards Andrew 

[Mr Spock]

I can't imagine having a closed mind. But they do exist, apparently...

[iantaylor2uk]

46 minutes ago, andrew s said:

But.. ...they imagined gods, angles, celestial spheres and much more.

We will have to agree to differ

Regards Andrew 

You don't need to imagine angles, as they are real!

[ollypenrice]

53 minutes ago, andrew s said:

I didn't say we know what it is just that we can imagine it.

 

What would be the difference between these statements?

I don't know what it is, but I can imagine it.

I cannot imagine what it is.

Doesn't your position require you to distinguish between them?

Olly

[Alien 13]

Thing about imagination and invention is that we cant do either unless it has already been discovered/imagined, for example early bronze age man had all the ingredients sitting around him to make an electric carbon arc lamp but couldn't imagine the concept. 

I have tried to think of a single invention that wasn't discovered either by observation of nature or a complete fluke, all are small evolutions of what had gone before.

Alan

Edited November 20, 2022 by Alien 13

[neil phillips]

With those worlds that are similar to the earth. We may have a starting point with our own environment and the diverse nature around us.

[andrew s]

20 minutes ago, ollypenrice said:

What would be the difference between these statements?

I don't know what it is, but I can imagine it.

I cannot imagine what it is.

Doesn't your position require you to distinguish between them?

Olly

It would depend on the context.

1 I can imagine an omnipotent God but I don't know how it would manifest itself. 

2 I could observe the outcome of some event and not know what caused it. However, on my position I  could imagine possibilities. 

Regards Andrew 

[saac]

Let's play this "let's imagine game".  Imagine you are the director of NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory.  You are putting detail to your 10 year budget proposal plan ready for scrutiny and approval by Caltech and the federal oversight committee. An extract from the budget approval hearing follows:

Chair -  "Bob, this funding line "Project Left Field"  it seems to soak up 60% of your program lines! 

Bob - (Dir JPL) "Well Hank, you see it is like this. For the past 60 years our space exploration program has been built on the exploitation of science and engineering. You know hard won endeavour, testable empirical evidence etc etc.  To date we have not a single scintilla of evidence from our active research areas of alien life. The tech heads down in lab 4 think that the space folk out there must be using a different Big Book of Physics. You know instead of using the electromagnetic spectrum they might be using some sponge type thing, heck John from the mail pool has a hunch they may even be free floating fungus in space. So you know we need to commit to building the Mk 1 Low Erath Orbit Sonic Screwdriver - just like that wee fella in the blue police box uses when he talks to the aliens.  It will take the treasure of the nation but it will be shiny  

Chair - "Err thanks for that Bob,  I don't think we can approve that. Hey, the good news though is we will continue supporting the JWST and Artemis programs.  Oh and your bid for the carbon dioxide laser toaster for the staff canteen is also scrubbed! I know it would print the JPL logo on the toast, front and back, but heck Bob JWST will need an improved data uplink soon.  Maybe next year.

Jim  

Edited November 20, 2022 by saac

[andrew s]

2 hours ago, Alien 13 said:

Thing about imagination and invention is that we cant do either unless it has already been discovered/imagined...

...I have tried to think of a single invention that wasn't discovered either by observation of nature or a complete fluke, all are small evolutions of what had gone before.

Alan

 How about complex numbers what were their precursors in your view?

Einstein's thought experiments while trying to understand observed phenomenon resulted in new concepts, for example a universal speed limit.

Regards Andrew 

Edited November 20, 2022 by andrew s

[saac]

I don't think the real difficulty lies with imagination itself. For sure imagination plays a lead role in engineering. The design process in particular asks us to imagine a solution.  However imagination here is tempered, rooted in what is known, what can de done, constrained by engineering science (thermodynamics, physics of stress, strain, material performance, fluid flow dynamics etc).  In science, well I'm not a scientist and have never done true science,  but I would hazard a guess that there may be more latitude for imagination but again not unfettered.  The "what if" question is often the start of an investigation but it is always shaped and constrained, like engineering, by known rules.  I'm not sure abandoning those rules would lead us anywhere material. 

Jim 

[ollypenrice]

3 hours ago, andrew s said:

 

2 I could observe the outcome of some event and not know what caused it. However, on my position I  could imagine possibilities. 

Regards Andrew 

But could you imagine all of them? And, if you had, how would you know?

I think, going back to Michael's point that some things may be beyond imagination, your position and his may be equivalent.  We can imagine an unlimited imagination (because we can say 'unlimited imagination') but that falls short of actually having one - or of proving that anyone has one. Wouldn't it be profoundly unscientific to say, I can imagine anything?  How could it be falsified?  When you asked whether or not there was any evidence for a limit upon the imagination, I guess my answer should have been, 'No, how could there be? Science doesn't work by proving negatives.'  

Olly

[iantaylor2uk]

I doubt very much anyone born before 1900 would have been able to imagine the transistor.

[Alien 13]

7 minutes ago, iantaylor2uk said:

I doubt very much anyone born before 1900 would have been able to imagine the transistor.

Not impossible though as electricity was around then, would have been far more difficult to do in the middle ages..

Alan

[saac]

25 minutes ago, iantaylor2uk said:

I doubt very much anyone born before 1900 would have been able to imagine the transistor.

A switch, valve, gate, opened and closed by some remote means. Maybe. 

Jim 

[Gfamily]

38 minutes ago, iantaylor2uk said:

I doubt very much anyone born before 1900 would have been able to imagine the transistor.

Do you mean in terms of "what it is", or "what it does" ?

"What it is" is a semiconductor device with 3 terminals

"What it does" is act as an amplifying device or as a simple switch.

It is clearly possible that someone could imagine what a transistor does - after all, that's what thermionic valves can do, and the first valves date not much later than 1900.

I'm not sure what this means in terms of thinking about alternative life forms, but it's clear that we can think of how we might recognise intelligence in other beings even if the beings aren't based on carbon and DNA, but there may be forms of intelligence that we wouldn't be able to imagine until we came across them. 

Edited November 20, 2022 by Gfamily

[saac]

Surely all our imaginings are based on interpretations or extrapolations of what we already know.  Here's a challenge, can anybody imagine something and describe it without reference to something we already know or have experience of.  I'm struggling; perhaps our imaginations are therefore not unlimited. 

Jim 

[andrew s]

1 hour ago, ollypenrice said:

But could you imagine all of them? And, if you had, how would you know?

I think, going back to Michael's point that some things may be beyond imagination, your position and his may be equivalent.  We can imagine an unlimited imagination (because we can say 'unlimited imagination') but that falls short of actually having one - or of proving that anyone has one. Wouldn't it be profoundly unscientific to say, I can imagine anything?  How could it be falsified?  When you asked whether or not there was any evidence for a limit upon the imagination, I guess my answer should have been, 'No, how could there be? Science doesn't work by proving negatives.'  

Olly

Of course I can't imagine everything nor can anyone. However,  that does not mean somethings are unimaginable in the sense they could never be imagined by a human brain.

Obviously,  what is "unimagined" at a given epoch is irrelevant to if they are imaginable or not. Things like transistors or arc lights were imagined. 

What I objected to was an implication that some types of intelligent lifeforms were in principle unimaginable. Maybe I misunderstood. 

Regards Andrew 

[Alien 13]

22 minutes ago, saac said:

Surely all our imaginings are based on interpretations or extrapolations of what we already know.  Here's a challenge, can anybody imagine something and describe it without reference to something we already know or have experience of.  I'm struggling; perhaps our imaginations are therefore not unlimited. 

Jim 

I agree although it only takes a new tiny observation or new discovery to open the imagination floodgates... Look at the discovery of electricity that spawned our 21st century life and gave us Frankenstein too 😀

Alan

[kirkster501]

On 18/11/2022 at 18:54, ollypenrice said:

When did you last hear from a chimpanzee?  They have a 99% DNA agreement with us and live on the same planet.

Exactly.  We can't meaningfully communicate with highly intelligent animals with whom we share the same planet, within the same environment, with the same chemistry, let alone aliens.  I don't buy this argument when looking at vast galaxy superclusters that the universe is so vast that we simply can't be alone.  Yes, we can be.

Google and read about "the fateful encounter hypothesis"

https://googlethatforyou.com?q=the fateful encounter hypothesis

 

Edited November 20, 2022 by kirkster501