A Muse about Life in the Universe...

[amicus]

I thought to compose this on and for another thread but changed my mind and decided to offer it in general.

I thought to begin by saying that this is an unique time in all of human history, but then, that really isn't saying much, as each tick of the clock brings about a totally new and unique quality of existence.

Each of us on this forum and elsewhere, as we exchange thoughts and ideas and even beliefs, express the accumulation of what we have learned or considered in a lifetime, however long or short that may be.

Each has a special area of interest, some wider or more limited than others, each has an uniquely individual way of approaching knowledge, history and the evolution of life, mankind, on this planet.

It is only recently in human history that we have been able to stand off from the planet and observe that 'big blue ball', against a setting of the blackness and emptiness of space and become cognizant of our, as seen by some, insignificant stature in terms of the Universe at large.

Man, the rational animal, the only sentient life on the planet, has sought to comprehend his existence from the earliest of recorded time. Depending upon each of our scope, we name them Priests and Theologians and Philosophers, those minds that inquired as to our beginnings, purposes and endings.

Intellectually, the search has always been for understanding, comprehension of the Universe we inhabit and from whence we come and where we are going, as both individuals and as a species.

The journey has been arduous, to say the least, and not of a linear progression towards enlightenment, but fits and starts and fall backs and giant leaps amidst contradictions and incongruencies that sometimes last for centuries.

So, at this moment in time, and for the archives I date it at Sunday, June 15th, 2008. Even in doing so I acknowledge that our chronological dating of humanity is at best arbitrary and a fabrication, as starting a Calendar at Zero and going back and forth in time as an 'after', or 'before' the time of a minor religious figure is worth a chuckle and not much more.

But then, I suppose it had to be something and it might have otherwise been equally as inane.

But this 'unique time' in human history of which I speak, includes both the accumulation of all knowledge and the startling fact that mankind is on the verge of venturing outside his home planet for the very first time in all of human history.

According to those proclaimed to know of such things, the late Carl Sagan included, there should be a massive number of sentient life forms throughout the Universe, 'billions and billions', as the homily goes.

Yet, for the past half century, mankind in various ways, has had his communal ears tuned to the vastness of space, seeking evidence of intelligent life.

Thus far...there is not a peep.

From those knowledgeable ones here, I expect dissent, as the constant of light limits the speed and time of possible communications and/or the method and style of such communications.

But still, given the fullness of our time, and ability to perceive such communications, and depending on my personal ability to comprehend such matters, there appears to be no indication of intelligent life from any direction of the Universe.

The current theory predicted that with our sophisticated means of reception, we should be cataloging thousands of signals from the depths of space.

Not a peep.

Thus...back to this sentient life form that sprouted on the third rock from the Sun, just what are we?

What is reality? Can we perceive it accurately, truthfully, rationally, logically; can we 'know' what we know?

This lengthy little rant was inspired by another thread where most proclaim that all knowledge is 'subjective', that is to say, simply a personal opinion, and 'relative', which is to say, non absolute and changing according to who perceives.

I of course maintain, with credit to Aristotle and Ayn Rand and hundreds before and after them, that, 'a thing is what it is', and that the mind of man can accurately observe the nature of that existence.

That 'A is A'.

Now...the transition from the absolute physical universe to the abstractions of the human mind, seems to be a difficult journey for most. They maintain, in part, and some of them, that yes, the human mind can perceive the physical laws of nature and the workings of the Universe. They will even accept, on a good day, that such things as the speed of light in a vacuum and the primacy of the laws of gravity and the relationship of matter and energy, can be determined accurately and absolutely, within given parameters.

They do so grudgingly.

Because, to acknowledge that, is to acknowledge that the mind of man, can perceive absolute reality. And if the mind can do that, then why not the nature of the life we possess and the defining characteristics of that life?

The Universe and the Laws of Nature, need not 'focus' on existence, they simply exist, totally independent of human thought or any other kind of thought...not figments of imagination or the wild dreams of an artist, the Universe exists without you even thinking about it.

But the mind of man, the rational animal, the sentient being, must 'focus' when it contemplates from whence to whence.

Focusing is a conscious act of will, one must 'choose' to focus the ability of the mind to translate the information provided by the senses and then use the power of the mind to differentiate that information in a rational, logical and congruent manner.

One need not focus.

It is not one of the rules of the game of life. One can have 'faith' in any or all things, one can 'believe' that which one desires. 'Thinking' is a conscious choice of each mind.

If one chooses to 'think', to actually utilize the human mind, there are certain rules involved.

'Non contradiction', is one of those essential requirements for using the mind.

In other words, to get down and dirty politically, one can not value life and at the same time destroy life.

If sentient human life is a value, then all life is a value. If one acts to protect life, one must act to protect all life.

That is logical, rational and congruent, all means to insure accuracy in both thought and action.

Politics is easy. Amateur ethics and morals pronouncements are easy. Belief and faith are easy.

Rational philosophy is not easy.

Many on this forum, and elsewhere, are more or less familiar with the history of human thought as defined as philosophy. Few, if any, including myself, are knowledgeable to the degree of speaking for the entire discipline.

It is not necessary that we be 'professional' philosophers in the academic sense of the word, as every human has a basic 'philosophy', or sense of life that gives each guidance and reason for ones thoughts and actions.

It is only when we seek to comprehend the 'sameness' of those philosophies that extend both back and forth into the past and the future, that we begin to recognize the 'universality' of human thought, morals and ethics and then the possible, 'absolute values' of such meanderings.

It is an 'objective' effort to comprehend that nature of man.

One puts aside faith and belief and personal prejudices and biases; puts aside gender and ethnic origins and proclivities, and embarks on a search for 'truth', or absolute knowledge about the nature of humanity.

It is, I might add, an honorable pursuit, requiring the utmost discipline so as not to corrupt that quest with faulty information.

Then of course the huge transition to apply the acquired knowledge to issues that one has an 'emotional' interest in, such as abortion, gay marriage, equality of women, equality of racial and ethnic groupings and a whole host of political and moral issues.

But then, of course, no one can even define what an 'emotion' might be, or from whence it came, either.

Such a deal.

Amicus...

 

[shereads]

Years ago, the comedian who played Father Guido Sarcucci on SNL began writing letters to politicians, corporations and government entities under the name "Laslo Toth," and published a book of their replies.

My favorite was his letter to NASA when the agency first outlined its plan to test for life on Mars by burning a soil sample. If the burned sample produced carbon, it would prove the existence of life.

Laslo Toth complained, "That won't prove there is life on Mars. It will prove there was life on Mars, and we killed it."

 

[amicus]

That is basically what the Phoenix mission is set out to accomplish, incinerating a sample of Martian soil/ice to determine if water and thus life, might have existed at one time.

Such a deal, eh?

Amicus...

 

[slyc_willie]

Intelligence and creativity give humanity the potential of 'figuring it all out.' It also gives us the potential of getting it all wrong.

I once wrote a hard SF story, with odes to Sagan and Clarke, in which humanity discovered that it was, indeed, not the only sentient race in the universe . . . we were just the last one. We missed the mark, so to speak. We were 'late bloomers.' The great secrets mankind uncovered had already been uncovered and known to thousands of other races before us. We were like Red Granger stepping onto the field of Superbowl 50 with a 'new' play . . . "Been there, done that."

I'm inclined to agree with you, Ami, that we need not focus. I see it all around me, all the time. We make life too difficult for ourselves. We revel in the advancements of technology, then lament how much more complicated and unhealthy we become because of it. Eventually, I like to think, we'll reach an equilibrium. But we'll probably cause a few worlds of pain, first.

 

[Liar]

Invention has many mothers. Nessecity, method, rationality. But also madness.

Illogic, irrational thought is one of the things that drives human kind onward. Bilateral thinking. Imagination. Dreams. The ability to come up with wild "what if"-ideas by the score.

...and to then gauge those dreams against what we rationally know. Here's a vision. Is it plausible? Or are there contradictions? And then again, dream up wild ways around those contradictions. And gauge them.

Even the old greeks, Aristotele, Plato and even Parminedes (who is the real originator of "it is what it is") were eager to stress the point of imagination, muse, divine inspiration.

What does this tell us regarding intelligent life in space? That the wild idea of "let's put up a radio telescope, and we can hear the Aliens' televisions" has many ways of plausibly failing. It is based on a narrow minded assumption that if aliens communicate, they do so with electromagnetic RF modulation.

Sometheing we've only done for about a hundred years. And something we are beginning to migrate from already.

So to see the lack of ET talk on the RF as evidence of their non existance is as naive as it was to believe scanning the radio waves would yield results. That's what reason tells me.

Before we can rule aliens out (or in), we need a thousand more "what if" dreams, and a hundred more plausible scenarios tested.

 

[amicus]

I had hoped the tone of my lil rant would convey my personal lack of intense focus on any one given discipline yet, at the same time, underline a wide and varied interest in everything from ant colonies to star clusters.

I don't have so much as a clue as to why I am blessed or cursed with such varoed amd disparate interests, except that all can be classed as knowledge, useful or not.

A line Jodie Foster uttered in 'Contact', concerning the frequency of the signal she discovered, "Just as I thought, "Hydrogen times Pi..."...

Electromagnetic phenomenon, as I understand, includes the wide range from light itself throughout the spectrum, including laser generation, which is where I sense you are going.

In other words, manipulation of that spectrum, somewhere within that spectrum, is the only means, within the physical laws of the universe, (as we know them), is the only means of communication over distance.

Also from "Contact". the transmission of 'prime numbers', as an universal beacon implies the primacy of mathematics in terms that all species would have common knowledge of that discipline.

Further, implied by all that, is the step by step, gradual widening of basic concepts, through a logical and rational progression to wider and wider knowledge.

I infer from that, that there could and should be civilizations at all levels of sophistication so even if the technology is far beyond homo sapiens, then the lesser beginnings should also be evident.

Also, the 'lack of evidence', does not prove the non existence of anything, as 'non existence', by definition, does not provide evidence. It merely indicates that no evidence has been discovered.

I find your closing thought, concerning, 'equilibrium', to be disturbing as I perceive the universe as eternally dynamic, a process of growing and changing and dying, a continual process of motion, as is the acquisition of knowledge.

On a mundane, political level, that is the glaring fault in political agendas that strive for equality and equilibrium, they are destined to fail as all things are constantly and irrevocably changing and in motion.

That, by definition, is the greatest threat that might engender species extinction and devolution, that of acquiring stasis or equality.

Change is inherent in the nature of life; to attempt to thwart that change, for whatever reason, is counter productive.

Amicus...

 

[CharleyH]

Years ago, the comedian who played Father Guido Sarcucci on SNL began writing letters to politicians, corporations and government entities under the name "Laslo Toth," and published a book of their replies.

My favorite was his letter to NASA when the agency first outlined its plan to test for life on Mars by burning a soil sample. If the burned sample produced carbon, it would prove the existence of life.

Laslo Toth complained, "That won't prove there is life on Mars. It will prove there was life on Mars, and we killed it."

Basically - you said it all. LOL

 

[shereads]

Basically - you said it all. LOL

Thank you, but as much as I'd love to take credit for his genius, it was Laslo Toth, American - aka Don Novello - who also gave us my favorite letter post-script:

"Keep Richard M. Nixon number one!
Keep Gerald R. Ford number two!"



[/threadjack]

Meanwhile, back on Mars...

 

[shereads]

If there is life on Mars, should we befriend it? Or taste it?

 

[Liar]

The Galaxy Song
- Eric Idle

Whenever life gets you down, Mrs. Brown,
And things seem hard or tough,
And people are stupid, obnoxious or daft,
And you feel that you've had quite eno-o-o-o-o-ough,

Just remember that you're standing on a planet that's evolving
And revolving at nine thousand miles an hour.
It's orbiting at nineteen miles a second, so it's reckoned,
The sun that is the source of all our power.
Now the sun, and you and me, and all the stars that we can see,
Are moving at a million miles a day,
In the outer spiral arm, at fourteen thousand miles an hour,
Of a galaxy we call the Milky Way.

Our galaxy itself contains a hundred million stars;
It's a hundred thousand light-years side to side;
It bulges in the middle sixteen thousand light-years thick,
But out by us it's just three thousand light-years wide.
We're thirty thousand light-years from Galactic Central Point,
We go 'round every two hundred million years;
And our galaxy itself is one of millions of billions
In this amazing and expanding universe.

Our universe itself keeps on expanding and expanding,
In all of the directions it can whiz;
As fast as it can go, that's the speed of light, you know,
Twelve million miles a minute and that's the fastest speed there is.
So remember, when you're feeling very small and insecure,
How amazingly unlikely is your birth;
And pray that there's intelligent life somewhere out in space,
'Cause there's bugger all down here on Earth!



And with that, I bid thee good night.

 

[shereads]

The Galaxy Song
- Eric Idle

Whenever life gets you down, Mrs. Brown,
And things seem hard or tough,
And people are stupid, obnoxious or daft,
And you feel that you've had quite eno-o-o-o-o-ough,

Just remember that you're standing on a planet that's evolving
And revolving at nine thousand miles an hour.
It's orbiting at nineteen miles a second, so it's reckoned,
The sun that is the source of all our power.
Now the sun, and you and me, and all the stars that we can see,
Are moving at a million miles a day,
In the outer spiral arm, at fourteen thousand miles an hour,
Of a galaxy we call the Milky Way.

Our galaxy itself contains a hundred million stars;
It's a hundred thousand light-years side to side;
It bulges in the middle sixteen thousand light-years thick,
But out by us it's just three thousand light-years wide.
We're thirty thousand light-years from Galactic Central Point,
We go 'round every two hundred million years;
And our galaxy itself is one of millions of billions
In this amazing and expanding universe.

Our universe itself keeps on expanding and expanding,
In all of the directions it can whiz;
As fast as it can go, that's the speed of light, you know,
Twelve million miles a minute and that's the fastest speed there is.
So remember, when you're feeling very small and insecure,
How amazingly unlikely is your birth;
And pray that there's intelligent life somewhere out in space,
'Cause there's bugger all down here on Earth!



And with that, I bid thee good night.

I'm still using my liver.