Do you think any aliens exist in the universe?

[excreationist]

Mind is nothing. The endocrine system is boss.

So if you and another person switched minds then the being with your original body is you and not the body your mind is in? That goes against everything I've learnt in body swap movies...

You cannot learn anything useful from movies.

In "The Hot Chick", Clive (Rob Schneider) and Jessica switch bodies. So the guy has the mind of the girl. So you're saying that if Jessica's boyfriend, Billy, wants the "real" Jessica then he should go after the girl even though she has the mind of Clive?

 

[bilby]

Mind is nothing. The endocrine system is boss.

So if you and another person switched minds then the being with your original body is you and not the body your mind is in? That goes against everything I've learnt in body swap movies...

You cannot learn anything useful from movies.

In "The Hot Chick", Clive (Rob Schneider) and Jessica switch bodies. So the guy has the mind of the girl. So you're saying that if Jessica's boyfriend, Billy, wants the "real" Jessica then he should go after the girl even though she has the mind of Clive?

I refer the honourable gentleman to the reply that I gave some moments ago.

 

[steve_bank]

If evolution as we see it is a universal constant, then out there are predators and prey.

 

[Loren Pechtel]

It is unproven that we will ever upload consciousness. I am skeptical. Uploading assumes consciousness is substrate independent. It may well not be. So-called artificial intelligence today is totally void of consciousness. Computers and brains function totally differently. We do not know how minds arise from brains. We do not know whence qualia arise. This is the hard problem of conscisousness.

While it would take longer to develop because of the computing power needed we could emulate the substrate. Then take a ship of Theseus approach to moving a brain into the simulator. That would probably add a few more zeroes to the MIPS of computing power needed but it should be subject to massive parallelization (the brain, after all, is the most extreme version of parallelization we have ever seen) and thus doesn't require superfast equipment.

If a physical spaceship with humans aboard could be propelled to a significant fraction of light speed, outbound travelers will be time-dilated and length contracted and could arrive at very distant stars in arbitrarily short times as measured by the ship’s proper time. Unfortunately it would be a one-way trip. If they returned to earth they would find that eons had passed and all their loved ones are long dead. In any case the energy requirements for propelling a physical ship to relativistic velocities are immense and will likely always remain beyond reach.

I do agree that relativistic travel might prove impossible. Upload + lightsail + conservative growth estimates still give expansion at around .001c, though--and when you try to model this on a galactic scale you find it actually expands even faster as the galaxy isn't a connected mass with a single rotation rate. Each star moves on it's own and the result is outward expansion is also antispinward expansion and inward expansion is also spinward expansion.

What else? Perhaps space warps, which are being studied. I won’t hold my breath.

Most likely we will destroy ourselves, as we are already doing with global warming, resource depletion and population overshoot. I suspect that in another century or so population will be greatly reduced, industrial civilization will have collapsed and our descendents will be struggling to feed themselves.

I do agree that the most likely explanation for the Fermi Paradox is the great filter is still in front of us.

 

[Loren Pechtel]

I’d also note that the idea that aliens or we ourselves would try to colonize habitable worlds overlooks the inconvenient detail that if a world is habitable, it likely is already inhabited. What would be the moral justification for displacing extant life so that we could seize their world for our own use? Zero justification.

I think an ethical species would avoid colonizing habitable worlds. Perhaps even avoid systems containing habitable worlds. However, a race capable of upload has no need of habitable worlds.

 

[Loren Pechtel]

It is unproven that we will ever upload consciousness. I am skeptical. Uploading assumes consciousness is substrate independent. It may well not be.

Our consciousness involves the "observer" (that experiences qualia) and our personality (involving our memories). If our biological brains are required for the observer part then maybe you could grow a brain in a vat then give it the appropriate memories....

Maybe, but there is some growing evidence — I read an interstring article on this recently — that minds need more than brains. They need entire bodies. If that is so, you can forget about brains in vats, too. I think Loren’s idea was to upload minds to computers that could be propelled by light sails. I was referring specfically to that.

And you can't emulate a body?!

And, no, I'm not talking about computers riding lightsails. Rather, the lightsail is carrying a factory. It finds an asteroid and builds a facility capable of receiving a laser message containing the data for the mind and loads it into a computer it built. Thus the people can move at lightspeed to any world with a base on it. Placing the bases is limited to the .01c of a lightsail.

 

[Loren Pechtel]

So a clone with an identical mind including all forms of memories is "no more" you than an identical twin that doesn't necessarily share any of the same memories (if they were raised separately)? I completely disagree. Clones of your memories, etc, would think that they're you - it's just that the original you is the first one to think they're you.

That's assuming the scanning process is nondestructive. I think it will be a lot harder to make a nondestructive scan that a destructive one. I think we will see upload come from billionaires facing death. Someone will take the chance.

 

[excreationist]

So a clone with an identical mind including all forms of memories is "no more" you than an identical twin that doesn't necessarily share any of the same memories (if they were raised separately)? I completely disagree. Clones of your memories, etc, would think that they're you - it's just that the original you is the first one to think they're you.

That's assuming the scanning process is nondestructive. I think it will be a lot harder to make a nondestructive scan that a destructive one. I think we will see upload come from billionaires facing death. Someone will take the chance.

That reminds me of this destructive scanning scene from "Upload".... (3:10)

 

[excreationist]

I think an ethical species would avoid colonizing habitable worlds. Perhaps even avoid systems containing habitable worlds. However, a race capable of upload has no need of habitable worlds.

Is it immoral to colonise Mars then? (especially a terraformed Mars?)

 

[excreationist]

I’d also note that the idea that aliens or we ourselves would try to colonize habitable worlds overlooks the inconvenient detail that if a world is habitable, it likely is already inhabited. What would be the moral justification for displacing extant life so that we could seize their world for our own use? Zero justification.

I think an ethical species would avoid colonizing habitable worlds. Perhaps even avoid systems containing habitable worlds. However, a race capable of upload has no need of habitable worlds.

Sorry I've never really come across that kind of view before.... except I think in Star Trek where you're not meant to interfere with primitive civilizations or something. It sounds like a civilization discovering a continent and deciding not to build a colony there because some people were already living there.... and even avoid it if no-one was there (since it is habitable).

 

[Loren Pechtel]

I think an ethical species would avoid colonizing habitable worlds. Perhaps even avoid systems containing habitable worlds. However, a race capable of upload has no need of habitable worlds.

Is it immoral to colonise Mars then? (especially a terraformed Mars?)

If there's native life we should leave it alone. I don't think there is (although I would not be at all surprised if there used to be.)

 

[excreationist]

I think an ethical species would avoid colonizing habitable worlds. Perhaps even avoid systems containing habitable worlds. However, a race capable of upload has no need of habitable worlds.

Is it immoral to colonise Mars then? (especially a terraformed Mars?)

If there's native life we should leave it alone. I don't think there is (although I would not be at all surprised if there used to be.)

I think it is likely that some of the descendants of a species like ours would be unethical in your view - some of them would probably want to colonise worlds with life - though perhaps leave almost all of it as a wildlife preserve. It would be good for scientists and maybe tourists. And might have good natural resources that can be harvested while protecting most of the life.

 

[pood]

Was just passing time by rereading this thread. It has been pretty good!

 

[Jokodo]

I think an ethical species would avoid colonizing habitable worlds. Perhaps even avoid systems containing habitable worlds. However, a race capable of upload has no need of habitable worlds.

Is it immoral to colonise Mars then? (especially a terraformed Mars?)

If there's native life we should leave it alone. I don't think there is (although I would not be at all surprised if there used to be.)

I think it is likely that some of the descendants of a species like ours would be unethical in your view - some of them would probably want to colonise worlds with life - though perhaps leave almost all of it as a wildlife preserve. It would be good for scientists and maybe tourists. And might have good natural resources that can be harvested while protecting most of the life.

I do like my share of science-fiction that's predicated on that exact notion, but in this real world, I have to disappoint you: Harvesting natural resources for use on another planet, or in another solar system, is never going to be economical because physics.

 

[pood]

I think an ethical species would avoid colonizing habitable worlds. Perhaps even avoid systems containing habitable worlds. However, a race capable of upload has no need of habitable worlds.

Is it immoral to colonise Mars then? (especially a terraformed Mars?)

If there's native life we should leave it alone. I don't think there is (although I would not be at all surprised if there used to be.)

I think it is likely that some of the descendants of a species like ours would be unethical in your view - some of them would probably want to colonise worlds with life - though perhaps leave almost all of it as a wildlife preserve. It would be good for scientists and maybe tourists. And might have good natural resources that can be harvested while protecting most of the life.

I do like my share of science-fiction that's predicated on that exact notion, but in this real world, I have to disappoint you: Harvesting natural resources for use on another planet, or in another solar system, is never going to be economical because physics.

And harvesting the resources of another world with life on it would be deeply unethical.

 

[bilby]

I think an ethical species would avoid colonizing habitable worlds. Perhaps even avoid systems containing habitable worlds. However, a race capable of upload has no need of habitable worlds.

Is it immoral to colonise Mars then? (especially a terraformed Mars?)

If there's native life we should leave it alone. I don't think there is (although I would not be at all surprised if there used to be.)

I think it is likely that some of the descendants of a species like ours would be unethical in your view - some of them would probably want to colonise worlds with life - though perhaps leave almost all of it as a wildlife preserve. It would be good for scientists and maybe tourists. And might have good natural resources that can be harvested while protecting most of the life.

I do like my share of science-fiction that's predicated on that exact notion, but in this real world, I have to disappoint you: Harvesting natural resources for use on another planet, or in another solar system, is never going to be economical because physics.

Science fiction has never been stories about the future; It's always stories about human behaviour in the present or the recent past, but set in the future for various reasons.

One common reason is to avoid directly insulting the people who are doing stuff that's ignoble (like raping our planet for its resources) today.

 

[lpetrich]

Science fiction has never been stories about the future; It's always stories about human behaviour in the present or the recent past, but set in the future for various reasons.

One common reason is to avoid directly insulting the people who are doing stuff that's ignoble (like raping our planet for its resources) today.

That's true of *some* science fiction, but much of it is about how we would work with future or hypothetical technology.

For instance, a story with self-driving cars would be about what happens to manual driving. Will it become restricted? Outlawed? Isaac Asimov once wrote "Sally" about the latter scenario - it's in "Nightfall and Other Stories".

 

[bilby]

Science fiction has never been stories about the future; It's always stories about human behaviour in the present or the recent past, but set in the future for various reasons.

One common reason is to avoid directly insulting the people who are doing stuff that's ignoble (like raping our planet for its resources) today.

That's true of *some* science fiction, but much of it is about how we would work with future or hypothetical technology.

For instance, a story with self-driving cars would be about what happens to manual driving. Will it become restricted? Outlawed? Isaac Asimov once wrote "Sally" about the latter scenario - it's in "Nightfall and Other Stories".

You don't think that story is about slavery, and the mistreatment of people viewed as inherently inferior, once they're no longer able to produce wealth for those who exploit them?

Perhaps you should read it again.

 

[Jimmy Higgins]

I think an ethical species would avoid colonizing habitable worlds. Perhaps even avoid systems containing habitable worlds. However, a race capable of upload has no need of habitable worlds.

Is it immoral to colonise Mars then? (especially a terraformed Mars?)

If there's native life we should leave it alone. I don't think there is (although I would not be at all surprised if there used to be.)

I think it is likely that some of the descendants of a species like ours would be unethical in your view - some of them would probably want to colonise worlds with life - though perhaps leave almost all of it as a wildlife preserve. It would be good for scientists and maybe tourists. And might have good natural resources that can be harvested while protecting most of the life.

I do like my share of science-fiction that's predicated on that exact notion, but in this real world, I have to disappoint you: Harvesting natural resources for use on another planet, or in another solar system, is never going to be economical because physics.

Science fiction has never been stories about the future; It's always stories about human behaviour in the present or the recent past, but set in the future for various reasons.

One common reason is to avoid directly insulting the people who are doing stuff that's ignoble (like raping our planet for its resources) today.

Yes. HG Wells, The Time Machine, where it extrapolates current labor conditions into the future, where workers become Morlocks and eat the the uber wealthy that degenerated into chubby hedonistic idiots.

No. HG Wells, War of the Worlds, get attacked by Mars. We win because Jenny McCarthy got to them first on vaccinations.

Kind of. Arthur C Clarke, Enders Game, man named Orson Scott Card goes back in time to take create for writing Enders Game.

 

[ZiprHead]

Suspected UFO shot down over Russia

A mystery object described by one local news outlet as a “UFO” has been shot down in the southern Russian region of Rostov.

houstonherald.com

A mystery object described by one local news outlet as a “UFO” has been shot down in the southern Russian region of Rostov.

Vasily Golubev, the governor of Rostov oblast, wrote on Telegram that a “small-size object in the shape of a ball” had been discovered flying “in the wind” at an altitude of around one and a half miles on January 3. With the object spotted above the village of Sultan Sala in the region’s Myasnikovsky district, Golubev said “the decision was taken to liquidate it.”

“I urge everyone to remain calm. To ensure security, all forces and means are involved. The sky is covered with anti-aircraft defenses,” he added, without specifying what the object was.

Stay in the know with a subscription to the Houston Herald.

In reporting his comments, local news outlet Pivyet Rostov carried a headline that said “a UFO in the form of a ball was shot down in the sky.”

Telegram channels that night described how air defense systems in Rostov had been operating. The channel Ostorozhna, Novosti (Caution, News) published a video showing a shining object flying and then exploding in the sky.

“Look, another one has gone,” someone is heard saying in the clip, which was captioned, “another video of the work of Rostov regional air defenses.” A witness told the channel how “there was a very strong explosion” and that “everything in the house shook. We realized that the air defenses were in operation.”

Rostov borders the Sea of Azov, which is connected to the Black Sea by the Strait of Kerch, a strategic location for both sides of the war in Ukraine. Since the start of Vladimir Putin‘s invasion, the oblast near Ukraine has been subjected to regular shelling and drone attacks.

Ukrainian flying object?