How different is “different”?
Some people so very badly want space aliens to be real!
A “top scientist” at NASA has suggested that “tiny super-intelligent” ETs may have already visited earth and that we need to rethink our whole concept of aliens (https://www.thesun.co.uk/tech/7885699/nasa-aliens-alien-life-ufo-sightings/).
See, they might be so profoundly different from what we expect, we wouldn’t even realize they were intelligent life. It depends on what “is” is. Like, for aliens that resemble, say, handfuls of sand and have a life-span of millions of years, interstellar travel would be no big deal. Anyway, the “top scientist” says we ought to step up our search for intelligent extraterrestrial life. He does not say why.
To look at it from another angle, we might be so totally different from them, that they wouldn’t even recognize us as being living things, let alone intelligent life.
This could lead to some really cool science fiction stories and movies–if there were still some really cool science fiction writers around to write them. C.L. Moore, James Blish, Theodore Sturgeon–ah, what you could’ve done with this material!
Einstein wrote of the effects of the measurer on the measurement. I forgot what it’s called. NASA, always one for jumping to conclusions just before funding time, may have jumped at a fly in their ointment.
I think it’s Heisenberg’s Uncertainty Principle; but don’t quote me.
Ask Unknowable, he’ll know.
Thanks. I always use Einstein as a source when I don’t remember the real source. After all, what are the odds?
I’ll have to remember that!
Of course, you can always invent a source. A lot of politicians do that.
A politician?!! Oi. Even at my worst I don’t have enough sin to jump into a free-for-all swamp for all the money in the world. PS: I don’t actually ‘invent’ a source. I’ve just found that when I attribute certain things that I believe “could” be from Einstein i’m right about 50% of the time. The odds, sir, the odds. But when it comes to you, Mr. Lee Duigon, I sometimes forget whom I’m dealing with – lol.
Einstein himself stated that 67.231% of all statistics and Einstein quotes are made up on the spot. 🙂
The above is absolute nonsense, BTW. I make it up on the spot.
Heisenberg’s principle on was that you couldn’t know that absolute position and absolute velocity of a particle, knowing one of these things to a certainty would make it impossible to know the other fact.
The phenomenon Marlene mentions is known as the Observer Effect. The Observer Effect happens in all sorts of things but becomes very evident in quantum mechanics and is used as a proof of Heisenberg’s principle.
Now, I must retire to the nerdery. 🙂
Adam was the first man. So if their are aliens similar to us they were made after Adam. The whole thing is loony tunes – just another way to escape facing Reality: “In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth.” Proverbs tells man to go to the ant to learn of being a worker, Biology tells man to look at a single cell of your body to see intelligence beyond human understanding – you know, the genetic code.
Well stated, sir.
This “top scientist” obviously still misses the imaginary friend he had when he was a child, so he’s coming up with new ones under the guise of “science.” Tsk. Poor thing. Maybe he should join a book club or knitting circle instead. 🙂
How does he know the fire hydrants he sees on the street are really fire hydrants, and not really different space aliens who think we look like fire hydrants?
Plus ET life just may exist in a higher dimension which could literally be right in front of us. It is all about perspective. Have a positive day!