[Kraelis]

I never said you were attacking it.

Technology does not increase in a linear progression. It's expansion is exponential (well, sort of). Look at the 20th century if you don't believe me. We develop tools that help us create new tools.

"Linear" as in the sense of once you get to FTL travel, you assume that you know pretty much a LOT of other stuff.... ah.. what the heck, you already acknowledged that assumption of yours. I guess "unified" may be a better term. But... anyway....

But I really made a small assumption. I assumed that any race that developed FTL travel must be a curious race, so that they would do research on all fronts, biology included. And cloning is a small feat compared to FTL travel. See, we already can make clones but we're not even close to FTL travel. But all of this is unecessary, really.

If they're so interested in biology as to come to a far away planet and take samples from their cattle, then their technology is surely advanced enough to include cloning (see my point above about cloning being way easier than FTL travel).

Depends, really, on their priorities. We don't have sufficient proof that if we had been able to put much more effort on space travel, at the cost of other sciences, we might be closer to FTL than we are to cloning. What if they had some form of belief which barred genetic research?

You can argue (as I did in another thread) that curiosity is not necessarly needed for technological development. But if a race does not possess this curiosity, they wouldn't be doing experiments with Earthly cattle, would they?

As you said... Intergalatic pranksters. :lol:

It's illogical from a game theoretical perspective, and also for engineering reasons. Game theory holds true for everyone in the universe. If a race hasn't discovered it, then they can't do FTL travel... really.

It would be if it followed a reasoning if resources were scarce and emotions / alien personal preferences were not in play. Besides, they might have a Bush there too. Simply because something is possible in an effecient manner doesn't mean it will be done that way. A lot of factors have to be considered as well.

Have you seen manned expeditions to Pluto? Do you know why we never sent anyone there (even though many people would be willing to go)? Because it's too costly. And why would aliens waste their time going to another planet to mutilate cattle and make crop circles? Maybe they're intergalactic pranksters?

None. But the point is, man would want to go there nonetheless. We don't know the mechanics of the implementation of FTL. We don't know their coping mechanism. Besides, it might not be too expensive for them.

I can't see why not. It's very hard to get rid of your instincts. Are you jealous of your GF/wife? That's an instinct. Do you like to have sex? That's an instinct too. I don't see we getting rid of any of these instincts any time soon.
...
Emotional content and intelligence are orthogonal to each other. Study evolutionary psychology, neuroscience and cognitive psychology and you'll see it.

Yeah, but imagine what would happen if humans could not control these instincts. We might not have progressed much if at all. To be human is precisely to be above the carnal instincts.

Anyway, this advanced species of yours wants to mutilate alien cattle and make crop circles. Is that really better than conquest?

It *might* have a practical use for them, but it's way better than conquest. Would like to die in an alien onslaught?

Of course, all my arguments would come crashing down in the face of an efficient-as-AI intellect. :hdbash:

Anyway.... we're arguing over matters that we really know squat about. It's fun, but let's not get carried away. Unless, there's actually an alien around here already (sounds like Stephen Hawkings' refusal to make a bet on time travel :lol: )

 

[WindHydra]

I thought crop circle mystery is already solved... isn't it made by some people attaching a pole to 2 trucks and drive in circles? oO And they can put variations on the pole to make different patterns.

And why would ANYONE think aliens mutilated the cows BEFORE they think of pranksters (or animals)

 

[dpence]

Don't try to compare aliens who are able to build ships which travel faster than light to primitive human scientists. Your argument is completely bogus.

If they are this advanced and just want to do some experimenting, they'd simply send a probe to retrieve a DNA sample from our cows (no need to waste resources on a manned mission) and clone all the cows they wanted (even allowing for genetic diversity if they wanted it).

The way you put it, you make the aliens look like 18th century human scientists doing experiments on abiogenesis.



So they travel thousands of light years to mutilate cattle and make crop circles? And you call this an intelligent species?

If anything, Independence Day got the right idea. They wouldn't come wanting to mutilate our cattle, or talk about how we should stop manufacturing nuclear weapons. They would come to conquer. This is the simplest instinct in nature, and it's not unlikely to happen somewhere else.

I'm shocked at you!!!!
With all your Scientific stuff, you never thought that they could be US from 1000 Years in the future??? Time travel and all...It could be like todays archeologists, Rozwell, site of Nuclear experiments...would be of prime interest...The Mexican earthquake (Another major close encounter). Cattle could be extinct so that would meake them of interest...

 

[dpence]

I thought crop circle mystery is already solved... isn't it made by some people attaching a pole to 2 trucks and drive in circles? oO And they can put variations on the pole to make different patterns.

And why would ANYONE think aliens mutilated the cows BEFORE they think of pranksters (or animals)

The pranksters or animals would have to be skilled in medical and surgery skills. And adept at using laser cutting instruments...
The mutilations with those qualities are what are of interest...

As to the crop circles, some are man made, some are not...there are distinct characteristics between the two when they are examined...plus some are just to huge and do not ever dissipate to be man made or upkept daily without being seen.

 

[Player-X]

The pranksters or animals would have to be skilled in medical and surgery skills. And adept at using laser cutting instruments...
The mutilations with those qualities are what are of interest...

like what quailties?

As to the crop circles, some are man made, some are not...there are distinct characteristics between the two when they are examined...plus some are just to huge and do not ever dissipate to be man made or upkept daily without being seen.

What distinct charicstics, the size can be replicated with time and a big board, and what do you mean by "do not ever dissipate to be man made or upkept daily without being seen."?

 

[Boltzmann]

"Linear" as in the sense of once you get to FTL travel, you assume that you know pretty much a LOT of other stuff.... ah.. what the heck, you already acknowledged that assumption of yours. I guess "unified" may be a better term. But... anyway....

Considering that cloning is waaaaaaay easier to do than FTL travel. My assumption is not unwarranted if you consider the complexity of the tasks involved (coupled to the assumption that the race in question is curious to begin with, which is a safe assumption as I demonstrated).

Depends, really, on their priorities. We don't have sufficient proof that if we had been able to put much more effort on space travel, at the cost of other sciences, we might be closer to FTL than we are to cloning. What if they had some form of belief which barred genetic research?

Cloning is not even a very costly research (esp. in the first stages). FTL, on the other hand, will be MASSIVELY expensive (especially in terms of energy cost).

Anyway, do you see how you’re making increasingly worse assumptions in order to explain the data? (Aliens with a belief against cloning travelling to a planet millions of light years away just to mutilate their cattle and make experiments with them?) It’s a clear sign that your hypothesis is a flawed one (just like ancient astronomers trying to save the Ptolemaic system had to make increasingly complicated assumptions that made no snese at all).

It would be if it followed a reasoning if resources were scarce and emotions / alien personal preferences were not in play. Besides, they might have a Bush there too. Simply because something is possible in an effecient manner doesn't mean it will be done that way. A lot of factors have to be considered as well.

We’ve massively stupid politicians here, like Bush. Have we gone to Pluto yet? Will we go there in the near future (assuming that the Singularity doesn’t come)? I don’t think so. We could go there if we really wanted to, but the cost is just prohibitive. Not even Bush would want to go to Pluto.

None. But the point is, man would want to go there nonetheless. We don't know the mechanics of the implementation of FTL. We don't know their coping mechanism. Besides, it might not be too expensive for them.

If FTL was cheap enough for us to go to travel from planet to planet, then we’d most certainly want to meet with alien races, not mutilate cattle and make crop circles.

Yeah, but imagine what would happen if humans could not control these instincts. We might not have progressed much if at all. To be human is precisely to be above the carnal instincts.

To be humane is to be above the carnal instincts. These instincts are part of what makes us humans, but not humane. There’s a subtle difference.

BTW, evolution also provided us with the means to control our instincts. We’ve overriding mechanisms in our brains just to do that. Lacking these mechanisms you can’t really control yourself. Go read about neuropathologies and you’ll understand me.

It *might* have a practical use for them, but it's way better than conquest. Would like to die in an alien onslaught?

Of course, all my arguments would come crashing down in the face of an efficient-as-AI intellect. :hdbash:

Anyway.... we're arguing over matters that we really know squat about. It's fun, but let's not get carried away. Unless, there's actually an alien around here already (sounds like Stephen Hawkings' refusal to make a bet on time travel :lol: )

My point is that the simplest hypothesis is that aliens are NOT here, and that all these blurry videos/pictures are fake, and that all the testimonial evidence is either the product of deliberate lies or self-deception.

Seee, you can make round orbits fit the cosmological data if you do a LOT math gimmick (creating VERY complicated models). But elypitcal orbits are much simpler, and require less assumptions. Guess which one proved to be true?

You can either think that all these alien sightings are fake (or mistakes) or that very advanced aliens are traveling millions of light years to mutilate our cattle and make crop circles for some unknown reason that must be beneficial for them (and you need to make a lot of assumptions about their psychology, technology and economy for this model to sound plausible). I wouldn’t bet my money on the second hypothesis; that’s why I assign a very small probability to it.

 

[Boltzmann]

I'm shocked at you!!!!
With all your Scientific stuff, you never thought that they could be US from 1000 Years in the future??? Time travel and all...It could be like todays archeologists, Rozwell, site of Nuclear experiments...would be of prime interest...The Mexican earthquake (Another major close encounter). Cattle could be extinct so that would meake them of interest...

And why would our future selves come in badly designed flying saucers and let themselves be seen by present humans (assuming that they’re trying to conceal their presence, or else how do you explain that they made no formal contact?)?

A thousand years from now cloning technology will be perfected, so there’ll be no need to be worried about extinction of cattle (and even if they wanted samples, why mutilate the cattle?). The crop circles would also be unexplained by the time traveler hypothesis (unless we’re talking about teenager time traveler pranksters )

Besides, and that’s my personal opinion, I think that so far in the future we’ll either have gone extinct or everything will be plentiful (thanks to nanotechnology and other transhuman techs).

BTW, have you heard about MIT’s Time Traveler Convention 2005? It seems like they had no real time travelers there