Solar Systems Like Ours in the Minority

[RexMundi]

Re: Solar Systems Like Ours in the Minority

 

Alright. I'll bite. If you NEVER, have a speculative thought, and then of course, never have to prove your thought versus someone else's speculative thoughts, How do you ever advance to the point, of proving or disproving?

 

~Rex

[Kristopher]

Re: Solar Systems Like Ours in the Minority

 

Alright. I'll bite. If you NEVER' date=' have a speculative thought, and then of course, never have to prove your thought versus someone else's speculative thoughts, How do you ever advance to the point, of proving or disproving?[/quote']

 

Speculative thoughts, questioning thoughts, sure, those are needed.

 

There wasn't a rigorous philosophical process of any sort in prehistory, really, and the rigorous scientific process you allude to is only a few centuries old at most. The invention of tools, and the discovery of fire, did not involve years of debate, or getting your paper past the publishing committee.

[austenandrews]

Re: Solar Systems Like Ours in the Minority

 

There's no problem with speculation. There's just a problem with that particular speculation.

[RexMundi]

Re: Solar Systems Like Ours in the Minority

 

Speculative thoughts, questioning thoughts, sure, those are needed.

 

There wasn't a rigorous philosophical process of any sort in prehistory, really, and the rigorous scientific process you allude to is only a few centuries old at most. The invention of tools, and the discovery of fire, did not involve years of debate, or getting your paper past the publishing committee.

 

Hmmm.....Says Who?

 

~Rex

[austenandrews]

Re: Solar Systems Like Ours in the Minority

 

"Yyyyeahhhh... about this 'fire' thing. I'm gonna need you to file a TPS report with the Innovation Committee before I can approve that project for the discretionary spending bucket. Some concerns have been raised about potential safety issues, so we'll have to propose an agenda item for next quarter's Workplace Safety Recommendation Taskforce..."

[Nyrath]

Re: Solar Systems Like Ours in the Minority

 

Ad hominem? I guess that tells us what we need to know about the defensibility of the "Paradox".

 

Heh. You really think I'm the one true defender of the Fermi Pardox? Or that one can do an Ad hominem by using quotations? No, there just seems to be a pattern emerging from your posts.

[RexMundi]

Re: Solar Systems Like Ours in the Minority

 

"Yyyyeahhhh... about this 'fire' thing. I'm gonna need you to file a TPS report with the Innovation Committee before I can approve that project for the discretionary spending bucket. Some concerns have been raised about potential safety issues' date=' so we'll have to propose an agenda item for next quarter's Workplace Safety Recommendation Taskforce..."[/quote']

 

LOL. I rep that one heh.

 

~Rex

[Kristopher]

Re: Solar Systems Like Ours in the Minority

 

Heh. You really think I'm the one true defender of the Fermi Pardox?

 

No.

 

In fact, I'm quite aware that I'm in the minority in thinking that it's much ado about nothing.

 

Or that one can do an Ad hominem by using quotations?

 

Perhaps "ad personam", then -- making it about the person instead of the subject.

 

No' date=' there just seems to be a pattern emerging from your posts.[/quote']

 

What, that I think a lot of speculation is pointless because we don't have sufficient information, and that a lot of "that is impossible" talk puts the cart before the horse?

[RexMundi]

Re: Solar Systems Like Ours in the Minority

 

Nothings Impossible. Impossible just means we haven't figured out a way to do it yet.

 

~Rex

[Cancer]

Re: Solar Systems Like Ours in the Minority

 

Nothings Impossible. Impossible just means we haven't figured out a way to do it yet.

 

Or, perhaps, finesse our way around it.

[RexMundi]

Re: Solar Systems Like Ours in the Minority

 

Exactly!

 

~Rex

[Nyrath]

Re: Solar Systems Like Ours in the Minority

 

No' date=' there just seems to be a pattern emerging from your posts.[/quote']

What' date=' that I think a lot of speculation is pointless because we don't have sufficient information, and that a lot of "that is impossible" talk puts the cart before the horse?[/quote']

Pattern:

1. New topic appears in Hero Forum's Star Hero section, discussing application of something scientific to a Star Hero campaign
   
2. Some discussion occurs
   
3. Kristopher appears, stating that he has read all about the scientific principle in question, it does not make sense to him, so therefore thousands of scientists must be wrong.
   
4. Others patiently try to explain the scientific principle to Kristopher
   
5. Kristopher states that the explanation is just a re-hash of what he read before, therefore the others are wrong as well.
   
6. A few pages of this ensues
   
7. and the original point of the thread, applying the scientific principle to a campaign, has been utterly derailed
   

 

I would have added you to my Ignore list a long time ago, but you cannot do that to moderators.

[Sweeper]

Re: Solar Systems Like Ours in the Minority

 

Nyrath besieged him, with Science! (Couldn't resist)

[Kristopher]

Re: Solar Systems Like Ours in the Minority

 

Pattern:

1. New topic appears in Hero Forum's Star Hero section, discussing application of something scientific to a Star Hero campaign
   
2. Some discussion occurs
   
3. Kristopher appears, stating that he has read all about the scientific principle in question, it does not make sense to him, so therefore thousands of scientists must be wrong.
   
4. Others patiently try to explain the scientific principle to Kristopher
   
5. Kristopher states that the explanation is just a re-hash of what he read before, therefore the others are wrong as well.
   
6. A few pages of this ensues
   
7. and the original point of the thread, applying the scientific principle to a campaign, has been utterly derailed
   

 

I would have added you to my Ignore list a long time ago, but you cannot do that to moderators.

 

You have exactly one actual example of that, regarding the FTL / relativity discussions, mainly as it relates to "time travel". And the big go-around on that topic was because I wasn't using the right terminology or something to ask the question I wanted answered.

 

The Fermi "Paradox" isn't a scientific principle. It's just two assumptions that seem to be in conflict. Big whoop.

 

EDIT: And you know, it gets really old when you say you don't agree with something, and almost instantly someone says "then read this very basic summary, you're wrong". If I hadn't read about the topic, I wouldn't have posted about it! I mean really, no one can ever disagree if they've read the basics? Come on...

[Nyrath]

Re: Solar Systems Like Ours in the Minority

 

You just don't get it, do you?

OK, I've had enough.

[Kristopher]

Re: Solar Systems Like Ours in the Minority

 

You just don't get it' date=' do you?[/quote']

 

No, evidently, I don't get what you're trying to say.

 

It's not like I've said anything that could be considered remotely insulting to you, or about you. I'm not out to tick you off, either.

[Cancer]

Re: Solar Systems Like Ours in the Minority

 

Yes, I've read all sorts of detailed discussions and explorations of the Fermi "Paradox".

 

It doesn't tell us anything.

 

All we know is that we haven't seen signs of anyone else yet. That's it. All that tells us, is exactly that, and only that. Nothing more.

 

I have to disagree. It tells you something valuable: that the easiest-imagined scenario doesn't work. Therefore something else is going on. You don't know what yet, but something else important is going on. Consideration of what that other thing(s) could be can be exceedingly productive, because you can turn your efforts to studying the alternatives can lead you to discover things you didn't know. This is a classic pattern of scientific inquiry, and one of the most productive. This next is not intended as an insult, but as a scientist I will say that to do the simple blanket dismissal you seem to be doing is to commit an Epic Fail for scientific inquiry. You're missing a grand opportunity, to examine the assumptions within your initial inquiry, tease out the consequences of each one (not only to the question immediately at hand, but what else may follow as a consequence in other questions), see if you can identify where your initial assumptions are going wrong.

 

For technological reasons it has been difficult to make progress over the last 60 years or so, but significant progress has been made. As of about 20 years ago we became able to state definitely that there aren't large fusion rocket propelled starships moving around nearby the in the galaxy: such things could be detected and recognized. So one possible alternative (that they are out there and we couldn't tell) has been, to a limited degree, eliminated. Going back to the topic in the OP, the statistics on exoplanets also bear on that: of the 450 approx systems we know, there are very few systems that look like ours. Sure, there's selection effects that operate in that sample, but there are programs in progress as we debate now that will give us much stronger information in five years. If it turns out that earthlike planets in long-term stable star systems are much rarer than we think, well, that's one possible resolution. If Kepler finds such systems in the numbers people expect, then we must look elsewhere for the resolution of the paradox. Maybe the Brownlee-Ward "Rare Earth" ideas are right, that Galactic environment matters as much as just the star system, and everything closer to the galactic center than 3 kpc (or 5 kpc or 8 kpc) gets sterilized by supernovae blasts before it gets the ~2 Gyr it needs to evolve from first cell to technologists, and those parts further than 12 kpc (or 10 kpc or 8 kpc) don't have enough heavy-element content to spawn adequate numbers of planets to get one that is adequate for life to get started. That leads off toward its own lines of inquiry about evolutionary biology and the abiotic origins of life. In short, the profit is not merely in the paradox itself; it's pursuing where the paradox might be resolved that the gains are, and chasing down those questions that brings out other knowledge (which will bear on this and other questions in ways you cannot now predict).

 

Only when considered on the shallowest level does the Paradox get you as little as you are asserting.

 

Sorry if I'm sounding like a zealot here, but, well, I am a zealot about this. This is a microcosm of why science is an infinite frontier and why things you don't understand are the key to learning more. The very fact you don't understand something means you have an opportunity to learn something new, and you don't know what when you start pursuing it, but it will pay off -- unless you drop it. And that, I suspect, is why Nyrath has got frustrated with you.

[Kristopher]

Re: Solar Systems Like Ours in the Minority

 

I have to disagree. It tells you something valuable: that the easiest-imagined scenario doesn't work. Therefore something else is going on. You don't know what yet' date=' but something else important is going on. Consideration of what that other thing(s) could be can be exceedingly productive, because you can turn your efforts to studying the alternatives can lead you to discover things you didn't know. This is a [u']classic[/u] pattern of scientific inquiry, and one of the most productive. This next is not intended as an insult, but as a scientist I will say that to do the simple blanket dismissal you seem to be doing is to commit an Epic Fail for scientific inquiry. You're missing a grand opportunity, to examine the assumptions within your initial inquiry, tease out the consequences of each one (not only to the question immediately at hand, but what else may follow as a consequence in other questions), see if you can identify where your initial assumptions are going wrong.

 

For technological reasons it has been difficult to make progress over the last 60 years or so, but significant progress has been made. As of about 20 years ago we became able to state definitely that there aren't large fusion rocket propelled starships moving around nearby the in the galaxy: such things could be detected and recognized. So one possible alternative (that they are out there and we couldn't tell) has been, to a limited degree, eliminated. Going back to the topic in the OP, the statistics on exoplanets also bear on that: of the 450 approx systems we know, there are very few systems that look like ours. Sure, there's selection effects that operate in that sample, but there are programs in progress as we debate now that will give us much stronger information in five years. If it turns out that earthlike planets in long-term stable star systems are much rarer than we think, well, that's one possible resolution. If Kepler finds such systems in the numbers people expect, then we must look elsewhere for the resolution of the paradox. Maybe the Brownlee-Ward "Rare Earth" ideas are right, that Galactic environment matters as much as just the star system, and everything closer to the galactic center than 3 kpc (or 5 kpc or 8 kpc) gets sterilized by supernovae blasts before it gets the ~2 Gyr it needs to evolve from first cell to technologists, and those parts further than 12 kpc (or 10 kpc or 8 kpc) don't have enough heavy-element content to spawn adequate numbers of planets to get one that is adequate for life to get started. That leads off toward its own lines of inquiry about evolutionary biology and the abiotic origins of life. In short, the profit is not merely in the paradox itself; it's pursuing where the paradox might be resolved that the gains are, and chasing down those questions that brings out other knowledge (which will bear on this and other questions in ways you cannot now predict).

 

Only when considered on the shallowest level does the Paradox get you as little as you are asserting.

 

Sorry if I'm sounding like a zealot here, but, well, I am a zealot about this. This is a microcosm of why science is an infinite frontier and why things you don't understand are the key to learning more. The very fact you don't understand something means you have an opportunity to learn something new, and you don't know what when you start pursuing it, but it will pay off -- unless you drop it. And that, I suspect, is why Nyrath has got frustrated with you.

 

And I wouldn't argue with any of that.

 

1) I may very well be hung up on the name, because to me, it's not a paradox. Conflicting assumptions do not a paradox make -- it just means that you're missing something, or outright wrong.

 

2) The assumptions behind the "paradox" are so often stated with much unjustified conviction -- especially the one about the colonial spread of alien species. You can compile a list of hundreds of reasons that any particular species might "fail" to do so, and at least one person in the discussion will say, in effect, "Doesn't matter, it would still happen." It's almost as if the colonial spread is taken on faith, or as an axiom.

 

3) My reaction to a setup such as the Fermi "Paradox" is one of "OK, let's look into it, and see what we can find out, but until we know more, let's not jump to any conclusions or get too damn wound up about it." I hate it when people jump to conclusions, and it only takes one right guess in ten for them to think that it's justified, because most people seem to remember success more easily and strongly than failure.

[Clonus]

Re: Solar Systems Like Ours in the Minority

 

It is infinitely easier to walk a few miles and set up camp than it is to create a multigenerational spacecraft' date=' get enough passengers to have a genetically viable colony to go where they have never been, and may die of old age before they arrive and can never come back from. The first requires nothing more than an argument with the parents, the latter required something along the lines of religious fervour[/quote']

 

I'm aware of that. It's really beside the point which is that if a species spread across over the Galaxy over the course of 50 million years, that would not be a 50 million year colonization effort. It would be many different colonization efforts of much shorter duration.

[Clonus]

Re: Solar Systems Like Ours in the Minority

 

Yes, I've read all sorts of detailed discussions and explorations of the Fermi "Paradox".

 

It doesn't tell us anything.

 

All we know is that we haven't seen signs of anyone else yet. That's it. All that tells us, is exactly that, and only that. Nothing more.

 

Not true. It tells us something else. It tells us that the 50s version of the galaxy, one which swarmed with advanced tool using civilisations travelling from star to star is not what we'll find. Either tool using life is low probability, or interstellar travel is impractical, or of course both. Because if at least one of those things was not true, there would be no us to ask the question.

[The Weapon]

Re: Solar Systems Like Ours in the Minority

 

Kristopher[/b]]

 

Yes, I've read all sorts of detailed discussions and explorations of the Fermi "Paradox".

 

It doesn't tell us anything.

 

All we know is that we haven't seen signs of anyone else yet. That's it. All that tells us, is exactly that, and only that. Nothing more.

Not true. It tells us something else. It tells us that the 50s version of the galaxy, one which swarmed with advanced tool using civilisations travelling from star to star is not what we'll find. Either tool using life is low probability, or interstellar travel is impractical, or of course both. Because if at least one of those things was not true, there would be no us to ask the question.

 

No it just tells us that there isn't such a swarm of civilisation eager to contact us. Possibly we haven't got anything worth trading or invading for.

[RexMundi]

Re: Solar Systems Like Ours in the Minority

 

Or, it tells us much like the Michael W. Gear novel "Starstrike", said advanced civilizations decided to hop into the forum to test first contact, then were brutally dismissed, attacked and mauled by someone that didn't agree with them, hence, resulting in our Interdiction from the rest of Galactic Society as a race of uncultured vicious barbarians that seek to solve all issues by attacking anything that moves, and if it's not moving, we pick it up and attack it.

 

~Rex

[Kristopher]

Re: Solar Systems Like Ours in the Minority

 

Not true. It tells us something else. It tells us that the 50s version of the galaxy' date=' one which swarmed with advanced tool using civilisations travelling from star to star is not what we'll find. Either tool using life is low probability, or interstellar travel is impractical, or of course both. Because if at least one of those things was not true, there would be no us to ask the question.[/quote']

 

There's an unspoken assumption in there, still. It's no more reasonable to assume that we'd have been wiped out if there were others already out there, than it is to assume that any civilization that had achieved interstellar travel would have "overcome war and violence".

[Ian Mackinder]

Re: Solar Systems Like Ours in the Minority

 

Leaping headlong into this ...

 

Consider our understanding of the Solar System 30 years ago, as best I can recall of what was being taught and printed back then. The prevalent view seemed to be that just about every moon was a desolate mass of rock (and occasionally ice) not so different from our own moon. The planets weren't much better. Jupiter and Saturn were one class of gas giant, Uranus and Neptune were another class, Mars was a rock with a trace atmosphere and that probably never had life, and so on.

 

Funny what a differance 30 years makes. It has since been revealed just how varied and downright interesting our Solar System is, and just how tenacious life can be on just our own world (refer http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Extremophiles ), which raises possibilities for at least microbial life where previously thought impossible. Water has been detected on the Moon, Mars has abundant evidence of waterflow, and all of the other worlds and most of the moons turn out to have the dernedest individual features (eg. giant sulphur volcanoes on Io, Titan's methane rain, another moon that is basically an ice-covered ocean, and so on, and so on).

 

We're only barely getting started as regards finding (and trying to figure out) exoplanets. Already have found some that are rather freaky, to put it mildly. Yeah, this may be trite, but I think the only thing we can know for sure at this stage is that there is a lot that we still don't know.

 

... And we seem to have a tendency to underestimate what we are going to find.

[dmjalund]

Re: Solar Systems Like Ours in the Minority

 

I bought Princes Methane Rain album