Who are "they"?
Why Does The Universe Exist?
- Thread starter Dryson
- Start date
I am guessing it's the indeterminate "they", the one that means "no one in particular".
Like when you say: "They made fun of Einstein's theories." which was pretty much everybody back then and diminished progressively as people got used to his ideas.
Ah, "the man" or TPTB.
That's it.
Not that they got used to his ideas but that his ideas were proven just like Sir Issac Newtons ideas about gravity that were found to be correct regardless of how many people got used to his ideas.
Newton's theory of gravitation is only partially correct as it assumes absolute space and time and that the force is instantaneously transmitted. It has been superseded by Einstein's General Theory of Relativity, which yielded better predictions and explanation of the precession of the perihelion of Mercury, for example. However, we still don't have a unified theory of gravity that encompasses quantum field theory and describes what goes/went on in black holes and the Big Bang.
I just wanted to say I really appreciate your posts, Asbo
we don't take the time to say these things to people often enough
I think it's worth our time to chip away at the misconceptions that get propagated in the media and over the Internet. However, it does seem sometimes like a Sisyphean task.
My suspicion is that loop quantum gravity is the road forward rather than string theory but my mathematical ability was never anything like good enough to make a meaningful contribution.
Or, given how some of our species can be rather, uh, "pan-curious", we might be perceived as the "naughty tentacles" of the universe! "Lock up your podlings! The Earthlings are coming! As well as cu...ahem! Anyway, you have any orifices or protuberances? Then you're f***ed! Literally!"
I wonder if it's not a hidden law of evolution that sooner or later it produces a species that destroys the entire ecosystem. it happened already once when Cyanobacteria produced oxygen that was a poison for pretty much everything that lived back then... For all we know, there could be billions of lifeless planets whose flourishing fauna and flora were destroyed one way or the other by the dominant species there. After all it's the goal of every ongoing chemical/physical phenomenon to end itself.
That's part of the Great Filter theory regarding our lack of discovery of other intelligent lifeforms. That every lifeform has to pass through a threshold event and most don't make it. That being the case our threshold could be coming. We certainly seem, as a species, to be making great efforts to destroy the environment that keeps is alive.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_Filter
It's not the same thing. IMO, it's not a threshold to pass through it's a consequence of life itself. The hidden goal (It's a metaphor, I don't believe that life has a real mind) of life being to end itself. Assuming there was life on either Mars or Venus, it already achieved that goal there. We're just a couple of billions of years late. Take fire, for example, fire is a process whose action results in ending itself, obviously. I'll say that it's the same for life, except it's a lot more subtle and usually takes a lot longer. Of course, it's just a theory and is debatable.
The Great Filter is usually ascribed to the development of eukaryotic cells with their separate nucleus, complex organelles such as the ribosome and the Golgi apparatus, the microtubule cytoskeleton, and the one-time only hijacking of some form of alphaproteobacterium as the mitochondrion and of some form of cyanobacterium as the chloroplast in plants. That's a lot of changes to an ancient archaea cell (the most likely ancestor based on the biochemical evidence) with no surviving intermediate forms for some unknown reason. Most life in the universe might be no more complex than archaea or bacteria.
That doesn't prevent another Great Filter from lying in wait in our future, of course.
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The thing with Mars though is that if there was any kind of life or civilization there it was there a very, very long time ago, long before humans had even evolved possibly.
As for evidence would there be any after such a long time?
Mars is for me the one planet that I do wonder sometimes "did it have life there?" but then again Europa seems like a fascinating place that may have actual living life of some kind. Even if it's microbes that's still life as far as I am concerned.
As for evidence would there be any after such a long time?
Mars is for me the one planet that I do wonder sometimes "did it have life there?" but then again Europa seems like a fascinating place that may have actual living life of some kind. Even if it's microbes that's still life as far as I am concerned.
I’m no expert, but any civilisation on Mars would have left some remnant biomass. There isn’t the tectonic churn to eradicate it entirely, and the air density doesn’t seem high enough to erode the evidence instead, even over deep time scales.
Microbes on Europa though, fingers crossed.
Civilization on Mars is very unlikely, however primitive lifeforms, the kind Earth had at the very beginning of life, is a definite possibility. Same thing about Venus. We know that at some point Venus had oceans and continents just like Earth today but some catastrophe caused an intensive hothouse effect that resulted in all the water being evaporated in space and the planet becoming extremely dry, acid and hotter than hell. Whatever life existed back then didn't survive that!! And it's likely that all traces of that putative life were burned out as well. So even if we could, it would be useless to do any excavating work on Venus to attempt to find traces of that life. Mars on the other hand very possibly still has those traces (assuming there was life there at some point). It would definitely change our perspective if we found life somewhere else in the Solar system. It would make life a rather common phenomenon likely present in billions of places in that galaxy (billions of billions of places in the universe!!) and knock us down a peg as a species!!
Habitable Planets
If the Earth has a drum beat that is like a single instrument in an orchestra and Earth drum beat is very intricant and unique then its drum beat when added to the orchestral ensemble of the Sol system would set a solar apart as having a planet like Earth present compared to a solar system that does not.
An Earth like planet would create similar drum beats based on its level of habitable environment when interacting with the sun.
I will post the Nasa link later on.
Blues Skies for Sev3rance....tear brigade on patrol.
If the Earth has a drum beat that is like a single instrument in an orchestra and Earth drum beat is very intricant and unique then its drum beat when added to the orchestral ensemble of the Sol system would set a solar apart as having a planet like Earth present compared to a solar system that does not.
An Earth like planet would create similar drum beats based on its level of habitable environment when interacting with the sun.
I will post the Nasa link later on.
Blues Skies for Sev3rance....tear brigade on patrol.
Yep - Civilization on Mars - not bloody likely. Too small to hold a significant atmosphere for long enough for complex life (as we know it, anyway) to develop. Let alone intelligent life.
Venus - I believe it's basic problem is that it's too close to the Sun. Millions of kilometers closing than Earth. Even assuming it were identical in make up to the Earth when it formed, it's proximity would mean a significant increase in Solar radiation. I also doubt Venus was really that much like Earth when it formed - or perhaps it was almost identical to Earth 1.0 - before the collision that formed our Moon...
4.5 billion years ago, the Sun's luminosity was 25% less than at present. But even with a 25% dimmer Sun, it does seem unlikely that Venus was ever conducive to life for long enough.
In one billion years time, the Sun's luminosity will be 10% greater and the Earth's oceans will boil. In about 5 billion years, the luminosity will be 50% greater than at present. Then the Sun will expand as a red giant, vapourising the Earth. To survive as a species, we'll need to start thinking about doing something relatively soon, astronomically speaking. However, we have more pressing short-term problems.
In one billion years time, the Sun's luminosity will be 10% greater and the Earth's oceans will boil. In about 5 billion years, the luminosity will be 50% greater than at present. Then the Sun will expand as a red giant, vapourising the Earth. To survive as a species, we'll need to start thinking about doing something relatively soon, astronomically speaking. However, we have more pressing short-term problems.
Yes, like surviving the next couple of decades, for example.
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