Still, someone HAS to be at the top of the heap . . . The first in line. The Big Cheese. The Head Honcho. Numero Uno. The TOP Dog! A-Number ONE!
(Well, you get the idea . . .)
UFO 'filmed for 40 minutes' by Chinese scientists during eclipse
- Thread starter Bad Bishop
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Still, someone HAS to be at the top of the heap . . . The first in line. The Big Cheese. The Head Honcho. Numero Uno. The TOP Dog! A-Number ONE!
(Well, you get the idea . . .)
Because the conditions necessary for establishing life on some other planet will be dependent on that plant's environment and its relationship to its star. There's no reason whatsoever to think that such a planet would have its life evolve the way ours did, and since Earth has had a myriad of life forms over millions of years, one could argue there is an equal possibility of a similar level of diversity on this hypothetical planet.
You misunderstood my question. What I'm asking is, since it took approximately 13.7 billion years (the age of the universe) for life to emerge and subsequently reach its current level of development here on Earth, what makes anyone think something similar must have happened sooner or more quickly anywhere else in the cosmos?
Minus the eruption of Thera in the Aegean Sea (the stories of which IMO are the historical basis for the legends of Atlantis) in approximately 1500 BC which destroyed the civilization based there and may be subsequently key in the falling of the highly advanced and very progressive Minoan Empire, we might be as much as 500 years AHEAD of where we are technologically. Subtract the Fall of Western Civilization, which led to the 700 years of the "Dark Ages" and edit out the 200 odd years of plagues of Europe and the squabbling between the Christians and the Muslims and we could even be 1500 to TWO THOUSAND YEARS more advanced than we are right now. This difference is based on a few FLUKES of history which not all worlds or cultures may experience.
Even if all things are equal at the start, it is EASILY possible for another civilization to be millennia more advanced than we are simply based on changes in the weather a a handful of events. What would have happened if the Viking settlements had actually taken root and the development of the "New World" had occurred 200 years earlier? World War II in 1739 maybe?
1500 to 2000 years from now, we may still be confined to our own solar system. Technological advance is not necessarily linear, and we don't know if interstellar travel is even possible.
Well, it's possible that life could be "seeded" on other worlds by advanced beings--or primitive, indigeonous life forms could be genetically altered so that they would eventually (or not so eventually) evolve into an intelligent species.
It's possible that we, ourselves, could be the product of such genetic engineering. I'm willing to wager that what we presently call "junk" DNA will one day provide of treasure-trove of confirming evidence to that possibilty....
They've never left.
^^
Old Gribgnorix had a farm, A-L-I-E-N. And on this farm he had some Earthlings, A-L-I-E-N . . .
Old Gribgnorix had a farm, A-L-I-E-N. And on this farm he had some Earthlings, A-L-I-E-N . . .
Beyond the fact that our own history is chock full of hang ups that potentially cost us centuries, if not millennia, of development, you are also forgetting that our sun does not belong to the first generation of stars in our universe.
Your supposition is based on the incorrect idea that our solar system has been around as long as the universe has. But the truth is stars and planets have had plenty of time to form, become enclaves for life, and subsequently get obliterated by a nova while our own solar system was still just a dust cloud. It also should be noted that our solar system is located in a relatively quiet section of the galaxy that is less prone to cosmic collisions and bursts of radiation (like the star systems located closer to the galactic core.)
While cosmologists have argued that this makes Earth prime real-estate for intelligent life, the evolutionary biologists have argued that our place in the galaxy has actually retarded the development of intelligent life on Earth. They argue that the greater instances of apocalyptic events in the core worlds would wipe the slate clean of bigger, dumber animals (who dominate via brute force) more often and force greater adaptive capabilities on smaller life-forms at a faster rate (IE: intelligence).
So the bottom line is:
A) We've experienced many historical glitches that possibly prevented us from being as advanced as we could be. (We even had a working steam engine as early as 2000 years ago, but it never caught on.)
B) Our solar system is actually a latter-generation system that didn't form until loooooong after the creation of the universe.
C) Our position in the galaxy meant fewer cataclysms which could have forced evolution's hand.
That last one also makes me think of D) Our solar system is actually one that is relatively isolated compared to so many others. Other systems belonging to clusters where adjacent solar systems could be less than a light-year away could offer greater cultural incentives to develop space travel. It would seem more "doable" in the eyes of the locals. Where as with us, the nearest system is over 4 light years out and there isn't a whole lot of interesting stuff between here and there.
All I gotta say is that even discounting all of the photographic/video evidence that is either known to be falsified or just shows some explainable phenomena, there is still so much that is unexplainable that I believe that it has to be something. Whether aliens or something else, there's just too much that really can't be explained for it all to just be easily explainable.
There is something vaguely disconcerting about the concept of us being planted by smarter aliens. Nevertheless, that would explain why spacecraft apparently visit every so often. They are checking the sprinklers and seeing if we are ripe yet. The irony here is that based on all available data that we have, this is actually a workable theory.
That leads me to another interesting question; what if the U.S. Government really did capture a downed spacecraft and found the body of an alien, as some theories suggest? Assuming that the alien came from a highly advanced civilization, wouldn't others of his kind have taken extra precautions to ensure that "cultural contamination" did not occur? It doesn't seem like it would make sense for them to simply stand by and allow humans to study their craft and biology... unless the vessel was somehow a straggler which wasn't known about, wasn't supposed to be there, or was planted for educational stimulation.
The secret discovery of a spaceship would, surprisingly, help account for one of the great mysteries of humanity; how after around 6,000 years of recorded history reporting no major advances, one century brought us to our present level of advancement.
That leads me to another interesting question; what if the U.S. Government really did capture a downed spacecraft and found the body of an alien, as some theories suggest? Assuming that the alien came from a highly advanced civilization, wouldn't others of his kind have taken extra precautions to ensure that "cultural contamination" did not occur? It doesn't seem like it would make sense for them to simply stand by and allow humans to study their craft and biology... unless the vessel was somehow a straggler which wasn't known about, wasn't supposed to be there, or was planted for educational stimulation.
The secret discovery of a spaceship would, surprisingly, help account for one of the great mysteries of humanity; how after around 6,000 years of recorded history reporting no major advances, one century brought us to our present level of advancement.
Many people WOULD find it very disconcerting--perhaps the fundamental rationale behind the cover-up, if one exists.
I'm more inclined to think that they WANT to be seen. They are not trying to contaminate our culture, so much as advance it forward towards a paradigm shift that would lead to our acceptance of other intelligent species besides our own.
Assuming that they played a part in our initial creation, it logically stands to reason that they would also participate and play a role in our ongoing evolution. They are like the monolith in Clarke's/Kubrick's 2001. The very knowledge of their existance, provided incrementally and non-traumatically, is causing us to evolve into a mature and space-faring species--so that they may join with their creation, and we with them. This has always seemed like the most probable explanation to me for their motives.
Dude, if you seriously believe that there were "no major advances" for 6,000 years and then *BANG* everything changed in one century, you NEED to break out some history books. You are SO far off the beam here that it undermines your basic credibility as to being qualified to offer an informed opinion.
Horse drawn wheeled carriages and wind driven sailing ships carried both the Egyptians of 2,000 BC and the English of 1800 AD. Egypt and Rome were built upon the backs of slaves; so was America. Yes; there were advances during that span of roughly four millenia, but none like those of the very recent past.
I knew an old man who I helped with his lawn work about four or five years ago. He was a retired railroad engineer, and he liked to tell stories. When he was a boy, automobiles were a new concept; when he was a young man, airplanes were a new concept; and last time I saw him, he was sending E-mails and playing with a new digital camera. As one man, he lived to witness pre-industrial culture, the industrial revolution, the modern age, the digital age, and the information age.
During the entirety of recorded human history, with the exception of less than one hundred years, women of all cultures and nations have been considered essentially inferior to men, generally unfit for leadership or paid labor. In itself, that is an amazing and unprecidented example of how little we changed as a human race during all those prior ages.
In the field of medicine one hundred years ago, just as it had always been, a common illness could easily kill; one which today may be corrected for $5 and a trip to the supermarket. In one century, human lifespan has been extended by 33%.
Before you discount my credability any further, I challenge you to provide me with a single example in another period of such epic technological and social growth as that which the 20th century was host to. The era of the pyramids is the closest second I can think of; but those monuments still pale when compared to the insides of your computer; a computer which was built not by slaves, but by free men and women.
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The point is that the current "epiphany" of the modern age is a CULMINATION of all that came before it and REQUIRED that it happen before such "sudden" advances could transpire. I would argue that the development of alphabets and the conception of writing is a FAR greater intuitive leap and more fundamental CREATIVE process than the development of computers. There have been periods of both technological and social advances many times in the past, both heralded and unheralded. Sometimes they occurred in conjunction. On other occasions one led to another and yet at other times one undermined another. Personally, I find the Egyptian's ability to stack piles of large rocks to be less impressive than the multistory buildings, indoor plumbing and apparently free (and equal-if not MATRIARCHAL) society of the aforementioned Akroteri on the island of Santorini in the Aegean--contemporaries of New Kingdom of Ancient Egypt. Sadly, Thera erupted and destroyed this progressive society before it had a chance to seed beyond the shadow of its own destruction.
I see fundamental innovation as a FAR more taxing and creative endeavor than the refinement of already established concepts into more efficient and superior functioning designs. The invention of writing impresses me far more than the innovation of email. The building of your computer, which seems to impress you so much, would not have been possible without the groundwork laid by bronze-age metal smiths. Hundreds of generations of craftsmen and artists are responsible for the techniques that allow the formation of the components of your wonderful computer. These include ancient jewelry makers refining and purifying ores, metal-smiths crafting durable goods, sword-makers and armorers and the crafters of weapons of war who sought new and better compounds and superior ways to temper the metals of their products. Clock-makers of the Renaissance and beyond and their increasingly accurate methods of tooling smaller and more delicate components. Glass-smiths who formulated techniques of purifying glass--all these hands and minds CREATING the ground work for just the HARDWARE.
You do a TREMENDOUS disservice to the ingenuity, the creativity and the imagination of the FOUNDERS of our civilization and the entire modern world when you dismiss thousands of years of hard work and trial and error and ingenuity and, yes, sometimes even dumb-luck, when you blithely dismiss the foundation of everything by pointing out that "Horse drawn wheeled carriages and wind driven sailing ships carried both the Egyptians of 2,000 BC and the English of 1800 AD". That's neither the point nor is it a fair metric to measure from.
Yes, absolutely, we have reached a new pinnacle and an epiphany in science and technology, mainly since the advent of the Industrial Revolution about TWO HUNDRED years ago. It is the CONFLUENCE of advances in science, the arts, social philosophies etc in the absence of natural disasters severe enough to wipe it all out in a stroke an with a population large enough to spread old knowledge so that it is not lost, yet self-sufficient enough to have time and means to explore new avenues. It is also a CUMULATIVE reaction resulting from all the basics laid before. Over thousands of years.
The hard part is not inventing the traffic signal. The hard part is inventing the idea of the "City". You don't have that "new concept" of your old railroad engineer in the form of the automobile without the innovations in metal-smithing from hundreds of years before. And so on and so forth.
I see fundamental innovation as a FAR more taxing and creative endeavor than the refinement of already established concepts into more efficient and superior functioning designs. The invention of writing impresses me far more than the innovation of email. The building of your computer, which seems to impress you so much, would not have been possible without the groundwork laid by bronze-age metal smiths. Hundreds of generations of craftsmen and artists are responsible for the techniques that allow the formation of the components of your wonderful computer. These include ancient jewelry makers refining and purifying ores, metal-smiths crafting durable goods, sword-makers and armorers and the crafters of weapons of war who sought new and better compounds and superior ways to temper the metals of their products. Clock-makers of the Renaissance and beyond and their increasingly accurate methods of tooling smaller and more delicate components. Glass-smiths who formulated techniques of purifying glass--all these hands and minds CREATING the ground work for just the HARDWARE.
You do a TREMENDOUS disservice to the ingenuity, the creativity and the imagination of the FOUNDERS of our civilization and the entire modern world when you dismiss thousands of years of hard work and trial and error and ingenuity and, yes, sometimes even dumb-luck, when you blithely dismiss the foundation of everything by pointing out that "Horse drawn wheeled carriages and wind driven sailing ships carried both the Egyptians of 2,000 BC and the English of 1800 AD". That's neither the point nor is it a fair metric to measure from.
Yes, absolutely, we have reached a new pinnacle and an epiphany in science and technology, mainly since the advent of the Industrial Revolution about TWO HUNDRED years ago. It is the CONFLUENCE of advances in science, the arts, social philosophies etc in the absence of natural disasters severe enough to wipe it all out in a stroke an with a population large enough to spread old knowledge so that it is not lost, yet self-sufficient enough to have time and means to explore new avenues. It is also a CUMULATIVE reaction resulting from all the basics laid before. Over thousands of years.
The hard part is not inventing the traffic signal. The hard part is inventing the idea of the "City". You don't have that "new concept" of your old railroad engineer in the form of the automobile without the innovations in metal-smithing from hundreds of years before. And so on and so forth.
I do not disagree with or misunderstand the concept of compounding knowledge; nor do I aim to suggest denial or disappreciation of or for the accomplishments of past civilizations.
From a certain angle, a three-dimensional pyramid looks like exactly like a single-dimensional square; likewise, perhaps our differences in this regard are less a matter of philosophy and principle than pride and perspective.
I concede my argument.
From a certain angle, a three-dimensional pyramid looks like exactly like a single-dimensional square; likewise, perhaps our differences in this regard are less a matter of philosophy and principle than pride and perspective.
I concede my argument.