UFO's and extra-terrestrial life

[unreasonable]

Originally Posted by Skoshi Tiger

Do you realise that in an infinite universe there is another CharveL identical to you in every resepect down to the spin of the atoms that just posted the complete opposite?


Cheers!

This is a fallacy, albeit an easy one to commit, especially when combined with a flawed understanding of probabilities as objective as opposed to subjective qualities.

Even if the universe were infinite it does not follow logically that every possible combination of events must exist. There are many examples of infinities where every term in them is identical or a repeating sequence - eg the fraction one third expressed in decimals = 0.333333333..., the coupon on a perpetual FRN.

[louisv]

Originally Posted by Dutch_851

Or the money for selling the story.

Patrick Moore and his ilk have watched the skies continually in visible light, radio, infra-red, gamma, microwaves etc for a career and have never reported an alien spacecraft.

The people who see them the most appear to be impoverished South American farmers, who in fact had simply fallen asleep in the sun and got sunburned on one side of their head.

And all of the tripe spinners since Erich Von Daniken and his kind are simply waxing fat on the gullibility of the poor sods who go in for all this 'backward engineered, Roswell, Aliens stole my baby' etc rubbish and they're rubbing their hands with glee all the way to the bank.

Ooh, it makes my blood boil.

Now I'm ranting again.

I'm with you with Erich Von Daniken, but I'm affraid you are throwing the baby with the bathwater. Its not because there are ***holes like Von Daniken, that nothing will ever happen.

Also nobody here is saying the pilots are ETs. Not every word on UFOs comes from ***holes or cretins. A lot comes from retired airline pilots, who can now speak as their job is not at stake.

As a former physics student, I can tell you that the overwhelming majority of physicists and astronomers are convinced that in this universe, we are not alone.

But none of them believe that ETs ever came here. And I am one of them. The distances and the time scale are just too great. See the Fermi paradox. And to think ETs are from another dimension is even worse, "Where are the tourists"

But technology marches on. And never revising you opinion is both dangerous and a sign of old age.

Sincerely,

Louis.

PS: The universe is made of two types of particles, bosons and fermions, what distinguishes one from the other is that bosons have integral spin (1 or -1) and fermions have fractionnal spin (-1/2 and 1/2). An example of boson is a photon, and an example of fermion is an electron. But ALL particles, and even groups of particles, like a nucleus made of many protons and neutrons, are one or the other. To find if a group of particles is a fermion or a boson, you add all the spins, if it ends up integral (whole number), congratulation, its a boson. As for quarks, which are sub-particles, they have lot more than spin, they also have "charm", "color", etc...It is very important to know if a particle is one or the other as these particles don't follow quite the same rules, for instance fermions (ex an electron) cannot be more than one of same spin in a single orbital, its called the Fermi exclusion rule. But bosons can congragate without problems. This allows for very sophisticated materials research.

Oh and you will never see a UFO in a telescope anymore than you will see a beautiful girl in a microscope, it doesn't cover a lot of angle...also many astronomers don't know the constellations, unless they were amateurs. I was surprised by that at first but they really don't need to. My point here is that most of them don't watch the sky much. They ask the tech to slew the scope and study the pictures ans spectra and what have you but rarelly watch the sky in its entirety. Mr Moore is a great guy, but if he spoke of UFOs positively, he would be discredited.

[Skoshi Tiger]

Originally Posted by unreasonable

This is a fallacy, albeit an easy one to commit, especially when combined with a flawed understanding of probabilities as objective as opposed to subjective qualities.

Even if the universe were infinite it does not follow logically that every possible combination of events must exist. There are many examples of infinities where every term in them is identical or a repeating sequence - eg the fraction one third expressed in decimals = 0.333333333..., the coupon on a perpetual FRN.

No, your statement is an argument that the universe is finite. If the universe is truely infinte then every possiblity no matter how small must be otherwise it would be impossible and not part of the equation.

In an infinte universe an exact copy of you is (or will or has been) trying to convince a copy of me that the universe is infinite and I've just told you that your logic is flawed. Even if there is a 1 in infinity chance of it happening then it will.

Of course some people say that inifinity is just an idea that mathematicians made up just because they needed a very large number that was bigger than anything else to make maths easy for them to understand, in which case I could keep on telling you that in infinite universe an infinite number of identical copies of myself were putting their fingers in their ears and shouting 'I can't hear you!' from now until the universe ends and it wouldn't really matter to anyone in the long run.

Entropy will get us all in the end! Most likely I get bored before then!

Cheers!

[unreasonable]

Originally Posted by Skoshi Tiger

No, your statement is an argument that the universe is finite. If the universe is truely infinte then every possiblity no matter how small must be otherwise it would be impossible and not part of the equation.

In an infinte universe an exact copy of you is (or will or has been) trying to convince a copy of me that the universe is infinite and I've just told you that your logic is flawed. Even if there is a 1 in infinity chance of it happening then it will.

Put it another way, your argument is the same as saying that if A is possible, then A must be true. But this is obviously nonsense - possible existence does not mean the same as necessary existence. Possible existence implies the possibility of non-existence. So given that you have derived a contradiction, you either have a false premise or have made a false step of logic (or both!)

We find the mistake easily: if you take some estimated finite probability of, say, life on another planet, or clones of us having this argument on another planet, and multiply by infinity, the answer is not one, but infinity. And an infinite probability has no meaning - a probability cannot exceed 1.

You can only get 1 in your argument by assuming that the probability is 1/infinity to get the equation 1/infinity X infinity/1 = 1 which is trivial.

If you want to have a universe where all sorts of bizarre things are happening you would be better of believing that the universe is not infinite, but very very large, since you can then multiply your prior probability by a large number and then at least get a meaninful answer.

If you like thinking about these sorts of things you might consider reading up about the Bayesian concept of probability, which focuses on probability as the subjective assessment of available evidence, rather than the objectivist concept you appear to use.

[Wolf_Rider]

Originally Posted by Skoshi Tiger

If the universe is truely infinte then every possiblity no matter how small must be otherwise it would be impossible and not part of the equation.


Cheers!

That's true... and the basis of parallel universes, with the switch (creator) being "choice".

Arrive at a 4way intersection, with which there are three (baisc) directions to move forward in... straight/ left or right, at this point there is a choice as to which direction to take and at that instant the outcome of the three possiblities exist equally (there are a few more options but we'll use the three basic ones for simplcity). The choice is made to turn right, which means the left possibility and the straight ahead possibilty fade off and the turn right option takes the focus (there's no pause while the tape loads for the turn right choice) but at the same time, the other two possiblities still continue.

There is a you which has turned right which is the focus, as well there is also a you which turned left - focus diminished, faded... and there is also a you which has continued on the straight ahead, albeit with the focus diminished, faded but with that all three exist.

[ATAG_Dutch]

Originally Posted by louisv

And never revising your opinion is both dangerous and a sign of old age.

I completely agree, which is why I went from being one of the people who affirm that probability points to the existence of life elsewhere, to one of the people who affirm that the conditions and components necessary to accidentally lead to DNA or a similar complex chain are as unlikely as the universe is vast.

[Skoshi Tiger]

Originally Posted by unreasonable

Put it another way, your argument is the same as saying that if A is possible, then A must be true.

If it doesn't then we are in a finite universe as Charvel has stated, not an infinite one.

What I would like to know is if infinity doesn't exist why would you as a mathematician multiply something by it?

Originally Posted by unreasonable

If you want ....If you like

You are funny! Where in any of my posts have I stated that I want or I would like or I believe I live in an infinite universe? (I'll leave that up to one of my or your selves! )

We can only know what we can observe; I doubt that neither you nor I will live long enough to find out the answer.

There are men called scientist that are much more intelligent than either me or yourselves that think about how the universe is made. Some of these BIG thinkers are as we type having the same debate, neither group will determine the answer, neither will we with any certainty!

Cheers!

[ATAG_Dutch]

Originally Posted by louisv

Not every word on UFOs comes from ***holes or cretins. A lot comes from retired airline pilots, who can now speak as their job is not at stake.

They can also speak due to the lure of the mighty dollar. Retired airline pilots also have debts and bills to pay. If any of them really are retired airline pilots that is.

Using retired airline pilots is simply trying to lend an air of professional credibility to the arguments and is swallowed wholesale by the same gullible people I was referring to.

[raaaid]

the world was created last thursday by the alien

[von Pilsner]

Originally Posted by Dutch_851

I completely agree, which is why I went from being one of the people who affirm that probability points to the existence of life elsewhere, to one of the people who affirm that the conditions and components necessary to accidentally lead to DNA or a similar complex chain are as unlikely as the universe is vast.

And yet here we are living in a vast universe, It seems earth-centrist (had to make up a word) to believe we are the only planet with life in the whole of the universe. (Not taking a shot at you, but saying that it's so terribly unlikely that it can not happen when we only have 1 reliable data point [it happened at least once] it's difficult to follow the reasoning).