Outer Space Thread

[Michael]

What is BS

The idea that observed reality may not be true or base reality is incredibly old and in some sense obviously true, though mostly pointless, like the idea that there's a elephant in the room with you right now, but it's just that no one can ever observe or interact with the elephant in any way. Ok, fine. This simulation stuff is exactly the same so long as it remains empty musings about totally hypothetical possibilities. Building this elaborate argument of impossibly high odds around a totally baseless premise is pretty funny though.

It sounds like you don't find philosophy interesting which is fine. That doesn't make the simulation argument bs. I do think assigning a probably to each option is a dead end (although some scientist are trying to find ways to test it).

[AWvsCBsteeeerike3]

Right. But a license plate is an inanimate object that is formed based on some formula of symbols being assigned to it. The fact that it is ARW 357 or whatever is irrelevant. I guess you could also argue that you are irrelevant, your mom was going to give birth to someone, her mom was going to give birth to someone, your dads mom was going to give birth to someone and so on and so forth dating back millions of years. Lucky you, I guess. All that to say, yes it is surprising that you are here. Not surprising someone is here, but that it is you...

[jim]

If it's surprising that you and I are here, then I guess it's surprising anything is exactly where it is. People, planets, stars, quasars, black holes, photons, ....

But there it all is.

[Myles]

Right, that's my point. On an evolutionary scale, humans are terrible. I

If there are nearly infinite amounts of planets that are housing life forms, surely some of them are more advanced than we are. Would you agree with that? If they'd even checked out earth over the past couple hundred million years or so, they'd notice that there's life on it. HOW? And, if they're paying any attention at all, it's tough to miss it now. - WHY?

What are you basing that off of? Perhaps we are better than any other life in the universe. We are certainly the only life on this planet who has developed the technologies we now have. There is most certainly life on other planets. It may not be intelligent though. Who knows. If there was intelligent life, it may have been billions of years ago. The odds of it existing at the same time as us on Earth coupled with the distances between the planets makes it pretty slim that we will make contact.

[jim]

When you talk about evolution, the only thing that matters is survival. And cockroaches have us beat big time.

[Myles]

When you talk about evolution, the only thing that matters is survival. And cockroaches have us beat big time.

Yes and no.
Ease of survival is more accurate.

[AWvsCBsteeeerike3]

If a catastrophic event hit earth, the vast majority of humans would be [expletive].

[AWvsCBsteeeerike3]

We have all this intelligence, yet we fail to plan for catastrophes. So, yeah....Yay, humans are wicked smart! What's the plan if [expletive] hits the fan? Go extinct? Yay, humans!

[Arthur Dent]

Someone should ask Elon Musk about Roko's Basilisk.

[jim]

When you talk about evolution, the only thing that matters is survival. And cockroaches have us beat big time.

Yes and no.
Ease of survival is more accurate.

I disagree. Ease has nothing to do with it unless by ease you mean more likely to survive. If it just makes it more pleasant or elegant, that doesn't mean anything from an evolutionary perspective.