Does peace occur before real space travel ?

[hillzagold]

It is astounding that you two can disagree with each other's premises and agree with my premise, but agree with each other and disagree with me.

It doesn't matter if the present has less wars or less deaths in war compared to the past. If you read it again you might see that my point about "what planet are you on" was not alluding that the world has more conflict but that just because the world is more peaceful does not mean that that trend will necessarily continue and definitely does not mean that there won't necessarily be a time when wars are fought that make the Great War and World War Two look like minor scuffles in a bar.

I ask what planet you're on, sir. It absolutely matters that the past century, spanning multiple generations, has been making general progress towards peace. You say that the world won't necessarily get more peaceful over time. Might as well say the world won't necessarily get more modernized, either.

Europe is more at peace now than it ever has been because of trade yes (that was one of the founding points of the EC) but that's not because we fight "trade wars". It's because such high levels of trade and interdependency make war a far less profitable way of getting what you want.

Here, we completely agree, except perhaps that you seem to think this is a temporary state. Many countries would be devastated if their trade with important partners ended, and so trade will continue on and on and on and on, with very rare exceptions.

I don't see any realistic reason for humanity to get rid of conflict before space travel, nor do I see any realistic way either. And I would be willing to bet that space travel and colonisation will lead to more conflict as planets get settled and people fight over available resources, independence, and a thousand other reasons.

You don't see any ways? I see dozens of ways. Some of them involve more weapons, some of them involve less weapons, some of them involve an entire planet well fed and well educated, and one that I stole from a movie involves alien invasion. They're only unrealistic if you don't have enough patience.

 

[Drakkith]

You don't see any ways? I see dozens of ways. Some of them involve more weapons, some of them involve less weapons, some of them involve an entire planet well fed and well educated, and one that I stole from a movie involves alien invasion. They're only unrealistic if you don't have enough patience.

I don't see any of those as realistic unfortunently. Differences in societies, religions, morals, and a thousand other things lead to conflict. Getting the entire planet to a point where everyone is well educates is a worthy goal, but not something I see happening. It's not that I don't have patience, it's that the basic reasons for conflict will only go away when everyone believes the same thing, have the same resources, have the same education, ETC. That whole situation looks exceedingly boring as well. Our differences, even though they may lead to conflict, are one of the things that makes us exciting!

Honestly, I don't see minor amounts of conflict as a bad thing. And by conflict I'm not specifically talking about war and such. Everything from disagreements between friends to full scale wars is conflict. Conflict between friends or rivals may cause them to work harder, be more innovative, or many different good things. Even between nations this can happen. It only gets to a bad point when things escalate to the point that people start hating the other side or believe them to be a threat to their way of life or something. I just don't see any realistic way to avoid this on a global scale.

COULD it happen? Sure. I simply think the chances are low.

It is astounding that you two can disagree with each other's premises and agree with my premise, but agree with each other and disagree with me.

Why is that astounding?
Edit: Actually, what do you mean by that? What did Ryan and myself disagree about?

 

[Ryan_m_b]

It is astounding that you two can disagree with each other's premises and agree with my premise, but agree with each other and disagree with me.

I think Drakkith is disagreeing with your notion that the Earth is getting more peaceful and I am objecting to your follow on to that premise which is that peaceful trends will necessarily continue.

I ask what planet you're on, sir. It absolutely matters that the past century, spanning multiple generations, has been making general progress towards peace. You say that the world won't necessarily get more peaceful over time. Might as well say the world won't necessarily get more modernized, either.


Here, we completely agree, except perhaps that you seem to think this is a temporary state. Many countries would be devastated if their trade with important partners ended, and so trade will continue on and on and on and on, with very rare exceptions.

You have no basis to say that something will continue just because it has done. That doesn't mean that the world will fall into World War 3 tomorrow but it's illogical and unscientific to extrapolate to this extent http://xkcd.com/605/

You don't see any ways? I see dozens of ways. Some of them involve more weapons, some of them involve less weapons, some of them involve an entire planet well fed and well educated, and one that I stole from a movie involves alien invasion. They're only unrealistic if you don't have enough patience.

People fight for resources and ideology. Spreading the wealth of the world may reduce the need to fight for the former and education may reduce the need to fight for the latter but that still doesn't mean that world peace is a guarantee.

I also think this has strayed quite far from the OP's question, do you have any opinions on the relationship between space programs and world peace?

 

[Physics-Learner]

i did not realize that so many posts had occurred. i guess i forgot to look.

with regards to "space travel and world peace", i did not mean to insinuate that a planet would have total peace before space travel.

but rather would they be "benevolent enough" such that they would be explorers seeking contact, as opposed to seeking resources, rewards, or some other exploitation of the world that they were visiting ?

many posts have been talking about how long it would take us to become peaceful, and how long it would take us to get to space travel. i think we all pretty much agree that both points are a long ways off.

i was more thinking along the lines of aliens visiting us. what do you think is the probability that we would be in danger ?

 

[Ryan_m_b]

i did not realize that so many posts had occurred. i guess i forgot to look.

with regards to "space travel and world peace", i did not mean to insinuate that a planet would have total peace before space travel.

but rather would they be "benevolent enough" such that they would be explorers seeking contact, as opposed to seeking resources, rewards, or some other exploitation of the world that they were visiting ?

many posts have been talking about how long it would take us to become peaceful, and how long it would take us to get to space travel. i think we all pretty much agree that both points are a long ways off.

i was more thinking along the lines of aliens visiting us. what do you think is the probability that we would be in danger ?

What's wrong with seeking resources? Why would we even want to try to locate extraterrestrial life with space travel? Interstellar travel is a hideously energy intensive proposal, real life is nothing like star trek you know! We won't be zipping around at light years per hour in a comfortable 5 star hotel capable of scanning the surface of planets at a hundred lightyear remove.

It's extremely unlikely that given the time scales of the universe it's highly unlikely that we would be meeting within a few million years of the other achieving space travel, that combined with the potential insurmountable differences in psychology means we could never get anything out of it. No one can really say if it will be dangerous i.e. what they will do but it would probably be de-stabilising for many human societies (not destructive but it would cause a lot of change)

 

[Drakkith]

i did not realize that so many posts had occurred. i guess i forgot to look.

with regards to "space travel and world peace", i did not mean to insinuate that a planet would have total peace before space travel.

but rather would they be "benevolent enough" such that they would be explorers seeking contact, as opposed to seeking resources, rewards, or some other exploitation of the world that they were visiting ?

many posts have been talking about how long it would take us to become peaceful, and how long it would take us to get to space travel. i think we all pretty much agree that both points are a long ways off.

i was more thinking along the lines of aliens visiting us. what do you think is the probability that we would be in danger ?

Depending on the technological state of the alien species we encountered, and the relative state of humanity at the time, I could see first contact ranging from an enormously important ordeal with the most important people and leaders making contact, to outright terror, fear, and riot-producing. And everything between! There's just too many variables!

My stance on aliens visiting us is similar, but mostly depends on the intents of the aliens and their technological state.

 

[Dmytry]

for quite some time, there has been the thought that once a species has evolved far enough to really travel in space, they have lost their greed, etc., such that they are not dangerous.

i am not sure that i buy this. i realize that i have only the observations of one species with which to draw some hypotheses, but i see our technology leaping by bounds, yet i don't see our social behavior as changing all that much.

i realize that there are no right or wrong answers, just opinions. but to be honest, but i prefer not to take the chance of having any alien race actually visit us.

i think it is almost a foregone conclusion that they would have the ability to destroy us, and would just as soon not take the risk.

Well, I do not buy in it either. Though so far it is our tendency to wage wars that kept us from space. We have technology to launch giant spaceships - see Project Orion. But we have tendency to abuse this technology for wars, to the point that we made this technology (nuclear bombs) for no other purpose than to kill other people; project orion was an afterthought that never took off. Yes, the project orion would have some rather bad fallout, but we have polluted our environment far more by nuclear weapon testing (and perhaps even in our 'civilian' nuclear accidents the original design focus on military uses has played a role). We know we got this tendency so we don't do anything like Project Orion to stay on the safe side.

In my opinion, even the most peace loving alien space colonists from another star would destroy us like we destroy ant hive when constructing a house. It won't be a war, merely pest control.

 

[Physics-Learner]

gosh, i could see a reason for us wanting to meet other lives. it really depends on a race's evolvement.

i would not want to place limits on what a race could accomplish, since there is probably much that we do not yet understand.

 

[Ryan_m_b]

We have technology to launch giant spaceships - see Project Orion.

It always boggles my mind when people express opinions suggesting that NASA worked out space travel decades ago and that all it would require is some investment and a bit of polishing off and we'll be skipping around the galaxy like true space cadets. Space travel is hard. To quote myself from another Project Orion thread (with some edits)

Antimatter/matter propulsion has the highest specific impulse that we know of. With a 1:1 ratio of fuel (itself a 1:1 mix of antimatter+matter) to ship we get a specific impulse of a megasecond. That means the ship can thrust at 1g for roughly 10 and a half days reaching a speed of ~10,000,000 mps which is 3.3% of the speed of light. To get to near 100% you would need thirty times this but remember you need to decelerate at the other end, that gives you a 60:1 ratio of fuel to ship if we use Am/M. Now Project Orion proposed using nuclear bombs but these can only match Am/M if the following few hypothetical were met;

The entire mass fissile material is converted to energy
-- It isnt, of all the uranium only ~2% undergoes fission. Of this only a half of a percent is converted to energy. Little boy, the Hiroshima bomb, contained over 60kg of uranium but only a penny's worth converted to energy. This means you need to pump up that ratio from 6:1 to 6,000-60,000:1

The bomb's mass is entirely fissile material
-- It isnt, most of the bomb is casing/primer etc. I can't find the exact figures with a brief google but it would be reasonable to assume that only 1-10% of the bomb is actually fissile. this pushes the ratio further to 60,000-600,000:1

The whole energy of the explosion hits the back of the ship
-- It won't, for a 1,400miles3 ship if we make it a cube that makes a ship ~11 miles on the side with each face 121miles2. If the explosion occurs 30 miles from the ship (about the recommended for Orion) then only 0.4% of the energy will hit the ship (the energy radiates as a sphere, the ship obscures a small part of this). This again pushes the ratio to 1,500,000-15,000,000:1

Aside from the horrendous fuel requirements there's a tendency for people to assume that all the other issues are just minor details when in actual fact all areas of space colonisation are extremely non-trivial. For an interstellar colony ship you need to;

Create a sustainable biosphere for the ship
--We have very little idea how complex ecologies work here on Earth let alone how to recreate one that is immune from ecological disaster.

Create an environment capable of growing food
--Same problem as above yet with the added problem of a ship biosphere being a small closed system. In addition a wide diversity of foods combined with the appropriate bacteria to fill up our guts (which contain 1kg of vital gut flora).

Pack a fully capable industrial system into a colony ship
--Many industrial complexes run over tens of km, add up all the wide variety of industries across the world plus the infrastructure and put it all in one place. In addition you need to redesign all of it to have near 100% recyclable capability (remember that closed system?)

Pack a fully capable work force
--In today's high-tech and diverse society there are literally 10s-100s of thousands of different specialities. Provide enough people in the profession to staff each job plus enough to train the next generation and the total number of people in the workforce? You're looking at a figure measured in the 10s-100s of millions of people

Design a long-term stable socio-economic system
-- Societies on Earth don't exactly have a track record of long term-stability. An interstellar trip could take 100s-1000s of years. The vehicle isn't going to be analogous to a captain and his crew, it's more like rolling up an entire countries population building a wall around it and then sending it off alone. Remember a single failing point and the whole mission is gone

Solve all of those problems without invoking magic wands of super-nanotech, AI and robots and then you can play space cadet.

Sorry for the long rant but it's a pet peeve of mine when people blindly assume that manned space exploration/space colonisation is easy then pretentiously claim that it's only reason X that we can't do it.

 

[Dmytry]

Project orion won't do for interstellar for sure. Absolutely out of the question. It however allows to get started using space for something useful. However in practice, the way people are, i think project orion would be more of a cover for development of e.g. pure fusion nukes, or small cheap lightweight nukes, or something similar, for warfare. A shame really. For aliens, by the way, colonization may be massively easier if they a: hibernate, b: are rather asocial, requiring evolution of much higher intelligence before the technological progress. Think aliens where each one is as bright as Einstein, just so that each can invent wheel etc on his own. We humans have good propagation of info, so once top percentile gets smart, there's space travel in no time (in terms of evolution). Less communicable aliens would need to be smarter in bulk before they can start going anywhere. So. Based on this scenario, I proposition that the biological aliens coming here, if any are going to be dorks, aren't going to give much * about each other, and even less about us. And they're going to be able to naturally hibernate, with some easy tech fix to hibernate for long time. And they wouldn't have wiped each other out precisely because they are not pack animals and hence don't have warfare. Doesn't mean they won't eat you.

Re: the analysis of space travel, that's why I am not expecting any biological aliens to come here. Strong AI and/or mind uploading, as far off as they may be, would come before such a spaceship. Then, post mind uploading, there's really not a lot of practical need to go anywhere until you use up raw materials in the solar system, but going anywhere gets massively easier so someone might start going anyway.

 

[JaredJames]

Strong AI and/or mind uploading would come before such a spaceship.

That's a very strong claim, one I'd love to see the supporting evidence for.

 

[Dmytry]

That's a very strong claim, one I'd love to see the supporting evidence for.

well, strong AI and/or mind uploading are in principle possible (IMO), whereas making a ship with millions people and getting it to sizable portion of speed of light, i don't see how that's possible even in principle (IMO). The mind uploading is a mere continuation of existing trends in scanning and computing technology, whereas ship with a crew of millions people is not a continuation of any trend whatsoever. I can't even imagine a society that would build and send off such ship. Humans just don't do this sort of long term stuff.

 

[Physics-Learner]

i don't think we will ever have a spaceship with millions of people, etc. nor am i talking about trips that take 1000s of years.

i mean real space travel, where you can get to places fast enough and get home.

i don't see any race being willing to spend many generations of people just to get somewhere.

i realize that the speed of light is a limiting factor in today's understanding of physics. i do not discount the possibility of "warp" speed, simply because it seems impossible today.

i suspect that we are still at an infantile stage compared to what some advanced society has reached.

go back to any century in our past, and they could give you just as valid an argument as to why something could not be done that we are currently doing, be it medicine, space, computers, killing tools, etc.

 

[JaredJames]

i mean real space travel, where you can get to places fast enough and get home.

Uh, that's currently fictional not "real" space travel.

i realize that the speed of light is a limiting factor in today's understanding of physics. i do not discount the possibility of "warp" speed, simply because it seems impossible today.

No basis, pointless discussion (see final paragraph).

i suspect that we are still at an infantile stage compared to what some advanced society has reached.

No basis, pointless discussion.

go back to any century in our past, and they could give you just as valid an argument as to why something could not be done that we are currently doing, be it medicine, space, computers, killing tools, etc.

Not true. Unlike the past where it was purely based on wild claims and speculation (not being able to go above 30mph in a train and stuff like that), we have evidence of the impossibility of some issues such as accelerating greater than the speed of light.

 

[Ryan_m_b]

The mind uploading is a mere continuation of existing trends in scanning and computing technology

That's analogous to saying "paintings are getting better so it's a mere continuation until we can build forests".

We still have no idea how exactly a brain creates mind. To replicate the effect you would have to simulate the brain down to the fundamental level required to create a mind, I would be very surprised as a biologist to learn that it would be possible to upload a brain without also uploading a body. Biology is very messy and without the appropriate interaction with the body (which could only be simulated by simulating a body to the fundamental level required) I don't think a simulated brain could work.

If you are going to make simplistic and extraordinary claims you are going to have to have some serious evidence to back it up. Pointing to the past trend of increased scan resolution or Moore's law is a complete fallacy.

requiring evolution of much higher intelligence before the technological progress

What makes you think that intelligence, especially tool using intelligence could evolve without a social species. And no matter how intelligent an individual is I highly doubt that one individual working alone can build an interstellar vehicle.

 

[DaveC426913]

we have evidence of the impossibility of some issues such as accelerating greater than the speed of light.

Except "acceleration" is not the only way to achieve superluminal travel (wormholes and the hypothetical Alcubierre drive are candidates).

I am not suggesting we are ready to go build them, I am suggesting you are not able to rule out the principle of superluminal travel in one swell foop of Einsteinian hand-waving.

Since this thread is not about how we might get there, but is about the implicationsof it, it is fair to posit that we can take advantage of these hypotheses that do not violate known physics.

 

[DaveC426913]

We still have no idea how exactly a brain creates mind. To replicate the effect you would have to simulate the brain down to the fundamental level required to create a mind, I would be very surprised as a biologist to learn that it would be possible to upload a brain without also uploading a body. Biology is very messy and without the appropriate interaction with the body (which could only be simulated by simulating a body to the fundamental level required) I don't think a simulated brain could work.

Unless you are suggesting that the mind is somehow "supernatural" - beyond the reach of rational study, there is no reason in principle why we will not, if given sufficient time, be able to replicate it artificially.

Heck, given enough advancement in technology, we could artifiically create one by manufacturing enzymes, proteins and neurons so that we have a virtual duplicate.

 

[Physics-Learner]

jared,

you claim to have evidence, and that others before you only had wild claims.

if we both lived 100 years ago, you would be saying the same thing. what you purport today to be wild claims, you would have purported to be evidence, if you lived back then. this is your mindset - you have displayed strong inclinations in every thread that i have seen you participate, towards what seems proven and that goes along with the typical current mindset of today.

we think, based upon our evidence, that we can't go faster than light. we don't know this for sure. and we certainly don't know what we don't know.

i look at the accelerating rate at which we are making technological advances. i suspect that a millennium from now, our technology today will look like child's play in comparison. that is a 1000 years.

Newton had "evidence" that gravity was some sort of natural attraction that matter had toward other matter. einstein had "evidence" that gravity was matter warping space-time, such that objects followed the path of least resistance, so to speak.

i suspect that neither is correct.

i don't think this forum requires physics proofs in order to have an opinion. and we are talking about the future.

i will once again ask you to go back in time, where there was no physics proofs or evidence of probably most things that we "know" today.

i will once again caution you as to the typical arrogance of many physicists who seem to think that mankind has reached close to its pinnacle of knowledge, today. i guess we must live in the select time frame in which we have learned all there is to know.

i wouldn't even give you one penny on a hundred dollars that this is true. i only wish we could both be around 1000 years from now to see you telling everyone about how things are based upon our knowledge of today. i suspect you would look absolutely ridiculous.

but go ahead and reply with another dozen "no basis, pointless discussion" remarks.

 

[Ryan_m_b]

Unless you are suggesting that the mind is somehow "supernatural" - beyond the reach of rational study, there is no reason in principle why we will not, if given sufficient time, be able to replicate it artificially.

Heck, given enough advancement in technology, we could artifiically create one by manufacturing enzymes, proteins and neurons so that we have a virtual duplicate.

Oh yeah I wasn't saying we couldn't do it. I was objecting to the flippant statement that mind uploading is a mere extension of what we have now. There seem to be a lot of assumptions floating around on this thread that these magic technologies are just round the corner.

 

[Ryan_m_b]

jared,

you claim to have evidence, and that others before you only had wild claims.

if we both lived 100 years ago, you would be saying the same thing. what you purport today to be wild claims, you would have purported to be evidence, if you lived back then. this is your mindset - you have displayed strong inclinations in every thread that i have seen you participate, towards what seems proven and that goes along with the typical current mindset of today.

we think, based upon our evidence, that we can't go faster than light. we don't know this for sure. and we certainly don't know what we don't know.

i look at the accelerating rate at which we are making technological advances. i suspect that a millennium from now, our technology today will look like child's play in comparison. that is a 1000 years.

Newton had "evidence" that gravity was some sort of natural attraction that matter had toward other matter. einstein had "evidence" that gravity was matter warping space-time, such that objects followed the path of least resistance, so to speak.

i suspect that neither is correct.

i don't think this forum requires physics proofs in order to have an opinion. and we are talking about the future.

i will once again ask you to go back in time, where there was no physics proofs or evidence of probably most things that we "know" today.

i will once again caution you as to the typical arrogance of many physicists who seem to think that mankind has reached close to its pinnacle of knowledge, today. i guess we must live in the select time frame in which we have learned all there is to know.

i wouldn't even give you one penny on a hundred dollars that this is true. i only wish we could both be around 1000 years from now to see you telling everyone about how things are based upon our knowledge of today. i suspect you would look absolutely ridiculous.

but go ahead and reply with another dozen "no basis, pointless discussion" remarks.

You can't say "once someone was wrong" as evidence that people are wrong now. You are also talking about proof and certainty which do not belong in science. Jared is completely right in what he is saying about accelerating to superluminal speeds, all the evidence (both theoretical and experimental) shows that to accelerate mass to light speed would require infinite time or infinite energy.

As for the two hypotheticals on wormholes and Alcubeirre both have severe problems. Wormholes require the construction of exotic matter, assuming we do that we would still have to then transport one of the mouths to where ever we want to go, this means transporting it at sub-light speed using a rocket. An Alcubeirre warp drive requires faster than light particles to steer the ship and turn it off. A bigger problem is that the energy requirements are massive.

Now even accepting the fact that we can't know anything for certain and who knows what the future might bring it is still a logical fallacy to ignore evidence in favour of an unevidenced idea purely on the basis that you hope that your impossible idea will be true in the future.

 

[JaredJames]

I'm disappointed Dave, this isn't like you.

Except "acceleration" is not the only way to achieve superluminal travel (wormholes and the hypothetical Alcubierre drive are candidates).

Didn't say it was, but then I was under the impression that the alternatives (such as the above) weren't actually FTL because you never actually traveled FTL. They are a way of circumventing the known laws of physics to travel long distances. This is without even considering the technologies required for such 'alternative' devices don't exist and we have no way of knowing if they will (as per ryan's post).

I am not suggesting we are ready to go build them, I am suggesting you are not able to rule out the principle of superluminal travel in one swell foop of Einsteinian hand-waving.

Since this thread is not about how we might get there, but is about the implicationsof it, it is fair to posit that we can take advantage of these hypotheses that do not violate known physics.

I agree, but that isn't what my response was given to. I was responding to someone saying "science is currently wrong, in the future we will prove that and have FTL travel". Note that they aren't saying the alternatives are possible (wormholes etc), just that science will be proved wrong. Under such a context, my statement is perfectly acceptable given this is a science site and the evidence supports me (heck the rules say as much).

Unless you are suggesting that the mind is somehow "supernatural" - beyond the reach of rational study, there is no reason in principle why we will not, if given sufficient time, be able to replicate it artificially.

Heck, given enough advancement in technology, we could artifiically create one by manufacturing enzymes, proteins and neurons so that we have a virtual duplicate.

Again, under the context of what was stated here it is perfectly acceptable what ryan said. He didn't say it wasn't possible, only that people are claiming it either will be very soon or that it will follow previous technological advancement. Such statements are ridiculous because their assumptions are baseless.

In both cases above, you are correct but then it's the context which matters. Your responses seem to have ignored the context they were given in.

 

[JaredJames]

if we both lived 100 years ago, you would be saying the same thing. what you purport today to be wild claims, you would have purported to be evidence, if you lived back then. this is your mindset - you have displayed strong inclinations in every thread that i have seen you participate, towards what seems proven and that goes along with the typical current mindset of today.

Don't confuse my mindset with the rules of this site (which you agreed to - mainstream published science only).

Regardless, science says "to the best of our knowledge, X holds true" and it continues to say that until new evidence comes out. This does not mean we can go around saying "ah well, science says it's impossible now, but it's wrong (because I want them to be) and we'll see it proved possible in the future".

we think, based upon our evidence, that we can't go faster than light. we don't know this for sure. and we certainly don't know what we don't know.

We can't get a single particle FTL...

Again, regardless the rules of this site don't allow hand waiving and proclaiming science is wrong.

i look at the accelerating rate at which we are making technological advances. i suspect that a millennium from now, our technology today will look like child's play in comparison. that is a 1000 years.

A baseless claim. The assumption that we will continue developing at such a rate and breakthroughs will keep coming at such a rate is complete nonsense.

Even Moore's Law isn't really applicable any more. They are quickly reaching a point where they simply cannot make things any smaller. So things won't keep following the pattern.

i suspect that neither is correct.

Well that's up to you, but it doesn't belong on this site unless you're going to support it as per the rules with mainstream published science.

i don't think this forum requires physics proofs in order to have an opinion. and we are talking about the future.

You certainly don't need to prove an opinion, but if you cannot then the current science holds true whether you like it or not and no amount of proclaiming "I believe science is wrong" will change that. So what if it's the future? I'm amazed how people say "but it's the future" as if that means something. Wild speculation means absolutely nothing - for example, I believe that in the future we will wipe ourselves out - no less valid than your own view on the matter, but still worthless.

i will once again caution you as to the typical arrogance of many physicists who seem to think that mankind has reached close to its pinnacle of knowledge, today. i guess we must live in the select time frame in which we have learned all there is to know.

I don't know many, if any, physicists who believe this. The scientists I know are all very much aware of what science is actually about - specifically that it is only true based on current evidence and that we aren't even close to understanding everything.

i wouldn't even give you one penny on a hundred dollars that this is true. i only wish we could both be around 1000 years from now to see you telling everyone about how things are based upon our knowledge of today. i suspect you would look absolutely ridiculous.

You see here's the thing. I work with science. Science doesn't mind being wrong, neither do I. What science knows now is based on evidence and if something comes out in the future that proves it incorrect then science (and myself) amend my view on the matter as appropriate. So no, I wouldn't look ridiculous. I would show that I work with the scientific procedure and don't just hand wave "science is wrong now, in the future it will prove this" which certainly isn't science and is nothing more than your own hopes and dreams.

but go ahead and reply with another dozen "no basis, pointless discussion" remarks.

Again, please read the rules of this site. Your posts aren't about the effect of FTL travel, you are simply stating that science is wrong. As such the above statement is perfectly correct.

 

[Drakkith]

Jared, I understand you completely. I cannot stand when people accuse scientists of being arrogant know it alls that think that we can't possibly know anything else...the whole idea of that is counter to the scientific method AND to history.

Edit: And before someone gets uppity, I am NOT saying anyone in this thread is doing that. Unless you are. Then you should stop.

Anyways, our current understanding of science let's us easily make statements such as "Nothing can travel at or greater than c". Why? Because not only can we NOT accelerate anything to that point, every observed action and reaction agrees with it. We can easily see this in things like the LHC where accelerating the protons requires more and more energy, and the amount accelerated per unit of energy is less and less. Every law and equation that we have observed to be correct supports this. This isn't the early 1800's when they didn't even know how a steam engine really works.

The only possible way I could see us traveling faster than c is if we discover some fifth fundamental force or something that caused the other forces to not work properly.

 

[JaredJames]

Jared, I understand you completely. I cannot stand when people accuse scientists of being arrogant know it alls that think that we can't possibly know anything else...the whole idea of that is counter to the scientific method AND to history.

Exactly. You have people who are saying science will do X, Y and Z in the future yet everything it knows now is complete horse s***. I just don't understand the mind set.

Everything we know now is completely valid, until such a time (and only if) it is proven false. To proclaim that it's all BS now and that we'll really know in the future is ridiculous.

The whole basis of science is we observe and report. If it fits, we keep it until such a time it no longer does so. You can't say something is wrong just because you want it to be.

Edit: And before someone gets uppity, I am NOT saying anyone in this thread is doing that. Unless you are. Then you should stop.

i will once again caution you as to the typical arrogance of many physicists who seem to think that mankind has reached close to its pinnacle of knowledge, today. i guess we must live in the select time frame in which we have learned all there is to know.

 

[Ryan_m_b]

Drakkith and Jared, you both speak a lot of sense. I completely agree!

It's so frustrating that in school science lessons people aren't taught the scientific method. Perhaps if they were we wouldn't have such a problem with people assuming that science is pretentious absolute statements.

 

[Dmytry]

That's analogous to saying "paintings are getting better so it's a mere continuation until we can build forests".

We still have no idea how exactly a brain creates mind. To replicate the effect you would have to simulate the brain down to the fundamental level required to create a mind, I would be very surprised as a biologist to learn that it would be possible to upload a brain without also uploading a body. Biology is very messy and without the appropriate interaction with the body (which could only be simulated by simulating a body to the fundamental level required) I don't think a simulated brain could work.

If you are going to make simplistic and extraordinary claims you are going to have to have some serious evidence to back it up. Pointing to the past trend of increased scan resolution or Moore's law is a complete fallacy.

So you disagree that this is much more plausible than a spaceship with a crew of millions, moving at a sizable fraction of speed of light, or what? It is a very extraordinary claim that mind uploading, for which at least there is some plausible scenario of progress, is closer than starships with population of millions, when you'd be very hard pressed to even imagine a society structure that would build and send such ships?

What makes you think that intelligence, especially tool using intelligence could evolve without a social species.

what makes you think it can't?
There's a lot of tool-using species on Earth, actually. It's not the tool use that sets us apart, and not even tool making, but ability to invent things like a stone firmly attached to the stick, things that you can't arrive at by gradual small improvements. The tool invention is hard; if you look for mere tool use you'll mostly find social animals that can communicate the tools invented by the few.

And no matter how intelligent an individual is I highly doubt that one individual working alone can build an interstellar vehicle.

It is false dichotomy. There's a plenty of shades of gray between pack animals such as humans, and totally asocial animals that can't cooperate. Plenty of intermediates. Humans are very good at passing along technologies with very little loss; it does not take a lot of improvement each time to counter the losses. Something that's not so great at communicating the improvements would have to counter larger losses before sustained progress.

 

[Ryan_m_b]

So you disagree that this is much more immediate possibility than a spaceship with a crew of millions, moving at a sizable fraction of speed of light, or what?

I was disagreeing with your use of the term "merely an extension". But whilst we're on the topic I disagree with the notion that one could say whether one was more "immediate" than the other. We have no idea how to do either nor is it sensible to try an extrapolate a linear, teleological progression of technology to determine what comes first. How to do them and when we could do them are unknowns, we cannot bandy around statements of "this is easier than that" when we have no firm idea.

what makes you think it can't?
There's a lot of tool-using species on Earth, actually. It's not the tool use that sets us apart, and not even tool making, but ability to invent things like a stone firmly attached to the stick, things that you can't arrive at by gradual small improvements. The tool invention is hard; if you look for mere tool use you'll mostly find social animals that can communicate the tools invented by the few.

If they are communicating then they are social. You used the term asocial suggesting no social behaviour. If they cannot communicate their tools then everybody is doomed to reinvent the wheel.

It is false dichotomy. There's a plenty of shades of gray between pack animals such as humans, and totally asocial animals that can't cooperate. Plenty of intermediates. Humans are very good at passing along technologies with very little loss; it does not take a lot of improvement each time to counter the losses. Something that's not so great at communicating the improvements would have to counter larger losses before sustained progress.

Which is different to your claim that aliens would need to be asocial so that they evolve to higher intelligence (and there is a big difference between copying each others tool using and co-operating to get work done) to travel through space.

 

[Dmytry]

I was disagreeing with your use of the term "merely an extension". But whilst we're on the topic I disagree with the notion that one could say whether one was more "immediate" than the other. We have no idea how to do either nor is it sensible to try an extrapolate a linear, teleological progression of technology to determine what comes first. How to do them and when we could do them are unknowns, we cannot bandy around statements of "this is easier than that" when we have no firm idea.

Well I wouldn't say that we have no idea how to do either. We can scan tiny pieces of tissue to extremely high accuracy. We can make extremely tiny basic gates (much smaller than those in your CPU), at molecular level, it's just that we can't make billions of those at once in a cost effective way, when competing with photolithography.

If they are communicating then they are social. You used the term asocial suggesting no social behaviour. If they cannot communicate their tools then everybody is doomed to reinvent the wheel.

Again I sense false dichotomy. There is a continuum of quality of communication. We humans have such a high quality communication that those who would never invent the wheel, nor even be able to copy other's wheel, get taught to be wheel-makers.

Which is different to your claim that aliens would need to be asocial so that they evolve to higher intelligence (and there is a big difference between copying each others tool using and co-operating to get work done) to travel through space.

well, the point is that less social aliens would have to be more individually capable of invention to, as species, match inventiveness of humans. And would need smaller crew.

 

[Drakkith]

Well I wouldn't say that we have no idea how to do either. We can scan tiny pieces of tissue to extremely high accuracy. We can make extremely tiny basic gates (much smaller than those in your CPU), at molecular level, it's just that we can't make billions of those at once in a cost effective way, when competing with photolithography.

Again I sense false dichotomy. There is a continuum of quality of communication. We humans have such a high quality communication that those who would never invent the wheel, nor even be able to copy other's wheel, get taught to be wheel-makers.

well, the point is that less social aliens would have to be more individually capable of invention to, as species, match inventiveness of humans. And would need smaller crew.

I agree that a less social species would probably need to be more individually capable than humanity is. Though I can't see a species with a large difference in how social they are compared to us building a full civilization. But I guess it depends. If they didn't ever care to chat about the weather and the Mavs game, but they were crazy dependant on the exchange of technological and scientific ideas, then I could see it.

 

[Ryan_m_b]

Well I wouldn't say that we have no idea how to do either. We can scan tiny pieces of tissue to extremely high accuracy. We can make extremely tiny basic gates (much smaller than those in your CPU), at molecular level, it's just that we can't make billions of those at once in a cost effective way, when competing with photolithography.

The ability to make a high resolution scan and a good computer doesn't mean mind uploading will just naturally fall out of the combination. You need to know how to run a simulation, need to discover what the fundamentals are, what the processes are etc. The latter is a far more complicated endeavour than the first two.

Again I sense false dichotomy. There is a continuum of quality of communication. We humans have such a high quality communication that those who would never invent the wheel, nor even be able to copy other's wheel, get taught to be wheel-makers.

I'm aware of that but it was you who used the word asocial meaning without socialisation. I also fail to see why less social tool users would have to evolve to be more intelligent rather than being more social. The ability to work co-operatively doesn't just boost your productivity in a linear fashion, most of the time the effect is synergistic i.e. 10 individuals don't necessarily do the work of 1 individual 10x faster. Groups of organisms can specialise and achieve far more than an equal number of generalists.

well, the point is that less social aliens would have to be more individually capable of invention to, as species, match inventiveness of humans. And would need smaller crew.

A few points here; firstly less social aliens would not necessarily be more individually capable. Secondly being more "inventive" does not mean that you can do more work. 10 geniuses can no more maintain a system needing 100 pairs of hand than 10 tradesmen.

 

[Physics-Learner]

while i do think we will find our understanding of the universe extremely expanded from what it is now, i did not say that this will be true, as some certainty principle.

i am very aware, and very fond of the scientific method.

if talk about the future is allowed, then it follows that speculation on the future must also be allowed. unless one of you is proclaiming to know the future.

if we learn something from history, we may not repeat those same mistakes.

doing so, it can be demonstrated how very incomplete our understanding was at prior instances.

so we can make one of two conclusions. either our current understanding is also very incomplete, or it is not.

it is my opinion that the former holds a much higher probability of being true. this opinion comes from rational and logical thinking, not some magic wand waving based upon the number of angels on the head of a pin.

speculation on the future is not a scientific experiment. we can not use evidence from scientific events to prove speculation about the future. but we can use some inductive reasoning and logic to help form an opinion of what seems likely.

this thread was posted in the scepticism forum, not the relativity forum.

to jared - you sure like to be melodramatic. perhaps you should have been an actor in the theater ? i did not say that everything we know today is complete BS, and we will know everything in the future. i don't doubt that there are many topics of today that are explained quite well.

i would not include the universe, quantum mechanics, relativity, space, time, light, etc. in these topics.

i would include mechanics, etc.

 

[JaredJames]

if talk about the future is allowed, then it follows that speculation on the future must also be allowed. unless one of you is proclaiming to know the future.

Feel free to speculate a bit, based on current knowledge. But you can't say our current understanding of X is wrong as far as your concerned and as such you don't accept Y is impossible because of it.

so we can make one of two conclusions. either our current understanding is also very incomplete, or it is not.

Our understanding is very incomplete - there isn't a scientist around that would deny that.

speculation on the future is not a scientific experiment. we can not use evidence from scientific events to prove speculation about the future. but we can use some inductive reasoning and logic to help form an opinion of what seems likely.

Saying we know X now and so in the future it is likely Y will be possible/impossible is forward thinking based on current knowledge, and certainly within the realms of science.

Saying we were wrong in the past and therefore chances are we are wrong now is not logical, nor is it scientific.

you sure like to be melodramatic.

Coming from the person who proclaimed many scientists are arrogant and you believe Newton/Einstein are wrong on gravity (again a topic we don't know much about, but none-the-less something which you can't proclaim false without evidence against the current evidence for), that really doesn't mean much.

Perhaps this should get back on topic now.

 

[Physics-Learner]

i was going to reply, read your last sentence, and will honor your request.

 

[Ryan_m_b]

There's a huge difference between speculating based on current knowledge and ignoring all current evidence. As I posted earlier the only hypothetical ways known to us for how to achieve FTL travel have huge difficulties;

Wormholes must be physically taken to the location you need to get to i.e you must transport one end STL

Warp drives require FTL signalling to steer/turn off, would be filled with radiation and would require energy on the order of several solar masses to work.

 

[Physics-Learner]

if ftl is possible, i think we are many, many milestones away from it, such that speculating about how we would achieve it is probably somewhat moot.

if ftl is not possible, i think it is unlikely that we will ever see aliens or get seen by them. the distances are just too great.

i was playing around with a warp speed calculator on the net. warp 9 is 1500c. even at that speed, it would take 65 years to traverse the milky way galaxy, and 1300 years to reach the andromeda galaxy, which is still pretty close compared to the universe.

the largeness of the universe, and the smallness of atomic particles boggles my mind.