The scale of the known Universe

[t0yrobo]

awesome, and people don't believe that aliens exist.if we could exist, why couldn't something else exist in the near-infinite dimensions of space?

"Why not?" questions make very poor arguments. We have neither enough information or the observational capacity to conclude one way or the other.

I think his point is that it is invalid to definitively say that they don't exist because of the incedible vastness of space; the math says that it's just as likely that they do exist. But, as you said, we cannot conclude one way or another. Without our luck they're all beyond 14 billion light years.

Here's that math for anyone interested
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Drake_equation.

On a related note
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_7xwu2i0mMU
NSFWhttp://www.cracked.com/video_18186_if-v ... ted-r.html
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f_J5rBxeTIk

[Limewater]

awesome, and people don't believe that aliens exist.if we could exist, why couldn't something else exist in the near-infinite dimensions of space?

"Why not?" questions make very poor arguments. We have neither enough information or the observational capacity to conclude one way or the other.

I think his point is that it is invalid to definitively say that they don't exist because of the incedible vastness of space; the math says that it's just as likely that they do exist.

When he wrote, "people don't believe," I took that to mean lack of affirmative belief, not negative belief. Saying, "I don't believe in extra-terrestrial life" is weaker than saying, "I believe that extra-terrestrial life does not exist." But perhaps I am reading his words too literally.

I don't think we can really say, either, that the existence or non-existence of extra-terrestrial life are both equally-likely cases. We can feed a bunch of parameters into the Drake equation, but the parameters are all BS and the equation is made up.

[Octopod]

So you're like alien agnostic.

[MrPopo]

is that it? i would have thought that man's existence would be around a hundredths or thousandths of a second on a 24 hour clock.

Well figure the Earth is 4.5 Billion Years old, and iirc recorded history of Man is approximately 8000 years old, then when you math it out you get:

8000 / 4.5 billion -> 1.77777778 × 10^-6 * 24 hours = 0.1536 seconds

So if instead we say that man's existance is 80,000 years then you're at 1.5 seconds. It all depends on how old "man" is considered to be.

When he wrote, "people don't believe," I took that to mean lack of affirmative belief, not negative belief. Saying, "I don't believe in extra-terrestrial life" is weaker than saying, "I believe that extra-terrestrial life does not exist." But perhaps I am reading his words too literally.

It does depend on how you parse the statement. I usually read "I don't believe in X" as "I believe that X does not exist", as that's usually what people mean by it. You are right, though, that if you go by strict definitions the first statement is weaker than the second. But I personally do not see a distinction between lack of affirmative belief and negative belief. In my mind belief is exclusive; you either believe something exists or you don't believe it exists.

[BlackDS]

Jesus Christ quit breaking down my post and sucking all of the meaning out of it like song lyrics. Im just saying that people who do not open their minds to other ideas (such as the possibility of extra-terrestrials), are stuck up dicks. There, analyze that.

[jeffro11]

I think this fits nicely.

[Limewater]

Jesus Christ quit breaking down my post and sucking all of the meaning out of it like song lyrics. Im just saying that people who do not open their minds to other ideas (such as the possibility of extra-terrestrials), are stuck up dicks. There, analyze that.

Checking back over the thread, I see that Jesus Christ has not posted to it. Perhaps you are replying on the wrong thread?

[BlackDS]

Jesus Christ quit breaking down my post and sucking all of the meaning out of it like song lyrics. Im just saying that people who do not open their minds to other ideas (such as the possibility of extra-terrestrials), are stuck up dicks. There, analyze that.

Checking back over the thread, I see that Jesus Christ has not posted to it. Perhaps you are replying on the wrong thread?

....

I guess I was unnecessarily angry.

[CRTGAMER]

This little app is rather amazing for putting things in perspective

http://www.newgrounds.com/portal/view/525347

J T, that flash file is so cool, had to extract it!

Right click and save. Enjoy this offline with your SWF player..

http://uploads.ungrounded.net/525000/52 ... rse_ng.swf

[CRTGAMER]

Big Bang, more to follow.