Montana Smith
Active member
Pale Horse said:Must stay quiet, must stay quiet...
Resistance is futile! They have ways of making you talk.
Pale Horse said:Must stay quiet, must stay quiet...
WillKill4Food said:"Theory"? "Hypothesis" would be too generous.
WillKill4Food said:Wormholes and that sort of deal seem to be the only plausible form of interstellar travel.
WillKill4Food said:My astronomy professor did a great job convincing me that "warp drives" are as invented as Jimmy Doohan's Scottish accent.
If I ever choose to change my screen-name...Montana Smith said:
To my knowledge there is no "theory" that predicts and explains the phenomenon of little gre(en) men, chiefly because there's no evidence to be found. The theories exist only in the colloquial sense (i.e. "hypothesis").Gear said:I don't think there's much room for generosity in arrogant pretentiousness.
Imagination, knowledge, and resources. (And mainly the latter two...)Gear said:..."plausible" is defined by our imagination and resources.
Presently, there's no reason to believe that interstellar travel is possible, given the distance and the rather short life-spans of human beings. I don't think a sort of "warp drive" could be created, but centuries ago, people said the same about the moon. I certainly think scientists have a much better grasp on their limitations than our ancestors (and today's fiction writers).Gear said:I'd argue that it depends on how well we could understand the mechanics of gravity, but I may be wrong.
WillKill4Food said:To my knowledge there is no "theory" that predicts and explains the phenomenon of little gre(en) men, chiefly because there's no evidence to be found. The theories exist only in the colloquial sense (i.e. "hypothesis").
WillKill4Food said:Presently, there's no reason to believe that interstellar travel is possible
On the contrary, to use your own dictionary,Gear said:Not to be snarky, but you've got those terms confused.
WillKill4Food said:There is probably something out there, some form of "extraterrestrial life", given the number of stars in the galaxy, but it seems rather unlikely that what actually exists out there followed an evolutionary pathway at all similar to ours. Little green (or gray) men probably exist only in peoples' vivid dreams.
A Sagan-esque approach could, perhaps, offer a few ideas worth consideration, but I.S. Shklovski and Carl Sagan (who devoted very little attention to the idea back in the sixties and considered the notion entirely speculative) do not represent the majority of ancient astronaut adherents. It's a fun idea to think about, no doubt, and it's a decent basis for interesting books and good television (though, as we've seen, not so much for a good movie) but there's very little basis for any of the claims.adventure_al said:The only people taking about 'little green men' is you. I think ancient astronauts is merely a thought provoking idea that brings up lots of points to considered.
At the very least, I think the majority expect humanoids. There's no longer any reason to believe that humans were planted here, and there's certainly no reason to think that aliens gave us our intellectual capacities. If you are "seriously convinced", you ought to be able to provide some reason to believe and some explanation of what it is that you're convinced in, eh?adventure_al said:However very few of those who are seriously convinced by the concept would expect little green men like in the movies. Thats just being naive.
Of course. You're not saying anything; that's the safest route.If it has no form at all, then it's, what, spiritual? That sounds much more religious than scientific, and, indeed, that's merely a belief. Most of the ancient astronaut folks I've heard point to ancient depictions of gods and say, "that's not human" or "this looks inspired by ____".adventure_al said:I for one didn't say it. Infact whats to say it has to have any form at all?
That's very religious.adventure_al said:If there is anything at all it might even be beyond our understanding to contemplate.
Because what we are discussing is very much a 'matter of fact.' Either ancient aliens aided our ancestors or they did not. It's a matter of fact, not a matter of belief.adventure_al said:You seem very 'matter of fact'.
Not ignorant, but skeptical. The Bible and other religious texts do not allude to a vague sort of life force; for the most part they lay out very specific and rigid notions of God, along with stories of dragons and mythical beasts/people. If we say "maybe Moses was inspired by ET," then we have to entertain the notion that perhaps Charles Manson was as well, continuing that process ad infinitum. [We ought also take into account the evidence that Moses never existed.] It seems far more probable that humans are prone to delusion, and we, as a species, explain that which we do not understand in fantastic terms.adventure_al said:The unicorns/dragons/LGM comments you use to detract from other peoples theories comes over as ignorant to fresh ideas, at best.
Merely opinions, not theories, and you ought not dodge accusations against like minds when you're defending a common view. Were you to defend the divinity of Christ, I would no doubt identify you as a Christian. The same principle is at work here. If you think the ancient astronauts folks are as crazy as I think they are, then I do not see why you'd adopt any of their claims.adventure_al said:However we shouldn't pigeon hole ideas based on opinions/theories or anything else that has already been formed in the common domain.
I see no difference between the ancient astronaut phenomenon and religion. You've offered no reason to look at it through any other lens. No evidence, just faith and feeling.adventure_al said:You're bringing it back to ancient astronaut ideas that have already been broadly put forward or tying it in with religion's take on things.
Such as what? The only interesting points I see are that modern space helmets appear somewhat similar to their ancient fore-bearers, and man has not been significantly more creative in describing the aliens of "science fiction" than our ancestors were in describing the creatures of fantastic fiction.adventure_al said:My point was if we take the idea purely on the basis of it raising some interesting points.
Because there's no reason to believe that it is anything more than fairy-tale.adventure_al said:Then it could indicate there is somesort of greater 'force' out there, be that physical or otherwise. Now you could turn that right round into a God arguement but what is to say the world religions and now various hypothesis and scentific theories are just interpreting the same thing in very different ways over many hundreds of years?
You're not; you're in the toolbox of religion, using those tools. Our tool, the correct tool, must be scientific.adventure_al said:Vague and possibly spiritual? Perhaps. But we should think outside the box.
On the contrary, I think it's rather dangerous.adventure_al said:You might call it safe but I don't think we should restrict ourselves by relating it to what we currently understand.
UFO might be correct, but only if you meant it in the correct sense: unidentified flying object. When my toddler cousin sees a helicopter, she sees a UFO because she doesn't know what it is. Just as a priest sees someone cured and calls it "God's handiwork," the alien-believer sees a UFO and identifies it as a spacecraft. There's no reason to believe that except that you want to, because believing other beings took the time to come help us out assigns humankind some importance that I'm afraid we do not have.adventure_al said:Bringing it full circle and back onto the main topic of the thread, that is a very concept that ancient aliens raises: they call it a dragon or a cloud we might call it a UFO or spaceship.
WillKill4Food said:Merely opinions, not theories, and you ought not dodge accusations against like minds when you're defending a common view. Were you to defend the divinity of Christ, I would no doubt identify you as a Christian. The same principle is at work here. If you think the ancient astronauts folks are as crazy as I think they are, then I do not see why you'd adopt any of their claims.
WillKill4Food said:I see no difference between the ancient astronaut phenomenon and religion. You've offered no reason to look at it through any other lens. No evidence, just faith and feeling.
WillKill4Food said:Such as what? The only interesting points I see are that modern space helmets appear somewhat similar to their ancient fore-bearers, and man has not been significantly more creative in describing the aliens of "science fiction" than our ancestors were in describing the creatures of fantastic fiction.
WillKill4Food said:UFO might be correct, but only if you meant it in the correct sense: unidentified flying object. When my toddler cousin sees a helicopter, she sees a UFO because she doesn't know what it is. Just as a priest sees someone cured and calls it "God's handiwork," the alien-believer sees a UFO and identifies it as a spacecraft. There's no reason to believe that except that you want to, because believing other beings took the time to come help us out assigns humankind some importance that I'm afraid we do not have.
With all the mugwumping, you haven't really said anything. I don't understand the point you're trying to make. I said that the ancient aliens bit makes for good storytelling, but that doesn't mean it has any basis in fact or deserves any serious attention given the lack of evidence at the present. To wit, the claim that the moon landing was a staged hoax is also an interesting idea, but that doesn't mean that anyone who isn't writing fiction should give it the time of day. There's no "interesting point" to be made by examining the ancient astronauts beliefs, and it's futile to take it seriously or defend anyone who does given the dearth of evidence to indicate anything of the sort. If you don't believe in these von Daniken fairytales, good. If you do, then you might as well 'fess up. It appears that you believe in ancient astronauts but do not feel comfortable giving a reason why other than "it sounds cool."adventure_al said:I said earlier I see ancient aliens as no more than an interesting topic. In the same way as perhaps bigfoot or an unusual conspiracy theory.
It is not just an opinion. Psychological studies have, for the large part, explained the alien sighting/abduction phenomenon.adventure_al said:Finally that is just opinion. Many would say otherwise and not just religious folks.
Gabeed said:Oh dear. It hath begun again . . .
That topic is certainly interesting, but why do aliens have to be thrown into the mix?adventure_al said:For one there is certainly evidence to suggest some ancient civilisations had at least a basic knowledge or aerodynamics.
This is retarded. How do you know theyd have trouble evolving? Ya think your smarter than they are?WillKill4Food said:The only way I see interstellar travel as a possibility would be if the beings were capable of incredibly advanced technology and capable of living for a very long time. They'd require a lifespan far longer than ours, and this presents a great problem: if they lived incredibly long lives, they'd have trouble evolving to the point where their minds were capable of creating this insanely powerful technology.
Do you understand natural selection at all? It took our planet around 4.5 billion years to yield a species as intelligent as man; if the aliens are going to be smarter than us and have technology that so greatly surpasses our own, I imagine they'd need to live on an older planet.Sharkey said:This is retarded. How do you know theyd have trouble evolving? Ya think your smarter than they are?
WillKill4Food said:On the contrary, to use your own dictionary...
WillKill4Food said:Do you understand natural selection at all? It took our planet around 4.5 billion years to yield a species as intelligent as man; if the aliens are going to be smarter than us and have technology that so greatly surpasses our own, I imagine they'd need to live on an older planet.
Not in suit. For one, I wouldn't expect to find humanoids like us. I think it was Gould who described evolution as more like a bush than a tree: any small change early on would have great impacts later on, and if you were to restart the evolution of life on Earth, there's no guarantee that things would turn out the way they did.Gear said:Your reasoning is as good as anyone's, but you're also assuming that any and all alien species must evolve in suit with species here on Earth.
It's probably more likely that the celery monsters have already been hit with extinction events worse than Earth has yet seen, or perhaps the celery monsters lived in solar systems whose stars have already died.Gabeed said:The aliens could be asexual celery monsters who didn't get hit with extinction events like Earth did, for all we know.