1 minute ago, FBW737 said:

I don't think it deserves an ounce of serious consideration.

In a world of individuals, its enough that some do. Meanwhile the universe apparently doesn't care, either way, so...... 🙃

13 hours ago, FBW737 said:

You probably don't want to got there though because it would crack your whole world view open like an egg for frying and there's no undoing that.

 

🤣 Trust me, it wouldn't.

 

13 hours ago, FBW737 said:

In my view, it makes more sense to consider the paradigm to be already falsified.

"highly doubt the existence of ET even extinct ET" 

 

You see, the thing is you weren't specific. You said "ET" as in extraterrestrial life. Well we know that simple life appeared on this planet pretty much as soon as it cooled. 

If we couple that with 400 billion stars in our galaxy, 2 trillion plus galaxies in the observable universe, countless trillions of planets, the fact that the universe beyond the observable could be infinite, the fact that the universe is 13.8 billion years old, then you maintaining that you highly doubt life exits and has ever existed would not be in accordance with what most astrophysicists, or reasonable people, would deem likely. 

What an unlikely event it would be for one little planet called Earth to easily generate life as soon as it cooled, out of countless trillions in a possibly infinite universe.

Advanced life, technological life, is an entirely different question.    

 

 

Quote

 

Many astronomers are no longer asking whether there is life elsewhere in the Universe.

The question on their minds is instead: when will we find it?

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-66950930

 

 

Edited December 11, 20232 yr by martin-w

16 hours ago, HiFlyer said:

Off-hand, I can actually think of several famous people in history who were nihilists, including well regarded writers and some of our most well known philosophers, etc.

Were they nihilists or psuedo-nihilists?  I think that a creative person might desire to be a nihilist and describe him or herself as such but anyone who writes literature, produces works of art or composes symphonies has to care about something greater than himself.  That is not nihilistic.  Such artists might withdraw from society and label themselves as nihilistic but are they?  I think the mere fact that they created something...that they thought outside the box of nihilism...proves that they are not real nihilists.

Noel

1 hour ago, martin-w said:

What an unlikely event it would be for one little planet called Earth to easily generate life as soon as it cooled, out of countless trillions in a possibly infinite universe.

There are probably millions of planets in the universe that sustain life in many different forms.  Some of those forms are probably intelligent beings in various stages of development.  In our own galaxy I suspect our planet is still in the early stages of development compared to some who have not only achieved warp drive but have visited and still do visit earth to observe our primitive life according to their standards.

It is written somewhere in the New Testament, "...in my Father's house are many mansions..."  Could those mansions be class M planets in various stages of development?

Noel

1 hour ago, martin-w said:

The question on their minds is instead: when will we find it?

Probably around the same time they find dark matter, strings and figure out why there are fully formed galaxies in the early universe.🤣

31 minutes ago, FBW737 said:

Probably around the same time they find dark matter, strings and figure out why there are fully formed galaxies in the early universe.🤣

 

We don't have to FIND dark matter, just determine what it is. As for early galaxies, that was the entire point of the Webb telescope, probably a result of bursts of star formation, not what astronomers were expecting,  but again, that was the point of Webb, to gather new data. Just make sure you take no notice of the "big bang didn't happen" nonsense. Webb hasn't suggested anything of the sort, quite the opposite. 

58 minutes ago, birdguy said:

There are probably millions of planets in the universe that sustain life in many different forms.  Some of those forms are probably intelligent beings in various stages of development.  In our own galaxy I suspect our planet is still in the early stages of development compared to some who have not only achieved warp drive but have visited and still do visit earth to observe our primitive life according to their standards.

 

NASA's Europa Clipper is to visit Jupiter's icy moon Europa to determine if the conditions are suitable for life. October the launch. 

 

Quote

About the mission

NASA's Europa Clipper will conduct detailed reconnaissance of Jupiter's moon Europa and investigate whether the icy moon could harbor conditions suitable for life.

The mission will place a spacecraft in orbit around Jupiter in order to perform a detailed investigation of Europa -- a world that shows strong evidence for an ocean of liquid water beneath its icy crust and which could host conditions favorable for life. The mission will send a highly capable, radiation-tolerant spacecraft into a long, looping orbit around Jupiter to perform repeated close flybys of the icy moon.

 

 

https://www.jpl.nasa.gov/missions/europa-clipper

Edited December 11, 20232 yr by martin-w

6 hours ago, birdguy said:

Were they nihilists or psuedo-nihilists?

Are any of us purely anything, when/if it comes to belief(s)?

For instance, my own attraction to science and rationality almost automatically engenders mixed feelings of what some have called 'moral nihilism', when looking at a universe apparently doomed in the end to emptiness, darkness, and total heat-death; erasing everything we have or ever will create, and leaving behind not even a memory.

The question of what, if anything is the point, when faced with that, is immediately placed front and center.

Kind of grim!

Yet like with most humans, my/our genetic predisposition to find structure even in the random giraffe-ness of a cloud or the hidden frog in a rorschach, means that as a species we strive to perceive deeper meanings, even if only for the practical reason that without some shared, overarching beliefs of something greater to confine our base natures, society cannot stand long against anarchy/decadence.

Thus the survival-based inevitability of pseudo-nihilism, via a selfish unwillingness to personally live in an anarchic heck-hole....

(Obviously it's more complex than that.....!)

The video simply asks us to imagine scenarios regarding hypothetical aliens that have collapsed into indifference or nihilistic despair for whatever reason, or, perhaps even worse from our perspective, continue to expand with no constraints on their basest behaviors toward other species they encounter.....