Intoscience

Yes, so fundamentally based on our current understanding of physics and technological capabilities any meaningful and practical interstellar travel is near on impossible. Unless you can consistently harness huge amounts of resource over a very long period of time. So therefore we can conclude that IF E.T has visited Earth from outside our solar system then it must imply that either the warping of space and/or the dilation of time can be practically harnessed in some way that we have yet to discover.

Though interesting, discussions on "realistic" interstellar travel based on our current understanding of mainstream physics and technology is a bit pointless. Delving into the engineering requirements alone, aside from human biological limitations and vulnerabilities shows that its basically practically impossible to go any significant distance. Its pretty obvious that "if" aliens are doing such then they have discovered either physics we are yet unaware of and technology which is beyond our understanding. All our realistic assumptions on this subject are, and can only be based on human experience. The reality being that if interstellar travel is practically possible in a meaningful and useful way for humans, then traditional reaction propulsion systems are not the way forward. This then brings us back to what we currently consider as "sci-fi speculation", warp drives, anti gravity mechanisms and so forth. This is what Bob Lazar's claim has been since the 1980's to this day. Whether you believe his story or not is irrelevant. What is relevant is that he claims a type of "gravity warp field" is the mechanism which the craft operates with. Sci-fi, hoax or other, objectively this makes more sense for interstellar travel than slow, inefficient reaction propulsion systems (ironically what Bob was an accomplished engineer in). The point being, as outlined originally, reaction propulsion systems are a pointless mode of interstellar travel. You can tackle the physics and engineering all day long but the conclusion will remain the same. Either aliens have never been here or ever will, or they have and we have yet to learn how to do it ourselves.

All life as we know it is made from matter, simple. So you have 2 options outside this: Option 1. Life emerging from pure energy, which we have no real examples, evidence, or models for. Option 2. life emerging spiritually, which we would define as "super natural" again we have no real examples or evidence for. Both these examples extend our current definition of life outside of what would be considered mainstream. If you want to propose an alternative to life as we know it (matter based), then by all means crack on. But if you are going to make propositions outside of the mainstream and bring them to a "science" forum then you better have some credible, testable evidence to support your claims.

Thank you, that makes perfect sense.

I find this interesting, and would like you to expand on your reasoning further.

Sounds to me a poor excuse for not facing up to the responsibility of your actions.

Though I do side on the no designer argument I can't help but feel much like what Markus stated. I have yet to find a compelling argument for the need of a designer, but many for the non requirement of design or designer. However because our knowledge still lacks, and the evidence supporting theories on and around how the universe initially began, and how life (as we know it) initially began, then I do beg the question. I'm happy to dismiss wild claims, especially those focused/built around religious beliefs. So at this juncture, I would remain on the - random evolutionary models bench. A little part of me wishes/hopes that a designer was indeed required, this may give some extra meaning to it all. Especially so if humans are intended to be just that little bit extra special.

Or the ultimate escape. Depending on your beliefs. If a person is an atheist who doesn't believe in any form of after life or transcendence, or reincarnation then death means full stop, the end in every sense. But you can be an atheist and believe in some form of continuum. (as per what The Vat stated) For a person to be be punished then they need to be judged.

Agreed, Going back to this recent claim Either the film makers of close encounters knew something no one else did, or the person making these claims is very unimaginative! I read that the latest NASA report on UAPs states that they have no reason to believe that any of the UAPs are non terrestrial. However, they do go on to state that the findings are inconclusive and many of the phenomena remain unknown both in construct and in origin. they also state that some of the evidence suggests that some of the objects are not moving as fast as reported and maybe just "drifting" with currents. This last part I find rather odd and I'm not convinced. Many of the objects where witnessed on multiple occasions by various experienced air force personal. I find it hard to believe that they would all mis-construe what they witnessed. I do however remain sceptical of "alien" visitations. But I'm not in the club of completely ruling them out. What may convince me more to join the "believers" is if we discovered new physics which may allow for, or at least theorise, a plausible practical method of long-distance short time space travel by meaningful physical objects.

I would have structured the sentence differently, because when I read the first part it came across as though you condoned Jimmy Saville's actions. Any person/s who abuse children deserve something!

hmmm... uncannily The sad thing being that all this does is fuel the stigma surrounding aliens and the possibility of their existence.

The problem is that the public cannot discern what is fact and what is fiction these days, especially so on subjects like this. People tend to buy into what ever is trendy at the time and with social media so accessible and also easily manipulated then the general public can be convinced of fiction over fact without much question.

I'm not sure that is true though. Even if aliens were visiting (i'm not advocating they are) then why would we still not explore our local neighbourhood anyway? The question would be why are we not using the so called captured technology to make it easier for us to explore our local neighbourhood? The so called "whistle blowers" have claimed that the government has being back engineering this technology for over half a century, and included in that are claims of test flying anti gravity devices. It all smells of a diversionary tactic to cover up advanced technology testing that is human in origin.

I'm not, I'm advocating that in order to integrate transgender then the rules should consider the new definition of what a woman is. They are not changing the definitions, society (a group of) are changing the definition. The governing bodies are attempting to integrate this new definition into sporting categories. I'm not!!! The rules have to consider the new definition to enable integration. How that is achieved is beyond me since the original definition was fundamentally based on biology. Now its not, so now the ruling boards need to consider this.

I never advocated it was. There is an undeniable difference between male and female physical performance. The current world athletic championships highlight this as we speak. So where predominantly does that extra performance come from? cause it sure aint all just psychological. It comes from physiological attributes that are fundamentally biological differences.

Sure we do, we have many clear definitions for many things, there is nothing stopping us redefining as we probe more detailed depths or as more accurate data comes to bear. It also depends on the context and purpose. For example you mentioned a black hole, the simple universally accepted definition is simply - a region of space where not even light can escape. Sure you can refine that definition and continue to improve on it if you wish to do so. Until recently a woman was defined as - an adult human female. The definition has since evolve over the past few years and now includes - gender identity that is fluid. I'm not the one forcing them to change the definition????? The original definition of a woman was - adult human female. That's what the women's category was originally based around. Now the definition of a woman has evolved to include an additional definition - fluid gender identity. So the logical step to include trans gender in the "women" category, the rules must be fundamentally changed to fairly include the new additional definition. Or we could split the category into separate divisions, like they do with weight. You cant have a competition with rules that were based on old definitions and expect it to continue to function properly without evolving to include/consider changed/new definitions, that would be illogical.

Sure it is, all rules have to operate around universally accepted definitions else they are open to interpretation which leads to confusion and sometimes controversy. Any category defined by a marker needs a well defined marker. For example categories set by weight. If the definition of the term "woman" is fluid then how can that be used to define a category? If we can clearly define (within reasonable accuracy) the physical performance difference between what we label as male and female then we can use this as a universal marker (definition) specifically for the purpose at hand - sports. Is that not the whole point? Things get complicated when gender identity and biological sex performance attributes are conflated. When clearly by the very 2 definitions of the term "woman", gender and biological sex are not mutually inclusive. We have to start with clear definitions based on a selection of data and testing. We can argue till the cows come home about how deep into the biological aspects we delve. But the logical step would be to take from the data that which is most relevant to the context - physical performance, and apply it so we can draw a sensible and universal conclusion. But this is already done to a degree, and has been workable for years. Now we want to include trans gender, and rightly so, all should have an opportunity to compete! But qualification by gender identity alone comes with complications, which need addressing. Maybe so, but for the purpose of this thread which is centred around sports then there are biological aspects that have been proven to be clear markers for physical performance. The data is out there look at the sporting results, on average males out perform females in physical activities. So clearly there is a physical (biological) difference between what we term male & female. So regardless whether this thread is specifically about gender identity, to have any sensible discussion we have to also look at the biological aspects related to physical sporting ability! We need this in order to determine what category a person should be included in. No different than weight divisions or other physically defined categories.

Ok, so maybe this needs changing. If there is (data driven) evidence supporting cis - male over cis female physical advantages then surely the categories require acknowledgement of this and adjust the rules accordingly? This is fine but where do you draw the line to enable sporting rules to be applicable? We have agreed and established that on average there is a physical difference. What we need is a distinct definition for sporting events, a cut off line so to speak, that clearly and fairly categorises in a way so that participants can compete on a relatively even playing field. When all said and done this argument isn't even really about gender identity, its about biological sex. the 2 get conflated because we insist on using the term "woman" for the categories where in modern society the term woman has an additional definition that is not mutually inclusive with the original.

I have researched the definition of a woman and can find 2. 1. An adult human female - attributed by biological sex 2. A person's gender identity Though technically the first is the original definition the second is being (changed) embraced by some and now more widely accepted by people to use as gender identity and this definition is becoming ever more fluid, the 2 are not mutually inclusive. Ok, so coming back to sports, my assumption was that sporting categories were, and continue to be based on biological sex for the reasons as pointed out over many pages - In general, but especially so at the elite level, biological men physically out perform biological females. Based on this, If the above 2 definitions are not mutually inclusive then why should the sporting category be so?

Ok I'm willing to accept this even though I don't agree, but for the sake of this discussion lets run with it. So a person identifying as a "woman" as a clear specific definition of what a woman - adult female - is. So what is the definition? How is it a strawman? the vast majority of the human population are regarded by mainstream to be either biological male or biological female and any person excluded from these groups are said to have "conditions". I'm not setting these definitions the medical world is!

But I see, based on evidence and definitions (not mine but mainstream) that the majority of the population is made up of either male or female and the remaining minority a variety of "conditions" which are regarded as abnormalities.

So if they aren't so distinctive why does a person wish to trans in the first place? Surely there has to be s distinction to make the transition?

What does this mean? How does a person authenticate their chosen identity? And how does that map with actual biology or physical attributes? I think this is where things get a little muddy and where we need definitions that we all align to. Personally I would prefer to align with fact based definitions rather than psychological based feelings, opinions or beliefs.

I don't think anyone is against adding further categories or fine tuning the rules. Sports evolve and rules are often updated i see no reason this wouldn't work to include trans athletes. So you keep saying, so statistically it's easier to exclude them from the get go. Since it only takes one to dominate and thus exclude hundreds of other competitors from a chance of winning. Can't please all all of the time so best bet stick with the majority hey? But this is not the way forward and not what anyone is advocating. we all believe in complete inclusivity. In order to do that then something like Zaptos's idea of qualification rules through some form of data driven performance testing may work. i said previously I don't have a clear workable solution. But I would happily support a workable system along the lines you have suggested. The only issue I see is that I'm told science cannot accurately determine the distinction between a male and female and if a person identifies as either then this seems to trump any physical evidence anyhow.

I don't see any sporting body introducing handicaps, other than testing for testosterone. I'm not adverse to your idea, in fact i'd support such if it proved workable and fair. But i'm sure such a system will be regarded negative discrimination. It will always be unfair to include trans women in cis women categories until a consistent and "handicapping" system is introduced. In order to do this one first has to define the advantages a biological male has over a biological female. In order to do this one must define what a biological male & female are. Since the argument is that there is no clear difference and that biological sex is a spectrum how do you suggest handicapping a biological male fairly? Paranoid? I'm told that a person who is born a certain biological way "feels/believes" they are something different is not a mental issue. I was pointing out since this is the case then discussion down that route is a no no. I don't in particular, is my answer. I'm sure I said such earlier in the thread but hey ho... I just have a strong sense of moral fairness. I particularly believe that trans inclusion without workable rules is a non starter for all parties involved. The cis women lose out on opportunities and the trans women lose further support and are negatively exposed to the public, just enforcing further bigotry. I support the rights of all people but not at the cost of others. Society should always endeavour to find solutions which bring harmony, not promote further divide. Does this answer your question? I for one appreciate you explaining your motives and elaborating. We can all get frustrated, exasperated and sometimes angry especially so if the subject matter strikes a cord. i can sometimes get sucked into arguing in anger rather than stepping back and trying to explain my position in a polite and logical manner (I often fail). I think believe that everyone posting on this thread in essence wants the same - fair inclusion for all. we just have differing views/opinions on what is fair.