Dov

ET Life, and Intelligence

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The preoccupation of some humans with possibile existence of off-Earth "intelligent" life and their efforts in search of such "intelligent" life are, in our present state of comprehension of the nature of life, futile and pitiful. Our own base life elements, our genes, many of which we share with many other Earth forms of life, can and do fulfil their sole purpose/role which is survival/proliferation, without humans'-like cultural toolings. Their RNA and proteinaceous toolings and chemical communications are for their purposes superior to our toolings for our needs and purposes. Human-culture-like traits are just a chance diversion in the course of Earth life evolution.

Other life forms might have occurred elsewhere in the universe and evolved and developed in other modes with other types of toolings and communications. They may also be devoid of human-culture-like traits/capabilities.

In order to plan and conduct an effectual search for non-Earth life it would be wise and prudent to first comprehend the basic nature of life that may be common to all possible forms of life. And as Life must evolve from Life, and in view of the characteristics of Life and Death, Life in general is most probably a "bubble of energy system", an energy-storing system initiated and maintained by energy, in a reverse direction of the observed universal thermodynamic drive to a state of ever dissipating order and energy.

Comments, please...

ET Life, and Intelligence

--------------------------

The preoccupation of some humans with possibile existence of off-Earth "intelligent" life and their efforts in search of such "intelligent" life are, in our present state of comprehension of the nature of life, futile and pitiful. Our own base life elements, our genes, many of which we share with many other Earth forms of life, can and do fulfil their sole purpose/role which is survival/proliferation, without humans'-like cultural toolings. Their RNA and proteinaceous toolings and chemical communications are for their purposes superior to our toolings for our needs and purposes. Human-culture-like traits are just a chance diversion in the course of Earth life evolution.

Other life forms might have occurred elsewhere in the universe and evolved and developed in other modes with other types of toolings and communications. They may also be devoid of human-culture-like traits/capabilities.

In order to plan and conduct an effectual search for non-Earth life it would be wise and prudent to first comprehend the basic nature of life that may be common to all possible forms of life. And as Life must evolve from Life, and in view of the characteristics of Life and Death, Life in general is most probably a "bubble of energy system", an energy-storing system initiated and maintained by energy, in a reverse direction of the observed universal thermodynamic drive to a state of ever dissipating order and energy.

Comments, please...

Ophiolite,

It was not my intent to identify the motives for SETI nor to condemn those who are involved in it or wish to pursue it. I know that my opinion re this subject is of no consequence.

I only express my sad reflection that Western "scientific/technological guilds" put so much weight on SETI, regarding it as a solid part of scientific/technological venture of humanity, while there is not yet a scientific understanding of the nature (not just the mechanism) of Life wherever it is in the universe.

After all for what purpose, if any, do we live? For posing and overcoming scientific/technological challenges or for going through life with least of all sorts of pains?

Some think that SETI projects might contribute more to our sense of well-lived life than active social support covenents, whereas others regard these projects at best as maybe tools for far future undefined circumstances and beneficiaries, diverting more desirable preoccupation and efforts in direct social matters.

Ophiolite,

It was not my intent to identify the motives for SETI nor to condemn those who are involved in it or wish to pursue it. I know that my opinion re this subject is of no consequence.

I only express my sad reflection that Western "scientific/technological guilds" put so much weight on SETI, regarding it as a solid part of scientific/technological venture of humanity, while there is not yet a scientific understanding of the nature (not just the mechanism) of Life wherever it is in the universe.

After all for what purpose, if any, do we live? For posing and overcoming scientific/technological challenges or for going through life with least of all sorts of pains?

Some think that SETI projects might contribute more to our sense of well-lived life than active social support covenents, whereas others regard these projects at best as maybe tools for far future undefined circumstances and beneficiaries, diverting more desirable preoccupation and efforts in direct social matters.

"Scientifically, why people like to watch porn?? "

Thanks God you don't have to watch everything scientifically...

and you don't have to feel and do everything scientifically...

"Scientifically, why people like to watch porn?? "

Thanks God you don't have to watch everything scientifically...

and you don't have to feel and do everything scientifically...

Dear Ophiolite,

For some the main purpose of life is to gain ever more understanding of the nature of the universe and of its constituents; they are exhilerated as their store of knowledge and insight grows, and more so if/when they personally contribute to this (talking from experience...).

For some the main purpose of life is to amass ever more capital for various uses and ends, by means including based on knowledge ( evolution of Western features from ancient greece to modern capitalism).

For some the main purpose of life is to go through it serenely, with or without knowledge-based comforts or problems' solutions. Some of these are not interested in understanding the universe and themselves, while others of these appreciate knowledge and follow up its world-wide accumulation but realize that it would not realistically impact what is most important for them namely go through life serenely.

Dear Ophiolite,

For some the main purpose of life is to gain ever more understanding of the nature of the universe and of its constituents; they are exhilerated as their store of knowledge and insight grows, and more so if/when they personally contribute to this (talking from experience...).

For some the main purpose of life is to amass ever more capital for various uses and ends, by means including based on knowledge ( evolution of Western features from ancient greece to modern capitalism).

For some the main purpose of life is to go through it serenely, with or without knowledge-based comforts or problems' solutions. Some of these are not interested in understanding the universe and themselves, while others of these appreciate knowledge and follow up its world-wide accumulation but realize that it would not realistically impact what is most important for them namely go through life serenely.

For so many thousands of years humans have been signalling to Gods for solving their multitudes of problems and pains and for bettering their lots, and now they add alien civilizations to their signalling targets.

Ask yourself what life you want/hope for, for yourself and for your family and for your group etc.,. How would a God or an alien civilization change/modify the existing earthly conditions that block your wishful targets as all the blocks are made and raised by us?

And do you think that your wishful human life targets might be reached ONLY when we humans have attained the ultimate extent of scientific knowledge and technological capabilities, maybe via an alien civilization lottery? Don't you agree that Eden could have been here and may be here if we humans do the job even without waiting for Gods or alien civilizations ? How would God or alien civilizations make Earthly humans more cooperative for the grand purpose than they are today? And do we realy need ever more science and technology and and and etc., for the wishful life target ?

Pasting here info from another posting at SCF:

- Milky Way Galaxy is approximately 100,000 light-years across and 7,000

light-years thick.

- Milky Way Galaxy contains between 100 and 400 billion stars.

And we may wonder how many millions of all kinds of flares are occuring at any one minute within the galaxy.

And would'nt mankind be wiser and doubtlessly more efficient to expend effort on improving life on Earth and developing more knowledge rather than expend resources on senseless/plain stupid alien civilization lotteries ?

Clarification might be found at :

http://courses.washington.edu/ocn101/Currents1.pdf

Plain physics. Please look up

http://www.nmsea.org/Curriculum/4_6/Interaction/Interaction_light_matter.htm

One personal reason for looking at frame dragging is that it is not clear to me if/what is the relationship between frame dragging and microlensing. Another thing that drives me to understand better what these two terms entail is that I have always mistrusted the term and description of "fabric of space", suspecting that it is one of these terms that like in the "emperor's new clothes" are in use without a plain and simple understanding, hiding behind a mathematical conception of "spacetime". I read and reread the following two items but have not become more enlightened about the two above matters.

http://colossus.chem.umass.edu/chandler/ch111/spacetime.htm

http://www.universetoday.com/am/publish/frame_dragging_confirmed.html

You say :

" we understand it (the behaviour of quarks) perfectly well without 'fractal cosmology'. The increase in the strength of the force as we increase the distance is caused by the force mediator, the gluon, itself carrying a 'color charge', ie. it feels the strong force too".

I do not seek an explanation of the behaviour of quarks by resort to "fractal cosmology". I look at the opposite direction, I wonder if an examination of cosmic phenomena by resort to behaviour of quarks reveals footprints or seeds of quarks behaviour on galactic scale, f.e. if "fabric of space" is in essence a cosmic size edition of "gluon field" and if the behaviour of in-galaxy masses or sub-galactic groupings are a large size edition of quarks congregations.

This may be complete nonesense since I have only scan relevant information background in cosmology...

CPL.Luke,

I humbly admit that that I'm apparently too thick to understand the link/implication of vsl to the subject presented in post #18. On a reread of my #18 posting I still do not find a problem in these repeated paras :

Thus in E(cosmic) = m(cosmic) X C^2 FOR THE WHOLE UNIVERSE, cosmic E is constant. This mandates that, since C, a time-based term, is constant, also m is constant. This bothers me because I do'nt think that cosmic m is constant.

However, if the right side of the equation is m(1+D), where D= sum total of distances from point of big-bang of the sum total of m's, then both m and D vary continuously, and the original singular initial m decreases continuously as D increases with expansion. This appears rational and true-to-Universe, and it implies that eventually nearly all mass will be so diminshed (and also diluted localy) that it would practically be zero by human reckonning.

I elected to start reading Oldershaw's articles by examining the one updated last at Jan 2003 :

http://www.amherst.edu/~rloldershaw/NOF.HTM

Its concluding para summarizes the implications of fractal approach to cosmology. I recommend to you interested persons to look it up.

aguy2,

Thanks. Looks promising. But might take some time to survey, i.e. to find PC reading time, browse and select specific items and read them carefully.

Thanks again.

I mean that just prior to the big bang E was equal to m(1+D) i.e. D was zero and E and mass were equal, so mass was at imagine its then density !

And I mean that it is much too early and irrelevant to consider, in this regard, a probe into our solar system space because a space is not a space is not a space, as spaces most probably differ from each other depending on where they are...as here is what surrounds us (copied from a good source):

- Milky Way Galaxy is approximately 100,000 light-years across and 7,000

light-years thick.

- Milky Way Galaxy contains between 100 and 400 billion stars.

- Milky Way is one of a group of 30 galaxies called the "Local Group".

- The Local Group is one of dozens of small clusters centered on a large

collection of more than 2,500 galaxies called the Virgo Cluster.

- These galaxies and other galaxy groups form a "Supercluster".

- The Universe contains millions of such Superclusters.

- Closest major spiral galaxy to our Milky Way is the Andromeda Galaxy.

- Closest star to our Solar System is Proxima Centauri, about 4.3 light-years

away.

- Closest star-forming region in our Milky Way is the Orion Nebula, 1,500 light-

years away.

I repeat :

In an earlier posting I wrote that I was prompted to tackle the subject of "Time" by a vague idea ( "vague", because it's mine) that whereas Time is a factor for living entities, in the case of Cosmic matters it is Distance from the big-bang that is the functional factor, yet we use the local living organism term Time that happens to be proportional to distance. Relating cosmic energy to cosmic mass and to distance travelled from the big bang does not warrant a time dimension term but only a distance term.

Thus in E(cosmic) = m(cosmic) X C^2 FOR THE WHOLE UNIVERSE, cosmic E is constant. This mandates that, since C, a time-based term, is constant, also m is constant. This bothers me because I do'nt think that cosmic m is constant.

However, if the right side of the equation is m(1+D), where D= sum total of distances from point of big-bang of the sum total of m's, then both m and D vary continuously, and the original singular initial m decreases continuously as D increases with expansion. This appears rational and true-to-Universe, and it implies that eventually nearly all mass will be so diminshed (and also diluted localy) that it would practically be zero by human reckonning.

I hope that this repeated explanation clears my point and solicitation of comments.

A very clear life evolution case study of "a large phenotypical change within the species itself" would be the rise and establishment of Christianity. A large group's change of religion/culture is a clear case of biological phenotypical evolution.

I humbly feel that it is not so simple to do the thought experiment you suggest. For an appreciation of the difficulties in setting up such a thought experiment please look at

http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/nova/universe/howbig.html

that deals with the "size of the universe".

I also humbly suggest that our this forum is not a "peer forum" of experts scientifically knowledgeable in any specific scientific domain, capable of valid analysis and assessment. I am resigned to accept that we are a large community of individuals of vastly varying knowledge/experience levels unified in an urge/eagerness to exchange thoughts and reactions and comments with each other even if not professional scientists/experts.

Please look at Astronomy and Cosmology, "Universe E, m and D.".

I reckon we might worry about the units of distance, mass and energy if/after we 're convinced of the validity of the suggested relationship and if/after affixing in the cosmos a guesstimated big-bang location...

Please look at my posting "Universe E, m and D.", where I refer also to your this posting, and to explanations of frame dragging.

Dov

I wish to elaborate a little further about Frame Dragging, as I note a posting by Playmaker03 about "Frame Shifting":

You can find an intelligent explanation of Frame Dragging at :

http://www.micromike.com/framedragger.htm

However, I am going a step further than this recommended explanation, by suggesting that the dragged/twisted "frame" is indeed a "field-like" envelope of energy which is continuously generated by the mass of a spinning big mass as it is continuously travelling away from the big-bang point and as its this travel inherently involves conversion of some of the mass into energy in accordance with the relationship I suggest, i.e. E(universal) is proportional to m(universal) (1+ D) where D is distance of the mass from the big-bang point.

Please look up this brief explanation of gravitational singularity:

http://www.wordiq.com/definition/Gravitational_singularity