dimreepr

That's your problem, you're trying to shoe horn your beliefs into a world you don't really understand; following a well worn path may be just a way to find your truth as it fit's with reality. You don't need to find unexpected thing's in order to feel special, and even if you do find it, it's only a momentary experience, a brief hit of a chemical narcotic, a well worn path is far more likely to lead to something we need to understand... 😉

If you're not an ant, how could you possibly know what it thinks and what it feels; the difference between paranormal phenomena and being lifted from a leaf is, one is real and the other is imagined. Aliens may well be real and living among us, they could be fungi for a number of reason's, why do they have to have to be so much more intelligent than us? (but let's not jump down that rabbit hole). For your hypothesis to be valid, it has to have a value beyond your imagination IOW it has to be based on something real.

And some philosophers believe in a perfect world, but not everyone is correct; some think the bell tolls for them...

Why do you care?

Again with the religious and spiritual argument's, science just wants to understand what it can; the bias is a people thing, it affects us all in our opinion's about things we don't really understand. What bible do you follow? We all have one, including me, but some of us learn to see their's for what they are, a tool to lift us beyond, both materialistic and spiritualistic world's and into a utopia, where it doesn't really matter. There's no such thing as a stand alone star, it will always be affected by gravity no matter how far away it is. You should read more of the poem in my signature, just google it for a link... 🙏

In what universe?

If FLT becomes possible, then the Fermi paradox is self evident, in that, we have 'yet' to see them... The thing about the anthropic principal in terms of the multiverse is, we can only live in this one; the thing about a paradox is, it can't be real, in this universe. All of which means you may be right, but in a different universe... 😉

Do me a favour! That's the same as a racist saying my best friend is black as a defence, to his casual, cultural racist remark's. My argument has nothing to do with the existence of anything supernatural; our (by which I mean you and I) understanding of the universe is due to a simplified version of a very complex system, I doubt there's a single person who would say "I understand it all"; yet you are confident enough to say with absolute certainty that Spinoza's wrong bc he couldn't give you an example of something that's not available to anyone.

The thing is, AI, ant or whatever only seems intelligent bc of our intelligence and our fundamental need to empathise; for instance, my dog is so clever bc it has learned to mimic an emotional response; does not mean it was clever enough to think of that strategy...

Agree on the former and beg to differ on the latter. Because an ant, when deprived of sometihng to think about (eg the smell it's used too) will default to the simplest programme, i.e. search for a smell it recognises; it doesn't think about it, like a human can. Your arguments are dangerously close to religion, as in there's a magic spark to intelligence that can only be achieved by an organic organism. Ant intelligence is far more simple than our current AI, and our current AI is stupid...

Then you should try sticking vegetation to your clothes and sitting still... 😉

What you're missing is the value of ignorance, in people it can mean thinking in a different way to sometimes come up with a noval solution. In an ant ignorance means there's nothing to think/smell about.

Well, Dawkins did.

That doesn't mean you're free to spout bollox...

Is it tho, some answer's may never be revealed or resolved, even by science; but to say you're wrong bc I know better, while in a state of non-understanding, seems deluded. What's the second law of holes? Keep digging, the metal-detector went beep?

It has value in the ant community...

Which of them told you that? I bet it was Nigel.

But will the ants follow... 🙏

No, I said "you may as well say god did it", besides this is tangential to my point, which is that god is the delusion, for both side's of the argument. I feel that it's important to reiterate some facts about me, I'm a practising atheist and IFLS.

That very much depends on the culture that shapes the system, for instance, 'Bournville' is a model village that was built from chocolate... If we left it up to, 'business leaders and government officials', those guys, then only those guys would get to eat sweet chocolate; it would leave a bitter taste for the rest of us...😉

Isn't that all of us? We can't even learn from simple fiction, it seems... The grapes of wrath, et al... (the clues, often, in the title.)

Why do I need to prove the existence of something, in order to say "I don't know, yet"? Science, as far as I know, is not the only source of information available to you (history, for instance); besides, science never said "god didn't do it" they just question it's attendance, since it isn't answering it's email's, ATM...

Indeed, not many places to go, but many ways to get there... 😉

What gives you peace?

Indeed and I am not a vegan, but I'm from traditional farming stock and we, quite often, take pride in how we take care of the farmed; but that's another topic entirely... You do understand that I'm not literally sending anyone anywhere, right?