[meteorite-list] Alien Contact Predicted

From: Martin Altmann <altmann_at_meteoritecentral.com>
Date: Tue, 25 Aug 2009 13:48:11 +0200
Message-ID: <001d01ca2579$f2ae2510$177f2a59_at_name86d88d87e2>

Exactly,

and our imagination, whether there are aliens and if, how they are,
does in the end only reflect our occupation with ourselves.

And I suppose, that has a longer tradition, our images of the aliens?

>From antique times on those fictions, where the protagonists travel to Moon
or to space and met the people there, were used to hold up a mirror up to
us, space was only the place for utopias, for satirical criticism on
societies, mankind, politics and stuff or for philosophical thoughts.
Hence that hadn't to do with aliens and science fiction directly,
it was only the arena for such kind of projections. Like it was used to let
such fiction play in far and unknown or fantastic lands, hence no difference
to let's say e.g Gulliver's Travels.

The basis for our todays imagination about the nature of aliens and Science
Fiction with its different genres, I think, was set in 19th century.
3 archetypes you find there.

One is the stalwartly optimistic believe, that the (new) technological
progress will lead mankind to an ideal society and will solve all our
worries and quarrels and that Earth and universe is waiting to be seized by
the human civilization. (Aliens would be only debilitating and annoying for
that purpose, hence there better shouldn't be any, I guess) Most popular
exponent was perhaps Jules Verne.

The antagonistic SfiFi to Jules Verne is best represented by the fictions of
a H.G.Wells. That mankind will always be limited to its behaviour and the
depths of its character. And that in its limitations the human society can
be helplessly at mercy if e.g. the intruder from Mars will come, and that
the society will fall in pieces.

Third one, somewhat earlier, is that enthusiasm for the Middle Ages of the
Romanticism. The escape into a manageable fairy-tale world, with noble
knights, pretty damsles, dynasties and battles and with clear rules, where
the Miller's son and underdog...nja you know. Wherefrom the whole stuff like
Tolkien, fantasy literature and our today's role-plays were derived off.

Well and from these three basic ingredients our conception of the aliens
seems to be mingled together.

And the prevalence of one or the other element is rather a question of
temporary vogues.

The breakdown of the old systems, the experiences of two World wars, the
cold war. There we had more Wells than Verne and the Aliens and the robots
and the prehistoric monsters and other communists had nothing better to do
than to invade Colorado and California to eradicate mankind and even The
Officer was powerless.
A little later with the upcoming space flight enthusiasm we had some more
Verne.

And very important, the affreightment of the genre with esoteric and
religious elements, mother nature, we are family and all the Hippie stuff.
That the aliens are of course not evil, but kindly have to come to rescue
us.
(Therefrom btw the resumption of the old concept of the noble savage,
if you remind one of the most popular aliens ever, the droll E.T.)

Which SciFi had the most influence in my generation?
And don't tell me that your concept of aliens isn't influenced by Scifi.

Star Wars Saga - that was pure Popcorn-Middle-Ages-fun.

Star Trek Series - was a kind, how should United Nations exemplarily behave
in space, where the problems are the very same as here on Earth + Daily
Soap.

Well and perhaps cause of the visually new realization, the Alien movies,
Good old Wells.

Kubrick's film you'll say.. I'm not sure, that it is directly about
aliens..


So you find always the same patterns, how the aliens should be.
Either they will come to eat us all up or they are Messiahs.
Both cases imply that they are more advanced than we, hence Wells.

(That they would be underdeveloped, that we can conquer, exploit and kill
them all, as we used to do so for the last thousands of years among our own
kind and tribes, is definitely excluded, because it would be against any
political correctness).

That is one thing,
the other thing is, why some are eager and some not, that there must be life
in space.

Well. In the beginning we were the center of the universe and we were
effigies of a God. Little later we learned ooops, Sun is the center of the
World. Again a little later, ouch the stars arenothing else than suns, than
there is another galaxy full of suns and that our sun isn't the center of
our galaxy, very soon after how obscenely large and far away other galaxies
are, and that our galaxy isn't the center of universe, meanwhile we had
learned that Grandpa was a chimpanzee, then we saw that the universe is full
of galaxies and that its incredible huge, we experienced how old it is, how
old Earth is (nasty meteorites), how old life is and that the human beings
existed for a shorter time than a blink of an eye, and that the universe
expanses so that maybe it will blow over (but before the sun will blow the
Earth, that we are mortal we all knew before), as it wouldn't be enough we
found 20 years ago other planets orbiting other suns...

...well, that all isn't so good for our ego, real masochists we are, if you
ask me.

Well and there are two diametrically opposed reactions.

Some say, please let be someone out there, and let it be microbes,
because that huge mess is to hard and depressing to endure for us alone.

And the others say, please let be there no other life, we had already to
give up so much, don't take away the last thing, which makes us unique and
special, cause else we wouldn't know, what the sense of that all should be.

Or so?

"Life goes on without life"
Sings Martin, the kitchen-philosopher.

PS: And we are always so impatient.
Would be a great success,
if firstly SETI,
will find the Yeti.










-----Urspr?ngliche Nachricht-----
Von: meteorite-list-bounces at meteoritecentral.com
[mailto:meteorite-list-bounces at meteoritecentral.com] Im Auftrag von Pete
Pete
Gesendet: Dienstag, 25. August 2009 06:07
An: sterling_k_webb at sbcglobal.net; prairiecactus at rtcol.com;
meteoritelistmeteoritelist
Betreff: Re: [meteorite-list] Alien Contact Predicted


 
 
As always, a great post, Sterling!
 
 
----------------------------------------
> From: sterling_k_webb at sbcglobal.net
> To: prairiecactus at rtcol.com; meteorite-list at meteoritecentral.com
> Date: Mon, 24 Aug 2009 22:04:05 -0500
> Subject: Re: [meteorite-list] Alien Contact Predicted
>
> Phil, Eric, List
>
> We are "the only life" in the Universe, you say? Well, Phil,
> The Universe, meaning the part within our particle horizon,
> contains 10,400,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000 cubic
> light years. That is one hell of a lot of closet space! For it to
> be empty of life is a terrible waste of space, as Carl Sagan said.
>
> There are a vast host of theories offered to explain why we
> haven't found anybody. It is an old paradox. Enrico Fermi, who
> was not only a genius but a very practical man, gave voice to
> the problem in 1950, at a lunchtime conversation with Teller
> and other assorted geniuses, all of whom agreed that there must
> be alien life. Fermi interrupted with, "So? Where are they?" By
> extention, you can ask, "Why haven't we heard from them?"
>
> Because there are so many answers proposed to explain
> the absence of aliens, here are some of those answers in
> shorthand form, but you can figure them out.
>
> They Are Here (The UFO Theories):
> 1 They Are Here and They Call Themselves Hungarians
> 2 They Are Here and Are Meddling in Human Affairs
> 3 They Were Here and Left Evidence of Their Presence
> 4 They Exist and They Are Us - We Are All Aliens!
> 5 The Zoo Scenario: We're Pets.
> 6 The Interdict Scenario: Contact Is Forbidden
> 7 The Planetarium Hypothesis: The Universe Is An Illusion
> 8 They Exist, Are VERY Advanced, and We Call Them God
>
> They Exist But Have Not Yet Communicated ("They're Out There!"):
> 9 The Stars Are Too Far Away
> 10 They Have Not Had Time to Reach Us
> 11 A Percolation Theory Approach -- We're In a Place They Didn't Go To
> 12 Bracewell-von Neumann Probes Are All They Send
> 13 We Are Solar Chauvinists; Their Planets Are Not Like Ours
> 14 They Stay at Home . . .
> 15 . . . and Surf the Net
> 16 They Are Signaling But We Do Not Know How to Listen
> 17 They Are Signaling But We Do Not Know at Which Frequency to Listen
> 18 Our Search Strategy Is Wrong
> 19 The Signal Is Already There in the Data
> 20 We Have Not Listened Long Enough
> 21 Everyone Is Listening, No One Is Transmitting
> 22 Berserkers
> 23 They Have No Desire to Communicate
> 24 They Develop a Different Mathematics
> 25 They Are Calling But We Do Not Recognize the Signal
> 26 They Are Somewhere But the Universe Is Stranger Than We Imagine
> 27 A Choice of Catastrophes: Intelligent Life Always Destroys Itself
> 28 They Hit the Singularity
> 29 Cloudy Skies Are Common
> 30 Infinitely Many ETCs Exist But Only One Within Our Particle Horizon:
> Us
>
> They Do Not Exist ("We're The Only Ones!"):
> 31 The Universe Is Here for Us
> 32 Life Can Have Emerged Only Recently
> 33 Planetary Systems Are Rare
> 34 We Are the First
> 35 Rocky Planets Are Rare
> 36 Continuously Habitable Zones Are Narrow
> 37 Jupiters Are Rare
> 38 Earth Has an Optimal "Pump of Evolution"
> 39 The Galaxy Is a Dangerous Place
> 40 A Planetary System Is a Dangerous Place
> 41 Earth's System of Plate Tectonics Is Unique
> 42 The Moon Is Unique
> 43 Life's Genesis Is Rare
> 44 The Prokaryote-Eukaryote Transition Is Rare
> 45 Toolmaking Species Are Rare
> 46 Technological Progress Is Not Inevitable
> 47 Intelligence at the Human Level Is Rare
> 48 Language Is Unique to Humans
> 49 Science Is Not Inevitable
> *from
>
http://books.google.com/books?id=-vZ0BVSHix4C&dq=webb+where+is+everybody%3F+
download&printsec=frontcover&source=in&hl=en&ei=eDqTSva8GYXWsgOgguXJDw&sa=X&
oi=book_result&ct=result&resnum=11#v=onepage&q=&f=false
>
> Some of these answers have already been shot down
> since the above book listed them. Planets, it turns out are
> NOT rare. Neither are Jupiters.
>
> We are NOT signalling and advertising our presence to
> the Galaxy. Why should anyone else? We (humans) have
> only done so once, when Frank Drake sent a signal to Tau
> Ceti one night for half an hour without consulting anybody.
> Everyone was horrified and jumped all over him. Now, there
> are Federal regs that, in effect, make it a crime to try to talk
> to Alien Civilizations. Too dangerous. So why would we think
> that "they" would signal us? Unless they are so powerful they
> have no reason to be afraid of anybody, in which case I suggest
> we don't answer if they ring our doorbell.
>
> Suppose, just suppose, that there are no warp drives, no
> wormholes, no faster than light travel. Einstein was right and
> there IS a speed limit. Suppose that travelling between stars
> is extremely difficult no matter how advanced you are, and
> beyond one or two hundred light years, it's more costly than
> any civilization is likely to be willing to spend, and suppose
> there's nobody that close. All technologies have limits.
>
> Suppose we became dedicated to colonizing the Galaxy no
> matter how long it takes. Every 1000 years, we sent 100,000
> humans on a giant ship to a habitable system only 25-30 light
> years away. It takes us 1000 years to get there. We defrost, settle
> down, build a civilization, increase in numbers and power,
> and only 1000 years later, we (now they) send out their own
> colony ship to repeat the process. Every 1000 years, every planet
> repeats the procedure with another colony in another direction.
> In a mere 6,000,000 years, humanity inhabits 5,000,000 planets
> stretching over the entire Milky Way Galaxy.
>
> Obviously, no other species has done this in the last few billion
> years or they'd be thick as fleas on a dog. Or maybe it's been done
> over and over, 129 times by 129 intelligent species, and each
> species has become extinct every single time, utterly vanished
> and all their vast monuments with them. Maybe we are ready
> to be Number 130.
>
> Maybe not. Maybe every intelligent species destroys itself
> shortly (a few thousand years) after achieving technological
> prowess. Get smart. Start fiddling with the Universe. Blow
> yourself up. Or wipe yourself out. Or poison your world and
> fall back into savagery. Screw things up beyond fixing. Maybe
> it's inevitable for every critter with a brain a bit too big for
> its appetites.
>
> Maybe we're just lost in time. No human can even vaguely
> conceive of what a billion years is like. Even a mere one million
> years is too great a stretch. A million years ago, there were no
> humans. 100,000 years ago there were no humans. 10,000
> years ago we knew about as much about the Universe beyond
> the Earth as the dog of today. The Sea of Stars is vast and the
> Ocean of Time is deep. And we woke up about 1/25000000th
> of the life of the cosmos ago.
>
> That we have listened to the stars for any word from another
> intelligent species for 40-50 years and are desparate because
> we have no message in our Inbox yet shows we have the attention
> span of a gnat. Unless, of course, we expected the interstellar
> equivalent of Top 40 radio. Hold your complaints (and your
> conclusions) for a century (or two... or five), then get back to me.
> We'll do lunch.
>
> As for "Whoopie! The Universe Is Ours!" I'd hold off a bit
> before you run the Human Pan-Galactic Federation flag up
> and salute it. It's a little too early to celebrate.
>
> You'll find a lot of interesting discussion of these issues in
> the URL above at Google Books and this excellent summary of
> the problem, by David Brin, "The Great Silence" (free download):
> http://www.brin-l.com/downloads/silence.pdf
>
>
>
> Sterling K. Webb
>
----------------------------------------------------------------------------
-----------
> ----- Original Message -----
> From: "Phil Whitmer"
> To:
> Sent: Monday, August 24, 2009 11:17 AM
> Subject: [meteorite-list] Alien Contact Predicted
>
>
Received on Tue 25 Aug 2009 07:48:11 AM PDT