If you believe in god, you're an idiot...

[Alawen]

Originally Posted by Daldolma [You must be logged in to view images. Log in or Register.]

Your inability to respect opposing viewpoints is unbecoming. I wonder about your formal education.

But instead of meeting Hasbinbad, I'd love to meet Stephen Hawking. The following is a direct quote from Stephen Hawking:

"To my mathematical brain, the numbers alone make thinking about aliens perfectly rational," he said. “The real challenge is to work out what aliens might actually be like."

He even speculates.

"I imagine they might exist in massive ships ... having used up all the resources from their home planet. Such advanced aliens would perhaps become nomads, looking to conquer and colonize whatever planets they can reach.”

Apparently Stephen Hawking is also a wishful thinker, conjuring up his own imagined definitions of evidence. Certainly there is no evidence at all for that line of thought. I wonder if he believes Satan planted the fossils, too, since you've drawn an equivalence between those beliefs.

Wait, wait -- I know. This is an appeal to authority that holds no weight with you. You've got a nice little pseudo intellect troll going. Dismiss all relevant evidence as nonsense, then dismiss expert support for that evidence as appeal to authority. Hurray, anything you don't accept is not only wrong but ludicrous.

I imagine that they have big spherical ships that look like a small moon; that's too big to be a space station. Wait, I imagine that they have cubes and they assimilate other cultures. Wait, I imagine that they took apart all the planets in their solar system and built a huge ring that revolves around the sun. Wait, I know, they come from another dimension AND THEY WILL TEAR YOUR SOUL APART!

Everyone should believe that there is other life more intelligent than humans because Daldolma says Stephen Hawking says so. And, after all, Stephen Hawking doesn't need degrees related to extra-terrestrial life corresponding to Daldolma's standard in his last series of RnF tantrums even though this is just an extension of those tantrums, because... well, just because.

No one is an expert on the existence of extra-terrestrial life because we have no evidence of extra-terrestrial life to study. Your appeals to authority are completely and utterly fallacious here.

You are blatantly and pathetically trying to make up for me handing you your ass for posting the first paragraph of a Wikipedia entry and trying to pretend you knew what historicity was. No one else will give a fuck if you manage to let it go, but I don't think you can. I think you'll stalk me in RnF for eternity hoping for a chance to be right.

[Alarti0001]

Originally Posted by Hasbinlulz [You must be logged in to view images. Log in or Register.]

It's almost as if you live in a fantasy world.

Yes a fantasy world where you will have an intelligent discussion. It seems you are incapable.

[Alawen]

Originally Posted by Daldolma [You must be logged in to view images. Log in or Register.]

Do you mean me? I don't have an expert opinion, I'm not a fucking expert. Stephen Hawking is. I'm just a guy on P99's RnF boards capable of respecting a belief that intelligent extraterrestrial life does exist, as well as a belief that intelligent extraterrestrial life doesn't exist. I refuse to consider either belief ludicrous.

If you want my non-expert, guy on elf emulator forum opinion, I believe Earth isn't extraordinarily atypical. I don't believe life is so extraordinarily rare that Earth is the only place in the entire universe where it has developed into what we would consider 'intelligent life' in over 13 billion years and throughout 100 billion galaxies. I don't think the fact that we haven't tripped across extraterrestrial life within 50 years of first being able to exit our own atmosphere means much of anything at all. There are potentially sextillions of habitable planets. The universe is 13 billion years old. The sheer enormity of those numbers would suggest that Earth would have to be extraordinarily atypical to be the only planet that harbored life for long enough to produce intelligent life, and I see no reason to believe that.

You're right, Stephen Hawking is an expert. He's an expert on theoretical physics.

He also played poker with Data on Star Trek: The Next Generation, so he probably knows more than anyone about Klingons and Borg and stuff.

[Hasbinlulz]

Originally Posted by Alarti0001 [You must be logged in to view images. Log in or Register.]

Yes a fantasy world where you will have an intelligent discussion. It seems you are incapable.

You ignored all of the things I said and then said I didn't say them. One cannot have a decent discussion under these conditions.

[Daldolma]

Originally Posted by Alawen [You must be logged in to view images. Log in or Register.]

I imagine that they have big spherical ships that look like a small moon; that's too big to be a space station. Wait, I imagine that they have cubes and they assimilate other cultures. Wait, I imagine that they took apart all the planets in their solar system and built a huge ring that revolves around the sun. Wait, I know, they come from another dimension AND THEY WILL TEAR YOUR SOUL APART!

Everyone should believe that there is other life more intelligent than humans because Daldolma says Stephen Hawking says so. And, after all, Stephen Hawking doesn't need degrees related to extra-terrestrial life corresponding to Daldolma's standard in his last series of RnF tantrums even though this is just an extension of those tantrums, because... well, just because.

No one is an expert on the existence of extra-terrestrial life because we have no evidence of extra-terrestrial life to study. Your appeals to authority are completely and utterly fallacious here.

You are blatantly and pathetically trying to make up for me handing you your ass for posting the first paragraph of a Wikipedia entry and trying to pretend you knew what historicity was. No one else will give a fuck if you manage to let it go, but I don't think you can. I think you'll stalk me in RnF for eternity hoping for a chance to be right.

The sad part is that I think you actually believe the above. Alawen, I have no interest in stalking you. No interest in continually proving you to be on the wrong side of every serious scholarly discussion of the things you profess so assuredly.

I just think you're a buffoon. I think you condescendingly dismiss anything you don't agree with. I think you're a frustrated child that believes his way is the right way, and all other ways are absurd. And I think your pseudo intellect needs to be exposed for what it is. When you attack Hasbinbad for being, well, reasonable -- he deserves a defense.

Your new argument is that believing intelligent extraterrestrial life exists is based on wishful thinking, not evidence. You mock those who disagree with accusations of illogic and magical thinking, equating such a belief with the belief that Satan implanted the fossil record. And yet, many disagree. It appeared HBB disagreed. I disagree. Stephen Hawking disagrees. Hawking says that a belief in extraterrestrials can be based on mathematics and reason. Not surprisingly, you think Stephen Hawking is ludicrous. Please: set him straight, Alawen.

For the record, the evidence is this: there are (estimated) sextillions of habitable planets comparable to Earth throughout the universe. We don't understand exactly how life began on Earth -- we have no idea whether or not the same process could have occurred elsewhere. We have no reason to believe that Earth is (or isn't) atypical in this regard. But if you believe that there is no intelligent extraterrestrial life, it requires a belief that Earth is unique. That within a solar system of 1 star, within a galaxy of 200-400 billion stars, within a universe of 100 billion galaxies, over the course of 13 billion years, Earth is the only planet that has ever sustained intelligent life.

Is that possible? Yes, certainly. Is it ludicrous to believe? Of course not. Is the converse possible? Yes, certainly. Is the converse ludicrous to believe? Of course not.

For some reason, you struggle with this. You like to create a false dichotomy, where something is either definitely true or there's absolutely no reason to believe it to be true, and if there's no reason to believe it to be true, anyone who does believe it to be true is ludicrous. The problem is nuance. There is reason to believe there is intelligent extraterrestrial life. There is also reason to believe there isn't. You don't seem capable of processing both strains of logic at the same time. I'm not sure I can think of a more damning shortcoming for a supposed intellect.

[Alarti0001]

Originally Posted by Hasbinlulz [You must be logged in to view images. Log in or Register.]

You ignored all of the things I said and then said I didn't say them. One cannot have a decent discussion under these conditions.

What things did you say? All I have seen you say is that I can't say anything.

[Splorf22]

I don't understand why the burden of proof is on the people who believe in intelligent life. Since we cannot run experiments to test it's purely a matter of speculation and guessing based on the evidence we have. I don't see why either proposition should be favored. And considering the huge number of stars even in our own galaxy combined with the number of exoplanets we're finding I find it far more likely that life either did, does, or will exist out there somewhere. The Drake equation is pretty convincing to me despite our huge failure to estimate its parameters.

However there is an even more compelling argument for the existence of intelligent life. Most of the universes we know of are virtual: created on a computer. Aside from stuff like Norrath, there are thousands of simulations running all the time, Conway's game of life etc. If we extend that logic its far more likely that our universe is also virtual (especially since it appears quantized and computable). Which means there is something up the stack . . . if RnF is any guide, probably some zit-faced unemployed alien playing a computer game.

P.S. Hasbinbad, you really need to read 'Unskilled and Unaware of it'. You just don't understand what you are talking about, which is fine, but you are also unaware of it, which is poor.

P.P.S. I wonder why I'm always on the opposite side of Alarti on every position. I have a few theories: Alarti is wrong about everything; I'm wrong about everything; Alarti has a huge faith in the power of science while I am more Popperian; I don't believe in anything and can pick either side but I have a subconscious urge to just randomly pick the other side to taunt him. Probably the most likely is #3.

[Alarti0001]

Originally Posted by Splorf22 [You must be logged in to view images. Log in or Register.]

P.P.S. I wonder why I'm always on the opposite side of Alarti on every position. I have a few theories: Alarti is wrong about everything; I'm wrong about everything; Alarti has a huge faith in the power of science while I am more Popperian; I don't believe in anything and can pick either side but I have a subconscious urge to just randomly pick the other side to taunt him. Probably the most likely is #3.

Here is where we differ. I don't have faith in science. Its a reasoned decision due to evidence that is presented and also the application of the scientific method. I don't operate on belief.

[Splorf22]

Originally Posted by Alarti0001 [You must be logged in to view images. Log in or Register.]

Here is where we differ. I don't have faith in science. Its a reasoned decision due to evidence that is presented and also the application of the scientific method. I don't operate on belief.

I'm not sure I understand this. If you don't have faith in science and you don't operate on belief, how do you make decisions?

[Hasbinlulz]

Originally Posted by Alarti0001 [You must be logged in to view images. Log in or Register.]

What things did you say? All I have seen you say is that I can't say anything.

This is my point exactly.