Nicker on 1/8/2023 at 21:49
Quote:
I guess my point is that if you allow for the possibility that future technology will overcome fundamental laws of physics, then you have left science for science-fiction.
Yes but I don't believe I said that, only that the UAP's displayed flight characteristics which could not be explained by our current aviation technology. As Arthur C. Clarke said, “Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic”. That doesn't mean that it breaks the laws of physics, only that our current understanding is insufficient to understand. Our stone-aged ancestors were every bit as intellectually capable as us but they would lack the knowledge basis to understand even rudimentary electrical devices.
In the 1700's, astronomer Guillaume Le Gentil, raced around the globe trying to observe the transit of Venus, which he declared was the last great question to be answered by astronomy. We seem to be constantly premature when when assuming our understanding of anything is near complete.
Conflating beliefs is why I broke out the issues into line items. Because too often, agreeing or disagreeing with any given point, is taken to mean you agree with all points in an arbitrary category (categories usually concocted by the person doing the conflating).
If you accept that life is possible on other planets, you must therefore believe in little green men colluding with Bigfoot. I was hoping that we could appreciate that the matter of UAP's is more than binary.
Azaran on 1/8/2023 at 22:09
Quote Posted by Nicker
In the 1700's, astronomer Guillaume Le Gentil, raced around the globe trying to observe the transit of Venus, which he declared was the last great question to be answered by astronomy. We seem to be constantly premature when when assuming our understanding of anything is near complete.
There's a saying that goes something like 'Everything is impossible till someone pulls it off'.
Also, assuming that we'll never be able to accomplish X thing (e.g. use wormholes to travel long distances) is tantamount to saying we can predict humanity's future. Thing is, we don't know what humanity will accomplish or discover in the future. Much like - to stay with Nicker's example - if you told a caveman we'd have computers and cell phones one day, they'd probably think you were nuts.
One of the only things I can say with certainty about the future is we'll likely never achieve time travel (at least not into the past). For a very simple reason. If time travel did become possible in some future eon, we'd have future time travelers visit us by now.
Nicker on 1/8/2023 at 23:05
Unless they are already here.... (dramatic chord!).
One of the sci-fi tropes I detest the most is people from the present going to the past to change the present. It's right up there with fulfilled prophesy. It smacks of hard-determinism, and I just won't stand for it!!!
Also, post script to my previous rant; people who conflate "possible" with "probable", or worse, with "actual".
Cipheron on 1/8/2023 at 23:42
Quote Posted by Nicker
In the 1700's, astronomer Guillaume Le Gentil, raced around the globe trying to observe the transit of Venus, which he declared was the last great question to be answered by astronomy. We seem to be constantly premature when when assuming our understanding of anything is near complete.
Did he actually say that? I think that could be misconstrued. Let me know if you have a source for that. I checked and couldn't find anything of him making that claim.
He wanted to see the transit of Venus because it was the
last chance to see that for over a century, and they could measure it to determine the distance to the Sun. For comparison there was a transit in 2012, but it won't happen again until the year 2117.
The way you wrote that he "raced around the globe trying to observe the transit of Venus" makes him sound like a guy on a fool's errand, when he did in fact have a perfectly good reason for that. He would be long dead before it ever happened again, and they needed the measurements. Additionally, the measurement used solar parallax, so you needed to do the measurement at multiple locations. A single measurement would have no meaning at all. Hence, lots of people "raced around the globe" to do the measurements, not just this guy you've implied was a loony on a fool's errand.
It was the last chance they'd have for over a century to use transit parallax to calculate the distance to the sun, thus the distance to ALL the planets, that's probably what he meant.
"last chance" and "last discovery" are similar enough concepts that I think you're probably conflating them rather than both being true.
Nicker on 2/8/2023 at 00:23
I remember reading that he said something to that effect and this was reiterated in a play about his life. He was a dedicated and long suffering scientist but also a human. If I misused him to support my argument, then I apologise for adding to his troubles.
Regardless, the point wasn't to denigrate Le Gentil personally but to make an observation about our tendency to believe that our knowledge is near complete, regardless of the era.
The point still stands, we have not even approached the limits of knowledge, so declaring that X is and will remain impossible, is premature.
heywood on 2/8/2023 at 10:57
It's one thing to say there are observations we can't explain because we don't have the knowledge.
It's a different thing to say that unexplained phenomena means we have to allow for the possibility that our theories of light and gravity are completely wrong.
I realize I'm probably speaking to an audience of Star Trek fans here, but the advancement of technology doesn't change physics. And in the advancement of physics, new theories don't invalidate previous observations. Newton's theory of gravity is still usable because it produces sufficiently accurate results for the vast majority of problems. G is still G. General relativity didn't change our understanding of the solar system. It predicted new things, like black holes and gravity waves, which we later confirmed. But it didn't change the amount of energy required to launch a payload out of the solar system. And if we ever manage to come up with a grand unified field theory, it's not going to change the amount of energy required to launch a payload out of the solar system either.
Likewise with light. If a new theory comes along, it won't invalidate special relativity, it will extend it or generalize it. The light speed barrier will still be there because we have mountains of evidence for it that the new theory will have to agree with.
If you believe it's possible that aliens don't have to abide by these laws, because they have invented some special technology that allows them to be broken, then you believe in science fiction over science.
Nicker on 2/8/2023 at 18:03
Quote:
It's a different thing to say that unexplained phenomena means we have to allow for the possibility that our theories of light and gravity are completely wrong.
There is a difference between incomplete and completely wrong. Admitting to the former is not an insistence on the latter.
As previously noted, there is a critical difference between possibility and probability. Allowing for the former is not an abandonment of the latter.
Cipheron on 2/8/2023 at 22:19
Quote Posted by Nicker
I remember reading that he said something to that effect and this was reiterated in a play about his life. He was a dedicated and long suffering scientist but also a human. If I misused him to support my argument, then I apologise for adding to his troubles.
No, i totally get where you're coming from, but some better examples would be Priestly's de-phlogisticated air or the plum pudding model of the atom, it's just a bad example in this case.
BTW i found the script of the play:
(
https://www.scribd.com/embeds/205501277/content)
The foreword covers the basics, explaining how he was one of many dozens of people ordered to travel to specific locations to collect the transit data. It was totally someone else's plan to start with, so that paints a different picture. Also the guy in his real life made actual new discoveries. That doesn't fit with the view of a guy who thinks everything that can be discovered had been discovered, nor do the facts really back up that he was an iconoclast who had a Venus obsession, which I think is what is at the heart of the opinion on the guy you've restated (probably from elsewhere).
Page 39 is the scene where his girlfriend asks him to explain what's so important about going on the trip, so that scene would clearly explain the author's theme here. The first thing however is that he says he's always wanted to travel and this is an excuse to get out of France. They actually NEVER have him in the play specify what's specifically important about observing Venus. the girlfriend counters that someone else could do the measurements so he doesn't have to go, and he doesn't give her a straight answer, so it's clear from the play that the theme is that he wanted the adventure, not that the measurements being done were uniquely important.
Then on page 42 he gives a longer speech on why he chose astronomy - because of the wonder of creation and the gift it is to probe the mysteries, which doesn't fit with the view of someone who thinks they discovered all there is to discover. They then have him give a speech about Venus specifically, but it's a poetic speech about the literary, religious and historical significance of Venus, and mentions nothing about the actual science involved.
On page 69, he's returned for voyaging and gives a speech about his trip:
"Every day I was away I learned anew, and with a kind of fresh surprise, how infinite is the mind of God, how intricate and varied. And now I'm back, and everywhere I see walls and roofs - limits".
That paragraph is clearly stating the primary theme of the play. Page 76 then gets into his reasons to try for the second transit:
"All I want is a chance to pull a single slender thread from the veil of ignorance we wear, that clouds our understanding of the universe, of God".
There's nothing in here about the hubris of thinking we discovered everything there is to know.
Nicker on 3/8/2023 at 01:47
Fair enough. This is my second and final apology to Le Gentil in this thread.
Ahhh, Phlogiston. You passed too soon.
Perhaps I should have used the example of Plate Tectonics instead. Alfred Wegener proposed continental drift in 1912 and was dismissed, even ridiculed for his papers, despite actual data supporting his theory. His work would not find favour until two generations of the geological old guard expired, leaving room for new ideas.
Sulphur on 3/8/2023 at 07:40
But if only atoms were as delicious as plum pudding - then everyone would have studied science by default, and we'd be having better (and tastier) conversations.
