Do Aliens Exist?

[jamesbond007]

No, physical laws are not necessarily absolute (e.g. the laws of thermodynamics are probabilistic, aka statistical mechanics) and energy is not conserved under GR. Didn't you watch the Sabine Hossenfelder video posted by sjastro?

No, I wasn't aware, but will watch if it's on youtube. I think in a closed system the laws of thermodynamics are absolute.

 

[sjastro]

No, I wasn't aware, but will watch if it's on youtube. I think in a closed system the laws of thermodynamics are absolute.

Laws are not absolute.
The Rayleigh-Jeans law for blackbody temperature is clearly wrong for short wavelengths which led to a major crisis in classical physics known as the UV catastrophe and resulted in the formulation of quantum mechanics.

A good explanation of the UV catastrophe is found here.

 

[jamesbond007]

Laws are not absolute.
The Rayleigh-Jeans law for blackbody temperature is clearly wrong for short wavelengths which led to a major crisis in classical physics known as the UV catastrophe which led to the formulation of quantum mechanics.

A good explanation of the UV catastrophe is found here.

Thanks. I saw the above which is about an hour, but it explains the UV catastrophe and photoelectric effect and Einstein winning his Nobel Prize for his discovery of the photoelectric effect. We're still battling the quanta explanation of Bohr. The electron is a mysterious particle that acts like a wave. Can it really be two places at once as a wave and just act like a particle when measured? Start from around 21:50.

 

[sjastro]

Thanks. I saw the above which is about an hour, but it explains the UV catastrophe and photoelectric effect and Einstein winning his Nobel Prize for his discovery of the photoelectric effect. We're still battling the quanta explanation of Bohr. The electron is a mysterious particle that acts like a wave. Can it really be two places at once as a wave and just act like a particle when measured? Start from around 21:50.

I saw the last hour of your video.
While quantum mechanics is “virtually” impossible to understand as it is counterintuitive, as the video shows it is possible to construct Bell test experiments to show whether Bohr’s quantum mechanics or Einstein’s version (also known as a hidden variable theory) is correct.
Einstein was shown to be incorrect.

These Bell test experiments which test entangled photons have resulted in technologies for quantum teleportation and quantum encryption which apply directly to entangled electrons.
In the case of entangled elections it is the information, in this case electron spin, which is teleported and encrypted.
These technologies will not work if electrons behave as classical particles.

Electrons can be “spin up” |↑> or “spin down” |↓>.
A pair of entangled electrons has a wave function |Ψ> of the form |Ψ> = λ₁|↑> + λ₂|↓>,
or |Ψ> = λ₁|↑> + λ₂|↑>, or |Ψ> = λ₁|↓> + λ₂|↓>
This is a superimposed state irrespective whether the electrons are next to each other or on opposite sides of the universe.
A measurement to reveal the spin of either electron causes the wave function to collapse according to the Copenhagen interpretation.

The resultant technological offshoots for quantum teleportation and encryption based on the wave functions are explained in this video.

 

[Warden_of_the_Storm]

I don't even know what you know or evidence that you have to get up on your high horse and criticize me. @Warden_of_the_Storm has been debunked and put in her place as someone who doesn't have much evidence for her scientific beliefs.

First off, I'm a guy. I chose the avatar because it's funny to me. Just like how your avatar is Sean Connory's James Bond but I definitely know that you do not even have an ounce of his charisma.
And you've also done nothing to debunk anything. All you've done is make claim after claim after claim and not presented a single shred of evidence to support your claims. Par for the course for you lot.

 

[FrumiousBandersnatch]

Just read my previous posts in this thread for starters.

I have. They seem to be a mix of rather confused science and unsubstantiated objections interspersed with naïve questions... very odd.

Please explain your std model of cosmos.

I'm talking about the standard model of cosmology, Lambda CDM.

The universe being flat like a scroll backs up creation science. I'll add we found the edges of the universe curve, too. It means the universe has a boundary.

Citation? where are these 'edges'? People who work in the field think that it is most likely that the universe is either infinite, or finite and unbounded, so no edges.

That's why I asked where the energy came from for this "infinite" space to accelerate and continue expanding?

The best candidate for the basic expansion is just Einstein's equations, which predict either an expanding or a contracting spacetime. To get static spacetime you need to add a cosmological constant (remember Einstein's biggest blunder?). The cause of the acceleration of spacetime is known as 'dark energy', and may well be due to this cosmological constant after all - this time contributing a repulsive effect, a constant density vacuum energy. Alternatively, it may be a scalar field called 'quintessence'.

Even the energy for the stars, moon, planets, etc aren't explained. Instead, all of your origin hypotheses have whatever you need already assumed to be there such as spacetime.

There are several possible answers to that. For example, if our universe is a 'bubble' or 'pocket' universe, birthed from a rapidly expanding metaverse (as in inflation theory), the energy comes from the phase change that initiates the universe. More generally, one can say that the universe has zero net energy, as the positive energy (of E=mc²) warps spacetime, producing an equal and opposite gravitational energy (which can be considered to be 'negative' energy). This would mean that you need no additional energy resource to create a universe, just some catalysing event.

The energy for the stars, moon, planets, etc., is just the remnants of the energy of the big bang itself - which also involved the annihilation of about a billion times more matter and antimatter than there is matter around today; that's quite a lot of energy.

Maybe space has to continue expanding in order for time to move forward. What's weird is if we look out into space and see heavenly objects, those objects are from the past. We can't see the present in space except to project their movements (which may be enough) to get us there assuming we can. We need to use a telescope to see what's out in the deep field, but even then it's the past. This shows the one way direction of time and we can't see the present.

Kind of. The arrow of time and the expansion of the universe are related by increasing entropy. It's the overall increase in entropy that distinguishes past from future. At thermodynamic equilibrium, there's no change in entropy, so no arrow of time.

The most troubling is the stars exploding and galaxies colliding of the deaths of these heavenly objects that has already happened. That's why there is cosmological belief that the Milky Way, too, could end up as space fodder. That would be one extinction event, but not just one relegated to the Earth only.

Why troubling? - it's not likely to happen any time soon.

Do you mean cosmic inflation? I hate that as it violates the laws of physics.

No, it really doesn't - it's a product of theoretical physics as currently understood; if it violated those laws it would have been rejected out of hand. Which laws do you think it violates?

There isn't a physical explanation that doesn't violate the laws of physics, so we wait to find out more about its nature.

No. QM is what is observed - the laws of physics are descriptions of what is observed, they're not some sort of absolute Platonic ideal. The laws of physics emerge from our observations of QM.

At this time, we can't explain our macro view of the universe based on it.

What about our macro view of the universe do you think we can't explain with QM?

We can use the knowledge of it and it seems possible to build a quantum internet and space communications.

What would you say are the benefits of a quantum internet, and why do you think we need QM for space communications?

I'm going skip Mr. Tegmark because he's a believer of multiverses.

That's an unscientific attitude. Multiverses are widely accepted as plausible hypotheses. You don't have to believe in them - as Aristotle didn't actually say, "It is the mark of an educated mind to be able to entertain a thought without accepting it."

I have an explanation for what we see as observation. Strictly my thoughts. I think an individual light particle acts as a wave when it goes through both slits. Thus, we get the wave patterns.

Yup.

The collapse explains what we see in quantum entanglement. We can only observe one pairs and its entangled pairs. The other particles to show the wave for some reason just aren't recorded or observed, but I think they're there. The collapse is the illusion. Maybe the observation can't record the others because of some strange time function.

Sorry, can't make sense of that - although it sounds vaguely like 'Many Worlds'. When your particle goes through the slits, it's in a superposition of every path through those slits. When it interacts with the screen, the formalism says that it becomes a superposition of every possible outcome, each entangled with the screen. IOW the screen joins a superposition of all those outcomes. Very rapidly, the whole environment becomes similarly entangled, and the superposed outcomes can no longer interfere - this is 'decoherence'.

In 'Many Worlds', you, the observer, are also a quantum system (effectively part of the environment) and, like everything else, become entangled with the resulting superposition rippling out from the original interaction. So for each possible outcome, there's a 'version' of you which sees that outcome.

In the Copenhagen formulation, something extra happens at the point of interaction, and all but one of the superpositions instantaneously vanish, randomly leaving a single outcome.

ETA: What I'd like to do is shoot entangled particles through one-at-a-time. Then we should just see the two bands. Next, use a measuring device to record and observe. It should be the same.

We'd have to account for each particle to make sure. Then shoot non-entangled ones and we should see the wave pattern. Keep track of how many were fired. Next, observe those with the measuring device. We should just get the entangled pairs, but it will be less than the number of shots fired. That would mean the wave pattern is there, but we just couldn't see it or record it.

That's not clear enough to comment on - perhaps you could relate it to the description I gave above.

 

[FrumiousBandersnatch]

No, I wasn't aware, but will watch if it's on youtube.

You don't have to go to YouTube, you can watch it in the comment I gave you the link to.

I think in a closed system the laws of thermodynamics are absolute.

I used to think that too.

 

[jamesbond007]

First off, I'm a guy. I chose the avatar because it's funny to me. Just like how your avatar is Sean Connory's James Bond but I definitely know that you do not even have an ounce of his charisma.
And you've also done nothing to debunk anything. All you've done is make claim after claim after claim and not presented a single shred of evidence to support your claims. Par for the course for you lot.

Ok, my bad, but I do have wit, charm, and charisma. I wouldn't put it close to even being on par with Sean Connery (RIP Sean Connery) had with his JB.

I think I've shown plenty of evidence to show and explain for no intelligent aliens and it's enough to conclude there aren't any. Not even a microbe. Else we would've seen it by now. We've spent enough billions of dollars to have found them.

I realize it goes against some of the greatest scientific minds in science, such as Stephen Hawking, Albert Einstein, Carl Sagan, Nikola Tesla, Richard Feynman, etc., but they all died without finding one. Neil deGrasse Tyson is still living and he states sometimes he stays awake at night in trying to find a way to find them. Some of those new ways I've discovered are optical SETI and Alien Telescope Array, but still nothing. Even seti@home was shut down this year. Why is it you aren't the one mentioning them, but I. I use them as proof there aren't aliens (nor abiogenesis).

Most of these scientists were going by a belief in the vastness of our universe before the fine tuning facts were discovered. They also discount the anthropic principle in that Earth is a special place and witnessing the glory of our universe in the great and imaginative mind of God.

 

[jamesbond007]

I have. They seem to be a mix of rather confused science and unsubstantiated objections interspersed with naïve questions... very odd.

Perhaps you do not understand and comprehend valid science. To get down to brass tacks, there has been no evidence whatsoever for aliens while plenty have come up show no aliens as implied in the Bible.

I'm talking about the standard model of cosmology, Lambda CDM.

It's just a claim that our universe data favors Lamda CDM. It's largely a myth that atheists and their scientists wishes were true. What if God is the dark energy? Why isn't the possibility of a creator in the Lambda CDM model?

Why troubling? - it's not likely to happen any time soon.

Probably not in our lifetime. The Bible states Israel will have to become a nation with Jerusalem as its capital first.

No, it really doesn't - it's a product of theoretical physics as currently understood; if it violated those laws it would have been rejected out of hand. Which laws do you think it violates?

Nothing can travel faster than light. And where did this created energy come from to do it? So let's get rid of cosmic inflation.

No. QM is what is observed - the laws of physics are descriptions of what is observed, they're not some sort of absolute Platonic ideal. The laws of physics emerge from our observations of QM.

What about our macro view of the universe do you think we can't explain with QM?

I'll answer both with:

We can't know where the electron is until observed. We know the electron exists with EMS. We can counter the argument that they have to be observed by setting a battery connected to a wire to a light. We flip the switch in-between and the electrons flow to light the light. It flows whether there is an observer or not because of the potential difference (+ to -) and the battery runs down even when not observing. So that answers Einstein's quote about the moon existing if we aren't there to observe.

Now, it may not answer where the electron is in an open system, but I assume its flow is universal for potential difference. Thus, cosmic inflation does not explain why it inflated the way it did. Even dark energy, assuming it existed, should follow potential difference. With cosmic inflation, there was no potential difference, but the expansion did follow a vector direction.

That's an unscientific attitude. Multiverses are widely accepted as plausible hypotheses. You don't have to believe in them - as Aristotle didn't actually say, "It is the mark of an educated mind to be able to entertain a thought without accepting it."

Sure multiverses are unscientific because there is no evidence for it. It is also very hypocritical of atheism and their scientists. Why don't you believe in God as scientific when a Bible was discovered and science backs it up even though it isn't a science book? That's much more hard evidence than hypothesis of a made up multiverse.

I'm going to skip the rest as it has become tiresome having to endure insults and arguing against someone who believes in multiverses.

 

[FrumiousBandersnatch]

Perhaps you do not understand and comprehend valid science. To get down to brass tacks, there has been no evidence whatsoever for aliens while plenty have come up show no aliens as implied in the Bible.

Since when did the bible have anything to do with 'valid science'?

It's just a claim that our universe data favors Lamda CDM. It's largely a myth that atheists and their scientists wishes were true. What if God is the dark energy? Why isn't the possibility of a creator in the Lambda CDM model?

It's a model that is current best fit to the data. Sure, we could invoke gods, mythical beasts, cosmic serpents, or what have you, but they are superfluous - we have a number of plausible hypotheses based on fundamental physics to explore that don't need to invoke ill-defined, undemonstrable, inexplicable, supernatural entities that have no explanatory power. The point is to test explanations by their predictions, so as to gain an understanding of the phenomena involved, not pretend some meaningless label is an explanation.

Nothing can travel faster than light. And where did this created energy come from to do it? So let's get rid of cosmic inflation.

General Relativity - nothing in the universe can accelerate to the speed of light, but there's nothing to stop space expanding faster than light; it's FTL movement through space that's not possible. I already explained where the energy might come from - in the post you're quoting. Inflation isn't a slam-dunk, it's popular because it solves a number of cosmological puzzles, but it may be wrong. More data is needed - science at work.

We can't know where the electron is until observed. We know the electron exists with EMS. We can counter the argument that they have to be observed by setting a battery connected to a wire to a light. We flip the switch in-between and the electrons flow to light the light. It flows whether there is an observer or not because of the potential difference (+ to -) and the battery runs down even when not observing. So that answers Einstein's quote about the moon existing if we aren't there to observe.

Sure - Einstein was criticising the von Neumann-Wigner version of the Copenhagen interpretation, which suggested consciousness collapses the wavefunction; no mainstream physicist gives that credence that any more.

Now, it may not answer where the electron is in an open system, but I assume its flow is universal for potential difference. Thus, cosmic inflation does not explain why it inflated the way it did. Even dark energy, assuming it existed, should follow potential difference. With cosmic inflation, there was no potential difference, but the expansion did follow a vector direction.

Inflation was not an electromagnetic phenomenon (how would that work?). The current (see what I did there?) explanation for it is a quantum field, the inflaton.

"The expansion did follow a vector direction."? Seriously - do you know what a vector is? The idea is that all of space expanded, i.e. every point became further away from every other point (in all directions).

Sure multiverses are unscientific because there is no evidence for it.

That's an ongoing debate, but the fact is that most (if not all) scientific theories make predictions that are or were untestable, e.g. people used to say black holes were unscientific. It's the 'demarcation problem', a philosophy of science debate.

Why don't you believe in God as scientific when a Bible was discovered and science backs it up even though it isn't a science book?

Well, firstly, science isn't about belief, it's about degrees of confidence in explanations. Secondly, your God is not a prediction of any theory - there are lots of ancient books about various ill-defined and inexplicable gods and other supernatural entities; why should we pick any of them? they're redundant - unnecessary (Occam's razor), and they have no explanatory power.

I'm going to skip the rest as it has become tiresome having to endure insults and arguing against someone who believes in multiverses.

I'm sorry if you feel I've insulted you - oddly, I thought the insults were coming the other way...

And I don't believe in multiverses; I think, in general, they're fascinating, challenging, ideas - some, like Tegmark's mathematical structures multiverse, I give low credence to, but others, such as the cosmological multiverse and quantum 'Many Worlds', I give fairly high credence to - but if the theories or assumptions on which they rest are shown to be false, then meh, we'll move on to other things.

 

[Warden_of_the_Storm]

Ok, my bad, but I do have wit, charm, and charisma. I wouldn't put it close to even being on par with Sean Connery (RIP Sean Connery) had with his JB.

You definitely wish that you had either wit, charm or charisma. Because I've not seen a single ounce of that in any thread that I've seen you be a part of on this forum. I definitely see haughtiness, pride and an unwillingness to admit that you might even be slightly wrong from you.

I think I've shown plenty of evidence to show and explain for no intelligent aliens and it's enough to conclude there aren't any. Not even a microbe. Else we would've seen it by now. We've spent enough billions of dollars to have found them.

No, you haven't shown any evidence for those things. Evidence would be a sample of another planet that showed that there wasn't any life forms, of any stripe on it. All you've done is make claim after claim, and not shown a single shred of evidence.

I realize it goes against some of the greatest scientific minds in science, such as Stephen Hawking, Albert Einstein, Carl Sagan, Nikola Tesla, Richard Feynman, etc., but they all died without finding one. Neil deGrasse Tyson is still living and he states sometimes he stays awake at night in trying to find a way to find them. Some of those new ways I've discovered are optical SETI and Alien Telescope Array, but still nothing. Even seti@home was shut down this year. Why is it you aren't the one mentioning them, but I. I use them as proof there aren't aliens (nor abiogenesis).

Most of these scientists were going by a belief in the vastness of our universe before the fine tuning facts were discovered. They also discount the anthropic principle in that Earth is a special place and witnessing the glory of our universe in the great and imaginative mind of God.

And all you're doing is just waffling about how you think you know more than scientists about the universe. And also baring false witness about those scientists too. Did you know those scientists in person? Did you know what they thought and said? No, so stop lying.

The universe is a vast, grand place on a scale that is hard for the human mind to truly comprehend. To find life in the cosmos is like dropping a single tiny translucent ball bearing into the ocean and being asked to find it. An absolutely MONUMENTAL task, but doable. Or we might get lucky. The chances of finding life are 1 in 10 to the order of several million (to use a nice number), but they aren't zero.

 

[FrumiousBandersnatch]

The chances of finding life are 1 in 10 to the order of several million (to use a nice number), but they aren't zero.

Better to say, 'unknown'.

 

[Warden_of_the_Storm]

Better to say, 'unknown'.

I'm sticking with what I wrote. I think it illustrates my point a bit better.