Reality is that our best physics and astrophysics arguably predict we could've or should've been visited by now.

References, please. Our "best" physics and astrophysics is peer-reviewed and published in widely-circulated journals. What I glean from those sources is that the mathematics predicts exactly the opposite of what you say.

they're not traversing seemingly impossible interstellar distances, they're coming from the next dimension over in our multiverse.

Pure speculation. It is no more plausible to claim they are dimension-hopping than that they are traveling faster than light. Sorry, but you don't get to invent hypothetical techniques and technology in order to make your desired conclusion seem less implausible.

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The solar system has been around for 5(?) billion years, Earth for 4.5 billion years. Life has been around for about 3 billion years, most of that time as cyanobacteria. If there are "others" that have visited Earth, their mostly to have visited before humans came along. (Or they could be waiting for intelligent life to evolve here before making contact.)
Superstring and M theory strengthen the speculation that they come from another dimension. I think the argument goes "They must be here, so where did they come from." First part of that is still weak, IMHO.

Out of all the time in the universe, how long have the stars been chucking out useful stuff for creation? (genuine question)

Just that its one that I have not really looked into yet with claims that we should have been visited by now.

Genetic molecular evidence supports the idea that our planet has had no lasting contact with any other world; all the species that live here are descended from a common ancestor abour four billion years ago, entirely consistent with a planet which has never been visited. If any species has been here in the interim, they left no lasting impression.

Archaological evidence too also points to a past with no physical contact with other worlds; all ancient antiquities discovered so far were made by humans with no obvious help from outside.

No concrete physical evidence of any kind exists to demonstrate the existence of extraterrestrial visitors; all we have that points the other way are a few dubious radar traces and a lot of tall tales. Not really good enough, I'm afraid

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Sagan talks about that in his "We're all star stuff" monologue. The first stars went into a "fusion frenzy" as they died and spat out various elements. Those elements found their way here over a span of time.
And we could have been. But for the vast majority of the them available for a visit they would not have found people here.

There have probably been suitable planets for life in our galaxy for at least seven billion years; not many at first, but the numbers are increasing all the time. If any of these early worlds developed a civilisation, billions of years before the Earth was born, they could have been here to watch the planet as it cooled. However there is no sign of them.

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Although you have shown wisdom in avoiding being explicit here, you really need to accept that your extremely (nay, farcically) selective interpretation of the Gilgamesh legend does nothing for your credibility.

As I've said before, I do realise that you will keep on bringing up this gold-standard of non-evidence - and I will keep on being there to point out that it does not by any stretch of the imagination count as anything other than gold-standard non-evidence.

Please stop insulting the ancient people and their imaginations.

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Ah, now I see what you meant. If ET craft were a very common thing in the sky, the pilots wouldn't even have bothered to report it, or it wouldn't have raised any eyebrows later. I can agree with that, if that was what you meant.

I guess there would have been less misunderstanding if you had phrased that as "there'd be no interest" rather than "no need". As is it implies that if one UFO sighting was proven to be true, automatically all others would be absolved from doubt too. Ambiguity, love it or hate it.

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I'm not aware of any physics prediction on this subject. I am aware of wildly differing speculation based on whatever assumptions the speculators prefer. Please tell us what predictions you are referring to.

Speculative ideas might or might not strengthen the ET craft argument? Okay, I'll use the same method of argument: Superstring and M theory potentially strengthen the invisible elf argument. That means just as much - and just as little - as your statement.

As has been pointed out to you in other threads, humans have claimed visitors from underground, the seas, the sky, and pretty much any version of "elsewhere" someone could dream up. Should we say that stories reinforce the plausibility of mole people?

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Disclaimer: Avatar is not an official NASA image and does not imply any specific interplanetary or interstellar capability.

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Ta and to Gawdzilla. Just getting around to this thought. Not in the camp that says we "must have been visited by now". Just thinking about the odds overall. I understand (to some extent, bear with me or correct me) stars being the creators through their life and death.

The "window" for visitation is incredibly small. A few weeks at most for a visit to Earth, out of all the time it's been in this parking orbit? The chance that B.E.M.s would arrive NOW is less than that of winning the lottery. (And yes, we'd have to allow for some alien Seth Shostak, which would fiddle with the odds.)

Hi Jay.

I referenced "Inflation-theory Implications for ET Visitation" earlier in this thread.
You can find it here.

The abstract:

It has recently been argued that anthropic reasoning applied to inflation theory reinforces the prediction that we should find ourselves part of a large, galaxy-sized civilisation, thus strengthening Fermi’s paradox concerning “Where are they?” Furthermore, superstring and M-brane theory allow for the possibility of parallel universes, some of which in principle could be habitable. In addition, discussion of such exotic transport concepts as “traversable wormholes” now appears in the rigorous physics literature. As a result, the “We are alone” solution to Fermi’s paradox, based on the constraints of earlier 20th century viewpoints, appears today to be inconsistent with new developments in our best current physics and astrophysics theories. Therefore we reexamine and reevaluate the present assumption that extraterrestrials or their probes are not in the vicinity of Earth, and argue instead that some evidence of their presence might be found in certain high-quality UFO reports. This study follows up on previous arguments that (1) interstellar travel for advanced civilizations is not a priori ruled out by physical principles and therefore may be practicable, and (2) such advanced civilisations may value the search for knowledge from uncontaminated species more than direct, interspecies communication, thereby accounting for apparent covertness regarding their presence.


I've not invented anything and have no desired conclusion.
I readily admit anything which regards the ETH is conjecture, I just don't think highly speculative equates to less implausible.

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No physics contained therein.

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It's a good site to apply Source/Intent/Content to, however.

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How can you "allow" for alien visitors, yet have "no desired conclusion"? These would seem to be 2 very different ideas.

When something is "highly speculative", and also lacks conclusive evidence, then implausible is a good, descripive term.

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Irrelevant. I was told our "best physics and astrophysics" predicted that we should have been visited by now. Based on the citation provided, I find that assertion to be overstated.

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Source/Intent/Content is used to judge the validity of information.

What is the source of the information?

What is the intent of the person providing the information?

What is the content of the information?

You have to consider all three when using the internet.

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I gave my criteria. They were not met.

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I agree.

I used S/I/C in my historiography class.

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Is there a particular branch you're expecting?

As I understand it, Jay, our knowledge of the universe - age, size, composition, physical processes - is derived from physics / astrophysics.
No?
And IIRC, Fermi reached his conclusion by calculating how quickly particles, starting at a single point in a room and moving about at random, would fill the room.
Are there no physics astrophysics involved, really?
Are Inflation, String, Mbrane theories all without physical basis?
Is the Copernican principle not an assumption with physical basis?

Perhaps you're right and it was overstated, even though I did say phs/astrophys arguably predict we should've been visited by now.

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"Where the telescope ends, the microscope begins. Which of the two has the greater view?" - Hugo

"Men occasionally stumble over the truth, but most pick themselves up and hurry off as if nothing had happened." - Churchill

Is there a particular branch you're expecting?

Yes: any that actually discuss physical principles. You can't possibly be serious in labeling that tripe "physics."

As I understand it, Jay, our knowledge of the universe - age, size, composition, physical processes - is derived from physics / astrophysics.

Red herring. The paper you cite spends most of its time discussing UFO reports. It sweeps under the carpet all the actual problems associated with interstellar travel; then it declares with nothing more substantial than references to speculation, that methods of interstellar travel cannot be a priori ruled out -- in other words it just advances the same old "Magic ET" hypothesis that has been rejected time and again by real physics.

Perhaps you're right and it was overstated, even though I did say phs/astrophys arguably predict we should've been visited by now.

You said our "best" physics/astrophysics does this. I don't see any physics in that paper. It's just another lame attempt to connect UFO reports to alien visitation.

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So Fermi reached his conclusion by calculating how quickly particles, starting at a single point in a room and moving about at random, would fill the room - we should've been visited by now, where is everybody? -and you say no physics/astrophysics involved, really?
Are Inflation, String, Mbrane theories all without physical basis?
Is the Copernican principle not an assumption with physical basis?

Do you also find Olum's paper, on which Haisch builds his argument, to be lame as well, containing no physical principles?

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"Where the telescope ends, the microscope begins. Which of the two has the greater view?" - Hugo

"Men occasionally stumble over the truth, but most pick themselves up and hurry off as if nothing had happened." - Churchill

A.DIM....there are others posting here...will you be addressing their posts also?

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"The facts gentlemen, and nothing but the facts, for careful eyes are narrowly watching." Isaac Asimov

Olum cites Nick Bostrom in support of his argument that there should be many observers in a universe which has at least a few observers; that is to say that the univrese must be highly populated just because we exist.

Bostrom himself does not agree with this; here is an argument by Bostrom against Olum's idea, which Bostrom calls the Self-Indication assumption.
http://arxiv.org/PS_cache/gr-qc/pdf/0303/0303070v2.pdf
Basically the fact that we are here tells us nothing about other civilisations.

I'll leave Haisch aside, as he is a long way beyond the pale (although he doesn't seem to realise it himself).

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Yeah, nothing can really be inferred from a single example, but that link goes to Olum's paper?

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"Where the telescope ends, the microscope begins. Which of the two has the greater view?" - Hugo

"Men occasionally stumble over the truth, but most pick themselves up and hurry off as if nothing had happened." - Churchill

I'm not interested in Fermi. I'm interested in the paper you cited when asked. It simply sweeps all the problems under the rug.

When you can describe a working FTL drive or the properties of a traversable wormhole, then you can talk about physics. The rest is just idle speculation. I deal in real science, not coffehouse hogwash.

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Jay, Haisch's paper is firmly about Fermi's paradox and you're not interested?

Excellent.
I'm a layperson and can only to defer to the scientists and physicists who allege such things.
Indeed, I'm at the bottom of the tower looking up.

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"Where the telescope ends, the microscope begins. Which of the two has the greater view?" - Hugo

"Men occasionally stumble over the truth, but most pick themselves up and hurry off as if nothing had happened." - Churchill

Jay, Haisch's paper is firmly about Fermi's paradox and you're not interested?

It dances around the paradox by nothing more substantial than wishful thinking and speculation. I was promised physics, not handwaving.

I'm a layperson and can only to defer to the scientists and physicists who allege such things.

I'm a scientist and an engineer. Walk the walk or concede. The problems that Haisch ignores are still there.

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Perhaps a rebuttal paper is in order?
Let me know when it's published in a peer reviewed journal; I might concede upon reading it.

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"Where the telescope ends, the microscope begins. Which of the two has the greater view?" - Hugo

"Men occasionally stumble over the truth, but most pick themselves up and hurry off as if nothing had happened." - Churchill

Kindly do not shift the burden of proof. Either provide the physics that I ask for or concede your point regarding "our best physics."

Speculation and wishful thinking require no rebuttal.

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