UFO's - aliens here & now

[Ksyrup]

Woops, sorry, got this thread confused with the Trump cabinet appointment thread.

[Solecismic]

Originally Posted by Ksyrup

Woops, sorry, got this thread confused with the Trump cabinet appointment thread.

Leonardo Da Vinci was a visionary. But he could not have imagined American politics in the 2020s.

For that matter, the most convincing proof that there isn't intelligent life out there monitoring our planet is that we all haven't been zapped into oblivion in the last century.

I'm staying the hell out of the political items. No reading, commenting, even thinking about them.

[Ksyrup]

I hear ya. My brother said much the same. No use worrying about what you have no power to control. I get it, but ... boiling frog syndrome is a thing.

Anyway, one thread about aliens is enough!

[Edward64]

Originally Posted by Solecismic

For that matter, the most convincing proof that there isn't intelligent life out there monitoring our planet is that we all haven't been zapped into oblivion in the last century.

It's obvious they are waiting for the warp signature.

[flere-imsaho]

I'm just going to quote myself from Page 2:

Originally Posted by flere-imsaho

There are no aliens, because if there were, Donald Trump would have found out about them while President and there's no way he would have kept his mouth shut about it.

[Ksyrup]

They wiped his memory when he stared at the eclipse.

[Brian Swartz]

Originally Posted by dubb93

It all depends on how we found out and how confident we are in our assessments. It could definitely set off a space race / militarizing of space race in a way that just doesn’t exist now. By that I mean beating that guy to their system before they get out and with bigger weapons could go from basically having no priority to becoming our number one priority very quickly.

This makes sense if it were something we could do in, say, a couple decades with intense effort. We're nowhere near that point. It's just so far beyond our capability to do anything reasonable about that people would realize that fairly quickly and not flush their money down that toilet (in terms of there being no return on it in their lifetime, or that of anyone else who would be alive in their lifetime). Just not how people operate.

Originally Posted by Edward64

1. If an alien race is advanced enough to visit the US, they are very likely advanced enough technologically to hide from us
2. The ocean floors are certainly not nearly mapped well enough. There are some very, very deep places and wide expanse left unexplored
3. We supposedly know approx. the flight path of MAS 370. Government and private sector have spent significant sums of $, hours and our best technology to find it. And best we can do is wait for wreckage to wash ashore around Reunion island

1. That's the kind of argument you can squeeze anything into. It's like the whole Illuminati word leadership conspiracy stuff. You can't ever disprove it, no matter how much information and evidence you have, but there's also no good reason to believe it, so there's only one rational conclusion.

2/3. This is an area where there's a lot of distorted information commonly out there, no blame at all but I don't think what you've said is factual. We have satellite-imaged all of the ocean floor. What we don't have is detailed mapping of everything (but expect to in less than a decade), but the satellite data has a resolution of 5km at most, so for example if there was an underwater New York City or Paris or whatever, we'd most definitely know it was there. Finding the wreckage of a single lost plane is an entirely different matter from 'massive undiscovered civilization on the sea floor'.

In terms of the technological comparison to 1700, what we'd need to do anything approaching light-speed travel, nevermind surpassing it, is not that. It's a far bigger gap than the gap between modern humanity and cave-dwelling hunter humanity. This is just a massive, enormous cavern. We are not even close to being able to ask the right questions, let alone have the right answers. Take the period between the Apollo launches and now. We're doing very similar things slightly better, and it's all still extremely expensive. It's like running a marathon and your initial stride is still in mid-air, you haven't even fully taken that first step yet.

Even beyond that, progress in many fields of science including physics has slowed dramatically. There isn't less effort into research in general, but it's getting increasingly difficult for us to make breakthroughs. There's a very real and significant possibility that humans simply aren't smart enough to even come up with the answers beyond a certain point; aliens may very well have done it if it's possible, but it may simply be beyond us in any vaguely reasonable timeframe to discover what we would need to know, again if it's even possible which it does not appear to be. The whole thing is like an ant speculating about what it might be like to build a skyscraper. It's so far beyond us that we just have no reasonable way of projecting out that far.

[Edward64]

Goes without saying, this is all speculation. Only based on sci-fi books & shows, snippets of fact, and my imagination ...

Originally Posted by Brian Swartz

1. That's the kind of argument you can squeeze anything into. It's like the whole Illuminati word leadership conspiracy stuff. You can't ever disprove it, no matter how much information and evidence you have, but there's also no good reason to believe it, so there's only one rational conclusion.

First part, absolutely agree. Second part re: no good reason to believe it, pretty much also true about Aliens hiding from us but I don't believe true specifically re: advance technology able to hide from current day (see next paragraph).

2/3. This is an area where there's a lot of distorted information commonly out there, no blame at all but I don't think what you've said is factual. We have satellite-imaged all of the ocean floor. What we don't have is detailed mapping of everything (but expect to in less than a decade), but the satellite data has a resolution of 5km at most, so for example if there was an underwater New York City or Paris or whatever, we'd most definitely know it was there. Finding the wreckage of a single lost plane is an entirely different matter from 'massive undiscovered civilization on the sea floor'.

I was actually thinking about the Mariana trench which is 11km.

And I was definitely not thinking about advance civilization living in the ocean (e.g. Aquaman movies). I was thinking more like observation post/base living under the ocean floor, keeping their footprint as small as possible.

If I was an advanced alien civilization, I would pick the most remote location wherever and dig into/under it e.g. definitely not on top of a mountain but in it

[Edward64]

I split this from above because it's interesting but tangential to Aliens.

In terms of the technological comparison to 1700, what we'd need to do anything approaching light-speed travel, nevermind surpassing it, is not that. It's a far bigger gap than the gap between modern humanity and cave-dwelling hunter humanity. This is just a massive, enormous cavern. We are not even close to being able to ask the right questions, let alone have the right answers. Take the period between the Apollo launches and now. We're doing very similar things slightly better, and it's all still extremely expensive. It's like running a marathon and your initial stride is still in mid-air, you haven't even fully taken that first step yet.

Even beyond that, progress in many fields of science including physics has slowed dramatically. There isn't less effort into research in general, but it's getting increasingly difficult for us to make breakthroughs. There's a very real and significant possibility that humans simply aren't smart enough to even come up with the answers beyond a certain point; aliens may very well have done it if it's possible, but it may simply be beyond us in any vaguely reasonable timeframe to discover what we would need to know, again if it's even possible which it does not appear to be. The whole thing is like an ant speculating about what it might be like to build a skyscraper. It's so far beyond us that we just have no reasonable way of projecting out that far.

This is interesting, it never occurred to me that scientific/technological advancement, as a whole, would not be accelerating (vs linear or even slowing down).

I googled on this ("is knowledge exponential") and found some articles & reddit discussions about this. Needless to say, I didn't find anything "conclusive" but it's still a pretty interesting idea.

Knowledge grows step-by-step despite the exponential growth of papers, finds study – Physics World

Scientific knowledge is growing at a linear rate despite an exponential increase in publications. That’s according to a study by physicists in China and the US, who say their finding points to a decline in overall scientific productivity.

The analysis also revealed inflection points associated with new discoveries, major breakthroughs and other important developments, with knowledge growing at different linear rates before and after.

(For the record, I'm not convinced counting research papers/journals is a valid way to assessing this)

But then I find this ...

https://globaljournals.org/GJHSS_Vol...-Knowledge.pdf

In general, Doubling Knowledge is happening every twelve months and in the near future is expected every twelve hours according to the article, Knowledge Doubles Almost Every day, and It’s Set to Increase (Sandle, 2018). In several fields, doubling knowledge does not happen very quickly. Based on the journal article, Review: The “Structure of the Knowledge” in the “Information Age” states, “Scientific knowledge doubles every six or ten years,

And I'll just toss out the AI Overview for fun ...

Knowledge has grown over time through a process of continuous accumulation, with major leaps occurring when significant inventions like writing were developed, allowing for the recording and sharing of information, followed by further acceleration with advancements in printing technology, and now experiencing an exponential growth rate due to the internet and digital information access, where new knowledge can be generated and disseminated rapidly across the globe; essentially, the rate at which knowledge doubles has significantly decreased over time, from centuries to now potentially just hours depending on the field

Bottom-line to me: I really don't know.

I can easily accept that knowledge growth is NOT exponential, but I find it hard to believe that it is just linear with a short-term inflection point spike here and there. But then, no I don't believe doubling of "useful" knowledge is happening every 12 months (and soon to be every 12 hours). Knowledge is cumulative but some knowledge is more useful than others, or in other words, it's quality not the quantity.

And knowledge in some fields may be progress faster/slower than others. Theoretical physicists may have to wait for a generational person or two (Einstein, Planck, Hawking etc.), or a new JWST or Collider that comes long every 20-30 years ... and right now stuck with significantly progressing. But pretty sure we can say computer technology and AI (which I don't believe is true AI yet but still a significant jump anyways) is growing rapidly.

So, I think somewhere in between. To me, there are obviously inflection points that sparks a lot of knowledge growth & advancement but the lasting effects of these inflections are very long lasting and sets up further large growth.

I'll propose the creation & use of the internet as an example. Slow humble beginnings and then AOL came (jk but you get the idea) and brought email & the internet to the masses. Then Jobs came with his first commercially feasible smart phone pushed out mobile accessibility to the masses. Then AI. And now, we have more information available to more people than ever before, and still growing about 35+ years after AOL


So very crudely ... not exponential or linear, but somewhere in between (or the "safe answer")

[Solecismic]

No amount of knowledge, whatever quantifiable knowledge you have, can change the physical limitations of the universe.

Take space travel. Let's say we want to go to Mars. It takes light about three minutes to get from Earth to Mars when they are closest. It would take our fastest known rocket a little less than four days - those travel at about 5,600 times the highway speed limit, or at about 1/2000th of the speed of light.

It's fair to say we will have faster rockets. We'll need them if we want to even look at anything outside of the Solar System.

Now, let's say we want to set up a base on Proxima Centauri B, orbiting Proxima Centauri, which is about 4.2 light years from Earth. It's doubtful there's intelligent life on Proxima Centauri B, or that it's really habitable.

With our current fastest rocket, this trip would take about 8400 years. One way. What's the point of trying with our current technology?

Let's assume, for a second, that we receive a communication of some sort and want to investigate. Ideally, communication takes 4.2 years per message. It may never be faster than that.

None of this is really all that feasible unless light speed isn't the absolute speed limit for the universe.

Some people hypothesize about wormholes. After all, relativity doesn't rule them out. But how do you find them? Are they big enough to transport anything? If so, where? Can you get back? Are they stable? How long does it take to get to one? Will time work in such a way that if you do come back, millions of years won't have elapsed on Earth during the instant you were traveling through the wormhole?

We might know more about all of this in the next 100 years. But we also won't be any closer to examining anything outside of the Solar System. Science fiction is fun, but it's entirely dependent, at least in our lifetimes, on being contacted by a far more advanced civilization. Presumably one smart enough to realize that a station deep in an ocean bed, subject to pressures unique to our gravity and unable to directly observe anything at all, is not a good place to store anything. North Korea would be far better. That chubby guy's hiding something.

[Edward64]

Originally Posted by Solecismic

No amount of knowledge, whatever quantifiable knowledge you have, can change the physical limitations of the universe.

I am saying we don't know all the physical limitations of the universe yet. We don't have all the rules, there are more rules to be discovered.

Just like general relativity shook up Newtonian physics. Just like quantum mechanics shook up general relativity etc.

Heck, we don't even understand why/how Entanglement works between 2 particles and how they can influence each other supposedly instantaneously EVEN if they were (theoretically) a galaxy apart.

Presumably one smart enough to realize that a station deep in an ocean bed, subject to pressures unique to our gravity and unable to directly observe anything at all, is not a good place to store anything.

Hah, the obvious answer is that's why there are UFOs flying in and out of their hiding places. And of course, living among us. I mean, all the answers can be found in Star Trek movies and series.

[Edward64]

Another angle that interests me.

Basically, is the US Government really the best organization to track/study the UFO/UAPs in current day? They seem overwhelmed. Is it better for government to pay/subsidize private/commercial companies to do the studies & analysis?

Don't really know the budget $ but hints are below. If the $11-20M are truly representative, then yeah, its severely underbudget e.g. I've run $15-$20M projects to implement HR systems over 18 months (and probably 50% was offshore work). IMO this low $ shows the lack of priority and seriousness.

A secret Pentagon program existed for at least three years and spent more than $20 million in research on UFOs, according to multiple media reports published Saturday.

the need for us to continue to improve our understanding of UAP’s over U.S. airspace,” Gillibrand said.

In response, Austin pledged to fully fund the office in the future, and said the Pentagon requested $11 million for its research in the fiscal year 2024 budget.

So, put out it to bid, select a couple companies working independently from each other, getting all the needed data from the Pentagon, allow select investigative reporters to participate and access to whoever, and promise continuous progress reports.

(No, I'm not really a conspiracy theorist ... but I really do want to believe)

Pentagon received hundreds of reports of new UFO sightings | CNN Politics

The Pentagon, working with the Office of the Director of National Intelligence (ODNI) and other government agencies, has received a total of 1,652 reports to date, according to the newly released annual report, including 757 new reports between May 2023 and June 2024. The growing number of new sightings represent an expanding effort from the US government to catalog, track and investigate what are officially called unidentified anomalous phenomena, or UAPs, especially since a number of the sightings are near military bases and national security facilities.

[Brian Swartz]

Originally Posted by Edward64

knowledge in some fields may be progress faster/slower than others. Theoretical physicists may have to wait for a generational person or two (Einstein, Planck, Hawking etc.), or a new JWST or Collider that comes long every 20-30 years ... and right now stuck with significantly progressing. But pretty sure we can say computer technology and AI (which I don't believe is true AI yet but still a significant jump anyways) is growing rapidly.

So, I think somewhere in between. To me, there are obviously inflection points that sparks a lot of knowledge growth & advancement but the lasting effects of these inflections are very long lasting and sets up further large growth.

I'll propose the creation & use of the internet as an example. Slow humble beginnings and then AOL came (jk but you get the idea) and brought email & the internet to the masses. Then Jobs came with his first commercially feasible smart phone pushed out mobile accessibility to the masses. Then AI. And now, we have more information available to more people than ever before, and still growing about 35+ years after AOL

So very crudely ... not exponential or linear, but somewhere in between (or the "safe answer")

This is worth talking about more I think. I would say the safe answer is between linear and nothing, not between linear and exponential, exponential definitely not being sustainable. Unquestionably it does vary based on field, and I totally agree with you that some advances are more significant than others.

There's a difference between advances in knowledge and improvement in accessibility of that technology. The current increasing availability of internet access is almost entirely about the latter. Take the field of physics, which I referenced initially, to see the slowing-down bit. General relativity was known very similarly to it's current understand in 1915; quantum mechanics a decade later. We're now a century further on from that. A great deal of effort has gone into resolving the conflict between the two and related issues such as the proposals for dark matter etc. Not a whole lot has changed, we've played at the margins at best. That includes half a century of string theory proposals that have produced basically nothing, alternative theories of gravity such as MOND, everything Steven Hawking did, genius though he certainly was, the Large Hadron Collider, and so on. We have made very small, incremental improvements in our understanding, and they've been slow-coming.

We have no reason to believe that we are significantly closer to understanding a 'theory of everything' than we were many many decades ago. It may pop out of some geniuses brain tomorrow and be fully accepted within a decade, but there's no indication of that. Other fields have reached this sort of point also, and those that haven't eventually will if we keep making progress. It's just like how if you train for a skill or sport, you reach a point where it's immensely harder to get better, because you've already gotten all the 'low-hanging fruit'. The other part is:

Originally Posted by Edward64

I am saying we don't know all the physical limitations of the universe yet. We don't have all the rules, there are more rules to be discovered.

There is some truth to this, but it's also true that everything we know about everything we have seen in the universe - not exaggerating, this is literally true - backs up the idea that nothing travels faster than light. General relativity is observable with incredible consistency, which is exactly why it is the currently accepted governing theory. Discovering that it is possible to go faster than light would be like discovering gravity doesn't exist, it's all been in our heads and there's a completely different reason why sizable cosmic objects always form the shape of a circle.

Is that theoretically possible? Sure, in the same way that it's possible that Martians will land in my back yard and announce first contact this afternoon. The chances of it are so astronomically (literally) low that it's not worth considering, the evidence against it incredibly massive. It makes a lot more sense for us to evaluate reality in the direction that the available evidence actually points.

[Edward64]

Originally Posted by Brian Swartz

This is worth talking about more I think. I would say the safe answer is between linear and nothing, not between linear and exponential, exponential definitely not being sustainable.

Man, you are a glass is half empty guy. I'm more of a glass is half full.

Unquestionably it does vary based on field, and I totally agree with you that some advances are more significant than others.

Maybe it's because I've lived through the computer revolution (e.g. I learned to code in Assembly). In my lifetime, I've seen computer technology grow quite a bit. Don't know how to quantify it and prove the progress of computer knowledge is above "linear" but sure feels that way to me.

There's a difference between advances in knowledge and improvement in accessibility of that technology. The current increasing availability of internet access is almost entirely about the latter. Take the field of physics, which I referenced initially, to see the slowing-down bit. General relativity was known very similarly to it's current understand in 1915; quantum mechanics a decade later. We're now a century further on from that. A great deal of effort has gone into resolving the conflict between the two and related issues such as the proposals for dark matter etc. Not a whole lot has changed, we've played at the margins at best. That includes half a century of string theory proposals that have produced basically nothing, alternative theories of gravity such as MOND, everything Steven Hawking did, genius though he certainly was, the Large Hadron Collider, and so on. We have made very small, incremental improvements in our understanding, and they've been slow-coming.

I don't disagree. Maybe it's because you are coming from the point of theoretical physics and I'm coming from computer technology.

I do hypothesize because of computer technology and now the ability to harness databases/data lakes (or whatever they call vast databases now) with all that information, and with AI allowing us to understand & make sense of greater amount of data than ever before, I'm more optimistic that our understanding of overall science will grow quite a bit and faster.

e.g. more highly educated STEM PhDs, more data, more computer processing power, more seamless communication between STEM PhDs, more AI to help us make sense of things etc.

There is some truth to this, but it's also true that everything we know about everything we have seen in the universe - not exaggerating, this is literally true - backs up the idea that nothing travels faster than light. General relativity is observable with incredible consistency, which is exactly why it is the currently accepted governing theory. Discovering that it is possible to go faster than light would be like discovering gravity doesn't exist, it's all been in our heads and there's a completely different reason why sizable cosmic objects always form the shape of a circle.

Is that theoretically possible? Sure, in the same way that it's possible that Martians will land in my back yard and announce first contact this afternoon. The chances of it are so astronomically (literally) low that it's not worth considering, the evidence against it incredibly massive. It makes a lot more sense for us to evaluate reality in the direction that the available evidence actually points.

Specific to FTL, I'm going to break it out into the next section because I think Entanglement shows that "something" is traveling FTL or at least somehow in greater distances than what FTL will take us.

[Edward64]

re: FTL travel.

(There are other theoretical ways to travel vast distances (e.g. wormholes) without violating FTL but not going to discuss them here. This is only specifically for Entanglement that has wrecked my reality for a while now)

I do not claim to have all the answer and I am using imprecise words that a theoretical physicist would laugh at. But this is what I have ....

I want to give you an example of the Entanglement conundrum which implies something is travelling or communicating FTL or at least, in great enough distances that FTL limitation itself would not explain.

Some facts (simplified but believe it's true from all the reading I've done). Sorry, I know its dense reading ...

1) Let's say we have particle A1 and A2. We "entangle them". This means if A1 is "+", then A2 becomes "-". Or alternatively, if A1 is "-", then A2 becomes "+"

2) A1 and A2 are not "+" or "-" when initially entangled. Think of both of them as "blank". They only get "+ or -" only after they are observed (which has not happened yet)

3) On Earth, we send A2 to another galaxy (different galaxy is used often to show how wide the distance is)

4) On Earth, we finally observe A1 and it changes from "blank" to "+" (it could just as easily be "-" but using "+" as an example)

5) In the other galaxy, we know that A2 is now/becomes a "-"

6) This means that something is happening when we observe A1, it becomes a "+", and we know that A2 becomes a "-". Because A2 is in another galaxy, we know this "relationship" is established somehow across great distances

Again, I believe what I wrote in 1-6 is, for the most part, accurate and are "facts" of entanglement. This really happens, this is Einstein's "spooky action at a distance".


Speculation on how this is happening

7) Some say that we cannot use Entanglement, A1 and A2 to communicate. Because A1 is not known ahead of time. Because we cannot use it to communicate, therefore no information is being passed and does not violate the FTL principle. This sounds bogus to me as a layperson but that's what I've read

8) Other say that it's not information that is being passed, but that the "wave collapses" and therefore does not violate the FTL principle. Again, this sounds bogus to me as a layperson (e.g. okay, if the wave collapses, its collapsing FTL because A2 is in a different galaxy)

9) Some say there are "hidden variables" established in A1 and A2 when they are first entangled (contradicting #2 above). Meaning that A1 and A2 when first entangled does not contain "blank" but does already contain "+" or "-". However, tests have been done to show that there are no "hidden variables".

I'll repost my statement from above:

Heck, we don't even understand why/how Entanglement works between 2 particles and how they can influence each other supposedly instantaneously EVEN if they were (theoretically) a galaxy apart.

There is something happening where the A1 (on Earth) and A2 (different galaxy) relationship/data/whatever is established/created/realized/whatever instantaneously, over large distances exceeding light-years.

And hence, my position that

I am saying we don't know all the physical limitations of the universe yet. We don't have all the rules, there are more rules to be discovered.

Bottom-line. The Entanglement conundrum shows how limited, big of a gap our knowledge is on "the rules" and the tantalizing possibility that somehow, someway we can travel/pass some sort of data/relationship/whatever through large distances either with FTL or through some other means.

And yeah, entanglement was predicted/discovered around 1935, it was tested and proven to happen in 1972 etc. But still no grand consensus on how its happening. We need our next generational Einstein or Planck.

[Solecismic]

There's nothing wrong with using your imagination. But we still can't assume there's a solution to every problem we can imagine.

I coded in assembler myself, ages and ages ago. Computers are obviously faster and more powerful. But miniaturization improvements are slowing, as are CPU speeds. Nothing has changed regarding the speed of light, or the speed of electron movement inside a computer.

Quantum computing probably will be a reality at some point. Still limited by the speed of light, but a lot faster because memory will no longer be about the 0s and 1s. New limits will be found. Maybe scientists even find a way to make it affordable for home use.

Entanglement is fascinating, because it supposedly works at distances that cannot be explained by the speed of light limitation. However, it doesn't work even for communication because entanglement is broken once you force the state of one of the entangled pair. I confess I do not understand why Einstein's assumption of "hidden variables" has been proven wrong, but nothing else has been shown as physically possible that would give us control over the process to enable any faster-than-light movement of anything.

And, even then, entanglement is only about 75% predictive - another weirdness that I think we can learn more about, but not necessarily in a way that would magically change what appears to be a physical limitation.

I don't think space travel outside the Solar System is necessarily possible, no matter how rapidly we learn about the universe. Colonization, however, might be at least theorized.

I also maintain that our civilization going through this age of scientific discovery at this specific time does not imply that our rate of discovery will improve or stop. And, perhaps more importantly, the odds that another individual intelligent species on a distant planet is undergoing this transformation even within a million years of ours is just about zero. If something else is out there, either it's already far past us in terms of development, or it is so primitive that all we can do is recognize it as a life form.

While we are in this state, if contact occurs, it will be because our development was detected and another civilization had a way to contact us.

Since that has not happened, to date, and the odds that we're the first civilization in the universe to reach this point of development is pretty much zero, the supposition that inter-stellar communication is physically possible seems negligible at best. I would recommend focusing efforts like NASA on exploration of our more immediate surroundings, perhaps mining technologies and reusable rocketry (as Elon Musk just demonstrated).

[Edward64]

Originally Posted by Solecismic

There's nothing wrong with using your imagination. But we still can't assume there's a solution to every problem we can imagine.

Man, you're another glass half empty person but concede "every" is true.

But I will say most problems/questions have solutions. And sometimes, even if its not 100% solution but 80%, that's good enough e.g. can't travel FTL? then how about 80% (or 30%) of FTL

Entanglement is fascinating, because it supposedly works at distances that cannot be explained by the speed of light limitation. However, it doesn't work even for communication because entanglement is broken once you force the state of one of the entangled pair. I confess I do not understand why Einstein's assumption of "hidden variables" has been proven wrong, but nothing else has been shown as physically possible that would give us control over the process to enable any faster-than-light movement of anything.

I am not confident but a little hopeful we'll somehow find a use. The problem is I don't believe we understand how/why entanglement is happening (aka the "rules") and therefore, don't know how to exploit it.

I've read posts that say it's because most of us are coming at it from the "classical" pov. We need to look at it from another angle and think of it as normal correlation or whatever. I'm thinking it's like when I went from procedural to object-oriented programming (and I'm still more comfortable with procedural).

And, even then, entanglement is only about 75% predictive - another weirdness that I think we can learn more about, but not necessarily in a way that would magically change what appears to be a physical limitation.

I'll have to google more on this. Using my example, if A1 & A2 are entangled, then when A1 is observed as a "+", then A2 is always a "-". It's not 75%, it's 100% in this situation. But I have to dig deeper

I don't think space travel outside the Solar System is necessarily possible, no matter how rapidly we learn about the universe. Colonization, however, might be at least theorized.

Heresy.

If I was President Edward, my Plan B (or Plan C) is generational/ark starships. So what if it takes 200 years to get to Alpha Centauri? We just need to perfect cryogenic sleep/revival and get Jennifer Lawrence as the spokesperson.

There was an animation YT video that depicted 3 ships sent on a 150 year voyage without cryo sleep. I'm sure not very realistic but brought up some interesting points like how those born in space would be much taller, different levels of artificial gravity (e.g. much less closer to the core), generations of people would live entire lives just on the ships etc. I looked but couldn't find it again.

And, perhaps more importantly, the odds that another individual intelligent species on a distant planet is undergoing this transformation even within a million years of ours is just about zero. If something else is out there, either it's already far past us in terms of development, or it is so primitive that all we can do is recognize it as a life form.

I'm not as pessimistic as you on alien intelligent life. But I watched a YT video (somewhat convincing) that using the Drake Equation variables, we just don't know enough about the variables to even predict the odds of alien life or not (regardless of intelligent or not). Hints here and there, but we should not make definite statements one way or another.

For me, I don't need intelligence, I'd take the discovery of an alien amoeba on Europa. That would be good enough for me and believe that will spawn/reinvigorate all things space.

While we are in this state, if contact occurs, it will be because our development was detected and another civilization had a way to contact us.

Probably. But per above, I'd still happy with a damn alien amoeba.

We can control the risks of that amoeba. But if the aliens are more advanced than us and malevolent, we are going to be really screwed (or eaten).

[Brian Swartz]

Originally Posted by Edward64

Man, you are a glass is half empty guy. I'm more of a glass is half full.

The glass half empty answer IMO is even worse; it would be that we will eventually reach a point where progress is so difficult that significant progress in a meaningful time frame just isn't possible. I.e. asymptotically approach something resembling a hard limit, much like how we can be confident no human being will ever run an 8-second 100m dash (we think even 9 seconds flat is highly unlikely). I think what I said is balanced, not pessimistic.

Originally Posted by Edward64

In my lifetime, I've seen computer technology grow quite a bit. Don't know how to quantify it and prove the progress of computer knowledge is above "linear" but sure feels that way to me.

It has at times been well above linear but that is not sustainable. We know that transistors have a physical limit that cannot be surpassed in terms of how small they can be made. Single-core clock speed began slowing down in the early 2000s and have basically stagnated at this point, which we are getting around by use of multi-core CPUs, eventually there are things which will replace transistors and such, but the point is it's just the natural evolution of technology to see rapid advances for a time while you get the low-hanging fruit, and then for it to eventually become much harder to see the same level of improvement.

Originally Posted by Edward64

Bottom-line. The Entanglement conundrum shows how limited, big of a gap our knowledge is on "the rules" and the tantalizing possibility that somehow, someway we can travel/pass some sort of data/relationship/whatever through large distances either with FTL or through some other means.

As Solecismic noted, entanglement is destroyed when measuring either particle, which eliminates the possibility of using it for any form of communication. I totally agree that we don't understand how entanglement works, but even if we could somehow magically utilize it in the future, it would still only apply at the quantum level. That is, matter the size of a small molecule or below, which is far too small to send a useful amount of material. Having a spaceship travel at FTL would still not be possible.

On all of these kinds of things, it's important to push aside what we want to be true, and embrace what actually is.

[Edward64]

Originally Posted by Brian Swartz

The glass half empty answer IMO is even worse; it would be that we will eventually reach a point where progress is so difficult that significant progress in a meaningful time frame just isn't possible. I.e. asymptotically approach something resembling a hard limit, much like how we can be confident no human being will ever run an 8-second 100m dash (we think even 9 seconds flat is highly unlikely). I think what I said is balanced, not pessimistic.

Hah. You are not going to convince me you are not a pessimist. I'll give you that you aren't a doomsayer extreme.

It has at times been well above linear but that is not sustainable. We know that transistors have a physical limit that cannot be surpassed in terms of how small they can be made. Single-core clock speed began slowing down in the early 2000s and have basically stagnated at this point, which we are getting around by use of multi-core CPUs, eventually there are things which will replace transistors and such, but the point is it's just the natural evolution of technology to see rapid advances for a time while you get the low-hanging fruit, and then for it to eventually become much harder to see the same level of improvement.

I'm definitely not only referring to CPU chips (e.g. Moore's Law and like) when talking about computer technology. Lots of software also. In addition to CPU type chips, the great accomplishments-disruptors include:

1) Internet - mass accumulation of data; mass accessibility of that data; ability to communicate & coordinate real time. And not just for western countries but world wide

2) Personal computers. Desktops & Laptops were game changers back then. When I started, first job was with Mainframe, then desktops, then laptops. We don't appreciate it now but word processors, spreadsheets, and databases were game changers (accelerators) back in the 80s & 90s.

3) Smartphones & mobile computing/access. 'Nuff said

4) Social media. Yeah, lots of bad here. But lots of good also with sharing/learning, and the tremendous good in (re)connecting people/family/friends together over vast differences.

5) Robotics - consumer applications are limited (com'on full self driving!) but lots of practical commercial ones in manufacturing (and very likely, militarily also). Maybe not at the Jetson's level but there will be more and more robots/bots in our daily life

6) AI - I'm going to say 99% of AI claims out there really aren't AI (e.g. chatbots, really?) but we are moving towards it. Don't care about sentience, but everything under that

7) VR/AR - I know Meta didn't get off to a good start (nor Apple), but I see this growth as inevitable. Make it cheap enough, give us killer app(s) and it'll take off.

8) Quantum computing - don't know much about this but from what I've read, it'll eventually replace our current "vacuum tubes"

And all this, in the past 30-40 years. Pretty darn good. In fact, I'd say computer technology is moving faster than what society can assimilate/process, we're still playing catch-up with acceptance & exploiting what's available. My guess is next big growth drivers will be 5-7

Not a physicist, but now looking at my list, I'd pleasantly conclude that computer technology has move forward way faster than physics in the past 30-40+ years.

As Solecismic noted, entanglement is destroyed when measuring either particle, which eliminates the possibility of using it for any form of communication. I totally agree that we don't understand how entanglement works, but even if we could somehow magically utilize it in the future, it would still only apply at the quantum level. That is, matter the size of a small molecule or below, which is far too small to send a useful amount of material. Having a spaceship travel at FTL would still not be possible.

Today's Quantum computers are built using the principles of entanglement. Don't ask me how, beyond my realm of understanding. But real world application/functionality not only for academics. But yes, not FTL

Yes, quantum computers are essentially built on the concept of entanglement, which is a key quantum mechanical phenomenon that allows qubits (the building blocks of quantum computers) to be linked together in a way that enables powerful computations not possible with classical computers; it's considered a core feature of quantum computing that gives it its potential for significant computational speedups.

On all of these kinds of things, it's important to push aside what we want to be true, and embrace what actually is.

Hah, sounds like an inquisitor's quote at Galileo's trial

[Brian Swartz]

Originally Posted by Edward64

Hah, sounds like an inquisitor's quote at Galileo's trial

It's actually the opposite of that. Galileo had evidence that he was correct.

Quantum computing for example is going nowhere fast - it's quickly going to the list of 'stuff that might be useful someday when we know more but not now'. They certainly do use entanglement, I'm not saying it doesn't have any real-world application. That's irrelevant to using it for FTL travel.

Originally Posted by Edward64

'm definitely not only referring to CPU chips (e.g. Moore's Law and like) when talking about computer technology. Lots of software also.

Right, but again that's not the point. The point is that things don't just cycle up infinitely in an accelerating manner. When something new is discovered, it fuels a lot of progress for a relatively brief period, but then you can't exploit it as aggressively anymore, it's a lot harder to make improvements until you can find another breakthrough, etc.

[Edward64]

Originally Posted by Brian Swartz

Right, but again that's not the point. The point is that things don't just cycle up infinitely in an accelerating manner. When something new is discovered, it fuels a lot of progress for a relatively brief period, but then you can't exploit it as aggressively anymore, it's a lot harder to make improvements until you can find another breakthrough, etc.

Not exactly when we want to start the "computer age", I'll just say in the 60's with IBM mainframes (but arguably further back but I can't really talk much about those ancient days).

In the past 60 years, there's nothing been acceleration of computer technology per my 1-8 list. If you look at it as a whole, I would say computer technology has far outperformed any other field in the past 60 days as far as "usefulness/impact" to society and the world. And I don't see it slowing down anytime soon.

So yeah, at least for computer technology, I'd put it between the linear & exponential curves, not under the linear.

[Brian Swartz]

Originally Posted by Edward64

In the past 60 years, there's nothing been acceleration of computer technology per my 1-8 list. If you look at it as a whole, I would say computer technology has far outperformed any other field in the past 60 days as far as "usefulness/impact" to society and the world. And I don't see it slowing down anytime soon.

I think this is just plain not factual. I think it obviously is already slowing down, and it is an inevitability for that kind of thing to happen.

Sabine Hossenfelder recently did a video talking about studies of this kind of thing. It has more of the 'overall science results' kinds of numbers. A few takeaways:

- Research efforts are increasing over time. That's true in number of researchers total, researchers compared to population, research investment as a % of GDP, etc.

- Impact of that research is not following that increase. Here's a couple of the numerous graphs demonstrating it:



TFP here is Total Factor Productivity, which includes the impact of technology but also other factors. We are drastically increasing our research efforts, and all this has done is held progress to a slow decline.



This one compares new drugs approved by the FDA to research effort. Again, we've done the easy stuff and it's harder to make improvements. These are just representative, you can see the same thing in many other fields.

Also discussed are various measures of innovation, novelty of new patents, and so on. Despite many more scientific papers being published, the total impact of them is going down. More and more of them are derivative/redundant. If you want real pessimism, one example is a projection by Heubner (2005) which essentially says innovation has been on the decline overall since the industrial revolution after basically accelerating for human history up to that point, and that by roughly 2100 it's expecting to dry up entirely. As said, I think that's going too far. But no matter how you measure scientific progress, the picture is still the same. It's just a question of how much it is slowing down and what the future projection is like, not if it is doing so.

[Solecismic]

Generally, when something new is discovered, there's a steep growth as more and more people find ways to use that technology and learn more about the technology. And then growth slows. And then stops, because there's always a physical limitation.

It's not pessimism to recognize this. Nor is it pessimism to recognize that airplanes look like mechanical birds, submarines look like mechanical fish and rockets look like really powerful fireworks (I was going to make a Beavis and Butthead reference to blowing up small animals, but it seemed a bit crude).

I think religious people might see this as evidence of divine control, but I don't. I see the universe as a vast playground in which life might or might not develop on planets and that life might or might not cycle into periods of great intelligence and that intelligence might or might not become great enough to explore space and/or figure out a way to colonize and/or beat evolution through control of the home planet.

But the limitation of the speed of light and similar almost mass-less particles, which might or might not change with the size of the universe, is going to keep these intelligences from interacting in any way other than potential detection, separated by millions or billions of years (because time is essentially a separator equal to that of space).

This isn't a "don't keep trying" or "don't keep learning" argument. Theoretical physics is fun, but risks becoming incomprehensible as theories become more and more convoluted because someone once said there needs to be a "theory of everything".

To me, that's pessimism. The need for a theory of everything. In computer science, and in my experience, the last 10% of a program requires 90% of your effort. Why wouldn't that apply to knowledge in a field? Now that we're down to the particle level in physics, there are vast numbers of discoveries that only inch progress along.

That may or may not lead to a new field of study. But we may well have to accept, just as we accept our own humanity and the limitations of our skeletal and muscle structure (Steve Austin - an airplane built in our image), that the speed of light is a limit that nothing can pass, and that time acts like a dimension and things can experience different concepts of the same time, but its progress is absolute and unchangable (I liked my Dan Quayle joke, though).

Our lives last 80 years, more or less. That's a drop in the ocean. The Earth is a drop in the universe. We have to accept those limitations, too, and recognize that learning for learning's sake is a wonderful thing. We are the only species in Earth's history, apparently, that can do that. Hence Jeopardy!

[Edward64]

Originally Posted by Brian Swartz

I think this is just plain not factual. I think it obviously is already slowing down, and it is an inevitability for that kind of thing to happen.

Sabine Hossenfelder recently did a video talking about studies of this kind of thing. It has more of the 'overall science results' kinds of numbers. A few takeaways:

Thanks, this is a very interesting and appreciate the continued discussion & differences of opinion.

I did google on her YT on productivity and also read through the Nature article (didn't understand the math but got the gist).

Papers and patents are becoming less disruptive over time | Nature.

The conclusion they are drawing comes from analyzing (1) research papers (2) patents, doing a bunch of analysis and ...

(1) In summary, we report a marked decline in disruptive science and technology over time. Our analyses show that this trend is unlikely to be driven by changes in citation practices or the quality of published work. Rather, the decline represents a substantive shift in science and technology, one that reinforces concerns about slowing innovative activity. We attribute this trend in part to scientists’ and inventors’ reliance on a narrower set of existing knowledge.

I looked for their definition of disruptiveness. See below highlighted last paragraph

(2) Measurement of disruptiveness

To characterize the nature of innovation, we draw on foundational theories of scientific and technological change2,29,30, which distinguish between two types of breakthroughs.

First, some contributions improve existing streams of knowledge, and therefore consolidate the status quo.
:
Second, some contributions disrupt existing knowledge, rendering it obsolete, and propelling science and technology in new directions.

I posted previously

(3) For the record, I'm not convinced counting research papers/journals (added: patents, grants, years gap in awarding Nobels, counting # times a prior paper has been referenced) is a valid way to assessing this

I don't know how to justify what I said with "math". But my gut tells me limiting disruptiveness to papers & patents undercounts/underweighs what's been going on. Limiting to (3) honestly seems elitist to me.

And I posted below as how I would gauge "progress" (aka paper's "disruption") with measuring usefulness/impact to society and world.

(4) I would say computer technology has far outperformed any other field in the past 60 days as far as "usefulness/impact" to society and the world. And I don't see it slowing down anytime soon.

I'll offer up the below AI definition, it's more crisp than mine

(5) AI Overview

A "disruptor technology" is an innovative invention or advancement that significantly alters the way an industry or market operates, often by creating new business models and disrupting the established players, essentially changing how consumers interact with a product or service; essentially, it's a technology that causes a radical shift in the way people use and perceive something, potentially creating new markets and displacing existing ones.

So you can see the non-academic definition (5) and the academic definition (2) differs because non-academic brings in above highlighted (see words consumers, people, markets) which I don't think is measured in the Nature article.

... continued in next post

[Edward64]

Caveat: I cannot rebut the Nature article conclusions because I don't understand the math. However, I do somewhat/partially understand the assumptions & definitions and so purely from my layman's experience in the computer technology (computer, computing, software) world.



The article uses below to measure (A) scientific and (B) technology progress (aka disruptiveness) ...

(6) ... counting/analyzing research papers, journals, patents, grants, years gap in awarding Nobel, # times a prior paper has been referenced.

I can see this is a valid way of measuring scientific progress. Scientists need to write papers/journals so it can get peer reviewed; other scientists can review, replicate the tests, do more observations etc.; and then 10+ years later, something comes out that government/companies can use.

However, I don't agree this is a good way of measuring disruptiveness with computer technology. Nature is counting the "widgets". And (I think) it also measures the impact-significance-importance of those widgets based on how many other widgets are referencing it

(7) One criticism of the CD index has been that the number of papers that cite only the focal paper’s references dominates the measure

But I don't see Nature counting the impact or size of impact to "consumers, people, markets". Arguably, those factors are more reflective of "disruption" than just how many references a research paper had. And therefore, my position that:

(8) Measuring disruptiveness should include how it impacts "consumers, people, markets" and not just within the confines of counting widgets of papers, journals, grants, Nobel prizes and # of times prior widgets have been referenced.

I really don't know how to measure impact to "consumers, people, markets" well, but I'd toss out some possible variables like productivity, profits, GDP-GNP, interconnectedness, education levels, happiness index etc.

Simple example below. C gets more weight in disruptiveness because of its impact to "consumers, people, markets" whereas B has little relevance in by itself to "consumers, people, markets". And there are plenty of Bs out there.

How do smartphones get their due weighting in Nature's article without measuring the absolutely ubiquitousness with approx 70% of the world?

[Edward64]

Originally Posted by Solecismic

Generally, when something new is discovered, there's a steep growth as more and more people find ways to use that technology and learn more about the technology. And then growth slows. And then stops, because there's always a physical limitation.

Absolutely agree with first paragraph. My contention is in the computer technology world (computers, computing, software), considerable growth is still happening right now.

In computer science, and in my experience, the last 10% of a program requires 90% of your effort. Why wouldn't that apply to knowledge in a field? Now that we're down to the particle level in physics, there are vast numbers of discoveries that only inch progress along.

Hah, I agree with your 10% example! And then, there is the Testing phase which is another 30% of the work effort.

I can't speak to physics, but plenty examples of nascent computer technologies right now including AI, AR/VR, Robotics etc. IMO we are nowhere near the 10% in computer technology. Even in computer hardware, quantum computers is in its embryonic stage

With pure science, we are basically limited by number of STEM PhDs. With computer technology, there's a much bigger and broader pool of innovators driven by profit.

That may or may not lead to a new field of study. But we may well have to accept, just as we accept our own humanity and the limitations of our skeletal and muscle structure (Steve Austin - an airplane built in our image), that the speed of light is a limit that nothing can pass, and that time acts like a dimension and things can experience different concepts of the same time, but its progress is absolute and unchangable (I liked my Dan Quayle joke, though).

My point is even if we cannot go faster than FTL there are (1) theoretically other ways to travel vast distances without FTL and (2) I'm happy with a significant 80% of FTL if that's even possible. So, although we still have a lot of solar system to explore first, we shouldn't give up on interstellar travel.