General discussion

IMHO, modern cosmology is in a state of crisis with seemingly dozens of highly speculative ideas, each one weirder than the previous one, competing for space in the scientific and general public literature. Fundamental questions vastly outnumber fundamental answers. Was there a before-the-Big-Bang or the creation of something-from-nothing? Could our Universe actually have been in-the-beginning the size of a pinhead or less? Was there a Big Bang event and an inflation event and which came first? What actually banged and/or inflated anyway and why did it bang and/or inflate?

Personally experiencing a full up-front version of virtual reality with you immersed inside as the star player, is the 'in-thing' in modern digital technology right now. Immersing yourself in 3-D 'what if' scenarios, ideally of your own creation - the early versions of the ultimate in Star Trek holodeck simulations - is the name of the virtual reality game. Of course you already experience virtual reality 24/7/52. Anything and everything you experience is courtesy of your sensory apparatus, your memories, and your overall state of being as a conscious, self-aware being.

Life, the universe and everything is full of paradoxes, puzzles, anomalies, and just a host of other weirdness often seemingly deliberately designed to toss wicked curve and knuckle-balls at us ever scratching-our-heads humans. SETI doesn't seem to be immune from this mischievous wickedness. Is the cosmos, Mother Nature, just a real bitch, just naturally perverse, or is there some sort of intelligence at work here tossing us those wicked curve and knuckle-balls?

For the better part of going on towards five decades worth, there’s been a ongoing and gruesome phenomena seemingly clustered around the American mid-western regions (though Charles Fort collected similar cases from England in the 19th and early 20th Centuries) that involves what has been described as the mutilation of large herbivore wildlife such as bison, but more usually domesticated livestock like cattle, sheep and horses.

When one thinks that the Cosmos is both designed and fine-tuned, they mean that the Cosmos is both designed and fine-tuned for life in general but human life, mind and intelligence in particular. But standard Darwinian Evolution pretty much does away with the need for cosmic design and cosmic fine-tuning. But Darwinian Evolution can't account for any initial pre-life conditions that life would ultimately require. Is there anything in those cosmic pre-life parameters that is suggestive of design and fine-tuning? Well how about the atom itself?

In the original “War of the Worlds” novel, our Martian invaders where thwarted not by us high and mighty humans, but by humble terrestrial bacteria who just ate them up! The question therefore is would extraterrestrial ‘bacteria’ find us (terrestrial life) a nice snack? The answers could be both ‘yes’ and ‘no’.

The War of the Worlds Scenario

While there is a constant transfer of matter and radiant electromagnetic energy (photons) between bodies throughout the cosmos, there are sinks, ultimate final resting places where matter/energy can retire to and be removed from the rest of the cosmos. These cosmic sinks are Black Holes. But is that retirement permanent, or can stuff re-enter the cosmic workforce? Can Black Holes evaporate? The theoretical short answer is “yes”; the long answer is “no”.

The Simulation Hypothesis suggests that we don't actually exist as really real reality but as virtual reality. We 'exist' only as programmed software inside a computer. While this sounds on the surface absolutely crazy, there is evidence, both observational and theoretical which supports the concept.

Here's a stab at some observational evidence / data for the Simulation Hypothesis which postulates that we 'exist' as a simulation inside a computer driven by programmed software.

I get rather irritated by the rather loose use of ‘infinity’ by physicists and science writers. At least I assume its ‘loose’ as I can see very few cases where an actual infinity can exist, other than in cases of mathematical abstractions, puzzles and paradoxes. I really assume they mean in most cases ultra tiny or extremely large, and not literally infinity as in infinitely large or small. Let’s examine the case for infinity applying to time, temperature, space or volume, density, velocity, matter and energy, and gravity.

“Who Is Killing the Great Chefs of Europe?” was one of those top-notch mystery comedies from 1978. Who killed the ancestors of modern day humans isn't quite so funny, but it’s still a top-notch mystery. I propose one rather unconventional answer, our creator ‘gods’, the extraterrestrials.