General discussion

Here are a few thoughts on the general topic of alien (i.e. extraterrestrial) life.

WOULD INTELLIGENT ALIENS UNDERMINE GOD?

This has nothing to do with whether or not God actually exists (He doesn’t IMHO), but rather the effect that the discovery of ET and especially ETI (extraterrestrial intelligence) would have on the True Believers in a supernatural deity – and for sake of brevity, let’s restrict God here to the God of the Old and the New Testaments.

This is not an either/or situation. The answer is both – both for undermining God and against undermining God.

Here are a few of my thoughts on the universal topic of "The Big Cosmic Picture".

What is Ultimate Reality?

Unless you are blind, it’s obvious to the rest of us that there is quite a difference between daytime and night-time. At night, the sky is dark! Why? Well, it’s obviously dark at night because the Sun isn’t shining in our night sky – wrong answer. In fact, if you stop to think about it, the night sky should be as bright as the daytime sky. That it’s not means there’s a paradox, usually referred to as Olbers’ Paradox (after German astronomer Heinrich Wilhelm Olbers). Resolutions have been around for yonks; I introduce another one here.

The debate over whether or not life, the Universe and everything has been designed, has been ever ongoing, often under the guise of a science vs. religion debate. While I don't want to buy into the life / design argument since that can of worms has been especially full of far-right-wing religious rancour, divisiveness, posturing and politics, I will revisit and reinvent the design wheel with respect to the non-living Universe and everything, well, some things anyway.

Everyone loves a good end-of-the-world disaster story and the one about the global flood as related in The Bible is a case in point. The trouble is that like most of the Bible its pure mythology. Unfortunately, way too many people take the tale literally.

There are three possible universes we inhabit. The first is the Natural Universe where the laws, principles and relations of physics, chemistry and biology rule the roost. The second is the Supernatural Universe where one or more supernatural deities reside and miracles are commonplace and the laws, principles and relationships of science can be overridden or suspended. The third is the Simulated Universe where what we perceive as life, the universe and everything is just programmed software and we are virtual beings in a virtual reality.

If Mother Nature can create one Universe (ours), Mother Nature can create more than one universe – a Multiverse! The concept of a Multiverse, that there exists more than one universe, that is our Universe – perhaps an infinite number of them existing sequentially in time, or at one go in space, maybe both, is one of the hottest topics in current cosmology.

At the outset, there’s no law of physics (or even of God) that says that there can be (or must be) one and only one universe, our Universe.

Observations don’t always agree with theory. That’s not usually a problem as theorists can often accommodate the observations as often the error bars around the measurements are wide enough to accommodate the theory. But, when observation and theory really collide, especially when it comes to those fundamental Big Questions, and also especially with the conflicts continue over many, many, years; then it’s time for Mr. Spock to raise those eyebrows! However, there is an easy solution, albeit one which won’t sit well with 99.99% of readers. The solution is that you, the reader, don’t exist!

“I reject your reality and substitute my own” (Adam Savage, "MythBusters")

The body is clearly something physical. The mind is also something with structure and substance although that certainly doesn't appear to be so. Explanatory linkages between body and mind based on established biophysics and biochemistry are not at all obvious. Thus the mind-body problem, or dualism, which is along the lines that the mind must be physical yet it has all the hallmarks of being non-physical. Perhaps another type of biophysics and biochemistry is required.