see, the creation of the perfect planet isnt the only miracle, seriously, the chances that anything would become life were really slim on our own little perfect planet, and the chances of intelligent life are near nill.
*weep*

On the one hand im gutted that I was born now because imagine in 1000 years time we might be amongst the stars. On the otherhand we are kinda due for another asteroid.

See, the chances of life are really irrelevant, this is because the universe is infinite. Meaning that no matter the chances, in a infinite domain its bound to happen again. Maybe there wont be a lot of intelligent life, but there has to be others out there.

This brings up my favorite quote.

It is known that there are an infinite number of worlds, simply because there is an infinite amount of space for them. However, not every one of them is inhabited. Therefore, there must be a finite number of inhabited worlds. Any finite number divided by infinity is as near to nothing as makes no odds, so the average population of all the planets in the Universe can be said to be zero. From this it follows that the population of the whole Universe is also zero, and that any people you may meet from time to time are merely the products of a deranged imagination

universe is infinite

close, but not quite lol.
yeah, there is intelligent life out there, the problem is that it would take probably longer than the human race will exist in order to find it.

simply because there is an infinite amount of space for them

whoever came up with that proof is a bit behind in his math and astrophysics.
first of all <><>/anything still = <><>
second of all the universe, while impressively massive, is not infinite.

but the "all horses are the same color" proof is generally similar
you have n horses of one color.
you have, in total n+1 horses
you take away 1 horse and you have n horses, all of which are the same color (because its n)
you place that horse back in the pile and draw another one, but its still n, so all the remaining horses are still the same color
therefore all horses are the same color!

I hold by my philosophy, we are all just products of a deranged imagination   

I pretty much agree, for my own reasons.  

No questions asked then, looks like unless we get some new opinion(fresh meat... mmm), this thread is all argued out   

@emperor, I believe hitchiker's guide was pretty much true in that regard we are all
@ninja hate to burst your bubble, but that's simply flawed reasoning. you are applying principle that two subsets of n horses have same element (color), however that is not proof. this works if n=1, but if n=2 assumption fails.

now here's true paradox
Suppose there is a town with just one male barber; and that every man in the town keeps himself clean-shaven: some by shaving themselves, some by attending the barber. It seems reasonable to imagine that the barber obeys the following rule: He shaves all and only those men who do not shave themselves.
The question: Does the barber shave himself?
If the barber does not shave himself, he must abide by the rule and shave himself.
If he does shave himself, according to the rule he will not shave himself.

and one more:
a man is being sentenced to death. emperor offers him a choice. if he tells the truth, he will be shot, if he tells a lie he will be hanged. the man walked free. what did he say?

@ninja hate to burst your bubble, but that's simply flawed reasoning. you are applying principle that two subsets of n horses have same element (color),

I know.   its like Shrodingers cat
I know I made a mistake in the wording, but the idea is that mathmatically, the principle holds up. but in reality it fails.

a man is being sentenced to death. emperor offers him a choice. if he tells the truth, he will be shot, if he tells a lie he will be hanged. the man walked free. what did he say?

that this is a lie.

now here's true paradox Suppose there is a town with just one male barber; and that every man in the town keeps himself clean-shaven: some by shaving themselves, some by attending the barber. It seems reasonable to imagine that the barber obeys the following rule: He shaves all and only those men who do not shave themselves. The question: Does the barber shave himself? If the barber does not shave himself, he must abide by the rule and shave himself. If he does shave himself, according to the rule he will not shave himself.

I like that one.

clarify, please, a bit with a lie, what exactly you mean by that?

the phrase "this is a lie" is a paradoxic phrase. it cannot exist logically, because if it is true, then its false. if its false, then its true.

by the man saying that he provided neither truth nor lie, which exonerated him.

ah, I didn't catch it in that context. A famous paradox. along the lines of having a sheet of paper which has printed on it: "this sheet was intentionally left blank".
But the line I had in mind was "I will be hanged". quite ingenious.

hah, if I was the emperor I'd say "screw that, your being shot"

Well at least this thread is progressing somewhere, not the right way but its something to discuss. I read a book a while ago, written by Asimov, now in this book they had these robots. The robots were programed positornicly(yes its scifi but only because we dont have the nano yet to make it real). The robots were programed to never be able to harm a human being, because if they disobeyed that order they would destroy themselves by shortcircuiting their brain. But, they also had another major order they must not do any harm to themselves unless by doing so they would let a human die(because they were expensive). This book was the basis of the movie I, Robot(which they totally screwd up cause robots werent evil and didnt want to kill us, plus we all lived underground but thats another story). Back to my orignal point, in this story they were somehow able to make a robot(by mistake), that could read minds, emotions and plans of humans and such. So this robot started telling people what they wanted to hear, because now another factor was brought into the equation, it had to be careful of not harming the human psychi. So it lied and lied until finally they figured out what it was doing, and so they confronted it and gave it its own parodox. They said if it lies it would harm them because they wanted to know the truth and if it told the truth about what they were thinking them it would hurt them. So the poor robot mulfunctioned because it couldnt harm them so it kept quite, then they told it to tell them a lie but telling it that would hurt them. So the robot just broke down because both the order, and its original programing would cause it to die(shortcircuit)so it just went mad.

I havent read that book in a while so im stretching some details, still its a legible paradox.

whoever came up with that proof is a bit behind in his math and astrophysics. first of all <><>/anything still = <><> second of all the universe, while impressively massive, is not infinite.

Uhh, what? I may not know a whole lot about Astronomy, but I do know that any credible astronomer will tell you the universe is infinite and continuously expanding, and probably proceed to offer you fifty different constants and equations to prove this.

As for the original post:
What do I think of space? That it's big. And hard to breathe in. I also think it's mostly irrelevant till we solve the problems on our own world, unless you can prove to me that venturing into space is entirely necessary to bring order to our own planet. I am very much fascinated by space and love reading about it, but just don't have the mathematical mind to get into it.

How about going to the ISS, I'd probably say no thanks. I like where I am now. Though I can't deny it would be an interesting experience.

What's out there...lots of gas, lots of chemical reactions, and lots of rocks. I don't know if there is intelligent life out there, and even if there is, discovering it would be quite the quest. Even light speed is not fast enough to travel vast distances. Hell, even Proxima Centauri, the closest star to the Sun, is 4 and a quarter light years away. Galaxies are millions away. I don't think we'll be discovering any new life soon.

Honestly, I don't think we should focus TOO much effort into going into space. Most of the world we live in is terribly off balance, and I think starting to solve that, as well as working out some of the darker and more selfish aspects of international relations, should be solved before we worry about building any bases on Mars.

As for paradoxes, I was always a fan of Zeno's Paradox ever since I heard it. It single-handedly stumped all mathematics for 2000 years, till calculus came around. I hate to get you into some Artistotelian stuff, because frankly I hate the guy, but it's interesting nonetheless.

Yea i remember Zeno's Paradox but it only holds true in mathematical terms, put that into a real life scenario and it wont work... it wont work i tell you!!

infinite and continuously expanding

I know plenty about astronomy, and its not infinite
look it up. and not of some weed smoking websight pls.

if the universe was infinite, we'd have quite a few problems. and besides, there couldnt have been a causality like the big bang for an infinite system.

in particular Einstein would appreciate the arrow paradox. although he would view it in a different manner.

See the universe is in mathematical terms infinite also, however if matter cant be created or destroyed that means there has to be a finite amount of it.

However, it is always expanding, there are many theories as to why it is and what might happen when it stops.

See the universe is in mathematical terms infinite also,

well, in terms of space (spacial dimensions), yes. but definately not in terms of matter
if thats what your talking about. but since planets exist as matter, thats what I meant.

what might happen when it stops

and IF it stops.

I said that matter is finite.   

good, because there was a bit of a miscommunication there. you sounded a little jumbled

yeah, the 3 spacial dimensions are infinite (nobody knows about time, although one would guess so to)

I dont get why they accept time as a dimmention, its really the way our minds percieve it, if we didnt age i dont think we would care all that much.

You dont know how happy i am that at least this thread has been kept clean.

WOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOHOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO
its time for:
RELATIVITY!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

time is considered a dimension due to the existance of photons (light) which are the primary transmitter of INFORMATION in our universe. light moves at around 3x10^8 m/s when compared by any object in any inertial reference frame. (i.e. no matter how fast you OR the thing emmiting the light are moving, you will STILL record light's speed to be 3x10^8, i.e. c cannot be added to v, c + v does not occur EVER)

but because light's speed is derived from two quantities (s and m) if we define both in terms of a definate system we can tell you exactly how long a second is.
and in this case a second is 3x10^8 meters long.

this absolute speed, however, requires a uniform space. if you create a sort of nanopocked between two objects (very very thin) you can supposedly lower the vacum energy of the region, and therefore increase the speed of light. but this would break Einsteins monoexistant space requirement and relativity would not hold up UNDER THAT PATCHED AREA AND THAT AREA ALONE. relativity would still apply within the pocket region, and outside but NOT between the two.

now, if you were to move farther than 3x10^8 m/s then you would run into causality issues. i.e. if you fired two beams at me, I would be affected by YOUR "second" beam before I was affected by your "first"


agh, I just went on a huge tangent. and its missing gaping huge pockets. ask me stuff you dont understand iusp.