NASA’s Astrobiology discovery

[egorter]

LOL @ SETI

they have had an obvious reply already and ignored it!

 

 

Tag a planet I love it:lol:

[159th_Viper]

Here's the wee critters:

 

 

Look at that - a face only a Momma can Luv :D

[GGTharos]

No, they were not known. They were speculated, at least IIRC.

 

You kidding right ? Arsenic based lifeform are already know from biologist. Its been what ? 3 years i heard of them.

[LordWolf]

Was i right or what? It's some bacteria substituting arsenic for phosphor

[159th_Viper]

They were speculated, at least IIRC.

 

Correct.

[GGTharos]

You are ranting about things that you clearly do not understand.

 

Get a grip.

 

That you think that 'NASA Geeks' are overpaid reflects more on your than it does on them. Not even in terms of priorities - you haven't even bothered to figure out what it is they are doing or trying to do.

 

EtherealN - This is not a rant at you but one at NASA.

[Pilotasso]

Few weeks ago saw a rerun of documentary 3 years old about arsenic based life forms...how funny is this? Told ya :D

[GGTharos]

The difference is speculation vs. discovery, IIRC - and if you look up ironlisa.com, looks like the scientist in that isn't too bad looking either ;)

 

Three years ago you'd speculate that such a thing might happen, but no one had ever seen it. Today, the scientific speculation is confirmed. Get it? :D

 

 

Not that this detracts from NASA's need for publicity in any way.

 

Few weeks ago saw a rerun of documentary 3 years old about arsenic based life forms...how funny is this? Told ya :D

Edited December 2, 2010 by GGTharos

[FanBoy2006.01]

EtherealN

Yeah my rant was rather general. I started losing direction pretty soon after I started typing. But I will stand by my fist shaking and complaining.

 

I will try to answer your arguments against my views.

 

I saw a documentary during the past week on DSTV where all that I talked about was discussed by NASA scientists. They even talked about uploading our thoughts into a computer.

 

Bare in mind that I did not say that these ideas were first thought up by NASA.

 

Quote from: SEARCHING FOR INTELLIGENT LIFE IN THE UNIVERSE:

NASA’S HIGH RESOLUTION MICROWAVE SURVEY

 

“On Columbus Day, October 12, 1992, after a 15-year research and

development effort by the NASA Ames Research Center and the Jet

Propulsion Laboratory, NASA inaugurated a 10-year program to search the

sky for radio signals of intelligent extraterrestrial origin.”

 

More importantly in that DSTV NASA scientists openly talked about ways to search for intelligent life. Like for instance the amount of greenhouse gasses in the atmosphere of another planet that might have been produced by alien industry.

 

So NASA is actively looking for intelligent life.

 

Yeah I know SETI has got nothing to do with NASA. I was referring to the fact that SETI has not received any signals from alien life. The two main reasons sited by scientists were not enough area was covered and that EMF signals dissipates far more quickly than previously calculated. So it will not be so easy for aliens to detect us by our transmissions.

 

 

I was joking about “my wireless”. I thought that was obvious.

 

Still scientists telling us that one reason to change telecoms would be to make us harder to detect by alien life means that they want us hiding our presence in the universe. But if it is cheaper to use fiber optics, then I am all for it!

 

I didn’t talk about the transfer of consciousness; but the transfer of thoughts (Memory.). My point is that the machine will be a copy of you and not you. So it is utterly pointless to transfer our thoughts to a machine so that we may “live” on.

 

“Also, if you have two exactly identical knives, does it matter which one you bring to scout camp? Nope. They'll both do exactly the same thing. So if you have two exactly identical minds, does it matter which one you say is you and which one isn't?”

 

That is your opinion! Say we both have identical cars (Including identical serial numbers.). Does it matter who drives what car? Before you answer that question, say the one day I total my car and then I come to you insisting that your car is mine because they are identical!

 

If you transfer your thoughts to a machine and you die the machine will still be a machine and you will still be dead. If you clone yourself and you die, the clone will still be a clone and you will still be dead.

 

In regard to clean energy. Read my last paragraph of my previous post. That is my whole point. We are being steered in the wrong direction by decision makers and that includes NASA.

 

I have heard NASA scientists on TV saying they want to “teraform” Mars. On the other hand they say Mars became uninhabitable, because solar radiation stripped of most of the atmosphere because the magnetosphere of Mars is too weak. Now they want to reverse this prosses?!?!? To me it is criminal to waste money on such an scheme. Millions of dollars are going down the drain on funding research. Would it not have been better to spend money on research on how turn back what is going on, on this planet? Even better; implementing what we already know can be done about it.

 

Still coal and oil give us a lot more energy per the cost of production than clean energy. So yes, producing enough clean energy to sustain food production, water supply and other critical needs for the world population it still is a problem.

Edited December 2, 2010 by FanBoy2006.01

[FanBoy2006.01]

You are ranting about things that you clearly do not understand.

 

Get a grip.

 

That you think that 'NASA Geeks' are overpaid reflects more on your than it does on them. Not even in terms of priorities - you haven't even bothered to figure out what it is they are doing or trying to do.

 

Yes. You are right. My statement reflects more on me than on NASA.

 

It was a mistake of me to say NASA Geeks because with that I generalised to much and insult all their technical staff. But it seems to me that from all media that I receive in my country that NASA seems only interested in two things (Although I know that can not be correct.).

 

Finding life on other planets and colonising Mars. It seams to me that they are political goals (To capture the imagination of the general population and politicians.) to secure funding.

 

It seams that NASA has moved away achieving a set attainable goal through predictable steps to a giant open ended program aimed at unreachable goals.

 

Many of the programs that NASA have launched are extremely disproportionate in the costs compared to the knowledge gained.

[GGTharos]

NASA is interested in not having its funding slashed more, and thus losing the ability to develop things like plasma engines, rockets, communications hardware and software, the ability to do all kinds of science.

 

The reason they announce findings like these is because these show the need for more exploration to the public, and hopefully they are interesting to the public. But realize that NASA also works on most if not all the science required to actually get them to do those projects too.

 

As for your concerns about cost - I think they too are incorrect, but it is easy to make this mistake in thinking. A lot of the benefits that these projects bring are very indirect. Take something good and old: Diapers. They were needed by and invented for NASA, but are now commercialized and used by a large population.

 

The gel in your NIKEs, same deal. The JPL brought forward great advances in jet engine design.

 

Today NASA's role seems more limited, but considering those old inventions, you might have through the same thing of NASA back then.

 

Example: Going to the moon. So what? Not to mention expensive.

 

But it was a small cost to pay in fact to unify the entire country AND advance scientific knowledge.

[Grimes]

I for one welcome our new arsenic overlords.

[FanBoy2006.01]

GGTharos

 

Actually I think that the moon landings are one of the greatest achievements of all time. As well as programs like Hubble and Voyager.

 

Satellites for communications, gps ect are great also. Jet propulsion research is also great.

 

But spending money on trying to get a living colony on Mars or "teraforming". Is a major waste. Scientists think that in the distant past Mars had an environment that could have sustained life. But because of a to weak magnetosphere, solar radiation "blasted" away most of the atmosphere (Like I said before.). Now how much resources would a project like that need? Also there is alot of hazardous radiation that gets to the surface from the sun.

 

PS the only good thing about disposable diapers are that you don't have to wash them. They are really bad for the environment. But like you said, indirect spin off.

 

 

 

 

[asparagin]

 

But spending money on trying to get a living colony on Mars or "teraforming". Is a major waste. Scientists think that in the distant past Mars had an environment that could have sustained life. But because of a to weak magnetosphere, solar radiation "blasted" away most of the atmosphere (Like I said before.). Now how much resources would a project like that need? Also there is alot of hazardous radiation that gets to the surface from the sun.

 

No one is investing money in teraforming.

Astrobiology = Astrobiology is the study of the origin, evolution, distribution, and future of life in the universe. The goal is not to make Mars the gardens of Eden but to understand Life. Since it's believed that life started in extreme conditions (compared to our home garden), it's logical to start looking there. The idea of teraforming is there, but far away, too far that someone will invest in it.

 

As for NASA they have indeed a dramatic way of delivering news (or maybe we just expect too much) like this:

 

11.10.10 - NASA will hold a news conference at 12:30 p.m. EST on Monday, Nov. 15, to discuss the Chandra X-ray Observatory's discovery of an exceptional object in our cosmic neighborhood.

Edited December 3, 2010 by asparagin

[EtherealN]

Whoah fanboy, quoting you is alsmost impossible with that formatting in your text, so I'll have to do that manually:

 

 

“On Columbus Day, October 12, 1992, after a 15-year research and

development effort by the NASA Ames Research Center and the Jet

Propulsion Laboratory, NASA inaugurated a 10-year program to search the

sky for radio signals of intelligent extraterrestrial origin.”

 

More importantly in that DSTV NASA scientists openly talked about ways to search for intelligent life. Like for instance the amount of greenhouse gasses in the atmosphere of another planet that might have been produced by alien industry.

 

So NASA is actively looking for intelligent life.

 

Correct my faulty maths but: 1992 + 10 = 2002. No? In case you didn't notice, the present year is 2010. ;)

 

As for talking about, they're taking measurements of a tonne of stuff that can be used in many very different ways. More specifically, with a lot of the survey projects the data is publicly available - YOU can sit down on your own time and sift through it, looking for example for greenhouse gas signatures, using NASA data. Does that mean that NASA is doing it, or that NASA said "here's a thing you can do".

 

NASA talk a lot about things you can do, just like my mechanic talks a lot about the tunings that are possible to do on our Volve 850R. You see, part of NASA's mission in both aeronautics and space exploration is to figure out what is possible and what isn't possible, so just like DARPA they'll think about a lot of weird things to try to see what is feasible.

 

That is your opinion! Say we both have identical cars (Including identical serial numbers.). Does it matter who drives what car? Before you answer that question, say the one day I total my car and then I come to you insisting that your car is mine because they are identical!

 

Yes, that is my opinion. You say that as if it's a curse word.

 

If we have absolutely identical cars, a mixup is of no consequence. But if you total yours, then you've totalled yours.

 

If you transfer your thoughts to a machine and you die the machine will still be a machine and you will still be dead. If you clone yourself and you die, the clone will still be a clone and you will still be dead.

 

And the present "me" is absolutely stone dead tomorrow. In fact, as far as I know, the present "me" is absolutely stone dead in a couple of seconds, and only came into existance a couple of seconds ago. This idea of personal identity, and counsciousness, is an emergent phenomenon, and it does retain some data. If a 100% accurate reading and copying process was possible then it would probably be a lot closer to retaining the "me" that exists today at this instant than the chaotic soup of chemicals and electrical signals that is my brain.

 

Again, you don't seem to quite understand what I've been saying: you need to quantify your defninition of "you" and "me". What exactly is your counsciousness? What links it to your past?

 

Unless you invoke a "spirit" or "soul" (at which point you'll have even more trouble with producing evidence), the so-called problem of the copy and the original is moot, because the "problem" happens through every second of your life anyhow. ;)

 

Here's another idenitity problem, unashamedly stolen (but altered) from 'Altered Carbon' by Richard Morgan:

 

1) I make an exact copy of myself. I am A and the copy is B.

2) A goes to work.

3) B goes on a murder spree.

4) Both get home, we move all memories of the day from B into A, then A combusts.

5) Am I guilty of that murder spree? The physical body that did them is gone, but it was based on the same personality as still exists and the memories of it still exist - there is no way for the residual A to differentiate between the A-memories and B-memories.

 

Millions of dollars are going down the drain on funding research.

 

Yeah, a waste. Here's some number:

NASA annual Budget: 17.6 billion dollars. That's the entire budget. All of it. Space exploration, aeronautics, fundamental research, ISS, EVERYTHING.

Annual worldwide spending on cat and dog food: 45 billion dollars.

American annual spending on cat and dog food: 14.3 billion dollars.

 

Context is everything, and right now americans spend only slightly less on cats and dogs (all other pet animals weren't in the numbers I found) than the complete sum and total of ALL research that NASA does. Cats and dogs are great I'm sure (I'm a cat person myself and have three of them), but I'm not sure I can compare their importance to humanity to the sum and total of everything that NASA does...

 

Besides, we are talking 17.6 billion out of a 14.3 trillion dollar economy - that is, roughly a promille. If we want to talk about potential waste there are way bigger targets out there that have zero potential of increasing the knowledge of humanity.

[Succellus]

No, they were not known. They were speculated, at least IIRC.

 

When i talked about it some time ago with a friend of mine he was far from the speculated. There where some issues still due to the high dificulties to work them on a lab but he was quite positive on their existence, due to chemical reactions.

 

This probably the first time they are actually able work them on lab. probably first tiem they work on it on lab and are able to take a picture.

[FanBoy2006.01]

EtherealN

 

"Correct my faulty maths but: 1992 + 10 = 2002. No? In case you didn't notice, the present year is 2010."

 

I don't understand? The quote says that after 15 years of R&D NASA launched a ten year program to look for intelligent life. So all and all twenty five years of funding and they found nothing. They could have used the equipment that they were using for normal space exploration and have gotten results! Before you say that they could not have known beforehand what the results would have been, bare in mind that SETI used similar methods and also attained no results.

 

You said NASA is not looking for intelligent life. I got that quote off their site.

 

'..................Does that mean that NASA is doing it, or that NASA said "here's a thing you can do".'

 

Got impression from documentary that it was part of the guys job (Researching on how to find intelligent life.). So he is receiving funding for for it.

 

"If we have absolutely identical cars, a mixup is of no consequence. But if you total yours, then you've totalled yours."

 

Hold on, first you said it both the identical minds and knifes are the same thing; but the moment that you are going to lose your valuable car you can discern them is two different entities?

 

"And the present "me" is absolutely stone dead tomorrow......"

 

If you really believe that why do you feel fear when your life is in danger? You are soon dead any way.

Why would you strive to do an activity over a long time? Like have a career?

 

And how does telling me that help your argument? If I cease to exist as my body is slowly regenerated by new matter how will I exist if my thoughts are copied onto silicon?

 

"Again, you don't seem to quite understand what I've been saying: you need to quantify your definition of "you" and "me". What exactly is your consciousness? What links it to your past?"

 

Like I said before I am talking about copying memory. You are talking about consciousness. If we have no link to our past. Then we are not that memory in the machine and then we can not live forever through the machine. You are arguing in favour of my point of view.

 

"Here's another identity problem......"

 

I take it murderer B combusts and worker A stays behind.

 

Lawfully we are guilty for our actions and not our thoughts. If A and B are separate lawful entities A can not be guilty for the actions of B regardless of what he think he has done. But if no one know about B and he gets caught he is screwed anyway.

 

Besides what do you define as identical? Clearly if you make an "identical copy" of yourself it will inevitably mean that at any given moment you and your copy will exist out of different matter and energy.

 

My argument stand. How can you say the copy is now the original?

 

"Yeah, a waste. Here's some number:"

 

What can I say? You hit the nail right on the head! The reason that I lost it in my first post is exactly because this wastefulness of us humans.

 

By that I do not mean that we should take Rover outside for a dirt nap and retrench the whole pet-food industry (Yet.).

 

And like you said, there are much bigger targets when it comes to wasting our resources.

 

Although I went off in a half cocked manner, in the end I am still unhappy about some things that NASA is doing and I stand by this.

[EtherealN]

You said NASA is not looking for intelligent life. I got that quote off their site.

 

Tempus. Part of grammar.

 

Got impression from documentary that it was part of the guys job (Researching on how to find intelligent life.). So he is receiving funding for for it.

 

Ah, documentary.

I mean, you could read the actual research papers, and the publically available funding statements, but that's effort.

 

Hold on, first you said it both the identical minds and knifes are the same thing; but the moment that you are going to lose your valuable car you can discern them is two different entities?

 

You completely misunderstand the whole thing, because your example actually does not address what you think it does.

 

Two automobiles are two physical objects.

Two minds are two emergent phenomenon.

 

The difference here is absolute. There is almost literally nothing in common.

 

If you really believe that why do you feel fear when your life is in danger? You are soon dead any way.

Why would you strive to do an activity over a long time? Like have a career?

 

Because my mind, as an emergent phenomenon, obeys the laws of reality that governs it.

 

If I cease to exist as my body is slowly regenerated by new matter how will I exist if my thoughts are copied onto silicon?

 

It is a response to a common objection. I'm sorry that you didn't quite understand it.

The objection you raised applies to you already. One second to the next, you change. You are not what you were previously. Thus, the only way to raise that objection to transfer of mind that you did is to prove that mind is an actual object. Sadly... there is no such thing as a mind as an object - the closest humanity has ever gotten to that is called "religion", and it just doesn't work whenever someone does something as rude as asking for evidence.

 

Lawfully we are guilty for our actions and not our thoughts.

 

Where did I talk about "law"? I don't give a crap about law, I'm talking about identity.

 

My argument stand. How can you say the copy is now the original?

 

How can you say there is a copy and an original? To say that you need to first quantify what was there in the first place.

 

Although I went off in a half cocked manner, in the end I am still unhappy about some things that NASA is doing and I stand by this.

 

In my opinion, you have shown only a massive lack of knowledge about what NASA is actually doing. But I guess I'm just overly picky from having the bad habit of reading actual research papers as opposed to popular media, since we all know popular media get absolutely everything right. Yup. That is fact.

[Succellus]

And the present "me" is absolutely stone dead tomorrow. In fact, as far as I know, the present "me" is absolutely stone dead in a couple of seconds, and only came into existance a couple of seconds ago. This idea of personal identity, and counsciousness, is an emergent phenomenon, and it does retain some data. If a 100% accurate reading and copying process was possible then it would probably be a lot closer to retaining the "me" that exists today at this instant than the chaotic soup of chemicals and electrical signals that is my brain.

 

 

1) I make an exact copy of myself. I am A and the copy is B.

2) A goes to work.

3) B goes on a murder spree.

4) Both get home, we move all memories of the day from B into A, then A combusts.

5) Am I guilty of that murder spree? The physical body that did them is gone, but it was based on the same personality as still exists and the memories of it still exist - there is no way for the residual A to differentiate between the A-memories and B-memories.

 

Yeah, a waste. Here's some number:

NASA annual Budget: 17.6 billion dollars. That's the entire budget. All of it. Space exploration, aeronautics, fundamental research, ISS, EVERYTHING.

Annual worldwide spending on cat and dog food: 45 billion dollars.

American annual spending on cat and dog food: 14.3 billion dollars.

 

Besides, we are talking 17.6 billion out of a 14.3 trillion dollar economy - that is, roughly a promille. If we want to talk about potential waste there are way bigger targets out there that have zero potential of increasing the knowledge of humanity.

 

 

So many misconceptions here, or warped biased concepts...

 

Me is absolutely dead tomorrow if is only true in 2 cases:

1) you re worm food

2) Your mind in a psicotic surge has been replaced permanently by another self.

 

The mind is not a slideshow, its not because you crossed the street that you are another self, not even if you have to pass half an hour on the throne due to some major bowel problem will you change, you will remain the same person.

So lets jump to point 2 where its easyer to picture that your thought are utterly false in any possible sense.

 

If A is, and B is an exact copy of A, B mind is A mind. If A goes to work B won t have to, so B having the same structural mind of A, B will do what A would on a freeday. Not even A having sociopath urges B will go on a killing spree, because B mind being like A it will fight the surge the same way.

A copy is acopy is a copy... If you copy a text the ouput wont contain a diferent text. When they cloned Dolly, dolly didn t start to bark as a dog or tryed to take off as a bird.... As it was the copy of a sheep it kept acting a a sheep having quite the same behavior as Dolly. But they wouldn t try to grass the same grass at the same time...thats a so wrong conception its comical.

For your mind to change its structure it takes something to break it, for good or bad. B would consider A wife s suitable if A would consider his wife suitable. Now if while A is at work B go play with some sex pro and she blew his brain off its sockets, B would certainly find his wife not so suitable if sex is a relevant thing in A life. Why ? Because his paradigm has been broken, what was good ain t no more due to a shocking experience.

But if B cross the street it will still be like A, cause crossing the street aint a mind breaking experience, well, for me anyhow.

So, until something rattle your "brain" seriously, you re the same as yesterday, unless of course your affected by split personalities, but then its another matter.

So if B is let alone it won t go on a killing spree, this is bull.

The mind have a structure, if the structure is copied, it remains, and this stucture will act as it used to.

 

As for NASA vs CAT FOOD... Well there s a major diference.

USA doesn t put 14 B on cat food research, what you stated is the SUM of the American market.

So again it a distorted comparison, because selling cat food ain t reseaching cat food. And NASA doesn t sell stuff like plasma engines on a shelf. They sell trinkets that surely have nothing to do with the quality of the research.

 

Now surely some research hit water, but thats inherent to all resharch, if you research you don t know, so you will have failures.

But if you have led/plasma TV, and freaking diapers that are hell for environment because human being is not responsable, thats NASA doing, but not fault.

How many billions were wasted to discover plasma, and how many billions it generated in TV sells, employs, recycling and the like ?

Research can t be though in short span term.

 

As for thing that aint productive at all, this IS relative. Human mind must unplug of serious stuff to steam off. If you don t think like that, then All gaming and entertaiment industry is a waste of time and ressources and should be applyed to NASA or a way to preserve out environment and population control.

In an utter anlysis, polution aint the source of the problem, QTTY of people are. You want to give a chance to this planet ? Stop having more than 1 child.

1000 diapers per years aren t significant pollution 1000 diapers X 100.000 milions per year is.

 

The people are the problem, cull them and the problem is solved.

Edited December 3, 2010 by Succellus

[egorter]

:doh:

[GGTharos]

Succellus ... you just babble on, Sir :D

[159th_Viper]

 

The people are the problem, cull them and the problem is solved.

 

 

They tried already - did not work.....I'm still alive and annoying :music_whistling:

 

 

-Caveat Lector-

 

-----Original Message-----

From: Ian Goddard <>

To: <>

Date: Saturday, January 09, 1999 12:28 PM

Subject: Mysterious Aerial Spraying ?

 

The Environmental News Service reports that in remote

regions of the U.S., fleets of jets are creating massive

grid-work contrail pattern across the sky and apparently

are also spraying some kind of substance out of their

wing tips that seems to be making people deathly ill.

 

The fleets of jets lay a grid-work pattern of contrails

that expand and turn a once clear sky into an overcast,

and then according to witnesses a "cobwebb" like material

falls from the sky, which seems to make people very ill.

 

One witness to these events goes so far as to suggest that

with the secrecy said to surround these aerial activities

and the illness they seem to induce in those on the ground,

there is secret plan in the works for a mass culling of the

human race (which United Nations population reports suggest

is too large, and the U.N.'s Universal Declaration of Human

Rights does stipulate that your right to life can be revoked

if it's deemed to be "contrary to the purposes of the U.N.")

 

Full story: http://ens.lycos.com/ens/jan99/1999L-01-08-05.html

 

Anybody know of an innocuous explanation for such spraying?

Could this be some kind of cloud-formation experimentation?

Is such formation-flying consistent with commercial-pilot

practice (which airport officials claim to be the case)?

 

[Succellus]

They tried already - did not work.....I'm still alive and annoying :music_whistling:

 

 

-Caveat Lector-

 

-----Original Message-----

From: Ian Goddard <>

To: <>

Date: Saturday, January 09, 1999 12:28 PM

Subject: Mysterious Aerial Spraying ?

 

The Environmental News Service reports that in remote

regions of the U.S., fleets of jets are creating massive

grid-work contrail pattern across the sky and apparently

are also spraying some kind of substance out of their

wing tips that seems to be making people deathly ill.

 

The fleets of jets lay a grid-work pattern of contrails

that expand and turn a once clear sky into an overcast,

and then according to witnesses a "cobwebb" like material

falls from the sky, which seems to make people very ill.

 

One witness to these events goes so far as to suggest that

with the secrecy said to surround these aerial activities

and the illness they seem to induce in those on the ground,

there is secret plan in the works for a mass culling of the

human race (which United Nations population reports suggest

is too large, and the U.N.'s Universal Declaration of Human

Rights does stipulate that your right to life can be revoked

if it's deemed to be "contrary to the purposes of the U.N.")

 

Full story: http://ens.lycos.com/ens/jan99/1999L-01-08-05.html

 

Anybody know of an innocuous explanation for such spraying?

Could this be some kind of cloud-formation experimentation?

Is such formation-flying consistent with commercial-pilot

practice (which airport officials claim to be the case)?

 

 

LOLOLOLOLOL. They haven t tryed yet because they haven t found me (hide back).

Edited December 3, 2010 by Succellus

[Succellus]

Succellus ... you just babble on, Sir :D

 

:D Proove me wrong...

I dare you. :music_whistling:

[EtherealN]

:D Proove me wrong...

I dare you. :music_whistling:

 

I think you just got he burden of proof completely backwards. Congratulations.