Mach Effect progress

Point out news stories, on the net or in mainstream media, related to polywell fusion.

Moderators: tonybarry, MSimon

williatw
Posts: 1912
Joined: Mon Oct 12, 2009 7:15 pm
Location: Ohio

Post by williatw »

GIThruster wrote:
I have a really hard time believing we would not have detected any of their galactic-scale activities. . .
We have 6,000 years of recorded history and of those 6,000 years, we have 6,000 years of reports of "gods" and other various sorts of amazing beings coming from the skies. We have literally millions of such reports. We have hundreds of thousands of pictures and videos. We have hundreds of radar tracks. We have dozens of air-to-air engagements between interplanetary craft and aircraft form nations all over the world, complete with fighters firing missiles. We have verifiable evidence that there is certainly a government propaganda campaign amply illustrated by with the Condon report, run to discredit these things and the culprits caught with their hands in the cookie Jar. We have dozens of eye witness reports and legal testimony of those who were ordered to secrecy and later had that classification removed by President Clinton. We have virtually every sort of evidence one could ask for except bits of hardware in our hands and some say we have that too.

And yet you say we haven't detected any galactic activities? Seriously, have you ever looked at the evidence at all? Ever made a careful study of it? I just find it amazing people think this way. Back before I ever looked into the issue at least I was agnostic. Seemed like all hogwash but I didn't really know. How anyone could have a negative response to so much detailed evidence is just shocking to me.
Applying Occam's razor to the question...if warp drive is doable why no apparent alien pan galactic civilizations? No detectable large scale mega-engineering projects like Dyson spheres, etc.? Simplest answer is that intelligent technological species might be very rare, no more than 0-10 typically active in the galaxy at any given time. Worlds are obviously common, life maybe relatively common, at least of the single celled or simple multicellular variety, but sentient life particularly technological species very rare. In other words we don't detect signs of their activities because there are none to detect. The closest stellar "empire" might by 10's of thousands of ly away from us, or even there are none currently active. It would explain the UFO’s interest in us, if intelligent species are very rare than anyone would be of interest regardless of their relative primitiveness. Likewise with the cattle mutilations, if complex multicellular life in general is rare, say “Cambrian explosion” type events don’t happen much, then the aliens might find them almost as interesting and unique as us.

GeeGee
Posts: 95
Joined: Fri Jun 10, 2011 7:00 pm

Post by GeeGee »

GIThruster wrote: We have 6,000 years of recorded history and of those 6,000 years, we have 6,000 years of reports of "gods" and other various sorts of amazing beings coming from the skies. We have literally millions of such reports. We have hundreds of thousands of pictures and videos. We have hundreds of radar tracks. We have dozens of air-to-air engagements between interplanetary craft and aircraft form nations all over the world, complete with fighters firing missiles. We have verifiable evidence that there is certainly a government propaganda campaign amply illustrated by with the Condon report, run to discredit these things and the culprits caught with their hands in the cookie Jar. We have dozens of eye witness reports and legal testimony of those who were ordered to secrecy and later had that classification removed by President Clinton. We have virtually every sort of evidence one could ask for except bits of hardware in our hands and some say we have that too.
I've been interested in UFOs since my teens, and there was a time I truly believed we were being visited. But as I got older, I just became extremely frustrated at how the field of UFOlogy has produced absolutely nothing concrete that supports the ET hypothesis. Everything you mentioned is not evidence for aliens, just evidence that there is an unexplained aerial phenomena. Some of the evidence you mentioned is extremely weak from a scientific point of view (eye witness testimonials and ancient aliens). Don't get me wrong, I don't discount the ET hypothesis, but I've yet to see any direct, hard evidence of alien visitation (e.g. a piece of technology or DNA) I don't see why even the really puzzling incidents and government shenanigans can't be explained by advanced military aircraft as opposed to ET interstellar vessels.

And yet you say we haven't detected any galactic activities?
No, these are not galactic scale activities. I'm talking about mega-scale engineering projects that are visible from Earth, or evidence of galactic colonization. Expanding civilizations constantly increase their energy consumption, so it's not far-fetched to suggest that these are constructs that ET are likely to build. Even if civilizations were being more conservative, and only building numerous O'Neill cylinder sized objects in space, the galaxy would still light up like a Christmas tree in the infrared spectrum. Yet, direct observations of thousands of galaxies have not revealed any kind of artificial constructs or modifications. The introduction of practical FTL travel makes Fermi's paradox even more paradoxical, because ETs would be able to colonize the galaxy a lot more quickly than we originally estimated.

http://www.personal.psu.edu/jtw13/blogs ... tions.html

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fermi%27s_paradox

So even if aliens were visiting Earth, as some UFOlogists suggest, that doesn't explain why we don't see evidence of them in our galaxy and other galaxies.

paperburn1
Posts: 2484
Joined: Fri Jun 19, 2009 5:53 am
Location: Third rock from the sun.

Post by paperburn1 »

GeeGee wrote:
GIThruster wrote: So even if aliens were visiting Earth, as some UFOlogists suggest, that doesn't explain why we don't see evidence of them in our galaxy and other galaxies.
Or maybe the simplest solution is that they are homebody's, they just don't want to leave the old home sun. none of our "monkey curiosity" maybe Larry niven has it right with the ring world concept. They first travel to the Puppeteer home world, where they learn that the expedition's goal is to explore a ringworld: an artificial ring about one million miles wide and approximately the diameter of Earth's orbit (which makes it about 600 million miles in circumference), encircling a sunlike star. It rotates, providing artificial gravity that is 99.2% as strong as Earth's gravity through the action of centripetal force. The ringworld has a habitable flat inner surface equivalent in area to approximately three million Earth-sized planets. Night is provided by an inner ring of shadow squares which are connected to each other by thin, ultra-strong wire (shadow square wire).
Last edited by paperburn1 on Sun Jan 06, 2013 12:29 am, edited 1 time in total.

GIThruster
Posts: 4686
Joined: Tue May 25, 2010 8:17 pm

Post by GIThruster »

williatw wrote:In other words we don't detect signs of their activities because there are none to detect.
This makes perfect sense if you presume we're looking to detect such activities in the right way. However, in the case of a civilization that has control of inertia such as what we're here talking about with M-E technology, signals are most likely not passed with the EM waves we use. EM dissipates or better, diverges with the square of the distance, so any long range communications would likely be using a gravitic carrier such as a wormhole to pass signals over long distances. Theory suggests that to pass a signal, a wormhole does not need the huge exotic matter needed for an "absurdly benign" wormhole with gravitic sheering at the throat low enough to permit a person to pass through. Rather, a desktop wormhole generator requires far less exotic matter to open a wormhole sufficient to pass an EM signal.

So point in fact, we should NOT expect SETI or anything else to pick up transmissions from another star system, and since interstellar spacecraft would have these smallish by comparision wormhole generators to pass signals across light years instantaneously, they would likely use them for shorter range communications as well. We would not detect such signals with the technology we have at our disposal.

So even though the premise you're supposing makes sense for our level of technology, it does not make sense that any truly star-fairing people would be flinging high power EM signals around for us to pick up. Rather, we ought to expect our best source of intel about such civilizations would in fact be random sightings, not the stuff SETI has been looking for.

What we're left with is a smaller, more arcane question: why would any interstellar civilization choose not to contact us directly? I can't answer this except to say there are several scenarios that serve as explanations here. Star Trek's "Prime Directive" is but one. There are certainly others. In any event, the paradox people are so willing to grant as to why we don't have EM evidence of other civilizations does not obtain.
"Courage is not just a virtue, but the form of every virtue at the testing point." C. S. Lewis

GIThruster
Posts: 4686
Joined: Tue May 25, 2010 8:17 pm

Post by GIThruster »

GeeGee wrote:Some of the evidence you mentioned is extremely weak from a scientific point of view (eye witness testimonials and ancient aliens). Don't get me wrong, I don't discount the ET hypothesis, but I've yet to see any direct, hard evidence of alien visitation (e.g. a piece of technology or DNA) I don't see why even the really puzzling incidents and government shenanigans can't be explained by advanced military aircraft as opposed to ET interstellar vessels.
I understand your objection, but I think what we need to grapple with is that we can't look to empiricism for the kinds of evidence we seek. Scientific method is not the only way to generate sufficient warrant for belief. For instance, we routinely condemn people to death based upon personal testimony. We routinely count such testimony as grounds for capital punishment. Such evidence does not pass the tests of empiricism because we don't have control over the observations. Still, we make do and accept that such evidence is compelling enough to justify belief of guilt, even beyond a reasonable doubt.

What this says to me is, we need to understand where the proper limits are of empiricism. As we very often find warrant for belief apart from empirical method, we need to accept that other methods though less certain do provide enough warrant for belief that we trust them enough to execute people. Given this is the case, we need to look at eye-witness testimony in the same light as we do in the courtroom. once you do this, the huge numbers of detailed eyewitness accounts beckon for us to sort our way through.

There are certainly pitfalls here. people who would never purger themselves in the case of a murder trial might well be willing to embellish the facts surrounding a UFO sighting, because the outcome seems to them "harmless". We can't afford to take eye-witness testimony at face value. However, when there are thousands of people who all claim to have witnessed the same event, such as with the Phoenix Lights event, it's the foolish man who counts all that testimony as useless or even "unscientific". Scientists go on best evidence, and Occam's razor certainly does suggest the simplest way to explain a mass sighting is to take the mass testimony of the supposed eye-witnesses.
"Courage is not just a virtue, but the form of every virtue at the testing point." C. S. Lewis

williatw
Posts: 1912
Joined: Mon Oct 12, 2009 7:15 pm
Location: Ohio

Post by williatw »

GIThruster wrote:
williatw wrote:In other words we don't detect signs of their activities because there are none to detect.
This makes perfect sense if you presume we're looking to detect such activities in the right way. However, in the case of a civilization that has control of inertia such as what we're here talking about with M-E technology, signals are most likely not passed with the EM waves we use. EM dissipates or better, diverges with the square of the distance, so any long range communications would likely be using a gravitic carrier such as a wormhole to pass signals over long distances. Theory suggests that to pass a signal, a wormhole does not need the huge exotic matter needed for an "absurdly benign" wormhole with gravitic sheering at the throat low enough to permit a person to pass through. Rather, a desktop wormhole generator requires far less exotic matter to open a wormhole sufficient to pass an EM signal.

So point in fact, we should NOT expect SETI or anything else to pick up transmissions from another star system, and since interstellar spacecraft would have these smallish by comparision wormhole generators to pass signals across light years instantaneously, they would likely use them for shorter range communications as well. We would not detect such signals with the technology we have at our disposal.

So even though the premise you're supposing makes sense for our level of technology, it does not make sense that any truly star-fairing people would be flinging high power EM signals around for us to pick up. Rather, we ought to expect our best source of intel about such civilizations would in fact be random sightings, not the stuff SETI has been looking for.

What we're left with is a smaller, more arcane question: why would any interstellar civilization choose not to contact us directly? I can't answer this except to say there are several scenarios that serve as explanations here. Star Trek's "Prime Directive" is but one. There are certainly others. In any event, the paradox people are so willing to grant as to why we don't have EM evidence of other civilizations does not obtain.
I wasn't referring to EM evidence per see or SETI. I meant any signs of large scale pan-galactic engineering projects, the kind of thing that might be visible some distance away. The kinds of feats civilization millennia ahead of us might do, things like Dyson spheres, etc. Although if we had say a 10TW HE3 fusion power station in orbit around Jupiter or Saturn a hundred or so years from now it would doubtlessly produce a great deal of EM noise/pulsations that would be detectable from LY away, even if it was not trying to send signals. The point is that using/generating that much energy for whatever reasons would leave visible footprints. The explanation requiring the fewest no. of assumptions is that intelligent technological species are simply very rare.

GIThruster
Posts: 4686
Joined: Tue May 25, 2010 8:17 pm

Post by GIThruster »

williatw wrote:I wasn't referring to EM evidence per see or SETI. I meant any signs of large scale pan-galactic engineering projects, the kind of thing that might be visible some distance away.
What is it you think we'd see? We're only very recently able to note the dimming of a star we suppose would be caused by the transit of a planet across its face. We don't have real view of such planets. In fact, we have to extrapolate based upon a host of presumptions. We have to assume the planet is traversing the star close to the plane connecting us. If the distant star's planets are orbiting on a plane different from what we assume, all the details go out the window!

Fact is, we are just beginning to glimpse exo-planets. We have absolutely no way to know if they're planets or the kinds of macro-engineering Dyson spheres you seem to assume one would build! We simply do not have access to the kinds of technology necessary to make the kinds of analysis you suggest we have. We may in the coming decades, but right now all we can say is "we think there's a planet there that is in the goldilocks zone, if it is transiting on a plane that connects us with it, and if. . .and if. . .and if. . ."

We're not at the point of discerning that you seem to think we are. Interstellar investigations of the kind you're assuming are decades away even given we build, launch and successfully use things like James Webb.

We cannot "see" the kinds of technology you're assuming are not there.

Suppose an advanced civilization did have an interest to build the kinds of structures you are assuming they would. If they placed it on an orbit orthogonal to any plane connecting us, we would not see it at all, let alone be able to tell it from a natural planet.
"Courage is not just a virtue, but the form of every virtue at the testing point." C. S. Lewis

TDPerk
Posts: 976
Joined: Mon Jul 30, 2007 12:55 pm
Location: Northern Shen. Valley, VA
Contact:

Post by TDPerk »

GIThruster wrote:We have absolutely no way to know if they're planets or the kinds of macro-engineering Dyson spheres you seem to assume one would build!.
Actually we do. We have good estimates with error bars are what the density of the new planets are.

None of them are mostly hollow Dyson spheres.
molon labe
montani semper liberi
para fides paternae patria

TDPerk
Posts: 976
Joined: Mon Jul 30, 2007 12:55 pm
Location: Northern Shen. Valley, VA
Contact:

Post by TDPerk »

GIThruster wrote:If they placed it on an orbit orthogonal to any plane connecting us, we would not see it at all, let alone be able to tell it from a natural planet.
You may be aware, trigonometry works. There is also no excuse for assuming the distribution of the angle of ecliptic planes relative to ours is not a normal distribution.
molon labe
montani semper liberi
para fides paternae patria

williatw
Posts: 1912
Joined: Mon Oct 12, 2009 7:15 pm
Location: Ohio

Post by williatw »

GIThruster wrote:
williatw wrote:I wasn't referring to EM evidence per see or SETI. I meant any signs of large scale pan-galactic engineering projects, the kind of thing that might be visible some distance away.
What is it you think we'd see? We're only very recently able to note the dimming of a star we suppose would be caused by the transit of a planet across its face. We don't have real view of such planets. In fact, we have to extrapolate based upon a host of presumptions. We have to assume the planet is traversing the star close to the plane connecting us. If the distant star's planets are orbiting on a plane different from what we assume, all the details go out the window!

Fact is, we are just beginning to glimpse exo-planets. We have absolutely no way to know if they're planets or the kinds of macro-engineering Dyson spheres you seem to assume one would build! We simply do not have access to the kinds of technology necessary to make the kinds of analysis you suggest we have. We may in the coming decades, but right now all we can say is "we think there's a planet there that is in the goldilocks zone, if it is transiting on a plane that connects us with it, and if. . .and if. . .and if. . ."

We're not at the point of discerning that you seem to think we are. Interstellar investigations of the kind you're assuming are decades away even given we build, launch and successfully use things like James Webb.

We cannot "see" the kinds of technology you're assuming are not there.

Suppose an advanced civilization did have an interest to build the kinds of structures you are assuming they would. If they placed it on an orbit orthogonal to any plane connecting us, we would not see it at all, let alone be able to tell it from a natural planet.
Let’s go back to our premise GIThruster....that warp drive via Sonny White is viable, cheap and easy(relatively speaking). You I assume are supposing the possibility that there are lots of other civilizations, many thousands (or 10's of thousands) let’s say, with many of them very much more advanced than us, and some fraction of them have been around for uncounted thousand (or even millions) of years. They have had access to this kind of warp drive (and God knows what other advanced tech) for uncounted millennia of time before us. If anything like that existed on that scale, after all this time the galaxy would be thoroughly well developed and colonized. Artificially generated power at some point might rival that of natural star production. Something well on the way to a Kardashev level 3 civilization: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kardashev_ ... on_methods
The effects of this kind of techno power civilizations would be hard to miss, not subtle effects you have to be looking just so with just the right equipment to detect. The simplest explanation by far for what we see (or don't see) if practical warp drive tech is for real, is the one where there are few advanced civilizations if any active at any one time.
Last edited by williatw on Sun Jan 06, 2013 4:20 am, edited 6 times in total.

williatw
Posts: 1912
Joined: Mon Oct 12, 2009 7:15 pm
Location: Ohio

Post by williatw »

R.Nkolo wrote:Dr. Harold Sonny White is at the www.thespaceshow.com at the Moment.

You can listen to the Show at:

http://www.live365.com/stations/dlivingston?site=pro
Friday January 4, 2013, 9:30-11 AM PST (11:30- 1 PM CST, 12:30PM-2:00 PM EST): We welcome back Dr. Richard Obousy, Dr. Eric Davis, and Dr. Harold Sonny White for advanced propulsion updates, Icarus Interstellar, and more.
N.B. You can call and ask questions!
Your link didn't work for me, thanks anyway but I found this:

http://www.portaltotheuniverse.org/podc ... ew/241797/

Worked for me, hopefully will for anyone else having a problem.

GIThruster
Posts: 4686
Joined: Tue May 25, 2010 8:17 pm

Post by GIThruster »

williatw wrote:Let’s go back to our premise GIThruster....that warp drive via Sonny White is viable, cheap and easy(relatively speaking). You I assume are supposing there are lots of other civilizations, many thousands (or 10's of thousands) let’s say, with many of them very much more advanced than us, and some fraction of them have been around for uncounted thousand (or even millions) of years.
I'm sorry but I can't make this assumption. I think Sonny's model is full of hot air. Just as I think ZPF stuff is wrong, I think QVF stuff is wrong.

I'd be happy to find Sonny is right, but generally think Sonny is wrong.

Presuming as you are that I think one thing when indeed I think something very other, I hope you'll rephrase your objection.

I have no reasons to think Sonny is correct in his QVF model. I think rather that the ZPF model Sonny's QVF guesses rely upon are completely wrong.

No insult intended but I just see no reasons to believe ZPF theory or QVF model have a clue. Just because I stipulate what it appears Sonny is saying doesn't mean I agree with him. I think he's wrong. I'm willing to give him the benefit of the doubt when it comes to understanding the implications of his model, but I do think his model is broken. Should be obvious from my posts to date.
"Courage is not just a virtue, but the form of every virtue at the testing point." C. S. Lewis

GeeGee
Posts: 95
Joined: Fri Jun 10, 2011 7:00 pm

Post by GeeGee »

williatw is posing a hypothetical, and you could replace Sonny's warp drive with Woodward's wormhole generator. The bottom line he's posing is that if you allow for any type of practical FTL propulsion/transportation system, then it makes space travel trivial, and removes many of the limits we've imposed in our models of galactic colonization. Megascale structures are already quite plausible and likely with known physics, but when you add wormhole generators to the mix, it gives you practically instant access to the galaxy's resources, making them even more feasible.

GIThruster
Posts: 4686
Joined: Tue May 25, 2010 8:17 pm

Post by GIThruster »

Em. . .okay I think. What's your point?
"Courage is not just a virtue, but the form of every virtue at the testing point." C. S. Lewis

williatw
Posts: 1912
Joined: Mon Oct 12, 2009 7:15 pm
Location: Ohio

Post by williatw »

GIThruster wrote:Em. . .okay I think. What's your point?
Uhh...I think his (and my) point would be:
williatw wrote:The effects of this kind of techno power civilizations would be hard to miss, not subtle effects you have to be looking just so with just the right equipment to detect. The simplest explanation by far for what we see (or don't see) if practical warp drive tech is for real, is the one where there are few advanced civilizations if any active at any one time.

Post Reply