That was the core of a thought I had this Sunday while listening to the pastor read Psalm 2, I was thinking about the Fermi paradox and figured the odds may be slightly in favor of humanity being the first rationally conscious life form in the universe. Wouldn’t that be an ironic twist on the earth being at the center of the universe?
3 Likes
True but part of the argument is that if they can locate us, then eventually we will be able to locate them. Which is why in the DFT that how far behind we are at the moment, eventually we will potentially catch up and if we do, what is the probability that we will either attack them, or send their location out into space.
I also guess part of the discussion now would be is it problematic to believe that in the same way God accommodated civilizations with their worldview in scripture, Jesus could also be an accommodation for us as humans and there still be incarnations we will never know of until resurrection. No particular reason for me to think the Holy Spirit cannot incarnate in several forms. I mean a trinity is no less magical than a 4,5 or even 100 beings that all are God.
You should have seen the conversations on the Biblical forum that has now closed down. They quite enjoyed the idea of God being a herd of buffalo. It seems that three is enough and there can be no more… As if we actually could define God that accurately! Or limit what He can or cannot be.
Richard
1 Like
We do have the species in Narnia (not exactly Earthly), Malacandra and Perelandra though.
1 Like
It seems the more that is discovered the more it is realized the rarity of the many conditions for advanced life (including heavy metals and other elements in ‘just right’ proportions) are only satisfied on the earth, variously referred to as the anthropic principle or the Goldilocks zone (both including fine-tuning parameters). Books have been written about it, and by non-Christians (Rare Earth: Why Complex Life is Uncommon in the Universe is one from a while back). Given what we know about why God created in the first place, it would not surprise me if we are it, at least with respect to sapient life. (I would not be devastated if we weren’t.)
The XKCD version:
6 Likes
I read a sci-fi book written by Christopher Paolini. It included a several pages long addendum explaining how the FTL worked. The explanation was based on physics and findings of physics that will be uncovered in the future. The power needed for FTL was generated using antimatter. Speculative fiction but I appreciate that the author had managed to write a technical description that looked convincing and logical. That it was invented speculation rather than reality is a minor issue.
Biblical scriptures do not tell about alien life on other planets, probably because that information is not relevant to our relationship with God or our daily life. It may be interpreted so that other planets in this part of the galaxy do not have intelligent life or that aliens are not going to affect our life during the near future.
We would be at their mercy, that is a logical conclusion when comparing our technology to that of a highly advanced space civilisation. I am not fully sure about the other parts of the Dark Forest Theory.
Why would a distant alien civilization visit us? There are several possibilities.
One is scientific curiosity. If we would learn about an alien culture on another planet and have the technology needed to visit that planet, humans would send a ship to that planet. Possibly without any humans, as it is easier to send an unmanned craft.
If planets suitable for life are extremely rare, aliens might want to find more about our planet and possibly invade it. I do not think that we have such resources that could not be easier to find from other planet systems. An advanced civilization could modify other planets towards their needs. Therefore I think that the possibility that a distant culture would spend much time and energy to invade our planet is extremely small, even if there would be advanced cultures somewhere in the galaxy. The only exception might be if the aliens would be refuges escaping from a natural disaster or enemy threat and would not have any other place to go.
Earth-type life is probably rare and might be valuable for someone collecting curiosities or experiences. Business is business, even if it would include trading Earth life. The problem would probly be that gaining something from this planet might be extremely expensive and difficult, especially if they would have to carry live specimens to other parts of the galaxy. I guess we are spared from potential galactic zoo trade simply because it would be too expensive and difficult.
If an alien culture would send a ship to Earth, it would probably be an unmanned exploration ship because that would be the cheapest and most safe option.
The probability that alien life on other planets would get our signals and come to explore is extremely small. Yet, I would not send messages to other civilizations. The probability that such an civilization would be hostile is too high, assuming there is intelligent life on other planets.
1 Like
Interesting idea. Anti-matter does seem like a good fix for the infinite energy needs for FTL travel
Curious, how did he get around the problem of time dilation? Travelling at say 99.99% of the speed of light it might take the alien invaders three Earth weeks (give or take) to get from Alpha Centauri to Sol from their perspective. In the meantime, ~4 years will have passed for the rest of us.
Travelling much larger distances compounds the issue. An invasion force might leave to conquer Earth’s primitives, only to find us 100 years more advanced at the end of their year-and-a-half voyage.
From my laymen’s perspective, physics (as we currently understand it) seems to be set up to keep us in our gated communities.
5 Likes
That and the other aspect is that if they are able to pick up our signals there is the chance we can pick up theirs and if we can pick up theirs, we could potentially determine there general whereabouts and then send that information out into space alerting others to their location.
But the main point is not dark forest theory as much as would God still be good and good if part of his plan was that we were just a stepping stone in his grander plan. Sort of how we see Canaanites as a stepping stone for Israel. One question that comes up is that what if humanity, was just here as a Canaanite awaiting for another civilization to benefit off of us.
This is a great question and an interesting thought to consider. I guess we could suppose that this situation was the apocalypse that Jesus’ return saves us from. However, I think ultimately, many would conclude in such a scenario that we were sorely (and naively) mistaken in our Christian beliefs.
What do you think, Mi?
1 Like
I was thinking a bit more about alien life and the UFO/UAP observations. Although I am still very sceptical about the possibility that more advanced civilizations would have reached Earth, I started to wonder what it would mean if any of the thousands of UFO observations would be real aliens. I assume that >50% of the observations are pure nonsense and 90-100% of the rest are natural phenomena or human-made objects that have been misinterpreted as alien UFOs.
The likelihood that a sentient race has already sent ships or other type of vehicles to this solar system is so small that an advanced organization or culture on Earth would be an equally probable explanation for real observations. Even if there would be aliens behind some UFO observations, it is probable that the vehicles have been manufactured from the material of this solar system - it is easier to send blueprints than heavy material with unmanned vehicles.
Why would the UFOs let us see them? The simplest explanation is that they are preparing for the first open contact. Enough of observations and people start to adapt mentally to the possibility. The greatest threat would be military acting violently. A logical preparation would be to have lots of peaceful encounters with the military, showing that we have more advanced technology but we are not aggressive, not attacking you. Military seems to report more observations than any other organization, which fits to the hypothesis. Could also be simply because military is watching the territory.
If there would be an open contact with the aliens, how would it affect our lives and faith? Not much, at least initially. It is possible that God has created life on other planets of this galaxy. A contact would only confirm this hypothesis. The relationship between the aliens and God would be interesting to know but basically not our business. We have enough if we concentrate on the problems of humanity and the life on Earth.
The conclusion is that whether there are aliens or not in our solar system, we should just continue our life as there would be no aliens in this part of the galaxy.
3 Likes
Well I fall into the camp that I believe the end times has already happened as far as the story of revelation goes, but I believe that it’s a event of chaos and peace that comes back again and again. I don’t believe in the rapture or Christians dying and going to heaven. The afterlife plays zero role in my faith. I could care less if I die and remain dead forever or if I am spiritually or physically resurrected and so on.
Since we can see the cruelty that humans have done to others from from ancient indigenous human sacrifices, stronger African tribes catching and selling other African tribes, to Europeans purchasing them and using them as work animals for centuries or how ancient Roman’s use to toss other groups into arenas to fight to fight to death or how the Jews went through the holocaust or how they potentially done just as brutal of things to Canaanites and other small tribes to how Japan did grotesque things to Chinese men, women and kids. It just seems that the only thing that actually has stopped violence from one group against another is a stronger more violent group taking sides with the weaker side and together destroying their common enemies.
So I would not be surprised in anyways that a more dominate alien life force would just wipe out our planet and other planets they come across out of fear of that planet eventually wiping them out or sending their location out into space drawing the attention of a even more violent powerful civilization.
As far as what that would mean for God? To me it would just mean what he warns us against with ourselves already. Evil powerful people and kingdoms exist. We spread love not hate even in the face of persecution and that our God would also be there God as well even if he accommodated them with their own version of a savior that was the incarnation of God there. The only salvation I hope for in Christ is the possible salvation from the second death. I don’t expect God to keep me safe from those in the world anymore it less than what happens to the people that die everyday.
Just to be clear, I was using the Dark Forest Theory of an alien invasion to ask the question, what if earth and humans is the stepping stone of a greater cosmological Christ and we were wiped out in the same way many nations and species have been wiped out by another civilization, if that were to happen, how would that sit with us and our faith in our god? What if humans are the Canaanites and earth is the promise land for another species faith.
The Alcubierre warp drive is a scientific “possibility”. The one bugaboo is that it requires negative mass. This isn’t anti-matter since anti-matter has mass. Some think the Casimir effect might point towards the existence of negative mass, but it is still very speculative.
I also agree with your sentiment that there is little reason for such an advanced civilization to invade us. If they are capable of FTL travel then they should be able to find what they need on sterile planets. The analogy that comes to my mind is what I do when I need a shovel full of dirt for a potted plant. I certainly don’t go to the closest ant hill and grab a shovel full from the center of the mound. There is also the question of compatibility between alien species. A separate origin of life could lead to very different biochemistry. They may have to sterilize our planet just to make it useful, so might as well find a planet capable of holding liquid water that is already sterile.
Trade would make a lot more sense. We labor on the surface of a planet that is poisonous to them, and in return they teach us about their technology. Win-win.
4 Likes
As mentioned, the number one reason in DFT for an attack is not even really an invasion. It’s not about getting goods. It’s not about trade. It’s normally sending a little of at all manned ship to wipe out a planet on the fear that if they can intercept a signal from us and learn our location, than one day we may intercept their signal, learn their location, and transmit that information out into space leading another civilization to become aware of theirs.
It’s interesting to consider how our radio waves have traveled about 120 light years from Earth and yet we are capturing radio signals from 9 billion light years away. It’s a stretch to think other civilizations would be able to know to mask their presence well enough in advance.
All that dark space in the comic makes me think about how an unobservable/infinite being would appear.
2 Likes
I read a sci-fi book dividing sentient cultures to ‘sheep’ and ‘wolf’ based on their aggressivity (a book by Douglas E. Richards). The hypothesis behind this division was that aggressive ‘wolf’ species tend to self-destruct before they reach a critical point in space travel. Humans was calculated among the ‘wolf’ species, with the note that we will likely destroy ourselves before we spread to other planet systems.
‘Wolf’ species that get to the point where they have the ability to reach other planet systems have likely managed to get their aggressivity within a less dangerous zone.
If that hypothesis would be true, that would reduce the probability that we are attacked by human-type aggressive species. It is more likely that the sentient aliens with more advanced technology would not destroy us without a good reason. It would be a different story if the aggressive humans would reach the planet of another sentient species. Then we would be the dangerous aliens and the locals would probably try to defend themselves somehow.
Edit:
There are exceptions to basic rules and aggressive aliens that have the ability to travel through planet systems is a theoretical possibility. In the sci-fi book, there was a swarm-type aggressive, eusocial species coming towards Earth and threatening to wipe all life from this planet. Such exceptions are probably extremely rare because we still have life on Earth. In addition, the aggressive aliens would need to be somewhat stupid to destroy potential opportunities to reach something valuable.
This topic was automatically closed 6 days after the last reply. New replies are no longer allowed.