Posted on 10/11/2009 12:05:47 PM PDT by Dallas59
Those are strictly human concepts. It's a tough thing to get one's brain around, but the kind of human vanity that attacked Copernicus is the same kind of human vanity (except on a much, much larger scale) that will not allow us to think (think: another human concept) outside the box. It is, in fact, impossible for us.
If we have determined that we humans have five senses and assigned them labels, imagine how many more possible senses there could be. An infinite number? Why not? I sometimes look at plants and trees and wonder what senses they might have that we humans do not share. Whales, dolphins, bats, insects? Who knows?
And I have always marveled at how a teensy little fly can land on my arm and I go to smack it real quick and it usually gets away. What sense of time does that tiny insect with a brain the size of a grain of sand have that lets it be quicker than me? Does it sense (whatever kind of sense?) my hand coming at it in slow motion?
In any event, I maintain that the odds of making contact with beings that share any human senses, ie., the same "reality" (yet another human concept) as us is beyond calculation. It ain't happening.
It's fun to dream, though. That bar scene in Star Wars is still one of my favorites! Heck, I have an attic full of books by Heinlein, Asimov, and numerous others (not to mention the entire original Tom Swift collection), many purchased through the Science Fiction Book Club back in the 1960s. In 1966 I made my own model of the Enterprise and hung it from the ceiling in 8th grade art class following the third episode of Star Trek.
We may someday make "contact" with something "out there", but we probably won't even realize it if we do.
FRegards,
LH
...both carried small metal plaques identifying their time and place of origin for the benefit of any other spacefarers that might find them in the distant future....and at such time as they are found by ETs, an alien just like Sagan will pronounce them fakes.
http://www.garage-a-records.com
They might need a needle to play the record, that would really be unfortunate. And a DiscWasher. If they were to do this today, they could send an iPhone or iPod. Keep the battery charged up though! ;)
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