What a curious confluence of stuff. I can thank you for leading me to Eifelheim, which is about what you say, in this post, isn't going to happen, and then comment on the manner in which Occam's Razor, which you invoke, is lambasted in the very same book.
All in all, a productive post. 
Nicely thought through and spoken, Mark.
If I ever make it to Heaven, the first question I'd like to ask God is: "Why did you make the universe so ridiculously vast and fill it with so ridiculously many celestial bodies?"
Close second: "Why dinosaurs?"
Distant third: "Now where do I find my relatives?"
:-o
I think Mark's gonna be surprised when he finds out that God loves souls so much that He's made a lot of them.
Some religions can appear less odd if one thinks of them as the creation of a non-human intelligence.
Of course, there's a downside to this kind of thought-experiment: Many pagan deities and cults were believed by Christians to be the creation of demons.
Pavel:
I'm not fool enough to deny that God could create aliens. I'm simply saying that there is absolutely no evidence that any of them are within electronic earshot and that suggests that, if they are there, they are either much farther away, much less technological, or much quieter than the dreams of UFO devotees would suggest. It seems rather improbable that a billion highly technological civilizations could all keep so mum just for our benefit.
Mark,
People have been doing a lot of thinking about this, and not all of them are amateur UFO enthusiasts. We have no idea what a highly evolved technology is capable of, or knows, or might feel moved to do, nor will the physical science of the more advanced be a mere gloss on the Earth physics of 2007.
Physical principles remain to be discovered, but even so, it is conceivable that sentry machines, perhaps intelligent ones, are placed all around us in the solar system. We might not - in fact probably would not - know of their existence. Unless they wished us to know.
Nor can any of us be sure that other societies might be interested in holding discourse with us. We may think we're cute, but others might
not.
To others - those machines? - perhaps we would appear as a sort of carnivorous sheep.
The love of God surpasses understanding. Others might not be so tolerant or interested.
And there's this:
THE VISIBLE CASTLE
Titmouse hides in thorny briar
On these lowery cold days,
Rose the tip and green the wire,
Sinuous with hackles raised
No sparrow hawk or owl can
Stoop within this sharp defense,
Repellent, though a vine may bend,
Barricade that’s slight and dense
A cage of strands or airy castle,
Thick enough to keep a bird
Safe enough to hop and whistle,
Visible and also heard
And yet impervious to all
While it stays within its stall
Pavel
December 21, 2007
Radio signals might, to others, be the equivalent of smoke signals puffed aloft from a hilltop.
There are lots and lots of EM emissions besides radio. You're still telling me that a billion highly technological civilizations capable of interstellar travel would not give off one bit of EM radiation detectable from earth. I think that's a mighty tall order to ask me to buy.
You know what they say: Absence of evidence is not evidence of absence. There are many variables we're obviously not even aware of. We shall see, maybe.
Mr. Shea,
You ought to check out Peter Kreeft's thoughts on the subject. Definitely makes you think.
I certainly have no reason to believe that UFOs are alien visitors. The evidence against it is overwhelming.
But God is the Greatest Artist. That there might be untold trillions of other souls out there somewhere would not surprise me in the least.
"I certainly have no reason to believe that UFOs are alien visitors. The evidence against it is overwhelming."
So far as I can tell, the evidence is more or less neutral. The question is, are we talking about space ships as conceived of by 20 - 21st century Earth technology? *That* seems to me a non-starter. But an AI device the size of a basketball would be undetectable, if it wished to be. That's only an illustration.
I do completely agree that the Incarnation is incomparably more important.
Maybe there aren't any aliens, but there ARE Reavers out in space, you know!
Heresy, heresy Seriously, the number of celestial bodies is quite staggering as are the distances between bodies. The conditions for life not common on planets yet....we really can't say never. Jesus did say that there are many dwelling places in his father's house and he was going to prepare one for us. Who knows? It will be great fun to find out!
Live long, prosper, and die in Christ so that you may rise again in Christ!
Mark -- the galaxy is a dynamic place, and so are cultures. Our planet didn't begin to emit EM signals till 100 years ago. Will we be around and technologically competent 1,000 years from now, or will we destroy ourselves?
If there are intelligent beings out there, it's conceivable they ran through their entire cycle of technological competence millions of years before we had the wherewithal to detect it.
If there are 1,000 advanced civilisations in this galaxy, and if each stayed advanced for 1,000 earth years but developed at different points over the past, say, 2 billion years (not an unreasonable shot in the dark), the odds are only about 1 in 2,000 that there'd be one whose "wave" of EM would be washing ove us right now.
Not that I give much thought to ET life. It's something I expect to care very little about, unless I ever need to.
"The conditions for life not common on planets yet...."
Nobody knows this.
If there were advanced alien civilizations out there, I find it unlikely that we would ever detect them in the EM radiation. When you consider the distance and the way the strength of the signal decreases with distance, I think any signal would likely be lost in the general background radiation.
I think the distance issue is also very important when considering the likelihood of a visit by ETs. With the distances involved, I think the chance of being visited by creatures from another planet are very small.
"I think the distance issue is also very important when considering the likelihood of a visit by ETs. With the distances involved, I think the chance of being visited by creatures from another planet are very small."
Machines are generally not in any great hurry. If the machines are smart enough they can put together some organic critters too, when the time comes.
The movie "Contact" closed with this exchange (Paraphrase) "Are we alone in the universe? --Well if we are, it would be an awful waste of space." To which I say, "You are not judging by God's standards, but by Man's!" It does not follow from the mere fact of the universe's volume that it be filled. If God makes all things to show His glory, it is possible that we could be all alone in the Universe for that reason, to have a sign of His vastness--Zaccheus, there's your answer to your Question #1. And speaking of "an awful (i.e., "gratuitous") waste of space," read this story:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/scien...ure/
6962185.stm
Mark, this former physics major is in complete agreement with you.
"Mark, this former physics major is in complete agreement with you."
That in itself is marvelous, since you and Mark are not saying the same thing.
Pavel, I suppose you are right, in that we draw different lessons ("We are bound for Heaven" / "The heavens declare the glory of God") from the same supposition: we are (effectively) alone in the Universe. But our conclusions are no less true for being different.
"...we are (effectively) alone in the Universe."
At this point, moot point.
Wow, and I sent that link along only for the fun of it. Didn't think /this/ post would be the result.
I'm rather into sci-fi stuff myself, and I don't see a problem with the possibility of aliens. However, I don't equate that with some kind of eschatological ultimate destiny like Mark is talking about. I suppose the point is that, in a time when Christ is forgotten, the people will find an ersatz substitute, whether it's aliens, or reason, or the rise of the Ubermensch, or science, or whatever. If we are to look up to the sky, our first concern should not be with aliens (who, if they do exist, we're likely to meet anyway through Providence), but with the Second Coming. The spiritual must take precedence over the temporal, no matter how fantastic the latter may seem to us.
With that said, I thought I'd relate that I was one of those dorks in middle/high school who liked to look at maps, and, well, this UFP map looked kinda neat n.n
Do dinosaurs emit EM waves? Maybe the smartest being on some distant rock is an E.T.osaurus Rex ... so far. Give that rock a few hundred million years and p'raps it'll be EM'ing the living daylights out of us.
Contact!
Now is time for me to mention YET AGAIN.
There are no Aliens in the Science Fiction Comedy RED DWARF!
Now for the traditional RD quotes:
"Rimmer, there's nothing out there, you know. There's nobody out there. No alien monsters, no Zargon warships, no beautiful blondes with beehive hairdos who say, `Show me some more of this Earth thing called kissing.’ There's just you, me, the Cat, and a lot of floating smegging rocks. That's it. Finito." – David Lister, Third Technician JMC Red Dwarf.
"For a period, ships full of astros in stasis booths were hurled out of our solar system, and interstellar travel enjoyed its golden age. The big hope, of course, was that they'd contact intelligent life. They didn't. Not even a moderately intelligent plant. Not even a stupid plant. Nothing. And it was surmised correctly, though it was not confirmed for a further two thousand years, that Mankind was completely and totally and inexplicably alone. In all of the universe, the planet Earth was the only planet with any life forms. That's all there was."
-RED DWARF:Infinity Welcomes Careful Drivers" (part 1, chapter 14)
The original FOUNDATION Trilogy by Asimov had an all humans Galactic Empire(no aliens). The Dune Saga has no intelligent aliens. FIREFLY has no aliens. So far the new BATTLESTAR GALACTICA has no aliens.
No aliens Sci-fi RULZ! Aliens are a clichie! INDEPENENCE DAY? PULEEZ! Why would aliens fly 10,000 lys to rape our planet when they would have thousands of uninhabited planets to rape along the way that would offer zero resistence?
BOYZ FROM THE DWARF!!! IN SPACE NOBODY CAN HEAR YOU SMEG!!!!
God made the universe as big as it is so that the system that he designed would have a (reasonably) good chance of harboring a planet on which intelligent life developed without foolish ID-style tampering. It wasn't a "waste" of space, it's only how big it has to be so that the odds result in at least one planet with evolved life.
This is no more a waste than the engine room of a nuclear sub is a waste. It's what's required to make the kind of thing you want to make.
God wanted to make a universe that produced and sustained life according to its own integrity, which is its own specific, partial, and analogous participation in the divine Logos.
So, even though Mark's wet blanket attitude regarding aliens makes me sad, I suspect he's probably right. (Although we don't yet know what the odds are of life emerging from this system we call the Universe, so maybe each galaxy has one or two earth-like planets. Or maybe each galactic cluster does. Or maybe we don't have much of a frickin' clue. But the new Battlestar Galactica totally rocks.)
Also, I'll bet God feels (analogously) towards dinosaurs like the Ford engineers felt towards the Shelby Cobra when it first rolled off the line: well, it didn't have to be done exactly this way, but, dang, look how cool it turned out.
"...so maybe each galaxy has one or two earth-like planets. "
Already out of date observationally, and the more advanced instruments aren't even in orbit yet.
But Mark's point was that each life-bearing system, if it exists, is effectively segregated from the others.
Who knows?
Oh my heavens, I can't believe that in all this interesting conversation no one here has been reminded of Walker Percy's brilliant book "Lost in the Cosmos" !!!
It is part satire, part novella, and part serious essay, and the basic question is, why are we so hopeful that there is life elsewhere in the universe? Why is there such a strong impetus to find others "out there"?
And it being Walker Percy, it's such a pleasure to read. And bears on the discussion here. (For those not familiar with Percy, it does contain some crudity and bad language, but all to the point.)
"...why are we so hopeful that there is life elsewhere in the universe? "
In the book, it seems that Percy's fictional device is that somewhere in the universe there may be species less screwed up than we are.
But the main theme, I believe, is an overview of our alienation from reality.
Unless they were malevolent and out to destroy us, for whom on earth could ET's be a problem except theologians and apologists?
Nobody has any idea what an ET might be like or motivated to do, or not do. I guess.
"Foolish ID-style tampering"
So, you believe that aliens wouldn't be loved by God as much as us, and invested in the same salvation, or do you mean we aren't designed by God either?
Anti-ID Catholics frankly are the biggest nonsense of all, believing in a God, but saying He has nothing to do with how we turned out. Deism and the watchmaker analogy are alive and well these days I see.
To be clear, by Intelligent Design, I mean not that God had us living with dinosaurs ala Fred Flintstone, but the dummies didn't make the Ark ride. What I mean is simply compared to the Darwinist's notion of complete random chance being the only thing making man, a Christian must believe God had a hand in designing us, or cease being Christian. The Bible says we are not just a cosmic accident, and the Bible should not be optional.
First of all: Merry Christmas!
... or do you mean we aren't designed by God either?
Anti-ID Catholics frankly are the biggest nonsense of all, believing in a God, but saying He has nothing to do with how we turned out. Deism and the watchmaker analogy are alive and well these days I see.
Oh no, I don't believe that God had nothing to do with designing us. He totally did. Let me offer an analogy:
Let's just say that the ID guys are right, and that God directly encoded the DNA of sugar maple trees. Even so, he did not directly interfere with the nature of his creation to direct the development of the particular sugar maple tree that I can see right now in my parents' front yard. Rather, he allowed the tree to develop according to laws of biological development interacting with environmental factors that exist in Laconia, NH, like temperature, soil acidity, pruning by people, animals grazing, etc. All those non-miraculous factors work along with the internal laws of maple tree development to (naturally) cause the resulting design of that particular maple tree that I built a fort in when I was a kid.
But none of us would say that God didn't design that particular maple tree. He did. That particular maple tree in all its particularity was in his mind from the very moment of creation. His supernatural causation was undergirding not only the complexity of the DNA, but also the temperature, soil acidity, pruning, grazing, etc. He used those secondary causes as instruments to produce what was in his mind to produce, but he did it in a way that he did not have to override the nature of the world that he had already given it.
Now, take a step back. All I'm saying is that just like the design of this particular maple tree is basically encoded in the DNA and the nature of the environment, and didn't require extra fiddling to bring it about, in the very same way the complexity of DNA and all of life is encoded in the nature of the universe itself: all the natures of electrons and protons and neutrons and gravity and electromagnetism, and, um, ... stuff have within them the potentiality (in the Thomistic sense) to produce creatures like we are, and God so created the universe so that it would do this.
So, basically, I do believe in Intelligent Design. I just think that the intelligent design happened farther back. It happened when God created the universe in all its integrity way back when.
Deism is wrong because God is continually creating at every moment. At every moment he is saying to this particular electron, "Have negative charge", and this particular proton, "Have positive charge". At every moment he is saying, "Let there be light," and if he were to take his attention away from his creation for a second, and stop actively willing (in love) for things to be as they are, they would collapse into nothingness.
In his providence he is continually watching over his creation and willing it to have the complexity and nature that it does, to produce by its own nature and laws creatures like what we are.
So, presumably (though I admit we don't completely know all the details, yet), God specifically and directly acts in only two cases:
1. when he creates each individual human soul, which cannot, metaphysically, be solely a product of the laws of the universe, and
2. when he miraculously and directly acts in history to bring about our salvation (and this would include the Exodus, inspiration of scripture, miracles, Jesus Christ, the descent of the Holy Spirit, the nature of the Church, etc.)
The ID guys insist that there's no way the universe could, by its own laws and nature, produce creatures like what we are. I think they're wrong about that, but I don't think that we don't show signs of design. The signs of design are the very fact that we are intelligent and intelligible, that there are consistent laws of the universe that produce and sustain beings like what we are.
If you're interested, I recommend the book, Life's Solution, by Simon Conway Morris. He takes an axe to Stephen Jay Gould's notion that evolution is completely random, and makes a compelling case.
Merry Christmas to all, and to all a good night!
Oh, well, if that's what you mean, then by all means. I can fully see God setting the universe in motion in a way to produce us. It's kind of like a billiards expert or a Rube Goldberg machine, the initial action seems simple, but the calculations in place that have been set up make amazing things happen.
The one thing I think we need to be careful about though is that at some point either humans were created or ape things became definably human. Otherwise, the business about Original Sin and Immortal Souls becomes complete nonsense, and leads to there being no reason to believe the Church. I'm sure we can all work out the line of reasoning on that one and that I will not have to get specific.
"So, basically, I do believe in Intelligent Design. I just think that the intelligent design happened farther back. It happened when God created the universe in all its integrity way back when."
If God were something like a human engineer - excluding the human nature of Christ - your hypothesis would be plausible.
I don't think it's true. Of course, to know and control and love everything, you'd have to be God. Omniscient. Omnipotent.
As for free will - yes, that too. How?
You'd have to be God to answer that question.
Ah, so we're mostly on the same page, Jarnor. Eeeexcellent.
I would say, however, that I don't think the universe is quite like a Rube Goldberg contraption where God has to set it up all perfectly so that an end result necessarily happens as a result of a deterministic chain of events, like dominoes or ... um ... a Rube Goldberg contraption.
Rather, the universe unfolds its own nature through time, like a tree growing from a seed. The particular vibrations of water molecules next to the roots are "random" as far as the tree goes (uncorrelated with the tree's own nature), but the nature of the tree is such that it grabs ahold of those molecules as they follow their random paths, and then by the laws of its nature utilizes those molecules to further its own growth. The growth and unfolding of its nature is not due to an elaborate predetermined set-up. The growth and unfolding of the tree's nature is due to the inner principle of unity that is the vegetable soul of the tree acting on whatever is in the environment.
What the inner principle of unity that incorporates and unifies the "random" events to bring about life in the Universe is, exactly, I don't know. I'm sure it's not a soul (even a vegetable or animal soul), but certainly analogously similar. But in any case, it's totally there. Otherwise, we're stuck with God constantly twiddling with his universe (which is frankly inelegant and contrary to the evidence) or else things being truly random, a la Stephen Jay Gould (and that's lame, unscientific, and boring).
The Replies to the other Objections are evident from what has been said.
The Bible seems to feel that stars are intelligent alien beings. In which case, I feel that Mark should apologize forthwith to our large and conspicuous neighbor for not believing in him.
(Yes, yes, angels, literary figure of speech, blah blah, I know. But Diana Wynne Jones has an excellent fantasy, Dogsbody, on this very topic, there have been a few excellent sf stories along these lines, stars really do sing, and we have no evidence to the contrary that they aren't intelligent albeit living very slowly. So there.)
*tongue stuck out*
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