It's been said that man has to be very naive

[Jonathan Bailey]

to think there couldn't possibly be any other intelligent life in this universe.

Man also has to be quite naive to not think there is possibly a supreme being.

The same case of being so naive is to think there can't be any life following our own deaths or to think there couldn't have been any past life preceding our current lives.

Time is endless from past to future: since there is a constant state of forever, everything becomes possible as only a matter of time.

Who knows how many lives we have already had in the past and shall have in the future.

Life to me is consciousness regardless of the state of the physical body; it's the very soul. As long as I am thinking, perceiving and knowing, I am ALIVE.

Death is an even greater mystery than life to the human mind.

What is death and life really?

To quote the character of Tom Berenger in the 1986 film, Platoon, "What do you all really know about death?"

 

[Valjean]

to think there couldn't possibly be any other intelligent life in this universe.
Man also has to be quite naive to not think there is possibly a supreme being.

The same case of being so naive is to think there can't be any life following our own deaths or to think there couldn't have been any past life preceding our current lives.

Time is endless from past to future: since there is a constant state of forever, everything becomes possible as only a matter of time.

Who knows how many lives we have already had in the past and shall have in the future.

There is reason to think there might be life elsewhere. There is no reason to think there might be a supreme being.

 

[Jonathan Bailey]

There is reason to think there might be life elsewhere. There is no reason to think there might be a supreme being.

There is a reason to think there might be an intelligence superior to us humans.

There is no logical reason to conclude that once we die a physical death we are gone for absolute good.

The fact is no living person knows for fact what becomes of our minds and souls once we die: we can only observe the state of the physical body and that's all. The so-called dead can't speak to us of their experiences in regards to the state of being dead, whatever 'being dead" really is.

 

[lewisnotmiller]

To quote the character of Tom Berenger in the 1986 film, Platoon, "What do you all really know about death?"

Doesn't that kinda damn anyone making a claim about death though?
For me, I stick to what I 'know' or can reasonably suspect. It's a very small list, to be honest.

 

[Jonathan Bailey]

Doesn't that kinda damn anyone making a claim about death though?
For me, I stick to what I 'know' or can reasonably suspect. It's a very small list, to be honest.

The possibilities are horrible: one cheap horror film I saw back in the 1980's even suggested the dead might feel pain even in the grave and need to eat living people to avert the suffering. I can only hope and pray death isn't a state of eternal torment.

 

[lewisnotmiller]

The possibilities are horrible: one cheap horror film I saw back in the 1980's even suggested the dead might feel pain even in the grave and need to eat living people to avert the suffering. I can only hope and pray death isn't a state of eternal torment.

I wouldn't know who to pray to. My brother-in-law has a laser-sighted crossbow, so I've already told him I'm heading there if the zombie apocalypse occurs.

 

[Spirit of Light]

to think there couldn't possibly be any other intelligent life in this universe.

Man also has to be quite naive to not think there is possibly a supreme being.

The same case of being so naive is to think there can't be any life following our own deaths or to think there couldn't have been any past life preceding our current lives.

Time is endless from past to future: since there is a constant state of forever, everything becomes possible as only a matter of time.

Who knows how many lives we have already had in the past and shall have in the future.

Life to me is consciousness regardless of the state of the physical body; it's the very soul. As long as I am thinking, perceiving and knowing, I am ALIVE.

Death is an even greater mystery than life to the human mind.

What is death and life really?

To quote the character of Tom Berenger in the 1986 film, Platoon, "What do you all really know about death?"

The only thing we can be certain of in life is that one day we die the rest is uncertain

 

[Heyo]

One has to be naïve to believe in things without compelling evidence. One has also to be naïve to rule out something without compelling evidence.
"I don't know." is the only mature thing to say in both cases. But that seems to be a very hard thing to admit for many people.

 

[Spirit of Light]

One has to be naïve to believe in things without compelling evidence. One has also to be naïve to rule out something without compelling evidence.
"I don't know." is the only mature thing to say in both cases. But that seems to be a very hard thing to admit for many people.

Can i ask what you mean by "One has also to be naïve to rule out something without compelling evidence." ?

 

[Heyo]

Can i ask what you mean by "One has also to be naïve to rule out something without compelling evidence." ?

There are things we know to be impossible, like a married bachelor. There are thing we can prove to be impossible through logic, like an omnipotent being. And then there are things we infer to not exist on evidence. An example would be the famous Black Swan (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Black_swan_theory). We knew for milienia that there were no black swans - in Europe, Asia or Africa. It came as a total surprise when they were found in Australia.
One has to be very careful when ruling out something simply on a fallacy of antiquity or incredulity.

 

[Nimos]

to think there couldn't possibly be any other intelligent life in this universe.

I think most people believe that there is other lifeforms in the universe, but whether it have an intelligent matching our capabilities is another story.

One of the issues is that the Universe is big and old. So we don't really have any clue how long intelligent lifeforms exists, as they would most likely face a lot of the same issues as we have.

So looking at ourselves, we have already been very close to going extinct once, we could at pretty much any time be wiped out by something from space. We have managed to start an "extinction" of animals and plants on our own planet, pretty much in what you could call in a blink of an eye in cosmic time scale.

We have no effective defense against threats from space, we have no workable solution to the environmental issues we are facing. We have manage to create a global system, which is pretty much causing us to be stuck in a deadlock, which makes changes very difficult. We have fought wars from pretty much the dawn of man over resources, and despite facing a lot of issues, we continue to do so, which have just gotten worse in the scale of which we do this. And this is basically just in the last 1000 years. We still have no ways to actually leave and spread to other planets in an effective way, even if we were able to travel at the speed of light, the distance in space is so huge that it is very difficult to do so.

So putting it into perspective, looking at how we have manage to treat Earth in the last 1000 years and the Universe being roughly 14 billions years old, it would basically mean that even if modern humans manage to survive 50000 years, before going extinct, our existences in the Universe would be so short, that it could be considered a miracle if any other intelligent lifeforms should be living within a "reasonable" distance from us and be able to discover and even reach us in time, before we go extinct. The mere chance of them existing at the same time as us would be close to zero and most likely also possible to be considered a miracle.

In the end it completely depends on how easy it is for intelligent life to developer and survive and looking at ourselves, it seems to indicate that the chances for that is very low.

Time is endless from past to future: since there is a constant state of forever, everything becomes possible as only a matter of time.

Definitely not, since we know that the Universe is expanding and things are moving further and further apart, which means that eventually we or anyone else won't even be able to see any stars in the night sky. And eventually the sun will consume Earth and the rest of the known solar system.

What is death and life really?

Agree this is what is important and only matters to lifeforms, the Universe does not seem to really favor life. As pretty much everything out there would instantly kill us and makes it extremely difficult to go anywhere. Despite humans ability to adapt to new environments, we have to develop extreme means of travel, but also being able to find suitable planets which can support us or terraform them to fit our needs.

Then you run into a new issue, which is gravity. For instance a person born on Mars, is most likely unable to travel to Earth and do well here due to the difference in gravity, as their bones might not be capable of that. So the amount of issues from spreading into space, even to the closest planet, is not something that is easily done and we have very limited data about how exactly this would turn out.

So at least in my opinion, if we want to survive, we have to learn to take care of Earth and each other first. Realize that humans are one species which fight is not among ourselves, but against the Universe

 

[Jonathan Bailey]

One has to be naïve to believe in things without compelling evidence. One has also to be naïve to rule out something without compelling evidence.
"I don't know." is the only mature thing to say in both cases. But that seems to be a very hard thing to admit for many people.

One should never say something is IMPOSSIBLE without absolute knowledge of the alleged impossibility. What do I know about the supposed consciousness of the dead if such thing even exists? Not a damn thing. I am open to many possibilities. Only time will tell what will really happen.The fact is living people in the flesh know so damn little about death it's not even funny.

One thing is for certain: what shall be shall be.

 

[Mock Turtle]

It's been said that man has to be very naïve - to think there couldn't possibly be any other intelligent life in this universe.

Starting off with something quite sensible then.

Man also has to be quite naive to not think there is possibly a supreme being.

Possibly is the correct word to use in my view, which is why I am slightly agnostic on this. But 'supreme being' might be open to debate.

The same case of being so naive is to think there can't be any life following our own deaths or to think there couldn't have been any past life preceding our current lives.

Now we are into the realms of speculation - and possibly aided by one's own desires for such.

Time is endless from past to future: since there is a constant state of forever, everything becomes possible as only a matter of time.

More speculation. And not being a scientist with sufficient knowledge (who has anyway?), we just don't know about any of this. It is just speculation. We do know that some things change, are born, or are destroyed. Time, we surely don't know much about, especially as to our past or future and that of the universe.

Who knows how many lives we have already had in the past and shall have in the future.

As atoms perhaps, we will probably never know, but as conscious entities we again are in the realms of speculation.

Life to me is consciousness regardless of the state of the physical body; it's the very soul. As long as I am thinking, perceiving and knowing, I am ALIVE.

Fine, if it wasn't tied to a material body but apparently it is.

Death is an even greater mystery than life to the human mind.

What is death and life really?

To quote the character of Tom Berenger in the 1986 film, Platoon, "What do you all really know about death?"

Death as an ending of one's life is I would think quite an easy concept. Pity some just refuse to contemplate the simplicity of this - with fear possibly being the major factor?

 

[A Vestigial Mote]

There is no logical reason to conclude that once we die a physical death we are gone for absolute good.

There are plenty of logical reasons to conclude that physical/mental death results in the unique thing you call "you" being gone forever. Just look at snowflakes - as simplistic the structure is, no two are identical, perhaps close, but there are simply far too many variables and variations for there to be two completely identical snowflakes. They are made up of hundreds of thousands of molecules. For all those molecules between two snowflakes to be arranged in exactly the same way naturally is nearly impossible - add onto that that it must then also be the exact same atoms in play at some point and you are talking impossible.

And that's where you are at with the human body/mind/experience, except multiplied by some significant, huge factor of obfuscation. Here you have a being whose formation is dependent on a specific egg and sperm cell from among millions coming together, each with very specific DNA strands that themselves are composed of a great number of nucleotide subunits in a very long molecular chain with extremely specific attributes. Once that is out of the way, you then have the gestation process, during which all of the mother's intake of nutrients has an effect on the developing fetus. At birth, whatever conditions the DNA commingling and nurture during gestation provide the developed organism (now a baby human) are determined and these are basically the "base" set of attributes that this particular human will move forward into life with. Then you have nurture throughout childhood, effects of experience and life/livelihood, unique series of memories that no other human has had or will have in exact duplication ever again. Even the conditions of the Earth itself are guaranteed not to be the same for any two time-periods that could constitute some birth and then "rebirth" of one being into two separately lived lives. On top of ALL of that, even given infinite time, if somehow all of the stars aligned and another planet developed along the exact same lines as Earth and something exactly like "YOU" was again born under the exact same conditions, and let's pretend that this being experienced all the same things, and it's neural pathways were built into exactly the same configuration, and let's even say that both YOU and this "new you" are composed of exactly the same molecules. Do you really believe that the consciousness and memories, personality and awareness are really YOU again? Are they somehow the YOU that you experience now? Do you understand how preposterous that is?

 

[HonestJoe]

to think there couldn't possibly be any other intelligent life in this universe.

”Man” doesn’t think that. Some men (and women) do but then some men (and women) think they’ve ridden in Marian spaceships – it takes all kinds. The logical position held by rational minds of other life in the universe is that it is perfectly likely that some kind of other life exists (or has existed) elsewhere in the universe and possible that such life could develop to the point of higher intelligence. We currently have absolutely no evidence of any such life within (the highly limited scope of) our ability to observe though.

Man also has to be quite naive to not think there is possibly a supreme being.

”Man” doesn’t think that either, though the term “supreme being” raises a whole load of questions before anyone can really reach a conclusion. If you’re talking about whichever of the lifeforms that exists is the most “powerful”, obviously one will exists by definition. If you’re getting in to omnipotence and other “supernatural” concepts, you’re suddenly asking a much wider question. By the first definition, the correct position is exactly the same as for alien life, not least because the question is essentially the same one too.

The same case of being so naive is to think there can't be any life following our own deaths or to think there couldn't have been any past life preceding our current lives.

That depends on what “life” actually is. If it simply describes the physiological processes of a living thing between conception and death, there is no life after death by definition. Death is literally the word we use to mean “the end of life”. If life continues somehow, it hasn’t died by common definition. Regardless, we currently have no valid reason to assume that anything of our consciousness or intelligence continues to exist after death. Anything else is empty speculation.

None of this is to claim anything you describe here is impossible but literally noting is impossible. There could be an invisible elephant in your refrigerator, it’s just extremely unlikely, so unlikely that it isn’t worthy you investing and time or effort in to the possibility. And that’s the key. It doesn’t really matter what is possible, only what it is worth us doing about all of the countless possibilities.

Life to me is consciousness regardless of the state of the physical body; it's the very soul. As long as I am thinking, perceiving and knowing, I am ALIVE.

Are you saying plants aren’t alive or that they are conscious?

 

[LuisDantas]

There is reason to think there might be life elsewhere. There is no reason to think there might be a supreme being.

This.

Speculation about a "supreme being" is just so pointless.

 

[Nakosis]

To quote the character of Tom Berenger in the 1986 film, Platoon, "What do you all really know about death?"

Nothing, so I choose not to make any predictions about it.

 

[Shadow Wolf]

There is a reason to think there might be an intelligence superior to us humans.

That's a given. What isn't logical is the assumption this being must be god. The red is no reason for this assumption, or i would be "god" to all but a small percentage of humans. It would be nice, but that's not the case despite my high intelligenc.

There is no logical reason to conclude that once we die a physical death we are gone for absolute good.

There is no logical reason to believe death isn't death. We have evidence the brain is our "operating system," and we know biological functions can continue despite what we call the person being dead. And if someone didn't have their brain, they don't have what made them "them."

 

[PureX]

"A supreme being" is such a strange and vague term that I can't really fault anyone for not resonating with it.

 

[Jonathan Bailey]

There are things we know to be impossible, like a married bachelor. There are thing we can prove to be impossible through logic, like an omnipotent being. And then there are things we infer to not exist on evidence. An example would be the famous Black Swan (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Black_swan_theory). We knew for milienia that there were no black swans - in Europe, Asia or Africa. It came as a total surprise when they were found in Australia.
One has to be very careful when ruling out something simply on a fallacy of antiquity or incredulity.

I've seen no proof ruling out the existence of any omnipotent being. The simple fact is I don't know the existence for a fact of such being one way or another.