2012 Prophecy

[Ursa major]

To save a lot of time, I think I ought to post what J Riff's explanation will eventually morph into (due to accumulating misunderstandings as it is passed between the more credulous visitors to the Web): "They used rock brought all the way from Mars."

 

[Anthony G Williams]

To save a lot of time, I think I ought to post what J Riff's explanation will eventually morph into (due to accumulating misunderstandings as it is passed between the more credulous visitors to the Web): "They used rock brought all the way from Mars."

Naturally. The stuff is so rare here on Earth, after all...

 

[Dave]

Yes it was all done with "Heat Rays" and if you look carefully you can the marks left by "Red Weed"!

 

[Anthony G Williams]

Yes it was all done with "Heat Rays" and if you look carefully you can the marks left by "Red Weed"!

Is that a particularly potent form of cannabis? Enquiring minds want to know...

 

[Dave]

Is that a particularly potent form of cannabis? Enquiring minds want to know...

Really Anthony, I can't believe you're asking me that. Red Weed is what makes Mars that dull red colour. It is the only Martian plant species that adapts to grow on Earth and it competes against our native Earth species.

 

[Anthony G Williams]

Really Anthony, I can't believe you're asking me that. Red Weed is what makes Mars that dull red colour. It is the only Martian plant species that adapts to grow on Earth and it competes against our native Earth species.

Oh, of course...silly me. Xenobotany is not one of my strong points.

 

[mosaix]

First, I believe it said that rocks only fit closely on the 'dressed' surface.

Exactly. When viewed from above only a thin edge of the front face of the rock fits well with its neighbour. The 'interior' faces have hardly been worked at all.

BTW just spent a few days close to Hadrian's wall. Twenty four million stone blocks cut and built into a wall in just over 6 years. More volume of cut stone than in all the pyramids put together. I'm sure that if there had been any alien help then the Romans would have told us about it.

Let's not forget that human beings are an incredible race capable of incredible things.

 

[RJM Corbet]

Exactly. When viewed from above only a thin edge of the front face of the rock fits well with its neighbour. The 'interior' faces have hardly been worked at all.

What happens if that's not true though, Mosaix? Because it's not, you know ... at least not in the case of those Inca/Aztec blocks

 

[J Riff]

One thing that's never been reported, in thousands of UFO cases, is any record of aliens working stone. In no culture do we find depicted a saucer dragging bricks around to make a playhouse for the humans.
But back to 2012...and the people who are supposedly waiting to be heard from. The exact words they heard were 'You are off the hook - except for disclosure.'
Not one of them has any official status, or ever did. Hide in plain sight.
What seems to have happened to bollix the whole thing, is that the Govt. initially sent people up there, based on what they had around...human 'material' so to speak... rather than sending their own valuable, visible people up.
So now, none of them, the ones afraid to take the risk but happy to take the glory and the paycheck... are having real difficulty with the fact that they aren't in control of anything at all, and most certainly have been seen through by any superior intelligence that may be around.
IF anything happens re: disclosure... watch for the human Govt/Military types to try and scramble back on top, assign credit to their own people in the ranks, who did zip.
Too dangerous, you see? We can't risk a trained astronaut, one of our own boys, on a mission that... oh-oh.
So it's possible that Aliens have contacted 'normal' people first, as opposed to anyone visible in any Govt. program, though indeed they were in said program, minus any and all paperwork including paycheques.
Would you be willing to claim credit for a space mission you never went on?
Nobody wants to think the military would outright lie, but of course they did, especially after the UFO issue became the highest priority in the world, overiding the freedom of information act and anything else.
Like G. Cooper said after they turfed his UFO vid: "How can I find out anything?
The converse is true as well, 'How can I disclose anything?"
I'm all for the lie as far as neccessary, but then it goes much too far.

'Doesn''t exist.' when applied to such a person, should mean 'is kept secret, but is valued.'
But then...hey! This guy really doesn't exist! Let's see how hard we can squash him, get rid of him, bury, incriminate, discredit etc. etc. etc.
Would having Aliens arrive change this system? One would hope so.

I'm fairly sure the average person never thinks about stuff like this when considering UFOs. They probably think there is a crack Govt. team somewhere who takes care of this stuff. Highly-paid professionals who live in active intelligence communities of decent people.
There isn't any such thing. They were afraid to send their golden boys into danger, but now will try to stick them back up on any new pedestal that shows up.
That's the only downside to 2012, if it turns out to be anything, the depressing egomania of certain groups of people.

 

[RJM Corbet]

Being the very materialistic society that we are, with government and military at the head of things -- we assume that a superior alien culture will be like us, just more advanced technologically.

I don't think that's necessarily true at all. Jesus walked on water ... they say ...

 

[RJM Corbet]

Contact?

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_KoR2t-iM9k&feature=player_detailpage

 

[Dave]

...we assume that a superior alien culture will be like us, just more advanced technologically...

If aliens exist and they have Carbon/Water chemistries, I think it is safe to assume that intelligent life would have binocular vision, bipedal motion and be human sized. These things have biological, chemical and physical reasons for being at an optimum when human-like. So, I think Pierson's Puppeteers will be unlikely, and Star Trek's 'nose and forehead' aliens might not be so far off the mark. If they have other chemistries, Silicon/Ammonia or live in Helium clouds, well then who knows what they would be like. Would that mean that they had the same human values because they looked vaguely humanoid? Almost probably not, but still, because we have descended from Herbivores that became Carnivores we have certain pre-set hard-wired values. A Carnivore like a Kzin, or Herbivore like a Puppeteer would act very differently. Would the Aliens believe in Truth, Capitalism, Democracy and the 'American Way'? No, that is only in the movies! Would they be more advanced technologically? Well, if they have come to us they would have to be. If they have come to us and have remained undetected for as long as you claim they have, they they would have to be very much superior!

 

[J Riff]

I don't know how much superior, but if Saucers have been around for a long time, at what point did they begin hiding from people, and why? Maybe they just like hanging in clouds all day, it's nice and fresh in there.
Insect lifeforms with warm blood... that's a lot of evolution, as if the Silurian era never ended, and they extended their natural flight abilities to an interplanetary level.
We're told that spider webs are stronger than steel. Could one make a spaceship out of it? With 8 arms an octopus can do 3 things at once. Never hire a human typist again!

 

[Dave]

Insect lifeforms with warm blood... that's a lot of evolution, as if the Silurian era never ended, and they extended their natural flight abilities to an interplanetary level.

Exoskeletons... so inefficient and yesterday! All that shedding of skins!

But, I could believe your idea of an ancient terrestrial species leaving Earth far more readily than an extra-terrestrial one. I think there is a SF story there to be written.

Explains why they hide from us too. We have been at War with insects longer than we have with ourselves. They probably began hiding around the time of the invention of DDT.

 

[Ursa major]

But, I could believe your idea of an ancient terrestrial species leaving Earth far more readily than an extra-terrestrial one. I think there is a SF story there to be written.

This was the premise of The Event, as revealed in what will probably prove to be the last episode to be made.

 

[RJM Corbet]

Sometimes I see a tiny little snail or something, going about its own business and concerns, which are just as important to it as my own are to me.

What right has man to assume that he has all the knowledge and all the answers?

 

[Anthony G Williams]

What right has man to assume that he has all the knowledge and all the answers?

Whoever suggested that we have?

I visualise knowledge about life, the universe and all that as being like a vast jigsaw puzzle, which mankind is slowly piecing together. We have a lot of the outer frame in place (with some major reservations to do with the relationships between the various forces and subatomic particles) and the simpler parts of the puzzle have been fitted together quite thoroughly. We still have a long way to go before the puzzle is complete, however, and we may never get there - our civilisation may collapse first.

The important point is that we have gradually developed a reasonable understanding of the overall nature of the puzzle, so we can see what is likely to fit and what is not. We know what we don't know, so to speak. Which means that although we don't know everything (not by a long way) we know enough to make informed judgments about what might feasibly exist and what might not.

 

[RJM Corbet]

Yes but all our science ends where our skin does. It's all about the body.

We can't think about 'life' as what animates the form, and not as a product of the form. To our scientific western culture, thought is a product of the the brain's activity. How conceited we little humans must appear to be, in our scientific knowledge.

Are vast, inter-dimensional beings going to cross space in metal tin cans just because that's the only way we can conceive of doing it?

Are beings to whom time/space is no more than a door is to us, going to be anything we can even begin to imagine? We perceive with our five natural senses. Other forms of life may be invisible to our natural senses, or choose to make themselves visible. They might not be limited by time/space at all.

 

[Anthony G Williams]

Yes but all our science ends where our skin does. It's all about the body.

Eh? Where did you get that notion from? Science is simply a methodology - it's a way of making sense of the world through observation, collecting and testing evidence, and devising theories to account for the observations. It can be applied to any phenomena, and is well proven as not just the best, but the only effective, way of making sense of life, the universe and all that.

We can't think about 'life' as what animates the form, and not as a product of the form. To our world, the brain produces thought. How conceited we little humans really are ...

The question of consciousness is one of the most difficult areas to understand. But there is a steadily growing body of evidence that links aspects of consciousness with types of brain function. By conducting scans of brain activity while asking people to concentrate on particular things, researchers are already beginning to be able to identify what kind of thoughts are associated with different kinds of brain activity.

I am not aware of any evidence for thought taking place in the absence of a brain...what do you think the brain has developed for?

 

[RJM Corbet]

Sorry Anthony, I edited and added to my post while you were writing yours. It's a bad habit I have to get out of ...

EDIT: Doing it again! What does a cat see through those eyes? Does it see what we see? Does it see into other dimensions? Does a cat see me as pure energy, or as a bundle of light fibers? I do not know. But I certainly do not assume that because I can't see or measure something ...