'Two possibilities exist: either we are alone in the universe or we are not. Both are equally terrifying.' Which is more terrifying for you?

Neither of them bother me much.

That we are alone. I find the thought that there is other sentient life out there to be comforting.

Terrifying is not the right word... Not being alone is exciting... Being alone is kind of sad, but OK.

If we are alone in the universe, that would be far more scary...

Except we're not...far from it.

Human beings from planet earth are very irrelevant in the bigger scale of things.

Sorry God...

Neither are.

Neither is terrifying.

If we're alone, it just means other planets didn't evolve any life on them (yet). If the pulsar theory is to be believed, maybe in the next cycle the universe will produce more than one planet with life. Maybe none. Maybe just one. Either way, its no biggie.

If there are more planets with life, I guess they could potentially kill us all if they wanted to. But if they had murderous intent, and the technological capability, they would likely have killed us already. And they haven't.

So thats that.

I don't see a problem with either. Having company would certainly be more interesting, but we still have our hands full exploring what's here already.

Pulsar theory? That we undergo cyclic big bangs and implosions? I came up with that one on my own, and read Hawkings explain it, but to think of it in terms of pulsar frequency is rather exciting, especialy if every pulsar is actually a location where universes come and go on a different time scale.

In such terms it's exciting just how crazy the actual nature of the universe might be. Once in awhile I reflect on how amazing it is that matter and time exist at all.

Neither terrify me, actually. But if I had to pick, it would be that we're alone in the universe.

I personally do not find either possibility terrifying. Given the amount of space and matter in the Universe though, the possibility that we are alone in the Universe seems quite unlikely to me.

Finding other life in the universe would be exciting and enthralling. Being alone would be sad and lonely.

Neither

I thought you were going to go fundamental here. Traditionally the Catholic church has promoted the idea of the universe revolving around the Earth, but there's nothing in Genesis which makes the claim that Earth and man were the only such creations in the universe.

Even if creation were of the biblical description, there could be other similar planets with their own biblical histories.

I have no idea if there are others that live in the universe, only God knows.

..and the others, of course.

> to think of it in terms of pulsar frequency is rather exciting, especialy
> if every pulsar is actually a location where universes come and go
> on a different time scale.
>

Time is an illusion anyway. Its an artificial concept, that conscious beings use as a reference. I don't mean that time doesn't exist, any less that distance doesn't exist. But our perception of it is an illusion. No seriously, how long is "one second" anyway. I mean its so many billions of vibration of a cesium atom, but you get the idea. What do you mean by "feels like one second". How long does a one second feel? To a different specious in another planet, one second to them might feel like one hour, and they get to live to 25 years of our time (so they get to live a thousand times longer than us, even though objectively its for a short span of time).

Time varies even by the same being. For instance, when you're sleeping or on narcotics, time perception changes. 1 second in your dreams is worth about maybe 10 seconds on your alarm clock. I saw an episode on COPS where a crack head got stopped and the cop made him close his eyes and tell her when 30 seconds was up. The crack head said stop in about 5 seconds, so obviously he was high (whether that will stand in court is another thing, but it works for us viewers).


> In such terms it's exciting just how crazy the actual nature of the
> universe might be. Once in awhile I reflect on how amazing it is that
> matter and time exist at all.

Well, time is just what happens. Its like saying that distance exists. Well, it does, but how long does one meter feel like.

“Put your hand on a hot stove for a minute, and it seems like an hour. Sit with a pretty girl for an hour, and it seems like a minute. THAT'S relativity.” -- Albert Einstein

Neither are terrifying. They're both just something. I don't find it even worth it to explain this; people who find these things scary should kind of get a grip.

Not Sure, but if there are others...please make it so they have a cure for old age

Ah. Few people share this understanding of time. I would even argue it having meaning beyond our perception, as opposed to our perception being arbitrarily personal and having elasticity. The last 15 billions years may have only been a split second. There is no standard of reference for time itself.

A year or two ago I was in a bicycle accident in which I evaluated and chose from amongst a half dozen strategies for lessening collision damage and risks of greater damage (like ending up under the car). Later, based on my speed and the distance at which I became aware of the car, I calculated that all this mental evaluation had occurred in the span of 0.4 seconds.

In case this hasn't already been a response to such a thread topic, I'm of the opinion that the nature of the universe and the role of relativity would in fact make more sense if we did not imagine the speed of light to be a constant, but rather a fluid context. Your pulsar would be a clear example of such.

That we are alone... I would hate to think that we are the only living creatures in the universe. There has to be intelligent life somewhere, there is damn little here on earth...

I'm no where near that easily terrified.

We are not alone.

On the way home from Chicago last night on the plane I saw a UFO over Area 51 in Nevada. It was night and I could see the orange glow of lights in Las Vegas far off on the horizon to the southwest so I knew exactly where we were based on the time left to San Jose. A pure white, perfectly round globe of light shot straight down at high speed about 10 miles off to the south from my airplane window. There was no streak, tail, whatever, no orange glow making it a meteor. As it approached the ground it just disappeared. No crash, no sign of impact, etc.

Very strange.

> We are not alone.
>
> On the way home from Chicago last night on the plane I saw a UFO over
> Area 51 in Nevada. It was night and I could see the orange glow of
> lights in Las Vegas far off on the horizon to the southwest so I knew
> exactly where we were based on the time left to San Jose. A pure
> white, perfectly round globe of light shot straight down at high speed
> about 10 miles off to the south from my airplane window. There was
> no streak, tail, whatever, no orange glow making it a meteor. As
> it approached the ground it just disappeared. No crash, no sign of
> impact, etc.
>
> Very strange.

That would have freaked me out! I'd worry that there were more and they would hit the plane.

Hmm, didn't think about that.

I would say no reason to be terrified since I am not afraid of God!

Neither terrifies me. We're not alone on this planet, which is all I really care about.

Neither are terrifying

I have watched too many alien films so I think it would be better if we were alone in the universe.

We are becoming the aliens we should fear. If Plato were to walk among us, how grotesque and uncivilized he would think we are. He might not even recognize us as human.

Why should we recognise him as human? A despotic tyrant with a view to inescapable classes, careers, a view to 'getting rid' of all people born with disfigurements and illnesses, a man who wouldn't know what justice was if it shat on his face... no thanks. Plato was bitter and self-righteous. We had the Romantics to 'enlighten' us as to what being human is, the Aesthetes to stick it in our faces, and then the Modernists came along and set us straight; human is human; no more, no less.

Just winds me up, is all.

> Why should we recognise him as human? A despotic tyrant with a view
> to inescapable classes, careers, a view to 'getting rid' of all
> people born with disfigurements and illnesses, a man who wouldn't
> know what justice was if it shat on his face... no thanks. Plato was
> bitter and self-righteous. We had the Romantics to 'enlighten' us
> as to what being human is, the Aesthetes to stick it in our faces,
> and then the Modernists came along and set us straight; human is human;
> no more, no less.
>
> Just winds me up, is all.

Like the brave new world? You can have it. I hate it.

What do you mean? I don't think anything I said had anything to do with this.

...it's just rhetoric.