Why Finding Alien Life Would Be the Most Exciting (and Scariest) Discovery Ever

[NeoGreen]

http://www.patheos.com/blogs/friendlyatheist/2018/02/03/why-finding-alien-life-would-be-the-most-exciting-and-scariest-discovery-ever/

Why Finding Alien Life Would Be the Most Exciting (and Scariest) Discovery Ever
February 3, 2018 by Hemant Mehta

What would be the most exciting scientific discovery ever? Arguably, it would involve alien life forms, on or from another planet. But as this Kurzgesagt video notes, that would also be a terrifying revelation because of what it would say about our own existence.

As with everything they do, this video will mess with your mind and leave you with all sorts of existential doubt. But watch the whole thing and you really see life in perspective.

After watching that, it’s almost comical to think God is out there micromanaging every single one of our lives.

[Ferrets are Cool]

1. Great and informative video. Well worth the 9 minutes.

Thanks for posting.

[Voltaire2]

2. Nicely done. Sort of a giant leap though

that galactic civs are at all possible. Civs may be very rare and trapped on their own star systems. Doesn’t mean we are faced with immediate doom, our system has about 5 billion years of use left.

[lindalou65]

3. Interesting

and thought-provoking. Thanks for posting!

[Nitram]

4. All-powerful and omniscient, God was alone and bored. So he imagined and created the universe we

were born in. Into it he threw a part of himself, a spark of consciousness, that would spread with every human child that was born. The catch: these conscious beings would have no memory of who they really were, a part of an all-powerful God. That allowed God to vicariously enjoy all the emotions of joy, fear, love, hate etc that make life happy, exciting, scary, pleasurable. Every once in a while someone remembers what we actually are and tries to explain it to his or her fellow humans. They usually find some followers who believe them, but eventually the knowledge gets buried in the layers of meaningless ritual and absurd dogma we call religion.

[Mr.Bill]

5. I'll tell you what would be scary.

If they got off their spaceship and said they were here to convert us to christianity.

[Freelancer]

6. We're up against a filter right now -- virtual reality competing with actual experiences

No offense Elon -- loved the car in space -- too cool to the nth power -- but computer graphics have advanced to the point where it's far easier to create whole worlds in a Hollywood basement than to actually take steps toward going to any. We've seen 3 'Death Stars' (if you count the planet-thingy) and innumerable aliens on our Imax screens. Launching ourselves into the void in tin cans to reach planets we already know to be pretty nothing places seems... I dunno... anticlimactic somehow. I don't like that. I want space to be the big deal that it truly is.

When an actual neural interface allows full sensual immersion in synthetic environments, I'm afraid the real world in technologically advanced countries will stop advancing and come to resemble a teenager's room. For that reason, IMO, the creation of a computer-neural interface is a filter event.

Humanity may use marriage to computers to reach farther, or to stop reaching altogether. In addition, countries that have citizens jacked-in to virtual reality may also become vulnerable to being over-run by groups who are one step out of the iron age. Progress could end that way too. Long-short, this may be a rocky century. But-hey, all of our avatars will be amazing.