-=> On 02-19-98  09:52, David Bloomberg said to Ivy Iverson,<=-
-=>"About Skeptics are always right...,"<=-
 
 II> ... We basicaly know what _OUR_ technology
 II> can do, however we don't have the foggiest idea of what the technology
 II> of some other race that developed maybe 10 or 100 or 1,000 light years
 II> from here - a race which may be 10,000 years ahead of us - can do. 
 DB> Actually, we do have some idea, just in terms of energy requirements
 DB> and the  like.
 
To a degree, however _IF_ it is possible to use "wormholes" and/or to
"warp" space, as some theoraticians have suggested, do we know how much
energy THAT would take?  And do we know how much energy can be "packed"
into a small space?  IMO it would probably be some kind of atomic reactor,
and that is something we DON'T know!  _OUR_ "atomic age" is only about
50 years old, and we have come a long way from the first reactor under
a university's stadium, but how much energy CAN be packed into something
the size of an interstellar "mothership," or even a little "scout" which
would be used for cruising the countryside?  The truth is, WE DO NOT
KNOW!  We only know how much energy _WE_ could put in such a package,
not what another technology 100 or 10,000 years ahead of us can do!
 
 DB> If you are a Star Trek fan, I would suggest you read
 DB> _They Physics of  Star Trek_.  It talks a bit about what the energy
 DB> requirements would be for some of the things they do (like warping
 DB> space, traveling at their speeds, etc.)  I'm about to start _Beyond
 DB> Star Trek_, by the same author, and he discusses various UFO-related
 DB> subjects in there as well. 
 
...Again based upon _OUR_ knowledge and technology in the 1990's.
 
 II> Stop and think how much OUR technology has lept foreward in the last 100
 II> years:  A hundred years ago man had never flown in a heavier-than-air
 II> aircraft, and now we have walked on the Moon.  100 years ago the nearest
 II> things to a computer were the abacus and the slide rule, (which may only
 II> have been invented a century ago for all I know), now you have a 
omputer
 II> on the desk in front of you that can do more calculations in one second
 II> than you could do in a lifetime with a slide rule and paper!  A hundred
 II> years ago our main transportation was powered by horses, now we have
 II> hundreds of horsepower under the hood, and we can travel all day at a
 II> mile a minute instead of 20 miles an hour with rest periods every so
 II> often for the horses.  If this illustrates the progress we have made in
 II> a short century - an eyeblink in history - how much more could be done 
y
 II> our technology in another thousand years?  Or ten thousand years?  Is it
 II> just POSSIBLE that another technology has broken the light barrier?  Our
 II> theoriticians say it MIGHT be done.  I won't discount the POSSABILITY.
 DB> I'm not discounting the possibility either, Ivy.  Is it likely?  No. 
 
Why not?  How can you or I say something is not likely to be possible for
another technology, invented by scientists with possibly a VERY different
outlook on life, and with who-knows-how many years/centuries they have
been working on it before our ancestors dropped out of the trees and went
scurrying to the caves?
 
 DB> It is  POSSIBLE?  Maybe.  The fact remains that until we have good
 DB> evidence that some  aliens ARE visiting us, it's all nothing more than
 DB> speculation and belief without backing.
 
Belief without backing, huh?  Ok, how's your religion these days?  Do you
believe that there is/are one or more supreme beings, or did everything
"just happen" by itself?  _IF_ you believe in "something higher," upon
what do you base that belief/faith/knowledge?  Do you base it upon a
"Holy Book" called a Bible, Koran or by whatever other name?  Or upon
things that were taught to you since the day you were old enough to be
taken to Church in your parent's arms?  When you see a beautiful scene or
sunset, do you think of it as God's handiwork, or do you think that it's
just the result of nature taking it's course?  And before Jack jumps on
me for bringing religion into it, I am NOT asking your opinion, I am
simply asking you to think for a moment: Where does religious faith come
into the picture?  It is something that many people take TOTALLY on faith,
from being preached to from the pulpet every week, and seeing the sunset,
the beautiful scenery, the gentle brease on the face, the rain to water
the farmer's crops, all as the proof of that faith, while the athiest
only sees the same things as nature taking it's course.  There are many
who believe TOTALLY in a religious faith who are total skeptics when it
comes to UFOs, yet neither has any more "solid proof" than the other!
Just smething to think about.
 
Catch oyu later... Keep l00king up!
   Ivy
 
 
 
... Skeptic's Cleaver: Hack off any nonconforming evidence.
 
        --
 -=[ Ivy's WALL BBS  Hi, Jack!  Happy New Year to All! ]=-
 
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