Late afternoon. You are at Kroger’s on
Tylersville after a Graeter’s kids’ cup treat. You have had a busy day of
errands. You did your forty minutes of exercises. Lunch at Penn Station then
you drove into Kenwood to look at the toy store for science-learning toys for
Owen and Brennan but found nothing suitable. – Amorella
1658
hours. I wanted to get Owen a simple hobby kit so he could make a radio and/or
light and/or computer circuitry. Kits are available for seven year olds and he
is half way to being six – I think it’s okay for a Christmas present, but then,
what to get Brennan who is half way to four as far as a science orientation
kit? I don’t know what his interests are yet.
You are home. The day is dark, cool and wet
with sprinkles. Carol says it looks like winter, which it does. – Amorella
1753
hours. I just found this on BBC. It is from a few days ago.
** **
BBC Science &
Environment
“UK team plans 'unsent letter' to aliens”
By
Jonathan Webb
Science
reporter, BBC News, Bradford
10 September
2015
A network of UK researchers has decided to compose a message to
aliens - but they are divided over whether such a message should be sent into
space.
The group will enter the Breakthrough
Message contest, which offers a $1m prize for creating a digital
missive that represents human civilisation.
That prize accompanies a new effort
to accelerate the search for extra-terrestrial intelligence (Seti).
Experts have argued for decades about the wisdom of broadcasting
into space.
Listening out
for aliens is one thing, but trying to contact them raises myriad concerns
about what happens when civilisations collide.
"We did a show of hands and we were perfectly evenly
split," said Dr Anders Sandberg, speaking to journalists at the British Science Festival
in Bradford.
Dr Sandberg, a philosopher from the Future of Humanity Institute at the
University of Oxford, found himself voting twice.
"I'm a typical philosophy department guy. I raised my hand
in both cases and they were all laughing at me."
But the group settled firmly in favour of composing a message,
even if it might never leave the planet.
"What we could agree on was that it was worthwhile and
important to try to devise that message, so that we can reach the best possible
version," Dr Sandberg said.
He and three other UKSRN members have formed a working group to
"thrash out the basics" of how their message might be composed and
what it might contain.
For example, they might draft two suggestions: one using
pictures, and one using more abstract content such as language or mathematics.
Other than its $1m (£0.65m) spoils, the details of the
Breakthrough Message prize, funded by tech billionaire Yuri Milner, are yet to
be announced. But the competition is open to anyone.
"There's a
fair chance that we'll get beaten by a schoolgirl somewhere, and in that case
more power to her!" Dr Sandberg said.
If the British team's bid is successful, Dr Sandberg said they
would plough the prize money back into Seti research, which has historically
struggled for funding and credibility in the UK.
"We would use it to build up a slightly bigger Seti
research community in the UK, because this has never really been funded. The
giggle factor is pretty high."
Intergalactic advice?
Whoever wins the prize, Breakthrough Initiatives have pledged
not to transmit the message until a "wide-ranging debate" about the
risks and rewards has taken place.
"It seems a bit silly in a sense, this prize for a message
that they promise not to send," Dr Sandberg said. "But on the other
hand, from a scientific perspective, it's a really interesting question: how do
you construct a message that an alien intelligence could receive?"
Dr Jill Stuart, who studies space law and policy at the London
School of Economics, is not a member of the UKSRN but welcomed
the group's decision to draft an interstellar introduction.
She strongly supports the notion of announcing humanity's
presence in the cosmos.
"I'm very explicitly in favour," Dr Stuart said,
"not only because I think it's worth trying to contact them, but because
of what I think it makes us do - reflecting back on ourselves, building a potential
regime for how we could communicate, and so on."
But many researchers are much more wary about hitting
"send", for various reasons - and these are arguments Dr Sandberg has
heard many times.
"The most naive one would be that aliens will come and eat
us or invade us," he said. "That is probably not very likely. But a
more sophisticated version is that we have seen what happens when more advanced
civilisations encounter less advanced ones."
On the other hand, we might learn something important.
"We have a lot of these uncertainties, but we also know
that our own civilisation is in a fair bit of trouble. We face some pretty big
threats.
"That
means it might be a good idea to gamble, and hope there is someone slightly
older and wiser out there. If aliens told us something about how to handle our
climate, or artificial intelligence, we might want to listen."
Selected and
edited from -- http://www.bbcDOTcom/news/science-environment-34211549
** **
This is your kind of article, boy; one that
strikes your wonderment without being utterly fantastic. – Amorella
1758
hours. I do like the question presented in the article:
It's
a really interesting question: how do you construct a message that an alien
intelligence could receive?
Dr Anders
Sandberg, University of Oxford;
and,
turning it around, it would be equally difficult for an alien intelligence to
conduct such a message for us. (1800)
Post. - Amorella
2211
hours. These are good questions, Amorella. These are strangely good questions
that I don’t think I would have considered them in context before tonight.
Evening. You watched NBC News then a rerun of
“Bones”. Doug sent you a recent article about a supposed UFO flying too close to a landing
Ryanair plane. Here is a similar article from British news that you found online. Doug's article is mostly video.
** **
WATCH: Is this the moment UFO
almost CRASHED INTO Ryanair jet?
THIS is the moment passengers claim a Ryanair flight had to take
emergency evasive action to avoid crashing into a UFO.
By
NICK
GUTTERIDGE
07:40,
Mon, Sep 7, 2015 | UPDATED: 15:44, Tue, Sep 8, 2015
Footage
taken on board the Boeing 737 appears to show a small black object shooting
inches past the plane's wing at high speed, leaving a trail of dark smoke in
its wake.
The
passenger who filmed the supposed close encounter said the pilot had to bank sharply
to avoid the unidentified craft, which was described as
"hostile".
The clip,
said to have been shot aboard a Ryanair flight from Holland to Spain, was
uploaded to YouTube.
It was
published by the Lions Ground UFO group, whose member Heathcliff said: "A
Dutch passenger captured UFO on video while on board the Ryanair airbus
Netherlands (Eindhoven), heading to Spain.
"Coincidentally,
the passenger was recording because she enjoyed the view. After four minutes
the recording of this UFO event happened.
"The
engines made a lot of noise and the pilot made suddenly a sharp manoeuvre. The
UFO endangered the aircraft. A lot of panic was on that plane."
The
conspiracy theorist claimed that the UFO was "hostile" and that it
forced the plane to take evasive manoeuvres.
He also
rubbished speculation that the object may have been a bird, saying it was
travelling too fast.
The clip has
been viewed more than 100,000 times since being uploaded Tuesday.
Selected and
edited from -- http://www.express.coDOTuk/news/science/603417/proof-alien-life-moment-UFO-almost-crashed-into-Ryanair-jet
** **
2144 hours. Over the years Doug and I have shared some UFO
reports. Fact or fiction? Some appear to have been real events. It will be
interesting to see what comes of this one. If there are real aliens, and this
is my point, what do we do? What can we learn? I have for a long time thought
the same thing about angels. For the same reasons. What do we do? What can we
learn? I think of both extraterrestrial aliens and angels in a similar way.
They are both in the human imaginary landscape. Artists have drawn and painted
both. Personally, I don’t think I would know the difference if each took on a seemingly physical appearance. Each ‘species as it were’ would take on a ‘meaning’
in my mind and perhaps in my heart and soul too. What meaning would the angel
take on from witnessing me? Would this meaning be true, that is would I agree with its meaning of ‘being
human’? Just because we already have a ‘set general concept’ of both 'concept-of-species' in
our vocabularies, would the alien agree with our definition of what it is?
Would an angel agree with our concept of what an angel is? (2157)
You love that Doug shares all kinds of
stories with you. But the two stories mentioned in today’s blog show both an
intellectual and an imaginary interest. You had some apprehension on sharing
the UFO story because of fear of ridicule. However, the importance in sharing
from my perspective is to show evidence on how you think about such topics. If
people would want to ridicule others because of how they think, what does this
show about human behavior? What does this show about the purpose of human culture,
any culture? Are the so called ‘seven deadly sins’ based first on fear of
existing, of ‘being’ alive? What can be done about this? How can human beings
grow away from this and still be human? Is this the kind of questioning aliens
or angels would have among themselves when considering sending messages to
human beings? Post. – Amorella
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