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Re:Where are they? Why I hope the search for ET life finds n... by jonathankoren on Tuesday November 20, 2018 @08:22PM (#18499471)
There’s a lot wrong with this “maybe they’re all ascended beings that we can’t detect” line of thought.

Firat, the EM spectrum is radiative energy. Simple as that. It’s everywhere, and postulate that it isn’t detected because the Ascended Ones have moved to woo[0] technology, assume ms that woo tech doesn’t radiate anything in the EM spectrum, not even heat. That’s an even bigger lift.

Furthermore, this transition to woo technology occurred far enough into the past, that no evidence of pre-woo technology exists in the light cone[1] visible to Earth. Keep in mind, even Bronze Age development can be detect in atmospheric samples.[2]

Second, “formed from baryonic matter”? Are you postulating noncoporeal life? If so, I’m running a subscription service to educate people how to communicate these noncoporeal living beings. I take cash and Venmo.

[0] https://rationalwiki.org/wiki/Woo

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Light_cone

[2] https://www.sciencemag.org/news/2018/11/why-536-was-worst-ye...

Re:Where are they? Why I hope the search for ET life finds n... by fouc on Tuesday November 20, 2018 @09:06PM (#18499669)
You projected this "ascended beings"/ghosts interpretation onto parent post which said nothing of the sort.

All parent was saying is that there could be life that look unlike anything that we currently know to be life. There could be organisms that are the size of solar systems, operating on such long time scales that we might not recognize it for life.

Anyways non-baryonic matter includes: neutrinos and free electrons, dark matter, supersymmetric particles, axions, and black holes.

Suppose there's a life form based on dark matter or black holes.

Re:Where are they? Why I hope the search for ET life finds n... by jonathankoren on Tuesday November 20, 2018 @11:27PM (#18500150)
Neutrinos pretty much don’t interact with anything, including other neutrinos. Black holes are singularities, which arent intelligent, nor meet any definition of life.

Dark matter... well given that we can’t even describe what it is, I’ll pencil that in as “maybe.”

Regardless, all of this is pointless speculation with no evidence to support, nor even inform this line of thought. One might as well be arguing about a pinhead’s carrying capacity of noncoporeal entities, the nutrient value of unicorn meat[0], or flat earth geography.

[0] While the meat itself is superficially similar to horse meat, it’s unfortunately poisonous due to the Unicorns’ Unfortunately, there’s none, due unusual biochemistry involving arsenic, lead, and polonium.

Re:Where are they? Why I hope the search for ET life finds n... by caf on Wednesday November 21, 2018 @12:46AM (#18500422)
It's irrelevant anyway: the argument is specifically about the conditions required for "...an Earth‐like planet to produce an intelligent civilization of a type that would be visible to us with our current observation technology".

Intelligent clouds of dark matter just don't bear on the argument, whether they exist or not.