It might be that we're pond scum to the advanced aliens, and they ignore us for the meatier energy sources elsewhere. It could be that we can't detect them with our primitive technology. But there should be intermediates between the scum like us and the god-like aliens which would be a bit more detectable. And we haven't seen any evidence for them either. I also don't see why when/if we become sufficiently advanced that we'd lose interest in learning about ETs, unless our descendants just stop being curious, because their VR games are so incredibly compelling, or the machines are happy to just harness us as batteries neural-networks.

There's another possibility. When you multiply all the probabilities together, you arrive at a low enough number that makes us rare in the universe. Not alone, but separated by enough time and space that we wouldn't see evidence of the nearest civilization. Maybe even the leap to multi-cellular life is a fairly low probability event amongst all the simpler life out there. We don't know, but we do know we're the only species in our planet's 3.5 billion years of life that has produced detectable radio signals and sent probes into space. If that's par for the course on planets with multicellular life, then a once ever 3.5 billion years is a pretty large time gap.

We also don't know how long a civilization with nukes, computers and climate changing abilities lasts. We might be gone by the time a detectable alien signal makes it's way here.

That's just an artefact of capitalist culture. — Banno

Various hominid species spread out from Africa over the past two million years. Life has a tendency to spread where it can. At some point, life from the ocean spread onto land once it became possible.

If we're sticking to science fiction, The Federation in Star Trek sought to explore and unite with friendly species, the Borg sought to assimilate, the Klingons and Romulans liked conquest and empire, The Dominion wanted to subjugate and control the solids because of past persecution toward shape-shifters, and the Tri-Solarians in the Three-Body Problem trilogy were looking for a better home.

There could be different reasons for wanting to expand. Ray Kurzweil imagines a post-singularity society where the goal is to wake up the universe by turning dumb matter into computronium. And Elon Musk thinks Mars should become a backup home for Earth so we don't have all our eggs in one basket. That logic could someday be expanded outside the solar system.

From a scientific point of view, the world isn't colored, it doesn't sound like anything, it doesn't feel like anything. That's Nagel's view from nowhere. It's an objective mathematical abstraction. The subjective is how we experience that world.

Properties of our visual system. What kind of property, measured in what units, described in terms of what: charge, magnetism, force, attraction, distance, geometry, chemistry, computation, quantum mechanics...? — Zelebg

Welcome to the hard problem.

Does it make sense near the end of the first Matrix movie that Neo sees reality as a waterfall of symbols instead of colors and textures? — Zelebg

For the plot of the movie, yes. And the symbols are green.

Do you not think if you want to claim that we see actual colors as colors, instead of something else that we only interpret as colors, requires this thing “color” to actually physically exist in space as some new unknown substance rather than property or side effect of something else? — Zelebg

I don't think our experience of color exists as anything other than the experience and whatever underlying physical mechanism is responsible, or however consciousness works.

how would you say the colors we 'see' are ontologically "related to the reflectivity of electromagnetic radiation in the visible range"? — Sir Philo Sophia

I would say we see color for the evolutionary reason that reflectivity of that small band of the electromagnetic radiation is really useful for navigating the environment. But in a Matrix scenario, it would be possible to generate color experiences by exciting the visual cortex.

a. we actually see colors (colors exist)
b. we only think we see colors (colors do not exist) — Zelebg

c. We actually see colors, but they are properties of our visual system, not the objects or environment itself, although they are related to the reflectivity of electromagnetic radiation in the visible range.

I don't think that the experience of seeing color being an illusion makes sense. We are conscious of colors just like pains and smells. But those aren't real, meaning independent of an animal's perception.

Are you asking us how to use the word colour, or how to use the word exist?

One or the other. — Banno

Ontological questions aren't about how to use language, they're asking what is and what isn't.

Is the moon made of cheese?

That's not a question of how to use the words cheese or made. It's a question of what makes up the moon. Of course that's a silly question, but it illustrates the point.

Is the world made up of the four elements?

Again, it's not a question of whether someone knows how to use the words in the sentence. It's an ontological one. And as it turns out, the answer was more than four once we had a periodical table, as far as chemistry is concerned.

So do colors exist?

This is asking whether colors are mind-independent, objective properties of objects, like shape, extension or mass are. And the answer is probably not, unless one wants to go the idealistic or skeptical route. It's similar to our experience of solidity or temperature. Objects aren't solid or cold/hot in the way we experience them. That's just how our perceptual systems work.

A civilization would be some distance past radio capability before realizing that making noise attracts predators. So the silence would be a result of the fact that the predators already ate everybody. — frank

Yeah, that would seem to be the likely outcome. There would be a few super-predatory civilizations with some primitive ones like ours that haven't attracted attention yet. Everyone else was taken out.

The first advanced civilizations in the galaxy would have had the upper hand, and the ones that acted most aggressively would likely have prevailed. That makes more sense than there being a million civilizations keeping quiet. And as you said, how would they know to keep quiet before it was too late?

I hope that's not actually the case as I prefer Sagan's Contact version or Clarke's monolith aliens better. Also, because we're likely screwed if it is the case.

Nukes are child's play for advanced aliens in Cixin Liu's books. Humanity doesn't fully realize this for a couple centuries, though.

For example, A nuke won't do any good against matter tightly packed together by the strong force, similar to that of a neutron star. That would probably require advanced femtotechnology to construct your own form of matter.

As is obvious the former would need proof but the latter just follows from Descartes' skepticism. — TheMadFool

The proof would have to be an argument that other minds are incoherent, since empirically there is no way to prove such a thing. It would be similar to Berkeley's proof that matter is inconceivable, I would think.

"Some" observation "might" show it to be false? Sounds a bit weak.

What if it's one study that shows a hypothesis could be wrong? Does that make it falsified, or does the study need to be replicated first, and any correlations vs causations worked out?

My apologies for my part. Reading too much into it. You really never specified. Did you realize that that was unbeknownst to me - to even be a problem - because your replies never objected? — creativesoul

Yeah, I should have reread it and changed how it was worded. It kind of makes a difference to how people discuss the issue. There are some things the presenters said that could be controversial, but they didn't say that simply being a white person, or male, or straight, or of one gender was harmful. And I could be misunderstanding what the one employee meant by that.

But mainly I just wanted to discuss the notion of whether there should be an attempt to abolish an identity of a group that has discriminated against other groups. If we say we want to end sexism and create an equal world, thus demolishing the patriarchy, does that entail that males should no longer think of themselves as male? Or that white people should no longer identify as "white"? And if that's so, should "black" and other racial categories also go away?

I did listen to a podcast fairly recently where a feminist was saying the goal of feminism (or a goal of some feminists anyway), was to abolish gender. An ideal world is one in which people don't identify as a certain gender. Yes, the biological reality of sexual differences still exists, but the identity and roles around gender no longer would.

I think that's a pretty controversial and rather strong claim, but it is interesting.

It would only matter what our goals as human beings are. — Harry Hindu

Sure. But let's say for sake of argument, since I don't know what to think about all this, that black people feel like the white people want them to act white and lose their identity in order to be accepted. That the white notion of equality is a homogenization of race that conforms to whatever norms whites already have.

If that's so, then it's a legitimate concern and impediment to the goals we all agree on as humans. We're just not agreeing on how to get there. Diversity might be the better road than conformity.

Materialism is not opposed to fieldism. Materialism's tenet is not that matter exists; it is that supernatural powers don't exist. — god must be atheist

So I thought that was naturalism, which isn't committed to materialism. You could be an idealist and a naturalist as long as ideas have no supernatural origin. Unless naturalism assumes the independent reality of the world.

Matter is a function of fields; that is a given, and as such, matter may not be the fundamental component of materialistic relationships in the universe, but its name can be applied to include all those relationships alongside those that involve actual matter, that are not supernatural. — god must be atheist

I could have made the topic: Fieldism instead of Atomism

The focus is an ontological one. What is the world fundamentally made up of? It's not the ordinary stuff we experience everyday. As contemporary physics becomes further removed from the ordinary, the question is whether materialism is the right term for saying what the fundamental stuff or reality is.

It’s ever unsettling truth in the context of these race issues: “whiteness” is the villain. On some level recognising issues of white supremacy means taking issue with many aspects of how white people exist, including some base assumptions they make about their own identity. It means understanding one’s group, oneself, to be villainous on one level or another. — TheWillowOfDarkness

It's also because calling anyone a villain and saying their identity is villainous puts them on the defensive and sounds like an attack. It could be framed differently than an identity issues. Saying there's institutional racism many white people aren't aware of, and here's the minority experience of that doesn't make it personal identity crisis thing for white people. Rather it's something that needs to be reformed in society.

But I understand your point.

I think when it’s done properly, reaching this point of shared humility allows us to see the problem as one of shared conceptual systems that we can effectively rewrite by listening to each other with our defences down. — Possibility

Well said.

this is simply untrue, and by coincidence is racist, — sarah young

I don't agree with her obviously, but to be charitable, maybe she meant that the racial category of being white is founded on racism, and those implicit biases of that categorization influence people in society to think in biased ways. therefore all the subtle discrimination another poster brought up, that white people aren't even aware of doing. So she, identifying as a white person, embodies those racist assumptions.

Of course it's society that created and maintained the racial categories, and we're all just born into it, so it's not like you can just call yourself ex-white or pinkish and have anyone else accept that. I think that's what the criticism of whiteness is about, not the amount of pigmentation in your skin, or what continent your ancestors came from.

I also came away with the same impression as Maw and that was the source of my suspicion earlier — Pfhorrest

I probably phrased it in a more provocative way that sounded like that.

Anyway, I'm not sold on everything the actual diversity trainers said, but they were certainly respectful, and said we all have our own lived experiences, we need to be aware that people have different ones.

Capitalism's boundless talent to take anything and use it for marketing.

It sucks that you felt villainised. It’s a crap feeling, but it’s one that some people experience every time they walk out the door. Be thankful that you can post your frustration here and almost guarantee sympathy and support - that your experience won’t be trivialised as being overly sensitive about something that isn’t that big of a deal. — Possibility

I'm questioning where the line is between clear discrimination, and inferred discrimination because of all the little things. As I said, one minority person in the meeting did say regarding the being ignored incident that people with those experiences are conditioned to interpret things that way, and the white response to immediately try and recognize them after that was the wrong way to go about this whole thing. Probably for several reasons, one being that the white people are acting too anxious not to appear racist, which doesn't accomplish anything.

But I'm mostly annoyed with the white people who spoke up during that meeting. This was the only minority statement (the one about the person being ignored being hypocritical on the white people's part). But I think perhaps this person was annoyed with the meeting in general, and just was expressing their frustration, and were using that as an example.

This ‘permission to be offended’ situation is damaging to unleash onto a work environment. It sounds like they were trying to do too many things at once, and their approach seemed to demonstrate fear on the part of the facilitators more than anything. It’s sounds like an opportunity to create a more inclusive work environment has gone begging here. — Possibility

Yeah, I don't think they were quite prepared for the employee response. But maybe next time.

Agreed. But it's the deprivation of life, not the death itself for that individual, since they stop existing.

The deprivation of life often effects others people still living as well, whereas never existing can't do that.

That's not what majority means; nor supremacy. — Qwex

To be more precise, the explanation was that majority populations for things like race, gender and orientation have had the power to oppress the other groups, and setup society to benefit the majority more so than others. However, the majority tends to not recognize how things continue to be that way, so it can be uncomfortable for the majority to confront the accounts of lived experience of discrimination form the groups not in power.

Although majority more applies to race than it does patriarchy, since roughly same number of men and women. However, for a trans person ...

Does supremacy = majority? — Harry Hindu

Pretty much that was laid out in the intro, and majority means any group that has power over other groups. So you could be in the majority in some cases, and the minority for others. The stated goal is to move toward an equal society with no groups in power.

But our focus is to be race.

Guaranteed that no one who is part of a diversity training program said this — Maw

I didn't say they were, did I now? I said one person in the room said it. A white employee. A lot of contentious things were said by different employees. The two diversity trainers were just stating what the focus of the worksop would be and their experience as trainers, and then were open to questions, and that's when things got interesting.

Unless you're a pacifist, then war is going to present a problem for always doing the right thing. So will survival situations.

But let's take a simpler situation. Lying is considered wrong. So let's say you're in a situation where lying will prevent an argument that will jeopardize getting something done that needs to be done. Let's say it's a work project and the truth will ruin team chemistry, the deadline won't be met, and the contract is lost, so people don't get paid.

So you lie for team cohesion.

So any meeting where the assumption is one party should not exist is a ridiculous meeting. Or where one party is considered damaging to life, per se. — Coben

That is correct, but it was only one person, they're not upper management. And the two diversity trainers didn't say that. What they said is we all have our own lived experiences, and if you don't have the lived experience of whatever marginalized group, then you don't know what that's like to be that group.

Most capitalists, a cursed lot, wouldn't waste company time on this crap. — Bitter Crank

A quintessential bitter crank comment. Love it.

It’s not anything one can isolate as active or conscious discrimination - rather it’s the little things that add up: the flash of body language, sideways glance or facial expression that we hardly realise we’re even doing, that we may suddenly be conscious of and chastise ourselves for, then dismiss as too small to be noticed. These little interactions are felt more than consciously noticed, but they all inform our shared conceptual systems, in particular the affective response we have to our conceptual identity: the value and significance we attribute to who we are. — Possibility

This is an interesting point, and there was an incident in the meeting where one minority person had to wait a bit to be able to have their say, so another minority called out the white people for that as a point of hypocrisy. But my interpretation was that it was because he was on the other side of the room. And there was a white woman who had to wait as well, but for some reason that didn't count.

So then all the white people started immediately pointing out whenever a minority had something to say right way. Which prompted a third minority person to say that the whole thing was silly, and to realize that minorities have a conditioned response to interpreting things that way.

Who knows the truth of that. There was a separate meeting where the female manager got angry because the males on the phone didn't let her interrupt them, but they did let another male interrupt. So was that sexism, did they not hear her (his voice was deeper and a bit louder), were they not ready to be interrupted? Who the fuck knows. My problem is the automatic assumption of sexism or racism in these situations where you really don't know someone's intention.

Another thing that bothers me with this is so what if strangers glance at you sideways or move a little out of the way? It's not entirely unique to minorities. I've had women cross the street when they saw me. Maybe it was because I was male. Maybe it was because they needed to be on the other side. Who knows. Should it be something to get upset about? Certainly random strangers have given me weird or grumpy looks or turned away when I tried to say hi on occasion. Again who knows why. Does it matter?

There's a clear difference between someone spitting on you and calling you a racist, sexist, homophobic word, and someone moving out of their way or looking at you wrong. It's just a fact of life that not everyone is going to be pleased to see you, for whatever reason, which could be many. So should we be that sensitive about everything?

I could be missing out on the bigger picture, if all the little things daily add up to a clear pattern that I don't experience. But part of me is like what the fuck can you really expect of people?

That's an interesting observation. Whiteness remains at the center, for good or bad. It's the thing to focus on. Kind of narcissistic.

Have you consulted any of your black friends/coworkers about the uneasiness of the meeting? Like... What the fuck was that? — creativesoul

Well no, but management went into crisis mode after the meeting and had an intense meeting, followed by drinking, so I heard.

"Whiteness as a bad thing" is a horribly racist sentiment. — creativesoul

It does very much sound like that, but to be fair to that position, what is being argued is that the social construction of whiteness as a category is what's been historically racist, and people born into majority white societies implicitly absorb those views when adopting that category. It actually applies to everyone in the society in a way, since the terms white, black, red, yellow, people of color, minority, etc. can all be understood as part of the racial hierarchy society tries to place everyone into.

What's not being said is that people of European descent are harmful simply from having ancestors from that continent. It's similar to the argument that gender is constructed around males getting preferential treatment, while sex is a biological reality, not the gender roles society assigns.

That's too bad. I've quite a large number of black friends, loved ones, and family members who find it rather odd when white people act more offended by white privilege and racism than they themselves do — creativesoul

Some minorities in the meeting were expressing concern that they were going to be subjected to this discussion because white management decided that it needed to happen. I don't know who all was consulted or pushing for this, but if it's just some of the white people, and they form the large majority in an organization, then you are putting the minority employees in an uncomfortable position as well as all the other white people who didn't ask for it. It's real easy to see how this turns into an us versus them.

so I just take the hit for now and hope rational minds win out after the persecuted get to persecute for a while. — ZhouBoTong

It would be better to not have persecution. That won't remedy the injustices of the past, or make current injustices any better.

This was a white person, though. There were a couple other white people who took on the role of talking for all white people, which was annoying.

At least I hope so. — Pfhorrest

The person said that as a white person — that their existence was harmful to others, and this was a hard realization to deal with, but it was important in order to get rid of those bad things about oneself. I also know that this person is a big proponent of this sort of thing (whiteness being a bad thing).

This was said in the context of several people addressing the white members of the meeting, and the fear over creating an "unsafe" environment. Also, the White Fragility book is being circulated, which may have some insightful things to say about race, but it also does kind of state things in a way that being white is harmful, or at least the review summaries I've read give that impression. But "whiteness" here means a social construction, which is another question this sort of diversity workshop brings up.

It was said, and I was quite irritated by it. Why do you think I made that up? There is almost no position too ridiculous sounding that someone hasn't stated it.

Nobody knows whether probability waves are real. The wave function just tells us the likelihood of finding a value when there's a measurement. The thirteen fields are actually seventeen (I misremembered). Twelve matter for all the fundamental particles (six quarks six leptons, gluon, photon, W and Z bosons), the four forces of (EM, gravity, strong and weak). And the Higgs field.

Then whatever dark matter, energy and inflation are.

The problem is that mental processes don't seem to be fundamental. They exist when brains develop, which only happened after animal life evolved.

Panpsychism would be an alternative that's fundamental.

Are you suggesting that science grounds metaphysics? Metaphysics isn't the same as science. — Pantagruel

Right, but metaphysics should be informed by science. It would be philosophically ignorant to espouse the five elements nowadays.

Just like how discussions of the mind should be informed by neuroscience. Espousing a theory of mind at odds with neuroscience would be empirically invalid.

Fundamental to what? Not everyday experience. — Pantagruel

Ontology and also physics.