The Cosmic Sentient Matrix

[Ezechiel]

Anyone think about the implications of this ?

• Our civilization develops the ability to manipulate the fabric of space/time allowing quasi-instantaneous travel to anywhere in the universe.

Would trigger the questions....
Who has done this before ? (assuming life is pervasive in a 14 billion year old universe)
Why haven't they interfered with planet earth... or have they ?
What is going to stop us from interfering with other life nurseries ?

If sentient beings get to manipulate dimensions it follows that there must be an existing network with established rules regulating creation or destruction. At some point in the evolution of our universe sentient beings must have met and set some rules in order to allow sentient evolution and avoid mutual self destruction.

When space is no longer a limitation... all life supporting planets are basically pods in a Matrix that can be manipulated or destroyed. Are we escaping manipulation or destruction just because of the sheer number of pods out there or are we farmed ?

Once we crunch space our first reflex should be that someone else has done this before. Our view of this universe from that point on and our relative place in it will be mind-blowing.

 

[Ezechiel]

Expanding on this...

If some UFOs originate from Goldilocks zone planets... either they got here by manipulating dimensions... or they are on a very long time exploratory journey. A long term journey would require a huge mother ship (extreme life-support requirements)

Using our limited perspective on the matter ... which option is reasonable ?

 

[Randall]

All interesting from a science fiction perspective. Assuming such a thing is possible, once we figure it out, the first thing we'd do is use it for ourselves. We'd probably start with short trips to be able to test the accuracy and limits of the system. Then establish way points and navigational databases, followed by outposts and off-world colonies. Somewhere along the way we might run into other species, but I tend to think we'd only worry about that when we cross that bridge rather than go looking for them right away.

 

[Ezechiel]

All interesting from a science fiction perspective. Assuming such a thing is possible, once we figure it out, the first thing we'd do is use it for ourselves. We'd probably start with short trips to be able to test the accuracy and limits of the system. Then establish way points and navigational databases, followed by outposts and off-world colonies. Somewhere along the way we might run into other species, but I tend to think we'd only worry about that when we cross that bridge rather than go looking for them right away.

The idea that some UFO's are crafts that can defy Einsteinian limitations opens that can of worms. If it is reasonable to accept that 'some' UFO's are extra-terrestrial craft displaying behavior and physics that contradict our best explanations and theories as to how this universe works, then it becomes reasonable to accept that these craft have easy and full access to a large number of other nurseries similar to earth

Just having fun here ... but if you think about it, this idea is not such a stretch and would explain alot of skitish probing/poking behaviors. Viewing planet earth as a nursery in a cosmic context and part of a farming matrix managed by .. a type 3 civilization, as an example, makes some sense. This type 3 civ would operate outside star systems, likely would be covert and be able organize matter to create new stars and favorable environments for new nurseries.
The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

 

[Randall]

The idea that some UFO's are crafts that can defy Einsteinian limitations opens that can of worms. If it is reasonable to accept that 'some' UFO's are extra-terrestrial craft displaying behavior and physics that contradict our best explanations and theories as to how this universe works, then it becomes reasonable to accept that these craft have easy and full access to a large number of other nurseries similar to earth

Just having fun here ... but if you think about it, this idea is not such a stretch and would explain a lot of skitish probing/poking behaviors. Viewing planet earth as a nursery in a cosmic context and part of a farming matrix managed by .. a type 3 civilization, as an example, makes some sense. This type 3 civ would operate outside star systems, likely would be covert and be able organize matter to create new stars and favorable environments for new nurseries.
The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

I certainly think you make a valid point. In fact I think your "If" statement isn't an if at all. I just get a bit nervous about the "nursery" concept. I'm not sure if you're looking at it as a natural nursery that has evolved on its own or a created nursery managed by aliens ( or maybe some combination of both ). Personally I don't see any reason that both couldn't exist, it's just that it implies the idea of a sort of cosmic administration for the management of living resources ( including us ), and that gets into some pretty wild and harder to digest speculation. Still ... I have to admit, it's not inconceivable that it's exactly what's really going on, and it would help to explain some of the odd behavior in some UFO/abductee reports.

BTW: The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy is a clever spoof, but I never got into as much as most people I know. I thank it's kind of the same reason why I never got into Zappa as much as some people. As a musician, I can appreciate the technical proficiency, and it's also intelligent, but I've never been a big fan of mocking humor that gets it's laughs at the expense of something undeserving. I'll laugh at John Stewart or Colbert because the stuff they mock ( usually politics or religion ) are so deserving that it's good to see them get their come-uppance. But I like serious sci-fi and serious techno-rock, so I kind of have this knee-jerk reaction on a personal level that takes a bit of offense to some of it ... not that I still don't get a good laugh anyway sometimes, I'm just not a "raving fan".

"Well, it's one louder, isn't it? It's not ten. You see, most blokes, you know, ​

will be playing at ten. You're on ten here, all the way up, all the way up, all the way up,​

you're on ten on your guitar. Where can you go from there? Where?" - Nigel Tunel​

​

 

[Ezechiel]

I certainly think you make a valid point. In fact I think your "If" statement isn't an if at all. I just get a bit nervous about the "nursery" concept. I'm not sure if you're looking at it as a natural nursery that has evolved on its own or a created nursery managed by aliens ( or maybe some combination of both ). Personally I don't see any reason that both couldn't exist, it's just that it implies the idea of a sort of cosmic administration for the management of living resources ( including us ), and that gets into some pretty wild and harder to digest speculation. Still ... I have to admit, it's not inconceivable that it's exactly what's really going on, and it would help to explain some of the odd behavior in some UFO/abductee reports.

I'd like to think that... IF humans had been the first instance of sentience in this galaxy (like maybe 11 billion years ago) we may have had a chance to manage these nurseries and create new ones. Age of milky way is about 13 billion years old. Timing is everything... I guess we can just grin and bear it LOL

All this speculation because of a few mind-boggling UFO's that behave outside our comprehension. Turns out we aren't the best of the best

Age

The ages of individual stars in the Milky Way can be estimated by measuring the abundance of long-lived radioactive elements such as thorium-232 and uranium-238, then comparing the results to estimates of their original abundance, a technique called nucleocosmochronology. These yield values of about 14.0 ± 2.4 billion years (Ga) for CS 31082-001 and 13.8 ± 4 billion years for BD+17° 3248. Once a white dwarf star is formed, it begins to undergo radiative cooling and the surface temperature steadily drops. By measuring the temperatures of the coolest of these white dwarfs and comparing them to their expected initial temperature, an age estimate can be made. With this technique, the age of the globular cluster M4 was estimated as 12.7 ± 0.7 billion years. Globular clusters are among the oldest objects in the Milky Way Galaxy, which thus set a lower limit on the Galaxy age. Age estimates of the oldest of these clusters gives a best fit estimate of 12.6 billion years, and a 95% confidence upper limit of 16 billion years.[101]
In 2007, a star in the Galactic halo, HE 1523-0901, was estimated to be about 13.2 billion years old, ≈0.5 billion years less than the age of the universe. As the oldest known object in the Milky Way at that time, this measurement placed a lower limit on the age of the Milky Way.[5] This estimate was determined using the UV-Visual Echelle Spectrograph of the Very Large Telescope to measure the relative strengths of spectral lines caused by the presence of Thorium and other elementscreated by the R-process. The line strengths yield abundances of different elemental isotopes, from which an estimate of the age of the star can be derived using nucleocosmochronology.[5]
The age of stars in the Galactic thin disk has also been estimated using nucleocosmochronology. Measurements of thin disk stars yield an estimate that the thin disk formed between 8.8 ± 1.7 billion years ago. These measurements suggest there was a hiatus of almost 5 billion years between the formation of the Galactic halo and the thin disk.[102]

 

[mike]

I think the whole distance thing is now moot

HOUSTON — A warp drive to achieve faster-than-light travel — a concept popularized in television's Star Trek — may not be as unrealistic as once thought, scientists say.

A warp drive would manipulate space-time itself to move a starship, taking advantage of a loophole in the laws of physics that prevent anything from moving faster than light. A concept for a real-life warp drive was suggested in 1994 by Mexican physicist Miguel Alcubierre; however, subsequent calculations found that such a device would require prohibitive amounts of energy.

Now physicists say that adjustments can be made to the proposed warp drive that would enable it to run on significantly less energy, potentially bringing the idea back from the realm of science fiction into science

With this concept, the spacecraft would be able to achieve an effective speed of about 10 times the speed of light, all without breaking the cosmic speed limit.

The only problem is, previous studies estimated the warp drive would require a minimum amount of energy about equal to the mass-energy of the planet Jupiter.

But recently White calculated what would happen if the shape of the ring encircling the spacecraft was adjusted into more of a rounded donut, as opposed to a flat ring. He found in that case, the warp drive could be powered by a mass about the size of a spacecraft like the Voyager 1 probe NASA launched in 1977

Warp Drive More Possible Than Thought, Scientists Say | Space.com

 

[mike]

And then there is the whole time aspect, time is a variable not a constant.

Researchers in the United States have for the first time shown that time passes faster the higher up you are.
In a curious aspect of Albert Einsten's theory of relativity, they show that someone living or working long hours in a top floor apartment or office will age more quickly than someone on the ground floor.
To understand this research, you first need to grasp an idea thrown up by Einstein more than 100 years ago.
In his theory of general relativity, Einstein predicted that a clock at a higher elevation would run faster than a clock on the planet's surface because it experiences a weaker gravitational force.

Time passes faster the higher you are - ABC News (Australian Broadcasting Corporation)

This raises the possibility you could dial time down to almost zero speed, create a null time bubble.
To the pilot of such a craft, you set your co-ordinates and when the drive engages, it creates a bubble of null time around the pilot, when the craft reaches its destination the field clicks off. To the pilot the journey would feel instantaneous.

 

[mike]

And of course my old favourite Transbiological intellect

"I think it very likely -in fact inevitable-that biological intelligence is only a transitory phenomenon, a fleeting phase in the evolution of intelligence in the universe."​

​

Paul Davies -acclaimed physicist, cosmologist, and astrobiologist at Arizona State University."​

If biological intellegence is just a first step, then its likely an "advanced" species would have gone down this path.

Distance and time are no longer the resource issue they are for biological entities.
Simply put the entity in sleep mode, and re start the program when the destination is reached.
To a species who have evolved beyond the biological clock, time and distance are no longer an issue

Once they find a planet with life, machine probes can collect some DNA, which will have been conditioned to the local solar radiation, gravitational forces etc, and build biovessels to copy themselves into once there.

 

[Goggs Mackay]

All interesting from a science fiction perspective. Assuming such a thing is possible, once we figure it out, the first thing we'd do is use it for ourselves. We'd probably start with short trips to be able to test the accuracy and limits of the system. Then establish way points and navigational databases, followed by outposts and off-world colonies. Somewhere along the way we might run into other species, but I tend to think we'd only worry about that when we cross that bridge rather than go looking for them right away.

Yes - and a bit like in war - you go as far as your supply lines can support you, with sometimes special forces operating outwith these areas, often behind 'enemy lines'. I am almost positive that we would publicly (if known) be taking it easy, one step at a time, whilst behind the scenes we would have 'interstellar agents' doing recon work far further. We would have to do that to get advanced notice of who we would definitely wish to avoid. I do agree with Stephen Hawking in as much as there very well could be advanced species who may wish to destroy us - probably through their own fear of conquest.
I would hope any ET race visiting here is so advanced that we pose no threat. There have been multiple 'Star Trek' episodes centred around the idea of other races watching our progress with alarm, taking pre-emptive action against our expansion and (in their eyes) a threat to them.

 

[Ezechiel]

There have been multiple 'Star Trek' episodes centred around the idea of other races watching our progress with alarm, taking pre-emptive action against our expansion and (in their eyes) a threat to them.

'All these worlds are yours except Europa'. (2010)

Arthur C Clarke and Michio Kaku are proposing something very different: a type 3 civ would control an entire galaxy. You can't expand... Someone is already there. All the life pods (planets) are catalogued and creation, management duties are already allocated in this galaxy

Under such a scheme, should our applied science evolve to a point where it is possible to visit other solar systems, we should be able to pick up common signatures that will point to higher sentience potentially billions of years older. Whatever these entities are up to... You don't want to interfere with, thus we'll find out we are gridlocked by a much older specie.