[karajorma]

That's actually a science book by a pair of noted xenologers. I trust them to know more about the subject than you do.

[Snail]

.. I said I like my sci-fi believable.

Why isn't it believable that there can be life on stars?

[TrashMan]

Any idiot can write a "scientific" book. Not to mention that scientist have often gone waay ahead of themselves with many claims due to their excitment.

Life on a star? Millions of nuclear reactions that can vaporize Earth in an instant? Ultra-high gravity? Pressure? Heat?

I don't buy that energy beings crap.

"But it might be a DIFFERENT from of life" you say?

Energy can't think. It can't move by its own as it pleases. I might as well call a rock alive. It's just as likely.

[General Battuta]

Take some physics, Trashman: you're dead wrong. You seem to be confusing the actual scientific process, one of speculation and testing, with some kind of hysterical 'scientists leaping to conclusions.'

Complex organisms built of magnetic fields and plasma have long been suggested as potential inhabits for stellar atmospheres or the accretion disks of black holes. It's not something widely suggested outside of science fiction, but it is extremely plausible -- largely because non-science-fiction writers don't tend to make postulates about extraterrestrial life.

In his Galactic Center books, Greg Benford -- a physicist, professor, and a very intelligent man -- actually used the presence of a Magnetic Mind in the dense areas around the galactic center to explain very complex formations spotted in radio-telescope images of that area.

What's important to life is not the ability to be 'solid', it's the ability to encode information. Very complex informational patterns could arise in a such an energy-dense environment.

If you don't believe in the possibility of energy beings, are you next going to tell me you don't believe in von Neumann machines or 'metal life'?

[TrashMan]

1000's of scientists have been proven wrong trought the ages.

Energy can't think. Period.
If you can explain to me how it can think and keep it's shape/form, how it can communicate wiht others of it's kind then I may change my mind.

[General Battuta]

Um, of course.  That's the point. Hundreds of theories are proven wrong for every one that is taken to be correct.
 
But believing in energy beings is based on the exact same science that powers nuclear reactors and even the computer that you're using right now. It doesn't take any newfangled theories at all.

Picture the accretion disk of a black hole.

This is a very energy-dense environment, full of plasma and magnetic fields. Now, understand this: your brain functions in part due to electromagnetic interactions.

Imagine that these dense, complex magnetic fields interact with each other like the neurons of the brain: some remain static, rooted in the slow rotation of the plasma disc. These are memories. Other magnetic domains are transient, rapid, rather like the passing thoughts we experience. Behold: intelligent life. The creature's substrate is plasma instead of cells, anchoring vast currents and electromagnetic interactions, thousands of times more complex than the cells of our body. It is a computer: except that the hardware is sunfire and radiation.

It keeps its form through gravity and the structure of the black hole's disc -- which is very well understood by physicists.

The accretion disk being can 'speak' in radio waves and even move by shaping the black hole's high-energy jets.

Are you going to tell me that this is totally implausible? I suggest you examine the research done in the writing of the novel Eater, which describes just such an organism. Every existing model of electromagnetism and astronomy suggests that such a creature is totally possible. It's not implausible at all.

If you don't agree I've made a few valid points, it's going to be clear to me that you're just holding on stubbornly to what you believe in the face of some pretty good evidence.

Do you want credentials? I myself go to a major research university known for its physics. I've learned relativity and quantum mechanics. I know my stuff.

[TrashMan]

No thank you. I've seen the other five threads where people tried to explain things to you. You only seem to listen when they're doing your homework for you.

Does anybody else have something to add to this discussion?

Ad hominem aynyone?
And what you say if is pure 10000% bull*** and you know it.

I asked for help - advice, eventual answers to some question I'll be asking 8like how does this work? You think I should do this like this?) Nobody is writing this thing for me.

[General Battuta]

Don't forget to read what I posted.

Also, if you want more reading on the topic, check out The Black Cloud by Fred Hoyle -- a famous astronomer, not some crackpot theorist. These people aren't postulating theories that could lead to energy beings, they're applying the same principles that make your phone and your electronics run.

And what you say if is pure 10000% bull*** and you know it.

Actually, I've got to say I kind of agree with him. You seem like you're being intentionally obtuse.

[TrashMan]

This is a very energy-dense environment, full of plasma and magnetic fields. Now, understand this: your brain functions in part due to electromagnetic interactions.

In part. The brain is a highly complex piece of natual engineering. Electro-chemichal reaction..not just electrons moving around.

The power in the computer doesn't think. The cuircits do.

[General Battuta]

Hah! And the plasma pathways and zones of charge in the accretion disk are exactly that: circuits.

The accretion disk is very, very complex. There's more going on there than in the brain, and more potential for complexity.

[WMCoolmon]

Actually, I've got to say I kind of agree with him. You seem like you're being intentionally obtuse.

What I've said to him is ad hominem, but if you want me to back up the reason for my conclusions, I will.

However, I'm not quite so hypocritical to write up three or four paragraphs explaining things and derail the thread to ***** about him derailing threads.

[Axem]

"They're made out of meat."

[Retsof]

"They're made out of meat."

I thought about posting a link to that one too, good story, really applies to the current discussion.

[Snail]

Dude, TrashMan. You know **** compared to what established scientists know, so stop acting like you know everything about the universe, because you obviously do not.

[FreeSpaceFreak]

Dude, TrashMan. You know **** compared to what established scientists know, so stop acting like you know everything about the universe, because you obviously do not.

I agree, although I wouldn't say it that way. Remember, TMan, we are made out of atoms. Atoms aren't supposed to think, move and communicate by their own either.

[TrashMan]

So is a rock. Yet it doesn't think..
Our body is composed of thousands of completely different specialized cells. Millions of DIFFERENT parts put together.
It's far more than just "a bunch of atoms".
speaking of which, energy is a bunch of electrons..not the same things as atoms really.

There might be life completely different from ours..but intelligent life made out of energy?
I'll believe that when I see it.

Hah! And the plasma pathways and zones of charge in the accretion disk are exactly that: circuits.

The accretion disk is very, very complex. There's more going on there than in the brain, and more potential for complexity.

A cloud of plasma is a stable circuit? More complex than a brain? 
Wouldn't pathways change by the slighest breeze? Assuming it could even hold or process sensible thoughs of any kind, thus mucking up the "brain"..basicly making it like someone paying with a ice pick with your brain.

Dude, TrashMan. You know **** compared to what established scientists know, so stop acting like you know everything about the universe, because you obviously do not.

Neither do the "esablished scientists" (and I very much question how established they are).
I'm not going to believe anything a few scientists say just like that, like it's a friggin word of God.
They have been wrong many times, even the majority was wrong for a long time.

[Ghostavo]

Am I the only one finding it ironic that TrashMan tries to base his reasoning in science while arguing that science has been wrong before?

[karajorma]

What's really ironic is that he's not even good at that science.

speaking of which, energy is a bunch of electrons..not the same things as atoms really.

You fail at physics.

[Axem]

Going back to my post thats only been noticed by one person...

One of the failings that I see in science fiction is everything is too familiar. The aliens look like us only with pointy ears or ridges on their heads, warfare is done like WW2 was, computers look and feel like anything we have today. On one hand, its good so we can easily relate to that and imagine it, but its hardly realistic (which is what you seem to be complaining about).

My own belief about the aliens is, if they're out there, they won't bother even talking to us because they couldn't comprehend us, and we couldn't comprehend them. They could observe us, but with over a billion years of belief that you are the only way life can exist, it would be hard to truly understand it.

I would say sentient meat is as likely as sentient energy and anything else you could (or perhaps could not) imagine.

[karajorma]

I noticed it. I've made similar comments myself in the past.

It's quite possible that alien life would be so different we couldn't understand it, but I don't think that's necessarily how it has to be. There's a lot of universe out there after all. Depending on how widespread they are we should be able to eventually find something we can talk to (assuming we last long enough to do so).