please, God, let it be so. BURN IT DOWN. BURN IT ALL DOWN.

This is not exactly correct. The no cloning theorem by itself does not guarantee that superluminal communication is impossible. If you could clone, you must be able to communicate superluminally but it is still possible to violate causality even if you can't clone. You are correct that the "no communication theorem" is not really a theorem at all and is just a description of how we think the laws work.

Your description of the phenomenon is correct, it is just does not come from the no cloning theorem alone.

o/u on max raker posts the rest of this page: 23

Under imo

I believe that aliens HAVE discovered us and HAVE been watching us and their means of communicating with us has been injecting themselves/their knowledge into something we would eat. Shrooms, man, shrooms

I *think* that in the specific example that I gave, everything's pretty much trivial except for the appeal to the no cloning theorem, so I would say taht causality holds in that instance because of the no cloning theorem.

Of course, a universe can have the no cloning theorem but still not be causal, but that seems like a prettty trivial point.

My point was definitely nitty, especially for OOT and even more so if you are not a physicist/mathematician, in which case you already have a better understanding of these issues than like 99% of the people that try to learn it, so I figured you might enjoy thinking about it some more if you hadn't considered this exact point before.

No, I'm talking about this:

http://discovermagazine.com/2010/apr...rom-the-future

As I recall without re-reading, it's basically a double-slit experiment repeated many times and taking some kind of measurement of the trajectory of the photons prior to hitting the back-screen. Sometimes they also measure the diffraction pattern on the back-screen, sometimes they don't. At first they disregard the latter data and look only at the former, which has variation but all apparently within normal quantum probabilistic bounds. When they correlate the data with the later acts or non-acts of observation though, they see some kind of correlation which is significant in terms of frequency, although no individual data point seems significantly abnormal.

As I understand it, it's as if the probabilistic nature of QM provides sufficient leeway to compensate for future-past interactions. IOW the maximum possible effect of reverse causality lies within bounds that allow any timeline to remain coherent viewed from a forward causality perspective.

I'll just put the whole debate to rest and let you guys know my family and I are aliens from a far away galaxy that traveled here and have been fitting in ever since. There are many like us but you will never know who we are so don't bother trying.

I think if there is life out there similar to us that have the capabilities to travel around the universe they would definitely be interested in Earth. Humans didn't evolve just because we're supposed to be on top, we evolved because the earth was very unstable and we needed to be smart to survive.

If you haven't seen it, I recommend watching the three part episode of Nova called "Becoming Human". It starts from the very beginning and shows all the **** that happened before we became humans and how we almost didn't even make it. I'm in the "aliens definitely exist" camp but watching that made me realize how rare human-like life really is.

Just because a planet is suitable for human-like life doesn't mean they exist on it. With a planet like Gliese 581 g that's tidally locked, has no seasons and probably has a very stable environment, the odds of intelligent human-like life existing is probably pretty low. In fact, life forms like us across the universe are probably pretty rare. Any aliens cruising across the universe would probably stop and take a look at any planet that could sustain intelligent life.

French Stewart is that you?

yeah and eachother, also we are pretty ******ed as humans, a couple billion people believing in the invisible man in the sky and use that as an excuse to kill each other alot , and act what our 'emotions' tell us way too much. A culture that is way ahead of us might find that incredibly ******ed and annoying.

Aliens just want sex like everyone else.

This thread is making me want to read Rendezvous with Rama (A. C. Clarke) again (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rendezvous_with_Rama)

I remember it being a pretty awesome book but I read it 15 years ago.

Yeah because they know for sure the flying spaghetti monster is the one true god, ldo.

Thinking that an alien race is going to have a better or worse religious views or religious tolerance is pretty weird, chipchip.

Alien guys want sex. Alien girls just wanna have fun. That's all they really want.

wtf do you think "fun" means! open your eyes!

reference comprehension fail

metafail

SC go back to school son, or lose that screenname, or both

I read that recently.

Easily the best description of any alien encounter I have ever read. A brilliant reminder about how what we encounter might not make sense to us.

Gad damn ur avatar is creepy. What is that from?

lol at religious aliens

We really need to be worried about these chinese UFOs. WTF are they building over there....they might be on some next level ****.

humans are so egotistical. can't believe people are assuming that aliens would just HAVE to be interested in us. looooool. no of course it's not a reasonable assumption to project your own motivations on a foreign species

Why is Reup Gang allowed to post, I don't understand. Reup Gang, you moron, I'm just kidding.

Reup, does your gang wear colorful bandannas?

Aliens have gangs. Bet on it.