OT: What would you do...?

[luke_slovakian]

I would say... the vulcans are coming:-D.

[Strategia_In_Ultima]

We couldn't stop messing around with the American Indians when we first encountered them, and look at the state they're in now. The only times they even try to practice their old spiritual beliefs is to get cash from tourists, and their old way of life is utterly impossible now that buffalos are extinct and higways aren't. If extraterrestrials have reached our system (which I sincerely doubt, though I do think that there is life out there, intelligent or not) and they are even remotely like us and had a remotely similar history, they would know that messing with primitive creatures like Homo Sapiens Sapiens is not a good idea.

And Area 52 is also buul****. It exists allright, but I don't believe that they've got UFOs there. The "green exhaust fumes" that have been seen at night were attributed to UFOs, but are simply SR-71 afterburners. Many other sightings can also be attributed to a to-secret stealth aircraft that has been retired over seven years ago, and has only been used for test flghts above Area 51.

What I'd do? Keep it to myself, perhaps share it with people I trust totally and completely. The people I trust to such extent are people I would willingly trust with my life.

[Thermodyne]

What? You guys (& gals) never saw a UFO?

[Arkcon]

Slick said:

Nope. I just have thought of this situation off and on for years and wondered what I would do if I saw an alien craft. For me personally, I think there would be added risk of losing my job if I started raving about such a thing. (without going into any more detail).

Wait, UFO's as in some glowing lights in the distance, or as in some alien spacecraft like a Peacekeeper Prowler lands and something bipedial, biocular, clothing wearing, yet not human walks out and stares right at you?

I used to wonder that second hypothetical question. Sometimes I'd figure I'd try to greet them, communicate, etc. Sometimes I figure I'd run and tell someone in the government. But lately I figure, if that unlikely event occured, they probably have some sort of first contact protocol in place, just in this eventuality. So its really all out of my hands anyway.

I've never seen a shooting star, meteor, comet or aurora 'cause I've never been far enough away from city lights. So I don't really think about seeing UFO's much any more.

[Slick]

Contact "of the second kind" (I think) is what I am talking about. Meaning that you see in enough detail what you are positive is an alien craft, but no attempt at communication is made. You have no supporting evidence to prove what you saw. Do you tell people and risk being labelled a loony or do you keep it to yourself?

[Captain Kwok]

I'd probably write down/draw all the details I could remember for my own benefit. I'd tell some people when appropriate, but wouldn't advertise. And ofc, always wonder about it.

[Atrocities]

A bit off topic, but have you ever wondered why there are so many languages on the planet, and if we all came from a common starting point, wouldn't all of our language be simular at its root core?

Also if you were born deaf and blind, how would you think? I mean we think in the langauge we are raised with. If I felt an appled, and was deaf and blind, I would not think to myself apple, or food, or anything for that matter. It would simply be something, yet the though, something, would not be what you would think because you do not know, if you were born deaf and blind, what "something" means or that it even exsisted. You would be locked into a world of nothing. You would feel touch, taste, smell, and pain, but how would you define those?

If by some chance the planet was being observed, wouldn't these be questions you would ask if you were an alien scientist trying to understand our life form?

[Arkcon]

To question #1, I dunno, human civilizations were very isolated when formal agriculture allowed the first villages to form. Example, technology found in villages in the Tigris valley was more advanced, than villages found in Turkey that were settled later. So its plausable (to me anyway) why languages are so different.

Question #2, well that's just the Hellen Keller story isn't it. Some glimmer of insight has to occur in the human mind after lots of pattern repetition.

As an aside on point #2, I remember a children's book, and the topic of intelligence of all humans was used to describe a bell curve. Thing was, the bell curve was skewed. Slightly more people fall under the "E=mc^2" heading than fall under the "2+2=5" heading. And I've always wondered if that was true, and why. Maybe the sample is biased, we don't count the really "stupid" because we label that "learning disability" and count it out. Or maybe there are more smart than dumb people. That is, pretty much the definition of human -- not the strongest, or fastest, but finding patterns and making inferences is what we all are designed to do, its what we all want to do, deep down inside.

Consider that the next time someone ticks you off because they did something dumb.

[geoschmo]

AT, you are under the misconception that language is required for understanding. It is not. You don't have to define something in terms of language to be able to understand it. The story of Helen Keller and every other person in that situation proves that.

The human mind is perfectly capable of observing, analyzing, processing, and remembering the environment around us without any concept of language. Each mind will process the information available to it in a different way. There might be similarities in the manner in which we percieve things which are caused by biological factors, but much of it would probably be totally unique to the individual. But what language is neccesary for is communication. Without some common frame of referance, language, we have no way of communicating our observations to each other.

Helen could touch and smell, and she could feel vibrations. She could tell the difference between her mother, her father and a dog. She didn't conceptualize them in those terms, but she had a concept of self identity. She was aware these other people were different from her, and different from each other. She knew what objects in her world were food, and which were water. She even had a rudimentary verbal communication. It was all unintelligable grunts from her families point of view, but there were subtle differences in tone and inflection that had meaning for Helen. The breakthrough for Helen was when her teacher was able to bridge the gap, to make her understand that the hand gestures she was making for Helen were representative of the physical objects. That is the basis of language, using words to represent something tangible, without having to see, or touch in Helens case, the object itself. That was when she started communicating in a meaningful way.

It doesn't mean she didn't have any concept of the world around her before that. She was just incapable of sharing that concept with anyone else.

[NullAshton]

I think Helen Keller wrote a book one day.