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I've been thinking about the universe, it's vastness, how long solar systems last, etc. I came to a conclusion about the alien theory. It's quite possible that other planets could have life, but unlikely that they have it now at the same time as us. Think about how short the existence of this planet is in comparison to the scope of the universe. Then think of how short the existence of life is in comparison to the planet. Then think how short the human existence is in comparison to that. Take into account that solar systems and planets go through cycles and the window for the existence of life is very short in the total lifespan. Certainly another planet relatively close to us may support life at some time, but it's HIGHLY unlikely that it would happen at the same time as us. This doesn't even touch on the fact on whether it's even possible to physically transverse the vastness of the universe to find out! What do you think?
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<font color = lightgreen>Another thing to consider is that we didn't have radio until the very early part of th 20th century. At best, the earliest radio signals are only 100 light-years out; the farthest detectable radio signals are probably only 50 to 75 light-years out. No alien world could detect signs of intelligent life here should their planet be more distant than that. If we suppose that any alien civilization has attained technology comparable to ours, then we could only detect their radio signals if they are closer than about 75 light-years; this makes the distance roughly 150 to 200 light-years for the closest civilizations.
That is a huge distance to cover--it would prevent effective communication, even (are you going to wait 400 years for an answer to "how are you today?"). Strangely enough, many people seem to assume that any alien civilization is more advanced than we are. What if we are the most technologically advanced civilization in the universe? [img]graemlins/saywhat.gif[/img] </font> |
oh come on!there are trillions of stars in the universe that are like ours.i think it is highly likely that there is intelligent life on billions of them.don't forget,the sun is a relativly young star.there are older stars out there with planets that have probably already produced intelligent life,we just havn't found them yet.could you imagine the technology of a civilization that is a billion years old?who needs radio to communicate?we don't know of them because we can't find them.they might have hidden their star by building a dyson sphere.
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Dyson sphere? You mean a construct of several solar masses completely encomppasing the volume of their solar system? Now thats a job for an advanced culture. Theyd have be ultra paranoid to put that much effort into hiding.
Alien life existing at the same time a ours us quite likly - life has existed on this planet for 300 billion years, which is actualy not that insignificant a portion of the age of the universe. (for both figures the exact data does not come to hand at the moment). Intelligent life on the other hand is hugely unlikly, its only been on earth for something around 20'000 years. That is an isignificant portion of the age of the universe, although theres nothing in physics to say that intelligent life cant persist for hundreds of millions of years. But the chances of their being a civilisation close enough to contact, advanced enough to contact, and primitve enough for us to understand, is pretty close to nothing. Theres no chance of Star Treks picture of the universe - hundreds of similar species, most at the same stage of development - being at all accurate. |
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I see your point, Sir Kenyth. I would probably share your viewpoint if it weren't for the fact that there are positively billions of planets in existance. The chances that there is at least some form of life out there living at the same time as us surely is rather big. |
Actually a Dyson sphere would not be an expression of paranoia, but more of a case of resource maximization. Assuming that inter-stellar travel proves to be impractical then one way for an advanced civilization to have nearly unlimited room for growth would be dyson sphere. Which would have an insane amount of floor space [img]smile.gif[/img] Or as Larry Niven theroized they could go with a Ring World. That way at least you could still see the stars.
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Chances of two races of distant worlds actually meeting are, infact, so low, that it is vastly impossible, though we do know that life is a short process, it doesn't last as long as many wish it would, some races stay to their homeworlds and pathetically die off over time, while other races live longer but still end up dying off, when a race dies off another may begin elsewhere, It's like blinking lights on a christmas tree except only 1 or 2 lights blink at a time, and while those lights blink, life exists, and they quickly burn out, only for more lights to light up, or just one light... we could be a single solitary light, or maybe we'll be lucky enough to encounter other lights, before we, ourselves, burn out...
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It might be possible to build one using the materials of several syatems, but that requires interstellar travel rendering the whole exercise pointless. This assumes that there exists a supertensile material with suitable properties. If there isnt such a material, its not possible. It also assumes that an advanced civilisation requires near-infinite space for growth. As i recall current thinking is that personalities will be tranfered into non-organic matrices, which removes that need. And even if we stay organic, do we necceserily need to expand past Earths population limit? What would you do with all those people? |
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If we could MELT it--atmosphere! :D Greenhouse effects. We gotta stop thinking from OUR point of view (i.e. in HUMAN terms) and also stop thinking WE are the 'center' of the Universe. That idea is too silly! Travel in space is simple if you can FOLD space and time. It IS possible, we just don't know how yet. The Aussies just TELEPORTED a laserbeam last week, you think in 1950 that would have been possible? :D There is SO much we have yet to see, and I for one wish I had an Elves lifespan to see it. PS: We just NEARLY got hit by a Asteroid the size of a football field (it passed within 75,0000 MILES of earth)--that is SO close, you don't even know... (Closer than the MOON). and if it hit Earth, it would have exploded in the air to a magnitude equal to a 10 Megaton Nuke. scary huh! :D :D [ 06-21-2002, 12:07 PM: Message edited by: Ziroc ] |
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As I recall it required somewhat massive equiment - and this is the killer - at both ends of the experiment. Even if you could scale it up to move a vessel at say 1MC (At that speed you cross the galaxy in about 1 month), and build one transporter, youd still need a slower-than-light ship to build the other end. Unless you can contact another race at the other end and send them plans, but even then that message cant move >1C. It just dosent look like faster-than-light travel is a practical proposition. |
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http://www.grc.nasa.gov/WWW/PAO/html/warp/ideachev.htm |
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If we could MELT it--atmosphere! :D Greenhouse effects. We gotta stop thinking from OUR point of view (i.e. in HUMAN terms) and also stop thinking WE are the 'center' of the Universe. That idea is too silly! Travel in space is simple if you can FOLD space and time. It IS possible, we just don't know how yet. The Aussies just TELEPORTED a laserbeam last week, you think in 1950 that would have been possible? :D There is SO much we have yet to see, and I for one wish I had an Elves lifespan to see it. PS: We just NEARLY got hit by a Asteroid the size of a football field (it passed within 75,0000 MILES of earth)--that is SO close, you don't even know... (Closer than the MOON). and if it hit Earth, it would have exploded in the air to a magnitude equal to a 10 Megaton Nuke. scary huh! :D :D </font>[/QUOTE]I know what you mean Z. Imagination is a great thing. Sometimes dreams and wild theories pan out into realities, but they usually don't. The human point is THE ONLY point we know right now, and we havn't even got that one totally figured out yet. I just see how truly fragile life is. The equivalent of a solar sneeze could wipe everything out and there's damn little we could ever do about it. The chances of two planets generating the rare miracle of life, evolving, and surviving long enough to generate a technology we don't even have reason to believe is possible and to have it all happen in the same heartbeat of the universe is a long shot. That given, we would still have to discover the proverbial needle in the haystack! See what I mean? [ 06-21-2002, 01:03 PM: Message edited by: Sir Kenyth ] |
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It is impossible to know what it is that you do not know, untill someone points it out to you. [ 06-21-2002, 01:31 PM: Message edited by: MagiK ] |
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It is impossible to know what it is that you do not know, untill someone points it out to you.</font>[/QUOTE]The problem with humans Magik is that our knowledge increases are exponential, not incremental. Back then science was a lot simpler and very few people found a necessity for it. Our potential was well ahead of our progress. Just living day to day in your 40-50 year life span was enough trouble for most, and schooling was seen as a waste of valuable work time. Now we live longer and have more time to learn, but the amount we have to learn is so much greater! What your average Joe with a moderate intellectual hunger knows today would have ranked as an elite education back in the day. When do we reach a saturation point? When does our progress catch up with our potential? When will we simply not live long enough or have the capacity to effectively absorb the prerequisite knowledge and skills to even make any advances? I wonder how we will contend with this. So far, specialization by science/engineering professionals has helped. Even today you can't have too broad of a knowledge and remain cutting edge. |
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I guess one problem is that we have absolutely no idea how life starts or how common the occurance is. Our isolation makes it's study quite difficult. We only know of one instance so far and the way it started is still debated quite often even here. :D
I do think it's at least a rare occurance and probably started with divine intervention. Who can say for sure though? Statements like that are faith based. |
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The second is the sulphur ecosphere on earth. This is the lifeforms on the bottom of the oceans - with no oxygen, virtualy no light and far too much heat, nothing in our everyday experience could survive there. Even the toughest bacteria coudnt thrive there due to the presence of toxic suplhur - and yet there is an ecosystem of a sort. Its limited to life-forms we would consider primitve, but this may be because of a lack of environment for them to evolve in. This life is powered by sea-floor volcanoes which are inherently unstable. Yet these life-forms have been around longer than the oxygen ones. ON a more volcanicaly active world (like Io say) they may have become the dominant type of life-form. Mars probably at one time have harbourd an oxygen ecosystem like ours, and possibly still harbours remnants of it. Europa may have a sulphur ecosystem, since it has a volcnicaly active core surronded by a liquid water ocean. Thats one system - two active ecosystems on one planet, two possibles on more hostile worlds. Plus whatever we havent even begun to think about - energy beings in the sun? Gaseous entities on jupiter? Who knows. Life is common in this system, and it will be throughout the universe. |
<font color=Orange>Then again, we are stuck to the confines of our definition of a 'habitable environment'. For all we know, an alien could find our planet, which is right for us, completely inhospitable. For all we know, there might be a life form that can survive in a vacuum or very little atmosphere. There could be a life form that can only breath volcanic gases. We have been stuck to the things we are used to on this planet, fish, humans etc.</font>
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The second is the sulphur ecosphere on earth. This is the lifeforms on the bottom of the oceans - with no oxygen, virtualy no light and far too much heat, nothing in our everyday experience could survive there. Even the toughest bacteria coudnt thrive there due to the presence of toxic suplhur - and yet there is an ecosystem of a sort. Its limited to life-forms we would consider primitve, but this may be because of a lack of environment for them to evolve in. This life is powered by sea-floor volcanoes which are inherently unstable. Yet these life-forms have been around longer than the oxygen ones. ON a more volcanicaly active world (like Io say) they may have become the dominant type of life-form. Mars probably at one time have harbourd an oxygen ecosystem like ours, and possibly still harbours remnants of it. Europa may have a sulphur ecosystem, since it has a volcnicaly active core surronded by a liquid water ocean. Thats one system - two active ecosystems on one planet, two possibles on more hostile worlds. Plus whatever we havent even begun to think about - energy beings in the sun? Gaseous entities on jupiter? Who knows. Life is common in this system, and it will be throughout the universe.</font>[/QUOTE]The main question is "What started it all?". Which original life form opened pandoras box? It would have to derive it's energy from photo or thermal sources. Even that primitive of a life form is too complex to simply spring into existence on its own. There's missing links between single celled organisms and the primordial ooze that no one seems to know about. I think the discovery of Prions may lead to some interesting discoveries in that area. Non-cellular, non-viral structures that seem to replicate like life forms, but do so without DNA. The only ones known right now are the parasitic ones that cause brain diseases like Mad-cow and a few other rare human conditions. Whether these are actually life forms or simply chain reactive chemicals released by defective cell processes or other phenomena still remains debated. |
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Imagine 600 years from now, people are sitting around discussing how we managed to get around with such a short life span, and such crude technology, and the people back then may have thought their technology as advanced as it will get. We may still have an abundance of potential, and be hugely far away from reaching it, but I suppose only time will tell. ;) |
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Imagine 600 years from now, people are sitting around discussing how we managed to get around with such a short life span, and such crude technology, and the people back then may have thought their technology as advanced as it will get. We may still have an abundance of potential, and be hugely far away from reaching it, but I suppose only time will tell. ;) </font>[/QUOTE]I think we'll reach our maximum age pretty soon. Most of the problems were health related issues and not age related back then. Heart disease, obesity, and cancer are the only major health issues left in countries like the US. The real deciding factor of age is "maximum productive age" as far as discovering advances go. That hasn't increased much as of late. Most people still retire by age sixty. Most people start to get dulled senses and lose thier mental edge by age seventy. So the extra few years we glean with current medical advances really don't add much to productivity. Another problem humans have is we also don't breed effectively anymore, evolutionarily speaking that is. Physically and mentally superior people tend to have LESS children on average. This is presumably because they have less time due to thier pursuits and they also tend to want to raise fewer children so they can maximize thier success (child and parents). I'll be curious to see what comes of these issues. |
<font color = lightgreen>I think most reasonable folks would agree that, given the size of the universe, there are probably non-Terran civilizations out there somewhere. As stated, though, the chance of communicating with them is next to 0, figuring that most communication is limited to the speed of light. Even the best interferometers being planned will be able to detect planets no further than, say, 1000 light-years away.
On the other hand, it is known that spin-paired particles seem to communicate at faster-than-light speeds when separated. It is possible that if you were to create two atoms absolutely identical to each other in every quantum detail that changes to one would be reflected in the other regardless of distance; this would allow for FTL communication. re: humans being the oldest/most technologically advanced civilization. Arledrian, when it comes to thinking about the universe then all possibilities must be considered, including that one. [img]graemlins/petard.gif[/img] I agree with Ziroc--I'd love to be able to live long enough to see even the next 200 years.</font> |
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Even if you could control the result youd have to carry one partical per bit of information. FTL communication through a micro-wormhole is a more practical proposition. In both techniques though both ends of the link would have to be formed in contact and then moved - theres no way for humans to build one end and aliens another, you cant target a wormhole. |
IF there is no other intelligent life anywhere else in the universe then someone please tell me WHO THE F*CK WAS PILOTING THE 5 UFO'S IVE SEEN????
I know one thing for sure they werent from earth. If what I saw was made by the US government then why are they still building stealth bombers and fighters???????????????? Twice I was with my brother and we saw something that was NOT from this planet. It was not a mutual figment of imagination. The third time I saw a UFO I was by myself in my back yard in IRVING TEXAS. I lived 8 houses from being directly in line with the landing strip at Hensly Field (Air-Naval Station) in Grand Prairie Texas. Only on this occasion THREE UFO's pulled up and parked almost directly on top of my house!!!! They just hovered for about 10 minutes. There was NO discernable movement. No side to side or up and down movement, nor was there any movement relative to the other craft. After about 10 minutes they ZIP were in north Dallas and it took about 1 second to go 20 miles. Then ZIP they were way over toward Garland. Zip and they were off toward Arkansas. The whole thing only took about 5 seconds. NO ONE on this planet can convince me that what I saw was MAN MADE. If it was a secret government project why not continue on to the naval base?? Why keep building JET fighters???? THEY WOULDNT. Cash talks and bullshit walks. They woud stop spending money on obsolete CRAP. This brings me back to the heart of the discussion here. Scientists know that if they could lower the human body temperature a mere 5 degrees we would live to be well over 200 years old!!!! If they could lower the body temperature of a human being 10 degrees we would live to be close to 1200 years old. This simple theory is put into practice every day in Intensive Care Units around the world. By keeping the rooms cooler you lower the body temperature and in doing so SLOW the heartbeat. This keeps the patient calm and allows for better sleep. If we could lower the body temperature and humans could live to be.... say.... 2000 years old that would completely change our view of space exploration. If an alien intelligence had a body temperature of say, 68 degrees farenheit, How long would they live??? 20,000 earth years??? That provides and awful lot of time for space exploration. Human knowledge doubles every 12 years. Scientists say that in 100 years human knowledge will double every 2 MINUTES.. 200 years from now human knowledge will double every SECOND. As a species we are learning VERY quickly. How long did the dinosuars live on this planet?? 900 million years??? Humans havent been on this planet long at all by comparison. Think of how much we humans will know in 900 million years. What if there ARE civilizations that have been around for a TRillion years???? Lets use our own galaxy as a model for intelligent life. There are over 100 billion stars in our galaxy alone. IF each solar system has nine planets thats 900 billion planets. 100 billion of which could host life. Lets go a step further and divide that number, just for the sake of arguement, by 100. That is STILL 1 billion planets that could host life. OK divide that by 100. That is still 10 million planets that could have life. How many of those could have INTELLIGENT life?? Keep in mind that this is ONLY the Milky Way Galaxy we are doing the calculations on. There are TRILLIONS of galaxies that have 100s of gazillions more stars in them and trillions of trillions of gazillions of PLANETS. To say there is no life anywhere in the universe besides Earth isnt just sheer human EGO its downright rediculous. The math of it says its IMPOSSIBLE. There HAS to be life somewhere besides Earth. [img]graemlins/rant.gif[/img] [img]smile.gif[/img] |
One thing I forgot to mention is that when I saw the UFO's there was absolutely no sound. When the 3 appeared abovce my house they had lights on the bottom>>> A triangle of blue inside a square of red inside a circle of yellow.
Funny that about two years after this experience I saw a report that the US government was beginning to experiment with VISUAL Stealth. Wonder where they got THAT idea from. Anyone ever heard of Roswell New Mexico???? Ive also heard that the US Governemt has had contact with Alien species for several years but they dont want to go public because it would crush the foundations of religion as we know it. Lets face it: churches make a lot of money. They feel the human race isnt ready for that type of knowledge. They very well could be right. Religion is a powerful thing but where would billions of people stand if they found out that.... God didnt create us???? Scarey. |
Easy there Earthdog! You missed a point. The other planets would have to develop life "AT THE SAME TIME". Our time here is a nanosecond compared to the life span of the universe. Countless stars have lived and died before life ever appeared on this world. They would have to pick us out of this endless expanse of stars you pointed out. How would they know? Our very first radio transmissions havn't even reached the next solar system yet! I'm not saying life on other planets is impossible. I'm saying it's improbable that intelligent life would be out there at the same time as us and at the same time be close enough to find and visit us. That's if it's even possible for matter to travel at the speed of light! Maybe I'm wrong, but it's looking like nothing found in the universe travels fast enough to traverse the reaches of space in a suitable amount of time. Just getting matter up to the speed of light is looking pretty impossible as it stands. Don't hold your breath waiting on the SS Enterprise to be developed anytime soon. All in all, I mean we are unlikely to ever make contact with intelligent alien life.
I'm also not waiting on body temperature reduction to yeild 2000 year productive lifespans. Hypothermia does reduce metabolism. It also causes coma and death because the body can't function properly. I don't know what you saw that night. I wasn't there. It sounds like it was an exciting experience though. |
if you travel in the speed of light, time and space is stopped for you. (says Albert Einstan) so the moment you get on an air craft or teleportation device, boom, you are already there. except everyone you know would probally be 400 or couple thousand years old by the time you get out of your trasportation chamber.
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suppose the EARTH is our day's length: 24 hours. then human race's existence is approximately 1 min? or more? even so.... this perhaps rate only less than 1 trilli second should the universe is considered. how much is the chance of two races that exist at the same time? nearly none. because either race's life span is nearly none compared to the big picture. nevertheless, there are lives out there! [img]smile.gif[/img] the facisnation of alien, I say, is a human mystery that spawned from within outselves. |
I have nothing much to add that already hasn't been said, I believe the possiblity of alien life to be highly likely. Why not? We know nothing virtually about the universe, there are so many possibilities we have no idea of. There could be thousands of other life forms on other planets living unaware of us, as we are unaware of them. It's possible, and, I would say, probable. [img]smile.gif[/img]
Touche, Ziroc. I agree with your point there. ;) |
As I said before, to think that humans are the only intelligent beings alive in the universe isnt just sheer human ego its rediculous.
To think that we are the only beings that could have evolved intelligence at this time is being closed minded. Not bagging anyone here but thats MY opinion. What if there are species that have exsisted for millions, hundreds fof millions, or even billions of years???? Since we dont know the exact age of the universe its even possible that there are species that have exsisted for Trillions of years. Scientists say that our sun will die in about 4.5 billion years. Thats an awful lot of time to learn space travel. We all know the facts about global warming. We also know how many has evolved from being 4 feet tall into much taller beings. Men average 5'8 nowadays. Thats a far cry from 4 feet. Take those things into acount and consider the possibility of global cooling. Every species on earth would have to evolve to withstand cooler temperatures. Our heartbeats would slow and then our life expectancy would be lengthened. For a species NOT of this earth having a body temperature of 68 degrees could be considered a fever. They could have an average body temperature of 45 degrees. Species from other planets with body temperatures that low could live for hundreds of thousands of EARTH years. Then theres the possibility that 100 earth years could be a day on their planet. Time begins to take on a new meaning when looked at from that point of view. The advances of medical science made in the last 2000 years are incredible. Even if we only look at the last 200 or even 100 years the advances are astounding. Aristotle would crap his toga. Its a pity that guys like Michealangelo and Gallileo, Plato and Aristotle cant be around to see all of this. Considering the advances of medical science I personally believe that diseases such as MS and Downs Syndrome will be nothing but bad memories in another 200 years. Which brings me back to this topic. If there are other species that have exsisted for hundreds of millions of years their medical advances would have probably put disease to an end millions of years ago. Aging??? HMMMM To be able stop the aging process may not be so far fetched even for humans in the next 200 years. All they have to do is isolate the causes of it. Slowly but surely human scientists are mapping the human DNA strand and in doing so will be able to end birth defects, numerous diseases ect. This is a science that has only exsisted for less than a hundred years. Think of the possibilities when this science has been around so long that its taught to 5th graders as a standard requirement. It wasnt so long ago that half the population of America couldnt read or write. Most people couldnt even sign their name. they X left their mark. Who can really say how advanced a civilization could become when they have exsisted for millions of years??? Space exploration could be the only thing that is left for them. They would have already learned everything they could about their own planet and solar system. Time to move on to other things. Other planets other galaxies... Other species........ |
I would also like to mention that SETI has reaped some results.
On the night of the big attack in Operation Desert Storm (cant remember the date) The US Military jammed one radio wavelength around the entire world. When they did scientists "intercepted" what was believed to be a radio broadcast made by an intelligent species. The only problem is that in order to prove it came from an extra-terrestrial intelligence they have to catch another signal and attempt to decode them both. Since they havent got a second signal to compare it to they cannot work out an alpha/numeric pattern for the other species. They would need to jam the wavelength world wide a second time and HOPE they could catch another signal. Regardless, the scientists still believe it to be a genuine signal by an alien species. They just cant prove it. Yet. [ 06-25-2002, 08:46 PM: Message edited by: Earthdog ] |
The whole idea of folding time and space through wormholes or somesuch sounds very Lost in Space-ish or Stargate-ish..
If you had to build a "gate" to every place you wanted to go from your point of origin, we'd take forever to explore the universe. What are the chances that we'll know where to build exits in order to contact alien life? Even if we take satellite photos and telescopic images of faraway galaxies, those pictures at the moment they were taken were already billions of years out of date. The possibilities are just too huge. But it makes one wonder..what is the purpose of all these dead rocks in space anyway? Where is mother nature's work in it? What are all these astral bodies doing hanging around in space? When one thinks about the vastness of the universe, who actually asks "what is the point of it all?" Its very paradoxical.. sorta like the tree falling in the forest and no making a sound thing. If an entire system is out there, with no life, does it actually exist? What does it do? Does it just stay there, revolving around its sun for all eternity without purpose? Ahhhh the galaxy is mind-blowing.. I cant fathom a quarter of what I'm saying.. |
I can Lifetime because this is, like, totally, like, HEAVY dude :D
Makes me just wanna have a [img]graemlins/bonghit.gif[/img] and think about it. Man this is like COSMIC. LOL I could use about 50 of those aged slang expressions from the 70s on this topic. :D I dig what you were diggin into in more than just a terestrial way. This is a totally stellar subject and man if I hit myself over the head with that pan one more time Im gonna see more than stars :D As humans we must learn to cope with the scope of the vastness of the blackness. :D |
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