Sillychris

It doesn't have to have a black hole in the middle to account for the density, just give it a tiny neutron star as a core!

So it poops Kerbals. "GET OUT!!"

Hmmm, good point with the mass extinctions.

What the bloody hell, they made a ceiling fan apollo engine catching chopper? Somebody needs to make a Swarzenegger "Get to da choppa!" meme out of that!

I love the HALO pod!

One at a time... there are a bunch of hitchikers with ladders in the first stage.

This keeps me up at night, sometimes. I've never heard this idea before, and it's a good one. I really like these three points, as well. Bravo, sir!

I give you: PARAKERBALS: A couple of them did die. I TOLD them to stay strapped in!

Hahaha, I love it! Berlin Airlift, much?

Now that's an eye-opening idea! Like instinct, only far more rapid. I wonder how something like that could arise?

The sun's corona is way way hotter than the surface of the sun. (10^6 K vs 6000 K) This could not be the case if the heat came directly from the sun's surface (second law of thermodynamics) What do you think is responsible? The two most likely candidates presently are wave heating theory and magnetic reconnection.

Evolution occurred for billions of years before mankind showed up, and our influence on its course has been incredibly brief. In fact, humans did not even develop any new characteristics that would put us in a separate class. Sure, we're smart. Other mammals are smart, too. We're just more smart.*crossing fingers that people don't launch a discussion over the humancentric method of measuring intelligence* So yeah, it's a difficult question. If it was an easy question, the possibilities wouldn't be very interesting to me and I would be able to reach obvious conclusions without posting it to a smart people forum. I know you guys are smart. Just try to speculate before stating it's impossible.

In regard to chaos theory: Complex and seemingly random systems being built out of predictable individual particles with starting conditions was the general consensus among physicists prior to the 20th century and determinism was king. Then along came quantum mechanics... and eigenstates. At the quantum level, things truly are random. Some eigenstates have higher probability but there is no way to predict exactly which state a quantum particle will choose when observed. I choose the double slit experiment for my example: Carefully study and precisely measure all the initial conditions you want, you'll still never be able to predict with certainty exactly where an individual electron will end up. You can predict, however, how a large sample size of electrons will end up being distributed based on the probability distribution of eigenstates... well fairly closely, anyway.

The devil horns were a nice touch!

First of all, I fell off my chair laughing when I read this. I like your wit. I think you could do it with nuclear reactions, but using good old fashioned chemical reactions... yeah, not likely.

I would claim vice versa for yourself, if insulting an opponent weren't considered poor form in debates. Quantum computers don't exist, yet. We still have no idea what they may be capable of. The next step beyond quantum computers (Whatever that may be) hasn't even been suggested yet. Moore's law seems to be holding out quite reliably, so far. Is there an ultimate limit to computational power? I doubt it. Well, maybe if you converted the entire universe into a computer... that may be the ultimate limit. Maybe. Look at what people believed a mere 100 years ago. Science and formal logic were very well developed as compared to the middle ages, but we were still clueless by today's standards (eg: tectonic plates, mechanism of the sun's heat). Give it another 100 years and people will be laughing at our beliefs and practices today.

Dreams and sleep in general are not well understood in the scientific community. It is generally accepted that there are many factors and the phenomenon of dreams is complex. However, one thing that is clear is that dreams are related to memories. It is also interesting to note that learning seems to occur while we are sleeping. Studies have shown that individuals score better on memory tests after being allowed a night's rest instead of simply doing the test later that day. My suspicion is that dreams are an unconscious analogue to reflecting and daydreaming.

I can't remember the exact quote, or who said it, but nanotechnologists have compared the current state of our manufacturing prowess to conducting brain surgery with a chainsaw. Also, as previously mentioned in this forum, we are in the dark ages of quantum mechanics. Only the hydrogen atom has been solved analytically, and only if you ignore intrinsic electron spin! Who are we to be declaring impossibilities at such a primitive stage? I'm sure if you talked to an average person in the technological dark ages they would have declared travelling to the moon, or any of the wandering stars "impossible".

What if you then manipulated the melted metal into the shape of a tv? That's how tv's are, in fact, made (plus some other elements)

Curiosity piqued. I will be watching that episode in the near future.

That's the best contribution to the discussion I've heard so far. It seems that in the case of vertebrates, structural adaptations are much more likely. Maybe new organs? Also consider insects: They are belligerently diverse due to their short life spans and rapid adaptation. Perhaps they could develop new characteristics?

The question is totally answerable. Somebody did speculate a sixth finger, although that's not really a new characteristic since cats have it but at least he's playing nicely! Here's an example: What about nitrogen respiration? Nitrogen is reactive, but animals can't utilize it's atmospheric form. Oxygen levels have been gradually decreasing for millions of years now. Nitrogen is reactive. Maybe animals would develop a way to harness it.

Some feedback in the forum is that I have removed conditions of evolution or not provided them. Imagine some. Imagine whatever you want. That's why it's called speculation. It is a fundamentally creative question. I'm just trying to remove the obvious answers like pollution resistance, the ability to feed off nuclear radiation, and technology integration. Also, I know that evolution doesn't work in discrete steps, but if we let enough time pass and take snapshots, it can appear so. A new characteristic would gradually appear, but once it had, it would still be new. Mammals have hair, that was simple and new. Baby steps, people.

The first time I asked this question was to my grade 5 teacher. His answer was similar to those in the forum. I have since asked it to very many people, including professionally trained biologists. To date, everyone has been unwilling or unable to speculate a response, which leads me to believe it is a fundamental limitation of the human mind. I'd be really impressed if someone did, though.

Yes, it means we will stop messing with the environment. In fact, for the sake of this speculation let's just pretend humans never even showed up.