This May Sound Crazy

[Apollo1391]

(I'm sorry if this is in the wrong section)

This is a crazy idea but... Do you ever have the feeling that kerbals might be out there or kerbal like creatures or maybe we are ruining the lives of creatures from another universe? I don't know I was just thinking about it after I saw an article about life being some intelligent aliens's video game I don't know just an idea

[Wait- Was That Important?]

Everything in the universe exists somewhere, it's just a matter of scale. If Kerbals exist and are ten thousand billion million trillion lightyears away, it's as if they don't exist. The universe is infinite in size.

[TheCanadianVendingMachine]

Well, it can be possible with the few billion galaxies out there

[Custard Donut (In Space)]

Nah i don't think it sounds crazy, thinking outside the box is always interesting, life is strange enough to let your thoughts wander hehe.

i once saw a documentary about infinity, and the thought was put out there that perhaps everything you can think of isn't just possible or probable, but a definite event at some point in the future, also when i was a child i didn't like turning Lemmings off until i had saved them all, i kept having this nagging feeling they were alive in some way, Kerbals are somewhat like lemmings too, green and accident prone.

[Motokid600]

Theoretically anything you could possibly imagine is possible. Hell id bet that out there somewhere...anywhere. There is a planet named Kerbin with little green people that live underground and thrive off of photosynthesis. It's all possible. I like to think of planet creation like this.

You take a vat the size of a skyscraper. Fill it with six sided dice. Now tip the vat over and count 'em up. There's one planet. Fill it, do it again. You got another.

Edited July 22, 2013 by Motokid600

[Apollo1391]

Yeah it would be awesome to see a ksp rocket land in your backyard and watch jeb walk out of it and plant a flag

[Ralathon]

While an infinite universe allows for a lot of things to exist with certainty, do note that these things are still constrained by the laws of physics. It is easy for me to imagine humans walking on a neutron star, but that doesn't mean it is actually possible.

Kerbals as a life form should be possible. Although you'd need some pretty weird circumstances to convince evolution to create something like a kerbal. I cannot think up a good evolutionary advantage for such a massive head and eyeballs all that easily, so I doubt it'd arise easily.

The kerbol system however is impossible. Planets and stars with those densities simply aren't stable. Their sun would quickly explode or collapse. The tidal effects of moons would ravage the landscapes. There is no way a system like that stays stable long enough for life to arise and evolve. The planets would escape or decay in a few million years. And that's without even wondering what the hell they are made of to have such densities.

[The Deep Space Kraken]

Well If the third multi-verse theory is true then everything that can happen will happen just mabey not in our universe.

[Brabbit1987]

A species like Kerbals would be impossible unless born from an egg. Their head to body size ratio just wouldn't allow giving birth like we do or am I confusing something here?

[Fiddlestyx]

Well, you see the the thing is, none of this or any of you exist. You are all products of my imagination, created for my entertainment.

[Kimberly]

Well If the third multi-verse theory is true then everything that can happen will happen just mabey not in our universe.

Ah, but that brings up a philosophical question: is there a meaningful difference between something existing in another universe, and not existing?

[th3shameless]

sure, just in our milky way alone we're but a quark of a grain of sand on a beach. its hard to imagine otherwise

[bracknellexile]

Well, you see the the thing is, none of this or any of you exist. You are all products of my imagination, created for my entertainment.

That's what your creator wants you to think. This entire forum is actually part of a computer game we Kerbals like to call Human Space Program.

Making them believe they're actually playing a game based on us Kerbals within the game about humans was just an exercise in AI-design to see if we could create programs that believe they actually exist. That's why the physics isn't quite right, there wasn't much point in making it perfect when the real point of the game is to try to get your humans to Mars and Jupiter. The Kerbal devs tell me there's an Easter egg on Europa but my Voyager probe didn't find it. Maybe I'll send a manned mission, after all it doesn't really matter if a couple of humans die, right? it's only a game....

Edited July 22, 2013 by bracknellexile

[eurybaric]

I guess you guys are maybe missing the point of the "if we can think about it, then it exists/existed/will exist" theory. Thing is we can't even judge if a think is possible or not. Not with out (limited) imagination, and not with our (very limited) knowledge of space and time and physics. I think it's pretty cool of an idea from the OP. Makes me wanna watch out for our friends much more now haha

Cheers!

[skyace65]

Everything in the universe exists somewhere, it's just a matter of scale. If Kerbals exist and are ten thousand billion million trillion lightyears away, it's as if they don't exist. The universe is infinite in size.

ummmm...no. The universe isn't infinite. you want to start talking about string theory and multiverses than yeah Kerbals are probably out there someware in another universe.

[Apollo1391]

That's what your creator wants you to think. This entire forum is actually part of a computer game we Kerbals like to call Human Space Program.

Making them believe they're actually playing a game based on us Kerbals within the game about humans was just an exercise in AI-design to see if we could create programs that believe they actually exist. That's why the physics isn't quite right, there wasn't much point in making it perfect when the real point of the game is to try to get your human

s to Mars and Jupiter. The Kerbal devs tell me there's an Easter egg on Europa but my Voyager probe didn't find it. Maybe I'll send a manned mission, after all it doesn't really matter if a couple of humans die, right? it's only a game....

I just lost my dream of being an astronaut

[spikeyhat09]

LOL the universe isnt infinite guys

how can something infinite in size expand? we know the universe is expanding...

plus the generally accepted theory of the big bang is that the universe was about the size of a football. how can something that has a finite volume suddenly become infinite?

[Ralathon]

LOL the universe isnt infinite guys

how can something infinite in size expand? we know the universe is expanding...

plus the generally accepted theory of the big bang is that the universe was about the size of a football. how can something that has a finite volume suddenly become infinite?

Why can't something infinite expand? Infinity isn't a normal number, it is a concept. Infinite space that all expands by 1cm^3 per cubic meter is still infinitely big, but it is infinitely bigger than it was before the expansion. Look up hilberts hotel to see how this works.

And it is quite easy to expand something of finite size to infinite size in a finite timespan, it just needs to expand at an infinite rate, something that inflation permits.

In reality we don't know if the universe is infinite. There are many possible solutions to the overall spacetime curvature of the universe. But measurements show it is flat (and thus infinite). So either the curvature is so small we cannot measure it or the universe is infinite. We don't know until we do more accurate measurements or find out via some alternate method.

[skyace65]

Why can't something infinite expand? Infinity isn't a normal number, it is a concept. Infinite space that all expands by 1cm^3 per cubic meter is still infinitely big, but it is infinitely bigger than it was before the expansion. Look up hilberts hotel to see how this works.

And it is quite easy to expand something of finite size to infinite size in a finite timespan, it just needs to expand at an infinite rate, something that inflation permits.

In reality we don't know if the universe is infinite. There are many possible solutions to the overall spacetime curvature of the universe. But measurements show it is flat (and thus infinite). So either the curvature is so small we cannot measure it or the universe is infinite. We don't know until we do more accurate measurements or find out via some alternate method.

your just using infinite as another word for very big, it doesn't mean that. even if all of space is infinite, there isn't an infinite number of planets and galaxys.

[little square dot]

Also when i was a child i didn't like turning Lemmings off until i had saved them all, i kept having this nagging feeling they were alive in some way.

HA! same.

Early development of empathy = a lifetime of gaming OCD.

[Custard Donut (In Space)]

your just using infinite as another word for very big, it doesn't mean that. even if all of space is infinite, there isn't an infinite number of planets and galaxys.

I don't think there needs to be does there? Planets and galaxies are visible matter, the black emptiness though might be infinite.

[Merinsan]

A species like Kerbals would be impossible unless born from an egg. Their head to body size ratio just wouldn't allow giving birth like we do or am I confusing something here?

Why can't a Kerbal be born small, and their heads grow as they get older? This happens for marsupials.

[little square dot]

Ah, but that brings up a philosophical question: is there a meaningful difference between something existing in another universe, and not existing?

Define meaningful.

[little square dot]

I don't think there needs to be does there? Planets and galaxies are visible matter, the black emptiness though might be infinite.

Planet and galaxy are both nouns, and empty and infinite are adjectives, or words used to describe nouns.

Nouns themselves are descriptions of sorts, in that they represent perceptions, so all that we accomplish through the use of language is to describe descriptions of our perceptions are they are perceived.

None of this whatsoever, has any intrinsic value, so philosophically speaking, we're all full of crap. It's all just noise really.

*edit: since my life has been largely dedicated to philosophy, I don't want this to come across as me pooh-poohing on a philosophical discussion, so I will end with a question.

Where exactly, does a planet end and space begin?

Edited July 24, 2013 by little square dot

[mellojoe]

Much like Ender's Game, we are playing for real here.