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  1. “I there are any creatures who have figured out how to get around the limitations of the speed of light, I don’t think we want to meet them until we have technology of similar complexity.”

    Scott, the Vulcans watched until the humans developed the warp drive before they made contact and then made humans wait 100 year before allowing them to go where no man had gone before.

    I am just being silly.

  2. I there are any creatures who have figured out how to get around the limitations of the speed of light, I don’t think we want to meet them until we have technology of similar complexity.

  3. arkady,
    I tend to agree with that assessment myself. I haven’t read the critical review from his peers but I’m sure they’re all over it.

    You did of course read the article I posted a few months ago on the non-organic (arsenic) based life form found in California though, right? The first of its kind.

  4. Legion, you’re still moving in one of the original 3 dimensions, you’re just doing it after moving on the 4th dimension.

    You can’t move down a 1-dimensional line any faster by adding a second dimension.

    You can’t move a pencil across a 2-dimensional piece of paper any faster by adding a third dimension (ie picking the pencil up off the paper). You still have to move in the same 2 dimensions. You can just “become invisible” to the original 2-dimensional plane by picking up the pencil. Can’t move faster.

  5. “Just more places to “pin” on my map of conquests.”

    Are you suggesting ET phone homo? (Sorry, couldn’t resist.)

    Seriously, I think we are better off not disturbing any alien capable of communicating with us in real time. It can’t end well.

  6. lechacal,

    We are assuming that a 4-dimensional being would have to move in the same manner of a 3-dimensional being. (speed, acceleration, mass)

    Think of it this way, if you (a 3-dimensional being) are looking down at a large piece of paper with a dark line through the middle of it and a 2-dimensional being was moving about aimlessly on one side of the inpenetrable dividing line, it could not conceive of how to move to the other side.
    You, as a 3-D superbeing step in and pick up the hapless dot and place it on the other side without effort. The dot having experienced a life-transforming event which moved it into a “new” world, now builds you a 2-dimensional alter and percieves you to be omnipotent.

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