I want to believe !

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Good morning,

https://news.sky.com/story/aliens-exist-and-could-already-be-on-earth-first...

"Dr Helen Sharman says "there's no two ways" that aliens exist and that it's possible "we simply can't see them"."

Erm ? it's not just possible.   

TWS

 Tom Valentine 06 Jan 2020
In reply to Chive Talkin\':

I made her a cup of tea once . Very nice lady.

 jkarran 06 Jan 2020
In reply to Chive Talkin\':

> "Dr Helen Sharman says "there's no two ways" that aliens exist and that it's possible "we simply can't see them"." Erm ? it's not just possible.   

In the last two decades we've discovered our planet is nothing particularly unusual except for its life, life we're not yet fully equipped to observe elsewhere. After we have places for life as we know it to develop it boils down to how probable you consider the generation of life: an almost inevitable complication of basic chemistry, a one in a googol cosmic accident or a unique divine gift.

Assuming we don't entirely buy the Gods explanation, given how many stars there are visible to us, and how many planets that implies, the probability of life something like we know it occurring again spontaneously elsewhere would have to be quite unbelievably low for there to be absolutely no other life out there in space and time. If you can't believe the unbelievable the alternative is to 'believe', keep looking and await the discovery we may never make. I suspect we will, tentatively, and probably quite soon. Not little green men with radios but maybe martian fossils, maybe something simple on the moons of the gas giants, maybe strongly indicative spectroscopy from something much further afield.

jk

 nikoid 06 Jan 2020
In reply to Tom Valentine:

It's possible all right, just as many things are. However it's highly improbable.

5
 Blue Straggler 06 Jan 2020
In reply to Tom Valentine:

> I made her a cup of tea once . 

Did this make you Helen's Char Man ?

 Dave Garnett 06 Jan 2020
In reply to jkarran:

> In the last two decades we've discovered our planet is nothing particularly unusual except for its life, life we're not yet fully equipped to observe elsewhere. After we have places for life as we know it to develop it boils down to how probable you consider the generation of life: an almost inevitable complication of basic chemistry, a one in a googol cosmic accident or a unique divine gift.

Every previous cosmological model placing the earth in a uniquely important position has proved to be wrong.  I have no doubt that the belief that the earth is unique in having intelligent life is as spectacularly wrong as all the previous anthropocentric nonsense. 

Rigid Raider 06 Jan 2020
In reply to Chive Talkin\':

If Donald Trump is an alien his buddies from Planet Trump are doing a spectacularly unsuccessful job at colonising Earth with his type.

 Robert Durran 06 Jan 2020
In reply to Dave Garnett:

> Every previous cosmological model placing the earth in a uniquely important position has proved to be wrong.  I have no doubt that the belief that the earth is unique in having intelligent life is as spectacularly wrong as all the previous anthropocentric nonsense. 

But isn't the question of life a bit different? We observe life on earth because we are that life; if intelligent life only  once in happened once in the universe, it is going to inevitably be that life which observes it.

russellcampbell 06 Jan 2020
In reply to Chive Talkin\':

Good excuse to reference the Kurt Vonnegut "Kilgore Trout" short story entitled "Dancing Fool." [I'm sitting in the house bored while the rain pours down.] A lot of you will know it. I think it's from "Breakfast of Champions." It goes something like this.

A flying saucer creature named Zog arrived on Earth to explain how wars could be prevented and how cancer could be cured. He brought the information from Margo, a planet where the natives conversed by means of farts and tap dancing. Zog landed at night in Connecticut. He had no sooner touched down than he saw a lonely farm house on fire. He rushed into the house, farting and tap dancing, warning the people about the terrible danger they were in. The farmer who owned the house woke up and killed Zog by hitting him over the head with a golf club.

 Dave Garnett 06 Jan 2020
In reply to Robert Durran:

> But isn't the question of life a bit different? We observe life on earth because we are that life; if intelligent life only  once in happened once in the universe, it is going to inevitably be that life which observes it.

No, that sounds like exactly the same sort of exceptionalism.  If something has happened here, why should we assume it's any less likely to happen elsewhere?

 hokkyokusei 06 Jan 2020
In reply to nikoid:

> It's possible all right, just as many things are. However it's highly improbable.

Tea is, after all, a good Brownian motion generator.

 Robert Durran 06 Jan 2020
In reply to Dave Garnett:

> No, that sounds like exactly the same sort of exceptionalism.  If something has happened here, why should we assume it's any less likely to happen elsewhere?

I think I disagree in the case of life occurring. Saying that the earth is just a planet like any other planet rather than the centre of the universe is saying there is nothing exceptional about the earth. Saying that life occurs on earth but on no other planet is simply equivalent to saying that life is almost vanishingly unlikely to occur on any given planet (which might be the case - the jury is still out on that). And inevitably it is us who observe that life - a bit like I am alive and know it despite the almost vanishingly small chance over countless generations of reproductive and genetic luck that I am. 

 Crazylegs 06 Jan 2020
In reply to Chive Talkin\':

At the moment, I'd be much more excited about the discovery of intelligent rocks on other planets. I'm starting to doubt that intelligent (organic) life exists anywhere!

 deepsoup 06 Jan 2020
In reply to Dave Garnett:

> If something has happened here, why should we assume it's any less likely to happen elsewhere?

It isn't that anyone is assuming it's less likely to happen elsewhere, the thing is that we really have no idea exactly how unlikely it was to happen here.

Edit to add:
https://www.theoatmeal.com/comics/oracle

Post edited at 16:20
 jkarran 06 Jan 2020
In reply to Dave Garnett:

> No, that sounds like exactly the same sort of exceptionalism.  If something has happened here, why should we assume it's any less likely to happen elsewhere?

The non-religious exceptionalists would presumably just argue the spontaneous generation of life needn't be any less likely to happen elsewhere but that if one believes it is almost infinitesimally probable to begin with then Earth could somehow still be the exception. Doesn't do much for me as an argument but since we don't have any real evidence either way it's quite possible.

jk

Post edited at 16:25
 Timmd 06 Jan 2020
In reply to Robert Durran:

> I think I disagree in the case of life occurring. Saying that the earth is just a planet like any other planet rather than the centre of the universe is saying there is nothing exceptional about the earth. Saying that life occurs on earth but on no other planet is simply equivalent to saying that life is almost vanishingly unlikely to occur on any given planet (which might be the case - the jury is still out on that). And inevitably it is us who observe that life - a bit like I am alive and know it despite the almost vanishingly small chance over countless generations of reproductive and genetic luck that I am. 

Why do you disagree in the case of life occurring elsewhere? 

 Timmd 06 Jan 2020
In reply to deepsoup:

> It isn't that anyone is assuming it's less likely to happen elsewhere, the thing is that we really have no idea exactly how unlikely it was to happen here.

The converse is also true, that we have no idea exactly how likely it is to happen somewhere else. The only objective position to take on whether there is life elsewhere in the solar system, is to say that we lack the knowledge to discount it, and that it remains a possibility which we have to entertain until we find something to prove otherwise. Even if it's just a few cells bumping around in some goop as it were, it's still life - ultimately.

Post edited at 16:42
 Rob Exile Ward 06 Jan 2020
In reply to jkarran:

Just as a matter of interest, what definition of 'life' are we using?

 Duncan Bourne 06 Jan 2020
In reply to Chive Talkin\':

I think it is pretty likely that there is other intelligent life out there in the universe.

Whether that life would ever be capable of reaching us, given the expansion of the universe is another matter.

It is also quite likely that we are about 100 years off driving ourselves to extinction (if not less) so if we are going to find life elswhere we had best get a move on.

cb294 06 Jan 2020
In reply to Dave Garnett:

I don't think the anthropic argument should be made here. There are still too many unknowns in the Drake equation, even if it now looks as if planets are the norm rather the exception for stellar systems.

I rather wonder for which fraction of the existence of life on earth we have been detectable (quite some time since oxygen accumulated), and for what minuscule fraction of that time an alien civilization somewhere in our Galaxy could have spotted signs of intelligent life.

Assuming they cannot relay back any information from probes placed in our vicinity faster than light, radio emission has by now reached only a neglible number of stellar systems. By the time we have announced our presence to even half the Galaxy chances are our civilization has long since disappeared.

We are probably separated in time as much as in space, and space is BIG.

That said, I hope and expect that we will spectroscopically detect something far away that simply cannot be explained away by geology during the next few years.

Finding fossils on Mars or even signs of protein and nucleic acid based life on one of the local gas giant moons would be cool as well, but not in the same category by far, as it would be impossible to tell whether such life really arose separate from us.

CB

 krikoman 06 Jan 2020
In reply to Tom Valentine:

> I made her a cup of tea once . Very nice lady.


Did you make it the milky way?

 krikoman 06 Jan 2020
In reply to Duncan Bourne:

> It is also quite likely that we are about 100 years off driving ourselves to extinction (if not less) so if we are going to find life elswhere we had best get a move on.

Sounds like you're expecting them to rescue us

 Tom Valentine 06 Jan 2020
In reply to krikoman:

Had to steal someone else's milk, only time I did it in over 30 years!

 krikoman 06 Jan 2020
In reply to Tom Valentine:

Oolong did you brew it for?

 Robert Durran 06 Jan 2020
In reply to Timmd:

> Why do you disagree in the case of life occurring elsewhere? 

For the reason I tried to explain! If life is so unlikely that statistically it only occurs once in the universe, it might as well be here as anywhere else - nothing more special about the earth than myriads of other planets, just luckier. And tautologically it is us who observe it.

 Mike Stretford 06 Jan 2020
In reply to Robert Durran:

> For the reason I tried to explain! If life is so unlikely that statistically it only occurs once in the universe,

I doubt it is that unlikely.

 jkarran 06 Jan 2020
In reply to Rob Exile Ward:

Good question. I've been assuming life like us leaving similar footprint since we'll need to recognise it. Whether that's soup, mushroom, beetle or bird...

Jk

 Robert Durran 06 Jan 2020
In reply to Mike Stretford:

> I doubt it is that unlikely.

I would tend to agree. But my point is that the likelihood of life elsewhere should be assessed on probabilities concerning chemistry and so on rather than on lessons from the past about earth's lack of exceptionalism in other respects which are not relevant here.

pasbury 06 Jan 2020
In reply to russellcampbell:

> Good excuse to reference the Kurt Vonnegut "Kilgore Trout" short story entitled "Dancing Fool." [I'm sitting in the house bored while the rain pours down.] A lot of you will know it. I think it's from "Breakfast of Champions." It goes something like this.

> A flying saucer creature named Zog arrived on Earth to explain how wars could be prevented and how cancer could be cured. He brought the information from Margo, a planet where the natives conversed by means of farts and tap dancing. Zog landed at night in Connecticut. He had no sooner touched down than he saw a lonely farm house on fire. He rushed into the house, farting and tap dancing, warning the people about the terrible danger they were in. The farmer who owned the house woke up and killed Zog by hitting him over the head with a golf club.

Zog is a dragon who eventually excelled at dragon school as any fule kno.

 Mike Stretford 06 Jan 2020
In reply to Robert Durran: Ok, agreed.

Anyone believe the Fermi Paradox? I'm a naysayer.

Post edited at 18:20
 Timmd 06 Jan 2020
In reply to Robert Durran:

> For the reason I tried to explain! If life is so unlikely that statistically it only occurs once in the universe, it might as well be here as anywhere else - nothing more special about the earth than myriads of other planets, just luckier. And tautologically it is us who observe it.

We don't know how unlikely it is, though, ie how big the IF is, to me this suggests that the only open minded perspective to take is that it's a possibility that there is life elsewhere in the universe, until we learn otherwise. 

It might be in the very last corner of the universe we explore - 'It was there all along', we won't know until we've looked. A bit like a Granddad of mine often complaining about things always being in the last place he looked. 

Edit: He railed against the world a little bit.

Post edited at 18:48
1
russellcampbell 06 Jan 2020
In reply to pasbury:

> Zog is a dragon who eventually excelled at dragon school as any fule kno.

Googled it. New one on me. Must be too old. However, remember The Gruffalo by Julia Donaldson which my kids liked and was written 11 years earlier. I take it  that anyone familiar with Zog the dragon would understand the "fule kno" reference.

 oldie 06 Jan 2020
In reply to russellcampbell:

> Good excuse to reference the Kurt Vonnegut "Kilgore Trout" short story entitled "Dancing Fool." [I'm sitting in the house bored while the rain pours down.]....... <

Same author, possibly Sirens of Titan or Slaughterhouse Five. In this story a 2" alien lands and makes contact with a drunk in a bar who mistakes him for a match and kills him while tying to light up.

russellcampbell 06 Jan 2020
In reply to oldie:

Thanks. I'll try and find it.

 oldie 06 Jan 2020
In reply to Robert Durran:

> For the reason I tried to explain! If life is so unlikely that statistically it only occurs once in the universe, it might as well be here as anywhere else - nothing more special about the earth than myriads of other planets, just luckier. And tautologically it is us who observe it. <

The only thing I'm sure of is that my own consciousness exists and possibly everything else including you, this thread and my physical presence is a creation of that. 

I'm sure that's not original and I don't believe it, but it makes some sense.

 wintertree 06 Jan 2020
In reply to cb294:

> I don't think the anthropic argument should be made here. There are still too many unknowns in the Drake equation, even if it now looks as if planets are the norm rather the exception for stellar systems.

The Drake equation was a giant red herring.  It’s based on the idea we wastefully leak high power, narrowband RF signals into space.  It turns out we almost immediately went from those to highly directional signals, broadband spread spectrum signals with frequency hopping, optical fibre and downwards pointing from satellites.  Much harder to detect from other star systems even if they knew what to look for, Most discussion over the ‘L’ term is 300 years or more but in practice our own ‘L’ was a few dozen years.

I’m more expectant for findings of free oxygen on extra solar planets as an indication of plant life, and detection of signs of far more technologically advanced civilisations than ours, such as radiation characteristic of a Dyson sphere or stars unexplainably going explody in a region of space.

 GrahamD 07 Jan 2020
In reply to Timmd:

> It might be in the very last corner of the universe we explore - 'It was there all along', we won't know until we've looked. A bit like a Granddad of mine often complaining about things always being in the last place he looked. 

And of course we can, as far as we know, explore only a tiny fraction of the universe. Most of it is now expanding away from us faster than light.

 Sir Chasm 07 Jan 2020
In reply to GrahamD:

Aliens used to visit us all the time, but now everyone has a camera on their phone the visits have really tailed off. I think we have to conclude they're camera-shy.

cb294 07 Jan 2020
In reply to wintertree:

The Drake equation was just an intellectual exercise to map out what we do not know. To put it in mathematical terms feels like giving it an undue veneer of scientific rigour. Interestingly, some of teh question marks can now be filled in.

I agree about the oxygen. I always ask my starting students what they expect to be the greatest discovery in their future working lives as biologists.

For me and the 20 years I have left in the job, extrasolar life would be high on that list! A partial Dyson sphere would be cool as well, and the explody stars rather scary!

CB

 deepsoup 07 Jan 2020
In reply to Timmd:

> The converse is also true, that we have no idea exactly how likely it is to happen somewhere else.

That isn't the converse, it's the same thing.  Until/unless we know different it's reasonable to assume it's broadly the same everywhere - at least everywhere we can observe, where the laws of physics seem to be the same as they are here.

The only objective position to take on whether there is life elsewhere in the solar system, is to say that we lack the knowledge to discount it, and that it remains a possibility which we have to entertain until we find something to prove otherwise.

That's the point of the 'oracle' thing I posted.  Just because there is almost certainly someone out there doesn't mean we are not alone, maybe they are alone too.  You can't really prove a negative, like Bertrand Russell's teapot.  You can prove there is life out there somewhere, you just have to find some. 

To prove something doesn't exist you have to look for it, quantify how hard you're looking and how long for, stir in a few educated guesses and do some statistical analysis to show that if it existed you should have found it for now - the whole process is much less satisfying that discovering something, but perhaps equally important.  This might be where we're heading with the search for dark matter, as the big fancy underground dark matter detectors still haven't detected the stuff.  With extraterrestrial life we've barely begun turning over a few of the more accessible rocks.

And we need to be careful how we go about looking so as to avoid contaminating or destroying the very thing we're looking for.  That Israeli moon mission that dumped a load of tardigrades on the Moon - it would be absolutely unforgivable if something like that were to happen where there is life.

> Even if it's just a few cells bumping around in some goop as it were, it's still life - ultimately.

For what it's worth, I think we might find extraterrestrial microbial life some time soon.  But then there are several Drake equation factors along from there before you get to us, and a bit more beyond where we're at to get to the kind of life that might actually make contact with life from around some other star.

That's a possible answer to the Fermi paradox right there - is it inevitable that we will destroy our civilisation and ourselves before we get off this one planet and start to explore the galaxy?  It's a possibility, certainly.  Just now it seems more possible every day.

 deepsoup 07 Jan 2020
In reply to Rob Exile Ward:

> Just as a matter of interest, what definition of 'life' are we using?

There's a thought..  given where we are at right now, does the Fermi paradox say as much about strong, genuine AI as it does about extraterrestrial life?

All our serious exploration of the solar system so far has been done by a group of plucky little robots.  If it became possible to make one of them self-aware, and give it the means to use the abundant natural resources in all the lumps of rock, metal and ice whizzing about in various orbits out there to make more plucky little self-aware robots, they could set off to start exploring the galaxy next week.

And - in accordance with that paradox - if a civilisation a little bit like ourselves anywhere this corner of the universe had managed to do the same, even shortly before perishing as they burned their planet to the ground, any time in the last few hundred million years those machines would probably be here by now.

The would do everything an organism like us does, pretty much, while they're not the kind of 'life' most of us think of when you say "extraterrestrial life" I think it would be churlish not to think of them as alive.

 Dave Garnett 07 Jan 2020
In reply to cb294:

> The Drake equation was just an intellectual exercise to map out what we do not know.

It always seems to me to be a way of multiplying together a number of complete guesses to end up with a probability that is almost infinitely meaningless.

Post edited at 10:33
 Dave Garnett 07 Jan 2020
In reply to Sir Chasm:

> Aliens used to visit us all the time, but now everyone has a camera on their phone the visits have really tailed off. I think we have to conclude they're camera-shy.

Iain Banks was of the opinion that, if aliens do visit earth, the place to find them would be inconspicuously mingling amongst the crowd at a total eclipse of the sun.  Or, if they are not even remotely humanoid, viewing from what has the appearance of a blacked out minibus.

His idea was that the probability of a habitable planet with a moon of exactly the right size and exactly the right distance to precisely obscure the disc of its nearest star was rather less than that of intelligent space tourists visiting to experience the extremely rare perfect solar eclipses.

I'm not sure about this.  I have a feeling that Newton or Copernicus or someone might have something to say about the possible range of stable orbits and masses.  

 Sir Chasm 07 Jan 2020
In reply to Dave Garnett:

But surely any aliens who could travel here could sit in their spaceship at many points in the universe and watch the same spectacle (not our moon/sun)? They don't have to stand on a planet, they just go to the right point in space and watch it out of the window.

 Dave Garnett 07 Jan 2020
In reply to Sir Chasm:

> But surely any aliens who could travel here could sit in their spaceship at many points in the universe and watch the same spectacle (not our moon/sun)? They don't have to stand on a planet, they just go to the right point in space and watch it out of the window.

But that's not the same!  No doubt they could just model it on their holodeck but they'll want the natural spectacle precisely because it's so improbable (and because the indigenous life forms are so hilarious).

I'm just not sure how rare a spectacle it really is.

Post edited at 10:56
 Sir Chasm 07 Jan 2020
In reply to Dave Garnett:

> But that's not the same!  No doubt they could just model it on their holodeck but they'll want the natural spectacle precisely because it's so improbable (and because the indigenous life forms are so hilarious).

> I'm just not sure how rare a spectacle it really is.

Meh, it's a moon passing in front of a sun, must be a few spots in the universe where you can park a spaceship and watch the same thing happen without a load of slack-jawed, earthbound, yokels clogging the place up.

 deepsoup 07 Jan 2020
In reply to Dave Garnett:

Well exactly!  You shouldn't have to explain to people on an "outdoors" forum that a beautiful sunset (for example) is not quite the same when observed through the window of a moving car.

> I'm just not sure how rare a spectacle it really is.

Rare, I think, really really rare.  In time as well as in space - not only do you need to be here, you need to be here now give or take a few million years.

 deepsoup 07 Jan 2020
In reply to Dave Garnett:

> It always seems to me to be a way of multiplying together a number of complete guesses to end up with a probability that is almost infinitely meaningless.

What is more interesting, perhaps, is that many of those guesses have become much less guessy since the equation was first postulated.  We still don't know, of course, but the science has given us a much better class of ignorance since then and the work goes on..

 Dave Garnett 07 Jan 2020
In reply to deepsoup:

Well, you only need one term to be significantly wrong for the answer to be meaningless once you've multiplied it by a number of terms that are already not significantly right.

Anyway, it fails the first rule of science in that it isn't falsifiable.  It's fair enough to point out some of the factors that would influence the chances of two intelligent life forms communicating, given the vast distances and the potentially limited lifespan of some civilisations (based on our experience of precisely one, very recently evolved, species), and to suggest that, sadly, it might not be very likely unless some aliens are very significantly smarter than we are.  But to make up an equation, make up numbers and then multiple them together is to take fantasy and and pass it off as data.   

Plus, of course, I don't like the answer you get!

Post edited at 12:05
 graeme jackson 07 Jan 2020
In reply to russellcampbell:

>  I take it  that anyone familiar with Zog the dragon would understand the "fule kno" reference.

I'm pretty sure the 'any fule kno' quote comes from Down with Skool (and sundry other nigel molesworth books from the 50's.

 Offwidth 07 Jan 2020
In reply to Dave Garnett:

Don't be silly, it doesn't fail any rule of science. It's just that the combinations of key parameter variablilities (and hence overall probability range) is just so wide at present as to be almost useless. Yet parameter estimates are improving and the fact we haven't spotted 'anyone else' yet cautions against the larger estimates.

The wikipedia page on the subject is good fun.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Drake_equation

 wercat 07 Jan 2020
In reply to graeme jackson:

or "Wizz for Atoms" ?

wasn't sloper always quotting it?

Post edited at 12:44
 DancingOnRock 07 Jan 2020
In reply to Rob Exile Ward:

I think ‘we’ seem to be using a different definition to hers. 
 

I would say it’s pretty certain that life exists outside of our world. They’ve found evidence of water on Mars and know that it once had an atmosphere. They’ve found liquid water on comets and also found amino acids practically all over the place. 
 

Alien life exists and there is evidence it has ‘frequently’ been bought here by meteors. 

 Robert Durran 07 Jan 2020
In reply to DancingOnRock:

> I would say it’s pretty certain that life exists outside of our world. They’ve found evidence of water on Mars and know that it once had an atmosphere. They’ve found liquid water on comets and also found amino acids practically all over the place. 

Yes, but that is not life; we simply don't know how likely life is to start when such prerequisites are in place.

> Alien life exists and there is evidence it has ‘frequently’ been bought here by meteors. 

Really?

 Dave Garnett 07 Jan 2020
In reply to Offwidth:

> Don't be silly, it doesn't fail any rule of science. 

Ok, let’s just say that if a student of mine had come up with it I’d have said it was a concise way of stating the obvious but didn’t lead to any testable predictions.  In my present job I’d probably say it was a restatement of the problem, not a solution.

 deepsoup 07 Jan 2020
In reply to Dave Garnett:

> In my present job I’d probably say it was a restatement of the problem, not a solution.

Well yes, and Drake would have agreed with you: "The equation was written in 1961 by Frank Drake, not for purposes of quantifying the number of civilizations, but as a way to stimulate scientific dialogue.."
(Quote taken from the Wikipedia page linked to above: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Drake_equation )

You're arguing against a strawman - nobody is trying to say it is a solution.

russellcampbell 07 Jan 2020
In reply to graeme jackson:

Thanks. 

cb294 07 Jan 2020
In reply to Dave Garnett:

But it did contribute to generating interest, publicity and eventually funding for the later, successful planet hunting efforts, as well as SETI, which was the whole purpose of the exercise.

Yes there were and are still huge unknowns, but already then the minimal values of their educated guesses they put into the equiation yielded a non-zero number for the expected number of civilizations, making looking for them or their homes a worthwhile exercise.

The very fact that we are still discussing this equation today proves this point.

CB

 Dave Garnett 07 Jan 2020
In reply to deepsoup:

> You're arguing against a strawman - nobody is trying to say it is a solution.

Yes, OK, you're right!

 Duncan Bourne 07 Jan 2020
In reply to krikoman:

If only.

As Dilbert once said "The future will not be like star trek"


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