ET go home

How does science work? And what's all this about quantum mechanics?

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Hobbes' Choice
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Re: ET go home

Post by Hobbes' Choice »

Melchior wrote:
Dubious wrote:Why are we so intent on finding "intelligent" life at all? How does that change our position here on Earth? If initial contact is made then what? It only proves there is or was some other intelligence out there. Probability alone based on virtually infinite possibilities already confirms as much. I'm not saying you shouldn't keep the phone lines open but why go out of our way to find something. It may even be possible that other technological beings may ponder the "for what" question and place this among their least priorities.

It is exactly for this reason that I find SETI stupid. It's a waste of time.
Even if we heard something, what then?
The civilisation sending it might have died out thousands of years ago.
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TSBU
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Re: ET go home

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Melchior wrote:
Dubious wrote:Why are we so intent on finding "intelligent" life at all? How does that change our position here on Earth? If initial contact is made then what? It only proves there is or was some other intelligence out there. Probability alone based on virtually infinite possibilities already confirms as much. I'm not saying you shouldn't keep the phone lines open but why go out of our way to find something. It may even be possible that other technological beings may ponder the "for what" question and place this among their least priorities.

It is exactly for this reason that I find SETI stupid. It's a waste of time.
Of money. It probably has been done because somebody wanted to earn money building it.
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Lacewing
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Re: ET go home

Post by Lacewing »

Hobbes' Choice wrote:Even if we heard something, what then?
The civilisation sending it might have died out thousands of years ago.
I'm guessing that sometimes JUST KNOWING what ELSE is or can be or has been... can change everything.

All of our knowledge and beliefs are based on the ideas known to us so far and at this time. If we were to discover undeniable proof (that couldn't be ignored) which stretched us beyond those limits, we might be forced or inspired to evolve in all kinds of ways.
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Hobbes' Choice
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Re: ET go home

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Lacewing wrote:
Hobbes' Choice wrote:Even if we heard something, what then?
The civilisation sending it might have died out thousands of years ago.
I'm guessing that sometimes JUST KNOWING what ELSE is or can be or has been... can change everything.

All of our knowledge and beliefs are based on the ideas known to us so far and at this time. If we were to discover undeniable proof (that couldn't be ignored) which stretched us beyond those limits, we might be forced or inspired to evolve in all kinds of ways.
I seem to remember the "WOW Signal" heard when SETI was young has had no reaction at all.
How could it when it was completely unintelligible, as it must be.
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Greta
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Re: ET go home

Post by Greta »

I agree with Lacewing.

Why wouldn't we want to know? It's a fascinating topic. Everything we learn about the universe helps us to contextualise our own existence. Whether we find something or find nothing, then that is information to consider unless life or intelligence is found.

The work by SETI is the ultimate "blue skies" research project, as esoteric as it gets. I am all for esoteric research projects in this increasingly rationalist economic environment that insists on practicality and structure. Many of the greatest discoveries in history have been accidental results of blue skies research. May the force be with them V
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Hobbes' Choice
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Re: ET go home

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Greta wrote:I agree with Lacewing.

Why wouldn't we want to know? It's a fascinating topic. Everything we learn about the universe helps us to contextualise our own existence. Whether we find something or find nothing, then that is information to consider unless life or intelligence is found.

The work by SETI is the ultimate "blue skies" research project, as esoteric as it gets. I am all for esoteric research projects in this increasingly rationalist economic environment that insists on practicality and structure. Many of the greatest discoveries in history have been accidental results of blue skies research. May the force be with them V

So here it is!
An alien signal. What did it change? nothing. What does it mean? How the hell would we know. There is no context, there is no understanding, just a blip in the waves.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wow!_signal
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Greta
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Re: ET go home

Post by Greta »

Hobbes' Choice wrote:
Greta wrote:I agree with Lacewing.

Why wouldn't we want to know? It's a fascinating topic. Everything we learn about the universe helps us to contextualise our own existence. Whether we find something or find nothing, then that is information to consider unless life or intelligence is found.

The work by SETI is the ultimate "blue skies" research project, as esoteric as it gets. I am all for esoteric research projects in this increasingly rationalist economic environment that insists on practicality and structure. Many of the greatest discoveries in history have been accidental results of blue skies research. May the force be with them V

So here it is!
An alien signal. What did it change? nothing. What does it mean? How the hell would we know. There is no context, there is no understanding, just a blip in the waves.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wow!_signal
I know the "Wow!" signal story. You have to start somewhere.
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Hobbes' Choice
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Re: ET go home

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Greta wrote:
Hobbes' Choice wrote:
Greta wrote:I agree with Lacewing.

Why wouldn't we want to know? It's a fascinating topic. Everything we learn about the universe helps us to contextualise our own existence. Whether we find something or find nothing, then that is information to consider unless life or intelligence is found.

The work by SETI is the ultimate "blue skies" research project, as esoteric as it gets. I am all for esoteric research projects in this increasingly rationalist economic environment that insists on practicality and structure. Many of the greatest discoveries in history have been accidental results of blue skies research. May the force be with them V

So here it is!
An alien signal. What did it change? nothing. What does it mean? How the hell would we know. There is no context, there is no understanding, just a blip in the waves.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wow!_signal
I know the "Wow!" signal story. You have to start somewhere.
But there are good reasons why this is the only one, and that even with this we will probably never know anything more about ET.
We don't know what it means, nor what context to use to respond to it, and who is willing to wait a 100 years for a response that is likely to also be meaningless?
I'm pretty sure that it is highly unlikely that there is no intelligent life out there - in fat it is probably teeming with civilisations. But the likelihood is that none of them will ever leave their own immediate solar systems.
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Lacewing
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Re: ET go home

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Hobbes' Choice wrote:I'm pretty sure that it is highly unlikely that there is no intelligent life out there - in fat it is probably teeming with civilisations. But the likelihood is that none of them will ever leave their own immediate solar systems.
What do you think about the possibility of there being different FREQUENCIES... overlapping each other... and the transfer of information between them happens based on "tuning"?

Outer space may not be the biggest unknown frontier.
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Hobbes' Choice
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Re: ET go home

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Lacewing wrote:
Hobbes' Choice wrote:I'm pretty sure that it is highly unlikely that there is no intelligent life out there - in fat it is probably teeming with civilisations. But the likelihood is that none of them will ever leave their own immediate solar systems.
What do you think about the possibility of there being different FREQUENCIES... overlapping each other... and the transfer of information between them happens based on "tuning"?

Outer space may not be the biggest unknown frontier.
In terms of physics I'm not sure what you are getting at.
The point I was making is the absurdly difficult distances and the time it take for any such signal to arrive at any destination. For many of the things we see at night are already long gone, and all that is left is the light that has reached us.
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Greta
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Re: ET go home

Post by Greta »

Hobbes' Choice wrote:
Lacewing wrote:
Hobbes' Choice wrote:I'm pretty sure that it is highly unlikely that there is no intelligent life out there - in fat it is probably teeming with civilisations. But the likelihood is that none of them will ever leave their own immediate solar systems.
What do you think about the possibility of there being different FREQUENCIES... overlapping each other... and the transfer of information between them happens based on "tuning"?

Outer space may not be the biggest unknown frontier.
In terms of physics I'm not sure what you are getting at.
The point I was making is the absurdly difficult distances and the time it take for any such signal to arrive at any destination. For many of the things we see at night are already long gone, and all that is left is the light that has reached us.
Yes, the scales of space and time mean that there's a very low probability of success. Still, we may be lucky!

I am glad to see SETI continuing the noble quest for the obscure, ostensibly meaningless and pointless :) History has plenty of examples of esoteric researchers making significant accidental discoveries tangential to their stated aims.

Regarding frequencies, it's unlikely that wildly different frequency bands to those used by humanity would be used in alien communications as their civilisations progressed. The more difficult signals to detect may be those generated by highly advanced species. There's some research being done to the possibility of using neutrinos for information transfer because they are barely affected by the EM of space, meaning high fidelity and speed. Still, if I know about this, the people at SETI have probably long been considering the issue.
Last edited by Greta on Fri Jan 13, 2017 1:23 am, edited 1 time in total.
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Lacewing
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Re: ET go home

Post by Lacewing »

Hobbes' Choice wrote:In terms of physics I'm not sure what you are getting at.
The point I was making is the absurdly difficult distances and the time it take for any such signal to arrive at any destination.
Do you think that visible physical reality and apparent distances on a flat plane are the only reality there is?

Might there be other dimensions and bends in space that are typically unaccounted for in the common model we humans are currently most familiar with? And if so, wouldn't that open more avenues for interstellar communication? For example, the difference between smoke signals and electronic signals... based on frequencies. Why would we think that we have reached a pinnacle of communicative capability. Maybe ETs are sending signals too sophisticated for our "dial up" technology... and when we advance enough to get more broadly connected, we may have a FULL INBOX from ETs!
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vegetariantaxidermy
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Re: ET go home

Post by vegetariantaxidermy »

Hobbes' Choice wrote:
Melchior wrote:Belief in intelligent extra-terrestrial life says more about what we want to be true than any real possibility. There is no other intelligent life in the universe.
We are certainly not in contact with ANY significantly intelligent life (including human), in the universe.
But it is likely that the universe is chock full of it, but we will most probably never converse with it.
The odds are stacked astronomically against it. For all we know we could have been contacted by an alien culture a million years ago (a heartbeat on the cosmic scale) and that culture has long since become extinct. Timing is of the essence. Plus, apparently 'advanced' species are fucked in the head and intent on bringing about their own destruction. We have no reason to believe another species would be any different.
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Re: ET go home

Post by Dubious »

vegetariantaxidermy wrote:Plus, apparently 'advanced' species are fucked in the head and intent on bringing about their own destruction. We have no reason to believe another species would be any different.
We have no reason to believe any other species would be different only because we know of no other species that may in fact be different. An advanced species is one that knows to unfuck itself asap if its goal is to continue advancing. The state of the world confirms we obviously haven't arrived yet.
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TSBU
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Post by TSBU »

This thread is full of humans :/ I guess I'll take my roadside picnic in other place.
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