One reason our SETI searches may be turning up nothing is that everywhere in the cosmos, civilizations exist that are much like ours. They may be, in other words, what Alexander Zaitsev calls ‘dismally monotonous,’ capable of being no more than passive when it comes to other living worlds. They are listening rather than transmitting. And Zaitzev is at the forefront of the movement to change all that, at least where Earth is concerned.
Zaitsev’s new paper lays out the basics of METI — ‘Messaging to ETI’ — the idea being to transmit purposely to likely stellar systems. The Russian scientist is fascinated by the question of consciousness. How widespread is it, and is it not the aim of SETI to find out whether it is a universal phenomenon or a singular one, isolated on our own world? On this score, all kinds of speculation are possible, and I rather like this Arthur C. Clarke quote cited by Zaitsev as one of various hypotheses:
“…it is almost evident that biological intelligence is a low form of intelligence. We are at the early stage of the evolution of intelligence, but at the late stage of the evolution of life. True intelligence is unlikely to be living.”
But of course, we don’t know that, nor do we know how to regard John Wheeler’s ‘participatory anthropic principle,’ which says that it takes observers to bring the universe into being. Zaitsev thinks that true participation in the universe requires something more than contemplation, and that we should supplement Wheeler with this thought: ‘Senders are necessary to bring consciousness into the universe.’
The consequence? We need a new term in the Drake equation, one covering planets in the communicative phase of their existence that are purposely transmitting signals to the outside. How to gauge a factor like that depends upon how we ourselves receive the idea of broadcasting to the stars, since we’re the only technological civilization we know about. Zaitsev points to what he calls ‘METI-phobia,’ the fear of encountering hostile civilizations that, if taken seriously, would keep us not only from transmitting but even replying to transmissions, since we wouldn’t know how to judge the true nature of any beings that contacted us.
We can work out a value for the METI factor for our own world. The METI/SETI ratio is currently less than one percent, given that total SETI search times vastly outnumber the total transmission time, which Zaitsev pegs at some 37 hours. If all civilizations were like ours, communication would be deeply unlikely. From the paper:
Given such enormous distances and, consequently, long signal propagation time, communications should be mostly one-way — our addressees receive our messages, and we, in turn, detect those who have chosen us as their addressees. This is how the Universe at a certain stage of its development appears for observers as inhabitable. Otherwise, centers of intelligence are doomed to remain lonely, unobserved civilizations.
So do we transmit or not? Regular readers of Centauri Dreams know that this question is in serious debate within and on the edges of the SETI discipline. Zaitsev is saying that our choice against transmissions would have us set the new factor in the Drake Equation to a value close to zero, and that would imply that searching is meaningless since other cultures may well have made the same choice that we have.
In other words: SETI makes sense only in a Universe with such properties that it develops Intelligence that realizes the need not only to conduct searches, but also to transmit intelligent signals to other hypothetical sites of self-consciousness.
In that sense, we are indeed engaged in a participatory universe, one where our choices probably are not so different from those of other beings, and our choice against METI would leave us unlikely to overcome the Great Silence. Zaitsev thus frames the debate from the standpoint of METI advocacy: The Drake Equation gives us the likelihood of finding detectable civilizations elsewhere in the galaxy. And right now some of its key terms are based on us.
The paper is Zaitsev, “The SETI Paradox,” presented by the author at the the Russian SETI-2005 Conference and published in the SAO (Special Astrophysical Observatory) Bulletin. The paper is now available online.
One of the problems with the “METI” approach to “SETI” is that it assumes all ETIs will be pure of heart and have oh so noble purposes.
“METI-phobia” aside, let’s turn the question around? Why hasn’t there been a successful “SETI” contact? Could it be that as technological civilizations go, Humanity is at the top of the ladder? If so, can SETI-ist be content with Humanity being the technologically superior civilization?
What we can accept and/or not accept about SETI/METI also speaks volumes about ourselves.
Actually there’s a simple reason why most people think if other intelligent species exist they are more advanced than us. It is becouse human civilization evolved very fast on astronomical time-scales. The statistical argument is that if we take a random civilization and it is likely to be much older than we are and hence more advanced. It is actually a very optimistic way of thinking about intelligence in general and our history and future in particular.
To put it another way the thought that there are many technological civilizations in the galaxy but we are one of the most advanced is a very depressing thought to me. It’s not some kind of self-hate, inferiority complex or anything like that. But it would imply that civilizations in general either:
A) are short lived. This is quite possible but a frightening thought. Many causes that made other civilizations extinct to kill us. These may be natural, social, technological or economic.
B) tend towards stagnation. This is not a future I’d like us to have, yet there may be strong social causes that lead most civilizations to stagnation and even technological decline.
So this is our dilemma. The most natural assumption is that human civilization is average in everything except its age. If this is true yet we are in fact one of the most advanced, that means that we generally have no future. That is something SETI proponents but most people would not like to believe.
Of course hopes and beliefs don’t change how things are. We do have the means (or rather will have in a reasonable time frame) to map out civilizations that are the least bit similar to ours. It is a program that should be carried out with SETI, through standard planet-searches, radio surveys etc.
In the end this might tell us or hint at dangers we might face in the future. It would even answer the question if we are really an average civilization or something special.
Proponents of SETI often state that Humanity can learn so much from ETIs and be saved in the process. The problem with that line of thinking is that you’re admiting that Humanity is incapable of figuring things out for ourselves – we need help from a smarter ETI who knows special things.
Note that Rob states that SETI-ists believe that if Humanity is at the top of the ladder, as technological civilizations go in the galaxy, then we have no future. Why can’t we have a future if Humanity is the top technological civilzation in the galaxy at this moment in time? Why do SETI-ists grant ETIs divinity, and cast Humanity as pond scum? And what will happen to SETI-ism when the ETIs turn out to be just as flawed as Humanity?
Hi All
I ‘believe’ in SETI but I by no means see ETIs as gods. Answer times for meaningful questions are far too long to provide any kind of immediate benefit, unless ETIs have a physical presence in our System – either via the proxy of a probe or actual starbases.
Advancement is no guarantee of enlightenment of any kind, but it’s not ridiculous to imagine ETIs might understand themselves better than we understand ourselves. But to imagine they know us better than we do is a quasi-mystical hope.
Adam
Allen, it would be much easier if you reacted to what I actually said instead to what you believe I think. As it is I think you just didn’t understand my post (maybe my mistake) and chose to fill in the gap with your prejudices or previous experiences with SETI proponents.
Anyway in the meantime, let me ask you a questions:
Do you believe technological progress will continue at the present pace (or faster) in the future?
“civilizations in general either:
A) are short lived. This is quite possible but a frightening thought. Many causes that made other civilizations extinct to kill us. These may be natural, social, technological or economic.
B) tend towards stagnation. This is not a future I’d like us to have, yet there may be strong social causes that lead most civilizations to stagnation and even technological decline.”
or…
C) such civilizations do not exist, possibly because the conditions for complex animal life are so rare that the possibly rarer still random evolution of intelligence, and subsequent technical civilization plus a society interested in galactic exploration are SO cumulatively improbable, leaving us as the sole tech civilization.
and maybe not, but the Occam’s Razor possibility that we’re actually alone should not be dismissed in favor of more fun possibilities.
The Fermi Paradox: An Approach Based on Percolation Theory
Geoffrey A. Landis
Ohio Aerospace Institute
NASA Lewis Research Center, 302-1
Cleveland, OH 44135 U.S.A.
Abstract
If even a very small fraction of the hundred billion stars in the galaxy are home to technological civilizations which colonize over interstellar distances, the entire galaxy could be completely colonized in a few million years. The absence of such extraterrestrial civilizations visiting Earth is the Fermi paradox.
A model for interstellar colonization is proposed using the assumption that there is a maximum distance over which direct interstellar colonization is feasable. Due to the time lag involved in interstellar communications, it is assumed that an interstellar colony will rapidly develop a culture independent of the civilization that originally settled it.
Any given colony will have a probability P of developing a colonizing civilization, and a probability (1-P) that it will develop a non-colonizing civilization. These assumptions lead to the colonization of the galaxy occuring as a percolation problem. In a percolation problem, there will be a critical value of the percolation probability, Pc. For PPc, small uncolonized voids will exist, bounded by non-colonizing civilizations. When P is on the order of Pc, arbitrarily large filled regions exist, and also arbitrarily large empty regions.
http://www.sff.net/people/Geoffrey.Landis/percolation.htp
Persistence solves Fermi Paradox but challenges SETI projects, by Osame Kinouchi:
http://arxiv.org/PS_cache/cond-mat/pdf/0112/0112137.pdf
There is an excellent collection of papers and sites on the subject here:
http://www.faughnan.com/setifail.html
David Brin offers an examination and solutions to the Fermi Paradox here in
his paper, The Great Slience:
http://brin-l.stock-consulting.com/downloads/silence.pdf
Correct me if I’m wrong Rob, but these are your own words:
“So this is our dilemma. The most natural assumption is that human civilization is average in everything except its age. If this is true yet we are in fact one of the most advanced, that means that we generally have no future. That is something SETI proponents but most people would not like to believe.”
In your own words, you said that Humanity has “no future” if we happen to be the most advanced civilization in the Universe.
What I’ve always advocated is a practical and rational common sense approach to all SETI/METI activities devoid of psuedo-religious overtones. An ETI should not replace G_D. Please don’t make assumptions about my past and/or present experiences with SETI/METI proponents Rob, since you know absoultely nothing about me at all. If you did, you wouldn’t be making such rash and unfounded assumptions about my past and current present.
P.S. Rob, most Conservative Jews like myself do not completely spell out the name of G_D. Just thought I better let you know just in case you want to accuse me of being a Christian – like a SETI proponent did when I refused to grant ETIs divine status. I wouldn’t want you to make the wrong assumption about myself.
P.P.S. Rob,
To answer the one question you posed; any student of history knows that technological progress has uneven at best. As for current technological progress it remains uneven because any and all technological progress depends on individual and social will combined with the dual harsh realities of cold hard cash and what some may consider stifiling legalities.
“Please don’t make assumptions about my past and/or present experiences with SETI/METI proponents Rob, since you know absoultely nothing about me at all.”
I don’t think I did. All I said that your interpretation of what I said was influenced too much by prior experiences. I never claimed to know what those experiences were. But in the end all I wanted to say that you didn’t read carefully enough.
“In your own words, you said that Humanity has “no future” if we happen to be the most advanced civilization in the Universe.”
What I said that if technological civilizations are common, yet we are the most advanced than we (most likely) have no future.
These are very strong assumptions and in my opinion are unlikely to be both true. (Note one of the conditions is that there be many civilizations out there. There might be only a few, in which case it wouldn’t be a surprise if we were the most advanced.)
But in case they are both true, we have to ask ourselves the question: what happened to the others? If there are many civilizations, how is it that all of them are very young? (again, I’m making an assumption here, but this one is quite natural: civlizations tend to advance technologically over time.)
Now you either invoke some irrational explanation like creation or just accept the fact there are dangers out there in space and time that tend to destroy advanced civilizations.
philw:
I completely agree, it is very possible we are completely alone. But I was wondering specifically about the logical consequences of a galaxy populated by young civilizations.
Rob, your constant and central theme is that Humanity has no future if we’re the most technologically advanced civilization in the universe. No matter how many times you want to rewrite and restate your thesis, you condem Humanity to a bleak and barren future if there’s no super genius ETIs out there that we can learn from.
So why don’t we have a future Rob?
“No matter how many times you want to rewrite and restate your thesis, you condem Humanity to a bleak and barren future if there’s no super genius ETIs out there that we can learn from.”
Let me comment on this before I answer your question. I did not rewrite it but I did have to repeat it as you seem to have missed part of it. Also I don’t know where you got the learning part from. Certainly not from me. You are asking me to defend a proposition I did not make. The existance of more intelligent civilizations is simply a proof that others managed to survive for a long time. Their absence is a sign that something happened to them. Something bad probably.
“So why don’t we have a future Rob?”
Again something I did not say. I mean: “We have no future” and “If there are other civilizations out there but none of them more advanced than us than we have no future” are two different statements. I think I’ve already answered why I think the second one is true.
My own assumption is that Humanity may very well be the first (in this galaxy). I make this assumption due to the history of the territory. The galactic enviroment was far more detrimental (it’s not exactly friendly now even) to life in the past.
Perhaps there were earlier races that reached our level or higher yet sucumbed to a natural disaster. We won’t really know till we venture forth. The fact that we see no evidence of other civilization is no reason to feel pessimism. We should instead feel thankfull that a benign chain of events allowed us to reach a point at which we could pro-actively protect ourselves, given the will to do so.
I sometimes ponder what it must have been like for some races in some other part of the universe. Perhaps they had just reached a level of technology to become seriouse astronomers and had to watch, and understand the significance, of a closely approaching nuetron star as one of the more mundane examples. The list of potential disasters, civilization killers, could go on and on. My own feeling is that our galaxy is only now becoming less detrimental to long periods of evolutionary developement.
As far as a future. We have only a little bit further to progress before we could reasonably assume racial safety. At this point I believe simple inertia will push us to the point where we should be safety. The only thing I see stopping us is our own hubris. The solution to hubris is more options. By spreading out, into the solar system, those options are increase. Just a little more time and a little more advancement is needed. If we can do this I think our future is very bright.
Rob, I’ll ask the question again, based on your own words:
“So this is our dilemma. The most natural assumption is that human civilization is average in everything except its age. If this is true yet we are in fact one of the most advanced, that means that we generally have no future. That is something SETI proponents but most people would not like to believe.”
In your own words, you said that Humanity has “no future” if we happen to be the most advanced civilization in the Universe. Why do you believe that Humanity doesn’t have a future if there isn’t an advanced ETI somewhere out in the universe?
You curiously say that if there isn’t an advanced ETI out there, it means Humanity is doomed. You obviously do not believe that Humanity, if it is the most advanced civilization in the Universe, is capable of surviving and prospering.
JBA: I’ll just quote myself:
“The existance of more intelligent civilizations is simply a proof that others managed to survive for a long time. Their absence is a sign that something happened to them. Something bad probably.”
And I do wish you included the condition that there are many civilizations in the galaxy. It is in the post you quoted, only a few paragraphs earlier. It might be easy to miss for the first time, due to my poor writing no doubt, but I did repeat it twice since.
So Rob, what you’re saying is that if Humanity is the most advanced civilization in the Universe, we’re not capable of surviving and prospering? Rather a curious, defeatist attitude based on poppycock, if you ask me.
As for not including the “condition” that there are many civilizations in the Milky Way galaxy and Universe after all, we have to reach a simple conclusion – nobody knows and we just may never know if another civilization exists, so instead of waiting for somebody to save poor old Humanity, let’s pull ourselves up by our own bootstraps – Humanity can do it and there’s more pride in the accomplishment that way.
The Great Silence.
Well, there! You’ve done it again — you’ve used a spiritual word — silence. (I end this post with a real world question about physics, so hang on and let me make my point first.)
The quantum physicist might suggest that silence is the virtual field — a “place” where nothing measurable-by-us happens but anything’s possible. This is quite a spiritual statement, yes?
The mystic will talk about thoughts emerging from silence — silence being an absolute beyond the beyond “field” about which nothing can be said, but which is nonetheless the source of all things that can be said.
Gurus will frequently insist that silence is the only answer to some questions and encourage you to try it out — that is, have no thoughts and see if that solves your quest for knowledge. This technique is used just exactly when the student has progressed to the point where intellectualizing is mere “busy work” — yes nuances can be garnered, but like the end point of a calculus result, silence is the “goal.”
A quantum physicist is in this terrible position — his intellect wants to be able to grasp the non-conceptual when he is confronted with it as he peers into the virtual field. What mechanism does the virtual field use to determine when an electron pops in or out of it? This is like asking “Where does God get His next thought?” (Pardon me, my Jewish friends out there if I am not honoring your value of using G_D. I mean no offense and am pretty sure that you understand my religious freedom. By the way, I could write tens of thousands of words about the proper use of symbols-of-divinity, and I am not entirely un-supportive of your values about this.)
So, my question of the moment is, “Is the universe silent on purpose, and is that a message? Is that silence a Guru Universe telling me to listen to that silence as if it is an answer?”
Maybe when physicists can really, you know, OWN that doorway into silence, the virtual field, they’ll know that how you enter is how you exit. And, voila!, the Warp Field is “invented.” All we have to do is be able to treat a starship as if it were an electron!
Pop! And there you are — a billion light years away.
Mystics know the universe as “one giant thought process.” And changing one’s thought about where/what one is is all that’s required to transport/transform oneself. We do this in dreams, right? We’re all quite comfortable with “scenes/bodies changing instantly” in a dream. No intuition of the dream person alerts that person with “Hey, what the heck happened here…I was just across town one THOUGHT ago and now I’m over here….what happened?” That doesn’t happen in dreams. Comfort with the mystical process, see?
The mystics will tell you that your experiences in the waking state are exactly like dreams — it’s all thought, it’s all conceptual grasping, it’s always a defining process. Clarity about this yields the power to manipulate one’s status in time and space as easily as a dream switches the scenery.
We always see these Hollywood concepts of flying saucers that have the sauces revolving at tremendous speeds — accompanied by a soundtrack to make it clear that huge forces are in play. Well, I’m just wondering if maybe a spinning “flywheel” can be made to spin so fast that even neutrinos cannot penetrate that spinning barrier without getting “caught.” If so, then whatever is inside that barrier is “outside” of the universe. Maybe from that viewpoint, from that “singularity starship” one can pop out anywhere.
Help me out here you lovely big brainers. Are there any research results you know of about the possibility of such a concept “holding water?” How fast would a 300 foot wide flywheel have to spin to stop all radiation from sneaking through?
Maybe, just maybe, The Great Silence is telling us to find a way to “quiet the universe.”
And, you know me, I just love that thought.
Edg
Dear Colleagues,
I would like to stress that my above mentioned paper “The SETI Paradox” is about neither
>Edg Duveyoung Says: December 7th, 2006 at 10:23
>The Great Silence,
nor
>ljk Says: December 6th, 2006 at 13:23
>Fermi Paradox,
but mainly about that:
(Abstract) “Two opposing tendencies paradoxically coexist in terrestrial consciousness – the insistent quest for intelligent signals from other civilizations and the persistent aversion to any attempts to transmit such signals from Earth toward probable fellow intelligent beings. If typical for our entire Universe, such manifestations of intelligence would make the search for other civilizations totally meaningless”
See:
http://arxiv.org/abs/physics/0611283
Alexander Zaitsev.
Dear Edg,
Thank you, but the prohibition against spelling out G_D’s name only applies to Conservative and Orthodox Jews.
The problem with the “great silence,” as you describe it, is that Humanity still must pass some sort of “test” and then we’ll be accepted into the Universal Brotherhood of Really Cool EITs – except Humanity won’t be as cool as the other ETIs.
In most religions, periods of silence is used for devotions and discipline to reach a designated spiritual plateau. Silence is usually not used as a test, unless you’re a frazzled parent trying to bribe a hyper loud child.
Usually the simplest answer is the best one to a difficult problem. The “Great Silence” may simply be that Humanity is the most technologically advanced civilization in the Milky Way and the rest of the universe. It’s a possibility that devout SETI-ists abhore because they believe that ETIs are oh so much better than Humanity.
Dear Dr. Zaitsev,
I read your paper, “The SETI Paradox,” with great interest.
The premise that those who overcome the “Great Silence” will reap the benefits communication is a flawed one.
In searching for life beyond Earth on Mars, Europa, and other places of possiblity as abodes of life in our own Solar System, analogues of extremophiles on Earth – life forms that thrive and flourish in extreme environments of hot, cold, and other conditions – are often used to promote the case that life could exist in the extreme environments of Earth’s sister planets and moons.
In search for ETIs, SETI/METI tosses aside the complete record of how different civilizations interacted with each other during the span of Human history. The lessons Humanity needs to consider if a “voice in the universal wilderness” is heard can be found in our own history.
Even the lesson that our parents taught us – Stanger equals Danger – is a valid one and can be applied to SETI/METI. There’s nothing wrong with an approach that advocated listening to what an ETI has to say before you respond to it. If Humanity doesn’t like what it hears, we have the option of tuning out and walking away. When you shout, you attract unwanted attention to yourself. Consider the lesson of the lion and the antelope – the antelope does not shout its presence to the lion- to do so would be foolhardy as a poorly planned METI protocol.
Hello, this is David Brin (http://www.davidbrin.com) – author of Earth & The Postman… all that. In my other role as an astrophysicist, I first coined the term “The Great Silence” in a 1983 paper that laid out at least three dozen potential explanations for our lack of contact (so far) with extraterrestrial civilizations.
One of the problems in this field is that people tend to fixate very quickly on one particular aspect of the problem and clamp on, like terriers, promoting one particular theory to explain the lack of blatant signals in the sky.
For example, those I call “uniqueness proponents” zero in on one or another of the factors at the left side of the Drake Equation — positing that life or pleasant worlds or intelligence are rare.
SETI aficionados, on the other hand, often choose something on the right side — assuming that star travel is impossible and/or that violent species annihilate themselves (Sagan’s nuclear winter) or — in the case of Dr. Zaitsev’s METI community — assuming that ALL of the ETICs out there are boring cowards who aren’t visible because they refuse to transmit.
(Never pondered: the possibility that they are not transmitting because they know something we don’t know.)
According to this hypothesis — that all and every technologically species out their is in the same condition of benign shyness — WE are thereupon behooved to be the gregarious, forthcoming ones, beaming therapeutic messages of welcome to all the reticent folks out there, who only need a little urging to start the Great Conversation going.
DISCLAIMER!
You should all be aware that I am a disputant in the tussle over METI… or “Active SETI”… and a leading proponent of a moratorium on active transmissions from Earth, until at least a few years of open discussions can take place, thrashing out all of the arguments and worries in open fora. One of our chief complaints is that a very few individuals are pushing ahead with attempts to dramatically increase Earth’s visibility/brightness parameter, without even offering wide consultation. This change in Earth’s visibility is planned on the basis of the favorite theories of just a dozen or so zealous enthusiasts.
Let’s be plain about this. Humanity knows next to nothing about the Galactic Situation. It is easy to disparage worries about the silence (e.g. that it implies danger) as “paranoid.” But no other theory has any better evidence to support it. What could be more arrogant than to wager all of posterity on your own favorite hypothesis, before even allowing other people to have their say?
What could be more reasonable than to ask these folks to wait just a little while?
I go into this in some detail at: http://lifeboat.com/ex/shouting.at.the.cosmos (please ignore the gaudy illustrations.) There is also a resource/background page at:
http://www.davidbrin.com/setisearch.html
We are looking for good venues where such discussions could take place.
With cordial regards,
David Brin
http://www.davidbrin.com
If we are so concerned about dangerous ETI around every
star ready to pounce on us the minute they know of our
existence, then we should stop all science and exploration
now. Turn off the radios and televisions, shut off our lights
at night, move everyone underground, and make Earth’s
surface as unpleasant as possible so that no one will want
to set foot or tentacle on our planet, to say nothing of
colonizing the place.
Presuming that FTL drives and artificial wormholes are SF
fantasies, does anyone reasonably think that there are
societies out there willing to travel decades to centuries
across interstellar space just to take us out?
And if there are, what praytell is anyone going to do about
them? One starcraft moving at relativistic velocities aimed
at Earth will solve their concern over future galactic competition
(see The Killing Star by Charles Pellegrino). Of course our
descendants could just as easily be this very threat to the
other intelligent beings of the Milky Way galaxy that so many
here are accusing hypothetical societies of now.
Joseph Baneth Allen assumes that the “pro” SETI folk tend to
downgrade humanity to the lower rungs of galactic society
and that if ETI aren’t out to destoy us, then they will have all
the answers to our problems and “save” us.
For some reason the SETI literature takes a while to be fully
digested and brought up to speed by some. Yes, in the early
days of SETI – once it got past being totally put down by the
science community – its proponents did tend to think that ETI
would be out there signalling us to join the Galactic Brotherhood
(or Sisterhood, or some other kind of gender we can’t imagine)
and give us the keys to galactic knowledge that would help the
poor humans get past their primitive, destructive ways.
While some still hold that view – and it is not unreasonable or
impossible – it isn’t fair or nice to lump everyone in that category.
It’s just plain outdated, for one thing. Plus for us to detect a
message from another society, or for them to find us, they would
have to be at least just a bit more advanced than we are at
present. That does not mean they would be better than us,
they just have to have more sophisticated tools.
If ETI are anything like us or life in general, the majority are
probably focused on their own concerns and survival. Add to
this the huge amount of star systems spread across 100,000
light years, and it isn’t such a big wonder why they aren’t
sending us greeting via radio or laser beams or probes every
other day. This doesn’t mean we shouldn’t bother looking for
them, but the lack of a sign after only a few decades of sporadic
searches based solely from our planet should not also mean that
no one else is out there.
And I don’t think ETI will “save” us other than knowing about
them will give us an extra data point to go on in terms of what
kind of life can evolve in the Universe. We may get some new
insights from their culture and knowledge base, but it may also
be so literally alien to us that it won’t do us any good in terms
of our own survival – but that doesn’t mean it wouldn’t be
utterly fascinating to study.
Hi All
Wow. What a set of contrasts – David Brin’s caution, Larry’s more reasonable tone and the more extreme “let’s make ETIs notice us” crowd.
Seems to me that the odds are more in favour of autonomous probes as a means of Contact rather than the EM spectrum. Sure, once communication is established, then EM signalling is needed for current updates from a probe’s home, but until then it seems kind of pointless. Unless non-local quantum communication is possible then any probe has to be controlled by itself and it’s not a great step from that level of autonomy to making a probe an intelligent agent.
Sagan’s scintillation paper – one of his last – is a good reason for doubting that any kind of non-deliberate leakage of EM signals will make it to even the nearer stars. The random ion currents of the ISM will rarefy and enhance signals to the point of meaninglessness unless they’re backed by enough power. Probes don’t have such problems and to avoid such problems they’ll use lasers not radio to signal home.
So if ETIs were malign then we’d know about it before now. Or maybe they’re gathering intelligence to craft an ‘intervention’? I think the METI crowd are engaged in a quixotic quest and I think Dr.Brin is right to call for a moratorium – not because it’s dangerous, but because it’s pointless. If they’re here then pointing scopes at stars is stupid. If they’re not here… then I very much doubt if there’s Anyone to receive. Yet.
Adam
Billions of years, billions of stars — hasn’t there been enough time for one species to have reached “infinite intelligence?” Some AI program at least should have been invented by now that can, well, be godlike, and, well, might as well say it, KNOW ANYTHING INSTANTLY?
Even a few hundred years from now, where will our technology be? When will singularity hit us? Most are saying in a few decades, not hundreds of years. Unless we happen to be THE most advanced species in the WHOLE universe, certainly some sort of AI god has “figured it all out.” And “all” means FTL travel.
Now, if FTL is possible, and The Great Silence is, well, silent, then what does that mean? It seems to argue for the Star Trek prime-directive dynamic having been adopted by ETI’s, and our planet doesn’t yet meet interstellar civilization standards.
If FTL is impossible, then that AI god figured that out, and still we have The Great Silence, and that would point to some reason that keeps the “others” from beaming info to us as the only thing that can be done. We’re getting photons here from 13,000,000,000 light years away from us. The whole known universe has had time to get a message to, well, THE WHOLE UNIVERSE!
If we’re the best the universe has yet to evolve, then ho boy, let’s hope that in the next 100 years we don’t figure out FTL, cuz then for sure we’ll have Kirk running around and planting an American flag on every space rock he gets to. Ugh.
We need to be a better civilization before we start shouting LOUDLY to the universe, methinks.
Edg
To paraphrase pro-SETI spokesman David Darling, “dolphins and apes are far more intelligent than human beings.”
But to be fair to Dr. Darling, LJK, the bulk of pro-SETI writing follows along the lines of:
1.) ETIs haven’t contacted us because Humanity hasn’t passed some kind of memberhsip test.
or
2.) We have so much to learn from ETIs If only we could find one, then Humanity can be saved.
I noticed my question remains unanswered: Why does Humanity need an ETI to solve all it’s problems? Wouldn’t it be more impressive to an ETI if we solved our problems all by ourselves.
Oh, and by the way LJK, while I only have a few hundred non-fiction articles and a few science fiction and fantasy stories to my credit, for some reason unknown to me, the National Space Society does recognize me as some sort of an authority on space exploration. So I guess I am “up to speed” on this and other space science matters.
I’ve been quiet for a while on this issue because I’ve been working to use my Tau Zero Foundation to deal with this issue in an impartial and well-reasoned manner, and in a way that involves a greater segment of humanity (It will take months, however). But after the recent article by Alexander Zaitsev (which still did not impress me nor did it answer my prior questions) and all these posts, I just have to chime in.
And, for a change, I’m taking the risk of dropping my usual diplomatic tones.
Dear Alexander Zaitsev;
Regardless of the prospects, good or bad, I am troubled that you, or any one, – without consultation of a broader segment of humanity – would take it upon themselves to act as humanity’s spokesman to the cosmos.
What qualifications do you have to act on the behalf of all Humanity? Why are YOU the best choice?
Furthermore, your writings reflect that you are convinced that the “great silence” is a BAD thing (as opposed to just a characteristic of present reality, with no value judgment) and that you assume that kind extraterrestrials will anoint us with their blessings (yes, religious overtones deliberately evoked).
Your behavior on this issue is more like a religious zealot than a well-reasoned intellectual. That is dangerous. Even if I agreed that METI was a good thing, I would not want someone with such zealousness involved in it.
Please convince us, irrefutably, that what you are doing is a good thing, and that you are the best human to be shouting to the Cosmos. If you cannot answer these very reasonable questions, then I do not think you are qualified to keep transmitting without humanity’s permission. For the good of humanity, please stop transmitting until you have the rest of humanity supporting you.
Marc
President,
Tau Zero Foundation
It’s kind of interesting to read this thread, but I have to admit that I find it unsatisfying. If I were to summarize my personal perspective on the matter it would go something like this:
1) We exist.
2) If life arises once in the universe, it can arise twice.
3) I have no idea what probabilities to assign to the two previous statements.
So much of what I read is the projection of desires, fantasies, fears, and even deep psychological needs onto the near vacuum of available data about extraterrestrial life and intelligence.
For myself, I would like us (humanity) to keep collecting data, analyzing it, finding credible theories that fit the data, and, yes, do some scenario playing with possible ETI encounters. This is something we can effectively do and, I believe, has value. I include exploration as part of data collecting. Interesting, too.
I get very skeptical when anyone tries to promote a belief or suspicion of what might be into injudicious action. Or inaction.
Joseph Baneth Allen said:
I noticed my question remains unanswered: Why does Humanity need an ETI to solve all it’s problems? Wouldn’t it be more impressive to an ETI if we solved our problems all by ourselves.
My reply:
I did answer it before in the last paragraph of my last post
in this thread, but I also agree with you that humanity does
not need to be “saved” by ETI, especially since their idea of
“saving” someone may not mesh with our idea of the concept.
I also think that if we work to find our own answers to particular
goals, we will discover many other things along the way that we
might miss out on if someone just gives us the answers to our
first questions.
As for your background, I am not questioning your expertise
on the subject of space science, I was simply asking that you
do not lump all so-called pro-SETI people into the same group,
especially when it comes to the older (1970s and before) ideas.
My ideas on alien life and intelligence have changed and grown
over time as I have matured and new information comes in.
I happen to think that ETI are certainly possible and that the
main reason we haven’t found them yet is that the galaxy is
a huge place and we have barely made a noticable “dent” in
it on a celestial scale. Add to this our relatively short and
sporadic searches for signals, and I am not totally surprised
that we haven’t found any neighbors yet.
Are they better than us? The more advanced ones will certainly
know more than us and probably be able to do things we can
only dream of right now. But “better” implies a moral analogy
that may not work with an alien mindset.
I always recall the Star Trek:TNG episode where the Borg
actually claim (through Picard as Locutus) that they are only
trying to “improve the quality of life” when they assimilate
other societies. Of course the other societies the Borg want
to “help” don’t see it that way.
Perhaps just like missionaries who think they are saving the
souls of the natives they encounter, some ETI might find us
woefully primitive and dangerous and want to help us. Will
this be a good thing? Or will we lose what makes us humans
in the process?
Or maybe ETI will take the tactic from the classic SF film, The
Day the Earth Stood Still, where a galactic federation lets the
human race do whatever it wants on Earth, even destroy
ourselves, but if we take our warlike ways into the galaxy,
then they will step in and stop us.
But my opinion on why we haven’t heard from ETI: They
do not even know we exist yet. And if there are any really
advanced ones who do know about humanity, they probably
see no real benefit in communicating with us at this stage of
existence.
My hope is that while a few may be deliberately trying to
contact us, our best bet is to pick up some stray signals,
say from a radar sweep of planetoids and comets in their
star systems (if they have a space infrastructure and need
to avoid bumping into rocks and ice), or the electromagnetic
leakage that we have been doing for decades (but it would
have to be stronger than ours), or if we happen to be in the
path of a signal between a home world and a colony world
or one of their starships. Or different civilizations already
in contact with each other.
Dear LJK,
Dr. David Darling made his pro-SETI, anti-Humanity comments in 2006 – not over 30 years ago. He is a spokesman for the SETI Institute – the same organization which did not disavow his comments this year when he made them.
So its more than fair for me to assume that Dr. Darling is speaking what the current SETI community of 2006 A.D. believes about SETI/METI, ETIs and Humanity.
Dear Mr. Millis,
Thank you for advocating a broader, more public debate on the issue of METI. I am still troubled by an earlier post of Dr. Brin’s where he advocated only letting the professionals discuss METI and figure out protocols on how to conduct it.
One of the great problems SETI/METI has is that it automatically assumes that all First Contacts will go splendiously well – SETI/METI advocates have nothing in place if a First Contact goes wrong, or if that first message isn’t as wonderful as we think its going to be.
It would be nice if SETI/METI experts, including the ones with the fancy schumancy degrees and awards, actually took the time to sit down and listen to the concerns of the rest of the people their actions may have a negative impact on. Eggs, afterall, can’t be unscrambled and put back in the shell once they’ve been cooked.
Let me assert to LJK, yet again — all that the dissenters have been asking for is open discussion before a few dozen people barge ahead and permanently alter human destiny without even consulting anybody else or weighing alternate ideas. In fact, we have no evidence for ANY scenario for advanced life in the cosmos, except for our experience on Earth, where, nearly ALL “first contact” encounters between human cultures (or between newly contacting species) have turned predatory very rapidly.
Let me reiterate. I HOPE that the standard SETI (and traditional Soviet) view is correct, that advanced intelligences evolve toward universal beneficence and altruism. (See that resource page I cited, for a discussion of ETIC altruism.) Indeed, I see humanity evolving in exactly that direction! Believe it or not.
Nevertheless, in fact, altruism is very rare in nature and there are few examples of it in our cultural or biological past. It seems, therefore, to be a rather foolish thing to declare from the start that this trait will be pervasive and universal (!) among the stars.
JBA I am genuinely puzzled. I ask that you show me where I ever “advocated only letting the professionals discuss METI and figure out protocols on how to conduct it.”
Yes, I have participated in collegial committiees to discuss useful protocols in the past. Would you ban such? As for the future, if I recommended professional-level meetings, it was not exclusionary. If you knew my public stances, you would realize they are deeply and widely inclusive (e.g. The Transparent Society.) The more views the better.
(Irony? Are you aware that I am the one who has spilled this debate into the public arena, after years of controlled isolation by a tiny in-group?)
JBA you are right that there is an almost transcendentalist yearning among SETI fans, eager for salvation from above. I confess that I would rather humanity saved itself.
Still, my whole life has been about pondering the alien. I am willing to make contact. I just want to talk a bit among ourselves, laying out all possibilities, before leaping to bet all posterity on a few pet theories.
We’ve seen what fears are possible in humans.
Every major religion has supported violence-most-dire in their histories. We see how the first world treats the third world. We see the actual minds of apes and porpoises, and yet no culture on earth is willing to count them as “alien intelligences” — we’re killing them because of thoughts being generated by our so-called superior brains. Our airwaves are filled with fictive entities-most-heinous — monsters and evil and hate, oh my.
Ours is a world that seethes with fear, cultures fear, and it is more addicted to the biochemical rush of fear than any crack-head’s urgencies. We grow fears on purpose; it’s what we do. If fear was spilled scotch on a freshly tarred road, we’d all have black tongues.
Which major religion on earth today would welcome a landing spaceship? Which tentacled “monster” would be hugged and thought to have a “soul?” Every leader of every country on earth would immediately fear a loss of power if a spaceship landed on their white-house lawn. If one isn’t born a Hindu, one is placed in the worst of the worst caste. If one isn’t supportive of Scientology, well, once they had a paragraph that said one could kill-without-sin anyone who attacks Scientology. In Iraq, two extremely-alike dogmas are having their adherents kill each other’s wives and babies. The Crusades. The Inquisition. The Holocaust. Hiroshima. Po Pot. Big Oil. The Puppet-masters behind the curtains of Oz.
Fear makes anger makes hate makes destructions of every sort.
Oh, we’re not going to be easily dealt with by any ETI.
If you, yes you personally, were in charge of Kirk’s Enterprise, and you stumbled upon this lovely, lovable, loving blue ball arcing with Sol, would you land, shake a few hands, just say “Hi?”
Who here will let their sister marry an ETI? Who here wouldn’t flinch? What would anyone on earth think if Jane Goodall was found french kissing Mr. Bubbles? http://tinyurl.com/yevvrg I ask this outrageous question, because we all know that Jane’s love is deep and true, but nonetheless our knee jerk rejection of inter-species sex is an analog for the repulsion most folks on this planet have been built from the ground up to espouse.
Thanks Hollywood! Thanks Bill Clinton for showing us that an entire people can die in Dafur without you losing a night’s sleep. Thanks Bush for showing us how acceptable are the human costs of a pipeline across Afghanistan to pump Iraq’s stolen oil into Chinese gas tanks. Thanks everyone everywhere in the global village that it took to raise my four children — ooooo, how lovely each one’s bouquet of fears — just like mine!
Sulu, “Captain Kirk, should we beam down a party on this one?”
As the tip of the first tentacle emerges from the doorway of the spaceship, most of us will be involuntarily peeing.
But hey, let’s just METI ourselves to the universe. Let’s just have a planet-wide kegger with big speakers blasting, and let’s have our half naked fear-drunk selves spilling out of our frat house and puking on the next door neighbors’ lawns. Invite the universe down to our toga party.
I’m embarrassed, and I have no other brain to inhabit.
When the spaceship lands who will love them? Maybe the Dali Lama, maybe Nelson Mandela, maybe Jane Goodall could open their hearts to them.
But not me. Not the person I am. Not with my psycho-blood-chem addictions.
I’ll have a mess in my pants and be running fast.
Edg
I’m with David Brin here, there needs to be much more public discussion before we go deliberately trying to hail alien intelligence.
The sooner this happens, the better. We are on the verge of discovering Earthlike planets around other stars, and when we discover an Earth-size planet at the right distance from its star, you can bet that someone (possibly several groups) will want to send a message towards that system.
It would be better to have the discussion before this happens, rather than later.
Dear JBA,
Where did you get the information that David Darling is the
spokesman for the SETI Institute? I just searched on his bio
page and found no such evidence for this. He has been a
guest author for the SI Web site, but I would not call him
their official spokesman.
What Darling and the SETI Institute say about SETI and alien
life in general is their choice, but it does not mean I have to
(or do) follow all their lines of reasoning.
The SETI Institute is also just barely beginning to get caught up
with the latest innovations of the field, such as the possibility of
probes in our Sol system (see Allen Tough’s Web site:
http://www.ieti.org/). I am sure all the UFO stigma hasn’t helped
in terms of describing the need to search for alien vessels in
among the KBOs or Planetoid Belt.
Another concept beyond the paradigm of aiming a radio telescope
at the heavens and hoping for the best: The search not just for
planets around yellow dwarf suns but investigating those dark
celestial objects that radiate mainly in the infrared.
Some searches for what could be Dyson Shells began very
sporadically in the 1970s and took a bigger turn in 2004 with the
Dyson Sphere Search Program at Fermilab:
http://home.fnal.gov/~carrigan/Infrared_Astronomy/Fermilab_search.htm
Regarding your earlier post on the possibility of cetaceans being
smarter than humans. I don’t know if they are as smart or
smarter than us, but they are rather smart in general, moreso
than dogs, bears, or even most primates.
Note this recent news item on the subject:
Whales boast the brain cells that ‘make us human’
NewScientist.com news service Nov. 27, 2006
Whales have spindle neurons —
specialised brain cells that are
involved in processing emotions and
helping us interact socially. The
cells occur in parts of the human
brain that are thought to be
responsible for our social
organization, empathy, speech,
intuition about the feelings of
others, and rapid “gut” reactions.
What is more, whales…
http://www.kurzweilai.net/email/newsRedirect.html?newsID=6122&m=25748
And one of my favorite quotes from Douglas Adams
The Hitch-Hiker’s Guide to the Galaxy:
“For instance, on the planet Earth, man had always assumed that he was more intelligent than dolphins because he had achieved so much – the wheel, New York, wars and so on – whilst all the dolphins had ever done was muck about in the water having a good time. But conversely, the dolphins had always believed that they were far more intelligent than man – for precisely the same reasons.”
Dear Dr. Brin,
I believe this is your full post back from September 2006. Do take note of the following:
“There are responsible people — adults — who are hoping to mediate this dispute in semi-private, using collegial persuasion to resolve the issue, without bringing too much unfavorable attention to SETI. ”
It appeared at the time that you were advocating only that a certain few discuss SETI/METI protocols. You never refuted this belief of mine when I asked you for additional details.
David Brin Says:
September 26th, 2006 at 17:26
Alas, Marko is displaying a stunning lack of imagination, limiting himself to scenarios from cheap sci fi movies. Not ONE of those urging restraint has EVER raised “alien invasion” as one of the top scenarios for bad outcome from METI.
I am sure, if he tries, on a dare, Marko could come up with a DOZEN more plausible failure modes, on his own. But dig it. If he cannot… I’ll bet he’s at least interested in hearing some of them, sometime, in order to discuss and evaluate, before a small group of a dozen people bets our posterity on their hypothesis.
(No? Really? How… un-curious.)
I wonder what Hiawatha said, about how unlikely those sailors from Europe could possibly bring any harm.
Richard’s “wimps” paper certainly poses a credible hypothesis. Indeed, it is one of 50 or so mentioned in my “classic” Great Silence article. Moreover, indeed, the RUSSIANS who are pushing METI have adopted the position that most ETIS out there are wimpy cowards… despite also being automatically (according to Lysenkoist doctrine) altruistic. Thus it is up to us courageous newcomers to initiate the grand conversation by speaking up first.
Um… an interesting hypothesis, as I said. But to ASSUME it’s right, a priori? In preference of the equally founded theory that ETIS are being silent because they know something we don’t? About how dangerous the cosmos can be?
WHich is more likely? That ALL ETIS happen to simultaneously share the personality trait of mild disinterest in communications? Or that all surviving ETIS have learned some common piece of information that sets up a disincentive to broadcasting? The latter may be low in apparent probability, but at least it isn’t flat-out illogical!
What it comes t=down to is simple prudence. If we are the newest kids — orphans in a mysterious and dark jungle-cosmos, who have our own dire history regarding past “first contacts” — doesn’t it make sense to listen quietly (the standard SETI program) a while longer before shouting “Yoohoo!” at the top of our lungs?
Regarding the following argument:
* “Earth civilization is already glaringly visible in radio, so it’s too late to stay silent.”
This widely-held supposition was, in fact, decisively disproved years ago, in a paper written by Dr. Shostak himself! In fact, even military radars and television signals appear to dissipate below interstellar noise levels within just a few light years. Certainly they are far less visible — by many orders of magnitude — than a directed beam from any of Earth’s large, or even intermediate, radio telescopes.
Moreover, this reasoning is illogical, since METI’s whole purpose is to draw attention to Earth by dramatically increasing our visibility over whatever baseline value it currently has. If it’s already “too late,” then what are they aiming to achieve?
These and many other arguments are being posted on a new web site to deal with the topic.
Alas, I must keep that site private for a little while longer. There are responsible people — adults — who are hoping to mediate this dispute in semi-private, using collegial persuasion to resolve the issue, without bringing too much unfavorable attention to SETI. I am eager to see these efforts succeed.
HENCE I urge all of you to keep this low-key for now. It is a fraternal spat among folks who love SETI… for now. There is no need to make this a public imbroglio.
For now.
—
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See: http://www.history.com/shows.do?action=detail&episodeId=192813
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The Goldilocks Enigma produces the testable prediction that the Fermi Paradox exists because other civilizations won’t be much different than we are:
http://evolutionarydesign.blogspot.com/2006/09/goldilocks-enigma.html
Alexander Zaitsev,
I tried to download the file using Firefox — which has the plugin to read pdf files….but it didn’t work. Probably my computer’s set-up, but if so few have downloaded, maybe it’s something on your side.
Edg
Dear Alexander Zaitsev;
I will take the time to itemize my difficulties with you recent and prior publications and present those, here, when done.
For now, regardless of what you wrote, you HAVE transmitted with the intent of contacting ETIs. That act, by itself, evokes these concerns and questions:
(1) What qualifications do you have to act on the behalf of all Humanity?
(2) If there is to be such a position of “Earth’s ambassador to the Cosmos,” why are YOU the best choice?
(3) Why is it necessary to judge the “great silence” as a BAD thing, as opposed to just noting it as a characteristic of present reality, and pondering why it might be?
That’s enough for now.
Marc
The Goldilocks Enigma: Why is the Universe Just Right for Life?
Roy Williams
December 09, 2006
The Goldilocks Enigma: Why is the Universe Just Right for Life?
By Paul Davies
Allen Lane, 350pp, $55 (Australian dollars)
PAUL Davies is the best kind of popular science writer: erudite but not pedantic, authoritative but not censorious. His prose is stylish and clear. He recognises the limits of his expertise but is not afraid to express unorthodox opinions.
The Goldilocks Enigma may be his best book yet. It deals with this deeply intriguing circumstance: “If almost any of the basic features of the universe, from the properties of atoms to the distribution of galaxies, were different, life would very probably be impossible.” Like Goldilocks’s porridge, the universe is just right. Our existence hangs by a thread.
Full article here:
http://www.theaustralian.news.com.au/story/0,20867,20875880-5003900,00.html
Davies is following Wheeler down the path of observer-dependence, but with all due respect to both of them, (which is a LOT), you’d have to be independently wealthy to think that we’re just here to watch.
More to the point is the fact that the anthropic coincidences can be used to make testable predictions from the average of extreme, diametricallly opposing runaway tendencies that are common the them.
Dear LJK,
Dr. David Darling, according to Space.Com, was paid by the SETI Institute to write an article/column advocating a pro SETI/METI position, while at the same time promoting the notion that dolphins and apes are superior species to Humanity – even though dolphins and apes kill members of their own species.
Now I may be wrong here, but under the journalistic AP guidelines I found in my old college textbook News Reporting 101, that makes Dr. Darling a spokesman for the SETI Institute because they paid him to present their case on a certain position to the General Public.
My earlier post stated Dr. Darling’s position about dolphins and apes. I clearly stated that if dolphins and apes were more advanced then humans, there should be achievements from these two species that Dr. Darling and other SETI-ists can poin to to say “See how much better dolphins and apes are than Humanity.” If you can cite an example of the great technological and social achievements of apes and dolphins, then I’ll reconsider my own opinion on how these two species compare with Humanity.
Oh, and sticking a blade of grass into a termite mound for a snack isn’t high technology, but it is an impressive achievement for apes.
Dear JBA,
If you want to consider Dr. Darling a spokesman for the
SETI Institute, then fine. My impression from your earlier
post was that it was an official position in the organization
and that he was paid to be THE spokesman for them.
Like I said, they can have any opinion they want on the
subject. I am not inclined to follow them. Or can I follow
them if I wish, it is my choice. I’ve studied the field long
enough to have a few educated opinions of my own. Neither
you nor anyone else has to agree with them. That doesn’t
mean I won’t defend my points, however.
For example, I personally do not think that cetaceans or
other primates are superior to humans. They are different
from us, with different methods and modes of thought and
quite often in very different environments.
That doesn’t make any of these groups better than any other.
Dolphins might be terrible at driving cars, but humans wouldn’t
last very long at all if they tried to live in the oceans like them
without loads of technology.
So does that make either species better or worse than the other?
It’s just not a fair comparison.
If Dr. Darling and the rest of SETI want to think they are
better than humanity, that is their choice.
JBA, what exactly is your agenda here? You are quite vocal
against anyone who is pro-SETI and harp again and again on
the same people touting the same issues, such as those who
think advanced aliens are “better” than humanity. You also
jump on anyone who even hints that ETI are good beings
looking out for our good.
At this stage of our knowledge on the subject, and based on
one data point, I am taking a wait and see approach, while
certainly enjoying the speculation.
History has shown humanity and other Earth life to be cruel
and dangerous to others, but I also think it is overemphasized
based on older views of Darwinism in place of all the altruism
and good that our society has produced. After all, if we were
all nothing more than just bloodthirsty, selfish animals, then we
would have no civilization to speak of and we certainly would
not be having this conversation via the Internet.
I would like to think that to at least some degree, other
intelligences would have to cooperate to some degree, or they
too would cease to exist, at least at a level we could detect
across interstellar distances.
And as they might expand into the galaxy, getting along with
the neighbors might continue to be a benefit over controlling or
slaughtering them. As we have seen with one very pointed
continuing example on Earth, trying to control a neighbor
through force is a lot tougher than diplomacy.
Whatever happened to just wanting to know if other life forms
exist in the Universe for the pure scientific knowledge of knowing
such a thing? Anything that comes from such a discovery after
that will be gravy. Even if they are nasty, warlike creatures bent
on galactic domination, it will beat being the Galactic Village
Innocent. At least we may have a chance to do something
about it, rather than stick our heads in the sand and wonder
what those approaching explosions are all about.
But guess what? I don’t think the galaxy is full of such old SF
stereotypes. On the other hand, we might end up being the
victims (or at least the reluctant displaced refugees) of the
equivalent of a Hyperspace Bypass running through our Sol
system.
Suppose a Kardashev Type 3 civ rises up in the galaxy and
they want to utilize all the stars for their own designs. How do
we say no to beings who can and want to turn our system into
a Dyson Shell? What if it is actually better for our species and
all other Earth life? We’ll have a lot more room and get a lot
more solar energy than staying on just one little planet.
Assuming the Type 3 civ doesn’t mind us crawling around
their construction site in the first place.
This is what I mean by judging ETI as either good or bad is
no easy thing to do. If our survival depends on taking over
a wetlands or forest, how often do we really hold back for the
sake of the creatures already living there? We may want to
preserve those places and keep those creatures from harm,
but as our population grows and society demands more
resources, you know who is going to lose out. Does that
make us evil? Would it make a galactic scale civilization
that wants to make the Milky Way more efficient in terms
of energy and resources in ways and methods we can’t
really grasp evil?
Dear LJK,
An agenda? Me? I think you have me confused with the SETI Institute an all those other people who believe that “ETI are good beings
looking out for our good.”
But I’ll confess LJK, I do have an agenda. And it’s quiet brilliantly evil if I may modestly say so. I want a rational, practical, common sense approach to all SETI/METI activities. What I’ve been vocal against is that all Humanity has to do is find an ETI, click our collective heels three times, and all our problems will be solved. It’s worth repeating.
My other hidden agenda is to promote the notion, “that hey, Humanity is a pretty good darn species afterall the handwringing is done.”
And another part of my evil, oh so evil agenda, is to re-print part of my original statement about Dr. Darling here:
“He is a spokesman for the SETI Institute – the same organization which did not disavow his comments this year when he made them.”
Hmmm…thought I made it clear he was a spokesman for the SETI Institute. Usually when a journalist writes about “The” spokesman for an institution s/he writes the following:
John Smith, spokesman for the Let’s All Trash Humanity Foundation, believes that all humans are bad.
Of course, I am using those AP guidelines I found in my old college textbook News Reporting 101 back from the 1980s – the Dark Ages.
Now, if you’ll excuse me LJK, I have to implement more of my brilliantly evil agenda elsewhere across the Internet! [Insert evil, manical laugh track here.]
It’s quite amusing how these pro-METI “papers” read quite like religious tracts.
Please post further comments on SETI’s Paradox and the Great Silence in the overflow thread I’ve just created at the top of the main page. This will keep the database happy and provide us room to continue the discussion as needed.