Bozur
Amicus
Posts: 5,515
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Post by Bozur on Sept 30, 2009 22:56:30 GMT -5
The Urge for ET Communication
The Urge for Extra-Terrestrial Communication
dailygalaxy.com — The search for extra-terrestrial life assumes two things: that there is some, and that it wants to talk. And while the first is obvious to anyone with even the remotest understanding of the size of the universe, the second still poses a lot of questions. More…
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September 29, 2009 The Urge for ET Communication
Radio_telescopes_et_communication_2 The search for extra-terrestrial life assumes two things: that there is some, and that it wants to talk, and while the first is obvious to anyone with even the remotest understanding of the size of the universe the second still poses a lot of questions. The fact is there's only one E.T. whose communications motives we ever understand, and all he wanted was to get off our crazy dirtball. And we made him up.
Those interested in interstellar inquiry (which we really hope is all of you) should check out the METI discussion linked at the end of this post. The Benford brothers launch an interesting discussion on the costs and constraints of any communicating aliens, and while the idea of applying economic limitations to alien life is depressing it's well worth thinking about. There's also a discussion of the motivations for messages, and the sort of signal we should expect from each.
Thinking broadly, high-power transmitters might be built for wide variety of goals other than communication driven by curiosity. Here are a few examples:
Kilroy Was Here. These can be signatures verging on graffiti. Names chiseled into walls have survived from ancient times. More recently, we sent compact disks on interplanetary probes, often bearing people’s names and short messages that can endure for millennia.
High Church. These are designed for durability, to convey the culture’s highest achievements. The essential message is this was the best we did; remember it.
The Funeral Pyre: A civilization near the end of its life announces its existence.
Ozymandias: Here the motivation is sheer pride; the Beacon announces the existence of a high civilization,even though it may be extinct, and the Beacon tended by robots.
Help! Quite possibly societies that plan over time scales ~1000 years will foresee physical problems and wish to discover if others have surmounted them. An example is a civilization whose star is warming (as ours is), which may wish to move their planet outward with gravitational tugs. Many others are possible.
Leakage Radiation: These are unintentional, much like objects left accidentally in ancient sites and uncovered long after. They do carry messages, even if inadvertent: technological fingerprints. These can be not merely radio and television broadcasts radiating isotropically, which are weak, but deep space radar and beaming of energy over solar system distances. This includes “industrial” spaceship launchers, beam-driven sails, “planetary defense” radars scanning for killer asteroids, and cosmic power beaming driving interstellar starships with beams of lasers, millimeter or microwaves.
Believe and Join Us: Religion may be a galactic commonplace; after all, it is here. Seeking converts is common, too, and electromagnetic preaching fits a frequent meme.
Interstellar communication is no easy feat (assuming you haven't found any kind of space-time shortcut). People like to joke about how an aliens first look at us will be I Love Lucy or American Idol (in which case we'll be very lucky to avoid extermination), but physically it'd be easier for the alien to warp here and buy the DVDs. Television transmitters aren't exactly interstellar beacons. The most powerful transmission tower in the world only emits 2.5 Megawatts - assuming zero losses (and while you're at it wish for a unicorn), by the time the signal reaches the closest star it's spread out over 130 billion square kilometers, only twenty picowatts per square meter. Not even a trillionth of a lightbulb and, in case you haven't noticed, the only thing we can see that far away is stars.
We have to assume than any information we intercept is either intentionally beamed at us (or out at random) or based on technology we haven't imagined yet. We should really hope for the latter or it's going to be a long cold existence of extremely slow shouting at each things.
Luke McKinney
Regarding METI and SETI www.dailygalaxy.com/my_weblog/2009/09/the-urge-for-et-communication.html
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Bozur
Amicus
Posts: 5,515
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Post by Bozur on Sept 30, 2009 23:02:44 GMT -5
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The speculation regarding motivation of hypothetical ET transmissions is interesting, and yet ignores the real issue.
Any rational person would concede at least the possibility that UFOs are real, and ETs have been visiting our world for decades.
The SETI researchers presumably would welcome a message from 10 or 100 light years away. (If not, then why are you listening?)
Would you welcome a message from ETs 100 miles away--a message everyone could hear?
Would the US or other governments, speaking for their citizens, welcome such a message? Ask NASA this question, and their answer, or non-answer, will make it clear that the US, for now at least, does not want its citizens to hear from the ETs (who 'might' be visiting our world).
The ETs understand this, and they understand that 'contact' will be an enormously difficult experience for our civilization, and at this point, no good can come of it unless the US and other governments, speaking for their people, are willing to take responsibility for initiating the process.
So for now, the governments will ignore the issue, and the scientists, their heads buried in the sand, will continue their discussions of SETI and METI, and ignore the real issue.
And some of the same scientists, and many others, as well as people around the world will continue their discussions of existential risks to our civilization, and wonder whether our civilization, or the human race, will survive the next century--or even the next few decades.
And yet the ETs can see that not one prominent scientist, or scientific organization, or government, or news organization on this planet will openly ask: Are we really more likely to survive and prosper by ignoring any possibility of learning from the ETs about the experiences of other rapidly evolving technological civilizations?
The ETs know that life in the Universe will endure, with or without us. They've made their presence known, especially to the major governments of this world, and sufficiently to all of humankind, and in effect have asked: Do you care enough about the future of your race to ask who we are and why we're here?
Well--do we?
Posted by: joeo33 | September 29, 2009 at 11:13 AM
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I have a horrible feeling that SETI efforts are going to fail, and not for lack of trying or lack of intelligent life in the universe. The problem is our current rate of technology change. Less than 100 years ago, the best we did was Morse code spark transmissions (remember the Titanic). Who is listening for such transmissions today on Earth? Analog television (the original I Love Lucy broadcasts) was pulled off the airwaves this year. In a few years, Earthlings will have NO analog TVs. AM broadcasting is on the wane, FM will likely go digital in a few years. Even digital transmission has evolved to frequency hopping and spread spectrum. All than in less than 100 years. We have to find a civilization at our exact level of technology development plus or minus some decades, or one of us will be using a different level of technology unintelligible to the other. That's a very narrow window of opportunity for any reasonable odds of success.
Posted by: T1 Rex | September 29, 2009 at 11:03 PM
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Ghostwriter, it doesn't matter that analog signals disappear. With our current technology we can't pick up leakage signals from any ET. For that we need much more sophisticated equipment, not available until maybe 2030. SKA, which is scheduled to be fully operational by 2022, can detect an Earth like TV signal out to 3 pc. This is not nearly enough, so maybe the generation of radio telescopes after SKA can do better.
As I see it, there are two ways we can detect aliens. If they beam a signal directly towards Earth, we can pick it up if it's strong enough. Any advanced civilization (beyond us) can do this. Or we can build powerful telescopes that can resolve Earth-like planets in such details that intelligent life can be detected.
We are on this path as the Kepler telescope is finding Earth like planets as we speak, but there will likely be several decades before we have such hyper-telescopes.
Posted by: Martin Andersen | September 30, 2009 at 12:39 AM
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MAN! People are stupid. All this wondering by the general public worldwide about "Hmmm, I wonder if aliens really ARE out there somewhere?", and meanwhile EVERY SINGLE UFO sighting ever gets shot down in a ball of flames by these same people: "Fake!" "Photoshop!" "Kook!" "Wierdo!". And the same with crop circles - "Fake!", "Students did it!", "2 old men with planks did it!", "some company did it!".
Sure, lots of it IS rubbish. But there is still a vast amount of all the ufo sightings, alien contact, crop circles etc over the last 60 years (for example) that cannot be explained conventionally. All this vast quantity of genuine, real, cannot-be-dismissed evidence IS RIGHT IN FRONT OF YOUR NOSE. Much of it from people you're quite happy to trust with your lives - military personnel at all grades, police, flight controllers, pilots, etc.
But, to quote Jack Nicholson in A Few Good Men: "The truth?! You can't handle the truth!".
That's the reality. We, the general public, can't handle the truth.
Come on, admit it. People (flesh and blood, with thoughts and feelings, like you and me) who happened to grow up on other planets (hey - shock horror - if people who grew up on a different continent to you but look a little different are just the same as you and me, why does a bit of space between us, rather than just a bit of water, make any difference? Huh?) are not just "out there somewhere".
They're here. Now. And have been for decades (probably millennia, but we'll skip that for now). Interacting with humanity (the argument goes "why should they look like us?". Well, why SHOULDN'T some of them look like us? IDENTICALLY like us?). Gently alerting us to their presence, in a harmless, loving way. Making patterns in crops. Being seen in the distance in their vehicles. Etc.
Get some courage and common sense people. Admit the reality. Admit the truth. To yourselves.
disclosureproject.org
Posted by: Johnson Smithers | September 30, 2009 at 04:03 AM
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For Et search to be a valid one, we need to work on how to get there from where it is coming. For that we first need to honestly investigate the UFO business, they come, stay long enough but have the capacity to disappear all of a sudden. To me it is tied to the crossing the speeed limit of c, the velocity of light itself. Let me indicate here that if a space vehicle can condense space ahead and expand space behind, it can certainly move with speeds higher than c. The limit can be crossed in the inhomogeneous space thus created. Let us work on it first and also follow UFO business more seriously instead of the casual approach that has been adopted thus far in all the reported sightings.
Posted by: Narendra Nath | September 30, 2009 at 05:19 AM
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Yes it would be nice to make contact with aliens, but I believe they have no desire to contact us at present. Who wants to associate with a race that cannot live peacefully together, constantly wages war, talks and talks and talks about the environment and in the meantime lets it go down the drain. Unless we get our house in order there wont be any contact in my opinion.
Posted by: Werner Rettig | September 30, 2009 at 05:13 PM
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Werner, they have sent many (or many have volunteered) to Earth for just such a mission. It is a difficult task to just "be in this world but not of this world". This is why there has been no perceptible change throughout the millenia.
We come here with great intentions but then fall into the many traps laid by the ego. Our nature is nonviolent, deeply intuitive and empathic. We care greatly for all earthlings but are impotent to make the necessary changes because of social conditioning. Many of us forget why we have come and only remember when a trigger appears. Once we become conscious of our primary mission then we work diligently (behind the scenes) to become the change necessary we would like to see in this world. Even though I have had ongoing contact with off world beings I denied it was real until I could no longer deny the evidence. Do not give up hope, Werner. A new world is on the way.
Peace
Posted by: jamie | September 30, 2009 at 07:10 PM
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