SETI may not be the way!

[krokah]

If an advanced society was communicating among the stars would they really be using radio waves to communicate? If we are looking for intelligent life forms from other planets and hoping they would use primitive forms of communication it could possibly take thousands of years for the waveforms to be detected by earthlings. In less than a hundred years our form of communication is about to drastically change. Wouldn't it be just as probable to look at light waves, microwaves, or FTL particals to carry information. I am not up in this field but what do you think.

[Avatar]

If an advanced society was communicating among the stars would they really be using radio waves to communicate?
Even the most advanced society can't change the laws of physics, and it may be that there is no faster way of communication.

Please consider reading "Songs of Distant Earth" by Arthur C. Clarke. It's a sci-fi story, but it illustrates the problems in a not FTL world.

http://images.amazon.com/images/P/0345322401.01.LZZZZZZZ.jpg

[kaneda]

It has been said that radio may just be transitory and in the near future we might be using something else, which we are presently not looking for. While we all hope that it is possible to move faster than light, we have no evidence that anything does. Then again, considering the trouble we have detecting neutrinos which are everywhere, it may just be that our detectors are no good for FTL particles/waves.

[Dinosaur]

SETI seems to be a waste of time, money, & intellectual resources. There is good reason to believe that intelligent life is rare.

The rarity of intelligent life, the inverse square law for electromagnetic signals, and the vast distances involved make the probabliity of detecting signals very close to zero.

[StrangerInAStrangeLa]

SETI seems to be a waste of time, money, & intellectual resources. There is good reason to believe that intelligent life is rare.

No. There isn't.
We have no way of knowing. We do not know. We might, unfortunately, never know.

[Fraggle Rocker]

If an advanced society was communicating among the stars would they really be using radio waves to communicate?I seem to recall reading that if there were a planet at exactly the same level of technology as ours, circling any star but one of the very closest, we'd miss it with SETI.There is good reason to believe that intelligent life is rare.This is a place of science and that is an extraordinary assertion if ever there was one. Please provide your extraordinary evidence to support it.

[Mr. Hamtastic]

They use gravity to communicate. It's instantaneous. They use it for sensors, too. Someday we'll have functional gravidar too.

[Pete]

I've heard it said that SETI in its current form will probably never success unless there is ETI that is actively advertising itself - ie deliberately broadcasting radio signals to attempt to initiate interstellar communication with other intelligences.

[Pete]

They use gravity to communicate. It's instantaneous.
A complex topic, but no. Changes to a gravitational field are not instantaneous, according to accepted models.

[hypewaders]

Quantum Entanglement (http://calitreview.com/51) is.

[Pete]

Quantum entanglement is not a communication channel.

[D H]

SETI seems to be a waste of time, money, & intellectual resources. There is good reason to believe that intelligent life is rare.No. There isn't.
We have no way of knowing. We do not know. We might, unfortunately, never know.
We don't know with certainty, but then again we don't know anything with certainty in science. OTOH, we have some very good reasons to think that intelligent life is extremely rare:
We are here: The Fermi paradox.
Star system dynamics. We have recently developed computer simulations of the formation of star systems. Most of the time the simulations end up with hot Jupiters. Of the exosolar planets we have seen, most are hot Jupiters and most have highly elliptical orbits.
Earth formation. The collision of a Mars-sized body with the early Earth appears to have been critical for the early development of life. The collision had to be just right to strip off most of the early atmosphere and to form the Moon. Without that collision we would be in the same boat Venus is in. Without the Moon we would definitely have vastly reduced tides, which significantly aided the development of life. Without the Moon, the Earth's rotational axis would not be stable.
Disasters. Several disasters have come very close to wiping out all life on Earth: Snowball Earth, the Deccan and Siberian traps, and multiple collisions with large asteroids.
The Drake equation. Early applications of the Drake equation seemed to indicate an abundance of intelligent life in our galaxy. One in our local cluster, or even one in the Virgo supercluster is more likely IMHO than several in our galaxy. That still makes for many extant intelligent civilizations in the universe, but they are completely isolated and completely inaccessible.
I seem to recall reading that if there were a planet at exactly the same level of technology as ours, circling any star but one of the very closest, we'd miss it with SETI.
It's even worse than that. The USA is about to make the transition from analog to digital TV, and many European nations have already made the transition. Unless you know exactly what kind of signal to to look for and exactly how the digital encoding is performed and exactly how the signal is compressed, DTV is essentially indistinguishable from noise. If some other civilization follow a path anything close to ours, there will be a very narrow window in time when that civilization unintentionally sends out a clearly recognizable signal.

It's even worse than that. Planets have this unfortunate characteristic of orbiting a very noisy electromagnetic source. Picking out a signal against the background of stellar noise is not a signal to noise problem. It is a noise to signal problem.

It's even worse than that. The SETI range is sixty light years or so, for the Arecibo dish.

[StrangerInAStrangeLa]

DH --- We don't know with certainty, but then again we don't know anything with certainty in science. OTOH, we have some very good reasons to think that intelligent life is extremely rare:

Stranger ======== BULLSHIT

[Dinosaur]

Mr. Hamtastic: The following is not true.They use gravity to communicate. It's instantaneousGravitational waves are expected to move at light speed>. I do not think we have detected any yet.

Next: To use gravitational waves you would probably have to oscillate a mini black hole. This does not seem practical compared to generating some form of electro magnetic radiation: Visible light, x-rays, gamma rays, infra red, what ever.

[Dinosaur]

Fraggle Rocker & others: There have been a lot of threads discussing the abundance of intelligent life in the universe. Those who expect a lot of intelligent species will probably never be convinced otherwise.

I usually spend more time on a post like this and proof read before posting. Sorry if there are some typo's & some poorly constructed sentences.

The following is only a brief outline of the argument against the prevalence of intelligent life.I will not discuss the possibility of some exotic biochemistry like silicon instead of carbon based. There is no reason to believe that any non-carbon based biochemistry is suitable for complex life forms.

I assume that all are aware of there being a habitable zone in a solar system: Too close to the star & too hot; Too far away & too cold.


There is a habitable zone in a galaxy. Too far out & too low an abundance of carbon, oxygen, & other elements other than hydrogen & helium. Too close to galactic center & too much radiation as well as too many fast moving stars resulting in solar systems not stable long enough for intelligent life to evolve.


The requirements of habitable zones cuts the probabilities down a lot. The evolution of intelligent life seems to take about 3 billion years, requiring a stable solar system for that length of time. The first billion years in the life of a solar system does not seem to provide the right environment for any type of life. The star must have a fairly constant output over about 4-5 billion years and the solar system must be stable for that length of time. The first few generations of solar systems consisted almost entirely of hydrogen & helium. It is not clear when it was possible for the first intelligent life form to evolve. Perhaps it could not have happened more than a billion years prior to us.


The history of Earth provides the only clues to the development of life & the evolution of intelligent life. This history indicates that life is likely to exist as soon as conditions are suitable. The earliest life forms seemed to have come into existence about 3.5 to 3.7 billion years ago (Earth is about 4.5-4.6 billions years old). This suggests that there might be a lot of planets with life. Intelligent life is another story.


First, note that dinosaurs existed for about 150 million years. The last species were not much (if any) smarter than their distant ancestors. This indicates that a species can be very successful without developing intelligence.


The Neanderthals did not survive long enough to develop a technological culture although they seemed to have been about as intelligent as our ancestors in the period from about 25,000 years to 75,000 years ago. . Intelligence does not seem to be a guarantee of survival for long enough to become technologically sophisticated.


There are a lot of primates other than our branch of the evolutionary tree: Gorillas, chimps, baboons, et cetera. In spite of having hands suitable for using tools, none of the other branches of the primate tree evolved very far in the direction of a technological culture. Note that our branch had precursors to us several million years ago who seem to be smarter than modern day chimps, gorillas, et cetera.The above strongly suggests that our developing a technological culture was more likely to be due to a series of lucky flukes rather than an evolutionary inevitability.

If it were possible to know how often intelligent life occurred, I would not be surprised to discover that we might be the only example in our galaxy. I would not be surprised to discover galaxies without intelligent life. I would be very surprised to discover a galaxy with as many a dozen different planets on which intelligent life evolved.

BTW: The Drake equation (is that the correct name ?) sounds like science but it is really guesswork with no sound basis for the probabilities assigned to the various factors in the equation.

Most who believe in an abundance of intelligent species seem to be to be overly impressed with the incredible number of stars in the universe & have not spent much time in a critical analysis of the history of the Earth & the requirements of a habitable zone in a galaxy as well as a habitable zone in a solar system.

Furthermore, even if I am wrong about the scarcity of intelligent life, SETi is still a waste of time, physical resources, & intellectual resources. I wonder at the motives of those who are paid to run SETI.

[StrangerInAStrangeLa]

That entire post is ignorant arrogant assinine unprovable assumptions.
WHY must people make decisions on things we simply can not know???
Just say "I DON'T KNOW."

[D H]

Stranger,

Dinosaur and I each gave cogent arguments why intelligent life is rare. Fraggle and I each gave cogent arguments regarding why SETI as it exists will not find signs of intelligent life. You obviously disagree, so why don't you make some reasoned arguments against our positions instead of looking like a fool with your childish name calling?

[StrangerInAStrangeLa]

Name calling? You're imagining things.
Cogent arguments? You're imagining things.
You've shown no good reason to think intelligent life is rare. You can't. You have no way of knowing. You do not know. I don't know it's common.
If anything's childish, it's making such statements about things which we hardly have a clue at this time & place.
If you claim intelligent life is rare, it is up to you to prove it. You haven't.

[D H]

Name calling? You're imagining things.


This isn't my imagination, post #16:
ignorant arrogant assinine
Which, BTW, has been reported.


Perhaps I misconstrued this post, post #13:
Stranger ======== BULLSHIT
Upon re-reading that post, it appears you are rather emphatically equating yourself with excrement. So be it. I can't disagree.



Cogent arguments? You're imagining things.
I gave several reasoned arguments in post #12. Dinosaur gave several more reasoned arguments in post #14. Argue against them if you wish. Calling names is not an argument.

[Mr. Hamtastic]

Wait. Why can't the speed of light be exceeded? I thought they had discovered some particle that went faster than the speed of light. I'll have to look it up, seems like it was tachyons or something. It was mentioned as a means of ftl travel, by enveloping a ship in a field of these particles. Maybe ET uses a form of the pony express.

[D H]

Nope. Tachyons are purely hypothetical and even if they do exist they could not be used for superluminal communication.

[Mr. Hamtastic]

I know! Quantum Entanglement=interstellar telegraph lines.

[D H]

Nope. Quantum entanglement does not allow superluminal communication, either. You only get one shot at creating an entangled state. You must encode the information while creating the entangled state. You then have to transport one of the entangled elements to a remote site. The remote site can read the encoded information, but it got there subliminally. You can't encode the information after creating the entangled state because the act of doing so would act to untangle the states.

[StrangerInAStrangeLa]

That entire post is ignorant arrogant assinine unprovable assumptions.
WHY must people make decisions on things we simply can not know???
Just say "I DON'T KNOW."

Stranger,
Dinosaur and I each gave cogent arguments why intelligent life is rare. Fraggle and I each gave cogent arguments regarding why SETI as it exists will not find signs of intelligent life. You obviously disagree, so why don't you make some reasoned arguments against our positions instead of looking like a fool with your childish name calling?

Name calling? You're imagining things.
Cogent arguments? You're imagining things.
You've shown no good reason to think intelligent life is rare. You can't. You have no way of knowing. You do not know. I don't know it's common.
If anything's childish, it's making such statements about things which we hardly have a clue at this time & place.
If you claim intelligent life is rare, it is up to you to prove it. You haven't.

This isn't my imagination, post #16:
“ Originally Posted by StrangerInAStrangeLa
ignorant arrogant assinine ”

Which, BTW, has been reported.
.

Anyone get back to you on this yet?

[Dinosaur]

Stranger: Of course nobody knows for certain about the existence of intelligent life elsewhere in the universe. Nobody can even be certain that there is any life at all elsewhere in the universe.

There is no observational evidence and no currently known experiment which could provide a clue.

In spite of the above, there can be good reason to consider one point of view more likely than others.

Suppose that a scientific breakthrough was announced relating to quantum tunneling (worm hole, what ever) technology that was capable of providing an accurate view of any place in the universe. Of course, it would take months to build the devices to use this technology, and it would take perhaps 5-10 years to view enough places in the universe to provide a good estimate of the abundance or scarcity of life elsewhere. .

Given the above miracle of technology, there are those (me included) who would be willing to bet that life was very abundant, scarce, or non-existent elsewhere. Similarly, there are those (also including me) who would be willing to bet on the scarcity or abundance of intelligent life.

If I could find some one willing to take the bets, I would bet more than modest (but not exorbitant) sums as follows:I would bet that life was fairly common in the universe.


I would bet that intelligent life was rare in the universe. I would surely bet enough to hurt if I lost, but not enough to cause financial hardship.

Would you take either of the above bets ? Would you merely say: “I do not know & it is silly to even think about the issue in the absence of hard definitive evidence.” ?? I will wait for the views to be reported before having any opinion.

As mentioned in a previous post, the history of the Earth provides strong support for the above views that I would bet on.

[Mr. Hamtastic]

There's a place you can bet that sor of thing on the internet, legitimately and all. Goodbets or something like that. Try googling it.

It would be an interesting state of affairs if all civilizations in the universe were within 50 years of our own technology, and we're all busy listening for each other.

[StrangerInAStrangeLa]

Dinosaur
It is freaky how you can make such a leap from your 1st 2 sentences to the rest of your post.
I wouldn't be willing to bet either way. If somehow I was forced to bet, I'd bet intelligent life is abundant.
I certainly don't say it's silly to think or talk about it or even form the best theories we can at this time & place. It is silly to think we know or that we even have many clues at this time & place.
We won't know until we either have some technology as you mention or until we actually get out there & explore much of our known universe. Much much more than our local galaxy group.
The history of Earth barely provides us with a few clues upon which to base temporary suppositions.
If I lived at a time that travel thruout this galaxy is easy & fast & we know intelligent life is very common in this galaxy, I still would not know whether it is common in most of the known universe.

[Letticia]

If an advanced society was communicating among the stars would they really be using radio waves to communicate? If we are looking for intelligent life forms from other planets and hoping they would use primitive forms of communication it could possibly take thousands of years for the waveforms to be detected by earthlings. In less than a hundred years our form of communication is about to drastically change. Wouldn't it be just as probable to look at light waves, microwaves, or FTL particals to carry information. I am not up in this field but what do you think.

If I am not mistaken, SETI is not looking for "radio leakage" -- it is looking for radio signals deliberately designed to be picked up by nascent technological civilization such as ours.