exotic civilizations
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exotic civilizations
The Universe series, Alien Planets. Comment that planets seem to be abundant/widespread in this universe. However...nice, orderly solar systems like our own seem to be uncommon. Consider the habital zone of a star: hot jupiters; or giant planets with elliptical orbits...could disrupt Earth like planets. Planet formation may be common, but chaotic.
If Slow Boat is the status quo, then perhaps an abundance of brown dwarves and rogue planets will make it more likely, while also slowing expansion-the destinations are closer, making slow boat more feasible, but causing extra pauses in expansion.
Alien civilization types
I suffer the same on occasion, my wife had her first experience with it shortly after we got married (which is an odd sort of thing to experience for the first time when you first move in with someone), I was awake at the time, she thought it was aliens or something, I can confirm there was nothing of a physical nature in the residence at the time.Originally Posted by Aramea
As for the greater portion of this thread, I believe in alien life, I just don't believe there's sufficiently advanced life anywhere near us (bear in mind if there were extremely advanced, near magically seeming species there'd still probably be thousands of years of communications and other phenomenon which affect the radio spectrum enough to be detectable). I don't think anyone has visited us, that we've had any aliens land on earth, or that there is anything out there in space that has any particular interest in us. It makes sense that there is intelligent life elsewhere in the universe, it makes no sense that it has been here or is anywhere nearby.
Sure, it makes sense. There's lots and lots of evidence it has been here, and for millennia too. MUFON collects all the data. And you can't rule it out because of current physics. Current physics is only decades old and will be out of date soon. I myself can't say it happens with certainty, but I certainly can't dismiss the evidence. There is no reason to think that any advanced species out there would be using a primitive early Earth communications technology like radio waves. SETI is extremely naive.
I'll disbelieve current physics when those theories are proven wrong. That's the great thing about science. As for using radio as communications technology, that's not what I think has merit. The radio spectrum is easily manipulatable (which is why we use it, because it's easy), so any super advanced technology, such as a warp drive or cutting through space into an alternate dimension and then coming back at a different time, or anything else is going to require an energy output, because entropy is what it is, that high level energy output will probably affect radio waves, so while it's unlikely we'll get a transmission whose nature is communicative, we'd still be able to recognize unnatural patterns in the radio spectrum. Also, high energy communications traffic would still bleed into the radio spectrum as it lost momentum and entropy went up. Again, we wouldn't have a transmission in the form of data, but we'd have evidence in the form of an unnatural pattern.
As for the "evidence" shown by the various believers, it's always tenuous, littered with either personal experience or unreasonable suspensions of reality, and all in all the more of it I see, the more unrealistic it becomes. We recently had several UFO sitings in the area, which turned out to be a meteor. Fewer and fewer modern UFO citings go unresolved every year because our ability to observe what's going on has gotten better.
Also, there's the scarcity vs. danger issue that comes into play with travelling through space. The amount of resources it would take to create a space fleet would be pretty huge, indicating a post scarcity society. Meanwhile, in a post scarcity society, there's no need for people to risk the danger of space flight. It doesn't make sense for aliens to construct ship, endanger themselves, and fly around the universe with no opportunity for gain.
I just don't think space aliens visiting earth are a likely reality.
OK, I'm not disagreeing with this, but I do want to correct some misunderstandings. Electromagnetic radiation, which we often call radio waves, encompass everything from extremely low frequencies (3,000 Hertz or less) to the gamma radiation emitted by decaying radio-isotopes. Visible light is electromagentic radiation too. The cones and rods in our eyes are our built-in antennas.I'll disbelieve current physics when those theories are proven wrong. That's the great thing about science. As for using radio as communications technology, that's not what I think has merit. The radio spectrum is easily manipulatable (which is why we use it, because it's easy), so any super advanced technology, such as a warp drive or cutting through space into an alternate dimension and then coming back at a different time, or anything else is going to require an energy output, because entropy is what it is, that high level energy output will probably affect radio waves, so while it's unlikely we'll get a transmission whose nature is communicative, we'd still be able to recognize unnatural patterns in the radio spectrum. Also, high energy communications traffic would still bleed into the radio spectrum as it lost momentum and entropy went up. Again, we wouldn't have a transmission in the form of data, but we'd have evidence in the form of an unnatural pattern.
So EMR is primitive, having existed since the early universe. It's use as a means to relay information is more modern but not that modern, including flashing a message by moving a mirror - common since the idea of a mirror was discovered during the copper age.
Assuming they could, why would a highly advanced society feel the need to actually come here? If they have advanced that far, they are probably able to exist without the burden of a meat sack ... or any other physical form.
This is only important if, on the slimmest of chances, an alien civilization must escape its home star in corporal form and finds its way here.
Marx: Politics is the art of looking for trouble, finding it everywhere, diagnosing it incorrectly and applying the wrong remedies.
Lennon: You either get tired fighting for peace, or you die.
It's not such a great thing if it imprisons your mind like that.
If you are working within science, you can think like that. But speculating about UFOs and aliens is not working within known science. We're discussing possibilities that our current science can't explain. If you don't want to say aliens have visited here, it is still best not to declare that they haven't.
Good question; I'm not sure I know the answer.As for using radio as communications technology, that's not what I think has merit. The radio spectrum is easily manipulatable (which is why we use it, because it's easy), so any super advanced technology, such as a warp drive or cutting through space into an alternate dimension and then coming back at a different time, or anything else is going to require an energy output, because entropy is what it is, that high level energy output will probably affect radio waves, so while it's unlikely we'll get a transmission whose nature is communicative, we'd still be able to recognize unnatural patterns in the radio spectrum. Also, high energy communications traffic would still bleed into the radio spectrum as it lost momentum and entropy went up. Again, we wouldn't have a transmission in the form of data, but we'd have evidence in the form of an unnatural pattern.
Is SETI looking for this?
We don't know what kind of energy such an advanced technology would generate, or not.
Do OUR spaceflights generate radio waves?
There's lots of energy floating around, Xrays and stuff, but if it's not communication, can you trace it and determine what caused it? 96 percent of the universe is dark and we don't know what it is. I don't see how "entropy" is relevant. X or gamma rays don't become radio waves because of entropy.
MUFON investigators would probably disagree.As for the "evidence" shown by the various believers, it's always tenuous, littered with either personal experience or unreasonable suspensions of reality, and all in all the more of it I see, the more unrealistic it becomes. We recently had several UFO sitings in the area, which turned out to be a meteor. Fewer and fewer modern UFO citings go unresolved every year because our ability to observe what's going on has gotten better.
We're doing it.Also, there's the scarcity vs. danger issue that comes into play with travelling through space. The amount of resources it would take to create a space fleet would be pretty huge, indicating a post scarcity society. Meanwhile, in a post scarcity society, there's no need for people to risk the danger of space flight. It doesn't make sense for aliens to construct ship, endanger themselves, and fly around the universe with no opportunity for gain.
They would probably not do it like that.
Much of the quest for truth is the rejection of non-truth.
Space aliens, should they have the technology and resources for interstellar travel, may be so advanced that they consider us as dull as we consider snakes. "Oh -- they just figured out (Fermat's Last Theorem) and have discovered fractal art. Whoopee!" Or, "They must have some big troubles with all that porno and... what in the Universe is a holy-ghost revival?" And to top it all off, "Their bureaucratic leadership must create poverty to keep people in line in a world that should have no scarcity. How barbarous!" And to top it off they hear a Bach fugue and aren't impressed. After all "we have computer software to generate ten-part fugues!"If you are working within science, you can think like that. But speculating about UFOs and aliens is not working within known science. We're discussing possibilities that our current science can't explain. If you don't want to say aliens have visited here, it is still best not to declare that they haven't.
No, but our civilization produces such huge quantities of radio waves that our planet must seem unnaturally hot. Our planet might be easy to detect for that alone. What would be more interesting would be relaying our signals.
Is SETI looking for this?
We don't know what kind of energy such an advanced technology would generate, or not.
Do OUR spaceflights generate radio waves?
Entropy is the general degradation of potential power to indeterminate, unusable and inconsequential, heat.There's lots of energy floating around, Xrays and stuff, but if it's not communication, can you trace it and determine what caused it? 96 percent of the universe is dark and we don't know what it is. I don't see how "entropy" is relevant. X or gamma rays don't become radio waves because of entropy.
What if some advanced civilization acquires such technology just as their planet is becoming uninhabitable -- maybe as their star is leaving the main sequence? Or that a black hole is bearing down on their solar system? Even a segment of an advanced civilization can seek to escape its planet if it finds itself on the brink of annihilation for some absurd reason. Can we be sure that technological advancement ensures general decency? The perception of a hopeless situation can cause people to do astonishing things.They would probably not do it like that.(from kepi) Also, there's the scarcity vs. danger issue that comes into play with travelling through space. The amount of resources it would take to create a space fleet would be pretty huge, indicating a post scarcity society. Meanwhile, in a post scarcity society, there's no need for people to risk the danger of space flight. It doesn't make sense for aliens to construct ship, endanger themselves, and fly around the universe with no opportunity for gain.
The greatest evil is not now done in those sordid "dens of crime" (or) even in concentration camps and labour camps. In those we see its final result. But it is conceived and ordered... in clean, carpeted, warmed and well-lighted offices, by (those) who do not need to raise their voices. Hence, naturally enough, my symbol for Hell is something like the bureaucracy of a police state or the office of a thoroughly nasty business concern."
― C.S. Lewis, The Screwtape Letters
All very good points. The only issue I have with the presupposition that evolving into pure energy is possible. At that point we're delving into philosophy or religion, and there's no way to prove it. That's fine to believe, but there's no way to prove, disprove, or reason it.
Also wanted to point out that mass comm in space, assuming a technological, rather than some sort of biological, format is used to obtain long distance space flight nobody is going to let that ship go too deep without a way to communicate with it. Line of sight would be a terrible way to deal with that distance, so we could expect to receive the degenerated remains of those transmissions.
And the most important question, why would they come here is probably the best question of all. As far as things go, we're probably very standard, very boring creatures to them. Very few people want to go hang out with orangutangs, and they're relatively near by!
Last edited by Kepi; 04-01-2013 at 09:14 PM.
It's not imprisoning my mind. When we're talking about UFO's as related to alien life, we're talking about life, which is subject to science. If it's a magical or spiritual solution, that's different (though tangentally related, because first you'd need to isolate it as not having a scientific explanation).
My understanding is that SETI is monitoring for anything that appears to be something other than the background noise of the universe, because if they're getting a transmission that just indicates something is there, so it's any unnatural pattern.
Also, conservation of energy would demand that diffused energy is spent somewhere (no system is 100% energy efficient), so diffusion into radio or visible light is fairly likely. That's not what we're seeing as reality, though. While our rockets don't affect radio, they're also a candle compared to what would be required to cover those distances in reasonable time. Look at how easily solar flares affect radio waves. Bending or punching a hole in the fabric of the universe would take way more energy than that.
We're stepping away from manned space flights because it's more cost effective to use tools to bring space to us. A manned flight to Mars is pretty unreasonable, and the future of space exploration is going to be via robotics for the forseeable future. I expect most cultures to reach that point.
This isn't a bad idea provided that you assume faster than light travel. But then you get the fermi paradox coming and going in terms of mass comm (fleets of ships will be communicating) and energy from using FTL travel. A migrant species would be in flight, but my guess is that they'd need to touch down somewhere fast for food and water (unless we're talking a civilization with Star Trek esque replicators) and room to have children (repopulation would be pretty imparative for any life form)
Quite the contrary; humans are eager to explore all the other forms of life. And then put them on endless PBS nature shows. We spend billions to send robots to Mars and go crazy over a discovery that "proves" there once might have been microbes there. Aliens would be quite as eager as we are to discover, explore and understand us.
It is imprisoning your mind. Science in 50 or 100 years will not be what it is today, and more than science today is what it was 50 or 100 years ago. What are considered the fundamental laws today, may not be later on.
Not mine; I had understood they are looking for intelligent radio transmissions.My understanding is that SETI is monitoring for anything that appears to be something other than the background noise of the universe, because if they're getting a transmission that just indicates something is there, so it's any unnatural pattern.
You don't know what might be necessary; what is done probably requires a spiritual understanding of the universe, which our scientists mostly avoid; or at least other understandings we don't have yet. Meanwhile, research shows that the energy requirements are falling drastically for faster travel. I expect that would true for masters of these methods. X-Rays and gamma rays etc. that are sent out and don't get obstructed stay as they are indefinitely; they don't decay.Also, conservation of energy would demand that diffused energy is spent somewhere (no system is 100% energy efficient), so diffusion into radio or visible light is fairly likely. That's not what we're seeing as reality, though. While our rockets don't affect radio, they're also a candle compared to what would be required to cover those distances in reasonable time. Look at how easily solar flares affect radio waves. Bending or punching a hole in the fabric of the universe would take way more energy than that.
Some theories are that the "aliens" people report seeing are robots sent by aliens. That would match some of the images.
The understanding the physical world is science's job. It won't be the same in 50-100 years. But that doesn't mean the options are unlimited. Take for instance the Higgs Boson... I liked the technicolor approach. The Standard Model won out. My response: awesome! Because now we know, and knowing doesn't remove possibilities, it creates new ones. Conforming to the existing knowns doesn't mean I won't change my mind in light of evidence later, it just means I'm automatically editing out theories hinging on unicorns until unicorns are proven to exist.
Intelligent radio transmissions really only imply that they're not of natural origin. Think of early satalites. They beep or boop, but there's nothing there to specifically assume intelligence other than "it doesn't sound like a natural radio broadcast". That's why the SETI@home program helps the organization. Otherwise, it'd be more beneficial to just listen to the broadcasts.
The point I tried to make above was, any non-random emission in any band can be evidence of intelligence. Quasars are non-random, yet we spent vey little time recognizing them as natural. What about something less consistent?
And then there is the problem of the inverse square law. Radio signals decay at the square of the distance from the source. The amount of energy remaining when a signal reaches us must be higher than the background noise from the big bang by a sufficient marging to find it. Even statistical methods, like we use for over-the-horizon radar, need some remnant of the original to analyze.
Marx: Politics is the art of looking for trouble, finding it everywhere, diagnosing it incorrectly and applying the wrong remedies.
Lennon: You either get tired fighting for peace, or you die.
How do you know what the unicorns are? Why edit out evidence, even if the evidence is not conclusive? Evidence without proof, means there's something to investigate, and look for further evidence about. Such is the case regarding alien visits to Earth.
There is no "physical" world distinct from the spiritual. Science's job is to follow its method, not to entitle the world as "physical" (or "spiritual").
You're right on other energy signatures, but I think it's a matter of expense. Buying big radio antennas is much cheaper than other equipment. Plus, while other signatures last a lot longer, and some indefinitely, what good would the knowledge of alien life so far awak do us? I mean it'd be evidence of advanced life, but hardly worth digging deep for. Radio signals are good because it only measures what's near to us.
Faster-than-light travel implies what the late great science fiction writer Robert Heinlein called "doubletalk drives" that of course imply contradiction of laws of physics and the arrow of time.
The most likely travelers in interstellar space will be cybernetic, silicon-based life. Basically that would be R2-D2 and C3PO -- not flesh-and-blood critters like Kirk, Spock, McCoy, Scott, Uhura, or Sulu. Or Captain Picard, for that matter. Cybernetic life can have the cardinal qualities of life -- respiration (even if it is electrical power instead of oxidizable carbohydrates), self-repair (which computer programs do with computers), and even reproduction. Such life might be even more efficient than us, and it is likely to survive the end of survivability of the Earth for intelligent, carbon-based life. Such life would be more tolerant of thin atmospheres and intense radiation -- and a larger range of temperatures.
The greatest evil is not now done in those sordid "dens of crime" (or) even in concentration camps and labour camps. In those we see its final result. But it is conceived and ordered... in clean, carpeted, warmed and well-lighted offices, by (those) who do not need to raise their voices. Hence, naturally enough, my symbol for Hell is something like the bureaucracy of a police state or the office of a thoroughly nasty business concern."
― C.S. Lewis, The Screwtape Letters
I concur with this mostly. When in the "are there aliens nearby" argument, I usually try to give my opponants every benefit of the doubt: that there is a way to travel faster than light (I do not believe there is, but why not allow for it), that they are not and have not used radio waves intentionally for the past 150 or so years, that they occupy enough presence in space that they'd make it out here or nearby, etc. Because based on the firm realities, it'll just never matter from a logistical standpoint. It's a 30 year minimum from here to our nearest neighbor that may support life. The amount of food, water, and air it would take... You may as well just strap a rocket to your planet and fly that over here.
Cybernetic "life" is a possibility, but they'd be even more likely to broadcast using radio. Whoever the original creators of such life are would intend to stay in contact with them, at least until the realization their programming was sufficient enough to count as consciousness.
Good science-fiction of course requires the suspension of disbelief, part of which is that interstellar travel can be swift enough to fit into convenient intervals. To be sure, one can get the effect of time dilatation due to the travel at speeds approaching (but never reaching or surpassing) the speed of light. At a speed of .990c (c being the speed of light and other electromagnetic radiation) space travelers would slow their own time with respect to the nearly-stationary frame of reference of the Earth by a factor of 7.089 and could believe that they were taking a trip to the star Regulus, 77 light years away, in roughly eleven years and returning in another eleven. 22 years is close to the length of a typical career for a military officer, so that could be manageable. The problem is that one returns to Earth in 22 of one's own years, but returns in roughly 154 or slightly more Earth years. Someone who took off on such a journey about the time in which John Brown raided Charles Town in 1859 would just be coming home now. What could one expect to see 154 years from now? Whatever it is, one need to make plenty of new friends fast -- because there would be nobody around from the time in which one left.
.999c gives even more range for a space traveler. If you wanted to keep heading north, the 430 light years to Polaris could be covered in roughly 19 years as a space traveler would see things. That would be 430 earthly years. Go back 430 years, and you would find that the first recognized opera had not been written. Edmund Spencer was writing The Faery Queene, and Shakespeare had given the premiere of Richard III, one of his earliest plays. Just think of how wildly the customs have changed since 1593 and how difficult it would be to cope.
As a practical matter, if you were able to receive signals from Earth you would have to decompress them by a ratio of 22:1 to make them comprehensible. A performance of Beethoven's Ninth Symphony would take place in your time in slightly more than three minutes. But if you played it back on the in-house stereo it would be so high-pitched that the only critters on board who would hear it would be any cats that you took along for the ride - and then only of the undertones of the lowest bass.
But to those left on Earth you would be so slow (the contraction of time would make one of your minutes seem like 22) that your reports would be hopelessly boring.
The only people likely to ever do interstellar travel are people who have no intention of returning to Earth. Persons who would be murdered upon their return by angry mobs or hostile political orders? Persons who know that the Earth will be destroyed or otherwise rendered uninhabitable?
That takes some imagination. Cybernetic life will likely supplant flesh-based intelligent life -- especially if that flesh-based intelligent life makes its planet uninhabitable through pollution, climate modification, or nuclear war. May I not be speaking of humanity!Cybernetic "life" is a possibility, but they'd be even more likely to broadcast using radio. Whoever the original creators of such life are would intend to stay in contact with them, at least until the realization their programming was sufficient enough to count as consciousness.
The greatest evil is not now done in those sordid "dens of crime" (or) even in concentration camps and labour camps. In those we see its final result. But it is conceived and ordered... in clean, carpeted, warmed and well-lighted offices, by (those) who do not need to raise their voices. Hence, naturally enough, my symbol for Hell is something like the bureaucracy of a police state or the office of a thoroughly nasty business concern."
― C.S. Lewis, The Screwtape Letters
It could also be seeders, if you will. Send a family out a close to speed of light to seed another planet with human life... You know, just in case. Give them a reasonably sizable ship and supplies (something to grow and raise a family on) designed to drop down and provide a basis for advancment in an early settlement. Now this would require some massive advances in energy technology and some source of artificial gravity, but it's a possiblility.
As for cybernetic life, I think people would be uncomfortable converting their brains to an inorganic platform. Also, while VAD technology is awesome, as long as it is battery powered I think people will be wary (and for good reason, there's only been one case I know of where one has lost power (completely) and regained it where it resulted in a still living patient. On the other hand, cybernetic technology that altered function, by say, allowing a person to navigate electronics with their thoughts would be quite popular.
One theory on the origin of terrestrial life is that some primitive life seeded the early Earth -- then a cooling ball of rock with a now-toxic atmosphere full of methane, ammonia, water vapor, and carbon monoxide with traces of such nasty stuff as hydrogen sulfide and hydrogen cyanide. The most primitive extremophiles are the hardiest of all creatures, and they will surely outlast us. Some can live on the energy obtained from oxidizing iron into rust. That of course begs the question of where the extremophile life came from. As a rule, the more complex the life form the more specific an environment it needs. Example: Man dies quickly if unprotected in temperatures below 10C or above 35C. There are creatures that can survive the loss of all water from freezing or boiling and the radiation of outer space.
More likely it will be we who create cybernetic life for our own uses. If you think that what we have done with a borderline man-eater (the dog) through genetic engineering is remarkable, just imagine what is possible with the silicon-based life that we will be able to create with silicon-based objects that can fit the definition of life. Some of those will be able to not only "go where no man has gone before" -- but also go where no man can ever go -- such as a planet outside of human habitability.As for cybernetic life, I think people would be uncomfortable converting their brains to an inorganic platform. Also, while VAD technology is awesome, as long as it is battery powered I think people will be wary (and for good reason, there's only been one case I know of where one has lost power (completely) and regained it where it resulted in a still living patient. On the other hand, cybernetic technology that altered function, by say, allowing a person to navigate electronics with their thoughts would be quite popular.
The greatest evil is not now done in those sordid "dens of crime" (or) even in concentration camps and labour camps. In those we see its final result. But it is conceived and ordered... in clean, carpeted, warmed and well-lighted offices, by (those) who do not need to raise their voices. Hence, naturally enough, my symbol for Hell is something like the bureaucracy of a police state or the office of a thoroughly nasty business concern."
― C.S. Lewis, The Screwtape Letters
Giving your argument-opponents the benefit of the doubt in this case is the wiser course (of course you don't need to apply that to me, I know that would be a stretch for you). Firm realities in physics today are not so firm; there is so much they don't understand and is subject to counter-theories.
Contact to some degree for sure, but assuming "radio waves" is not necessary. Would SETI receivers be able to receive point-to-point microwave communications in all frequencies, and thus know about these cyber-beings? And anyway such cyber-contact would also have to be faster than light. So even the cyber-astronauts would not be robots as we understand them here today.Cybernetic "life" is a possibility, but they'd be even more likely to broadcast using radio. Whoever the original creators of such life are would intend to stay in contact with them, at least until the realization their programming was sufficient enough to count as consciousness.
