[unreality]

http://news.yahoo.com/s/afp/20100425/sc_afp/scienceastronomyextraterrestrialhawking

Is it just me or is stephen hawking completely wrong? I don't care how many examples there are on Earth, space is different. The cultural analogy is just a manifestation of fear of the unknown. Even if the worst case happens and human civilization crumbles as a direct or indirect result of contact with aliens, it would be worth it in my opinion. I'd rather have us discover the ultimate truth, that we are not alone, rather than destroy ourselves anyway because of our shortsightedness and lack of universal perspective.

[Guest]

To be honest, there really is no way to know the thought processes of extra-terrestrials. They could be war-like, they could be peaceful. I prefer thinking that the universe might work in a way similar to the universe in Stargate, with interplanetary war and diplomacy (except in completely different languages). While it is theoretically possible that there could be a species of interplanetary nomads out there looking for any planet rich with vitamins and minerals, having the ability to invade us full-scale, there is also the option that that there are diplomatic aliens out there, wanting to make a treaty with Earth. As for whether Hawking is correct/incorrect, I say he is looking at only one possible outcome, and while what he believes is actually possible, he shouldn't be so narrow-minded. And, as for your point on whether just knowing we aren't alone is worth any war, I agree that it would be a huge revolution to find out that there are others out there. However, we should only risk heavy interference with their civilization if we humans need help, such as if WWIII were to break out.

Looking back over that, I'm not even sure that I proposed my opinion in the way I had intended. Anyway, I still put my 2 cents in the matter.

[Guest]

I wonder whether Hawking just saw Avatar again

His position surprised me. It seems narrow-minded on so many levels.

There are (at least) several ways in which ET could already be here and unrecognized: Little green men in cloaked observation posts, intelligent transposons and plasmids and gut flora that have infiltrated earth's DNA, Hoyle's black cloud type creatures that are so diffuse and operate on such long time scales as to elude detection, the simulation scenario that I've posted about before, etc.

Then there are the obvious variety of possible interactions between ET and us for which there are analogs here on earth. Pick any other species beside homo-sapiens. Put us in the role of the aliens. We destroy some, domesticate and genetically maniuplate some, ignore some, protect some, etc., etc.

[Guest]

I'd have to say I agree that he is being very narrow-minded. Given the age of the universe and the impossibility of faster-than-light(FTL) travel, I don't believe it to be very likely that an intelligent spacefaring species would make it here in our lifetime or our great^100-grandkids' lifetime. Maybe I too am being narrow-minded.

[Guest]

I actually sort of have to agree with Stephen Hawking on this one. Currently, we know of no way to make interstellar travel feasible for single lifetime travel (let alone multiple trips in one lifetime). Unless any ETs coming here are extremely long-lived or they are ridiculously more advanced than we are, it is unlikely that they would be just scouting and/or contacting other intelligent species. They would instead be more likely to be entirely invested in the trip, meaning that when they arrive in system, they are here to refuel and move on.

Whether that means destroying the indigenous life or communing with it, I'm not sure, but it's probably more efficient to just clear the planet (maybe keeping some specimens for observation) than to spend the time to learn to communicate with any other intelligent life.

Though I will say that it seems likely that only creative and curious species could build spaceships that could reach Earth from a distant star, so they might want to learn more about us when they detect us. But if the intelligence gap is too large, we may not be interesting enough to engage in actual diplomatic effort.

In any case, as harvey said, we really can't know the minds of creatures that developed in an environment completely "alien" to our own and we can only speculate (as SH did) as to the intentions of any trans-stellar species. You may think his idea is a little close-minded, but you have to admit that in his condition, all he can do is think and ponder. So I think that it's safe to say that he really has considered this a lot and he thinks that this is the most likely outcome. He didn't say that it was the only possible outcome, only the most likely.

Somewhat O/T: only 17,480 comments on that article!

[unreality]

dawh, would you really have contact with aliens pass us by, just on the chance that we may be destroyed in the process? It will certainly change our civilization forever, the next stepping stone since the dawn of man (scenes from 2001:ASO come to mind haha) but I can't think of an event better for the human race even if it ends because of it.

[Guest]

dawh, would you really have contact with aliens pass us by, just on the chance that we may be destroyed in the process? It will certainly change our civilization forever, the next stepping stone since the dawn of man (scenes from 2001:ASO come to mind haha) but I can't think of an event better for the human race even if it ends because of it.

Well, I'm responding in part because I saw the show referenced in the article, so I have a slightly different perspective than what's presented in the article. Stephen Hawking didn't really address efforts to contact alien lifeforms, he merely outlined what he thought would happen should some nomadic race show up on our planet-step. If thought about rationally, it does seem like a nomadic race a la "Independence Day" would be more likely to appear than a friendly "ET."

Without some vastly improved transportation method, far beyond anything we've even conceived scientifically, any trip to this solar system from a distant start would be an enormous expenditure of energy and it would require some extremely good reason for coming here. Simply because it detected alien life may or may not be sufficient. Of course, the existence of life in a system does mean that there is some nutrient-rich planet in the system which would be interesting, even if the inhabitants themselves are not. Without fast interstellar travel, any scientific expeditions here would have to be a multi-generational round trip, where the scientists heading out and waiting on the homeworld would be long dead before any news of the contact would return. How would we respond if we managed to find a signal coming from another star?

Would we send a centuries long expedition to that star? Would it be one country unilaterally, or would all the industrialized countries chip in? How many people and what sort of resources would we need to send in order to ensure that enough would survive for the round trip? This would be an extremely costly expenditure no matter what we decided with no guarantees that the expedition would ever succeed possibly due to mechanical failure en-route, killing life support or sending the ship drifting helplessly off course, or a pandemic hitting the crew on the trip over, depleting the crew (or the food supply) to the point where they are unable to reproduce in sufficient numbers to maintain the ship throughout its mission. Even if they reach the final destination, they might get killed due to hostility toward their arrival or by foreign bacteria and other micro-invaders. With the technology that we have, could we justify making such a trip? It seems that the only way someone would be willing to make the trip is if they either thought that there was a good chance for it to return, or if there was no reason to return, hence the consideration of a nomadic, destructive race.

And I think that any talk regarding efforts to contact alien life is somewhat moot, considering that any aliens that can detect our transmissions can pick up the signals that we've been broadcasting for more than 100 years. So I don't think that we currently have a problem with having "contact with aliens pass us by." If they get inside our asymptotically expanding sphere of radio-transmissions (asymptotic since the signal deteriorates with distance), then they will probably be able to find us (provided they have the means to reach us). What they do when they do show up is a separate matter that SH didn't really talk about on the show. Do you think it's likely that aliens might come here on a science expedition like the one I outlined?

[unreality]

I think the book Contact by Carl Sagan is one way to look at, well, the contact - but it's sort of a best case scenario, although a bit far fetched and over-mystical with regards to the aliens (they were REALLY advanced there, almost infinitely). If we met aliens that were more like us on a technological/intellectual/political level, however, then yes there would be alien politics involved and it might get messy but I think that there's probably alien species out there now, or have been at some point in time, looking for life planets just for the philosophical/scientific sake of it. At least I hope that's true

[Guest]

i tend to think there's probably a mix of alien sentiments, some friendly, some hostile, most probably neutral.

p.s. here's a cool video on how you might go about building an anti gravity drive.

http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-5754670943097613356#

[Guest]

Limiting the discussion to a nomadic race seeking resources and with little scientific curiosity, why would they come here?

There are plenty of resources including water out in the Kuiper belt. No need to expend energy to get so far into the sun's gravity well.

There would be much greater density of resources closer in to the galaxy center. No need to stray out into the boonies.

If the beings are biological, why mess with a possibly contaminated source of resources such as ours, crawling with microbes. More likely, though, IMO, the nomads would be robotic/mechanical since their resource needs wouldn't be as great.