Fermi Paradox's topics - tribe.net

Stephen Hawking: Why Isn't the Milky Way "Crawling With Self-Designing Mechanical or Biological Life?"

MickD — Mon, 20 Jul 2009 12:52:39 GMT

http://www.dailygalaxy.com/my_weblog/2009/07/-stephen-hawking-why-is-the-milky-way-not-crawling-with-selfdesigning-mechanical-or-biological-life.html

posted in Fermi Paradox - 13 replies

Fermi Paradox

Serge — Thu, 06 Aug 2009 19:25:27 GMT

We can continue the discussion here, if you want, folks.
Here's the beginning:

http://tribes.tribe.net/astronomyastrophysics/thread/91604d75-80f8-425f-9d91-6d5820be4a5b

posted in Fermi Paradox - 2 replies

The Odds of Intelligent Life in the Universe

Curry — Sun, 20 Apr 2008 22:30:20 GMT

The Odds of Intelligent Life in the Universe
Written by Nancy Atkinson

When it comes to contemplating the state of our universe, the question that’s probably most prevalent on people’s minds is, “Is anyone else like us out there?” The famous Drake Equation, even when worked out with fairly moderate numbers, seemingly suggests the probable amount of intelligent, communicating civilizations could be quite numerous. But a new paper published by a scientist from the University of East Anglia suggests the odds of finding new life on other Earth-like planets are low, given the time it has taken for beings such as humans to evolve combined with the remaining life span of Earth.

Professor Andrew Watson says that structurally complex and intelligent life evolved relatively late on Earth, and in looking at the probability of the difficult and critical evolutionary steps that occurred in relation to the life span of Earth, provides an improved mathematical model for the evolution of intelligent life.
According to Watson, a limit to evolution is the habitability of Earth, and any other Earth-like planets, which will end as the sun brightens. Solar models predict that the brightness of the sun is increasing, while temperature models suggest that because of this the future life span of Earth will be ‘only’ about another billion years, a short time compared to the four billion years since life first appeared on the planet.
“The Earth’s biosphere is now in its old age and this has implications for our understanding of the likelihood of complex life and intelligence arising on any given planet,” said Watson.
Some scientists believe the extreme age of the universe and its vast number of stars suggests that if the Earth is typical, extraterrestrial life should be common. Watson, however, believes the age of the universe is working against the odds.
“At present, Earth is the only example we have of a planet with life,” he said. “If we learned the planet would be habitable for a set period and that we had evolved early in this period, then even with a sample of one, we’d suspect that evolution from simple to complex and intelligent life was quite likely to occur. By contrast, we now believe that we evolved late in the habitable period, and this suggests that our evolution is rather unlikely. In fact, the timing of events is consistent with it being very rare indeed.”
Watson, it seems, takes the Fermi Paradox to heart in his considerations. The Fermi Paradox is the apparent contradiction between high estimates of the probability of the existence of extraterrestrial civilizations and the lack of evidence for, or contact with, such civilizations.
Watson suggests the number of evolutionary steps needed to create intelligent life, in the case of humans, is four. These include the emergence of single-celled bacteria, complex cells, specialized cells allowing complex life forms, and intelligent life with an established language.
“Complex life is separated from the simplest life forms by several very unlikely steps and therefore will be much less common. Intelligence is one step further, so it is much less common still,” said Prof Watson.
Watson’s model suggests an upper limit for the probability of each step occurring is 10 per cent or less, so the chances of intelligent life emerging is low – less than 0.01 per cent over four billion years.
Each step is independent of the other and can only take place after the previous steps in the sequence have occurred. They tend to be evenly spaced through Earth’s history and this is consistent with some of the major transitions identified in the evolution of life on Earth.
Here is more about the Drake Equation.
Here is more information about the Fermi Paradox.
Original News Source: University of East Anglia Press Release

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

posted in Fermi Paradox - 22 replies

Seth Shostak: Confessions of an Alien Hunter...

Frozenstars — Thu, 25 Jun 2009 22:27:44 GMT

From FORA.tv:

http://fora.tv/2009/03/31/Seth_Shostak_Confessions_of_an_Alien_Hunter

posted in Fermi Paradox - 1 reply

Big bang theory

earnan — Sat, 13 Sep 2008 06:08:10 GMT

Does anyone know of a tribe to discuss the big bang theory with how it relates to cosmology?

posted in Fermi Paradox - 1 reply

Vatican: It's OK to Believe in Aliens!

Frozenstars — Tue, 13 May 2008 21:49:33 GMT

>>>Vatican: It's OK to Believe in Aliens
By The Associated Press

posted: 13 May 2008
2:21 pm ET

VATICAN CITY (AP) — The Vatican's chief astronomer says that believing in aliens does not contradict faith in God.

The Rev. Jose Gabriel Funes, the Jesuit director of the Vatican Observatory, says that the vastness of the universe means it is possible there could be other forms of life outside Earth, even intelligent ones.

In an interview published Tuesday by Vatican newspaper L'Osservatore Romano, Funes says that such a notion "doesn't contradict our faith'' because aliens would still be God's creatures.

The interview was headlined "The extraterrestrial is my brother.'' Funes said that ruling out the existence of aliens would be like "putting limits'' on God's creative freedom.<<<

I guess that mean that if the Church says it is fine to believe in Aliens -- they now truly must exist!

Twitching,

Frozenstars

posted in Fermi Paradox - 4 replies

its been a while.. but thought this may be of interest

Sun, 10 Dec 2006 14:57:09 GMT

heres a very different way of potentially explaining the reason behind the fermi paradox....

pehaps we have been using the wrong techniques

http://malcolm.mcewen.googlepages.com/themathematicsofevolution

any comments

GM23

posted in Fermi Paradox - 8 replies

When Does SETI Throw in the Towel?

Frozenstars — Thu, 18 Jan 2007 18:09:08 GMT

By Seth Shostak
SETI Institute
posted: 18 January 2007
06:38 am ET

“At what point would you abandon the search?”

That’s a question I get relatively frequently from folks who think that SETI may be a quixotic quest, as futile as searching for the Seven Cities of Gold. After all, modern efforts to find signals from extraterrestrial transmitters are now in their fifth decade. Could it be that those of us who still hope to tune in other worlds may be missing some writing on the wall? Some dead-obvious, chiseled text with a simple, if disappointing message: “There are no aliens”?

The question seems fair, since SETI’s obvious analogs–the historical voyages of discovery made in the centuries following the Renaissance–were completed in considerably less time than SETI has been beating the cosmic bushes. Columbus spent five weeks finding North America (and he wasn’t even looking). Captain Cook, a true paragon of explorers, and a man who mapped places that Europeans didn’t even know were places, never mounted an expedition that lasted more than three years.

But those analogs are false. The South Pacific, for all its watery wastes, is comprehensible in size. Even Cook’s unimpressive Whitby collier, powered by sailcloth, could cross the Pacific in a matter of months, come about, and cross again in a different direction. His quarry, the islands peppering the ocean like coins scattered onto a living room carpet, signaled their presence by clots of clouds even when the islands themselves were below the horizon.

The SETI wilderness is incomparably larger, obviously, and its quarry is cryptic. Even if there are ten thousand transmitting societies nestled in the arms of the Milky Way, we might need to search millions of star systems before we find one. The actual number of star systems that radio SETI experiments have carefully examined is fewer than a thousand.

It’s a simple truth, although one not universally acknowledged, that SETI is still in its early stages. Consequently, many of its practitioners will tell you that this is a multigenerational experiment, akin to building cathedrals in medieval Europe. In other words, a lot of SETI scientists will answer the question that began this article by saying “not in my lifetime, nor in that of my children or grandchildren.”

Fighting words, but could they be hyperbolic? To begin with, SETI experiments will have examined millions of star systems within a generation. And within two, we could carefully check every star in the Galaxy. The SETI ship has a lot of ocean to cover, but thanks to new technologies, it’s picking up speed. So clearly, if we haven’t found something by mid-century or so, it will be hard to argue that it’s still “early stages.”

And frankly, it’s conceivable that SETI’s basic assumptions might be proven wrong. Imagine that the new space-based telescopes (COROT and Kepler) currently being deployed to hunt for Earth-size planets around other stars come up empty. That would be a premium-grade bummer. But even if (as widely expected) they do discover rocky worlds, it’s possible that a decade or so down the line, their telescopic successors–atmosphere-sniffing instruments such as the Terrestrial Planet Finder–might fail to find any extrasolar worlds on which life has taken hold.

Spacecraft of the future might return to us the news that neither Mars, Europa, nor any of the other orbs of the solar system with liquid water have ever produced a microbe. If these are headlines of the future–if the local cosmic neighborhood turns out to be as sterile as prime-time television–then that would certainly put me on the defensive.

But the fact is that none of this incites me to break out the worry beads. Not yet. The various factors in the well-known Drake Equation, which is often used to estimate the chances of SETI success, have–at least until now–become more encouraging with time, not less. The more we learn about the universe, the more it seems disposed to house worlds with life. It didn’t have to be that way.

Somewhat more disquieting is the possibility that our approach is wrong. SETI today is overwhelmingly a search for narrow-band electromagnetic transmissions, or in fewer syllables, a hunt for beamed radio or light. We search with straightforward telescopic techniques, but it’s possible that alien broadcasts could be encoded in ways that we’re not set up to find. I’m not talking about how they construct their messages–or whether they’re broadcasting in Standard American English or a lilting Klingon dialect–but the technical scheme they use. For instance, Walt Simmons at the University of Hawaii has suggested that garrulous aliens might wield two widely separated transmitters and use quantum mechanical effects to encode their messages. The advantage would be that if we opened this type of alien mail, it would be impossible to tell from which direction it came, thereby protecting the anonymity of the sender. This sort of approach–still somewhat beyond our technical abilities–might make our present receiving schemes seem naïve.

In addition, there’s always the chance that the discovery of new physics will reveal some communication mode that’s either faster than light and radio, or requires less energy to use. This doesn’t seem likely, but science is all about surprises.

Indeed, my personal feeling is that if SETI hasn’t turned up something by the second half of this century, we should reconsider our search strategy, rather than assume that we’ve failed because there is nothing–or no one–to find. Would I ever conclude that we’ve searched enough? Would I ever truly give up on SETI’s bedrock premise, and tell myself that the extraterrestrials simply aren’t out there? Not likely. That would be to assume that we’ve learned all there is to know about our universe, a stance that is contrary to the spirit of explorers and scientists alike. We might yearn, or even need to believe that we are special, but to conclude that Homo sapiens is the best the cosmos has to offer is egregious self-adulation.

posted in Fermi Paradox - 7 replies

Online Video Regarding The Fermi Paradox...

Frozenstars — Fri, 12 Jan 2007 00:35:50 GMT

http://www.space.com/php/video/player.php?video_id=b011031_sp_fermi2

posted in Fermi Paradox - 0 replies

Were in the Zoo?

Frozenstars — Sun, 31 Dec 2006 01:24:21 GMT

Though this subject has been raised before -- I've still always pondering this hypothesis?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zoo_Hypothesis

posted in Fermi Paradox - 2 replies

Looking for lazers...

yoshispacebreaker — Fri, 14 Apr 2006 21:29:43 GMT

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/sci/tech/4907308.stm

It still seems like a long shot, yet somehow more likely than looking for radio waves...

Please discuss, fellow Fermi folks!!!

posted in Fermi Paradox - 16 replies

Jupiter Spot

Fri, 13 Oct 2006 16:37:24 GMT

Did anyone else think of Stephen Baxter's Manifold: Space when they saw this?

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20061012/ap_on_sc/jupiter_s_spots_7

Of course, it's probably just a local weather pattern ... unless Jupiter is being engineered by ET.

posted in Fermi Paradox - 0 replies

Wikipedia: berserker probe

Tue, 08 Feb 2005 04:21:42 GMT

I was inspired tonight to write up a new Wikipedia entry for berserker probe (suprised it wasn't there already):
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Berserker_probe

posted in Fermi Paradox - 20 replies

sci fi parables

PANZalt — Fri, 21 Jul 2006 03:47:28 GMT

What will the technology of the future really look like?
What will the civilizations of the future really look like?
What are our possible futures? The best and the worst
most likely outcomes?
Where are we headed? How might we get there?
How would we colonize our solar system in teh next 50 years? Nevermind how improbable that is or all of the things that won't let that happen politically. How would we colonize our Galaxy starting 100 years from
now whether or not we have faster than light propulsion? How could we get to the stars? Realistic
technology for realistic science fiction? I WANT MY SCIENCE FICTION TO BE BELIEVABLE!!!. (dangit)
So? how do we put the modern science back into science fiction? less
http://tribes.tribe.net/scifiparables
http://tribes.tribe.net/scifiparables#

posted in Fermi Paradox - 12 replies

Missed them by a billion years

Steven — Thu, 23 Mar 2006 21:29:23 GMT

It is a big universe, so who knows if there is currently many species of intelligent life out there or none at all. I would like to believe that we do not represent all of the life that there ever was. I do believe that if we are not the only one, then we are most likely separated from them more by time than distance. There could have been a galaxy wide civilization that thrived for ten million years but died out a billion years ago. We will never know until we go out there and take a good look.

posted in Fermi Paradox - 38 replies

Avoiding Extinction (X-post)

miketreder — Thu, 30 Mar 2006 02:30:29 GMT

The Fermi Paradox and Singularities

Robert Pisani
Department of Statistics
University of California
Berkeley, California
robert pisani <r.pisani@mac.com>

There are many billions of galaxies that contain
even more billions of star systems that can support
life. The universe has existed for 13+ billion years,
and the time that humans needed to grow from single
celled creatures to what they are today is just a few
million years, an instant in the life of the universe.
If life is as common as is now thought, we would not
be the first civilization to have arisen in the
universe. Any civilization that has advanced to our
stage must produce radio waves, microwaves, etc. But
we don't find any. Enrico Fermi said, "Where is
everybody?"

It was thought at one point in the 1950's that
nuclear weapons had the potential to end human life on
earth. Knowledgeable insiders assessed the chance of
reaching the 21st Century as "about 50%". Whether or
not such thinking was justified, new technologies like
DNA manipulation and nanotechnology and molecular
manufacturing clearly do have such potential. These
technologies and others could cause extinction of the
human race, and in fact all life on our planet, either
through deliberate application or technical
malfeasance. Following is a framework for beginning
to think rigorously about the Fermi Paradox.

Kurzweil's Law says that technology grows at a
double exponential rate. Denote the level of
technology at time t by yt.

(0) yt = exp(exp(t)).

Given a sequence of times t0 < t1 < t2 < . . .
define
(1) Epoch(n) = the period from tn to tn+1 and
(2) pn = the chance of total annihilation during
Epoch(n)

Assuming that survival chances in different Epochs
are independent, given that a civilization has
survived to the end of Epoch(k-1) and thus the
beginning of Epoch(k), if n „ k the chance that it
will survive until the end of Epoch(n) is:

(3) s(n) = ½ {(1-pi), i = k, n}

And the chance it will survive for an infinite number
of epochs is

(4) lim n ý ƒ s(n) = lim n ý ƒ ½ {(1-pi), i = k, n},
which is greater than 0 if and only if

(5) _ ln (1-pi) converges.

For small p, ln(1-p) ~ - p, so (loosely) for small p,
(5) converges if and only _ pi converges. If (5)
diverges, the probability of ultimate extinction is
1.0.

Let yn = the number of different weapons available at
time n which will cause extinction if used. Certainly
defensive measures against such weapons will also be
available.

If the probability of any given weapon being
applied successfully against all of its defenses in
Epoch(n) is q > 0, then the chance that any given
weapon is not used successfully in Epoch(n) is 1-q,
and the chance that at least one is used successfully,
and the civilization perishes, is pn = 1 - (1-q)x,
where x = yn.

Since ln(1-q) < 0 and yn ý ƒ ,

ln(1 - pn) =ln (1-q)x = x ln(1-q) = yn ln(1-q) ý -
ƒ, and (5) diverges

Suppose that defensive measures yield Epoch(n)
probabilities qn which decline to 0 as n grows larger.
Still, if (5) is to converge, we must have
yn ln(1- qn) ~ - yn qn ý 0.

and to avoid extinction, we must have necessarily (but
not sufficiently)

qn < 1/ yn = 1/exp(exp(n)) for n> n0, some n0

Even more restrictively, we must have
yn qn < 1/n, and thus

qn < 1/nyn = 1/(n exp(exp(n)) for all n larger than
some value.

And so on.

Clearly the qn must decline to 0 very rapidly,
and (0) clearly places an extreme burden on any
program of defense that seeks to avoid the
annihilation of the civilization. Should other
considerations show that such rapid decline is
structurally not possible, (4) will then necessarily
equal 0, explaining the Fermi Paradox.

=========

Discuss...

posted in Fermi Paradox - 3 replies

Meat, by Terry Bisson

thebrillianthen — Fri, 24 Mar 2006 19:27:35 GMT

Meat!
A dialogue by Terry Bisson
From "Alien/Nation" in the April 1991 issue of Omni Magazine.

"They're made out of meat."

"Meat?"

"Meat. They're made out of meat."

"Meat?"

"There's no doubt about it. We picked several from different parts of the planet, took them aboard our recon vessels, probed them all the way through. They're completely meat."

"That's impossible. What about the radio signals? The messages to the stars."

"They use the radio waves to talk, but the signals don't come from them. The signals come from machines."

"So who made the machines? That's who we want to contact."

"They made the machines. That's what I'm trying to tell you. Meat made the machines."

"That's ridiculous. How can meat make a machine? You're asking me to believe in sentient meat."

"I'm not asking you, I 'm telling you. These creatures are the only sentient race in the sector and they're made out of meat."

"Maybe they're like the Orfolei. You know, a carbon-based intelligence that goes through a meat stage."

"Nope. They're born meat and they die meat. We studied them for several of their life spans, which didn't take too long. Do you have any idea the life span of meat?"

"Spare me. Okay, maybe they're only part meat. You know, like the Weddilei. A meat head with an electron plasma brain inside."

"Nope. We thought of that, since they do have meat heads like the Weddilei. But I told you, we probed them. They're meat all the way through."

"No brain?"

"Oh, there is a brain all right. It's just that the brain is made out of meat!"

"So... what does the thinking?"

"You're not understanding, are you? The brain does the thinking. The meat."

"Thinking meat! You're asking me to believe in thinking meat!"

"Yes, thinking meat! Conscious meat! Loving meat. Dreaming meat. The meat is the whole deal! Are you getting the picture?"

"Omigod. You're serious then. They're made out of meat."

"Finally, Yes. They are indeed made out meat. And they've been trying to get in touch with us for almost a hundred of their years."

"So what does the meat have in mind."

"First it wants to talk to us. Then I imagine it wants to explore the universe, contact other sentients, swap ideas and information. The usual."

"We're supposed to talk to meat?"

"That's the idea. That's the message they're sending out by radio. 'Hello. Anyone out there? Anyone home?' That sort of thing."

"They actually do talk, then. They use words, ideas, concepts?"

"Oh, yes. Except they do it with meat."

"I thought you just told me they used radio."

"They do, but what do you think is on the radio? Meat sounds. You know how when you slap or flap meat it makes a noise? They talk by flapping their meat at each other. They can even sing by squirting air through their meat."

"Omigod. Singing meat. This is altogether too much. So what do you advise?"

"Officially or unofficially?"

"Both."

"Officially, we are required to contact, welcome, and log in any and all sentient races or multibeings in the quadrant, without prejudice, fear, or favor. Unofficially, I advise that we erase the records and forget the whole thing."

"I was hoping you would say that."

"It seems harsh, but there is a limit. Do we really want to make contact with meat?"

"I agree one hundred percent. What's there to say?" `Hello, meat. How's it going?' But will this work? How many planets are we dealing with here?"

"Just one. They can travel to other planets in special meat containers, but they can't live on them. And being meat, they only travel through C space. Which limits them to the speed of light and makes the possibility of their ever making contact pretty slim. Infinitesimal, in fact."

"So we just pretend there's no one home in the universe."

"That's it."

"Cruel. But you said it yourself, who wants to meet meat? And the ones who have been aboard our vessels, the ones you have probed? You're sure they won't remember?"

"They'll be considered crackpots if they do. We went into their heads and smoothed out their meat so that we're just a dream to them."

"A dream to meat! How strangely appropriate, that we should be meat's dream."

"And we can marked this sector unoccupied."

"Good. Agreed, officially and unofficially. Case closed. Any others? Anyone interesting on that side of the galaxy?"

"Yes, a rather shy but sweet hydrogen core cluster intelligence in a class nine star in G445 zone. Was in contact two galactic rotation ago, wants to be friendly again."

"They always come around."

"And why not? Imagine how unbearably, how unutterably cold the universe would be if one were all alone."

posted in Fermi Paradox - 0 replies

Silicon based life

JeremyStarboy — Sat, 04 Mar 2006 19:02:52 GMT

I think silicon based life (as opposed to silicone based life) is very unlikely for one simple reason - hydrogen bonding. Hydrogen only H-bonds with nitrogen, oxygen, and fluorine, the first two of which play a fundamental role in carbon based life. There is no H-bonding analog for silicon, and I see that as a serious problem. Water is certainly the primary marker here. Water is fundamental to carbon based life, and H-bonding is fundamental to the properties of water. Without H-bonding, life as we know it would not exist. Unless silicon based life processes water like carbon based life does, which I doubt, I don't see it happening. Anybody have any arguments for or against this theory?

posted in Fermi Paradox - 3 replies

Seth from SETI on new reception strategy

yoshispacebreaker — Fri, 13 Jan 2006 21:29:04 GMT

Found this on space.com:

http://www.space.com/searchforlife/060112_shostak_transmit.html

He makes a good point, but even if alien intelligences think to pulse their data bursts in this manner, we still run up against the annoying fact of distance. Unless they're within a few thousand light years of us, we still can't guarantee their civilization still exists by the time we answer. And even if they do receive our answer, will we be around when they respond? I hate that no matter how lofty SETI's goal, we're still just pinging out our messages, hoping someone hears us in the blackness.

This message brought to you by the "Space is Depressingly Vast, So Don't Think You Really Have a Chance at Contact in Your Lifetime" Corporation. Have a nice day.

posted in Fermi Paradox - 10 replies

Good to see other posters

Sat, 14 Jan 2006 15:25:02 GMT

It's good to see that other people are finally posting their own discussions to this Tribe. There are 172 members here, but I was starting to invoke the Fermi Paradox to the Fermi Paradox Tribe and wondering if I was alone....

posted in Fermi Paradox - 5 replies

Arecibo Message

Wed, 11 Jan 2006 23:54:11 GMT

I'd forgotten all about this! It's pretty awesome, I think. How would you respond if you found this in your inbox?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arecibo_message

posted in Fermi Paradox - 3 replies

Runaway consumerism explains the Fermi Paradox

Thu, 05 Jan 2006 03:27:07 GMT

[this is mostly nonsense, but I thought I'd post it here anyway. As an aside, this is moderately reminiscent of a plausible scenario in which intelligences opt for extreme hedonism instead of extraplanetary colonization]

GEOFFREY MILLER
Evolutionary Psychologist, University of New Mexico; Author, The Mating Mind

Runaway consumerism explains the Fermi Paradox
http://www.edge.org/q2006/q06_9.html

The story goes like this: Sometime in the 1940s, Enrico Fermi was talking about the possibility of extra-terrestrial intelligence with some other physicists. They were impressed that our galaxy holds 100 billion stars, that life evolved quickly and progressively on earth, and that an intelligent, exponentially-reproducing species could colonize the galaxy in just a few million years. They reasoned that extra-terrestrial intelligence should be common by now. Fermi listened patiently, then asked simply, "So, where is everybody?". That is, if extra-terrestrial intelligence is common, why haven't we met any bright aliens yet? This conundrum became known as Fermi's Paradox.

The paradox has become more ever more baffling. Over 150 extrasolar planets have been identified in the last few years, suggesting that life-hospitable planets orbit most stars. Paleontology shows that organic life evolved very quickly after earth's surface cooled and became life-hospitable. Given simple life, evolution shows progressive trends towards larger bodies, brains, and social complexity. Evolutionary psychology reveals several credible paths from simpler social minds to human-level creative intelligence. Yet 40 years of intensive searching for extra-terrestrial intelligence have yielded nothing. No radio signals, no credible spacecraft sightings, no close encounters of any kind.

So, it looks as if there are two possibilities. Perhaps our science over-estimates the likelihood of extra-terrestrial intelligence evolving. Or, perhaps evolved technical intelligence has some deep tendency to be self-limiting, even self-exterminating. After Hiroshima, some suggested that any aliens bright enough to make colonizing space-ships would be bright enough to make thermonuclear bombs, and would use them on each other sooner or later. Perhaps extra-terrestrial intelligence always blows itself up. Fermi's Paradox became, for a while, a cautionary tale about Cold War geopolitics.

I suggest a different, even darker solution to Fermi's Paradox. Basically, I think the aliens don't blow themselves up; they just get addicted to computer games. They forget to send radio signals or colonize space because they're too busy with runaway consumerism and virtual-reality narcissism. They don't need Sentinels to enslave them in a Matrix; they do it to themselves, just as we are doing today.

The fundamental problem is that any evolved mind must pay attention to indirect cues of biological fitness, rather than tracking fitness itself. We don't seek reproductive success directly; we seek tasty foods that tended to promote survival and luscious mates who tended to produce bright, healthy babies. Modern results: fast food and pornography. Technology is fairly good at controlling external reality to promote our real biological fitness, but it's even better at delivering fake fitness — subjective cues of survival and reproduction, without the real-world effects. Fresh organic fruit juice costs so much more than nutrition-free soda. Having real friends is so much more effort than watching Friends on TV. Actually colonizing the galaxy would be so much harder than pretending to have done it when filming Star Wars or Serenity.

Fitness-faking technology tends to evolve much faster than our psychological resistance to it. The printing press is invented; people read more novels and have fewer kids; only a few curmudgeons lament this. The Xbox 360 is invented; people would rather play a high-resolution virtual ape in Peter Jackson's King Kong than be a perfect-resolution real human. Teens today must find their way through a carnival of addictively fitness-faking entertainment products: MP3, DVD, TiVo, XM radio, Verizon cellphones, Spice cable, EverQuest online, instant messaging, Ecstasy, BC Bud. The traditional staples of physical, mental, and social development (athletics, homework, dating) are neglected. The few young people with the self-control to pursue the meritocratic path often get distracted at the last minute — the MIT graduates apply to do computer game design for Electronics Arts, rather than rocket science for NASA.

Around 1900, most inventions concerned physical reality: cars, airplanes, zeppelins, electric lights, vacuum cleaners, air conditioners, bras, zippers. In 2005, most inventions concern virtual entertainment — the top 10 patent-recipients are usually IBM, Matsushita, Canon, Hewlett-Packard, Micron Technology, Samsung, Intel, Hitachi, Toshiba, and Sony — not Boeing, Toyota, or Wonderbra. We have already shifted from a reality economy to a virtual economy, from physics to psychology as the value-driver and resource-allocator. We are already disappearing up our own brainstems. Freud's pleasure principle triumphs over the reality principle. We narrow-cast human-interest stories to each other, rather than broad-casting messages of universal peace and progress to other star systems.

Maybe the bright aliens did the same. I suspect that a certain period of fitness-faking narcissism is inevitable after any intelligent life evolves. This is the Great Temptation for any technological species — to shape their subjective reality to provide the cues of survival and reproductive success without the substance. Most bright alien species probably go extinct gradually, allocating more time and resources to their pleasures, and less to their children.

Heritable variation in personality might allow some lineages to resist the Great Temptation and last longer. Those who persist will evolve more self-control, conscientiousness, and pragmatism. They will evolve a horror of virtual entertainment, psychoactive drugs, and contraception. They will stress the values of hard work, delayed gratification, child-rearing, and environmental stewardship. They will combine the family values of the Religious Right with the sustainability values of the Greenpeace Left.

My dangerous idea-within-an-idea is that this, too, is already happening. Christian and Muslim fundamentalists, and anti-consumerism activists, already understand exactly what the Great Temptation is, and how to avoid it. They insulate themselves from our Creative-Class dream-worlds and our EverQuest economics. They wait patiently for our fitness-faking narcissism to go extinct. Those practical-minded breeders will inherit the earth, as like-minded aliens may have inherited a few other planets. When they finally achieve Contact, it will not be a meeting of novel-readers and game-players. It will be a meeting of dead-serious super-parents who congratulate each other on surviving not just the Bomb, but the Xbox. They will toast each other not in a soft-porn Holodeck, but in a sacred nursery.

posted in Fermi Paradox - 3 replies

Life as We Do Not Know It

Mon, 19 Dec 2005 02:19:25 GMT

Life as We Do Not Know It: The NASA Search for (and Synthesis of) Alien Life
by Peter Ward
Viking, 2005
Hardcover, 292 pp., illus.
ISBN 0-670-03458-4
US$25.95/C$36

From Publishers Weekly:

Ward's Rare Earth (coauthored with Donald Brownlee) suggested the unlikelihood of our finding an alien race as complex and evolved as humankind; if such beings exist, they're too far away for us to make contact with. But what about more basic forms of life right here in our solar system? Ward, an investigator with NASA's Astrobiology Institute, believes researchers might be taking the wrong approach by looking only for earthly DNA-based life forms. Truly alien life, he argues, might have completely different origins; even Earth has untold numbers of viruses composed entirely of RNA, and scientists have created similar genetic material in laboratories, so who's to say silicon-based life-forms are impossible? After introducing readers to the building blocks of life and the new ways they might be arranged, Ward speculates on what types of microbes we might find on other planets and their satellites. He recommends that future manned space expeditions include paleontologists and biochemists to follow up on suggestive evidence collected by space probes. The science is neatly laid out, and readers willing to follow his daring, scientifically based speculations will find their imaginations spurred.

From Booklist:

Paleontologist Ward--who has written previously about extinctions (Gorgon, 2004), evolution (Future Evolution, 2001), and planetary geology (Rare Earth, 2003)--indulges in some freewheeling yet reasonable speculation on what forms of life we are likely to discover on other worlds. In the past five years, astronomers have uncovered much new environmental data on the planets and satellites in our solar system, most notably from the two Martian rovers that are still scuttling about on the surface. The problem with recognizing alien life, as Ward sees it, is that science defines it too narrowly; biologists must expand their definition to encompass forms that do not resemble terrestrial carbon-and-DNA-based packages. He begins by declaring that viruses are alive and goes on to classify other exotic chemical combinations that could evolve in an alien environment. Ward says that machines like the rovers are not set up to detect "life as we do not know it" and that it will take missions with human crews to discover what we don't expect. Certainly thought--provoking.

posted in Fermi Paradox - 7 replies

Nature Article: Is a doomsday catastrophe likely?

Mon, 12 Dec 2005 14:20:42 GMT

NATURE|Vol 438|8 December 2005
ASTROPHYSICS

Is a doomsday catastrophe likely?

The risk of a doomsday scenario in which high-energy physics experiments trigger the destruction of the Earth has been estimated to be minuscule1. But this may give a false sense of security: the fact that the Earth has survived for so long does not necessarily mean that such disasters are unlikely, because observers are, by definition, in places that have avoided destruction. Here we derive a new upper bound of one per billion years (99.9% confidence level) for the exogenous terminal-catastrophe rate that is free of such selection bias, using calculations based on the relatively late formation time of Earth.
Fears that heavy-ion collisions at the Brook-haven Relativistic Heavy Ion Collider might initiate a catastrophic destruction of Earth have

The catastrophe timescale cannot be very short. The probability distribution is shown for observed planet-formation times, assuming catastrophe timescales, , of 1, 2 ,3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10 Gyr and infinity (shaded yellow), respectively (from left to right). The probability of observing a formation time 9.1 Gyr for Earth (area to the right of the dotted line) drops below 0.001 for 1.1 Gyr.
focused on three possible scenarios: a transition to a lower vacuum state that propagates outwards from its source at the speed of light2; formation of a black hole or gravitational singularity that accretes ordinary matter2; or creation of a stable ‘strangelet’ that accretes ordinary matter and converts it to strange matter3. A careful study1 concluded that these hypothetical scenarios are overwhelmingly more likely to be triggered by natural high-energy astrophysical events, such as cosmic-ray collisions, than by the Brookhaven collider.
Given that life on Earth has survived for nearly 4 billion years (4 Gyr), it might be assumed that natural catastrophic events are extremely rare. Unfortunately, this argument is flawed because it fails to take into account an observation-selection effect4,5, whereby observers are precluded from noting anything other than that their own species has survived up to the point when the observation is made. If it takes at least 4.6 Gyr for intelligent observers to arise, then the mere observation that Earth has survived for this duration cannot even give us grounds for rejecting with 99% confidence the hypothesis that the average cosmic neighbourhood is typically sterilized, say, every 1,000 years. The observation-selection effect guarantees that we would find ourselves in a lucky situation, no matter how frequent the sterilization events.
Figure 1 indicates how we derive an upper bound on the cosmic catastrophe frequency 1 that is free from such observer-selection bias. The idea is that if catastrophes were very frequent, then almost all intelligent civilizations would have arisen much earlier than ours. Using data on planet-formation rates6, the distribution of birth dates for intelligent species

can be calculated under different assumptions about the rate of cosmic sterilization. Combining this with information about our own temporal location enables us to conclude that the cosmic sterilization rate for a habitable planet is, at most, of the order of 1 per 1.1 Gyr at 99.9% confidence. Taking into account the fact that no other planets in our Solar System have yet been converted to black holes or strange mat-1–3 further tightens our constraints on black hole and strangelet disasters. (For details, see supplementary information.)
This bound does not apply in general to disasters that become possible only after certain technologies have been developed — for example, nuclear annihilation or extinction through engineered microorganisms — so we still have plenty to worry about. However, our bound does apply to exogenous catastrophes (for example, those that are spontaneous or triggered by cosmic rays) whose frequency is uncorrelated with human activities, as long as they cause permanent sterilization. Using the results of the Brookhaven analysis1, the bound also implies that the risk from present-day particle accelerators is reassuringly small: say, less than 10 12 per year.

Max Tegmark*, Nick Bostrom† *Department of Physics, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Cambridge, Massachusetts 02139, USA e-mail:tegmark@mit.edu

†Future of Humanity Institute, Faculty of Philosophy, University of Oxford, Oxford OX1 4JJ, UK
1.
Jaffe, R. L., Busza, W., Sandweiss, J. & Wilczek, F. Rev .Mod. Phys. 72, 1125–1140 (2000).

2.
Hut, P. & Rees, M. J. Nature 302, 508-509 (1983).

3.
Dar, A. & De Rujula, A. Phys.Lett. B 470, 142–148 (1999).

4.
Carter, B. in IAU Symposium 63 (ed. Longair, M. S.) 291–298 (Reidel, Dordrecht, 1974).

5.
Bostrom, N. Anthropic Bias: Observation Selection Effects in Science and Philosophy (Routledge, New York, 2002).

6.
Lineweaver, C. H., Fenner, Y. & Gibson, B. K. Science 203, 59–62 (2004).

Supplementary information accompanies this communication on Nature’s website. Competing financial interests: declared none. doi:10.1038/438754a
CORRIGENDUM
Avian flu: Isolation of drug-resistant H5N1 virus
Q. Mai Le, Maki Kiso, Kazuhiko Someya,
Yuko T. Sakai, T. Hien Nguyen, Khan H. L. Nguyen,

N. Dinh Pham, Ha H. Ngyen, Shinya Yamada,
Yukiko Muramoto, Taisuke Horimoto, Ayato Takada,
Hideo Goto, Takashi Suzuki, Yasuo Suzuki,
Yoshihiro Kawaoka
Nature 437, 1108 (2005)

We omitted the accession numbers for the sequences of the A/Hanoi/30408/2005 clones, which are registered in the DNA Data Bank of Japan. These are: AB239125 20051020120345.25409 for the haemagglutinin gene in clone 9; and AB239126 20051020122743.63420 for the neuraminidase gene in clone 7.
doi:10.1038/438754b

BRIEF COMMUNICATIONS ARISING online
. www.nature.com/bca see Nature contents.
©2005 Nature Publishing Group

posted in Fermi Paradox - 13 replies

plenty of time

zardoz — Tue, 13 Dec 2005 06:49:56 GMT

I think the problem is that most aliens know that they have plenty of time to colonize the galaxy.

Take us for instance. It's taken about 9 billion years for our planet to form and for us to evolve almost to the point where we can start sending out colonists. And it'll take us only one or two million years to do it. So after 9 billion, if we wait around one million more were not gonna miss our chance. We could get alot of good reading done in that time and we could basically troll the entire internet. Then we'd more ready to get some real colonizing done.

In general species only change when they have to. Like when there's a war or when something paved over their wetland. So were gonna have to wait until we have to, like when the sun gets too big or when Andromeda hits. It'll be really great if we're spread out when Andromeda hits, in about 4B years. Lotsa stars'll get flung all over the place and which'll give us free rides to other galaxies. So if we just hang around at the beach for 3B years, then spend the last billion colonizing we'll have about 1000 times the span we need.

posted in Fermi Paradox - 1 reply

Our Mission: to spread life throughout the Universe

Sat, 12 Nov 2005 15:14:44 GMT

I'd love to hear the Tribe's thoughts on this, particularly as it pertains to the FP:

Needed: A Change of Focus

by Hans L.D.G. Starlife
Monday, November 7, 2005

Humanity needs to create a new “myth” for space that emphasizes not science but the spreading of life through the universe.
http://www.thespacereview.com/article/488/1

posted in Fermi Paradox - 5 replies

SETI and the Cosmic Quarantine Hypothesis

Mon, 17 Oct 2005 23:06:25 GMT

Here's a thought provoking article that comprehends the magnitude and seriousness of the FP while proposing a novel solution:

SETI and the Cosmic Quarantine Hypothesis
http://www.astrobio.net/news/modules.php?op=modload&name=News&file=article&sid=1745&mode=thread&order=0&thold=0
by Steven Soter

If civilizations exist in our galaxy with levels of technology at least equal to our own, we might be able to detect some of them using radio telescopes. And if civilizations exist with technologies far in advance of our own, we might expect them to have colonized millions of habitable worlds in the Milky Way, and even to have visited our own planet. Yet there is no evidence in the astronomical, geological, archaeological, or historical records that extraterrestrial civilizations exist or that visitors from other worlds have ever been to Earth. Does that mean, as some have concluded, that ours is the only civilization in the galaxy? Or could there be a natural self-regulating mechanism that limits the intensive colonization of other worlds?

Entire Article:
http://www.astrobio.net/news/modules.php?op=modload&name=News&file=article&sid=1745&mode=thread&order=0&thold=0

posted in Fermi Paradox - 3 replies

Arguing Alien Intentions

Tue, 06 Sep 2005 03:03:11 GMT

I re-watched "The Day the Earth Stood Still" this afternoon. I still think it's a darn good film, even if it is deeply flawed on several levels.

It got me thinking though. It was (and is) heralded as the first film to positively portray ETIs. Prior to that, aliens were typically portrayed as monsters chasing around scantily clad women. Instead, these visitors were as enlightened as they were helpful.

In fact, the portrayal of ETIs in this film is quasi-messianic and filled with wish-fulfilment overtones (the nuclear age world in the midst of the coldwar -- "ET, God is dead, save us from ourselves!").

This movie reinforces in my mind the idea that we have replaced God with ETIs. Just look at the Raelians, for example, with their promise of extra terrestrial salvation and eternal material life.

Since "The Day the Earth Stood Still," both film, public sentiment and even science have supported the idea that ETIs are enlightened, friendly, and potentially helpful. Carl Sagan argued, for example, that ETIs would *have* to have those characteristics, otherwise they wouldn't have survived the nuclear age.

Ultimately, the question I want to ask is this: is all this just naive wishful thinking? Is the assumption that ETIs are benevolent just another variant of religion, messianism and new age thinking? Should we assume that aliens and their artifacts are potentially dangerous?

posted in Fermi Paradox - 10 replies

NASA Takes Giant Step Toward Finding Earth-Like Planets

Mon, 03 Oct 2005 17:23:53 GMT

NASA Takes Giant Step Toward Finding Earth-Like Planets
http://physorg.com/news6889.html
September 30, 2005

Synopsis: Are we alone in the universe? Are there planets like Earth around other “suns” that might harbor life? Thanks to a recent technology breakthrough on a key NASA planet-finding project, the dream of answering those questions is no longer light-years away.

posted in Fermi Paradox - 0 replies

Carl Sagan on the FP

Fri, 16 Sep 2005 13:28:53 GMT

Here's an interesting excerpt from:
Carl Sagan Takes Questions
More From His ‘Wonder and Skepticism’ CSICOP 1994 Keynote
http://www.csicop.org/si/2005-07/sagan.html

QUESTION: A question concerning the search for extraterrestrial intelligence. It seems that we as skeptics, there’s an argument that seems very disappointing and maybe a bit persuasive in the Fermi paradox, the idea that if civilizations were to arise at any significant level, that even given a very extremely slow rate of expansion in the galaxy, that there’s been more than enough time for them to have populated the galaxy several times over. What’s your view on the Fermi paradox?

SAGAN: The Fermi paradox essentially says, as you said, that if there’s extraterrestrial high technology intelligence anywhere they should have been here because if they travel at the speed of light, the galaxy is 100,000 light-years across, it takes you 100,000 years to cross the galaxy. The galaxy is 10 billion years old, they should be here. And if you say you can’t travel at the speed of light, take a tenth of the speed of light, a hundredth of the speed of light, still much less than the age of the galaxy. William Newman and I published a paper on this very point, in which we point out: Imagine there is a civilization that has capable interstellar spacecraft and now they start exploring. What are we talking about? That they’re sending out 400 billion spacecraft, all at once, simultaneously, to every star in the galaxy? Not at all. Interstellar space flight is going to be hard, you’re going to go slow, you’re going to go to the nearest star systems first, you’re going to explore those stars. It is not a straight line but a diffusion question. And when you do the diffusion physics with the appropriate diffusivity, that is, the time to random walk, there are many cases in which the time for an advanced civilization to fully explore the galaxy in the sense of visiting every star system is considerably longer than the age of the galaxy. It’s just a bad model, we claim, the straight line, dedicated exploration of every star in the galaxy.

posted in Fermi Paradox - 0 replies

Guardian: Come out, come out, wherever you are

Tue, 06 Sep 2005 02:47:07 GMT

Come out, come out, wherever you are

You never write, you never call ... Tim Radford on the puzzle of the absent alien: inspiration for art and astronomers and soon to star in a Science Museum exhibition

http://www.guardian.co.uk/life/feature/story/0,13026,1555324,00.html

posted in Fermi Paradox - 0 replies

The Physics of Extra-Terrestrial Civilizations

Wed, 31 Aug 2005 03:01:44 GMT

Here's a must read from one of my favourite theoretical physicists, Michio Kaku (strangely, he avoids any discussion of the Fermi Paradox):

The Physics of Extra-Terrestrial Civilizations

How advanced could they possibly be?
By Michio Kaku

http://www.mkaku.org/articles/physics_of_alien_civs.shtml

posted in Fermi Paradox - 1 reply

New answer to the Fermi Paradox

Sun, 12 Jun 2005 16:48:54 GMT

Galactic Gradients, Postbiological Evolution and the Apparent Failure of SETI, by Milan M. Cirkovic, Robert J. Bradbury.
http://www.astrobiology.com/news/viewsr.html?pid=16908

[as an aside, Milan is a friend of mine, and I was fortunate enough to be asked to critique an earlier draft of this paper]

Abstract:
Motivated by recent developments impacting our view of Fermi's paradox (absence of extraterrestrials and their manifestations from our past light cone), we suggest a reassessment of the problem itself, as well as of strategies employed by SETI projects so far. The need for such reevaluation is fueled not only by the failure of searches thus far, but also by great advances recently made in astrophysics, astrobiology, computer science and future studies, which have remained largely ignored in SETI practice. As an example of the new approach, we consider the effects of the observed metallicity and temperature gradients in the Milky Way on the spatial distribution of hypothetical advanced extraterrestrial intelligent communities. While, obviously, properties of such communities and their sociological and technological preferences are entirely unknown, we assume that (1) they operate in agreement with the known laws of physics, and (2) that at some point they typically become motivated by a meta-principle embodying the central role of information-processing; a prototype of the latter is the recently suggested Intelligence Principle of Steven J. Dick. There are specific conclusions of practical interest to be drawn from coupling of these reasonable assumptions with the astrophysical and astrochemical structure of the Galaxy. In particular, we suggest that the outer regions of the Galactic disk are most likely locations for advanced SETI targets, and that intelligent communities will tend to migrate outward through the Galaxy as their capacities of information-processing increase, for both thermodynamical and astrochemical reasons. This can also be regarded as a possible generalization of the Galactic Habitable Zone, concept currently much investigated in astrobiology.

http://www.astrobiology.com/news/viewsr.html?pid=16908

posted in Fermi Paradox - 6 replies

Abodes for Life?

Fri, 24 Jun 2005 19:55:28 GMT

by Douglas Vakoch, SETI Institute
http://www.seti.org/site/apps/nl/content2.asp?c=ktJ2J9MMIsE&b=194993&ct=1089757

With the latest discovery of a “Super-Earth” around a dim, red star 15 light years from Earth, SETI scientists have been pondering the implications for their search for intelligence on other worlds. “This planet answers an ancient question,” said Geoffrey Marcy, professor of astronomy at the University of California, Berkeley, and leader of the team that discovered the planet, which is seven to eight times the mass of Earth. “Over 2,000 years ago, the Greek philosophers Aristotle and Epicurus argued about whether there were other Earth-like planets. Now, for the first time, we have evidence for a rocky planet around a normal star.” Team member Paul Butler of the Carnegie Institution of Washington emphasized the similarity between this most recently detected planet, located around an M star called Gliese 876, and our own world. “This is the smallest extrasolar planet yet detected and the first of a new class of rocky terrestrial planets,” he explained. “It's like Earth's bigger cousin.”

More:
http://www.seti.org/site/apps/nl/content2.asp?c=ktJ2J9MMIsE&b=194993&ct=1089757

posted in Fermi Paradox - 10 replies

First Planet Under Three Suns Is Discovered

Fri, 15 Jul 2005 12:56:44 GMT

First Planet Under Three Suns Is Discovered

An extrasolar planet under three suns has been discovered in the constellation Cygnus by a planetary scientist at the California Institute of Technology using the 10-meter Keck I telescope in Hawaii. The planet is slightly larger than Jupiter and, given that it has to contend with the gravitational pull of three bodies, promises to seriously challenge our current understanding of how planets are formed.

http://www.physorg.com/news5158.html

posted in Fermi Paradox - 2 replies

SETI Institute to Ponder Habitability of M Stars

Fri, 17 Jun 2005 16:53:49 GMT

SETI Institute to Ponder Habitability of M Stars
http://www.astrobiology.com/news/viewpr.html?pid=17133

As one of the lead teams in NASA's Astrobiology Institute (NAI), the SETI Institute will host the first of a series of workshops on the habitability of M stars from July 18-20, 2005 http://mstars.seti.org. This meeting is open to media representatives, who may attend for free. To register and receive press credentials, contact Jennifer Bugnatto at 650-969-4537 or jbugnatto@seti.org .

"It may well be that there are far more habitable planets orbiting M dwarfs than orbiting all other types of stars combined," explained Frank Drake, the Director of the SETI Institute's Center for the Study of Life in the Universe. The possibility of habitable planets around M stars is all the more intriguing given the recent discovery of a planet around Gleise 876, an M star located just 15 light years from Earth.

"This is a timely discovery, emphasizing the importance of the workshop," explained Peter Backus, an astronomer at the SETI Institute and one of the workshop organizers. "This is the first Earth-type planet discovered orbiting a main sequence star. We've been waiting for this one. The discovery of large gas giant planets has been exciting, but nothing compared to this big rock even if it's too hot for life as we know it!!"

Nearly 40 participants from other NAI lead teams and academia will be attending the SETI Institute workshops to decide whether M stars should be on the list of target stars for SETI observations. According to Jill Tarter, the Director of the Center for SETI Research at the SETI Institute, "Most stars in our galactic neighborhood are M stars; historically we've excluded them because planets within their classically defined 'habitable zone' would be tidally locked to the star and have to endure periodic flares of hard radiation. This historical wisdom may require revision in light of newer atmospheric models and a new appreciation of extremophiles on Earth. Our list of target stars for SETI may be about to get a lot bigger." A second workshop will be held 12 to 18 months from now to allow for some substantive investigations on topics to be identified next month.

Results of the workshops will be published for the entire scientific community but will particularly guide the SETI Institute's search using the Allen Telescope Array (ATA). The SETI Institute is now designing a system of computers called SonATA (SETI on ATA) that will examine about one million stars for evidence of radio signals from intelligent life.

As scientists have learned more about the existence of life in extreme environments on Earth, the range of possibilities for life elsewhere have expanded. Of particular interest are stars smaller than half the mass of the Sun. These so-called M stars live for much longer than Sun-like stars, thus giving life more opportunity to begin and evolve. The environment on a planet orbiting an M star would be different from the Earth in many ways, but life might still thrive in such an environment.

Contact information:

Karen Randall, Director of Special Projects, SETI Institute

Phone: 650-960-4537 krandall@seti.org

posted in Fermi Paradox - 6 replies

Visitation vs. Communication

St1llw4t3r — Wed, 17 Aug 2005 04:29:09 GMT

Hey, I 'm new to tribe and hence, this particular forum and I'd love to chip in my two cents to see what people have to say.

The Drake equation is a great way for us to put our thoughts right on the likelyhood of intelligent life on other planets. Most will agree that the sheer SIZE of our universe probably makes us one of many. However, when you apply this same logic to visitation by aliens, there is such vast distances involved that the ability to find us is nil. I did the math based on our galaxy alone and if you could search an entire star system for life every minute, you would get through our galaxy in about 192 years. If a civilization could search one system every hour, it would take about 11,520 years. If we up this to one day, we're up to 276,480 years, well before any vestige of intelligence (jokes aside) could be detected on this planet.
The first response I usually hear is, "what if they have some technology that allows them to actually travel those distances so quickly?" Well, now we're adding a supposition that breaks the known laws of physics on top of our supposition that they were actually here in the VERY SHORT amount of time that humanity has had any presence in the universe. Yes, I know that there are theories that the laws of physics may allow for wormholes, etc. And I admit that we really don't know our asses from our elbows when it comes to this yet. However, the fact that we haven't found any signals from an intelligent life form in the even shorter amount of time that we've actually been looking shoudn't discourage us. We have to learn some pateince when dealing with signals that may take a hundred thousand years to get to us from their source.
And let's hope the aliens don't pick up 'Survivor' in the mean time and decide to euthanize us...

posted in Fermi Paradox - 10 replies

NYT: Hunting for Life in Specks of Cosmic Dust

Tue, 19 Jul 2005 16:38:46 GMT

Hunting for Life in Specks of Cosmic Dust
By DENNIS OVERBYE
http://www.nytimes.com/2005/07/19/science/space/19essa.html?8hpib=&pagewanted=print

In astronomy, the race is on to the bottom.

Teams of astronomers are staying up all night in the breath-fogging cold of the high-altitude desert of Chile and in the oxygen-starved heights of Hawaiian volcanoes, deciphering downloaded pixels from the Hubble and Spitzer Space Telescopes over soggy pizza, and then upstaging one another's news conferences, all in the search for the smallest, dimmest crumbs of creation, the most mundane specks of dust that may be circling some garden-variety star.

It is here, in boring, peaceful meadows of the galaxy, far from fountains of lethal high energy particles, swarms of killer comets or hungry black holes, we are told, that we should look if we want to find habitable abodes and possibly life.

And that, of course, would be the most exciting and wonderful result in the history of science, one of the few in astronomy that would probably rebound beyond science, affecting our view of our own status as tenants in this strange house of stars.

Last spring the quest ratcheted another notch downward (or upward) when a team of astronomers announced the detection of a planet only seven times the mass of the Earth circling a dim star named Gliese 876 in the constellation Aquarius. This was the first alien planet that astronomers were unabashedly able to identify as a ball of rock, like the Earth, rather than a bag of gas like Jupiter or Neptune.

Its discoverers estimated that the new planet was made of iron and silicate and was about 70 percent larger in diameter than Earth. Moreover, as in our own solar system, there are larger Jupiter-size planets orbiting Gliese 876 at greater distances.

Never mind for the moment that it was so close to its home star, Gliese 876, that you could bake a lasagna on its surface. The planet was hailed as yet another sign that the cosmos was basically friendly and that sooner or later planet hunters would find worlds as small as Earth out there, another step on the road to finding out whether or not humanity is alone in the universe.

"We are beginning to find our planet's kith and kin among the stars," said Geoffrey Marcy of the University of California, Berkeley, leader of the team that discovered the Gliese planet.

And the joy of family reunion has resounded throughout the cosmos of astronomers for more than 10 years now.

It was on the night of July 4, 1995, that Michel Mayor and his student Didier Queloz woke up their wives at 4 a.m. to drink Champagne and eat raspberry pie at an observatory in the south of France. The astronomers, based at the University of Geneva, had just confirmed that an invisible object about half the mass of Jupiter was sailing around the star 51 Pegasi, tugging it to and fro every four days. It was the first planet ever discovered around another Sun-like star.

Dr. Mayor and his student were using a humble little-used reflector a mere 76 inches in diameter, way small compared with the 320-inch behemoths then being planned and built for cosmology. Their rivals, Dr. Marcy and Paul Butler, professors at San Francisco State, had to make do with similarly unglamorous circumstances at Lick Observatory. "We were typically assigned only two nights per year, exactly when the Moon was full and no one wanted the telescopes," Dr. Marcy recalled in an e-mail message.

Most of the 150 so-called exoplanets subsequently discovered have been found using the "wobble" technique that Dr. Mayor's group and Dr. Marcy's group pioneered. This consists of looking for a to-and-fro motion in the star, induced by the gravitational tug of an orbiting planet.

In retrospect, it seems only natural that the first planetary systems these astronomers discovered were psychotic beasts unlike anything previously imagined. The more massive a planet is and the more tightly it circles its star, the bigger the wobble and thus the easier it is to detect. As a result, the first planets were so-called "hot Jupiters," orbiting their suns in a matter of days instead of years, lethally searing and dense.

As time has gone on and they gather more data on various systems, the observers have been able to detect smaller planets and ones that are farther and farther from their stars, an effect astronomers refer to as "drawing back the curtain."

Last week astronomers announced the discovery of a planet with three suns, in a configuration the theorists had thought was unlikely, if not impossible. Dr. Marcy said in an interview that when the dust finally settled he expected that planetary systems with architectures like our own - with Jupiter-mass planets in circular outer orbits, leaving space for smaller planets in closer orbits protected from comet showers - would be rare, "but not that rare."

Whether those planets will be suitable for life and intelligence is a different matter, however, and one that reaches beyond astronomy into metaphysics and theology. The requirements for Life As We Know It, some astronomers argue, are so exacting that Goldilocks planets like Earth might be rare or even nonexistent.

The list of astronomical requirements for life gets longer and more exacting every year: the home star has to be far enough from the galactic center to be away from lethal black hole pyrotechnics, for example, but not so far into the galactic sticks that stellar evolution has not yet produced enough of the heavier elements like oxygen and iron needed for planets and life.

Among other things, its planet has to have liquid water, a magnetic field to keep away cosmic rays, plate tectonics to keep things stirred, a giant outer planet to keep away comets and asteroids and perhaps a big moon to stabilize its rotation axis.

Of the 200 billion or so stars in the galaxy, what fraction have the lucky combo to win this cosmic lottery? Faced with the same paltry data, different astronomers get vastly different conclusions, ranging from hundreds of thousands to one, namely our own.

Among the various members of the planetary posse, Frank Drake, an astronomer at the SETI Institute and a pioneer of the practice of listening with radio telescopes for alien broadcasts, is one of the most optimistic.

"It may well be that there are far more habitable planets orbiting M dwarfs than orbiting all other types of stars combined," he said on the institute's Web site recently, referring to the dim red stars like Gliese 876. The SETI Institute is holding a conference this week on the habitability of planets belonging to such stars.

On the other hand are pessimists who argue that planets like the Earth and therefore even simple life forms are rare. One is Ben Zuckerman, an astronomer and exoplanet hunter at the University of California, Los Angeles, who admitted in an e-mail message, "Frankly, the correct answer remains anyone's guess, and the range of guesses is very wide indeed."

But, he emphasized, the question can actually be answered by future spacegoing experiments like the Terrestrial Planet Finder and Kepler, which will find and count habitable planets in our corner of the galaxy.

A null result would suggest that humans might be alone in the galaxy or the universe.

This would merely be an interesting academic argument except for a film that is going around, and which I recently viewed, called "The Privileged Planet," which suggests that the Earth's nice qualities are no accident.

The film, produced by Illustra Media in California, is based on a book of the same name by Guillermo Gonzalez, an astronomer at Iowa State, and Jay W. Richards, a philosopher and vice president of the Discovery Institute in Seattle.

It argues that Earth is so special and unlikely that it must be the work of an intelligent designer. "What if it's not a cosmic lottery?" Dr. Richards asks in the film.

The Discovery Institute advocates "intelligent design," a notion that posits the intervention by a designer, whether divine or not, in the origin and history of life, as an alternative to standard evolutionary biology. Illustra Media has produced a series of videos in support of this idea.

The showing of the film at the Smithsonian Museum of Natural History last month exacerbated the worries of many astronomers that the Big Bang would be next on the hit list of creationists.

Thoughtful cosmologists have long wondered about the apparent friendliness of the universe to carbon-based life forms like us. The notion that the fix must be in from a creator, however, has always been rejected as unscientific thinking.

It's the job of scientists, after all, to pursue natural causes and explanations, not settle for supernatural ones.

One such explanation for the specialness of the Earth, for example, comes from theories of modern particle physics and cosmology, which seem to suggest that there have been many, many Big Bangs resulting in a plethora of universes. We live in one that is suitable for us the same way that fish live in the sea.

A prominent cardinal in the Catholic Church, Christoph Schönborn, recently criticized this idea, along with evolution, in a July 7 article on the Op-Ed page of The New York Times. He said the church needed to "defend human reason" against "scientific claims like neo-Darwinism and the multiverse hypothesis in cosmology invented to avoid the overwhelming evidence for purpose and design found in modern science."

But the argument from design, many scientists say, is circular. Charles Stevenson, a planetary scientist at Caltech, said that it was no surprise that the Earth appears suited to our needs. "That's what Darwinian evolution tells us should happen. We are adapted to our world," Dr. Stevenson said.

Who knows what powers atoms in their collective and complex majesty have to respond to their environments over time?

Lacking anything approaching a final theory of physics, or of how planetary systems form, and of more than one example of life - the biosphere on Earth - scientists have no way of actually knowing how unlikely various properties of life and the universe are. In science the smart money is always on surprise.

Everybody agrees that intelligent technological life is much greater leap, but it might be instructive to consider who is laying down bets on at least looking for it. Among the financial angels of the search for extraterrestrial intelligence, or SETI, have been people like Paul Allen, the co-founder of Microsoft; the late Barney Oliver, William Hewlett and David Packard, leaders of Hewlett-Packard; Gordon Moore, the founder of Intel; and the novelist Arthur C. Clarke, who invented the idea of the communications satellite.

The smart money isn't always right, but this is certainly smart money.

posted in Fermi Paradox - 0 replies

Elusive Earths

Fri, 24 Jun 2005 19:50:38 GMT

Elusive Earths
by Henry Bortman
http://www.astrobio.net/news/modules.php?op=modload&name=News&file=article&sid=1611&mode=thread&order=0&thold=0

Geoff Marcy, professor of astronomy at the University of California, Berkeley, and director of the Center for integrative Planetary Science, leads a team of planet-hunters credited with the discovery of more than 100 planets that orbit nearby stars. At a recent symposium on extrasolar planets, Marcy spoke with Astrobiology Magazine Managing Editor Henry Bortman about recent discoveries and the likelihood of finding other solar systems like our own.

http://www.astrobio.net/news/modules.php?op=modload&name=News&file=article&sid=1611&mode=thread&order=0&thold=0

posted in Fermi Paradox - 0 replies

Most Americans Believe Alien Life is Possible, Study Shows

Tue, 31 May 2005 23:14:36 GMT

Most Americans Believe Alien Life is Possible, Study Shows
http://www.space.com/news/050531_alienlife_survey.html

By Tariq Malik
Staff Writer
posted: 31 May 2005
4:12 p.m. ET

While most depictions of extraterrestrials are confined to science fiction, nearly two-thirds of Americans believe that some form of alien life exists somewhere in the universe, according to a new survey.

The telephone poll, which questioned 1,000 Americans, found that 60 percent of those surveyed believe extraterrestrial life exists on other planets.

Of those who believed, most agreed that they would be “excited and hopeful” upon learning of the discovery of extraterrestrial life while 90 percent of them said Earth should reply to any message from another planet, the poll reported. At least two-thirds of those polled who said they did not believe in extraterrestrial life also stated that Earth should respond to an alien signal if the situation arose, the survey reported.

Conducted by the Center for Survey and Research Analysis at the University of Connecticut, the telephone poll surveyed 523 women and 477 men above the age of 18 between April 20 and May 2. The survey was commissioned by the National Geographic Channel, which debuted its television special ‘Extraterrestrial’ on May 30, in association with the Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence (SETI) Institute.

“It is quite likely that there is life elsewhere in our galaxy, and there’s a real possibility that we will find evidence of intelligent extraterrestrial life by the year 2025,” said Seth Shostak, senior astronomer for SETI, who appeared in ‘Extraterrestrial.’

Shostak, a SPACE.com contributor, said that the public’s interest in the possibility of alien life can be seen in instances such as the 1996 announcement by researchers claiming to find evidence of ancient microbes inside a Martian meteorite, which sent shockwaves through media and scientific circles at the time. The find has remained controversial.

“But it indicates how important it would be to find life, even dead microbial life,” said Shostak of the meteorite debate in a telephone interview. “Because it [would] tell you it is very common.”

Of those polled who believed in the possibility of extraterrestrial life, 77 percent thought alien lifeforms could develop on planets very different from Earth. About eight of 10 Americans believe it is likely that intelligent aliens on other planets are more advanced than humans, the poll found.

The poll also reported that belief in alien life did not split across political lines, but did vary depending on religious practices. Democrats and Republicans were equally likely to believe in life on other planets, while regular churchgoers were less likely to believe in extraterrestrial life (about 46 percent) than non-churchgoers (about 70 percent), the poll stated.

“One never knows what we’ll find, but…we’d like to have a very long list of planets that are suspected of having biology,” Shostak said, adding that future space observatories like the Terrestrial Planet Finder would be vital. “If you have thousands and thousands of those [planets], then you’ll have a very good direction for the SETI experiment.”

http://www.space.com/news/050531_alienlife_survey.html

posted in Fermi Paradox - 8 replies

90% say we should reply to ET

Fri, 27 May 2005 01:31:11 GMT

...and 60 percent believe in extraterrestrials
http://washingtontimes.com/upi-breaking/20050526-024852-9700r.htm

Washington, DC, May. 26 (UPI) -- Sixty percent of people in the United States believe life exists on other planets, a survey commissioned by the National Geographic Channel concludes.

Ninety percent of U.S. residents also believe should extraterrestrials contact Earth, humans should respond.

The conclusions came from a telephone survey of 1,000 people the National Geographic Channel released Thursday in advance of next Monday's premiere of "Extraterrestrial."

The two-hour show creates two worlds that scientists say could exist in our galaxy and the kinds of life that could survive on the planets.

"There's a real possibility that we will find evidence of intelligent extraterrestrial life by the year 2025," said Seth Shostak, a senior astronomer with the SETI Institute who is featured in "Extraterrestrial."

"In light of all the interest in alien life in movie theaters this past week, it is interesting that the majority of Americans truly believe extraterrestrial life exists on other planets."

posted in Fermi Paradox - 4 replies

ET Comes to the Small Screen

Fri, 27 May 2005 01:41:30 GMT

ET Comes to the Small Screen
By Edna DeVore, Director of Education and Public Outreach, SETI Institute
http://www.seti.org/site/apps/nl/content2.asp?c=ktJ2J9MMIsE&b=194993&ct=886407

"Inventing Life Forms"

Scientists here at the SETI Institute have long considered what life might be like on other worlds. You can join in this quest through a game-like science lesson, "Inventing Life Forms." It’s suitable for inventors of all ages. Using one of a pair of dice, you work through the selection of characteristics for your life form. Then, you apply this data and your imagination to invent a life form and develop a world where your creature could live.

Download the instructions for "Inventing Life Forms" from the SETI Institute website. It’s the PDF lesson featured with our teaching guide, "How Might Life Evolve on Other Worlds?"

The universe is a vast and amazing place. Life is likely to be incredibly different and diverse on other worlds. Invent a life form yourself!

ET is coming to your living room in "Extraterrestrial," and no one is being abducted. Over the past several months, a top-notch group of American and British scientists teamed up with Blue Wave Productions, Ltd. (for National Geographic) to imagine what ET is like on other worlds. It’s all based upon our scientific understanding of life, stars and planetary systems. When filmed, Dr. Michael Meyer was NASA’s astrobiology program scientist, and now serves as NASA Headquarters Mars Program Scientist; Dr. Seth Shostak is Senior Astronomer here at the SETI Institute; Dr. Chris McKay is a leading Mars researcher at NASA Ames Research Center; Dr. Laurance Doyle conducts research on animal communication and planetary systems around binary stars at the SETI Institute and is the lead scientist at PlanetQuest, Inc. a new non-profit that will engage the public in finding extrasolar planets. Dr. Simon Conway Morris is a world-leader in evolutionary biology at Cambridge University in England… and the list goes on. These are serious and accomplished scientists--legitimate guys applying everything they know about stars, planetary systems, planetary evolution, and most especially, the evolution of life, to speculate on what life might be like on other worlds.

In a word, the outcome is WILD!

It’s science meets science fiction. Scientists are often accused of being too conservative in their predictions about the future, but in this case, these guys expand our understanding of what life might be like on alien worlds. It’s not just another simple variation on bilaterally symmetrical humanoids. The questions these scientists ask about life on alien worlds are at the core of the cross-disciplinary science of astrobiology, which seeks to understand life here on Earth and to seek life elsewhere in the universe.

"Extraterrestrial" explores worlds that would have been promptly discarded by planetary scientists as unsuitable for life a decade ago. Before the discovery of gas giants orbiting their stars in just a few days, astronomers had concentrated on looking for planetary systems like our own. Systems that featured nice middle-sized, middle-aged stars like the Sun. The cooler stars like red dwarfs and the double stars that comprise about half of the stars in the galaxy were thought unsuitable for stable planetary systems. Astronomers are rethinking those judgements.

It’s all changed with the discovery of more than 150 planets in orbit about nearby stars. Most of these systems are not anything like ours. Solar system theorists went back to square one, and are busy rebuilding their models to explain the great diversity of planetary systems observed. New theories of planetary system formation and evolution are in the works. But I’m getting too serious. "Extraterrestrial" is fun television taking on serious science.

"Extraterrestrial" considers life in wild places. First, there’s Aurelia, a hot and cold world that is tidally locked to a red-dwarf sun that forever shines on one side of the planet. The dark side is shrouded in perpetual ice. Such a planet would be a challenging place to live, but scientists think that extraterrestrial life may actually exist in the comfort zone between all sun and all ice—not too hot, not too cold—on such planets. Aurelia’s creatures are based upon our knowledge of life, natural selection, stars and planets. Yep, there are predators and prey. I won’t spoil the fun and fantasy by describing them, except to say that they have nothing in common with the "grays" that populate modern UFO myths.

"Blue Moon" is the second ET stopover, and it’s more amazing. It orbits a giant ringed world that reminds me of Saturn, and in the distance its twin suns shine brightly. Consider the sorts of creatures that could fly in a much denser atmosphere. Imagine an ocean of air and you’re starting to get the picture. Again, I won’t spoil the fun.

As humans, we’re on the leading edge of scientific research and exploration that will discover many more planets and planetary systems over the next few years. Within the decade, the Kepler Discovery Mission should find hundreds of Earth-size planets in habitable zones by observing them as they transit across the faces of their suns. Larger missions are in planning-- the Space Interferometry Mission (SIM), the Terrestrial Planet Finders (TPF-I and TPF-C), and the James Webb Space Telescope (JWST)--to seek nearby worlds and analyze their atmospheres for indications of life. We already know that planets are plentiful, but is life? We may know the answer in our lifetimes.

"Extraterrestrial" offers an imaginative trip into the future. Don’t miss your chance to visit alien worlds from the comfort of your living room couch. "Extraterrestrial" is on the National Geographic Channel Monday, May 30 and Thursday, June 2. Check your local listings, or go to "Extraterrestrial" on the National Geographic web site.

posted in Fermi Paradox - 0 replies

Voyager I Bears a “Story of Our World to Extraterrestrials”

Fri, 27 May 2005 01:32:58 GMT

Voyager I Bears a “Story of Our World to Extraterrestrials”
Posted by Robert Tagorda at 00:24
http://www.outsidethebeltway.com/archives/10695

Today's big story involves Voyager I's arrival at the final frontier. But the following item in the CNN account, flagged by my good friend PJ Aspuria, is even more intriguing to me:

Golden record: Should they encounter any form of life, the Voyager probes carry a greeting. The message comes via a phonograph record -- a 12-inch gold-plated copper disk with sounds and images showing the diversity of life and culture on Earth.

OTB's space-geek readers probably know about the Golden Record. Indeed, given that its official page has been up since January 2003, even casual NASA followers likely have some idea of its existence. But it's all new to me, and I find it utterly fascinating.

For instance, the Golden Record, created by Carl Sagan (of course), contains greetings in 55 different languages. I can understand the inclusion of the ten most widely used in the world, but why is Ukrainian selected? On a global scale, it doesn't seem to be a particularly noteworthy language. What am I overlooking?

As for the photograph index, it's interesting that "Man from Guatemala" is singled out. But, again, why do the Guatemalans get to represent contemporary Latin America? On a more basic level, I suppose extraterrestrials will be happy to learn about human reproductive capacities, as well as the act of breastfeeding.

Obviously, my questions are on the naive side. I'm sure that I'm revealing a lot more ignorance than I probably should in a public forum. But a number of selections just strikes me as a bit random. Then again, perhaps that's exactly the point: to show earthly living in its true form, maybe we need to have seemingly inexplicable diversity.

posted in Fermi Paradox - 0 replies

Voyager plows through solar system’s frontier

bee_dragon — Wed, 25 May 2005 00:06:57 GMT

The Voyager 1 spacecraft is on the verge of slicing into interstellar space, NASA officials said Tuesday.

Experts had thought the craft was at the solar system's edge back in 2003, but the claim was disputed.

Now team members agree that the Voyager 1, launched in 1977, is plunging through the outer layer of the solar system, where the sun's influence ends and the electrified solar wind slams into the thin expanse of gas between stars.

It still has a ways to go before it becomes the first human-made object to reach for the stars.

"Voyager has entered the final lap on its race to the edge of interstellar space, as it begins exploring the solar system's final frontier," said Edward Stone, Voyager project scientist at the California Institute of Technology in Pasadena. Caltech manages NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, which built and operates Voyager 1 and its twin, Voyager 2.

Where's the edge?
In November 2003, the Voyager team said data indicated the probe might have entered the termination shock region of the solar system. Some scientists thought it was only approaching that tumultuous layer, however.

In fact, scientists don't know where the edge is. They assume it moves, as changes in the speed and intensity of the solar wind force the boundary in and out.

"The consensus of the team now is that Voyager 1, at 8.7 billion miles [14 billion kilometers] from the sun, has at last entered the heliosheath, the region beyond the termination shock," said the Massachusetts Institute of Technology's John Richardson, principal investigator of the Voyager plasma science investigation.

When the solar wind meets interstellar gas, a teardrop-shaped shock wave develops as it is slowed dramatically from an average speed of up to 1.5 million mph (700 kilometers per second). The solar wind, made of charged particles constantly streaming from the sun, becomes denser and hotter at that point.

Measuring the magnetic field
Voyager 1 has sent back measurements of a stronger magnetic field at its current location. That indicates the solar wind speed has decreased, scientists said. The magnetic field does not gain overall strength, but it becomes more dense and so stronger at any given location. As a rough analogy, consider how cars huddle closer when highway traffic slows, researchers suggested.

The magnetic field in November 2003 had increased in strength 1.7 times compared with previous levels. In December 2004 it jumped another factor of 2.5 and has remained at this higher level until now.

"Voyager's observations over the past few years show that the termination shock is far more complicated than anyone thought," said NASA scientist Eric Christian.

The leading edge of the solar system, as it orbits the Milky Way, is called the bow shock. It resembles the ripples of water raised by the bow of a boat. Voyager 1 still has years to go before it crosses the bow shock.

The Voyager probes surveyed the outer planets as their primary mission. Each probe could operate through the year 2020, NASA said in a statement.

The twin probes are on different paths out of the solar system. Voyager 2 is about 6.5 billion miles (10.4 billion kilometers) away.

NASA has an animation showing Voyager approaching the solar system's edge.

posted in Fermi Paradox - 1 reply

John Smart on FP: Transcension Hypothesis

Mon, 23 May 2005 15:30:37 GMT

http://accelerating.org/articles/answeringfermiparadox.html

Abstract: "I propose that humanity's descendants will not be colonizing outer space. Complex systems rapidly transition to inner space, and apparently soon thereafter to universal transcension. For sixty years answers have been attempted for the Fermi Paradox, yet the vast majority I have read neglect what may be the most parsimonious explanation—constrained universal transcension. I propose that any species or von Neumann probe complex enough to replicate itself through interstellar space would transcend shortly after beginning its journey, for information theoretic reasons. The discrete universe that creates multi-local computational complexity rapidly becomes an informational desert to the leading edge of that local complexity, a constrained and finite developmental soma that is deeply simulated within that organism's inner space, and rapidly outgrown. Fortunately, seed-recreation by such systems starts the helical cycle over again, in what I term a "developmental singularity." Intelligent life on our planet appears engaged in the creation of one of these developmental singularity seeds, a process that will be rapidly accelerated by the coming technological singularity in this century. This trend is elucidated by the phenomenon of matter-energy and space-time (MEST) efficiency and "compression" in all known universal computation. Emergent complex systems consistently use less, not more, of these fundamental resources (MEST) to encode standardized amounts of environmental information, and they become dramatically more materially, energetically, spatially, and temporally dense over time, rapidly approximating black hole-equivalent energy densities. Systems of emergent local complexity thus lead rapidly to "intelligent" cosmological developmental singularities, highly compressed structures, censored from our observation, which are distantly related to the quasars and black holes that are developmental endpoints of simpler (universal, galactic and stellar evolutionary development) helically developing computational substrates in the multiverse. This paper will briefly explore the apparent universal drivers of accelerating change, evolutionary development in complex adaptive systems, cellular automata, disposable soma theory, MEST compression in hierarchical substrates, free energy rate density, the law of locally asymptotic computation, cosmological natural selection, and the technological and developmental singularity hypotheses."

posted in Fermi Paradox - 0 replies

Where IS everybody?

yoshispacebreaker — Sat, 21 May 2005 21:49:24 GMT

No, that's not a remark on this sleepy tribe. It's the title of a book
loaned to me by my friend who works at JPL (currently working on Deep Impact), and it's REALLY fewkin' good!
I'm about halfway through, up to the part where the author, Stephen Webb, is examining several possibilities pertaining to the difficulties involved in communicating across vast interstellar and temporal distances. It seems SETI, though noble in its mandate, may listening in too narrow a band. Worse, it may actually take a space-based listening post to cancel out the effects of atmosphere. Worse still, it may take a tight beam aimed at Earth for a smoking gun bit o' proof. Also, he mentions that even if ETC's did try and communicate with us, we may easily mistake the transmission for black body radiation, common throughout the universe.

This is a fascinating book, thoroughly (as far as this novice can tell) exploring all the possibilities of the Fermi Paradox. He claims to have a solution to it at the end, but please, don't ruin it for me!!!

Have any of you read this? Was it already chatted about in a previous thread?

Is there anybody out there? ;-)

posted in Fermi Paradox - 2 replies

Here's a bright idea....

JeremyStarboy — Fri, 06 May 2005 05:43:03 GMT

A recent post discussed a time capsule of technology for a future generation. Why don't we play a joke on them and put a time capsule of rudimentary space flight technology on the moon for safe keeping? :)

posted in Fermi Paradox - 11 replies

What if Everybody is Listening and No One is Transmitting?

Sun, 01 May 2005 16:07:50 GMT

Here's a fascinating article about the Active SETI debate. Tarter makes referrence to ETIs that could be billions of years old, the possibility for a technological singularity, the notion that we may be the first civ, and our inability to plan long-term. Needless to say, the SETI camp once again refuses to entertain the idea that transmitting a message could be potentially dangerous.

What if Everybody is Listening and No One is Transmitting?

by Jill Tarter
Director of the Center for SETI Research
Bernard M. Oliver Chair for SETI.
http://www.seti.org/site/apps/nl/content2.asp?c=ktJ2J9MMIsE&b=194993&ct=719297

posted in Fermi Paradox - 1 reply

Look Out for Giant Triangles in Space

Thu, 14 Apr 2005 01:38:47 GMT

Look Out for Giant Triangles in Space

SETI could be taking the wrong approach. Instead of listening for alien radio broadcasts, a better strategy may be to look for giant structures placed in orbit around nearby stars by alien civilisations.

New Scientist
http://www.newscientist.com/article.ns?id=mg18624944.800

posted in Fermi Paradox - 4 replies

Astronomers track objects with potential to hit Earth

bee_dragon — Sat, 09 Apr 2005 14:17:04 GMT

Astronomer David Tholen spotted it last year in the early evening of June 19, using the University of Arizona's Bok telescope. It was a new "near-Earth object," a fugitive asteroid wandering through space to pass close to Earth.

Tholen's team took three pictures that night and three the next night, but storm clouds and the moon blocked further observations. They reported their fixes to the Minor Planet Center in Cambridge, Mass., and moved on.

Six months later, Tholen's object was spotted again in Australia as asteroid "2004 MN4." In the space of five days straddling Christmas, startled astronomers refined their calculations as the probability of the 1,000-foot-wide stone missile hitting Earth rose from one chance in 170 to one in 38.

They had never measured anything as potentially dangerous to Earth. Impact would come on Friday the 13th in April 2029.

Cosmic clarion call
The holidays and the tsunami in South Asia pushed 2004 MN4 out of the news, and in the meantime additional observations showed that the asteroid would miss, but only by 15,000 to 25,000 miles — about one-tenth the distance to the moon. Asteroid 2004 MN4 was no false alarm. Instead, it has provided the world with the best evidence yet that a catastrophic encounter with a rogue visitor from space is not only possible but probably inevitable.

• More science news

It also demonstrated the tenacity of the small band of professionals and amateurs who track potential impact asteroids, and highlighted the shortcomings of an international system that pays scant attention to their work.

"I used to say the total number of people interested in this was no more than one shift at a McDonald's restaurant," said David Morrison, an astronomer at NASA's Ames Research Center and a student of near-Earth objects for nearly three decades. "Now it's maybe two shifts." Awareness of the apocalyptic potential of near-Earth objects has been slow to develop. It took years for Nobel laureate Luis Alvarez and his son Walter to win acceptance for their 1980 research showing that a near-Earth object impact quite likely caused the extinction of the dinosaurs 65 million years ago.

"The human brain wouldn't grasp reality until it had somewhat more direct evidence," said Colorado-based planetary scientist Clark R. Chapman of the Southwest Research Institute, another longtime expert of near-Earth objects. "Alvarez provided that."

The vast majority of near-Earth objects are asteroids — huge rocks or chunks of iron that travel around the sun in eccentric orbits that cross Earth's path periodically. The rest are comets — ancient piles of dust, stones and ice that come in from the edges of the solar system.

"The good news is that comets represent 1 percent of the danger," said Donald K. Yeomans, who manages NASA's Near-Earth Object Program at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory. "The bad news is that should we find one, there's not a lot we can do about it. . . . We detect them only nine months from impact."

Asteroids, by contrast, generally offer decades or even centuries of warning — unless they are too small to detect, in which case there is no warning at all. But today's technology enables astronomers to get a fix on any asteroid capable of causing a global "extinction event" — six miles in diameter or bigger.

Asteroid 2004 MN4 is a "regional" hazard — big enough to flatten Texas or a couple of European countries with an impact equivalent to 10,000 megatons of dynamite — more than all the nuclear weapons in the world. Even though it will be a near miss in 2029, that will not be the last word.

"You don't know what the gravitational effect of the Earth will be," said Brian G. Marsden, who oversees the hunt for near-Earth objects as director of the Minor Planet Center at the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics.

"In 2029, the [close encounter with] Earth will increase the size of the orbit, and the object could get into a resonance with the Earth," he added. "You could get orbit matchups every five years or nine years, or something in between." In fact, 2004 MN4 could come close again in 2034, 2035, 2036, 2037, 2038 or later.

Nuke the intruder?
So, what can be done? The first thought, dramatically depicted in the 1998 movies "Deep Impact" and "Armageddon," is to nuke the intruder into small pieces so it will burn up in Earth's atmosphere.

Many scientists say, however, that this is unacceptably sloppy — instead of obliterating the target, the bomb could break the asteroid into large radioactive chunks capable of transforming huge stretches of Earth into wasteland.

Or the explosion could deflect but not destroy the asteroid, putting it on a future collision course. A nuclear strategy would also forever require a stockpile of doomsday weapons.

"The cure's worse than the disease," said former Apollo astronaut Russell L. "Rusty" Schweickart. He is a board member of the B612 Foundation, a group of experts promoting a space mission by 2015 to send a "tugboat" spacecraft to a near-Earth object, dock with it and gently alter its speed enough to change its orbit — to show that it can be done. (B612 is the name of the asteroid home of "The Little Prince," in the Antoine de Saint-Exupery story.) "You want to delay or speed up the asteroid a little," said Berlin-based Alan Harris, chairman of the European Space Agency's Near-Earth Object Mission Advisory Panel. "What kind of surface do you have: Is it rocky? Dusty? Rubbly? How much force can I apply? I don't want to break it up — unless I really break it up."

B612 has a design but little money, while ESA has spent only a nominal amount to study the feasibility of a reconnaissance mission to an asteroid. NASA, at $4 million a year, is currently the big spender for near-Earth object research.

With this, NASA maintains a database at JPL to plot and record orbits for all known near-Earth objects, and contributes money to the Minor Planet Center and to sky surveys underway at telescopes in Arizona, California, Hawaii, New Mexico and Australia.

The money was authorized after a push from Congress led by Rep. Dana Rohrabacher (R-Calif.), a conservative, and former House Science Committee chairman George E. Brown Jr. (D-Calif.), known as one of Congress's most liberal members before his death in 1999. "I have a vision of something terrible happening, and I feel compelled to see that it doesn't happen," Rohrabacher said.

NASA's task — which Congress imposed in 1998 — is to find 90 percent of the estimated 1,100 near-Earth objects that are one kilometer (0.6 miles) or greater in diameter by 2008. As of mid-March, JPL's database included 762 of these.

On March 1, Rohrabacher introduced the George E. Brown Jr. Near-Earth Object Survey Act, mandating $40 million for a two-year start-up to survey every object 100 meters (328 feet) across or larger, of which there may be 300,000. To date, Marsden has registered 3,265 near-Earth objects of all sizes.

Tholen, of the University of Hawaii, is a frequent contributor in the search for threatening objects. He specializes in "Atens," a subspecies that orbit mostly between the Earth and the sun and are difficult to see in the glare of the sun. To spot Atens, astronomers must work at dawn or dusk.

Tholen's team, on a field trip to the University of Arizona's Steward Observatory, had booked an hour on the evenings of June 19, 20, 23 and 24, 2004. They found a new Aten on the first evening and saw it again on the second evening. It was about 106 million miles away.

The team recorded the sightings and sent them electronically to Marsden, who published the object's position, which he named 2004 MN4 in accordance with a complicated coding system based on the date of discovery.

Tholen waited for another opportunity, but rain clouds cloaked the sky. When the storm passed, the moon was squatting right where the team wanted to look. For the next six months, nobody looked for it.

Then, on Dec. 18, astronomer Gordon Garradd, working at the Siding Springs telescope in Coonabarabran, Australia, 240 miles northwest of Sydney, spotted what he thought was a new near-Earth object, "brightly lit and traveling fast," he recalled. He took four images in his first set, then followed up with two more sets.

Calling reinforcements
Marsden's team put Garradd's data on the center's Web page, a signal for astronomers to get more fixes. On Dec. 20, JPL produced its solution. Chance of impact was one in 2,500 —nothing to get excited about. "Usually the probability goes down with more observations," Marsden said.

Not this time. On Dec. 23, the risk rose to one in 270, and rose steadily over Christmas and beyond. "We'd never had anything this big come this close, and we'd never predicted anything like it," Marsden said. "It was quite fantastic." The asteroid was 9 million miles away — about as close as it would get this trip.

By Dec. 26, the impact probability had risen to one chance in 38. What the plotters needed was a "precovery," an overlooked observation from before Tholen's initial June fixes to yield a more precise orbital solution.

In Tucson, astronomers at the Spacewatch Project, at the University of Arizona's Lunar and Planetary Laboratory, started searching their archive. Spacewatch has been surveying the solar system for 20 years, and precovery is a specialty.

"We store [our images] on DVDs," Spacewatch leader Robert S. McMillan said. "If there's something that wasn't automatically sorted by our software, we can usually find it — if we were looking in the right place at the right time."

They were. On Dec. 27, Spacewatch astronomers Jeffrey Larsen and Anne Descour found 2004 MN4 in a series of images taken March 15, more than three months before Tholen's sighting. They passed the word to JPL, which issued a news bulletin: "An Earth impact on 13 April 2029 can now be ruled out."

Since then, astronomers have continued to observe 2004 MN4 whenever possible, but most of the time it is obscured.

"It would be awfully nice to have information so we don't get surprised," said Schweickart, who advocates flying a small interceptor mission to plant a transponder on 2004 MN4 that would constantly radio its location, tagging it like a grizzly bear. "Our favorite little asteroid might provide enough reality here to provoke people. Maybe we should get serious."

posted in Fermi Paradox - 16 replies

JPL Open House, May 14 and 15...

yoshispacebreaker — Wed, 13 Apr 2005 19:13:30 GMT

Okay, so now I've posted this same link on like 5 tribes:

http://www.jpl.nasa.gov/pso/oh.cfm

I'd charge NASA for the P.R., but since the event is FREE to the public, I wouldn't be able to sleep well at night...

posted in Fermi Paradox - 0 replies

Many "Earths" Are Out There, Study Says

Tue, 12 Apr 2005 01:41:45 GMT

Many "Earths" Are Out There, Study Says
Brian Handwerk
for National Geographic News
April 6, 2005

A new study of known planetary systems outside our solar system gives a theoretical boost to the search for extraterrestrial life. Researchers in England say that half of the systems could harbor habitable, Earthlike planets.

http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2005/04/0406_050406_exoplanets.html

posted in Fermi Paradox - 0 replies

Michaud: Active SETI Is Not Scientific Research

Tue, 08 Feb 2005 01:55:29 GMT

Active SETI Is Not Scientific Research
by Michael Michaud
Member of the SETI Permanent Study Group, International Academy of Astronautics
http://www.setileague.org/editor/actvseti.htm

Recent discussions within the SETI community have thoroughly explored the issue of whether people with access to radio telescopes should send powerful signals to alien civilizations without some process of prior international consultation. In particular, those exchanges have focused on the question of "Active SETI."

Some people who oppose prior consultation have framed their arguments in terms of our right to free speech. Few have addressed the other side of this coin, which is our responsibility to the human species.

Let’s be clear about this. Active SETI is not scientific research. It is a deliberate attempt to provoke a response by an alien civilization whose capabilities, intentions, and distance are not known to us. That makes it a policy issue.

Entire article:
http://www.setileague.org/editor/actvseti.htm

posted in Fermi Paradox - 6 replies

Exclusive: NASA Researchers Claim Evidence of Present Life on Mars

Thu, 17 Feb 2005 17:57:34 GMT

Exclusive: NASA Researchers Claim Evidence of Present Life on Mars
http://www.space.com/scienceastronomy/mars_life_050216.html
By Brian Berger
Space News Staff Writer
posted: 16 February 2005
02:09 pm ET

WASHINGTON -- A pair of NASA scientists told a group of space officials at a private meeting here Sunday that they have found strong evidence that life may exist today on Mars, hidden away in caves and sustained by pockets of water.

posted in Fermi Paradox - 2 replies

How to talk to aliens: Teach 'em chess

Thu, 24 Mar 2005 01:47:44 GMT

How to talk to aliens
http://www.chessbase.com/newsdetail.asp?newsid=2268

17.03.2005 John Nunn is not just a strong grandmaster. He is also a mathematician, chess publisher, and world class problem solver. And superbly competent on any scientific subject. Periodically John comes up with speculations of a very general nature. For instance: how can we humans speak to alien civilisations. One of John's startling recommendations: send them a copy of Fritz.

posted in Fermi Paradox - 2 replies

Behold the rise and fall of alien civilizations

divedi — Sat, 12 Mar 2005 13:52:51 GMT

"The Fermi Paradox which contrasts the 100% probability of life and intelligence developing on Earth against the thunderous silence from the heavens so far (no alien signals) may be resolved by four things: One, gamma ray bursters which may have effectively prohibited the development of sentient races until only the last 200 million years; Two, the lengthy gestation period required for the emergence of intelligence (which almost requires the entire useful lifespan of a given planet, based on our own biography); Three, the need for an unusually high measure of stability in terms of climate over hundreds of millions of years (the 'Goldilocks' scenario, enabled by a huge natural satellite like our Moon moderating the tilt of a planet's axis, as well as gas giants parked in proper orbits to mop up excess comets and asteroids to reduce impact frequencies for a living world); and Four, an extremely dangerous 600 year or so 'gauntlet' of challenges and risks most any technological society must survive to become a viable long term resident of the galaxy (i.e. getting a critical mass of population and technology off their home world, among other things). That 600 year period may be equivalent to our own span between 1900 AD and 2500 AD, wherein we'll have to somehow dodge the bullets of cosmic impacts, nuclear, biological, and nanotechnological war, terrorism, mistakes, and accidents, as well as food or energy starvation, economic collapse, and many other threats, both natural and unnatural. So far it appears (according to SETI results and other scientific discoveries) extremely few races likely survive all these. So why haven't we heard from those which have? What are they like? And how far away might they be?"

http://www.jrmooneyham.com/ctcta.html

posted in Fermi Paradox - 13 replies

Beyond Kardachev: Possible Explanation to Fermi's Paradox

playanaut — Tue, 01 Mar 2005 09:26:24 GMT

Interested in getting your thoughts on my proposition:

http://www.futurehi.net/archives/000106.html

posted in Fermi Paradox - 12 replies

E.T., don't phone home--we'll call you

Fri, 11 Mar 2005 02:32:54 GMT

A new service launched this past February allows users to transmit their telephone conversations into space in the hopes of reaching extraterrestrial civilizations.

At a cost of $3.99 per minute, users can dial a premium rate US number and have their call routed through a transmitter and sent into space through a 3.2-metre-wide dish in central Connecticut.

Eric Knight, the president of the company, believes that a large radio receiver - like the Arecibo dish in Puerto Rico - situated on a distant planet might be large enough for an alien civilisation to receive the calls. Go to www.TalkToAliens.com for more information.

For those of you who don't like your money, I can't endorse this service enough.

Links:
http://www.newscientist.com/article.ns?id=dn7128
http://www.talktoaliens.com/

posted in Fermi Paradox - 4 replies

Are We Alone? (Universe Today)

Wed, 02 Mar 2005 23:47:49 GMT

Are We Alone? (Universe Today)
http://www.universetoday.com/am/publish/are_we_alone.html?132005

Are we alone? Given the immensity of the Cosmos, a mathematical impossibility. Will we ever come to know we are not alone? That's a tougher question. But should first contact occur today we could be in for a shock1. So right now may be a good time to prepare. And perhaps the best way to prepare is to imagine the possibility...

posted in Fermi Paradox - 5 replies

UFOs on ABC :-(

Thu, 17 Feb 2005 03:52:26 GMT

More proof that UFO culture and pseudoscience is running rampant in the United States: "Peter Jennings Reporting: UFOs — Seeing Is Believing" airs Thursday, Feb. 24 from 8-10 p.m. ET on ABC. Apparently, ABC will be making a push for more scientific research into the 'phenomenon.'
http://abcnews.go.com/Technology/Primetime/story?id=468496

posted in Fermi Paradox - 6 replies

Singularity Exo-Paleontology

playanaut — Tue, 01 Mar 2005 09:28:18 GMT

Another relevant article that speculates about the earlies theoretical time a post-singularity civilization could have emerged in our universe:

http://www.futurehi.net/archives/000082.html

posted in Fermi Paradox - 0 replies

A Universe of Sounds

Wed, 23 Feb 2005 16:52:11 GMT

[SETI is proving to be an aggressive and sophisticated organization these days]

A Universe of Sounds
http://www.technologyreview.com/articles/05/02/wo/wo_dollarhide022305.asp
Microsoft co-founder Paul Allen is helping fund a SETI project that will distill space noise, better search for alien life, and help understand the cosmos.

A new radio telescope array has been developed by the Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence (SETI) Institute and the University of California at Berkeley that will shed some cosmic noise, and give scientists a better view of one million stars scattered throughout the universe.

A new radio telescope array has been developed by the Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence (SETI) Institute and the University o

f California at Berkeley that will shed some cosmic noise, and give scientists a better view of one million stars scattered throughout the universe.

Named after the principle initial donor of the project, Microsoft co-founder Paul Allen, the Allen Telescope Array (ATA) consists of 350 20-foot antennas and will allow SETI scientists and radio astronomers to study stars twenty-four hours a day across multiple channels.

Entire article:
http://www.technologyreview.com/articles/05/02/wo/wo_dollarhide022305.asp

posted in Fermi Paradox - 0 replies

Panspermia: Getting There From Here

Tue, 22 Feb 2005 16:50:31 GMT

Panspermia: Getting There From Here
Is the job of bringing intelligent life to the rest of the galaxy ours?
http://www.space.com/adastra/adastra_fermi_050222.html
By Richard Godwin
Space.com

posted in Fermi Paradox - 1 reply

Towards an extraterrestrial anthropology

Tue, 22 Feb 2005 03:29:12 GMT

[via Sentient Developments, http://sentientdevelopments.blogspot.com/2005/02/towards-extraterrestrial-anthropology.html]

While googling for 'extraterrestrial anthropology' recently (yes, I google for such things), I came across a previously unpublished article by Charles F. Urbanowicz from 1977. Called "Evolution of Technological Civilizations: What is Evolution, Technology, and Civilization," (http://www.csuchico.edu/~curban/Unpub_Papers/1977SETIPaper.html) the article looks at our conceptions of terrestrial intelligence, culture and communication to help us predict what ETIs themselves might be like and whether or not we are even capable of comprehending what they might be like. When it comes to culture and communication, argues Urbanowicz, we might not even be on the same playing field relative to advanced ETIs.

A key part of Urbanowicz's thesis is that, in a concept borrowed from Franz Boas, it is communication itself that constitutes the core of culture and indeed of life itself. Consequently, as we learn more about communication technologies, and as we ourselves progress through different communication paradigms, we learn more about ETI culture. This is a rather remarkable idea when you pause to think about it. Culture as communication. There's something about that statement that I find very compelling.

Urbanowicz was also big on science fiction and the important role it has played in giving us a sense of perspective and humility. "[G]ood speculative science fiction authors have done more to foster the idea of SETI than they have been credit for! Good science fiction stories can be a humbling experience, and Homo sapiens needs some humility," writes Urbanowicz.

And as for the Big Idea in his article, Urbanowicz was pushing for an extraterrestrial anthropology -- kind of what astrobiology is to biology. This is something that I've personally been thinking about quite a lot lately, and I've used the term astrosociobiolgy to describe this proto-science. I hope more people get onboard and start to put some really solid work into speculations of what ETIs might be like. Ultimately, any answer about ETIs is an answer about ourselves and our own destiny, which IMO makes it one of the most important disciplines we could ever embark upon.

Even though the article is from 1977, it is chalk-full of excellent references, quotes, and ideas for further research and reading. One quote I particularly liked was from James Christian: "If we ever establish contact with extra-terrestrial life, it will reveal to us our true place in the universe, and with that comes the beginning of wisdom."

posted in Fermi Paradox - 2 replies

Looking for patterns

Mon, 14 Feb 2005 18:01:15 GMT

What sort of patterns do scientists working on the Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence (SETI) project look for?
Scientific American
http://www.sciam.com/askexpert_question.cfm?articleID=0002740D-CD83-1FF9-8D8383414B7F0000&catID=3&chanID=sa005

What sort of patterns do scientists working on the Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence (SETI) project look for?
Peter R. Backus, observing programs manager at the SETI Institute, explains.

SETI scientists do not look for patterns but rather a lack of patterns in a signal. Although this may seem puzzling, it’s really a matter of physics. The first challenge facing any SETI project is detecting a signal against the background of cosmic and terrestrial noise. A signal containing a great deal of information will be spread across the spectrum more than a very simple signal containing little information would be. An "informative" signal will look more like random noise and thus will be harder to detect. So, in SETI, we look for very simple signals, ones that are easy to distinguish from astrophysical sources.

Natural radio sources like quasars and pulsars are "broadband," meaning they emit over a broad range of frequencies. Communication signals may also be broadband but may contain components that are very narrow and easy to distinguish. For example, an analog TV signal spans about six MHz but contains two carrier signals (video and audio) that are less than one Hz wide. These carrier signals are much narrower than the narrowest known astrophysical source. Therefore, SETI programs searching in the radio spectrum look for very narrow bandwidth signals.

Optical SETI (OSETI) programs must detect a laser signal against the glare of ET’s star. The best way for a laser to outshine a star is to do so very quickly, in a very short pulse lasting less than a billionth of a second. OSETI programs thus measure the light from a star in nanosecond intervals looking for a slight, brief excess of photons that could originate from a powerful pulsed laser.

Once a signal is detected, then the hunt for patterns will begin. The detected signal may be a simple beacon that points the way to an information channel. Scientists have speculated that a binary code, a pattern of ones and zeros, will be used, perhaps containing a symbolic language or pictures. In 1974, at the rededication of the Arecibo Observatory, humans sent a binary-coded picture in the direction of the star cluster M13. The radio signal used two radio frequencies to represent the dark and light pixels of the message. Other message-encoding schemes have been suggested, but in truth, scientists really don’t know what to expect. That is part of what makes SETI so interesting.

posted in Fermi Paradox - 0 replies

Universal translator needed to understand ET

Thu, 03 Feb 2005 15:55:18 GMT

Douglas Vakoch
SETI
http://www.seti.org/site/apps/nl/content2.asp?c=ktJ2J9MMIsE&b=194993&ct=363416

Will we ever find a primer for decoding messages from extraterrestrials? Last month, anthropologists who gathered for a major conference in Atlanta, Georgia heard some news that will be sobering for SETI enthusiasts: it may be much more difficult to understand extraterrestrials than many scientists have thought before.

Among the sessions held during December’s annual meeting of the American Anthropological Association was one called “Anthropology, Archaeology, and Interstellar Communication: Science and the Knowledge of Distant Worlds.” The session included papers by scholars from such diverse fields as astronomy, archaeology, anthropology, and psychology. Is there a Cosmic Rosetta Stone, they asked, drawing parallels to Earth’s own Rosetta Stone, which provided the key to decoding Egyptian hieroglyphics? Will we ever find a comparable primer for decrypting any messages we might receive some day from extraterrestrials?

posted in Fermi Paradox - 3 replies

Wikipedia's Astrosociobiology Entry

Thu, 20 Jan 2005 17:03:04 GMT

I've made some changes recently to Wikipedia's Astrosociobiology entry:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Astrosociobiology

I wouldn't mind some feedback, or even to see some contributions from fellow FP Tribe members.

On a related note, I plan to make some significant contributions to Wikipedia's Fermi Paradox entry, which I find quite inadequate and disorganized.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fermi_Paradox

posted in Fermi Paradox - 0 replies

Does science make room for aliens?

Sat, 15 Jan 2005 01:41:55 GMT

Does science make room for aliens?
Researchers argue that new theories better the odds
By Leonard David
Senior space writer
http://msnbc.msn.com/id/6826412/

posted in Fermi Paradox - 2 replies

Stephen J. Dick's 'Intelligence Principle'

Thu, 13 Jan 2005 19:35:39 GMT

via Sentient Developments
http://sentientdevelopments.blogspot.com/2005/01/stephen-j-dicks-intelligence-principle.html

Cosmologist and friend Milan Cirkovic recently brought the work of Stephen J. Dick to my attention.

Distinguished historian of science Stephen J. Dick, in his 2003 paper "Cultural Evolution, the Postbiological Universe and SETI," argued that there is a disconnect between SETI and the prospects following exponential growth of technology as perceived in recent times on Earth.

As Dick noted:

"But if there is a flaw in the logic of the Fermi Paradox, and extraterrestrials are a natural outcome of cosmic evolution, then cultural evolution may have resulted in a postbiological universe in which machines are the predominant intelligence. This is more than mere conjecture; it is a recognition of the fact that cultural evolution--the final frontier of the Drake Equation--needs to be taken into account no less than the astronomical and biological components of cosmic evolution."

He continues,

"In sorting priorities, I adopt what I term the central principle of cultural evolution, which I refer to as the Intelligence Principle: the maintenance, improvement and perpetuation of knowledge and intelligence is the central driving force of cultural evolution, and that to the extent intelligence can be improved, it will be improved."

To what extent this principle can and will play itself out is a matter of great conjecture--issues that cause transhumanists to wrack their brains--but a trajectory will undoubtedly start to take shape this current century. Migration to deep space? Migration to inner space? Jupiter brains and uploaded societies? Megascale engineering? Black hole engineering?

Only time will tell, but as Dick correctly points out, even the sky appears to be no limit.

posted in Fermi Paradox - 2 replies

Of Billiards & Comets

P4g3M4k3r — Thu, 13 Jan 2005 04:36:19 GMT

Not that it is particularly pertinent to the discussion at hand in this tribe, but has anybody else here been following the mission that launched from Canaveral today? I was listening to the news coverage of the send-off on NPR this afternoon and just had to momentarily hope that I was not the only person on Earth who has at least contemplated the application of Newton's 2nd law in terms of smashing an appliance-sized mass into a 9-mile-long celestial body that, left to its own devices, currently misses the Earth on its trek through the Solar System. Let's think about this for just a minute here...

Given A.) the irregular geometry of Tempel 1 and, B.) the fact that we really have no clue what the thing is truly made of (hence our desire to smash an object into it in the first place), is there anybody among us who can honestly venture more than an educated guess as to how this might alter the orbital path of the comet? This thing has an orbital period of 5.68 years, after all, and fractional differences in its trajectory at this point could precipitate significant changes in its position when it returns on its next go-round...potentially.

Of course, give the relative masses of the probe and the comet, it is unlikely that such an impact is going to have a significant effect on the path of Tempel 1. Still, I have to wonder about the soundness of playing billiards with an object that we currently know is not an impact threat to Earth. It would be the height of irony to send this mission up to get a closer look at what a comet is made of only to find out that we caused the dern thing to plunge through our atmosphere in 16.5 years...

Just a thought & musing for the day....

posted in Fermi Paradox - 4 replies

Listening for ET: Two Decades

Sat, 08 Jan 2005 19:07:02 GMT

Question to the Tribe: Do you believe SETI's claim that they'll detect ETIs in about 20 years?

Listening for ET: Two Decades
http://www.astrobio.net/news/modules.php?op=modload&name=News&file=article&sid=1377&mode=thread&order=0&thold=0

Extrasolar Life Summary (Jan 07, 2005): The SETI Institute predicts that we'll detect an extraterrestrial transmission within twenty years. Within a year, the first thirty dishes of a huge telescope array will be operational, forming the basis of a giant ear that listens for intelligent beings in space while simultaneously gathering data for groundbreaking astronomy research.

Entire article:
http://www.astrobio.net/news/modules.php?op=modload&name=News&file=article&sid=1377&mode=thread&order=0&thold=0

posted in Fermi Paradox - 6 replies

Galaxy Buster

Sat, 08 Jan 2005 02:02:18 GMT

This thing could easily sterilize an entire galaxy. Mind boggling.

Voracious Black Hole Generates Most Powerful Explosion Known
http://www.sciam.com/article.cfm?chanID=sa003&articleID=00076736-6EC5-11DC-AEC583414B7F0000

Astronomers have discovered the largest explosion in the universe--one that has endured for more than 100 million years and generated as much energy as hundreds of millions of gamma-ray bursts. The source of this mayhem? An apparently insatiable supermassive black hole.

NASA's Chandra X-ray Observatory revealed the eruption, located in a galaxy cluster known as MS 0735.6 + 7421. Specifically, the Chandra images show two cavities, each some 650,000 light-years across, that were scoured out by jets of energy emanating from the black hole, which itself may be a billion times the mass of our sun. Announcing the findings today in the journal Nature, Brian McNamara of Ohio University and his colleagues posit that this enormous release of energy occurred as matter fell into the black hole: most was gobbled up, but some was spewed back out rather violently.

The discovery is unexpected not only because of its record-breaking nature, but because previous work suggested that large black holes don't consume as much matter or grow as quickly as small ones do. "This new result is as surprising as it is exciting," comments co-author Paul Nulsen of the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics in Cambridge, Mass. "This black hole is feasting when it should be fasting." --Kate Wong

posted in Fermi Paradox - 1 reply

Kaku: How to avoid extinction when the Universe dies

Sun, 09 Jan 2005 23:58:23 GMT

Theoretical physicist and ultra cool scientist Michio Kaku speculates that future intelligences will likely have to figure out a way to avoid extinction when the Universe suffers its heat death. In a recent Telegraph article, "Could a Hole in Space Save Man From Extinction?" (registration required), Kaku describes how the Universe is likely to die and what advanced intelligences might be able to do to avoid going along with it.

Here's my blog entry and synopsis, along with a link to the original article.
sentientdevelopments.blogspot.com/2...01/kaku-how-to-avoid-extinction-when.html
www.telegraph.co.uk/connected/main.jhtml

posted in Fermi Paradox - 2 replies

Does belief in ET detract from the real threats to life on earth?

Sun, 08 Feb 2004 23:49:35 GMT

Just as many expect a God to come and rescue us and put everything right (thus negating their personal obligations and responsibilities) so I have found that the belief in extra terrestrial life and the even more ludicrus suggestion that we could travel too and inhabit other planets leads to equal complacancy.

Personally I believe that Earth is likely to be the only place in the universe where conditions permitted life to happen. Even if that is not the case the distance between us and our nearest intelligent neighbour would prevent any possibilty of popping over for afternnon tea. Even if we could, could we survive the onslaught of the alien bacterial attack?

My hypothesis is that for all intent and purpose we are alone but our failure to recognize this encourages complacancy and is in its self a major threat to our survival.

Any comments?

posted in Fermi Paradox - 25 replies

What would Occam say about Fermi?

Sat, 01 Jan 2005 20:35:08 GMT

Question to the tribe:

William of Ockham, for whom Occam's Razor is named after, said that we should not generate a hypothesis any more complex than is demanded by the data. When multiple explanations are available for a phenomenon, suggested Ockham, the simplest version is preferred.

So, given the Fermi Paradox, what's the simplest explanation to the absence of signs of extraterrestrial life?

posted in Fermi Paradox - 10 replies

Universe’s questions are difficult even for scientists to answer

Mon, 06 Dec 2004 03:05:44 GMT

Universe’s questions are difficult even for scientists to answer
Ian Bell
http://www.theherald.co.uk/features/29162-print.shtml

What We Still Don't Know Channel 4, 8.00pm
The Medici: Godfathers of the Renaissance Channel 4, 8.00pm (Saturday)

According to Professor Martin Rees, the astronomer royal, the key issue for humankind in the 21st century is, as his title suggests, what we still don't know. Is this really a problem? I can answer that one in a few short words.
Tons, is one. Shed-loads. Oodles. I couldn't begin to list all the stuff scientists come up with that leaves me none the wiser. "What's the future of the cosmos?" asked the professor in a meteor shower of rhetorical questions. "What is the nature of reality?" Answers: a) dunno; b) search me. "Are we alone?" he then inquired. At a rough guess, cosmologists don't get invited to a lot of parties if they persist with that sort of gambit. I gave up on biology after we had done the fun stuff about reproduction and cutting up frogs. All I know about the galaxy, meanwhile, I got from Star Trek. It is possibly not the most reliable guide.

Entire article:
http://www.theherald.co.uk/features/29162-print.shtml

posted in Fermi Paradox - 2 replies

Researcher: 'We are not alone'

Fri, 26 Nov 2004 18:15:38 GMT

More UFO speculation, but thought I'd post it due to it's supposed "scientific" quality; take this with a considerable grain of salt.
================

Researcher: 'We are not alone'
By Michael Le Guellec
Stanton Friedman, nuclear physicist and lecturer on the topic of UFOs, presented his arguments last Wednesday that some UFOs are real.
http://www.plausiblefutures.com/index.php?id=192989

posted in Fermi Paradox - 2 replies

Tugboat as Lifeboat?

Wed, 10 Nov 2004 21:33:30 GMT

Not terribly related to the FP, but interesting implications to future life and future threats, including the bizarre idea of deliberately engineered astroidal impacts:

Tugboat as Lifeboat?
Meteors, Comets and Asteroids Among the proposals for diverting an asteroid collision with Earth, one involves gently pushing the incoming rock over the course of a year. This low-thrust solution has its challenges since at various stages of that perilous year, if it ever came, locations on Earth would naturally see human influences as they became the bullseye.

Entire article:
http://www.astrobio.net/news/modules.php?op=modload&name=News&file=article&sid=1295&mode=thread&order=0&thold=0

posted in Fermi Paradox - 3 replies

New Tribe: Existential Risks

Thu, 11 Nov 2004 17:48:21 GMT

New Tribe: Existential Risks
existentialrisks.tribe.net

This tribe has implications for the Fermi paradox and such issues as the Great Filter.

Because of accelerating technological progress, humankind may be rapidly approaching a critical phase in its history. In addition to well-known threats such as a nuclear holocaust, the prospects of radically transforming technologies like nanotech systems and machine intelligence present us with unprecedented opportunities and risks. Our future, and whether we will have a future at all, may well be determined by how we deal with these challenges.

This tribe is an open forum for a general discussion of human extinction scenarios - a discussion of all possible risks, their viability or implausibility, and what we can do to avoid them. Contributing tribe members are highly encouraged to read Nick Bostrom's essay, "Existential Risks: Analyzing Human Extinction Scenarios and Related Hazards" which can be found at http://www.nickbostrom.com/existential/risks.html.

posted in Fermi Paradox - 0 replies

Is Bush being controlled by aliens?

Sat, 06 Nov 2004 22:47:56 GMT

I came across this 'bush was wired' story and if you ask me this looks suspiciously like alien technology.... any thoughts?

http://www.motherjones.com/news/update/2004/11/10_407.html

posted in Fermi Paradox - 6 replies

Contact

Sat, 04 Sep 2004 04:00:41 GMT

Given the recent excitement over the (false) SETI ETI signal discovery, I have some questions for the Tribe:

- do you think that we'll detect signals from ETIs anytime soon? Ever?
- if so, how would you react? Would it change anything for you?
- How do you think people, institutions, and governments would act?
- ultimately, would it be good news or bad news?
- if you're a contact pessimist, why?

posted in Fermi Paradox - 9 replies

Marketing to the Mothership

Wed, 03 Nov 2004 17:45:04 GMT

Marketing to the Mothership
Astrobiology Magazine
http://www.astrobio.net/news/modules.php?op=modload&name=News&file=article&sid=1277&mode=thread&order=0&thold=0

Summary:
Extrasolar Life Summary (Nov 02, 2004): It is sometimes said that the best form of advertising is education. But what products would our global marketplace tolerate at the borders of an encounter with another, perhaps far different civilization? To get some perspective, an expert entertains the question of how to advertise our presence to a more universal demographic.

Entire article:
http://www.astrobio.net/news/modules.php?op=modload&name=News&file=article&sid=1277&mode=thread&order=0&thold=0

posted in Fermi Paradox - 0 replies

Three Newly Discovered Exoplanets Have Masses Comparable to Neptune's

Wed, 03 Nov 2004 17:39:47 GMT

Three Newly Discovered Exoplanets Have Masses Comparable to Neptune's
Physics Today
http://www.physicstoday.org/vol-57/iss-11/p27.html

Unlike Neptune and Uranus, the ice giants of our solar system, the new planets may be rocky "super−earths."

In the past 10 years, some 120 planets have been discovered outside the solar system. With the exception of three lightweight oddballs orbiting a millisecond pulsar—the dead remnant of a supernova—all of these exoplanets have been at least two orders of magnitude heavier than Earth. Though observational biases clearly favor the discovery of such giants, astronomers couldn't help wondering whether, for some unknown reason, lighter exoplanets might in fact be much rarer than gas giants like our own Jupiter and Saturn.

Now the catalog of known exoplanets has suddenly become more diverse. Three teams of planet searchers recently announced the discovery of three exoplanets with masses on the order of Neptune's. The masses of Neptune and Uranus, the so−called ice giants of the solar system, are 17.2 and 14.6 M♁ (where M♁ is Earth's mass). By contrast, the masses of Jupiter and Saturn are 318 and 95 M♁.

Entire article:
http://www.physicstoday.org/vol-57/iss-11/p27.html

posted in Fermi Paradox - 0 replies

Ancient Supernova Sparked Humanity?

Wed, 03 Nov 2004 17:36:27 GMT

Ancient Supernova Sparked Humanity?
By Rossella Lorenzi, Discovery News
http://dsc.discovery.com/news/briefs/20041101/supernova_print.html

Nov. 2, 2004 — A stellar blast might have helped initiate human evolution three million years ago, according to German scientists who have found clear traces of an ancient supernova explosion deep beneath the Pacific Ocean.

Sifting through dust on the ocean floor at a depth of 15,750 feet, Gunther Korschinek and colleagues at the Technical University of Munich in Germany found 28 layers of iron-60, a radioactive isotope of iron which experts believe is unlikely to have come from anything other than the heat, pressure and nuclear activity of a supernova.

"Fe-60 (iron-60) is a unique indicator for the detection of supernova debris on Earth," the researchers wrote in the latest issue of Physical Review Letters.

With a decay rate of about 1.5 million years, this long-lived chemical variant of iron can also have a key role in helping to date supernova explosions.

According to Korschinek's team, the iron-60 layers indicate that the star exploded 2.8 million years ago at a distance from Earth of a few tens of parsecs (1 parsec is approximately 3.26 light-years), showering down not only solid matter in the form of iron, but also cosmic rays.

"For the first time, we were able to carry out a detailed calculation for the increase in cosmic radiation, as well as for the duration. The result suggests an increase of only a few percent, but a very long duration of some hundred thousand years," Korschinek told Discovery News.

Lasting for that long, the cosmic ray flux from the supernova explosion could have heated up the Earth, forcing a climate change in Africa.

Though it has not yet been established that such an increase of the cosmic ray intensity could have had a significant influence on the Earth's climate, the researchers noted a coincidence between the onset and the duration of the cosmic ray flux and a change in the African climate.

"The African climate shifted toward more arid conditions about 2.8 million years ago ... . Some of the major events in early hominid evolution appear to be coeval with the African climate changes," the researchers wrote.

Indeed, anthropologists believe that the dramatic African climate changes, resulting in deforestation and the emerging of savannah, forced hominins to climb down from the trees and walk erect.

"The idea that a supernova exploded in our vicinity within the last few million years has traction and seems credible. That it contributed a layer of long-lived radioactive species — not just Fe-60 — also seems rather sensible. It will be important to determine the expected spread in arrival times, as well as to detect the other unstable isotopes expected, such as Mn-53, Cl-36, Al-26, Pu-244, etc.," supernova expert Adam Burrows, professor at University of Arizona's department of astronomy, told Discovery News.

"I would be loathe at this stage to credit the idea that this event stimulated the evolution or migrations of humanity," he added.

posted in Fermi Paradox - 0 replies

Building a machine designed by ET: not a good idea

Tue, 05 Oct 2004 17:02:03 GMT

Here's my latest blog entry:
Building a machine designed by ET: not a good idea
http://sentientdevelopments.blogspot.com/2004/10/building-machine-designed-by-et-not.html

I recently re-watched "Contact," the 1997 film adaptation of Carl Sagan's novel of the same name.

In this film, extra terrestrial contact is made, with the ET's transmitting the blueprints to a massive engineering project—supposedly for us to build. After studying the schematics it is determined that it is the outline for some sort of transportation device for a lone passenger. The exact means of transportation is unknown, as is much of the science behind the radically advanced technology.

There is some debate about the safety of embarking upon such a project, including worries about it being a possible Trojan horse or doomsday device, but ultimately the fears are set aside and the device is built at a cost of a quarter of a trillion dollars. [spoiler follows]Of course, the machine is a success, and our heroine gets to go on the thrill ride of a lifetime [end spoiler].

As I reflect on this film, however, I believe the decision to construct the device was the wrong one. Rather, the precautionary principle should have been invoked big time. In general I'm not a big fan of the PP, but in this case I think it would have been warranted.

Without knowing the nature of the transmitting ETs themselves, or even if conscious entities were actually transmitting the signal, there's no way we could predicted ET's true intentions. It very well could have been a Trojan horse; the device could have been deliberately designed to look like a transportation device to fool us into building it, only to turn out to be something far more nefarious instead—like a doomsday device, for example.

Why would ETs do such a thing? Well, the transmission could have been viral. Imagine a malevolent or paranoid civilization (or group or individual) determined to wipe out intelligent life across the Galaxy. They set up a bunch of beacons across the Galaxy that transmit the evil code.

As precedent that intelligences are capable of such a thing, people write viruses here on Earth for no good reason. Perhaps signals such as these are the ultimate manifestation of computer viruses—one information system finding memetic compatibility with another and infecting it. The trouble with such a scenario, however, is that such a code wouldn't replicate and re-transmit. But if the source transmitter remains intact, it would be the Typhoid Mary of civilizations.

So, rather than build the device on sheer blind faith alone (i.e. Not knowing how the technology works, not knowing exactly what the device is supposed to do, not knowing who transmitted it, not knowing why it was transmitted....), I would have suggested that the extra terrestrial schematics be studied, reverse engineered, and modeled to the point were we felt comfortable enough to predict as much of its effects as possible.

And then we could build it.

Maybe.

posted in Fermi Paradox - 2 replies

CNN Presents: Is Anybody Out There?

Wed, 27 Oct 2004 01:02:28 GMT

CNN Presents Classroom Edition - Educator Guide

Is Anybody Out There?

Set your VCR to record CNN Presents Classroom Edition: Is Anybody Out There? when it airs commercial-free on Monday, November 1, 2004, from 4:00-5:00 a.m. on CNN.

Program Overview

CNN's Miles O'Brien goes in search of life out in the universe. Don't laugh. The latest evidence suggests life does exist or has existed on other planets -- and the scientists who are leading the hunt believe they are on the verge of a major breakthrough. Imagine the impact such a discovery would have on science, religion and on our imaginations.

Grade Level: 7-12

Subject Areas: Life Science, Technology, World History, Social Studies

Objectives

This CNN Presents Classroom Edition: Is Anybody Out There? and its corresponding discussion questions and activities challenge students to:

* Examine the life and times and scientific contributions of Nicolas Copernicus, Galileo Galilei, Charles Darwin and Albert Einstein;
* Discuss how these scientists transformed the way humans view the world and themselves;
* Devise ways to communicate with beings in outer space;
* Create messages to be sent into outer space.

Curriculum Connections

National Science Education Standards

Standard A: Science as Inquiry

As a result of activities in grades 7-12, all students should develop:

• Abilities to do scientific inquiry

• Understandings about scientific inquiry

Standard C: Life Science

As a result of activities in grades 9-12, all students should develop an understanding of:

• Interdependence of organisms

• Matter, energy, and organization in living systems

• Behavior of organisms

Standard E: Science and Technology

As a result of activities in grades 7-12, all students should develop:

• Understandings about science and technology

Standard F: Science in Personal and Social Perspectives

As a result of activities in grades 7-12, all students should develop an understanding of:

• Science and technology in society

The National Science Education Standards (http://books.nap.edu/html/nses/pdf/index.html) are published by the National Academies Press (http://www.nas.edu/).

World History Standards

Era 6 - Global Expansion and Encounter, 1450-1770

Standard 27: Understands how European society experienced political, economic and cultural transformations in an age of global intercommunication between 1450 and 1750

Level III Grade : 7-8

6. Understands contributions of the Scientific Revolution to European society (e.g., the importance of discoveries in mathematics, physics, biology, and chemistry to 17th-and 18th-century Europe; the significance of the principles of the scientific method advanced by the trial of Galileo and arguments and evidence used to prove him "innocent" or "guilty"; the major features of the Scientific Revolution in major fields of endeavor)

Level IV Grade : 9-12

5. Understands features of the conflict between religious beliefs and scientific thought during the Scientific Revolution (e.g., the coexistence of the new scientific rationalism in 17th-and 18th-century Europe with traditional learning and rituals; Galileo's ideas about the solar system, and why he hesitated to apply scriptural passages to science-related problems)

Era 8 - A Half-Century of Crisis and Achievement, 1900-1945

Standard 40: Understands the search for peace and stability throughout the world in the 1920s and 1930s

Level III Grade : 7-8

4. Understands major discoveries in science and medicine in the first half of the 20th century (e.g., those made by Einstein) and how they affected the quality of life and traditional views of nature, the cosmos, and the psyche

McREL: Content Knowledge: A Compendium of Standards and Benchmarks for K-12 Education (Copyright 2000 McREL) is published online by Mid-continent Research for Education and Learning (McREL) (http://www.mcrel.org/standards-benchmarks), 2550 S. Parker Road, Suite 500, Aurora, CO 80014.

Curriculum Standards for Social Studies

Standard II: Time, Continuity and Change: Students will learn about the ways human beings view themselves in and over time.

The Curriculum Standards for Social Studies (http://www.socialstudies.org/standards/) are published by the National Council for Social Studies (http://ncss.org/).

Discussion Questions

1. Why do you think humans are so fascinated with the prospect of finding life outside our solar system? According to the program, how many planets outside of our solar system orbit a star like our sun? What are the implications of this fact?

2. What is astrobiology? What is SETI? What evidence are astrobiologists looking for to prove that life exists on other planets? What information have scientists gleaned about life on other planets by studying the hot springs at Yellowstone National Park and the Atacama Desert?

3. Why are scientists interested in exploring Mars? When did modern day interest in Mars begin? What are some of the key events in the history of Mars exploration? What evidence did the Mars rovers recently find that suggests life may have existed on Mars billions of years ago? Why do some people, like Ralph Harvey, doubt that life ever existed on this planet? Where is the moon Europa located? What evidence suggests that life exists on this moon? Off of what type of energy might the creatures on Europa be living?

4. Who is Jill Tarter? For what movie character was Tarter the inspiration? What are some of the different ways that people have tried to reach out to aliens? Who is Frank Drake? What are some of the contributions that Tarter and Drake have made to the field of astrobiology? What tools do they and other scientists use to study the cosmos for signs of extraterrestrial life? Why are the approaches being used at SETI to contact intelligent alien life potentially problematic?

5. What is the focus of Dr. Geoff Marcy's research? What are "wobbles" and how are they used in the search for planets? Who was Enrico Fermi? What is the "Fermi paradox"? What does Dr. Tarter mean when she says that, "Absence of evidence is not evidence of absence"? According to Dr. Chris McKay, what factors appear to contribute to the formation of intelligent life? What are your thoughts on Fermi's paradox?

6. Dr. Davies asserts that if scientists found life on Mars that was similar to that on Earth, it would be biologically, but not philosophically, significant. What does Davies mean? What is a "second genesis"? According to Davies and Dr. Christopher Chyba, why would finding evidence of a second genesis be significant? What questions would it raise?

7. Do you think intelligent life exists beyond Earth? Support your opinion with logical reasoning or scientific facts.

8. In the program, Dr. Davies states that "if scientists find what they are looking for, it's hard to imagine that anything will be quite the same." In your opinion, to what extent do you think life on Earth might change if scientists find proof that life exists on other planets? Explain.

Suggested Activities

1. Transforming Perceptions

Remind students that, in the program, professor and author Paul Davies asserts that, "If we were to pick up a message from an alien civilization it would transform our world view beyond the discoveries of Copernicus and Galileo, and Darwin and Einstein put together." Next, divide your class into four groups and assign each group either Nicolas Copernicus, Galileo Galilei, Charles Darwin or Albert Einstein. Have each group prepare a presentation about the life and times and scientific contributions of their individual. Instruct each group to conclude its presentation by commenting on how this person transformed the way people view the world and themselves. After the presentations, ask students:

* In your opinion, which of these individuals had the greatest impact on the way humans perceive themselves and the world? Why?
* Do you agree or disagree with Davies' assertion that receiving a message from an alien civilization would "transform our world view beyond the discoveries of Copernicus and Galileo, and Darwin and Einstein put together"? State your rationale.
* Do you think humans are ready to encounter other sentient life forms? Why or why not?

2. Communicating with Extraterrestrials

How would one go about creating a message that could be interpreted by beings unknown to humans? Challenge your students, working in groups, to devise a way to communicate with beings in outer space. Point out that, although we have no solid proof that intelligent life exists in other systems (and if it does, there is no guarantee the beings there will be able to understand this communication), scientists have been sending different types of signals and messages into outer space for years in hopes of getting some response. Some methods of communication students may want to consider are:

1. symbols, such as drawings of humans and the Earth;

2. multi-language communication, in which one sentence is written in several different languages that use different alphabets;

3. two symbol/tone communication, the basis for communication for many cultures, from African bushmen, who send alternating high/low pitches to other villages, to Morse Code, which uses dots and dashes to send messages;

4. binary code, the basis for computer operations using 0/1 (the last two Web sites below may help students learn more about binary code).

Groups may want to select one of these methods of communication, combine the methods or devise a method of their own, but remind students that simplicity is key here. Once the group has decided on its method of communication, have its members use that method to create a message to be sent into outer space. Direct each group to present its message. Challenge the rest of the class to try to figure out what the communication says.

Suggested Online Resources

SETI Institute (http://www.seti.org/)

NASA's Discovery Program (http://discovery.nasa.gov/)

NASA's Mars Exploration Program (http://marsweb.jpl.nasa.gov/)

Mars Exploration Rover Mission (http://marsrovers.jpl.nasa.gov/home/index.html)

NASA: Cassini-Huygens: Mission to Saturn and Titan (http://saturn.jpl.nasa.gov/home/index.cfm)

The White House: In Focus - Space (http://www.whitehouse.gov/infocus/space/)

NASA Astrobiology: Institute (http://nai.arc.nasa.gov/)

Astrobiology.com (http://www.astrobiology.com/)

Astrobiology.com -- Life in Extreme Environments(http://www.astrobiology.com/extreme.html)

Exploring the Atacama Desert (http://www.musc.edu/cando/geocam/atacama/atacama.html)

The Arecibo 305 Meter Radio Telescope (http://www.naic.edu/about/ao/telefact.htm)

Yellow Streamers (http://141.150.157.117:8080/prokPUB/chaphtm/401/04_01.htm)

Microbiology the Beginning - Extremophiles (http://www.theguardians.com/Microbiology/gm_mbm04.htm)

Lives: The Biography Resource (http://amillionlives.com/)

Keywords

Earth, universe, planets, SETI Institute, extraterrestrial, intelligence, Enrico Fermi, second genesis, Europa, Jupiter, black smokers, hydrogen sulfide, extremophiles, Mars, liquid water, NASA, microscopic, primordial environments, yellow streamers, oxidants, astronomer, aquifer, astrobiology, Paul Davies, second genesis, Jill Tarter, radio telescope

posted in Fermi Paradox - 0 replies

New book about Enrico Fermi

Fri, 08 Oct 2004 02:47:46 GMT

New book about Enrico Fermi: "Fermi Remembered"
http://chronicle.uchicago.edu/041007/fermi.shtml

posted in Fermi Paradox - 1 reply

Frequent Starbursts Sterilize Center Of Milky Way

Tue, 05 Oct 2004 16:58:18 GMT

Frequent Starbursts Sterilize Center Of Milky Way

Life near the center of our galaxy never had a chance. Every 20 million years on average, gas pours into the galactic center and slams together, creating millions of new stars. The more massive stars soon go supernova, exploding violently and blasting the surrounding space with enough energy to sterilize it completely.

Entire article:
http://www.spacedaily.com/news/supernova-04i.html

posted in Fermi Paradox - 1 reply

www.nanoaging.com News about space

Jonathan — Sat, 02 Oct 2004 03:24:27 GMT

news about kardashev and space -->

http://www.nanoaging.com/modules.php?name=News&new_topic=10

posted in Fermi Paradox - 0 replies

Shotak: Are We the Galaxy’s Youngest Residents?

Thu, 30 Sep 2004 16:57:19 GMT

Are We the Galaxy’s Youngest Residents?
Seth Shostak
Space.com

http://www.space.com/searchforlife/seti_galaxy_040930.html

We don’t know, but there could be thousands, and possibly millions, of Earth-like planets studding the dark latitudes of the Milky Way. Our Galaxy could be thick with worlds that host not just life, but intelligence. In this putative club of sentients, is it possible that we are the newest arrivals?

This question can be trivially answered.

Although Homo sapiens has been plodding the planet for a few hundred thousand years, our technical competence to build rockets and radios is only a century old. Anyone who’s mastered seventh grade science knows that’s not a heck of a lot of time compared to the age of the Earth.

Entire Article:
http://www.space.com/searchforlife/seti_galaxy_040930.html

posted in Fermi Paradox - 2 replies

Economist: In search of the Earth mark II

Tue, 28 Sep 2004 21:21:52 GMT

In search of the Earth mark II: Earth-sized exoplanets should soon be discovered.

http://www.economist.com/science/displaystory.cfm?story_id=3219811

posted in Fermi Paradox - 0 replies

Would You?

Thu, 05 Aug 2004 07:26:58 GMT

I mean really, lets look at this objectively.

as a species we are unstable. we are still simple dna strands trying to conquer, fight, pollute our habitat. just like we did when we were bacteria.

they probably didnt want anything to do with us then, and dont now.

would you?

moving past our violent nature is probably the crucible for making FRIENDS out there.

posted in Fermi Paradox - 13 replies

hitch hikers guide.... new dramatisation

Wed, 08 Sep 2004 11:10:19 GMT

I doubt douglas adams original or sequel books require much introduction but if you have never heard the original bbc radio dramatisation.. well you have my sympathies....

however you can be the first to hear the new bbc dramatisation of the sequels... check out this link

http://www.bbc.co.uk/radio4/hitchhikers/

theres also an interesting competition

Can you improve on 'Mostly Harmless'?

The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy famously described the Earth with a single word: 'Harmless'. After years of research by Ford Prefect the entry was expanded slightly
- to 'Mostly Harmless'.

We would like you to provide a rather more comprehensive (but hopefully equally witty) description. We may publish your entry on the site.

Send us your guide entry, using exactly 264 words*. We are offering runner up prizes of CD boxed sets of the new series. The writer of the entry judged best of all will win a digital radio.

ok it's a dab radio..(personally i prefer to own the cd's) but its the beeb ... i still remember prime time tv quizes in which the winner got a clock and a book token....

regards,

Malcolm

posted in Fermi Paradox - 1 reply

More in life in Meteorites

bee_dragon — Tue, 31 Aug 2004 03:41:46 GMT

2 August 2004: Evidence for Indigenous Microfossils in a Carbonaceous Meteorite

http://www.panspermia.org/hoover2.htm

Richard B. Hoover of NASA/NSSTC announced today the discovery of evidence for the detection of a fossilized cyanobacterial mat in a freshly fractured, interior surface of the Orgueil carbonaceous meteorite. Many of the images presented were obtained 21-23 July 2004, using the Field Emission Scanning Electron Microscope at NASA's Marshall Space Flight Center in Huntsville, Alabama. The announcement was made in Denver, Colorado at the "Instruments, Methods, and Missions for Astrobiology VIII" (Conference 5555) at SPIE's International Symposium on Optical Science and Technology (its 49th Annual Meeting).

posted in Fermi Paradox - 3 replies

David Grinspoon int'vw

Sun, 05 Sep 2004 15:24:05 GMT

David Grinspoon, author of Lonely Planets: The Natural Philosophy of Alien Life, is interviewed in this article:
http://www.harpercollins.com/catalog/book_interview_xml.asp?isbn=0060185406

posted in Fermi Paradox - 0 replies

New Scientist: SETI picks up mysterious signals

Thu, 02 Sep 2004 13:15:59 GMT

Probably nothing, but....

New Scientist
Mysterious signals from 1000 light years away
http://www.newscientist.com/news/news.jsp?id=ns99996341

In February 2003, astronomers involved in the search for extraterrestrial intelligence (SETI) pointed the massive radio telescope in Arecibo, Puerto Rico, at around 200 sections of the sky.

The same telescope had previously detected unexplained radio signals at least twice from each of these regions, and the astronomers were trying to reconfirm the findings. The team has now finished analysing the data, and all the signals seem to have disappeared. Except one, which has got stronger.

This radio signal, now seen on three separate occasions, is an enigma. It could be generated by a previously unknown astronomical phenomenon. Or it could be something much more mundane, maybe an artefact of the telescope itself.

But it also happens to be the best candidate yet for a contact by intelligent aliens in the nearly six-year history of the SETI@home project, which uses programs running as screensavers on millions of personal computers worldwide to sift through signals picked up by the Arecibo telescope.

Entire article:
http://www.newscientist.com/news/news.jsp?id=ns99996341

posted in Fermi Paradox - 1 reply

BBC: Alien probe 'best way to find ET'

Thu, 02 Sep 2004 03:18:01 GMT

Alien probe 'best way to find ET'
By Dr David Whitehouse
BBC News Online science editor
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/sci/tech/3618400.stm

There could be an alien spacecraft with a message for us lurking somewhere in our Solar System, say scientists writing in the journal Nature.

No real evidence of Someone Out There, but not fully explainable either. Another reader submits a blurb suggesting that aliens should send spacemail, not signals: "Rutgers electrical engineering professor, Christopher Rose, has an article on Nature magazine's cover today describing the most efficient way for our civilization to be discovered by aliens. On this question of better to 'write or radiate', his conclusions: better not to send radio transmission, when physical media like DNA on an asteroid can declare a terrestrial presence. Similar to what motivated Voyager scientists to attach a plaque for the outbound trip. Rose has some great information payload sizes as examples (like the entire information equivalent for our global genome fitting on a 100 pound laptop!)."

posted in Fermi Paradox - 0 replies

Critique of the Drake Equation

Sat, 28 Aug 2004 04:37:03 GMT

The Temporal Aspect of the Drake Equation and SETI
Authors: Milan M. Cirkovic
http://xxx.lanl.gov/abs/astro-ph/0306186

"We critically investigate some evolutionary aspects of the famous Drake equation, which is usually presented as the central guide for the research on extraterrestrial intelligence. It is shown that the Drake equation tacitly relies on unverifiable and possibly false assumptions on both the physico-chemical history of our Galaxy and the properties of advanced intelligent communities. The importance of recent results of Lineweaver on chemical build-up of inhabitable planets for SETI is emphasized. Two important evolutionary effects are briefly discussed and the resolution of the difficulties within the context of the phase-transition astrobiological models sketched."

posted in Fermi Paradox - 2 replies

A BRIEF HISTORY OF THE END OF EVERYTHING

Sat, 14 Aug 2004 00:14:20 GMT

I just found this interesting BBC radio 4 series.. thought it might be of interest....

http://www.bbc.co.uk/radio4/science/briefhistory.shtml

A series exploring how our ideas about the end of the universe have been shaped by religion, belief, and the contemporary state of scientific thinking and observation.

The series is presented by Vatican Astronomer, Brother Guy Consolmagno. He is a Jesuit astro-physicist who came to religion via science and his wonder at the universe. At the Vatican Observatory in Castel Gandolfo, Italy, he compares cutting edge cosmology with Chinese, Ancient Greek, Buddhist, Medieval and Victorian ideas about the end of everything.

posted in Fermi Paradox - 2 replies

Recent Fermi related articles

Wed, 11 Aug 2004 01:45:59 GMT

Earth to E.T.: We're waiting
Cosmic phone hasn't rung; why don't they call?
http://msnbc.msn.com/id/5651995/

Chances of aliens finding Earth disappearing
New Scientist
http://www.newscientist.com/news/news.jsp?id=ns99996255&lpos=home2

posted in Fermi Paradox - 5 replies