Extraterrestrial Technology, could we ever understand it?

Could we ever understand extraterrestrial technology without outside help?. No, I personally do not believe we could unless we had heavy help from an outside source that was intimate with the unfamiliar technology as well as ours. This doesn't necessarily stem from the possibility of an already captured source of extraterrestrial technology. This could also be for futuristic possibilities as well, but for all practical purposes lets per se assume that an extraterrestrial ship crashed in a post industrial nation, and explore that scenario. I personally don't like 'what if' scenarios, as a Historian I see way too many of them, but this pretty much requires a 'what if' scenario, so I am going to put forth the most realistic possibility as I just described. This scenario doesn't necessarily mean the U.S. is the specific post industrial nation, so you can theorize this ship crashing into any country you want, I just believe that the best chance any country on Earth would have at deciphering the technology would be a post industrialized Western country. Now with that explained and out of the way, this is why I believe that it isn't possible to decipher the technology from a truly extraterrestrial source.

First of all we have scenarios that can be brought up already here on Earth, where a technology was lost, or became extremely uncommon and rare. And from that, when that technology was needed again it was difficult to replicate, understand, repeat, and teach this technology once again. One example I can give is wood working during the second world war, large scale wood working and manufacturing had been quickly lost once all metal machines became widely developed and popular. For Germany this worked as both an advantage and a disadvantage, they produced exemplary examples of mass produced machines made from metal and other non wood fabrics. But when metal became scarce, especially in the aircraft industry, wood became the next best option and that is where the disadvantage comes from. There were extremely few people left who knew the process and techniques that work with wood and its unique qualities and properties. This cost a lot in raw material and time learning the trade, and eventually didn't work out in their favor, in one case they were forced to turn to a glue process that ended up ruining the wood instead of helping it.

The example I've given isn't the best, but its one that I'm very familiar with and one that most people can reasonably understand the point of. This was merely a generational gap and you saw the difficulties in returning to a technology that should've been relatively easy to reproduce and understand. Imagine a million year gap now, and you can imagine the difficulties with such two technologies so far apart. And that's a conservative estimate, a more realistic possibility is ten or a hundred million years of difference. Wood working had been used throughout all of human history and yet it took only a generation to almost forget about it, especially in the aviation industry.

I was watching a documentary once and someone proposed a similar theory, they also had problems conceiving the idea that we could replicate or even comprehend and understand the technology of a fallen extraterrestrial craft. Which again, assumes the somewhat funny concept that a ship and crew capable of such advanced feats of engineering and technology to travel vast distances would crash the ship onto Earth. Anyway they said that if you gave Christopher Columbus a nuclear submarine and gave him unlimited resources and gave him the task to replicate it and build another one, there isn't any chance he could do it. That pretty much sums up my first question and problem.

But secondly this works on several other levels, we are listening for Radio waves and signals, this question has obviously been asked before and answers or proposals for a solution are generally known. But I am referring to the probability of Radio waves being 'primitive' and any extraterrestrial civilization whom has had electricity for possibly as little as a few hundred years, would switch to something different and not be using Radio waves ever again. Many people respond that it is likely that Radio waves ARE primitive, but any civilization like our own, would know that it is the first step to build upon more complicated electronic signals and devices, and would be sending Radio waves out as a form of communication to any civilization that is capable of picking them up. This assumes many things, the biggest problem is that we are assuming they WANT to be heard, which I find absolutely asinine that any advanced civilization would be using the equivalent of a "I am here" sign. I think it was Einstein who put it best "We had better keep our heads down" that quote may not be exact but its the same idea. There is no guarantee that every civilization out there is friendly, peace loving wisdom spreading 'space brothers & sisters' and I know we can't stop what Radio waves are already out there, but it sometimes makes me lose sleep at night thinking about a civilization picking up our signals and having their way with my planet and its inhabitants. I rarely ever hear anyone say anything like what I just did, about constantly assuming extraterrestrials are peace loving wisdom spreading creatures. I see every reason to assume the opposite view, that it is probable that any other civilization wants to keep either to themselves and be quiet, or smash anybody they hear and see as a form of preliminary defense. Who is to say that there isn't scenarios of intergalactic combat going on, or that they have gone on, and the winner whom is now the dominant civilization wouldn't tolerate any other civilization they know of just in case of future problems. I just wanted to be clear on what I believe, and maybe hear some responses back as I honestly never hear anyone talk about that side of possibilities.

I've seen things that make me feel like an absolute primitive.
No idea how that sh!t was working.

I always thought it was interesting that an Alien craft capable of traversing the universe would come to Earth and all the sudden crash. lol.... If our satellites can pinpoint a person on the ground then Alien tech could do it from the Moon or further. There is just no reason for one to come to Earth.

With that said I think it could eventually be figured out. Also just seeing a design of something might get people to think in different ways to create their own version. I work at a place that does a lot of research and development. Sometimes we have an idea of what we think we should do and then we see something else that makes us think... duh! why did we not think of that? Even if we could not reproduce it the tech would give us new ideas and perspective of what can be done and then start researching the possibilities.

All the technologies are easily figured out becuse they ALL FOLLOW UNIVERSAL LAWS OF NATURE we have been systemiclly and globally suppressed from learning.

Its as easy as seeing how backwards Edisons ideas and applications were when compared side by side to Teslas....in that case you can see the complete manufacture of the false dynamic created to convince people via a sense of "percieved need" to support a multi-quadrillion unneeded power transfer and metering system now on this planet.

Teslas work followed the path of least resistance as every natural law does.......Edisons work followed an intentionally contrived and artificially managed path of most resistance.

The problem is not will people UNDERSTAND THE TECHNOLOGY....lol...we will ADVANCE IT IMMEDIATLY......the REAL PROBLEM is how to explain how and why this information was INTNTIONALLY WITHHELD FROM GLOBAL HUMANITY UNTIL OUR PLANET IS ALMOST 86ed???


As soon as we PROSECUTE the people responsible for intentionl knowledge suppession for personal or corporate o doctrinal gains and get it though their heads their will be NO TYPE OF IMMUNITY GRANTED TO THEM we can get focused on remediating every single one of them expeditiously.........there is no middle to meet in.

Enough data is availble online now in the public domain that there is no going back now....the concepts are ULTRA-SIMPLE and the tech is ULTRA-EASY to build.As many moving parts as a Moped.

No Immunity....we already have the data needed to disenfranchise the Globl Cabal who have been manipulating us all via knowledge suppression and misrepresentation ....its been availble for Centuries.

The energy needed to travel between stars isn't trivial, a physicist compared it to something like the energy contained within 100 quadrillion gallons of gas, just to travel to closest star. So any advanced civilization isn't likely to travel to earth, just to blow it up, unless they totally bat crazy, and if that was the case, they'd probably have blown themselves up long before they were capable of interstellar travel (its yet to be determined if we will attain interstellar travel before blowing ourselves up).

Given we have only discovered raido waves in 1880's yes there are likely to be better means of communication yet to be discovered that might travel though a different dimension of space, instead of travelling though space itself. So we might be sending out waves that no-one is listening too yes. But the radio waves really have only travelled a small distance so far, still yet to reach the 133 stars that exist within 50 LY of earth.

I wonder if an alien race developed much closer to the galactic core... Would their flashlights give radiation burns to us?

What if those aliens are escapees from a penal colony ? Hijacked a craft and end up here then decide to take over with their advanced weapons and technology ?

originally posted by: Plotus
What if those aliens are escapees from a penal colony ? Hijacked a craft and end up here then decide to take over with their advanced weapons and technology ?

The Man Who Fell to Earth. Great British movie. Your intellect would be far superior so you wouldn't have to have weapons to live very comfortably.

Especially with a stash of perfect diamonds.

a reply to: uloveme

Well in your example Christopher Columbus wouldn't have the tools needed. He didn't have things like spectrometers to tell him what the material is made of. He didn't have computers to test configurations and more important didn't know about physics. To us granted may take years but we could easily disassemble and produce an alien craft. The only thing I can think of that would prevent it is if it was biological in nature. If the craft was alive then that would present all kinds of problems, though even then we would probably eventually be able to use its DNA to produce more but it would go from years to decades.

a reply to: uloveme


The great British science-fiction writer Arthur C. Clarke is famous for:

Clarke’s Law: “Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic.”

That very succinctly answers your subject sentence.

a reply to: uloveme

Some of it we would likely not have the physic's to explain yet but most of it we probably could, they may have computer systems though which we can not even identify and perhaps as in science fiction inter-dimensional technology so you capture a flying saucer and think you have a complete vessel but in reality it's main bulk is elsewhere, it's power source drawing energy from a kind of quantum entanglement and all it really is in the eventuality is a hyper complex pile of junk with fake technology designed to watch what you do with it and to gain an understanding of how you dismantle it and how intelligent you really are.

Meanwhile the alien guy is sitting somewhere else very far away watching you and drawing conclusion's from your action's as to whether or not you are ready/a threat/have potential or are just another primitive post stone age semi sapient species doomed to fail, in which case he is not going to tell you what to do with the towel.

I would think that reading the owners manual would be very helpful

a reply to: uloveme

Look...it could be tech invisible to us created by methods we have never known...created on places we've never been...with material we haven't a clue about because they/them and methodology is unknown to us.

So...it obviously already exists here...and has been for a long time..

No way, not without outside help.

Next they'll tell us they have mapped the human genome and have the ability to manipulate us at a genetic level. Not without god's help they cant, no way.

I call ghostbusters on this.

originally posted by: one4all
All the technologies are easily figured out becuse they ALL FOLLOW UNIVERSAL LAWS OF NATURE we have been systemiclly and globally suppressed from learning.

This quote and the overall tone of your post suggests that you don't have a clue as to what you're talking about. You know nothing of the goldfish in a bowl. Stay off the forums for a while and read some Hawkings.

The laws of nature are not suppressed nor are they difficult to find... they are quite simply beyond the grasp of the average public and therefore not routinely discussed in your average coffee shop.

These ideas and concepts are not "ultra-simple" and "ultra-easy" as you suggest. They require a lifelong dedication to a particular scientific field, and to think your average Candy Crusher could grasp such ideas is asinine. Comparing the technologies of Edison and Tesla is ludicrous compared to the advanced concepts of string theory and relativity that alien technologies are likely to use.

To the OP... I think understanding an alien tech and actually being able to utilize it are two entirely different topics. I think the lynchpin of alien tech would be whatever materials it required to function.

For example, we might observe action "A", but if action "A" required material "XYZ", which was not known to found on our planet... we'd be a little screwed. Reverse engineering can only go so far, and it's reasonable to assume we haven't found everything there is to find yet. Proofs in the pudding - how many elements have been discovered and added to the periodic table since you were born? Material "XYZ" might not show up for decades.

If you took a laptop back to the time of Ben Franklin, and left it on his doorstep with a full charge, how much about it do you think he'd be able to figure out?

Would he even know how to figure out how to recharge it in his lifetime?

How long would it take for someone to figure out the alloys, plastics, and just the materials its made of?

How many features do you think would never be known?

How easily do you think Ben would accidentally break it, so it could never be reverse engineered?

And finally, we all know what a cell phone is...we all have a basic understanding of how it works.

If you were abandoned in the woods for the rest of your life, how long would it take you make me a cell phone?

...

This is why I don't buy into Roswell and reverse engineering. Not unless we had some kind of 'help'.

originally posted by: MarkOfTheV

To the OP... I think understanding an alien tech and actually being able to utilize it are two entirely different topics. I think the lynchpin of alien tech would be whatever materials it required to function.

For example, we might observe action "A", but if action "A" required material "XYZ", which was not known to found on our planet... we'd be a little screwed. Reverse engineering can only go so far, and it's reasonable to assume we haven't found everything there is to find yet. Proofs in the pudding - how many elements have been discovered and added to the periodic table since you were born? Material "XYZ" might not show up for decades.

Exactly!

It's not enough to find a flying saucer and take it apart.

We need to find a flying saucer factory.

A crack engineering team in the mid 1850's finding a Boeing 737 could probably figure out how a turbojet works in basic essence, and probably learn quite a bit about flight from the shape and control surfaces. The communication & electronics & control systems would be mysterious but they would figure out that it has to do with control somehow.

But they couldn't possibly build a turbojet engine as the ability to make the advanced turbine materials are beyond them.

a reply to: MystikMushroom

Everything is different now. We understand basic laws of physics applicable to the entire universe at a fundamental level that did not exist in Franklin's time. We can predict, quantitatively, what is happening in stars at enormous distances.

We are far better equipped to understand ET technology, assuming it is part of our universe, than Franklin was able to investigate a laptop. At least on the physics end---if it was heavily biological, which is more peculiar and particular to the organism by random chance, it would be much more difficult.

originally posted by: MystikMushroom


If you were abandoned in the woods for the rest of your life, how long would it take you make me a cell phone?

...

This is why I don't buy into Roswell and reverse engineering. Not unless we had some kind of 'help'.

A random guy being abandoned in the woods is not the same thing as a hypothetical reverse-engineering by the best minds & facilities of Bell Labs and Los Alamos. Anyway, I believe that all the sightings are misidentifications or human-made technology.

thats like saying all of our current achievements are subject to be re-written.

of course we would be able to decipher and even reverse engineer it. just as we can answer and solve for and theorize for complex equations at subatomic levels, we can understand alien technology.

whatever that technology might be, as long as we can observe it, the way we observe every other life problems or unknowns, we would be able to understand it. because we would only observe what that tech can do in a way we can deduce a hypothesis .

#hyperbole