Why searching for alien signals is a waste of time

a reply to: nfflhome

That signal could come from a probe that was sent out a billion years ago

We have been lucky to keep our probes running for a few decades never mind billions.
Our priorities change every 10 years or so.

What I am saying is anything billions of years is out of the question.

originally posted by: samkent
a reply to: nfflhome

That signal could come from a probe that was sent out a billion years ago

We have been lucky to keep our probes running for a few decades never mind billions.
Our priorities change every 10 years or so.

What I am saying is anything billions of years is out of the question.

You assume their tech is the same as ours. Im saying they would be very far ahead of us.
That probe could lie semi dormant for ages.

A very small number that could still be more than enough statistically to be probable to find life. You get more information, and the equation changes, sometimes drastically.

I think the OP assumes far too much. We don't know enough to say with any degree of certainty what the chances are of finding alien life from this venture. It beats blowing a billion on a new stadium in my books.

a reply to: ChaoticOrder

There is a cross-over in general astronomy and ET signal searches with those looking for Earth-like planets.. It can't do much harm trying to search for radio waves from more 'known-life compatible' planets, but scanning the whole sky and building up masses of not generally useful data is a waste, I agree.

When I first read that this was being done that was my first initial thought as well. That they are wasting time and money. At least it isn't my money, well I'm sure to a certain extent it is. I do however believe intelligent life exists...in fact I believe other humans exist out there.

I do find it a bit ironic that Mr. Hawking warned us about wanting to find other intelligent life (I believe last year) due to the fact they could be hostile against us.

I should also add in how do we know what we are looking for in terms of signals. We can only search for ways we know. It's very likely we a highly advanced civilization never used radio and has a totally different way of thinking in terms of communication.

originally posted by: HawkeyeNation
I should also add in how do we know what we are looking for in terms of signals.

There are only so many ways to convey data over distance, and EM is a very basic force in the universe, ubiquitous and generally straightforward to manipulate. So it's likely that any emerging sentience would start off with EM of some sort.

a reply to: ChaoticOrder

I can appreciate what this Milner guy is trying to do, but I agree-I don't think it will work.

Holding an ear of to the cosmos is like trying to hear a whisper a rock concert. Not to mention the presumptions that have been made. We don't even know how ET's communicate, they could communicate over various wavelengths and we can't monitor then all at once, and then there the presumption that every E.T is more technologically advanced then us, and we do not know that for certain.

In fact I wouldn't find it surprising if we were the only intelligent life form in this galaxy.

The odds are better than Nil, after all we are here-but I don't believe we could ever meet.

My thoughts, 5 possibilities

1. If we can understand the communication, it's ancient.

2. An advanced civilization may use communication methods above our knowledge and we would miss it.

3a. If we can detect and understand the communication, it's a civilization similar to ours, nearby.
3b. But there is also the possibility that a nearby civilization is much older so back to 1 or 2.

4. A ship near earth but then that tends to lead to 2.

5. The universe is so large we won't detect it.

I tend to think 3a is the most unlikely. It would be amazing to contact a friendly civilization.

originally posted by: nfflhome
***snip***

You assume their tech is the same as ours. Im saying they would be very far ahead of us.
That probe could lie semi dormant for ages.

I'm saying that there is no reason to believe that any alien signal would come from beings further ahead than us.

In fact if we did recieve signals it would very likely be from probes. Not only that - it seems likely that the aliens who sent the probe will have died out.

It is more than likely that life on alien planets will do what life has done on earth.

1) every species fight for territory.
2) some species do better than the others.
3) one species evolve intelligence (?)
4) that species become very good at killing of the others and therefore gain territory.
5) that species believe that clever inventions are better than natural balance.
6) that species spread like a plague and other species suffer.
7) that species start exploiting the natural resources - never giving anything back.
8) that species f***k up their world.
9) that species destroyes itself with petty bickering rather than figuring out how to survive the mess they made.
10) every other species fight for survival until a new balance is found.

There is no reason to believe that aliens will be any different.

With intelligence comes better ways of killing and exploiting.

originally posted by: strongfp
a reply to: ChaoticOrder

It's a step in the right direction for space exploration, which one day will be our only saving grace to keep this planet and our species alive.
***snip***

I have always had this fantasy that we send our "space ark" out with the few survivors and they all end up dead because the crew have run out of replacement pumps and no way to manufacture more.

Which I also think will be the destiny of any colony on Mars. Their last replacement part will have been used many months before the new part arrive.

If we are looking for a civilization like ours it's definetly useless. We are able to decode space signals since less than a century, we are unable to live consistently outside of our biosphere and we needed millions of years to evolve. I guess the entire galaxy may not even have another life-form like us at this stage.

On the other side, an advanced civilization that could have technology millennias ahead of us would probably not use such signals, imagine trying to use morse code to comunicate with a cellphone... and it's a comparison of less than 100 years of techonological advance.

But... are we sure there is nothing else than the search for intelligent beings behind these projects?

a reply to: HolgerTheDane2

I wonder it there are space pirates that might intercept shipments. The needed pump might end up as space litter as it had no value to the pirates.

Another thought

To find other civilizations probes from advanced civilizations are used to search the universe.

Here we can receive a radio signal in a local area then convert it to digital and move it around the world using the internet.

These probes could capture more primitive communication (like radio) and then retransmit in some more advanced method we do not know.

Primitives, like Earth, are just a novelty to them. We either learn to advance or kill our self off. It's up to each civilization. All the advice in the universe doesn't fix it.

If communications at some more advanced level is found then it is investigated.

Could be some UFO reports are these probes.

a reply to: HolgerTheDane2

That's how life here on earth evolved. We don't know what the driving forces behind a distant planet would be. It could be one perfect organism arose and has evolved from that state, to be smarter and such. Who knows.

As the article, linked below, indicates, Mr. Yuri Milner's very heartening generosity will enable a Search for Extraterrestrial intelligence 50 times more sensitive than any before. It will be capable of detecting signals no more powerful than our own aircraft radar, originating from the nearest 1000 stars.

It will also be able to receive a signal from 30,000 light years away, which is merely 10 times the power of those sent out by the Arecibo asteroid imaging radar.
So, it seems a civilization only modestly advanced beyond our own could be heard over much of our galaxy.

SETI has been sorely constrained by minimal funding, since its inception. Mr. Milner's initiative has gone a long way toward relieving this problem. In place of speculation about how common intelligent life is in this galaxy, we will have a much better opportunity to actually find the answer.
link:
www.theguardian.com...

a reply to: Ross 54

His funding isn't going to SETI, it's going to a university and some telescopes that have been locked due to funding.

a reply to: ChaoticOrder

Possibly not a complete waste of time considering the modifications as of late to the Drake equation. More sentient civilizations of sufficient technological prowess means more chance of detection both on there part and ours. That being said communication would certainly not be viable considering the distances involved and the speed that radio waves propagate.

We don't know if fast than light or other advanced methods/time saving exist.

What if another life form lives millions of years and a 100 or 1000 years is a short period of time to them.

originally posted by: ChaoticOrder
The chances of any other intelligent life existing within that small zone around our own planet is very small because obviously there aren't many planets like Earth which allow evolution to occur for billions of years and the initial conditions required for chemicals to randomly assemble into a reproducing organism

But surely any intelligent being will end up spreading whats necessary for intelligent life to form. We've been to the Moon and Mars (so they say) and therefore we have already spread living organisms to those places. Just imagine how many planets may have been visited by aliens that have several billion years head start on us! For all we know there maybe beings out there who have spent millions or even billions of years seeding other planets. We might be one of their planets!

Concerning the radio signals. The inverse law may only apply to us because we dont yet have the ability to overcome it.