Extraterrestrial Civilisations in our own Galaxy

originally posted by: quintessentone
And yet, some people just remote sense and connect without a problem, just saying.

Some citation will be great.

But let's say that we can remote sense and connect with some other humans on this planet or even with animals. How do we remote sense and connect with civilisations that are hundreds or thousands or even hundreds of thousands of light years away?? Given that our physiology is very likely to be completely different.

originally posted by: quintessentone
And yet, some people just remote sense and connect without a problem, just saying.

Can you name one of these people? Are you one?

A link was posted in another ATS thread which linked to something very interesting. The "Forgotten Languages" website is a mind bender. The characters who post are definitely interesting and probably above my pay grade!
Anyway, here's a snippet from the link:

forgottenlanguages-full.forgottenlanguages.org...

"The best contact strategy seems to be to leave artifacts awaiting for an emergent civilization to discover them as it becomes capable. What an advanced civilization would do would be to place long lasting artifacts in stellar systems such that, as intelligent life matures, the emergent civilization would reach a point in which it becomes capable of decoding the information in those artifacts. Denebian-probes could be the first in a long series of artifacts that comprise the so-called contact-chain"

ATS link to a post by Direne:

www.abovetopsecret.com...

Imagine probes positioned around the galaxy just waiting for someone to find them. Perhaps we're looking for the wrong evidence for life?

Deneb Algedi is a real star system, commonly known as Delta Capricorni.

a reply to: Phantom423
Buzz Aldrin was trying to stimulate some excitement about human space exploration and talked about the monolith on the Mars moon Phobos, saying in this video that some people are going to wonder "who put it there?" It is an interesting object whether natural or put there by an advanced civilization, but it's probably natural.



Astronomers have a saying. It’s Never Aliens—until It Is.

Far from being close-minded killjoys, most scientists in the “never aliens” camp desperately want to be convinced otherwise.

So they want to be convinced it's aliens (as do I), but so far the evidence is less than convincing (and if FL or anybody else has the holy grail of convincing evidence I have yet to find it).

a reply to: Arbitrageur

I agree with you in that the evidence is less than convincing; actually, the evidence presented so far operates in reverse: the more evidence is presented of alleged aliens, the more skepticism grows. The more people insist that UAPs are alien engines, the greater the skepticism and frustration among those who wish to believe, but never at all costs.

Avi Loeb is a classical case now, and a dangerous one due to the relevancy of his responsabilities.

But the idea of using astrostructures or orbital objects as a way to communicate with other civilizations is not new at all. The gold disks sent on Voyager and Pioneer spacecrafts are just that: an attempt to communicate symbolically. So I guess the idea of planting a monolith, or having an orbiting beacon around a given planet in order to establish communication with a civilization is not far-fetched.

In my view, the problem of contact between two civilizations which are biologically different can be approached only through symbolic exchange. But even in this situation I do not foresee any success because the objects exchanged during the intercourse are already plagued with the same problems one wishes to solve, namely: their nature will also be radically different, and so will be their perception. It is as if a lichen (an intelligent one) wanted to communicate with a hominid by exchanging spores...

My position is still that of hard denial. Communication, and not just detection of intelligent life forms, is the real problem.

The only opportunity humans had to fully study contact-derived problems and the problem of communicating with other intelligent species happened during the time in whcih Neanderthals and modern humans made contact and coexisted. The experiment failed, miserably.

Again, in my mind the crucial problem is interspecies communication.

a reply to: Arbitrageur

Yes, of course, scientists want hard, verifiable evidence. I think what FL is suggesting is that advanced civilizations may introduce themselves by placing different types of probes in the galaxy. We can't do that, but if we could, wouldn't be a bad idea to design probes with different types of encoded messages. The only thing we have out there is Voyager and no one has knocked on its door to my knowledge.

As far as I know, there's no convincing evidence about the existence of aliens. The Drake equation is interesting, but it has no data points (except us) to work with so it's meaningless. There's no reality to the probabilities the equation suggests.

That said, there's always the possibility that information is out there - and we just don't recognize it.

a reply to: Direne

I understand your point. But two species who have accomplished some form of interstellar travel have something in common. If we found a cube in space with symbols all over it, it would tell us something. That may be a rudimentary form of communication, but it's still communication. Interstellar travel suggests advanced intelligence. How advanced we don't know. But if we put stuff out there, even if it's only Voyager, other civilizations might have had the same idea.

I agree with your opinion of Avi Loeb. The guy wants to sell books and appear on television. Irresponsible and way out of line. His appearances merely undermine the real science.

a reply to: Phantom423

Yes, it is a communication. It is symbolic communication, which is a nice start. Byt I am even denying that possibility, unless convergent evolution does exist, which is still just a hypothesis. You need to wait for what life forms are found in other planets to start thinking about how likely convergent evolution is.

Finding an orbital cube with inscriptions will be as finding any other archaeological object on Earth, but the problem is that the chances to find an object which remotely looks like any human object is, as I see it, extremely low.

To start with, you cannot assume the aliens would have the same mindset and neural setup of humans, therefore written communication is most likely absent. Actually, no other species on Earth uses written language except for humans. Secondly, you cannot expect aliens to have a similar visual system, and their biology could be radically different, which implies the objects they could ever build must be totally alien to you.

Stargate and Star Trek are clearly presenting aliens which, tit for tat, are really humans. Weird as they want them, they are recognisable human beings, and I think that's not what you'll find out there. Manufacturing objects is something quite human-specific. No other species, on Earth, build objects, so I guess an intelligent alien insect would still build insect-like orbital structures, much as humans build clearly orbital habitats which are fully human-like.

And when the contact moment arrives, you'll face a totally alien being, and you yourself would be totally alien for them. Communication in that situation is really impossible. Not even exchanging symbolic objects would fill the gap because the crucial step -- understanding the semiotics of the object -- is also missing.

a reply to: Direne

I understand your point. And you may well be right. I just think that declaring something impossible puts us in a very negative position, even depressing. I'd rather have an open mind while relying on the hard science to analyze whatever we encounter or develop.

As I mentioned previously, it's about information transfer and how we accomplish it. The goal may not specifically be about communication with aliens. It could be on going research that produces novel ideas about communications. I just hate to say "never"!

Drake... pfft

Then where is everybody?

originally posted by: nonspecific
If it is abundant as you believe what would you say regarding the Fermi paradox?



a reply to: Asmodeus3

I'm an Aalientheist I don't believe in unseen things, that's silly.

Life is a two way street, why entertain the scientists in their delusions?

originally posted by: iamthevirus
Drake... pfft

Then where is everybody?

The Fermi Paradox is not a paradox after all if you consider the different physiologies intelligent species can have in different planets, the distances involved, the types of communication used, the fact that radio signals have an intensity that is inversely proportional to the square of the distance i.e obeying the inverse square law and hence signals become so weak that cannot be distinguished from the background noise, the possibility of extinction of many of these civilisations, and the fact that we are technologically primitive.

a reply to: Asmodeus3

Quantum Consciousness Entanglement.

Remember the joke that dubstep was aliens trying to communicate with us?

Maybe it was.

Music could be a universal language.

Mathmatics, frequencies, emotive qualities.

All capable of being transmitted in a quantum matrix across time and space, hitting the right brains at the right time.

Every musical genre/song/phenomena that transcends cultures and makes it's way worldwide has a Universal Constant.

a reply to: GENERAL EYES

What about deaf humans? Worse, what to do with humans in general, who have such a poor and limited auditory system that they only hear a really narrow spectrum of frequencies? Will the hear the rest of us?

a reply to: Asmodeus3

We have full observational abilities over the entire EM spectrum, everything is electromagnetism, radio waves are just a single aspect of it.

a reply to: Direne

Can you FEEL music?

The vibrations? The tones and frequencies?

I know I can feel the bass thumpers when they come by.

We had a deaf friend who used to come to our empty performances back when we were a fledgling garage band, and he could feel the music through the floor and air and just danced along happily. We were very loud and boisterious, but rhythmic, so he was able to pick up on the repetition.

Maybe there are more subtle energies these folks can pick up on as well, gentle vibrations of pure tones?

Hopefully not like the Thumpers, because that's kinda lame when you're trying to sleep...but maybe more calming frequencies that promote positive psychosocial associations and physical sensations like peace and well being?

a reply to: Direne

Another thread had me thinking about the things you've wrote the question was "give an example of an idea humans have had that's new?"

I considered writing and the afterlife as examples but the afterlife could be an abstract conclusion when considering life. Writing is derived from symbolism and I can't help but consider bear markings and dogs peeing on trees. I also have to consider cats with slit eyes and how they bury their faeces.

My conclusion although most likely ill-informed and poorly thought out, is that animals other than humans consider communication between species and that of their own. Surely that alludes to these 'human' constructs are just well defined reflections of what nature already does.

I do realise this is all Earthbound activity, probably related to that awesome conclusion that all communication boils down to "food or # off" always loved that one! What we know potentially means nothing when dealing with things so foreign.

Might have more luck focusing on what isn't new under the sun than working out what is.

You don't always need to actually see something to prove it's existence though.

There's lots of things we know are real but t have never seen.


a reply to: iamthevirus

a reply to: nonspecific

As long as the bulk of mainstream scientists remain outspoken professors of militant atheism I refuse to believe in their unseen aliens.

There is a mutuality to entertainment, if they won't entertain others notions then why should others entertain theirs?

and that's that...

a reply to: GENERAL EYES

Quantum Mechanics is Marxism, and that's where current science is.