Posted on 01/24/2010 4:40:53 PM PST by Mount Athos
Mr Marek Kukula, public astronomer at the Royal Observatory in Greenwich warned: "We might like to assume that if there is intelligent life out there it is wise and benevolent, but of course we have no evidence for this.
"Given the consequences of contact may not be what we initially hoped for, then we need governments and the UN to get involved in any discussions," he told The Sunday Times.
This week a two-day conference is being held at the Royal Society in London, titled, 'The detection of extraterrestrial life and the consequences for science and society.'
There is also an astrobiology conference in Texas in April at which new methods of detecting aliens will be discussed.
Douglas Vakoch, director of interstellar message composition at the Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence (SETI) Institute in California, told the paper: "My personal view is that being more active is a worthy strategy. There is more serious talk of it, though not at the institute level."
Professor Simon Conway Morris, a Cambridge University evolutionary biologist, will be talking at the Royal Society on 'Predicting what extraterrestrial life will be like – and preparing for the worst."
He thought that, given that the principles of Darwinian evolution should be universal, it was "inevitable" that intelligent life would have developed elsewhere in the universe given the right environmental conditions.
"If that is correct – and it applied to manipulative skill – then that suggests there should be alien technologies," he said.
Some scientists are puzzled as to why no messages have been sent back even though humans have been transmitting radio and television signals for the last century.
Prof Conway Morris reasoned that if he were in their shoes "I'm not sure I'd answer the telephone."
(Excerpt) Read more at telegraph.co.uk ...
Interstellar travellers will probably be mechanical/AI with no moral base. Life forms may not mean anymore to them than a virus does to us. Not needing air water etc. lets non living beings a hugh advantage in interstellar travel. They’ll simply be looking for supplies.
Not necessarily, Einstein and Niels Bohr might have hit on the answer - making interstellar travel very fast indeed.
Einstein's way - Bending the fabric of space time and then letting it snap back. You can cover vast distances if you have enough power and it can appear to exceed the speed of light for someone who only has access to linear travel and chemical rockets. This also eliminates the near certainty of eventually hitting some space debris or meteorite in space.
Niels Boehr - Stipulated that all matter can exist as particles or waves. This would not solve the problem of the light speed barrier, but theoretically you and your craft would have zero mass.
With regard to matter behaving as either particles or waves, we already do something like this with fiber-optic communications... the light passing through the fibers behave like particles - not waves - they do not interfere with one another, and come out the other end in the same order they went in...
For a race that has mastered interstellar travel and the energy requirements of such, the only thing we and/or our planet could possibly offer them is fresh or novel DNA.
EXCELLENT POST.
And, in the last year, it has come out . . . an important detail not disclosed before . . .
THE CRITTERS HAVE DEMONSTRATED THE CAPACITY TO
CHANGE THE TARGETING OF OUR MISSLE NUKES.
I don't know if that was in/on the ground or in flight or both. Would not be very fun if they changed the target address from Moscow or . . . to . . . Miami or Los Angeles.
Interesting times, for sure.
Interesting.
Thanks.
Well worth watching videos . . .
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bizcYuLvZG4
without sequence numbers, sadly.
Improbability does not equate to impossibility.
The thing is, with regards to the universe and physics - (IMHO) we don't know, what we don't know.
Regardless, I've always had an uneasy feeling about sending up flares and declaring - 'hey, we're over here' - based upon nothing more but the hope of benevolence in whomever/whatever might hear it.
Because we all know how competant the UN is!!!
Hence my use of the word "improbable".
One fact is certain: if they exist — whatever their nature — their interests and ours will not be the same.
Wheeeee.
Supposedly we taste like chicken, to them.
Note: this topic is from 1/24/2010.Thanks Mount Athos.
 |
||
| · join · view topics · view or post blog · bookmark · post new topic · subscribe · | ||
| Google news searches: exoplanet · exosolar · extrasolar · | ||
Great video.
“It’s a cookbook!”
According to current social theory, any species that is able to travel to the stars is also able to destroy itself, and any species that can destroy itself, will, unless it learns very quickly how to deal with its own less pleasant aspects.
We think it's unlikely that you will meet a star-faring species that is aggressive, violent, bigoted, or crazy with greed. But all our theories are based on a sample of one, and we may not be as nice as we think we are.;-)
It’s a nice summation.
“Inherit the Stars” has an interesting take on it as well.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.