Should Humanity Try to Contact Intelligent Aliens?

[astr0144]

Should Humanity Try to Contact Intelligent Aliens?

Astronomers have detected nearly 2,000 alien planets to date. As that number continues to rise, so too does the prospect of finding intelligent extraterrestrial life.

In terms of the search for extraterrestrial intelligence (SETI), it may no longer be a matter of answering the "are we alone" question, some scientists say. Rather, just how crowded is the universe?

And if ET is out there, it may be possible to reach out with direct "radio waving" to potentially habitable exoplanets. This form of cosmic cryptography, called "Active SETI," involves no longer merely listening for a signal but purposefully broadcasting to, and perhaps establishing contact with, other starfolk. [13 Ways to Hunt Intelligent Alien Life]

Active SETI sounds like science fiction, but some astronomers are discussing it seriously today. The idea is, as it has been in the past, a controversial, hot-button issue, with some researchers wary of sending signals out to touch base with intelligent aliens.

Work in progress

"It's a subject of discussion, I'll put it that way," said Seth Shostak, senior astronomer at the SETI Institute in Mountain View, Calif. There have been many workshops and symposia over the years to discuss Active SETI, he said, and because it has a highly emotional component, "it's like a third rail in a way," he said.

Shostak told Space.com that he feels the topic is not something to worry too much about.

"But there may not be that perception in the broader public ... that we have discussed this to death. They haven't seen these discussions nor participated in them," he said.

But exoplanet detections are making news around the world, Shostak said. "That's putting the whole question of life in space in front of the public in a way that perhaps wasn't true 20 years ago."

Still, trying to figure out what's the best thing to do, in terms of Active SETI, is a work in progress, Shostak said. "What is the best way to communicate? What do you do...just ping them with a carrier wave and you encode Wikipedia? If you are going to do it, what's the best way to communicate?"


Long shot

A few years ago, renowned British astrophysicist Stephen Hawking suggested that communicating with ET could be a threat to Earth.

While it's likely alien life exists, Hawking said, a visit to Earth by other starfolk might turn ugly, akin to when Christopher Columbus landed in America. That didn't turn out so well for the Native Americans, he said.

"Hawking stirred things up a few years ago saying we shouldn't broadcast our existence because the outcome might be bad for us," said Chris Impey, deputy head of the astronomy department at the University of Arizona in Tucson. He co-edited the 2013 book, "Encountering Life in the Universe: Ethical Foundations and Social Implications of Astrobiology."

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"He's right about our immaturity as a species," Impey told Space.com, "but I think the argument is moot since intelligent civilizations are likely to be so sparsely distributed that communication in either direction is difficult or unlikely."

Active SETI, Impey said, "makes us feel a little more proactive, but I think it's a long shot worse than buying a lottery ticket."

For Impey, the "promising approach" is not conventional SETI or broadcasting, but detection of civilizations by their energy or technology imprints, "and that avoids all the issues of intention and communication and the anthropocentric tangle people get into with that." [The Search for Intelligent Life: 4 Key Questions (Video)]

Great unsolved mysteries

Adding his voice to the Active SETI dialogue is Steven Dick, the Baruch S. Blumberg NASA/Library of Congress Chair in Astrobiology at the Kluge Center in Washington, D.C.

"I am for passive SETI programs, and in fact would advocate for renewed government funding after a 20-year lapse," Dick told Space.com. "That's because the existence of extraterrestrial intelligence is one of the great unsolved mysteries of science.".

Dick said that the current NASA astrobiology hunt is centered on microbes, but surely there should be an effort to go beyond micro-organisms and search for complex life with whatever means are available.

"On the other hand, I would not propose government funding for messaging extraterrestrial intelligence. I think we need to find ET first, and then have a period where a team consisting of scientists, social scientists and humanities people consider what the message should be," Dick said.

Different alien minds

However, Dick is not at all sanguine that communication with ET is possible. He thinks we underestimate how different alien minds can be compared to ours — even their science and mathematics.

And that might account for the Fermi paradox, Dick said. That paradox, attributed to physicist Enrico Fermi, is the apparent contradiction between the high probability that extraterrestrial civilizations exist and the lack of contact with such civilizations. Hence, Fermi's 1950 lunchtime query to colleagues: "Where is everybody?" [5 Bold Claims of Alien Life]

"Having said that, it would be very difficult to regulate individual or institutional projects that wish to attempt messaging extraterrestrial intelligence, and I would not advocate attempting to regulate," Dick said. In his opinion, there is an equal chance that ET will be good or bad.

"We do not yet know enough about the evolution of altruism on Earth, much less among other possible intelligent life forms, to say ETs will all be good," Dick said. "That is a hope rather than a fact."

http://news.yahoo.com/humanity-try-contact-intelligent-aliens-225505802.html

[Sinny]

Stephen Hawking says NO! lol

[rdunk]

astro144 that is a deeeeeeeeeeep................space question!

We are talking light-years of comm travel distance, both ways - sending out the comm signals, and getting responses back.

I personally do not think the SETI research to be much more than people drawing funding, with SETI being the excuse for it. I talked with Seth Shostak directly by email last year, and he did not impress me as having much interest in finding alien life. I would not waste my time in talking with him on this subject.

If there were going to be such a search, it needs to be done by people who have a broad interest in it.

Just one of the reasons I believe SETI to be a farce is, there seems to be no like interest from that Berkley group to finding what has been/is evidenced within our own solar system! Mars is fraught with evidence of civilized life that has been recorded by the many different scanning operations by NASA of the planet. The Mars Orbiters and the Mars surface rover cameras have clearly shown this evidence. Yet neither Seti, nor any other institution of educational respect, seem to have any interested in really finding alien life/proof of alien life, because they seem to simply ignore the Mars photo facts.

One of the charts I have looked at shows 54 stars within a 16 light-year radius distance of our Sun - simply just a list of the stars closest to us. The closest star is a little over 4 light-years from the Sun. ~~~~~~~~                                                                         

[The Seeker]

SETI is a dog and pony show for the masses...

just as there will be no official disclosure of anything E T  beyond what has already been put out there by the great pretenders in film land...

too much at stake for the PTB and the money grubbers...

and Seth Shostack is just another gate keeper doing what he is appointed to do...

just my 2 pesos, y'all...


seeker

[Norval]

SETI is a dog and pony show for the masses...

just as there will be no official disclosure of anything E T  beyond what has already been put out there by the great pretenders in film land...

too much at stake for the PTB and the money grubbers...

and Seth Shostack is just another gate keeper doing what he is appointed to do...

just my 2 pesos, y'all...


seeker

Right on, , 

I accept the evidence that there are ETI's, even here amongst us now, and have been all down through history. Some you would want for a neighbor, some NOT! Just like us. Religitards and racistards will have to change their ways, or be eliminated. Disclosure will soon happen, what will YOU do? Fight them? Or, learn their ways?

The choice is yours.  Read YOUR Bibles! 

[deuem]

The choice is yours.  Read YOUR Bibles!

Is there a book of Aliens I missed the first time? 

[Norval]

Is there a book of Aliens I missed the first time?