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Astronomers want public funds for intelligent life search

bbc.co.uk

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Re: Astronomers want public funds for intelligent life search

#91

Post by thefounder »

valgor wrote: post #48

I think some commenters are forgetting how science is done. Just because you are researching X does not mean your only output is X. An investment into SETI is an investment in science and technology. All the arguments on this forum about why we should not allocate funds to SETI can be used in the same manner for why we should not investment in pure mathematics or any other potentially "useless" human endeavor. SETI r…

>> What could fundamentally change humanity more than definitively finding intelligent life out there?

Achieving "relative" immortality

Re: Astronomers want public funds for intelligent life search

#92

Post by mattkrause »

Nasrudith wrote: post #89
mattkrause wrote: post #78

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Fundamental physics or esoteric math are ... most intellectually demanding of all Trying to rank the sciences by "hardness" is silly and counterproductive. Biology gets blown off as "stamp collecting", but it turns out to be frightfully hard in its own way. Look at this "map" of biochemical pathways from Roche: http://biochemical-pathways.com/#/map/1 It's a stupendously complicated dynamical system! This is just pa…

Hardness is useful bur in English is a misleading synonym. Hard science is more quantitative and has more rigor in terms of hard proof and mathematical models and less room for fuzziness. "Soft" science is fuzzier with more qualitative elements. It doesn't necessarily mean less difficult. Another distinction is that the level of tools limits things. Say studying color before and after the ability to analyze wavelengt…

Can you explain the usefulness?

From my perspective, it's a term, coined by a 19th century philosopher, that gets dragged out by people with physics envy.

Modern biology, for example, is incredibly quantitative: molecular biologists collect massive genomics datasets, neuroscientists record from hundreds of sites in the brain, and ecologists, whom everyone thinks of as flannel-clad outdoorsmen, fit sophisticated statistical models. Psychology is getting there too, especially if you're willing to lump in related industries like advertising: Google and Facebook have massive datasets on people's activities and preferences.

It's true that these fields have had less success with mathematical modeling, but you also have to look at the sheer number of interacting variables vs the ~10 terms in Maxwell's equations. It's possible that the underlying phenomena might often just be irreducibly complex, as this perspective argues: (preprint: https://www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1101/764258v3 and was just published in Neuron).

Re: Astronomers want public funds for intelligent life search

#93

Post by aSplash0fDerp »

ianai wrote: post #39
aSplash0fDerp wrote: post #12

I crunched for years on seti@home at the turn of the century and have always been a fan of the project. It makes sense to increased research funding now that they have a long list of newly discovered planets to target, but what other scientific endeavors do they retire to open up any meaningful government funding? With trillion dollar deficits in the forecast, earmarking new money does not sound like an easy task to…

Ok so I’m calling bluff on the trillion dollar deficits hyperbole. This is a cudgel argument used without any deep exposition against $subjectiveBadIdea. We live in a financial world where banks magic up funds all the time and nobody bats an eye, but governments can’t do it for projects? Further, imagine trying to calculate the added GDP for all of a nations infrastructure over the years its existed and been in use f…

Well, sans magic wand, I guess they could try to sell Alien Scout Cookies to try to fund the SETI field.

You could probably sum up much of your statement as self-sabotage, since that seems like all the rage nowadays (politically and monetarily speaking).

Re: Astronomers want public funds for intelligent life search

#94

Post by pozdnyshev »

thefounder wrote: post #91
valgor wrote: post #48

I think some commenters are forgetting how science is done. Just because you are researching X does not mean your only output is X. An investment into SETI is an investment in science and technology. All the arguments on this forum about why we should not allocate funds to SETI can be used in the same manner for why we should not investment in pure mathematics or any other potentially "useless" human endeavor. SETI r…

>> What could fundamentally change humanity more than definitively finding intelligent life out there? Achieving "relative" immortality

Amazing that we can justify a search for little green men but not that everyone deserves healthcare

Re: Astronomers want public funds for intelligent life search

#95

Post by cletus »

mhh__ wrote: post #72
cletus wrote: post #67

I used to be a big fan of SETI but I've come around to thinking it's probably a complete waste of time. This will probably get dismissed as "optimistic futurism" but I find the argument compelling that the future of any civilization is a Dyson Swarm for many reasons such as: - Planets are inefficient uses of mass to create living area. IIRC 1% of the mass of Mercury could make enough living area from habitats to hous…

What do you actually think the IR spectrum would look like given that it would still be very close to a star that could potentially already saturate the measurement?

So the telltale sign is a significant IR source with little to no visible light. Assuming the star is sufficiently encompassed by the swarm then it's still outputting energy, the swarm heats up and it needs to radiate that heat away. So a stellar level IR source that isn't visible is pretty weird.

And if you wonder if the Swarm uses all the light such that little escapes, that's the whole point. Think of it like a fog. A fog can block light with a sufficiently large number of tiny water droplets but it isn't strictly "solid".

Re: Astronomers want public funds for intelligent life search

#96

Post by lovemenot »

Razengan wrote: post #45
kilroy123 wrote: post #10

I often imagine there is something like "subspace" or faster-than-light communication, and species across our galaxy are a bunch of chatterboxes chatting away. The only problem is we don't know how to tune in to join the conversation. I still think we should keep trying to find them, though.

> I often imagine there is something like "subspace" or faster-than-light communication, and species across our galaxy are a bunch of chatterboxes chatting away. I like to imagine, for the science fiction that I might write, a hypothetical phenomenon that allows instantaneous communication between two points (objects/particles/portals) but only after they have been "synced" or "bound" with each other, which must be d…

That's interesting. You could call your story Spooky Action. The Spooky channel need not be used exclusively by so-called advanced civilisations. In fact there are species on Earth now that are known to interact in evolutionarily useful ways with quantum effects. Of course, if Spooky is just entanglement the modem would be destroyed upon a single use. However, there could be an effectively unlimited supply of them occurring naturally.

This feels more feasible than SETI's hypothesis. Space was much smaller and was probably at just the right temperature to support life at a very early stage of the Universe.

Re: Astronomers want public funds for intelligent life search

#97

Post by Mirioron »

RobertoG wrote: post #15
Mirioron wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think it isn't so easy to say that what the US military does is a waste of your money. A lot of US foreign policy is about "free trade" that's beneficial to the US. If you were to cut off the US military then you'd likely have consequences for global trade. Perhaps you're right that it's a waste of your money, but I think that this is not at all a straightforward conclusion. Eg imagine if Iran just decided to stop…

What USA war was about "free trade"? and why Iran would stop oil shipments, its main export product?

The Cold War was essentially about trade. And it's not that Iran would stop all oil shipments forever. They'd stop some shipments that are related to certain countries that they don't like as a political move.

Re: Astronomers want public funds for intelligent life search

#98

Post by Mirioron »

opless wrote: post #21
bigyikes wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Are you prepared to rely on foreign governments protecting your interests? And what happens if those countries you mentioned adopt the same mindset?

I'm quite happy with the two UK Navy frigates patrolling the area. The UK has a significantly smaller defence budget than the USA does. Which kinda proves my point.

And the UK can do that because the UK is willing to rely on the US. Now that relations with the US are straining in the West other western countries are increasing their military spending/cooperation. (Eg EU army.)

Re: Astronomers want public funds for intelligent life search

#99

Post by opless »

Mirioron wrote: post #98
opless wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm quite happy with the two UK Navy frigates patrolling the area. The UK has a significantly smaller defence budget than the USA does. Which kinda proves my point.

And the UK can do that because the UK is willing to rely on the US. Now that relations with the US are straining in the West other western countries are increasing their military spending/cooperation. (Eg EU army.)

Sorry, but according to news sources a coalition of non-US vessels are doing the bulk of patrols out there in the strait of Hormuz whilst the US is only seemingly wanting to lend 'command and control' style support.

Elsewhere the UK assists the US in Syria and Afghanistan. It's not the other way around.

But feel free to tell me how great the american way of doing things is. What with fantastic provision of basic healthcare for its citizens, and sensible gun control oh yes and affordable education.

Re: Astronomers want public funds for intelligent life search

#100

Post by rs23296008n1 »

rs23296008n1 wrote: post #25

The US hasn't even stabilised its environment, healthcare and any number of other important areas of basic human needs. Money for finding extra-terrestrial life would be better spent on earth fixing the mess. Or use it to get us to mars. At least that fits with a "plan B" since humans existing "only on earth" is still a bad idea. Same goes for moon exploration / asteroid mining. Good ideas. Raw resources shouldn't be…

Yecch. HN is toxic. I'm out for awhile.
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