Why do we assume extraterrestrials might want to visit us? • Hacker News Board

Re: Why do we assume extraterrestrials might want to visit us?

#31

Post by PartiallyTyped » Thu, Jan 21, 2021, 2:15 PM UTC

hans1729 wrote: post #3

nend wrote: post #2

>We may be a phenomenon as uninteresting to them as ants are to us; after all, when we’re walking down the sidewalk we rarely if ever examine every ant along our path. Not really the most convincing argument. There are professions that study ants. And I'm sure I'm not the only person on this forum that has a casual interest in observing ants. Pretty sure aliens would still be interested in us even if we were as primi…

Ants are interesting because of the complex behavioral systems emerging from their comparatively simple biological systems, reminiscent of the game of life. Seeing the insane complexity of the human condition (look at the amount of scientific disciplines we come up with) and thinking "nay, this won't be interesting to a higher mind" feels awfully dismissive. sure, depending on the leap of sophistication we may appear…

To be fair to rocks, we also study them ...

Re: Why do we assume extraterrestrials might want to visit us?

#32

Post by gmuslera » Thu, Jan 21, 2021, 2:16 PM UTC

Assuming how a different species, with different biology and a far more advanced technology than us, should think is naive.

There is another approach for it. Or what we know about the universe is basically true (and we can't travel faster than ligth, nor do something that, I don't know, turns all our galaxy into 2D or triggering the big rip) or if we keep advancing we could do something that threatens something that is very far away. In the latter case close enough civilizations may worry about what we do, and be in a dark forest universe (ok, here I'm assuming how they should think here too). But for that to have any meaning we should be in an universe where the speed of light is not the ultimate limit in any meaningful way, and so far we know, we don't.

Re: Why do we assume extraterrestrials might want to visit us?

#33

Post by b112 » Thu, Jan 21, 2021, 2:16 PM UTC

bluGill wrote: post #15

lifeisstillgood wrote: post #5

I'm writing a kids story (with my son, its quite fun to discuss the story and plan the laser fights) about an alien that is visiting earth to complete his Alien PhD - I am going to get some sarcastic jibe about backwaters and wasting years away from any decent fun etc. I think we might consider that level of interest lucky. :-)

With the speed of light being as slow as it is, that Alien must be very long lived to consider such a trip. The PhD should start observing the dinosaurs and for lack of enough data continue on to humans.

The presumption that "today we know precisely how the universe works, and therefore, all stories must follow this mindset", is odd here.

Would you insist that Newtonian physics was the Only Way to Think of Things, prior to Einsteinian? Why, then, do you presume this will remain static forever? And therefore, suggest that a story should follow this logic?

Re: Why do we assume extraterrestrials might want to visit us?

#34

Post by sandworm101 » Thu, Jan 21, 2021, 2:16 PM UTC

Is there a single animal on planet earth that doesn't get the occasional visit from an interested human? From deep sea squid to albatross, someone eventually arrives for a chat. There must be the extraterrestrial equivalent of Attenborough out there somewhere.

Re: Why do we assume extraterrestrials might want to visit us?

#35

Post by cortic » Thu, Jan 21, 2021, 2:16 PM UTC

>The silence implied by Fermi's paradox (“Where is everybody?”) may mean that we are not the most attention-worthy cookies in the jar.

I've always thought of Fermi's paradox as ultimately a math problem, assuming a conservative amount of time between a civilization in one star system colonizing a neighboring star system, over billions of years every star system in the galaxy should be colonized by now.

The fact that we are not getting signals from the considerable number of stars that are within a reasonable distance is concerning. It does point to a great filter that we are not seeing or understanding. Or at least an enormous misconception about our universe.

Re: Why do we assume extraterrestrials might want to visit us?

#36

Post by rbanffy » Thu, Jan 21, 2021, 2:16 PM UTC

kypro wrote: post #23

nend wrote: post #2

>We may be a phenomenon as uninteresting to them as ants are to us; after all, when we’re walking down the sidewalk we rarely if ever examine every ant along our path. Not really the most convincing argument. There are professions that study ants. And I'm sure I'm not the only person on this forum that has a casual interest in observing ants. Pretty sure aliens would still be interested in us even if we were as primi…

It's also not true that the only time ants come into contact with humans is when they're being observed. Even if aliens were uninterested in us, it wouldn't necessarily mean we'd expect not to see any signs of alien life. In the same way an ant might stumble across a human building or notice a human above the grass, you would think if life was so prevalent in our galaxy that there would be some sign of their technolo…

I wouldn't expect any given alien culture to be easily detectable and/or willing to make large scale objects we could detect.

I would, however, expect at least one such civilization would develop within our detection range. As our range increases, both in distance and in breadth, chances should get increasingly better.

Re: Why do we assume extraterrestrials might want to visit us?

#37

Post by philliphaydon » Thu, Jan 21, 2021, 2:17 PM UTC

nend wrote: post #2

>We may be a phenomenon as uninteresting to them as ants are to us; after all, when we’re walking down the sidewalk we rarely if ever examine every ant along our path. Not really the most convincing argument. There are professions that study ants. And I'm sure I'm not the only person on this forum that has a casual interest in observing ants. Pretty sure aliens would still be interested in us even if we were as primi…

I subscribe to Ant Canada on YouTube. Fascinating stuff.

https://youtube.com/user/AntsCanada

Re: Why do we assume extraterrestrials might want to visit us?

#38

Post by bluGill » Thu, Jan 21, 2021, 2:19 PM UTC

teekert wrote: post #7

nend wrote: post #2

>We may be a phenomenon as uninteresting to them as ants are to us; after all, when we’re walking down the sidewalk we rarely if ever examine every ant along our path. Not really the most convincing argument. There are professions that study ants. And I'm sure I'm not the only person on this forum that has a casual interest in observing ants. Pretty sure aliens would still be interested in us even if we were as primi…

Indeed, Ants do some pretty fascinating stuff, TIL we have stuff like "Ant colony optimization algorithms" [0]. Even if we are as the aliens were 2 millions years ago, there must be something of interest in what we do? I mean, we'd be interested in life 2 billion years ago. I find it more likely that they just don't want to interfere. [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ant_colony_optimization_algori...

Perhaps, but I think it is far more likely they can't overcome the limits of the speed of light to do any useful observing. They can't cross the distance to observe us, even robots take so long to arrive that their star dies before it gets here (not to mention our star was still forming when they sent the probe out...)

They cannot observe us directly, light just doesn't have that resolution at the distance. They can't observe our radio waves because our radio waves are only 100 light years out, not to mention the signal strength fades with distance.

Re: Why do we assume extraterrestrials might want to visit us?

#39

Post by PartiallyTyped » Thu, Jan 21, 2021, 2:19 PM UTC

imglorp wrote: post #21

The hard fact is there are no shortcuts to interstellar travel, barring new physics. Any trip will consume vast amounts of energy and it will take decades if not centuries or longer. Advanced tech may reduce the expense to your civilization but the fact won't change. While all life, ants or not, may be universally worthy of study, is it worth that much sacrifice? Also, if the ants talk, exchanging messages would make…

There is a paper that suggests we could, in theory, direct the sun itself towards something while we continued to live as we normally do with little to no change in our lives until we arrived at our destination. This does not effectively cost as much, but it will take a lot of time.

https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S00945...

Re: Why do we assume extraterrestrials might want to visit us?

#40

Post by b112 » Thu, Jan 21, 2021, 2:19 PM UTC

cnity wrote: post #25

imglorp wrote: post #21

The hard fact is there are no shortcuts to interstellar travel, barring new physics. Any trip will consume vast amounts of energy and it will take decades if not centuries or longer. Advanced tech may reduce the expense to your civilization but the fact won't change. While all life, ants or not, may be universally worthy of study, is it worth that much sacrifice? Also, if the ants talk, exchanging messages would make…

> barring new physics Our understanding of physics changes constantly!

Indeed.

So many seem to exude the concept that "today we know precisely how the universe works".

Would one insist that Newtonian physics was the Only Way to Think of Things, prior to Einsteinian? While the speed of light may remain a barrier, it may not. Presuming the ability to be reached by a society which likely possesses scientific knowledge beyond ours, is to be a Roman, and presume the sun travels around the Earth, that the 4 aethers exist, and become angered otherwise.