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

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

#271

Post by randycupertino » Thu, Jan 21, 2021, 8:37 PM UTC

Archelaos wrote: post #160

7thaccount wrote: post #122

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How did you know they were edible? I mean, I know people eat snails in certain parts, but how did you know these were safe?

In Germany I only ever eat helix pomatia[1]. Nowadays, they are under nature protection. Only the consumption of cultivated snails is allowed. They are related to mussels and taste similar. I can especially recommend snail cream soup. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Helix_pomatia

I used to think I loved escargot but it turns out I actually just loved them as a delivery vessel for garlic, butter and cheese.

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

#272

Post by GistNoesis » Thu, Jan 21, 2021, 8:42 PM UTC

htfu wrote: post #161

GistNoesis wrote: post #130

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Rules of the universe appear to us relatively simple. But the question of numerical stability is not solved specially for later times. In physics it is natural to start from an initial state and integrate through time, starting from initial time and evolving by time-stepping. Physics helps but this doesn't prevent the emergence of numerical instabilities like a big-computer being built. So if you were running a unive…

And why exactly would someone go to all this trouble instead of just throttling that region of space? Surely you don't mean to say it would all run on a single chip? And if this was a simulation there'd presumably be a purpose to it and once heavy computation emerges the entity running the sim would throw more resources at this interesting phenomenon, not try to get rid of it. It'd be like "each time the neural net a…

It's not so easy to contain life. Potentially it can send information at light-speed and your whole universe become infested with a boring paper-clip AGI. Throttling will create problems at the boundaries for the conserved quantities, and for reproducibility.

But the mechanism I suggest, is a rather elegant (chaos resistant) way to allow to give control over a deterministic universe simulation without having to restart from the beginning, it is akin to re-rolling the dices if you don't like the result.

It is a somewhat natural way to search for the initial configuration of the universe. It present some nice properties. For example you can archive a whole universe by its seed. Which allows many more interesting search strategies. Like in chess you can create variations to guide the search towards region which are of interests for you.

I'd like to entertain the idea, that Bottled Universe Inc. , has to ship some Tera-Year old universes by Xmas. They have created plenty of variations in the universes and selected one just for you. You plug the seed, and you are guaranteed to see the emergence of beautiful universe when you run it inside your less powerful computer-brain.

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

#273

Post by blackrock » Thu, Jan 21, 2021, 8:59 PM UTC

Because. We fear they’re going to probe us.

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

#274

Post by klmadfejno » Thu, Jan 21, 2021, 9:21 PM UTC

jjk166 wrote: post #251

klmadfejno wrote: post #177

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Hmm... If there was an earth 2, with the exact same properties, and a population of human lookalikes at the exact same level of tech as us, how far away would they need to be for us to have not detected them by now assuming we rolled a 10 for our perception check?

The Very Large Array (VLA) could pick up a broadcast from a geostationary communications satellite at a distance of 0.14 lightyears. The planned Square Kilometer Array (SKA) would be able to pick up the same signal within 500 lightyears. A radio telescope with detectors on opposite sides of the earth could pick such signals up from 2000 light years away. The nearest 2000 lightyears make up 0.16% of the milky way gala…

Hmm that's an interesting way to think of it. At 0.16%, assuming uniform distribution of detectable aliens and none detected in that range, that would estimate an upper bound of 625 alien species in the milky way. That does feel kind of lonely.

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

#275

Post by kwdc » Thu, Jan 21, 2021, 9:30 PM UTC

When a species finally figures out how to create a suitable container to put on the top of a pile of explosives in order to travel I think they are worth further investigation.

That and our current ability to create nuclear weapons and then (mostly) not use them. For now at least. This skill hasn't been mastered yet. But we're still young.

Worth taking a look at.

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

#276

Post by 3395810 » Thu, Jan 21, 2021, 9:35 PM UTC

ojosilva wrote: post #181

3395810 wrote: post #16

I assume that any culture that is capable of developing interstellar flight will have a high degree of curiosity. We humans study even the most "mundane" life forms on our planet and try to study the rest of the universe outside of our planet. That is why I think extraterrestrials would want to make contact with us. > We may be a phenomenon as uninteresting to them as ants are to us; after all, when we’re walking dow…

Interstellar flight alone is not of interest. OTOH, it would allow earthlings to become visitors. Commerce. If we use our experience as a basis here, this is the #1 interest that would lure alien explorers to this neck of the woods. Commerce is what got us to cross the Atlantic: looking for routes, buyers, suppliers, riches and land. All science-first approach ("they should come to study us") is so 20th century utopi…

Earth isn't really unique in terms of resources. It wouldn't really make sense to travel to another solar system just to get resource that you could obtain in your own. Even if they lack something in their own solar system, they could get it from other uninhabited solar systems without needing to trade locals. Ideas are what could be valuable in trade. If it is them visiting us rather than the other way around odds are they have more advanced technology than us so that isn't something they would need to trade. Our culture, what we sent on Voyaer, seems like it would be of the most interest to them. They might have entirely different senses than us (lacking sight, seeing different frequnecies, hearing different frequencies) that would make our "culture" something that wouldn't be enjoyed directly by them. Really as I see it, scientific interest is the one thing that would make them want to contact us.

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

#277

Post by jjk166 » Thu, Jan 21, 2021, 10:06 PM UTC

klmadfejno wrote: post #274

jjk166 wrote: post #251

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The Very Large Array (VLA) could pick up a broadcast from a geostationary communications satellite at a distance of 0.14 lightyears. The planned Square Kilometer Array (SKA) would be able to pick up the same signal within 500 lightyears. A radio telescope with detectors on opposite sides of the earth could pick such signals up from 2000 light years away. The nearest 2000 lightyears make up 0.16% of the milky way gala…

Hmm that's an interesting way to think of it. At 0.16%, assuming uniform distribution of detectable aliens and none detected in that range, that would estimate an upper bound of 625 alien species in the milky way. That does feel kind of lonely.

That would be 625 species with radio technology at approximately the same level as ours. Presumably as technology progresses, their transmitters and receivers improve whereas the distance over which they communicate stays relatively constant and thus their output power should decrease. It's also possible a more advanced civilization uses other communication methods, for example optical fiber might render satellite communications totally obsolete.

Further the 0.16% is the fraction of the galactic disk area, not stars. Also note that the 0.16% is the region we could sweep with a theoretical telescope that we might be able to build in the near future, not the region we've actually surveyed thus far.

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

#278

Post by jjk166 » Thu, Jan 21, 2021, 10:32 PM UTC

karaterobot wrote: post #266

jjk166 wrote: post #233

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> It's not asking why they haven't contacted us, it's asking why we can't see them Space is vast. The strength of communication signals drops off quickly with distance. All life is subject to the laws of thermodynamics. The Fermi paradox was proposed in 1950 during a time of rapid growth and empire. At that time, radio communications were powerful, and it seemed like they would only get more powerful as our civilizat…

Upvoted for a thoughtful response, but I want to be clear that I'm not saying the Fermi paradox is valid or even useful. What I'm saying is that the author of the original article argued that the paradox assumes humans are fascinating to other species, when it makes no such assumption. There may be many reasons to dismiss the Fermi paraxox, but the one he leans on the most heavily is a non sequitor.

But the whole point is that it does implicitly make that assumption. The fermi paradox is a paradox if and only if we would actually expect to see evidence of aliens. We would only expect to see evidence of aliens if they are actively trying to communicate with us. All other scenarios would require us to be extremely lucky (in which case there is no conflict with our lack of observation and thus no paradox).

If we assume that humans are fascinating, the fermi paradox is valid, if there is no interest in interacting with humans than the fermi paradox is invalid. The discussion is not a non-sequitur, it is the crux of the issue.

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

#279

Post by stereoabuse » Thu, Jan 21, 2021, 11:03 PM UTC

This author has also proposed that the solar system has already been visited:

"‘Oumuamua may be a fully operational probe sent intentionally to Earth vicinity by an alien civilization."[0] The rest of the paper covers the possibility that the ‘Oumuamua object was sent unintentionally to Earth vicinity by an alien civilization.

[0] https://arxiv.org/pdf/1810.11490.pdf

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

#280

Post by lisper » Thu, Jan 21, 2021, 11:17 PM UTC

blueblisters wrote: post #214

lisper wrote: post #166

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It is important to remember when analyzing such things that evolution does not optimize the reproductive fitness of organisms, it optimizes the reproductive fitness of genes. Organisms are a side-effect, a result of the fact that cooperation often provides a competitive advantage [1]. But evolution neither knows nor cares about civilization. It just so happens that, at the moment here on earth, genes that build brain…

Isn't all of modern healthcare an example of civilization being in active conflict with evolution? If "weaker" genes are not eliminated as often, we have effectively ruled out natural selection of survivalist traits.

It's a little more complicated than that. "Strong" and "weak" is not the right way to characterize genes. There is only "better and worse at reproducing in a particular environment." At the moment, our genes are in an environment where health care is available, so there are genes that are able to reproduce in that environment which might not be so good in a different environment.

Also, we are not entirely at odds with our genes. Obviously the relationship is symbiotic to a large extent, because we can't exist without our genes and vice versa. But our brains can want things that are bad for our genes, and vice versa.