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Stephen Hawking and Yuri Milner Announce $100M Initiative to Seek ET

scientificamerican.com

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Re: Stephen Hawking and Yuri Milner Announce $100M Initiative to Seek ET

#151

Post by adventured »

logingone wrote: post #148
sixQuarks wrote: post #125

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Elon Musk disagrees with that statement. He believes once intelligence gets beyond a certain threshold (which humans have), there are no such things that are beyond understanding. Most people don't know how to write complex math equations, but that doesn't mean they can't understand what mathematics is.

Elon Musk is an engineer, not a philosopher, and I stand to be persuaded, but I find using him to counter Michio Kaku ridiculous.

A philosopher would be the first to understand that no one is or can be excluded from the realm of ideas or thought.

Being a philosopher is not an extraordinary designation, such that it puts them beyond the mental abilities of someone of Elon's obvious mental aptitude.

Re: Stephen Hawking and Yuri Milner Announce $100M Initiative to Seek ET

#152

Post by mortenjorck »

Pigo wrote: post #106
agentgt wrote: post #99

One of my favorite topics is the Fermi Paradox and consequently the Great Filter (which someone already discussed). One of my favorite explanations is that there are other ET out there but they are two engrossed with their own entertainment to "give a fuck" ( https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fermi_paradox#They_tend_to_iso... ). I find it amusing and ironic while also seriously consider it a possibility. From wikipedia:…

That feels like too much assumption to me. The scenario described well by Michio Kaku is the only one that seems probable to me. "Lets say we have an ant hill in the middle of the forest. And right next to the ant hill, they're building a ten-lane super-highway. And the question is 'Would the ants be able to understand what a ten-lane super-highway is? Would the ants be able to understand the technology and the inten…

Then there's always the possibility that we're the superhighway builders and we can't see the ants. Could there be billions of worlds with life that have yet to (or more likely failed to) even evolve chordates?

What if the super-advanced aliens are us?

Re: Stephen Hawking and Yuri Milner Announce $100M Initiative to Seek ET

#153

Post by eloff »

Pigo wrote: post #106
agentgt wrote: post #99

One of my favorite topics is the Fermi Paradox and consequently the Great Filter (which someone already discussed). One of my favorite explanations is that there are other ET out there but they are two engrossed with their own entertainment to "give a fuck" ( https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fermi_paradox#They_tend_to_iso... ). I find it amusing and ironic while also seriously consider it a possibility. From wikipedia:…

That feels like too much assumption to me. The scenario described well by Michio Kaku is the only one that seems probable to me. "Lets say we have an ant hill in the middle of the forest. And right next to the ant hill, they're building a ten-lane super-highway. And the question is 'Would the ants be able to understand what a ten-lane super-highway is? Would the ants be able to understand the technology and the inten…

Understanding all the motivations for building a highway or how it is built may be beyond us currently, but we can still differentiate it from naturally occurring phenomena. All we're talking about here with the Fermi paradox is detecting evidence of intelligent life, not understanding their technology or motivations.

Re: Stephen Hawking and Yuri Milner Announce $100M Initiative to Seek ET

#154

Post by [deleted] »

agentgt wrote: post #99

One of my favorite topics is the Fermi Paradox and consequently the Great Filter (which someone already discussed). One of my favorite explanations is that there are other ET out there but they are two engrossed with their own entertainment to "give a fuck" ( https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fermi_paradox#They_tend_to_iso... ). I find it amusing and ironic while also seriously consider it a possibility. From wikipedia:…

[deleted]

Re: Stephen Hawking and Yuri Milner Announce $100M Initiative to Seek ET

#155

Post by rybosome »

rimantas wrote: post #126
nicboobees wrote: post #115

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Stadiums benefit millions of people. Jet fighters save lives. Finding out that there's water on mars, or some single cell organisms on pluto, does nothing apart from fill a few future text books.

With attitude like this we'd never have neither stadiums nor jet fighters.

Nailed it. That's why it matters - without a hunger for knowledge, our species would still be living in caves, pilfering scraps of flesh from carrion. Our desire to understand ourselves and the world we inhabit has lifted us out of the darkness.

Re: Stephen Hawking and Yuri Milner Announce $100M Initiative to Seek ET

#156

Post by nicboobees »

jessriedel wrote: post #112
nicboobees wrote: post #103

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So we find out there's some creatures on Pluto that are roughly the same as frogs. How does that impact anyones life? It'd be an interesting fact, and maybe fun if we could move some over here as pets, but beyond that, it's a colossal waste of energy and money.

Do you mean impacting their life materially? Why would it have to impact their life materially to be valuable? Sharing a joke with a friend at a bar doesn't have material benefit, but it's one of the valuable things in life.

If you're going to force people to pay money, through taxes, grants etc, to explore space, then it should have some material benefit.

Re: Stephen Hawking and Yuri Milner Announce $100M Initiative to Seek ET

#157

Post by nicboobees »

rybosome wrote: post #155
rimantas wrote: post #126

Earlier quoted context omitted.

With attitude like this we'd never have neither stadiums nor jet fighters.

Nailed it. That's why it matters - without a hunger for knowledge, our species would still be living in caves, pilfering scraps of flesh from carrion. Our desire to understand ourselves and the world we inhabit has lifted us out of the darkness.

I completely agree. But it's a pursuit individuals should pursue. If you want to go explore mars, go ahead! I'm sure it'd be great fun. But it should absolutely not be anything to do with public money, taxes, grants etc.

Leave it completely to rich people and companies to waste their money on.

Re: Stephen Hawking and Yuri Milner Announce $100M Initiative to Seek ET

#158

Post by tosseraccount »

stephengillie wrote: post #135
nicboobees wrote: post #115

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Stadiums benefit millions of people. Jet fighters save lives. Finding out that there's water on mars, or some single cell organisms on pluto, does nothing apart from fill a few future text books.

Since there IS water on Mars, then it's a lot more likely those future textbooks will be written there. Edit: corrections.

There is water on Mars. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Water_on_Mars

Re: Stephen Hawking and Yuri Milner Announce $100M Initiative to Seek ET

#159

Post by drzaiusapelord »

jahnu wrote: post #4

Hawking wants to find them, but seemingly not reveal ourselves... http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2010/apr/26/stephen...

So if every alien society has a Hawking mindset then no one will discover each other.

Re: Stephen Hawking and Yuri Milner Announce $100M Initiative to Seek ET

#160

Post by drzaiusapelord »

agentgt wrote: post #99

One of my favorite topics is the Fermi Paradox and consequently the Great Filter (which someone already discussed). One of my favorite explanations is that there are other ET out there but they are two engrossed with their own entertainment to "give a fuck" ( https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fermi_paradox#They_tend_to_iso... ). I find it amusing and ironic while also seriously consider it a possibility. From wikipedia:…

That seems unusually optimistic to me. Considering how much warfare human society has had and now that we have nuclear weapons and the endless brinkmanship of them, it seems the reasonable view here is that intelligent species probably just destroy themselves after a certain level of development. There is no Federation or aliens visiting because societies don't like that long due to a self-inflicted extinction event.

Let's remember that Castro was begging the Soviets for a nuclear strike against the US and Khrushchev had to fight off a Politburo that wanted nuclear war during the crisis.

I can't see any reason why this wouldn't happen. Bigger guns means bigger consquences and eventually you'll have a war with the biggest guns - nukes or biological or grey goo or whatever and life will end. Funny how the most obvious answer is almost the most horrifying, thus all the silly suggestions about aliens becoming VR addicts or trans-dimensional supermen or whatever.

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