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

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

#191

Post by oh_sigh »

nogridbag wrote: post #43

Please excuse my complete ignorance - this is something that continues to perplex me no matter how many times I hear it explained and I may sound like a complete idiot here. Can someone explain how this would work in layman's terms? Let's say that life on another planet 150 million billion miles away wanted to send us a message. So that's 25,000 light years away. They send us one single 1 minute duration message at t…

Due to the expansion of spacetime during those 25,000 years, we would have slightly longer than 1 minute to receive the signal, but it would be so insignificant that you might as well call it a minute.

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

#192

Post by joe_the_user »

scrumper wrote: post #69
jessriedel wrote: post #49

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Traditionally, SETI is not specialized to messages intentionally crafted for us (or, in fact, necessarily crafted for anyone). It's just a search for radio transmissions that are unlikely to have been created by natural sources using various statistical techniques. Even for intentional messages, it's certainly conceivable that another civilization with sufficient power simply transmits the message in all direction co…

Even for intentional messages, it's certainly conceivable that another civilization with sufficient power simply transmits the message in all direction continuously. I think that scenario would imply a relative scarcity of intelligent life: after all, if a space-faring civilization needs to transmit powerful, omnidirectional signals in the blind, it must be pretty lonely. Maybe, just maybe, the fact that we're not se…

Maybe, just maybe, the fact that we're not seeing much is actually indicative of a fairly rich sea of life in the galaxy, communicating point-to-point with each other.

Except for the small question of how those many civilizations would have found each other in the first place.

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

#193

Post by unclebucknasty »

eridius wrote: post #183
unclebucknasty wrote: post #170

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In discussions about artificial super-intelligence (the final stage of AI that sends us rocketing beyond the singularity), our inability to comprehend what such an intelligence might desire or do is frequently accepted as a significant risk by those who fear such AI. When one considers an infinitely and exponentially increasing intelligence that can quickly bypass the point of easily answering the questions that curr…

We may not be able to predict what such an AI would desire or do, but I assume you'll agree that we'll still be able to observe what it does do and understand that it's doing it (even though we may not necessarily understand how it does something).

>I assume you'll agree that we'll still be able to observe what it does do and understand that it's doing it

No. To make that leap, I must assume the conclusion. I cannot know that I'll be able to observe what it does, because I don't know what it will do (or whether I can even perceive the dimension in which it does it for that matter).

Secondly, the word "understand" is subjective. I assume that Musk meant the word in the sense that there is sufficient depth of understanding as to actually be meaningful, else his statement itself would be meaningless (i.e. so obvious as not to be required).

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

#194

Post by agentgt »

XorNot wrote: post #142
agentgt wrote: post #129

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Its not the size but rather intelligent entity density. You could have an infinite universe but still have high ratio of contact if the universe has a high density of life forms (think of it as collisions with particles in a large volume).

Compared to the reducing human reproductive rate this is an important point. It's quite likely that somewhere in the regime of 12 billion is all the alive humans there ever will be - even with immortality technology. After all, how many times per 1000 years would you want to have some more children? How many of those people are likely to exist compared to a dormant mass who don't have children? Now factor in a lack o…

Yes this is similar to the self replicating probe problem (one solution to the SETI problem is to launch probes that replicate). That probes start having the same problems as the creating intelligent entity has. Either the probes can't replicate fast enough or decide to stop replicating/exploring for whatever reasons and there are just not enough/fast enough probes.

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

#195

Post by jessriedel »

nicboobees wrote: post #156
jessriedel wrote: post #112

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

That's a pretty unusual axiom that most people don't subscribe to, and it's orthogonal to disagreements over justifications for involuntary taxes.

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

#196

Post by fivedogit »

outworlder wrote: post #185
murbard2 wrote: post #164

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The only thing this argument has going for it is sounding wise by virtue of being self-deprecating. If there are structured radio signals being emitted, it matters not whether or not we understand what the aliens are up to, if it hits a sweetspot between noise and simplicity we can tell it's a signal. And no, "radio waves" aren't the equivalent of "smoke signals", if there are better ways to communicate across space,…

> If there are structured radio signals being emitted, Why should there be? Earth itself is getting quieter. Our electronics are more sensitive, for the applications that still use radion. For a lot of things, we are using plain boring fiber-optic (and copper) connections.

The earth is getting louder. 150 years ago, we'd have had almost zero light pollution. Nowadays you can't even see stars when you go outside.

Not only are there more lights, we are getting more efficient at producing energy to power them.

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

#197

Post by joe_the_user »

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…

This kind of argument seems like it's only appealing through it's similarity to one of Aesop's Fables.

I think as far as we know, ant's don't even ask themselves the question "what is this ant hill". Human cosmologists, on the other hand, seek an explanation for everything that they see in the cosmos. The only way some alien phenomena would be ignored would be if it seemed to have the qualities of some apparently easily explained phenomena. This is certainly possible but it seems unlikely it would happen by accident - cosmology's models for ordinary, unexceptional stars, nebula and galaxies are all fairly detailed.

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

#198

Post by mlitchard »

mortenjorck wrote: post #152
Pigo wrote: post #106

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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?

Yeah there's a horrorshow idea to contemplate. Humanity is the Elder Race. Yikes!

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

#199

Post by [deleted] »

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.

[deleted]

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

#200

Post by pekk »

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.

It really doesn't matter who said it, it's just good to cite the source. But there is nothing which makes Michio Kaku infallible. Arguments can't be reliably evaluated according to who made them.
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