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SETI Home Flags 100 Signals After Sorting 12B Others

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Re: SETI Home Flags 100 Signals After Sorting 12B Others

#51
post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And that's why they won't find anything, IMHO. Anyone who spends five minutes thinking about the consequences of deliberately transmitting interstellar beacon signals will conclude that the only safe, sane thing to do is STFU. At the same time, no advanced civilizations will be using coherent RF communications that stand out from the noise floor, because it makes little sense to keep doing that once your civilization…

Why not just credit the dark forest for this idea?

Perhaps because the concept's been knocking around for decades before it was published?

Re: SETI Home Flags 100 Signals After Sorting 12B Others

#52

I've pretty much given up on traditional radio SETI ever finding anything, as its sole focus is on trying to find terrawatt/mega scale, repeating, intentional alien communication beacons, and nothing else. As I don't believe aliens would make such things, I don't believe traditional SETI will ever find anything. Out telescopes aren't sensitive enough to detect the power levels of comm signals that aliens would use in…

On the other hand, I hold the slightly fringe theory that suns are sentient beings, and by just watching the stars, we may see them communicate.

I think that's the premise of a novel that I've been meaning to read.

Re: SETI Home Flags 100 Signals After Sorting 12B Others

#53

I've pretty much given up on traditional radio SETI ever finding anything, as its sole focus is on trying to find terrawatt/mega scale, repeating, intentional alien communication beacons, and nothing else. As I don't believe aliens would make such things, I don't believe traditional SETI will ever find anything. Out telescopes aren't sensitive enough to detect the power levels of comm signals that aliens would use in…

On the other hand, I hold the slightly fringe theory that suns are sentient beings, and by just watching the stars, we may see them communicate.

Sun Diver by David Brin, or The Black Cloud by Fred Hoyle are both adjacent to this.

Re: SETI Home Flags 100 Signals After Sorting 12B Others

#55

I've pretty much given up on traditional radio SETI ever finding anything, as its sole focus is on trying to find terrawatt/mega scale, repeating, intentional alien communication beacons, and nothing else. As I don't believe aliens would make such things, I don't believe traditional SETI will ever find anything. Out telescopes aren't sensitive enough to detect the power levels of comm signals that aliens would use in…

On the other hand, I hold the slightly fringe theory that suns are sentient beings, and by just watching the stars, we may see them communicate.

In your theory, what is the structure that supports sentience?

Re: SETI Home Flags 100 Signals After Sorting 12B Others

#56

Earlier quoted context omitted.

On the other hand, I hold the slightly fringe theory that suns are sentient beings, and by just watching the stars, we may see them communicate.

In your theory, what is the structure that supports sentience?

some incomprehensible magnetic field interactions

Re: SETI Home Flags 100 Signals After Sorting 12B Others

#57

Earlier quoted context omitted.

On the other hand, I hold the slightly fringe theory that suns are sentient beings, and by just watching the stars, we may see them communicate.

In your theory, what is the structure that supports sentience?

Stellar plasma supports long-lived, self-organizing magnetohydrodynamic (MHD) structures whose coupled electromagnetic and fluid dynamics implement distributed information processing. Sentience would supervene on these MHD attractors rather than on matter in a solid or neural form.

Re: SETI Home Flags 100 Signals After Sorting 12B Others

#58

Earlier quoted context omitted.

On the other hand, I hold the slightly fringe theory that suns are sentient beings, and by just watching the stars, we may see them communicate.

I think that's the premise of a novel that I've been meaning to read.

Herbert's ConSentiency universe , the Calebans: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Whipping_Star?wprov=sfla1

Re: SETI Home Flags 100 Signals After Sorting 12B Others

#59
post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And that's why they won't find anything, IMHO. Anyone who spends five minutes thinking about the consequences of deliberately transmitting interstellar beacon signals will conclude that the only safe, sane thing to do is STFU. At the same time, no advanced civilizations will be using coherent RF communications that stand out from the noise floor, because it makes little sense to keep doing that once your civilization…

Why not just credit the dark forest for this idea?

The idea wasn't Cixin's. E.g., https://www.researchgate.net/profile/Alan-Penny/publication/... refers to speculation as early as 1967 that it might not be a good idea to answer that particular phone.

Here's a later article from 2010: https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S00945...

Re: SETI Home Flags 100 Signals After Sorting 12B Others

#60

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And that's why they won't find anything, IMHO. Anyone who spends five minutes thinking about the consequences of deliberately transmitting interstellar beacon signals will conclude that the only safe, sane thing to do is STFU. At the same time, no advanced civilizations will be using coherent RF communications that stand out from the noise floor, because it makes little sense to keep doing that once your civilization…

Anyone who spends five minutes thinking about the consequences of deliberately leaving your house will conclude that the only safe, sane thing to do is stay the fuck inside.

Heck, no. We need to go invade the systems that broadcast their presence. Where there's biology, there's probably oil!
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