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When Are the Intelligent Aliens?

blogs.discovermagazine.com

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Re: When Are the Intelligent Aliens?

#61

Post by andrewflnr »

bane wrote: post #53
ChuckMcM wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is a good summary. One of the missing pieces is we don't know what the minimum set of combinational factors are to create "advanced" civilization. The scare quotes for advanced here are that two incompatible definitions for civilization quality compete for the nominative "advanced." In the current context advanced means we've developed machines that carry us into space, we can create habitats to survive in even…

Right, we simply don't know the conditions to generate a advanced civilization. We're certainly not it (yet) -- at least in terms of the characteristics we're expecting space-faring extraterrestrials to have. There might be billions of worlds full of dinosaur analogs running around happily eating and growling till their star burns out...and that might be all that you can expect out of life in the general case when it…

I disagree with your characterization of our accomplishments. Getting to the moon isn't just a matter of distance from earth's center, it's a fundamental difference in kind from anything done before by living things on this planet. We could, today, launch a craft in the direction of a star. It would eventually get there, it would just take a long time.

Re: When Are the Intelligent Aliens?

#62

Post by andrewflnr »

Udo wrote: post #52
jl6 wrote: post #47

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Unless the engineers are concerned about detection and choose somehow to radiate in only one narrow direction, pointed away from any nearby stars.

That's true, and stealth is an interesting proposition. However, there are probably easier methods of preventing detection, such as not building a giant structure in the first place. Also, even if they manage to radiate away most of their waste heat, they'd have to assume eventual detection by an advanced civilization. Sure, with exponential effort you can always get infinitesimally closer to being virtually undetect…

Have you read Revelation Space by Alistair Reynolds? If you haven't, you really need to.

Re: When Are the Intelligent Aliens?

#63

Post by bane »

andrewflnr wrote: post #61
bane wrote: post #53

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Right, we simply don't know the conditions to generate a advanced civilization. We're certainly not it (yet) -- at least in terms of the characteristics we're expecting space-faring extraterrestrials to have. There might be billions of worlds full of dinosaur analogs running around happily eating and growling till their star burns out...and that might be all that you can expect out of life in the general case when it…

I disagree with your characterization of our accomplishments. Getting to the moon isn't just a matter of distance from earth's center, it's a fundamental difference in kind from anything done before by living things on this planet. We could, today, launch a craft in the direction of a star. It would eventually get there, it would just take a long time.

I think the distinction is that getting something going with enough velocity to escape the gravity well of the Sun, and in a vector the points it towards another star's gravity well is different than getting living representatives from a civilization around one star to another.

Philosophically, even an Ark ship, with technology capable of sustaining a population of humans for a million years wouldn't fit the bill since I'd argue that by the time the descendants arrive they:

a) would probably not be the same species anymore, having evolved over thousands of generations for ship life

b) wouldn't be the same civilization anymore, having developed their own micro-civilization in the intervening years -- they'd no longer be representatives from their home civilization...any more than I as an American can be a representative for the European civilizations I am descended from when I travel to Asia

c) their home population and civilization will have evolved and diverged from the Ark's population and civilization regardless of the Ark's conditions. Even if the population on the Ark was put into some kind of suspended animation for the length of the trip (preserving the both the original species and civilization) they'd be representing a species and civilization that no longer existed

Re: When Are the Intelligent Aliens?

#64

Post by JulianMorrison »

My analysis: the time period in which a civilization goes from "present" to "owning the observable universe, rearranging the stars" is short. The first civilization sees an empty sky. The second sees red-glowing stars tapped for all their negentropy, Shkadov thrusters rearranging them, and probes whizzing from star to star, disassembling them for usable mass and building computronium.

My conclusion is, if you don't see that, you're the first.

Re: When Are the Intelligent Aliens?

#65

Post by Dn_Ab »

sage_joch wrote: post #36
exratione wrote: post #11

Obligatory talking points associated with the Fermi Paradox: - It takes a very short time in comparison to the age of the galaxy for a single self-replicating probe to result in a descendant probe visit to every star. A few million years. This means that you cannot really argue plausibly that all civilizations fail to do this - it would take trivial effort for just one faction within just one advanced civilization to…

Where are the macrostructures? We don't see Dyson spheres or other evident macroscale engineering. This might be a stupid question, but could the Red Square Nebula be considered a candidate? http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Red_Square_Nebula

I can't say but whenever I hear about something that 'defies' theory [n] I like to take a moment and. Imagine that the anomaly in question was constructed by unimaginably developed beings. Of plasma, computronium and other unmet exotic concepts. Powered by rainbows of gamma radiation from stars coerced into the bellies of super-massive black holes.

Then I tidily put away the thought because I know it is not even falsifiable, I don't bother assigning probabilities like unlikely. But the short moment (following such news) of delight at contemplating exotic entities so foreign, that words like conscious and alive are inapplicable is a healthy pastime I much enjoy.

[1] http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2013/01/130111-quasa...

Re: When Are the Intelligent Aliens?

#66

Post by bane »

ChuckMcM wrote: post #58
bane wrote: post #53

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Right, we simply don't know the conditions to generate a advanced civilization. We're certainly not it (yet) -- at least in terms of the characteristics we're expecting space-faring extraterrestrials to have. There might be billions of worlds full of dinosaur analogs running around happily eating and growling till their star burns out...and that might be all that you can expect out of life in the general case when it…

I think you don't give us enough credit :-) We have developed enough technology to leave the planet and walk around on our Moon. We are, perhaps within a decade, going to have that capability again but with a much higher level of base technology. While it would be unlikely for Dinosaurian satellites to have remained in orbit for millions of years, anything they left on the moon would still be there. "There might be b…

> So what hypothesis could support billions of iterations of 'life' evolving into the multicellular form we see today and in our past, and so few evolving technology?

Probably just a function of environmental input and enough generations optimizing along directions that matter more for species propagation than a large, energy burning cognitive organ. Keep in mind, it appears that Human level intelligence seems to have (so far) only evolved maybe a handful of time maximum in planetary history...and AFAWK only along a fairly specific mammalian family line that happened to live on part of the planet with fairly specific thermal/environmental and energy availability properties.

On a planet slightly warmer than the Earth, the dominant species might be selected to have heat management organs we're not even aware of; or a planet with more landmass vs. ocean, the ability to handle dry climates; or a planet with two moons and higher gravity an efficient metabolism and ambulatory system...some kind of reptilian slug perhaps?

Are savannas necessary to culture space faringness? Or could a planet with no moons, shotgunned with equally dispersed Guam sized islands provide the necessary conditions?

It's useless, but an incredibly fun thought experiment.

Re: When Are the Intelligent Aliens?

#67

Post by Udo »

andrewflnr wrote: post #62
Udo wrote: post #52

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's true, and stealth is an interesting proposition. However, there are probably easier methods of preventing detection, such as not building a giant structure in the first place. Also, even if they manage to radiate away most of their waste heat, they'd have to assume eventual detection by an advanced civilization. Sure, with exponential effort you can always get infinitesimally closer to being virtually undetect…

Have you read Revelation Space by Alistair Reynolds? If you haven't, you really need to.

No. why do I need to?

Re: When Are the Intelligent Aliens?

#68

Post by VladRussian2 »

Cookingboy wrote: post #46
VladRussian2 wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>The way I view it, by definition someone has to be first. no :). That is the beauty of this Universe - global full order of things on timeline isn't possible. Specifically space-like separated events don't have a preferred order, i.e. given 2 space-like separated events A and B, both statement - A precedes B and B precedes A - have the same validity, basically it is meaningless to talk about their timeline order.

Just because they are space separated events does not mean you cannot give assign them chronological order. Can't you just simply refer to a literal universal chronological reference point (i,e Big Bang) and then achieve successful ordering of events? For example: Civilization A achieved space flight x time units (whatever time units, such as Planck time unit) after Big Bang, and civilization B achieved space flight…

>For example: Civilization A achieved space flight x time units (whatever time units, such as Planck time unit) after Big Bang, and civilization B achieved space flight y time units after Big Bang?

as long as special relativity is applicable, for space-like separated events A and B, there exist frames of reference such that A is at x time units after Big Bang and B is at y in one frame of reference, and A is at y and B is at x in the other frame, ie. in reversed order.

Re: When Are the Intelligent Aliens?

#69

Post by maaku »

JulianMorrison wrote: post #64

My analysis: the time period in which a civilization goes from "present" to "owning the observable universe, rearranging the stars" is short. The first civilization sees an empty sky. The second sees red-glowing stars tapped for all their negentropy, Shkadov thrusters rearranging them, and probes whizzing from star to star, disassembling them for usable mass and building computronium. My conclusion is, if you don't s…

And if you did see that, you were damn lucky to be born at just the right time to see it before you get annihilated by the oncoming intelligent matter transformation.

Re: When Are the Intelligent Aliens?

#70

Post by ccera »

Aside from the catchy title and the mention of recent planet-finding successes, this article doesn't say anything that hasn't been said by literally hundreds of other people. (And actually, I'd be amazed if this author is the first to come up with the clever "When are..." formulation.)
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