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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

#71

Post by espadrine »

happyscrappy wrote: post #31
SCHiM wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Do you not think that actually knowing, really knowing, is a worthy cause in and of itself? To have proof that we are not alone? Even if we can't get there I think that certainty would be a very nice thing to have.

I agree that knowing is a worthy cause, but never mind getting there we will not even be able to have anything even resembling a conversation if you have to wait hundreds of years for a response. Edit: Does anyone know the current thinking of the odds that information could be able to travel faster than light, ie a wormhole? As far as I know they are very slim.

> Does anyone know the current thinking of the odds that information could be able to travel faster than light, ie a wormhole?

An Einstein-Rosen Bridge is purely theoretical, and mostly a way to understand the equation of general relativity better. The equation requires you to set a few parameters that we have no way of determining currently, and that describe the structure of the universe. By setting those parameters just right, we can imagine really strange things, such as time travel or a wormhole.

But even if those parameters allowed a wormhole, having a traversable wormhole requires exotic matter with negative mass, another thing that we have no tangible proof exists.

In other words, general relativity is so general that it allows behaviour that can't exist in the real world. Computing the odds that information could go through a wormhole is like computing the odds that God exists.

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

#72

Post by RALaBarge »

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…

Personally, I am willing to bet that all intelligent life will end up being quite lonely. Unless we find ways to bend space, there is little chance of us ever getting out of our local solar system, let alone galaxy or the local galactic cluster.

I am a big fan of science and science fiction, do not get me wrong. I do feel that technology evolves and will surprise even the most tech savvy, but to violate faster than light travel seems more far fetched than any theory out there to me.

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

#73

Post by zamalek »

randallsquared wrote: post #13
zamalek wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

SAI != ET. The idea of SAI is that it progresses at a significantly faster rate than biological processes can. For example, if humans and chimps were on a "staircase of evolution" and were one step apart; SAI would be one step above us a mere hour after it is turned on. After 2 hours it would be multiple steps above us. So the theory goes, anyway. This means that evil aliens would be unlikely more dangerous than evil…

A timescale of hours is not required for most of the AI-doom arguments; if it took a year, that would have a similar outcome.

It's definitely not a requirement, it's just an example of how it could rapidly progress. Within the scope of the argument 1 hour is as plausible as 1 year - the main point is that it happens shockingly fast and continues to happen even faster.

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

#74

Post by ohitsdom »

netcan wrote: post #33
ohitsdom wrote: post #32

Seems like a huge waste of money to me. If you're interested in ET, why not invest in the space industry to advance our capabilities? It'll be hard to interact with ET when as a society we are essentially[0] earth bound. [0] http://howmanypeopleareinspacerightnow.com/

I guess that's a matter of defining "earth bound." If we don't have people in space but we have probes on all the nearby planets, moons, comets and anything with enough gravity to hold one down, does that count as earth bound? ATM, a manned mars mission is in the "very hard and expensive" file. Unmanned missions to anywhere in our solar system are doable on smaller budgets. We can use telescopes to look much further.…

Agreed that manned missions are hard and expensive. That is an area that $100 million could help (even in a small way).

But even robotic missions are very limited. We just had our first flyby of Pluto (not an orbiter). Jupiter doesn't get an orbiter until 2016 (Juno). No orbiters around Neptune or Uranus. So, lots still left to explore and observe with probes in our own solar system.

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

#75

Post by bhc3 »

RALaBarge wrote: post #72
scrumper wrote: post #69

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

Personally, I am willing to bet that all intelligent life will end up being quite lonely. Unless we find ways to bend space, there is little chance of us ever getting out of our local solar system, let alone galaxy or the local galactic cluster. I am a big fan of science and science fiction, do not get me wrong. I do feel that technology evolves and will surprise even the most tech savvy, but to violate faster than l…

I'm expecting somewhere way down the road, scientists will unlock the secrets to prolonging our lives for nearly forever. They'll stop the telomeres from degrading, come up with ways to address cancer quickly and effectively, etc.

At the same time, space travel technology will also have been advanced, allowing for self-sustaining spacecraft that offer protection against the harsh environment of outer space.

At that point, you can imagine that a hearty band of explorers will undertake a mission of leaving our solar system and exploring way beyond our world. Who knows how far they could get.

These are the sorts of advances I can imagine becoming real many generations from now. I wouldn't underestimate our capacity to make it happen.

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

#76

Post by pavel_lishin »

espadrine wrote: post #53
SCHiM wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Do you not think that actually knowing, really knowing, is a worthy cause in and of itself? To have proof that we are not alone? Even if we can't get there I think that certainty would be a very nice thing to have.

Let's imagine a remote island on Earth that was colonized five thousand years ago (and completely forgot about how they got there). They may spend a very long time sending and listening to sonar signals. However, we (the aliens from their point of view) use sonar for ourselves, not to detect intelligence. It would be very hard to detect intelligence from our use of sonars (which is similar to that of a few animals).…

> It would be very hard to detect intelligence from our use of sonars.

Why would it be hard to determine that we're intelligent? We've clearly created some sort of apparatus for generating sonar. I would imagine that someone listening in our oceans would be able to tell fairly quickly that we're a technical civilization.

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

#77

Post by pavel_lishin »

happyscrappy wrote: post #31
SCHiM wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Do you not think that actually knowing, really knowing, is a worthy cause in and of itself? To have proof that we are not alone? Even if we can't get there I think that certainty would be a very nice thing to have.

I agree that knowing is a worthy cause, but never mind getting there we will not even be able to have anything even resembling a conversation if you have to wait hundreds of years for a response. Edit: Does anyone know the current thinking of the odds that information could be able to travel faster than light, ie a wormhole? As far as I know they are very slim.

Why would you wait for a response? When you send a letter, you don't send the line "Greetings from happyscrappy! How are you?" and then wait for them to reply - you go ahead and ask them questions, tell them about yourself, etc., and then wait for a reply. Or don't! Send them a letter once a week, etc.

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

#78

Post by charriu »

x5n1 wrote: post #29
melling wrote: post #14

I wish someone would instead come up with a project to really capture the public's attention about space exploration. More interest means more funding. The U.S. Budget is measured in billions. The New Horizons project, for example, only cost $700 million. The Lunar X Prize might have been that project but it doesn't seem to be making progress: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Google_Lunar_X_Prize http://lunar.xprize.o…

We need to build a huge space ship with a fusion engine and send it to the nearest star. But that sort of doesn't make any sense because we have lots of our own solar system to explore.

There might also be the small problem of actually building the fusion engine first. I don't think that's something we're really able to do right now, is it?

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

#79

Post by 88e282102ae2e5b »

nicboobees wrote: post #46
SCHiM wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Do you not think that actually knowing, really knowing, is a worthy cause in and of itself? To have proof that we are not alone? Even if we can't get there I think that certainty would be a very nice thing to have.

Is it worth millions of dollars to know that? Nope. It's rich people playing with their toys.

It would make it that much harder to justify many religious beliefs, which I predict would be a positive outcome. It's harder to be arrogant and self-righteous when you find out you're not an only child. Sure, some people would find a way to stay stuck in their ways, but not everyone.

However, the much more important thing for me is that we'd know we aren't necessarily going to run into some Great Filter [0]. I'd fret a little less about dangerous new technologies if I knew at least one case where a civilization survived.

Lastly, maybe we'd learn something from the signal itself! A new communications protocol, new music, new technologies, insight into how languages work - who knows? Finding out what we have in common with the beings who sent the signal and what we don't would teach us a great deal about what is arbitrary on our world and what's fundamental. It's like growing up in a society with extremely rigid gender roles and then traveling to a country where that's not the case - you get that "Oh I didn't realize women could even have jobs" moment, but potentially with problems that aren't self-imposed.

0. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_Filter

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