Royal Society and the search for ET

a reply to: darkstar57

He looks like the same guy to me.

Stephen Hawking

First the Royal Society and mainstream scientist should define what is life????

There is a saying that says "To detect intellegent life , you should be intellegent " , with our mainstream technology (not talking about military black ops tech) we arent intellegent enough to detect ET life, we can only detect life of our level or below that use radio waves or are organic in nature, but Et's (yes that comes to our planet daily) and have technology million of years far more advance than us are undetectable for the main stream science, because they prefer to look to the other side when strange things happens, and if they try to explain it you know the answer swamp gas, venus, allucination or mass hysteria or sleep paralysis.

So first they should define what is life, because life comes in different sizes , types and made of different type of materials are made of.

a reply to: AlexDJ

A friend of mine has a rather informative thread on this very subject. Perhaps you should check it out?

Denying Ignorance About SETI: It's Not Just About Radio Anymore

There is already communication like this.
Not saying I'm a believer, but...
A story that was told to me by an Academic researcher, and I don't know where he got it, Google is getting pretty useless for this as they dumb down academic search so much now, anyway...
As I was told a person had been receiving radio communications from the direction of a certain star cluster.
I think a shortwave radio enthusiast.
It was in some strange language he couldn't understand.
He was relaying his experiences on a radio interview show and the played a sample of what he had recorded.
A member of a Southeast Indian tribe who was listening called in to say it was in the language of his tribe.
That tribal oral history had them coming from this same star cluster.
So, just for the record. If I find the source I may try posting again.
a reply to: paraphi

a reply to: hounddoghowlie

Some elementary calculations indicate that if we are on a beamline between two planets which are communicating, we should be able to tap into the traffic.
stanericksonsblog.blogspot.com...

This would not reveal anything about us whatsoever

a reply to: MysterX

The principal reason aliens would travel to another planet is probably for colonization, either because they think it is their mission to do so or because they are forced to by problems on their planet. Having life already on a planet may jinx it for them, for several reasons. There is a lot that can be said on this topic.
stanericksonsblog.blogspot.com...

a reply to: StanFL

I'd imagine the principle reason WE would travel to other planets is indeed colonisation...initially at least.

Extrapolating what we would do and the reasons we'd do it and applying it to unknown ET species is not a safe assumption.

If Humanity manages at some point to develop the technology that enables efficient exoplanet colonisation, after a given period of time and sufficient worlds colonised, our motivations for further exploration would likely change.

'Sufficient worlds' is subjective, but in my mind would probably mean a) Protection of our species b) Ensuring the continuation of our species, if (or in case) our home-world is rendered uninhabitable for some reason c) We have obtained more resources than we could know what to do with.

After these are accomplished, there really isn't much left other than scientific endeavours, including exo-anthropology studies and altruistic helping hands (tentacles?).

Higher ET's would more than likely already have galactic empires or the equivalent, would already have access to as many resources as they could possibly use, and would already have established political and social structures to keep these empires cohesive and functioning as desired.

They wouldn't need our water, our oxygen, our minerals, our living space or our 'meat'. There is more of all of that, or the ingredients required to produce any of it, floating around in comets and asteroids, on exoplanets and their moons than there is here.

The ONLY thing they would not be able to find available in this hypothetical galactic empire is our native flora and fauna, including our species. This brings us back to both the exploration and visits here for scientific and altruistic purposes, to sample us and the rest of life here and to observe and perhaps occasionally guide the dominant species.

BUT...if ET is socially like us and is just starting out on it's adventures through space, has no empire, has no governing structures inclusive of like minded species and is discovering a reachable exoplanet and ET species (Our earth and we Humans) for the first time...the reasons for coming here would then probably be very different.

It all depends on how advanced they are...the more advanced they are, the better off we Humans would be.