June 28th 2011
At a June 27 press conference, Russian astronomer Andrei Finkelstein said that extraterrestrials definitely exist, and that we're likely to find
them within two decades.
Many factors are clued in to make such an assumption.
1 – 50 years have passed since we started to listen in. The technology has greatly improved; our trials and errors have been fine tuned. The
messages that are sent nowadays depict – without a doubt – that the transmitter (us) is intelligent.
2 – We’ve gone from beaming to very narrow bands of the galaxy to a much broader range. We’ve found 1000 exoplanets thus far and will be
enlarging this number to a million within the next two decades.
3 – Finkelstein’s numbers are based on the fact that if there are any civilization out there that has been transmitting OR listening for the last
twenty years, either we will pick up their signals or they will pick up ours.
Those numbers are peer reviewed and accepted by most astronomers.
But what happens if it doesn’t occur?
Those numbers are going to skyrocket between now and 2050, expanding the search to close to 100 million exoplanets.
I wish to remind everyone at this point that there are (as far as we know so far) close to a prospected one billion exoplanets, just in our galaxy.
If there is life out there – which is an assumption for this debate – we will find it. No doubt.
The real question – and the real motive of this debate – is:
Is it irresponsible to try to communicate with them or them with us, based on the assumption that we will eventually find life out there.
As I mentioned in the opening post, scientists like Hawking think that it might be a dangerous move. As I mentioned in the opening post, other
scientists tend to think the opposite.
Let’s not forget that every time we take a look up to the stars, we take a deep look in the Universe’s past. Some of the stars we see have
exploded thousands or even millions of years ago.
Chances are that a civilization out there might have sent transmissions towards us hundreds or thousands of years ago and are simply waiting for a
reply.
My opponent has been steady in his rebuttal that a civilization out there might not decipher our message, based on the fact that they might not
understand it or interpret it or have the intelligence to decipher it. I strongly disagree.
Seth Shostak, the senior astronomer at the SETI Institute in Mountain View, Calif. states and I quote:
Intelligent aliens probably do have heads and appendages, though. "Having a head seems to be a good thing. Lots of organisms have heads and it
seems to be a very efficient model. Having appendages is also important," Shostak said. "If they were dolphins then they wouldn't build radio
transmitters.
I would also add whales to that definition.
There is also the fact that life out there has more chances of being more evolved than us than the opposite, considering that we are in our childhood,
space wise and compared to other sectors of the Universe.
Not only would another species understand our signal but they would most surely answer. Our math is simple (primary numbers), our maps from where we
are is easy to recognize; pictures shows bipedal life and odds are that a civilisation out there are most probably bipedal as well. Any civilisation
out there would know right away that there is another intelligent life form out there besides their own. See Source below.
The challenge is on our side, really, as it might take us quite a long time to decipher what they’d send us.
If we would discover a more advanced species, chances are that they would be more advanced technologically, morally and spiritually. Warmongering
species or an environment irresponsible species most probably would have died away a long time ago as – let’s face it - this might be our fate as
well, before anyone finds us.
An advanced civilisation has much more chances of being more evolved that us medically, technologically and morally.
Finding such a species could literally be the difference between fundamentally changing the way we live or face eventual extinction, either from wars
between ourselves or destroying our environment.
Imagine the leap of knowledge that would be at hand...
Cures to debilitating, chronic or teminal illnesses, space travel and transport technology, cleaner energy, a different way of understanding life in
the Universe, ways of returning our planet to a more stable state, a different basis for living as a society are just a few concepts that could be
awaiting us.
Is it irresponsible to try and communicate with distant aliens?
Heck no.
Source
Beezzer, back to you.
edit on 5/6/13 by Hefficide because: added link