What Are Extraterrestrials Watching?

[bruce2...@gmail.com]

A Friend <no...@noway.com> wrote in rec.arts.tv:

> In article <cd63e7aa-8256-4b46...@googlegroups.com>, Ed
> Stasiak <esta...@att.net> wrote:
>
>> Interesting pic, showing what tv programs are just now reaching other planets,
>> up to 70 light years from Earth when the first tv signals were broadcast;
>>
>> https://blogs-images.forbes.com/startswithabang/files/2016/10/1-Ui5TtZZIh7e1wH
>> 61e26RoA.jpg?width=960
>
> All our signals descend into general background noise within a
> lightyear and a half. They can't and won't be detected unless
> somebody travels pretty damn close to us and is listening carefully for
> them.

Is that according to only 1970s or 80s research.

[pf...@aol.com]

Four things:

1. ETs will not be friendly. The reasons are quite obvious. Star Trek & Star Wars notwithstanding.

2. ETs, should they come here, will be doing so for one, and only one purpose. The reasons are also quite obvious.

3. Any ET with FTL capacities will be sufficiently advanced as to be unlikely to recognize us as intelligent at any level. We will have more in common with a garden spider than any ET will have with us.

4. Any ET without FTL capacities that reaches us - see #2 above.

And, for light & quiet reading, I suggest Fredric Brown: The Wavaries, and

The Fourth Profession by Larry Niven.

Peter Wieck
Melrose Park, PA

[Mr. Man-wai Chang]

Getting into government conspiracies? :)


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[gregz]

It's hard enough to communicate with Voyager when two dishes converge.
Horizontally omni broadcast has low energy and complex signals. Forget it.

Greg

[Cursitor Doom]

On Sat, 19 Aug 2017 07:21:33 +0000, gregz wrote:

> It's hard enough to communicate with Voyager when two dishes converge.
> Horizontally omni broadcast has low energy and complex signals. Forget
> it.
>
> Greg

I'd always suspected so. But is there any respectable research to back up
this figure of 1.5 light years?





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[amdx]

OH, so they are still in anticipation of the Kardashians.
Mikek

[Sjouke Burry]

On 19-8-2017 12:38, Cursitor Doom wrote:
> On Sat, 19 Aug 2017 07:21:33 +0000, gregz wrote:
>
>> It's hard enough to communicate with Voyager when two dishes converge.
>> Horizontally omni broadcast has low energy and complex signals. Forget
>> it.
>>
>> Greg
>
> I'd always suspected so. But is there any respectable research to back up
> this figure of 1.5 light years?
>
>
>
>
>

We know the signal strength (inverse square law), and we
know a lot about noise received from space.
When the noise is drowning the signal, you cannot receive the signal.
So, yes, we know the reception quality for a given transmitter power
and distance.
To reach twice as far you need 4 times as much power, and as distance
increases, you quickly lose that game.

[bitrex]

On 08/19/2017 06:38 AM, Cursitor Doom wrote:
> On Sat, 19 Aug 2017 07:21:33 +0000, gregz wrote:
>
>> It's hard enough to communicate with Voyager when two dishes converge.
>> Horizontally omni broadcast has low energy and complex signals. Forget
>> it.
>>
>> Greg
>
> I'd always suspected so. But is there any respectable research to back up
> this figure of 1.5 light years?

The problem with communicating with Voyager is on the uplink side, not
the downlink side. Even at Voyager 1s distance and current power output
of a few 10s of watts, in the appropriate spectrum Voyager 1 is a
blazing beacon far outshining most other objects of interest studied by
radio astronomers.

I think it's possible to do much better than 1.5 light years, if you can
make some assumptions about what area of the spectrum you're looking in,
and what kind of patterns you're looking for. It's not like there aren't
ways to recover periodic signals/signals with structure that have been
corrupted by noise.

[N_Cook]

But these very clever aliens have worked out how to use galactic scale
gravitational lensing to survey the comms of lesser inteligencies.

[Cursitor Doom]

On Sun, 20 Aug 2017 08:01:18 -0400, bitrex wrote:

> I think it's possible to do much better than 1.5 light years, if you can
> make some assumptions about what area of the spectrum you're looking in,
> and what kind of patterns you're looking for. It's not like there aren't
> ways to recover periodic signals/signals with structure that have been
> corrupted by noise.

So even if we could do 3 light years, there's still nothing much within
that radius that we could expect to communicate with. Why did all that
effort go into SETI, then? Surely all the nerds that ventured into that,
or granted the SETI nerds spare time on their idling computers to analyse
the data obtained from the world's radio telescopes must have known they
were wasting their time!

[Sjouke Burry]

Bollocks.
Lensing more noise/weak signal does not change the ratio,
and does not make for better reception.
And your lensing works only over millions of light years.
Which leaves you micro-micro-micro watts of received power.

[Mike Coon]

In article <59999ab7$0$1718$e4fe...@textnews.kpn.nl>,
burrynu...@ppllaanneett.nnll says...

>
> Bollocks.
> Lensing more noise/weak signal does not change the ratio,
> and does not make for better reception.
> And your lensing works only over millions of light years.
> Which leaves you micro-micro-micro watts of received power.

I take your point about the scale over which lensing works. But why is
the effect not similar to using a high-gain aerial, which is common
enough?

Mike.

[bitrex]

On 08/20/2017 09:46 AM, Cursitor Doom wrote:
> On Sun, 20 Aug 2017 08:01:18 -0400, bitrex wrote:
>
>> I think it's possible to do much better than 1.5 light years, if you can
>> make some assumptions about what area of the spectrum you're looking in,
>> and what kind of patterns you're looking for. It's not like there aren't
>> ways to recover periodic signals/signals with structure that have been
>> corrupted by noise.
>
> So even if we could do 3 light years, there's still nothing much within
> that radius that we could expect to communicate with. Why did all that
> effort go into SETI, then? Surely all the nerds that ventured into that,
> or granted the SETI nerds spare time on their idling computers to analyse
> the data obtained from the world's radio telescopes must have known they
> were wasting their time!

I think the idea wasn't to scan for ET's version of "I Love Lucy", it
is/was to look for much higher power signals, from more advanced
civilizations, broadcast with the express intent of alerting systems
like SETI.

i.e. not trying to overhear ET's conversations, but listening for
trumpet blasts.

[Cursitor Doom]

On Sun, 20 Aug 2017 16:54:58 +0100, Mike Coon wrote:

> I take your point about the scale over which lensing works. But why is
> the effect not similar to using a high-gain aerial, which is common
> enough?

Whatever. I appreciate N Cook's suggestion was just a joke which some
here seem to have overlooked. The idea is a total non-starter if anyone
tried to do it in practice, which I very very very much doubt.

[bitrex]

A suitably advanced gregarious civilization capable of directing
"trumpet blasts" like that probably already has sufficiently powerful
space-based imaging to directly look the planetary surfaces of any
inhabited worlds within say 50 light years down to maybe several
hundreds of meters resolution, evaluate the civilizations they see
there, and decide whether they look like a species worth contacting, or not.

STILL PRETTY QUIET 'ROUND HERE

[bitrex]

On 08/20/2017 10:15 AM, Sjouke Burry wrote:

>> But these very clever aliens have worked out how to use galactic scale
>> gravitational lensing to survey the comms of lesser inteligencies.
>>
> Bollocks.
> Lensing more noise/weak signal does not change the ratio,
> and does not make for better reception.
> And your lensing works only over millions of light years.
> Which leaves you micro-micro-micro watts of received power.

If you're going to start using gravitational lensing for your telescope
it's probably "easiest" to just directly image planetary surfaces in the
area of the visible spectrum. i.e. just literally spy on them visually.

And you definitely don't need millions of light years of distance to
leverage lensing, you just need to get your telescope up an out of the
Sun's gravity well and out to a focal point of the gravity lens of the
Sun itself to get enormous amplification; in the visible spectrum we're
talking amplification factors on the order of 10^10.

About a third of a light-year away is where you'd need to be; to get
there in a reasonable time (less than a human lifetime) you'd need an
engine that could push the carrier vessel up to an average of around 1
million mph.

[~misfit~]

So all of those specialist scientists who run SETI are completely wasting
their time! You should email them ASAP.
--
Shaun.

"Humans will have advanced a long, long way when religious belief has a cozy
little classification in the DSM*."
David Melville (in r.a.s.f1)
(*Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders)

[pf...@aol.com]

Guys and gals:

PLEASE!! Look up "Pathetic Fallacy".

Now. Apply it to any sort of ET from any sort of source, near or far.

With "Humans" as the objects to which 'feelings' are attributed.

This discussion needs to take place on the level of what actually is, not some sort of pseudo-science based on the incredibly arrogant position that any sort of ET (again) from any source, near or far, has the slightest thing in common with humans. Repeat, we have more in common with a garden spider than any conceivable ET, from any source, near or far.

[Phil Allison]

pf...@aol.com wrote:

--------------------------

> Guys and gals:
>
> PLEASE!! Look up "Pathetic Fallacy".
>

** That must be your other name.

> Now. Apply it to any sort of ET from any sort of source, near or far.
>

** Apply literary term to ETs ?

>
> This discussion needs to take place on the level of what actually is, not some sort of pseudo-science based on the incredibly arrogant position that any sort of ET (again) from any source, near or far, has the slightest thing in common with humans.

** Not one bit arrogant.

> Repeat, we have more in common with a garden spider than any conceivable ET,

** You have more in common with spider on crack.

Wot a pathetic fuckwit.



..... Phil

[pf...@aol.com]

On Sunday, August 20, 2017 at 9:38:34 PM UTC-4, Phil Allison wrote:


Off your meds again?

[bitrex]

There's also the Copernican principle which would say that humanity is
more-or-less an "average" technological civilization, in orbit around an
average star, at an average point in the Universe's history.

If there are many other technological civilizations in the Universe,
i.e. intelligent life is common, it doesn't seem unreasonable at to
assume that these civilizations would be the product of convergent
evolution and would have similar characteristics, at least similar
enough to the point that a common understanding could be reached through
language.

With a data set of one, there's certainly no scientific justification
for assuming we are either exceptional, or that everyone else are Gods
and we are garden spiders. Assume "average" until proven otherwise.

[tabb...@gmail.com]

I don't see any logical or factual basis for any assumptions about extraterrestrials, should they exist.


NT

[bitrex]

On 08/21/2017 11:57 AM, tabb...@gmail.com wrote:

>> If there are many other technological civilizations in the Universe,
>> i.e. intelligent life is common, it doesn't seem unreasonable at to
>> assume that these civilizations would be the product of convergent
>> evolution and would have similar characteristics, at least similar
>> enough to the point that a common understanding could be reached through
>> language.
>>
>> With a data set of one, there's certainly no scientific justification
>> for assuming we are either exceptional, or that everyone else are Gods
>> and we are garden spiders. Assume "average" until proven otherwise.
>
> I don't see any logical or factual basis for any assumptions about extraterrestrials, should they exist.
>
>
> NT
>

At the moment you naturally have to start with an _assumption_ (i.e.
theory), either they exist, or they don't. If you assume they don't then
there's little more to say. If you assume they do then, currently, the
only further hypothesis which is logically justified from your axiom is
that humanity is a typical example.

None of the above is non-science, but it is as far as science can
currently take you with a data point of one. Regression to the mean
is a real science thing, and if it is actually science and holds true
for populations on Earth then to be so it should hold true for
populations of things everywhere, not just on Earth. There is no reason
to assume a-priori that it doesn't.

Speculation about how we're just like ants in a Universe filled with
inscrutable intelligent beings of inscrutable purpose is at this point
philosophy, not science.

[pf...@aol.com]

Consider the string of necessary coincidences in assuming we are any sort of "average".

Water (hydrogen & oxygen in massive quantities within a specific temperature range).
Carbon.
Iron.
Copper.

These four things within a specific set of chemical parameters are what permit life such as ours within our temperature band on our planet. Change any one of the above, or the surrounding chemistry and "we" are not possible

Nor is there any reason to believe that the concept of "language" applies. Of course, there will be commonality as required by any 'developed' civilization, one being the periodic table. But how to convey that between identities is the difficulty. We cannot even assume that we might recognize intelligence in an ET, nor they in us.

Not suggesting gods vs. spiders. What I am suggesting is that we share much with spiders, somewhere around 50% of our genome. We will not have that commonality with an ET, nor will ETs have a genome to compare. That is the point.

Evolution converging is touching and naive. There is no reason for it to do so, and if there is an 'imperative' towards life and/or intelligence, convergence would be counter to that imperative. Where there is free energy, there is a potential for life. It need not be based on water, carbon, iron, or copper, all or any. We have the sun as our source. Might be something else, elsewhere.

But, let's assume intelligent life with a similar chemistry operating within a similar temperature range. Meaning that they will want roughly the same things we do, and must go through roughly the same steps to get them. A lot of other assumptions follow necessarily as well. Now, give them FTL drive.

How successful have we as a species been at meeting new people 'just like us' but for skin color and environmental development? Not very. Not even with those just like us separated by only a bit of land or water. Now, make that 'other' not even a little bit like us. Perhaps as different as a lemur and an octopus.

Now, consider where we are at this moment.

The state of the planet.
Population.
Feeding that population.
Natural resources.
Clean water.
Clean air.

We are reaching the point of unsustainability. Will the theoretical ET source be any different. Or, will they need resources. Remember, Lemur & Octopus, Human and Spider. And we share genes with them. They will need resources, and find a the functional equivalent of a bunch of spiders as the only impediment. We certainly do not treat strange humans well. They will have absolutely no incentive to treat us well.

Guys and gals, there may well be, and very likely are ETs. But they won't care about us. They may need what we have, and they will take it if they can.

Further, if they are not based on water/iron/copper/carbon, we are well-and-truly SOL, assuming that they come here. For sure, they will not be coming 'to us'. Just here.

More light reading: Not Final by Isaac Asimov.

[tabb...@gmail.com]

On Monday, 21 August 2017 17:18:40 UTC+1, bitrex wrote:

> On 08/21/2017 11:57 AM, tabbypurr wrote:
>
> >> If there are many other technological civilizations in the Universe,
> >> i.e. intelligent life is common, it doesn't seem unreasonable at to
> >> assume that these civilizations would be the product of convergent
> >> evolution and would have similar characteristics, at least similar
> >> enough to the point that a common understanding could be reached through
> >> language.
> >>
> >> With a data set of one, there's certainly no scientific justification
> >> for assuming we are either exceptional, or that everyone else are Gods
> >> and we are garden spiders. Assume "average" until proven otherwise.
> >
> > I don't see any logical or factual basis for any assumptions about extraterrestrials, should they exist.
>

> At the moment you naturally have to start with an _assumption_ (i.e.
> theory), either they exist, or they don't.

obviously not. Indeed it would be daft to do so

> If you assume they don't then
> there's little more to say. If you assume they do then, currently, the
> only further hypothesis which is logically justified from your axiom is
> that humanity is a typical example.

patently illogical

> None of the above is non-science, but it is as far as science can
> currently take you with a data point of one.

Science does not even begin to take you there with one piece of data. If you think it does you have fundamentally misunderstood science.


NT

[bitrex]

On 08/21/2017 02:44 PM, tabb...@gmail.com wrote:

<snip>

>
> Science does not even begin to take you there with one piece of data. If you think it does you have fundamentally misunderstood science.
>
>
> NT

IIRC you're a nobody who also thinks the thousands of climate scientists
with advanced degrees who actually do it for a living "fundamentally
misunderstand" science, too. IOW, get stuffed, chump.

[tabb...@gmail.com]

On Monday, 21 August 2017 17:18:40 UTC+1, bitrex wrote:

> On 08/21/2017 11:57 AM, tabbypurr wrote:
>
> >> If there are many other technological civilizations in the Universe,
> >> i.e. intelligent life is common, it doesn't seem unreasonable at to
> >> assume that these civilizations would be the product of convergent
> >> evolution and would have similar characteristics, at least similar
> >> enough to the point that a common understanding could be reached through
> >> language.
> >>
> >> With a data set of one, there's certainly no scientific justification
> >> for assuming we are either exceptional, or that everyone else are Gods
> >> and we are garden spiders. Assume "average" until proven otherwise.
> >
> > I don't see any logical or factual basis for any assumptions about extraterrestrials, should they exist.
>

> At the moment you naturally have to start with an _assumption_ (i.e.
> theory), either they exist, or they don't. If you assume they don't then
> there's little more to say. If you assume they do then, currently, the
> only further hypothesis which is logically justified from your axiom is
> that humanity is a typical example.
>
> None of the above is non-science, but it is as far as science can
> currently take you with a data point of one. Regression to the mean
> is a real science thing, and if it is actually science and holds true
> for populations on Earth then to be so it should hold true for
> populations of things everywhere, not just on Earth. There is no reason
> to assume a-priori that it doesn't.
>
> Speculation about how we're just like ants in a Universe filled with
> inscrutable intelligent beings of inscrutable purpose is at this point
> philosophy, not science.

you've certainly confirmed you do not understand what science is. Or logic.


NT

[tabb...@gmail.com]

On Monday, 21 August 2017 22:35:30 UTC+1, bitrex wrote:

> On 08/21/2017 02:44 PM, tabbypurr wrote:

> > Science does not even begin to take you there with one piece of data. If you think it does you have fundamentally misunderstood science.
>

> IIRC you're a nobody who also thinks the thousands of climate scientists
> with advanced degrees who actually do it for a living "fundamentally
> misunderstand" science, too. IOW, get stuffed, chump.

Abuse does not remedy the absence of fact or logic.

[whit3rd]

On Sunday, August 20, 2017 at 11:28:18 AM UTC-7, bitrex wrote:

> A suitably advanced gregarious civilization capable of directing
> "trumpet blasts" like that probably already has sufficiently powerful
> space-based imaging to directly look the planetary surfaces of any
> inhabited worlds within say 50 light years down to maybe several
> hundreds of meters resolution, evaluate the civilizations they see
> there, and decide whether they look like a species worth contacting, or not.
>
> STILL PRETTY QUIET 'ROUND HERE

The possibilities of gregarious extraterrestrials have been explored
well in fiction. In Clarke's '2001', ...2010, 2061, "3001: The Final Odyssey"
he suggests one-way communication to young intelligences, and
general encouragement, at the behest of a distant ancient E.T. actor.

Stanislaw Lem's "Fiasco" is a more realistic treatment: we've just barely
arranged communication with a couple of Earth species, but the
long-lived social animals like great whales, elephants, aren't really talking
to us. What would they say?

[pf...@aol.com]

On Monday, August 21, 2017 at 10:09:05 PM UTC-4, whit3rd wrote:

> The possibilities of gregarious extraterrestrials have been explored
> well in fiction.

More like this:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vdl24bLAs1k

From Damon Knight.

[Cursitor Doom]

On Mon, 21 Aug 2017 16:12:18 -0700, tabbypurr wrote:

> Abuse does not remedy the absence of fact or logic.

Actually for Antifa, its acolytes and apologists, it most assuredly
does!

[bitrex]

You've got nothing.

[bitrex]

You've got nothing.

[bitrex]

On 08/22/2017 07:03 PM, Cursitor Doom wrote:
> On Mon, 21 Aug 2017 16:12:18 -0700, tabbypurr wrote:
>
>> Abuse does not remedy the absence of fact or logic.
>
> Actually for Antifa, its acolytes and apologists, it most assuredly
> does!

He has no science facts or logical statements to present. He's being a
very grumpy old contrarian. Cluck, cluck, cluck.

[tabb...@gmail.com]

On Thursday, 24 August 2017 07:04:57 UTC+1, bitrex wrote:

lol. Troll plonked.