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Stephen Hawking Thinks Aliens Likely
OMNIpotusCOM writes "Noted astrophysicist Stephen Hawking thinks that alien life is likely, albeit primitive, according to a lecture delivered at George Washington University in honor of NASA's 50th anniversary. It begs the question of if we need to consider a Prime Directive before exploring or sending signals too far into the depths of space."
No, it doesn't. There. Got that out of the way.
Dewey, what part of this looks like authorities should be involved?
We, as a species, haven't managed to solve the problem of destroying primitive cultures *here* or a thousand other problems that suggest not corrupting alien cultures is something we shouldn't worry too much about.
I mean seriously -- if we think our technology and culture is okay for the entire planet, why should we stop here?
You're absolutely right! We should definitely set hold back on all the space exploration we've been doing. Also, we should set physical limits for our transmissions to "expire" after a certain distance, so we don't send them "too far". In fact, that would be the only responsible thing to do for Masters of the Universe such as us.
An old-timer with old-timey ideas.
But...but...the sumbitter managed to insert a spurious Star Trek reference!!! Surely that is newsworthy!
"Aliens being likely" does not mean that it's likely we will ever meet one (or be successful in either sending or receiving any communication).
52 52'23" W 47 32'07" N
Was there a planet that Kirk/Picard/Janeway didn't leave in a fundamentally different state after turning up?
Humans are designed to trade, travel and exploit resources. Then move on when there are too many tourists.
Frankly, I'm surprised there isn't aready a Prime Directive that reads:
"See that blue/green planet with all the space junk and EM noise? You want to leave that one well alone!"
The Prime Directive applies when an advanced culture encounters a more primitive one. While I think there is alien life out there, I seriously doubt that we'll find anyone more primitive than us.
Slow down, cowboy! It has been 4 hours since you last posted. You must wait another few hours.
Stephen Hawking is a brilliant man who once claimed to be fortunate to suffer from ALS, because it gives him far more time to think and do things that normal people would instead spend on other activities (because they can).
The only problem I have with his statements at GWU is that he is focusing too much on radio waves. He is speculating that since we haven't detected any radio waves, it is unlikely that any intelligent civilization exists close to earth (and by close, I mean in astronomical measures).
In my opinion, scientists are taking too much for granted when looking for life. We assume that it is more likely to find life wherever water exists and we constantly assume that the conditions must be earth-like. And regarding the radio waves, I don't understand why an extraterrestrial civilization would even need to use such technology. It is just as likely that they communicate in entirely different ways. After all, hearing and seeing is just one way of living, but not a necessity.
I realize that radio waves occur from more than just television shows, but this is mainly the type of signals we look for since the odds of intended communications from other planets are insanely small.
Full Tilt
"Hello Mr. Alien. Welcome to our planet. Boy, you sure are more advanced than us!"
"Why, yes, we are, thank you. By the way, I couldn't help noticing that many of you still die from cancer."
"'Still die'? You mean you don't?"
"Oh, no, we cured that a long time ago. Same for that crooked politician thing you've got going. And war. Oh, and that thing you call 'Alzheimers', too. And global warming. We don't have any of that. They all turned out to be really simple to fix, in fact."
"Really? that's wonderful. Will you teach us how to solve these things."
"What? No, no, child, your culture isn't ready for all that. Besides, you're so cute the way you are. No, we'll just stay up in our ships and watch you figure it out. It will probably take several more generations, but that's OK, with our advanced medical technology, we will live long enough to see it... unless you wipe yourselves out in the process, that is. He he. You amuse us."
"Asshole"
Insightful and funny are really the same thing, except one has a punch line.
Will they simply laugh at us earthlings; or shake their heads in frustration, wondering "when will we ever learn"?
What makes you think life forms entirely alien to earth will even have heads? Starfish have no heads, jellyfish have no heads.
I think it's a bit early to worry about TFS's "Star Trek Prime Directive". Sure, there is probably life alien to earth but face it, guys - we haven't found any. Not yet.
There are folks who think an advanced civilization from some other star has already come here to study us (Roswell), but if in fact those are aliens come to visit us, I think it more likely that it is a species descended from us come back in time to do some archaeology rather than visiting from Betelguise to work on a Wikipedia entry on us..
Travelling faster than the speed of light is, after all, just as impossible as time travel. Humans have been human for less than a million years, what will we be like in another ten million? Will we have found that time travel is as impossible as air travel was 1000 years ago?
mcgrew's razor: Never attribute to stupidity that which can be explained by greedy self-interest
I would presume any such Prime Directive would ultimately be abused/ignored like it has been on Star Trek. International Law is only arbitrarily enforced. Let's first get a grip on how we treat our own people and the other species which inhabit our planet, then maybe we could think about how we would treat extra-terrestrial life forms (if in fact there are any). The only downside to idealism is reality.
> Travelling faster than the speed of light is, after all, just as impossible as time travel
Travelling faster than the speed of light is pretty much the same thing as time travel. If you could travel faster than the speed of light, then you could time travel.
I don't see why Fermi's paradox is in any way a good argument. By his argument, there are no lobsters at all. I know this because last night I left my door open and waited for one to crawl in.
Put another way - we (humanity) went from fairly small mammals to now in about 65 million years. If the dinosaurs hadn't fallen victim to $extinctionLevelEvent, they could easily have become as evolved as we are now - just a whole lot earlier. So, if intelligent/sentient life could have evolved here 60 million years ago, why wouldn't that be the case in another solar system?
For all we know, it's entirely possible that 15,000 light years away there's a planet with a civilization that is EXACTLY as evolved as we are. Why haven't we heard from them yet? Physics - would take 15,000 years for any signal to reach us. Hell, 200 light years away would suffice for that argument, and in both cases Fermi would look like an idiot.
As an aside, I see his paradox along the lines of creationism - after all, we can't prove that something doesn't exist. Only that it does.
We do not live in the 21st century. We live in the 20 second century.
What this means is that in an infinite universe that has totally random initial conditions, every possible state will be realized somewhere. That means that somewhere in the universe, conditions very similar to our local conditions will be realized. Not only does this mathematically guarantee that life exists somwhere, but also that "copies" of Earth and you and me exist somewhere. All possible variants of matter organization are realized somewhere in the infinite universe (and in fact may be repeated over and over). Of course, the distances over which you will see a repeat may be fantastically large (much, much larger than the observable universe, for instance). Also, life-forms in causally-disconnected volumes can never communicate with each other. (So you may say... who cares?)
In any case, it's not known with certainty that the universe is infinite (or that the big bang was ergodic)... but our current theories allow for models where the multiple emergence of life (and all physically reasonable variants) is in fact mathematically guaranteed. Kinda interesting.
The best evidence for intelligent life in the universe is that it hasn't contacted us yet
(Paraphrasing Calvin)
I don't know what this Prime Dircetive actually says but if it's something along the lines of
...
1) Subjugate and conquer any species you encounter against which you can prevail with military might.
2) Use diplomacy and survelliance/espionage techinques to undermine any species against whom you are not guaranteed to prevail to bring about their downfall and leave you in control of their resources.
3) Attempt to avoid or form favourable alliances with anything you come across which is stronger than you.
4)
5) Profit
But we'll have goatees.
Population of the Universe: none.
It is known that there are an infinite number of worlds, simply because there is an infinite amount of space for them to be in. However, not every one of them is inhabited. Therefore, there must be a finite number of inhabited worlds. Any finite number divided by infinity is as near to nothing as makes no odds, so the average population of all the planets in the Universe can be said to be zero. From this it follows that the population of the whole Universe is zero, and that any people you may meet from time to time are merely the products of a deranged imagination.
Nonsense. An unknown computer genius would write a virus for their vast computer system after three days of exposure to it, and then upload it by way of a MacBook, crippling their defenses and allowing a ragtag band of fighter pilots (very few of whom have actually flown the planes they've been given) to take down the invader's superweapons. Technology's got nothing on good old corporate-sponsored flag-waving feel-good heroic ingenuity.
120 characters for a sig? That's bloody useless.
And liberation? Whose fault is it that the people of the world suffer tyrants and murderers ruling them, really? If all the people go together we could overthrow them without too much difficulty. But then, we'd have to overthrow the new tyrants who led the last revolution, and so on.
I'll have you know that I, as an enlightened being, have been liberating lesser beings for years. I have personally liberated hundreds if not thousands of civilizations of ants. I've also liberated civilizations of bees, wasps and hornets. I'll tell you... the totalitarianism they were subjected to would make a civilized person weep.
They must have been captives, because once I slew their rulers and set them free, they all left and I never saw them again. But I'm sure they were singing my praises, whatever happened to them.
-1 Uncomfortable Truth
I remember a story that I read long ago in a compilation of Sci-Fi short stories where we were visited by a group of aliens that thought they were going to subjucate us, believing that they were superior because they had FTL travel. They leave their spaceship to face the primitive earthmen... with their muskets. It seems theat to them and most other races that FTL travel was so easy that they never had to develop weapons of mass destruction, tanks, and other weapons of war. The story ended with the aliens lamenting that they had just give us, a warlike planet of much superior weapons, the keys to the galexy.
If something hard to us maybe easy to them, the oppisite may be true too.
Fear the power of NTie!