MadSci Network: Astronomy
Query:

Re: Is it probable that aliens could come to earth?

Date: Tue Sep 8 05:57:28 1998
Posted By: John Dreher, Staff Astronomer, SETI Institute
Area of science: Astronomy
ID: 905135410.As
Message:

Indeed, a common viewpoint is that interstellar travel
is likely to be deemed unappealing by essentially all
civilizations.  But it is not a univerally held view.
For example, some expect that we will soon (on the time
scale of evolutionary processes) be 'downloading' ourselves
into hardware.  One can conceive that hardware-based
beings could simply hibernate on long trips by slowing
down their internal clock rate.  I could think of
several reasons why interstellar travel might still be 
considered undesirable by such a being, but, clearly, 
this all becomes so speculative
that one cannot reasonably draw any signifigant conclusions.

That is the real conclusion: we simply don't
know enough to know what we are talking about when we
discuss matters such as this.  The famous 'Fermi Paradox'
is interesting from a philosophical viewpoint, but not,
I would hold, from a scientific standpoint.  When, if ever,
we make contact by some means or other with other civilizations,
then we will have some real data, and be able to reach some
more or less satisfactory conclusions about "what alien
civilizations do".  Until then, all one can do is what I
am currently doing -- trying to find reproducible and
verifiable evidence that other civilizations do, in fact,
even exist.  Right now, so far as scientific knowledge goes,
supported by verified data, there could be alien civilizations
located around EVERY star, or NONE.  My personal guess is
that they are fairly common, and that at least some persist
for times comparable to the ages of stars.  That guess is
why I am willing to spend my time looking for evidence,
as detailed at www.seti.org.  But it is just a hypothesis.
Until I get a data point, I'll just have to be patient
and strive to do the best job of looking for some data that
I can.  Luckily for me, the search itself is kind of fun.

I might also add that interstellar travel is certainly possible.
It's just that from our current perspective it looks slow,
expensive, boring, and dangerous.  Many people have speculated
that, from some future perspective, we may find out that physics
actually allows some sort of easy faster-than-light travel.  I would
argue that one might as well anticipate travel by magic.  No
different really.  The current phyical model of large scale
phenomena in the universe is provided by General Relativity (or
one of its near kindred).  Many features of this theory have
been tested against reality, and found to work extremely well.
Although we do know that this theory is incomplete at the quantum
scale, I would guess that it is rather unlikely that, regardless of
whatever modifications will eventually be made to GR, we will suddenly
find that the universe conforms to our personal WISHES that we
could travel far and fast.  My expectation is that we will need to learn to
cope with the universe the way it is, whether we like it or not. 
Anti-gravity belts and time machines, I predict, are never going to be
consumer products.  But I could be, indeed I would be happy to be, wrong.   


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