Future Proof

[rogers_buck]

Curiously, I was pondering the idea of radio telescopes and the possibility of detecting messages from our future selves and journeyed downstairs to find the Science channel running a program on just such a topic. This coincidence was so moving I felt behooved to post.<br /><br />One big question that hangs over humanity is whether we are to have a Star Trek style future or decay into some banal non-progressive society with a rattus norvegicus death by consumption ending. It occured to me there is a superb way of answering this fundamental question.<br /><br />1) Pick a nearby known rotating black hole.<br />2) Pick a date in the near future when Aracebo will point at the black hole and make observations at a specific wavelength.<br />3) Publish the time of observation and the coordinates.<br />4) As an added measure of security, embelish the above on a gold plaque giving the time and coordinates in pulsar notation. Note that the observation period would have to be large enough to accomodate the accuracy obtainable by backward extrapolation over many centuries.<br />5) When the published date arrives, point the telescope at the indicated black hole and start collecting data.<br /><br />The assumption here is that at some distant future mankind or our engineered replacements will oblidge us by using the rotating black hole to send an earthbound message. A simple ping.<br /><br />If no message is received, we can assume that we will have destroyed ourselves or will have stagnated in the future.<br /><br />There should be no gray areas with this simple experiment. Our future selves will know if the signal was received if they are in our universe. If they are in another universe, they should also know that we received the message by entangling the signal. Either way, they will know and know how important it is for us to receive that signal.<br /><br />Call it SFTI (Search for Future Terrestrial Intelligence).<br />

 

[vogon13]

Where would we be without casaulity? <div class="Discussion_UserSignature"> <p><font color="#ff0000"><strong>TPTB went to Dallas and all I got was Plucked !!</strong></font></p><p><font color="#339966"><strong>So many people, so few recipes !!</strong></font></p><p><font color="#0000ff"><strong>Let's clean up this stinkhole !!</strong></font> </p> </div>

 

[rogers_buck]

They might not actually have to use the black hole. They might just use technology to affect the telescopes receiver in some other way. The reason for the rotating black hole is that the frame dragging near the event horizon is a reliable time machine. A probe entering the "vortex" can essentially exceed the speed of light in our reference frame due to the vortex movement of space-time around the black hole. Like a motor boat with a top speed of 10 knott. When the motor boat is in a whirlpool it can travel at 20 knotts relative to somone outside the whirlpool without exceeding its 10 knott limitation. In such a case time dialation causes time to run backwards and the probe can then emerge in the past.<br /><br />What I'm proposing is simply the Time Travel X-Prize. If you put it in monetary terms, a $10 purse will be deposited in a Swiss Bank in the name of the entity that claims it in the future. If it takes 1000 years for the prize to be claimed the compound interest will make that party the richest man in the galaxy.<br /><br />Please don't pay too much attention to the details I put into my proposal, I just used those as a strawman reference. I'm sure smarter people can come up with far better strategies. The concept is the important thing. <br />

 

[rogers_buck]

There are many ways to look at causality. For one, the history of the message sender might be that on 2012 the earth received the first of many messages from its future. In that case, our future selves would be tampering with causality by not sending the message. Don't forget, we have no bias as to when the message gets sent. So long as all know we are listening sooner or later somone will succeed - unless we are dead.<br /><br />If the message senders history does not detail that the earth received such a message in their history, then sending their sending of the message will not be received in their history. That doesn't mean that it wouldn't be received in our history. There are infinitely many histories possible. They have nothing to loose by sending the message.<br /><br />Personally, I think we are already experiencing a low-level version of this in the form of thermodynamic entropy. Right now we anticipate future events statistically. If we had more specific knowledge of an event it would just alter the probabilities of that event occuring from our perspective.<br /><br />That is why I found it so uncanny that my musings were airing in a living room downstairs at the same time I was having them. A coincidence? Or was it simply the probabilities being manipulated by some future history where a test like the one I'm proposing was performed? Ok, I'm not likely to convince anyone by posting here with a gonzo moniker, but it was the best I could do. Maybe just a small item in a chain of events, however.<br /><br />This all touches on reality, perception, and what we perceive as free-will. It is a new experimental technique that puts the burden upon the future where the hard stuff can be more affordably undertaken.<br />