To find intelligent alien life, humans may need to start thinking like an extraterrestrial

[Admin]

Anthropologist reveals a potentially big flaw in the Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence (SETI).

To find intelligent alien life, humans may need to start thinking like an extraterrestrial : Read more

 

[Vaz]

I hate people who say "to find aliens, you need to think like one."
It's a catch 22. In order to think like an alien, you need to have discovered it, studied it beforehand to even grasp how one might think. And by then, you wouldn't need to find aliens, because you've already found one!

 

[Joe Brooks]

One thing I've always thought about regarding our SETI searches and looking at ourselves regards our reactions to one-off signals like the WOW! signal detected in 1977 or the Russian signal detected in 2015. Both of these are likely to have been false alarms, the WOW! signal likely being from hydrogen gas escaping from Comet 266P/Christensen and the Russian signal likely coming from a Russian military satellite. The key feature of both of these signals, though, is that these signals were heard once and never picked up again.

However, what would aliens see looking at Earth? Since our accidental radio signals sent to space (radio and TV) are barely strong enough to be detected out by our own Oort Cloud, never mind by a much more distant alien civilization, we only need to consider very strong signals. Some military radar signals, which would be one-offs detected at random intervals, would also be accidental. Then there would be the intentional signals that have been sent, such as the Arecibo message sent in 1973 (and only recently sent again) and a few other one-offs such as when NASA beamed the Beatles song "Across the Universe" out to the stars. So any alien civilizations using our detection methods, where you come back the next night and try to find it again, or when you ask other observatories to try to pick it up the next day, would hear nothing. They would be the recipients of the same type of one-off messages that we thought we had received. They have since turned out to have either natural or terrestrial causes, but until the causes were figured out, a one-off could not be ruled out.

 

[Craig Jones]

I really can't see advanced civilizations using radio or laser communications (being too slow for useful communications over stellar distances). Surely they have cracked manipulating entangled atoms in huge arrays allowing high quality instant communication which can't be otherwise intercepted or observed.

 

[Anonymous010]

They tell me: 'We're studying aliens, and you're studying us.'"

No they aren't. To actually study aliens, they'd at least need to find some solid evidence for them first.

 

[Letsaytheyexsist]

Let me exspress my feelings about Aliens. I realy think they do exist, some beeings beyond us, who are way more smarter and developed. Let's just say that what doomed them, and not saying they are extinct, was actualy some kind of a weapon. I realy think they had somekind of a war going on between each other. Humans have or had similar wars but still, they are having their own weapons, lasors, nuklear and so on. And I think, that untill human race will have nuklear weapons, weapons of mass destruction of any kind, we will simply not find exstraterrestrial inteligence . No way. We must provide peace to "upgrade" and to find them.... let's just say we wont find them but they will find us when we will be ready for them or never at all. We are allready prooving ourselves that we are not deserved to be on this planet. Look only for global warming, where is the peace in afrika or any other continent that wars are still up. Where are we even looking? Who is in charge and who runs this show? We need to get things right before we doom ourselves like alliens did once. All we need to show them is peace. Are we ready to become peacfull nation or are we still going to be selfish fools, taking everything to themselves, and still having WARS, pollutioning our world and making difference between humans. Look where we landed folks. And lets say for sure, THEY ARE WATCHING every move we make. Lets make it in right direction this time. New era new, people, young people, any people, we should gather and make this world better place.

 

[Mage]

The title has a few mistakes. I fix it for you.

The correct title is:

“To find intelligent life, humans need to start thinking“

 

[MPM]

No need at all. Please see that for the said intelligent aliens, we are intelligent aliens. May be superior to them or may be inferior to them. If they are made out of an entirely different form of matter for us , we can't imagine about thinking like them. If they are far superior to us , they may be able to do so.

 

[Eatmyrubber1969]

We are all alien's in another place ie the multiverse, however we are the dumbest of the bunch that's why we are are always the bridesmaid and not the bride. We need to get a bit wiser before we can be accepted in the galactic population

 

[Geomartian]

Thinking like an alien used to get you stoned or burned at the stake. While the idea does have merit by expanding the range of your viewpoints, the consequences of shedding your human disguise have always been tragic.

The consequences of crashing one of our lizard overlord’s meetings would make the work of HP Lovecraft seem like a child’s lullaby

Simply recognizing the social and scientific pressures of conformity can be a big step forward. Reading a lot of alien genre science fiction rather than Space Opera can also help.

 

[Jaspal Singh]

No they aren't. To actually study aliens, they'd at least need to find some solid evidence for them first.

No they aren't. To actually study aliens, they'd at least need to find some solid evidence for them first.

Can you explain it clearly

 

[Jaspal Singh]

I have a dream that i see olny two think 1 god and 2 aliens

 

[Freetoffee]

I really can't see advanced civilizations using radio or laser communications (being too slow for useful communications over stellar distances). Surely they have cracked manipulating entangled atoms in huge arrays allowing high quality instant communication which can't be otherwise intercepted or observed.

No. Using entaglement for faster then light communication is fundementally immpossible because no information travels faster then light between entangled atoms, only certainty does. If you measure one then you know what the other will be, but the someone else won't be able to tell you measured the atom even if he observes it. You can use entaglement to exchange information but only at the speed of light (although I don't think it can be intercepted). However quantum tunneling is faster then light, so if you were somehow able to utilise then you would have faster then light communication, although I don't think you can. Wormholes, despite many scientists believing they cannot exist are still probably the most likely way for instant communication across vast spaces.