Why is there (so far as we've found) nobody talking at the waterhole frequency? Depending on what assumptions you plug into the Drake equation, ETs across the galaxy could be pounding our ears off with signals. So why is it so quiet?

I know this is an old discussion, but I thought some of us might want to focus on it again. Hence this thread. For starters, I'll toss out a couple of possibilities.

1. Any civilization that builds a beacon advertising its existence is promptly wiped out by bad guys.

2. Most technological civilizations that do arise don't last more than a century or two because they burn through their planet's non-renewable resources such as oil, and then promptly fall back to stone age technology.

3. Civilizations use radio for communication for only a brief time. If they keep studying physics, they quickly discover something better or faster or easier--hyperwave or the FAT line or whatever. And we'll figure it out too, in a few years, and join the conversations already in progress.

Thoughts, anyone?

(Sparrow - Crunching for Calm Chaos)

Those are all excellent ideas, what you're hitting on is called the Fermi Paradox, or "where are they?".

Lets not deny that SETI is based a little on hope, a little on science (the perfect human combination IMO), but there are many many counter arguments to the Fermi Paradox. Some are detailed here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fermi_paradox

The main reasons I pertain to is that whether life is abundant in the Universe or not, space is big. Not just big big, but absolutely mind bogglingly huge. Beyond anything we can imagine, without the help of exponent powers of magnitude. Also take that SETI@home only piggybacks data from one observatory, has only been running for a few decades, and has only really closely looked at 1000 stars (my numbers are probably wrong). Also note that we're looking for only certain types of signals we might expect from seti.

The best way to explain it I recently heard was like taking a glass of water from the ocean, seeing no fish and saying "there must be no fish in the ocean!", which as we know is far from the truth.

SETI will take time. We havnt even scratched the surface.

I agree, great ideas, often think about this stuff.
But one thing I keep going back to is the time variable.
In the collection of species that this Galaxy has produced,
and we all really know here there are or have been many,
the numbers are in our favour,
where , or more importantly, when, are we.
The time scale that our technology has existed is like a droplet in the Pacific.
Are we early or late to the party?

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*** Those who know, don't speak,
those who speak, don't know ***

Sparrow, your third possibility seems the most likely, but I'm not sure it would solve the 'great silence'. A civilization that had long ago outgrown radio could probably still use it if it wanted to communicate with a primitive bunch like us, just as we could relearn smoke signals or 'talking drums'. They might even be able to send and receive radio waves at near-instantaneous (effective) speed. Having harmonized relativity and quantum mechanics, it might be possible to route such signals through macro-scale tunnels, otherwise similar to quantum tunneling. I suspect that we are under a 'leaky embargo' which sharply limits the pace of the contact process between us and the rest of the galaxy. Very gradual contact, with considerable ambiguity preserved along the way may be considered in our best interest. Michael

The problem is, there *is no "great silence"*.

It would be interesting if "nobody" was talking at the waterhole frequency which SETI@Home is listening to, but that premise is fundamentally not accurate.

The amount of space which SETI@Home has listened to, and specifically, the number of stars, is incredibly minuscule when compared to the size of the galaxy. And the "waterhole frequency" itself is a very, very narrow slice of all the potential frequencies on the radio spectrum. Even if SETI@Home had the capability to individually target every single star in the entire galaxy (SETI@Home merely piggybacks Aricebo, it doesn't individually target any stars), and heard nothing, then wouldn't Occam's Razor dictate that we're merely wrong about the Waterhole Frequency? It's sort of like listening to one phone number at one person's address, and deciding that if nobody calls that one telephone number, then there must be nobody else in the world. The SETI Institute goes a different route than SETI@Home; with the new Allen Telescope Array, the Institute listens to an astonishing range of frequencies while specifically targeting individual stars.

This article might be enlightening:
http://www.space.com/searchforlife/seti_three_myths_060622.html


So we actually don't know if it's "quiet" at all; in fact, we don't have the slightest clue whether it's noisy or quiet. We haven't listened to enough of the galaxy to even approach that question with regards to empirical evidence; we don't really have any, even after all these years. The world just doesn't care enough about SETI to put any serious investment in it. Hopefully the ATA will change that...


For the record, as far as your ideas about civilizations:

I think 1 and 2 are just not possible. I've already outlined reasons why interstellar invasions or exterminations are implausible, and I don't believe it's possible for a transmitting civilization to "only last a century or two" since fossil fuels are not the only potential energy source; indeed they're not even necessarily the best or most efficient energy source. Even in a "Mad Max" scenario where a civilization plunged into a dark age, not all of their technology or knowledge would be lost, and their cultural and scientific evolution would eventually continue again no matter how long it took. Once biological intelligence arises, I believe long-lasting civilization is the inevitable end-result. Remember, spans of thousands, hundreds of thousands, or even millions of years are inconsequential in the timescales of the Universe.

But when it comes to #3, I actually think you're hitting close to the mark there. It seems almost self-evident to me that radio communication will be used only briefly by any civilization; perhaps a few centuries, even a thousand years. Since I'm absolutely confident that this is the case, I have to assume that ET would intentionally transmit using radio waves because it would know that an emerging civilization would be listening to radio (as perhaps they themselves once did). The problem with this (and it's a major problem) is that radio might be so incredibly short-lived (a thousand years is short), that any communicating civilization would deem it a poor medium for successful contact since the chances would be very remote that the receiving civilization would still be using it.

There may be something else, like gravity waves, or even light, or some other method we can yet imagine that's much more long-lasting and ubiquitous as a medium for communication. I remain hopeful though because even if that's the case (and I have a strong suspicion that it is), radio would still be a decent medium for communication with an emerging civilization; Technological evolution seems to be entirely linear and is likely consistent no matter what the peculiarities of any given civilization. In other words, A must exist before B can be built, and C can't exist until B is invented first... If that's the case, then ET *must* have invented radio communication at some point in its history, and if they're anything like us, they too may have listened to radio frequencies from other civilizations. Since we have to assume they're much older than us, we also assume the history of their technology will be similar to ours. It seems reasonable to assume that *they* will assume other civilizations are listening to radio since they once did themselves...

Wonderful, thought-provoking, informative posts here!

I'd like to think the third option I offered is true, i.e. that we're using smoke signals while the galaxy happily chats away in a medium we won't discover for a few more years. I'd also like to think that we're the objects of a benign non-interference policy. Those are nice warm thoughts.

The size of the galaxy and timing certainly must to be factors, too. And our own efforts at research are pathetic compared to our technical and economic capacities. One month of the Iraq war would fully fund the Allen Array for...how long? <snort of disgust>

I continue to wonder how many civilizations reach a level where they're reasonably stable and secure. And maybe this is the "passing final grade" that tells more advanced cultures it's okay to make contact. I remember a time when most people seemed to think that if we didn't nuke ourselves into obliviion, we'd be home free. Ah, the good old days! It's really so much more complex than that, isn't it? We have to learn to responsibly manage our population, our resources, our behavior, our technology, and do all this before our one little planet gets nailed by another extinction-level event. So we need to be lucky, too. I wonder how many budding civilizations are both smart and lucky?

Sparrow; I tend to doubt that any civilization, no matter how advanced, is really secure. As you point out, the solution of one problem simply meant that we survived to face several others! And this has happened repeatedly in human history. This may well be the situation throughout the galaxy. Strictly social stability may be achievable, but becoming too settled is probably not as good a thing as it might seem. Stagnation and complacency could be the result, together with the inability to deal with externally based problems. We might prove interesting to extraterrestrials because of our youthful verve and vitality, relative to themselves. We might very well be the only planet in the galaxy, at this moment, filled with such lawless, brawling, intensely striving beings. Michael

There may be something else, like gravity waves, or even light, or some other method we can yet imagine that's much more long-lasting and ubiquitous as a medium for communication. I remain hopeful though because even if that's the case (and I have a strong suspicion that it is), radio would still be a decent medium for communication with an emerging civilization; Technological evolution seems to be entirely linear and is likely consistent no matter what the peculiarities of any given civilization. In other words, A must exist before B can be built, and C can't exist until B is invented first... If that's the case, then ET *must* have invented radio communication at some point in its history, and if they're anything like us, they too may have listened to radio frequencies from other civilizations. Since we have to assume they're much older than us, we also assume the history of their technology will be similar to ours. It seems reasonable to assume that *they* will assume other civilizations are listening to radio since they once did themselves...

that is one big assumption... your assuming that since we found radio first that they will too... this may not be the case. They may not even discover radio waves if they find something better first.

I recently read an article about searching for ET and it was talking about the biggest problem is we assume they will be like us because we dont know any other way is possible.. so how can we find something if we dont know what to look for? ie. what if they dont use oxygen and carbon? what if they discover some other method of communication we cant even comprehend?

---

Do you Good Search for Seti@Home? http://www.goodsearch.com/?charityid=888957
Or Good Shop? http://www.goodshop.com/?charityid=888957

There may be something else, like gravity waves, or even light, or some other method we can yet imagine that's much more long-lasting and ubiquitous as a medium for communication. I remain hopeful though because even if that's the case (and I have a strong suspicion that it is), radio would still be a decent medium for communication with an emerging civilization; Technological evolution seems to be entirely linear and is likely consistent no matter what the peculiarities of any given civilization. In other words, A must exist before B can be built, and C can't exist until B is invented first... If that's the case, then ET *must* have invented radio communication at some point in its history, and if they're anything like us, they too may have listened to radio frequencies from other civilizations. Since we have to assume they're much older than us, we also assume the history of their technology will be similar to ours. It seems reasonable to assume that *they* will assume other civilizations are listening to radio since they once did themselves...

that is one big assumption... your assuming that since we found radio first that they will too... this may not be the case. They may not even discover radio waves if they find something better first.

I recently read an article about searching for ET and it was talking about the biggest problem is we assume they will be like us because we dont know any other way is possible.. so how can we find something if we dont know what to look for? ie. what if they dont use oxygen and carbon?

what if they discover some other method of communication we cant even comprehend?

. . . excellent and very much likely to be true Sir!!!

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BOINC Wiki . . .

Science Status Page . . .

Michael Watson wrote:

"Stagnation and complacency could be the result, together with the inability to deal with externally based problems. We might prove interesting to extraterrestrials because of our youthful verve and vitality, relative to themselves. We might very well be the only planet in the galaxy, at this moment, filled with such lawless, brawling, intensely striving beings."

Yes, it seems like a conundrum.

One one hand, any civilization needs more than a little spacefaring and astro-engineering capability, and probably a viable presence on more than one planet, if it is to have much hope of surviving asteroid or comet hits, megavolcanic outbreaks, and the like. And as we know, spacefaring skills aren't easily acquired, and require some degree of continuity or social stability.

On the other hand, our species and our culture, and indeed our whole biosphere, is the result of several mass extictions, ice ages, endless warfare, and the rise and fall of numerous empires and cultures. Imagine what our planet might be like if the dinasaurs were still here, or even if the British Empire had managed to rule peacefully for a few centuries. As Bob Dylan said, "He not busy being born is busy dying."

---

"Good against remotes is one thing. Good against the living, that's something else." (Han Solo)

One month of the Iraq war would fully fund the Allen Array for...how long? <snort of disgust>

Heck, one day's worth of Iraq funds would complete all dishes in the Allen Array and be enough to fund its operation for the next 100 years!!

They may not even discover radio waves if they find something better first.

It's not really a question of whether or not they "discover" radio waves; they'll discover them just because they're there. It's a question of if they'll use them as a medium for communication and if they'll assume than emerging civilizations would be listening to radio waves.

You're right, they might have found something better first....but I tend to hold to the theory that technological evolution is 100% absolutely linear; that you can't go from A to C without going to B first, no matter who or where you are. I really do believe that any technologically advanced civilization will had to have used radio technology at some point like we did.

Without going too far into the mine field of politics... Our culture doesn't place much value on science unless it directly affects our ability to kill each other and/or our will to power, and we seem incapable of sustained effort unless it's for the same reasons. If ET attacked us, we'd get busy very quickly, I bet. (I'm thinking of Larry Niven's novel "Footfall.") Or look at how lightly we (as a culture) take the risks posed by earth-crossing comets and asteroids. Nothing speculative at all about that problem. We just watched Jupiter get hit. Again...Take the money from a week or a month's worth of the war and put it there!

That wasn't me who wrote the "discover something better first" post. I can't imagine how technology could progress in a nonlinear fashion. But then we haven't discovered "something better" yet, so I suppose it's really very speculative.

---

"Good against remotes is one thing. Good against the living, that's something else." (Han Solo)

Just a twist on the search idea...

If one stops and believes in the big bag theory, Then take into consideration the time it takes a signal to go through the galaxy. We can then see that if you look at where the center of the big bang happened this would be looking behind us and in the opposite direction would be in front of us. This would give us a time line to the past and future. Now if we focused our efforts on the beginning then then turn around and spend the same amount of time looking forward, Maybe we could locate that one signal that we are looking for. This may sound crazy but hey what do we have to loose?

DD,

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Just a twist on the search idea...

If one stops and believes in the big bag theory, Then take into consideration the time it takes a signal to go through the galaxy. We can then see that if you look at where the center of the big bang happened this would be looking behind us and in the opposite direction would be in front of us. This would give us a time line to the past and future. Now if we focused our efforts on the beginning then then turn around and spend the same amount of time looking forward, Maybe we could locate that one signal that we are looking for. This may sound crazy but hey what do we have to loose?

DD,

Sorry, but the 'Big Bang' didn't work that way.

Your description above assumes that the 'Big Bang' was like an explosion, where everything is expanding away from a central point. That's not the way it works.

The 'Big Bang' is more like a balloon being blown up. Take a balloon with just enough air in it to give it shape. Using a marker, put a dot on it to represent 'you' (your location in space and time). Mark three more equally spaced dots in a triangle surrounding the dot that is 'you'. Now start blowing up the balloon.

The surface of the balloon is our three-dimensional space. Note that as space expands (blowing up the balloon is equivalent to the big bang), each of the dots is getting farther away from the dot that is 'you'. Note also that each of the dots is getting farther away from each of the other dots.

There is no 'front/back' relationship to the center of the big bang...all parts of our universe are expanding away from all other parts.

Something else to consider...

The speed of light is NOT constant. This was proven in the discovery of the 5th state of matter (Bose-Einstein) this "frozen light" travelled along at 38 mph*

*according to the article in astronomy magazine July 08 (haven't had time to see what other sources say)

---

Do you Good Search for Seti@Home? http://www.goodsearch.com/?charityid=888957
Or Good Shop? http://www.goodshop.com/?charityid=888957

Something else to consider...

The speed of light is NOT constant. This was proven in the discovery of the 5th state of matter (Bose-Einstein) this "frozen light" travelled along at 38 mph*

*according to the article in astronomy magazine July 08 (haven't had time to see what other sources say)

here is a site on it. I haven't had time to read it yet, but it looks good.

---

Michael Watson wrote:

"Stagnation and complacency could be the result, together with the inability to deal with externally based problems. We might prove interesting to extraterrestrials because of our youthful verve and vitality, relative to themselves. We might very well be the only planet in the galaxy, at this moment, filled with such lawless, brawling, intensely striving beings."

Yes, it seems like a conundrum.

One one hand, any civilization needs more than a little spacefaring and astro-engineering capability, and probably a viable presence on more than one planet, if it is to have much hope of surviving asteroid or comet hits, megavolcanic outbreaks, and the like. And as we know, spacefaring skills aren't easily acquired, and require some degree of continuity or social stability.

On the other hand, our species and our culture, and indeed our whole biosphere, is the result of several mass extictions, ice ages, endless warfare, and the rise and fall of numerous empires and cultures. Imagine what our planet might be like if the dinasaurs were still here, or even if the British Empire had managed to rule peacefully for a few centuries. As Bob Dylan said, "He not busy being born is busy dying."

Sparrow; This conundrum has been solved repeatedly by the human race. The Greeks called their solution 'the golden mean', the Chinese, 'the middle way'. It's always about the same, and amounts to: 'not too much of anything; nothing in excess'. The real trick has been discerning how much is too much, and acting consistently on that knowledge. I strongly suspect that any extraterrestrial species that has survived to sentience will have something similar in their bag of tricks. If they are older than we are, they are probably better at detecting 'too much' and better at acting on the knowledge. They presumably also incorporate the natural design principles as a whole into their practical philosophy. Michael

Something else to consider...

The speed of light is NOT constant. This was proven in the discovery of the 5th state of matter (Bose-Einstein) this "frozen light" travelled along at 38 mph*

*according to the article in astronomy magazine July 08 (haven't had time to see what other sources say)

It's not constant and travels at different speeds in different mediums, but it has an upper limit.

Without going too far into the mine field of politics... Our culture doesn't place much value on science unless it directly affects our ability to kill each other and/or our will to power, and we seem incapable of sustained effort unless it's for the same reasons. If ET attacked us, we'd get busy very quickly, I bet. (I'm thinking of Larry Niven's novel "Footfall.") Or look at how lightly we (as a culture) take the risks posed by earth-crossing comets and asteroids. Nothing speculative at all about that problem. We just watched Jupiter get hit. Again...Take the money from a week or a month's worth of the war and put it there!

That wasn't me who wrote the "discover something better first" post. I can't imagine how technology could progress in a nonlinear fashion. But then we haven't discovered "something better" yet, so I suppose it's really very speculative.

Sparrow; Technology appears to progress in an evolutionary manner. This is linear in the sense that that we can look back at how is has evolved and trace out strands of it logically. This lead to that, which leads to the next thing, etc. Projecting this forward in time, or onto unknown extraterrestrial civilizations is less likely to be reliable, it seems. An extraterrestrial technology may evolve, but local conditions will be key. Suppose a superJovian planet in the habitable zone of its star. Suppose an Earth sized moon of that planet. Intelligent life might evolve there. Would they invent radio? Maybe not. If the superJovian planet radiates strongly in the VLF through lower VHF radio ranges, as Jupiter does, this could create a very formidable obstacle to the beginnings of radio. Alternatives could be favored. Still linear, but not *our* linear. Michael