| Personal background |
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- originally from virginia, attending amherst college in massachusetts
- i enjoy playing guitar, ultimate frisbee, and modding my ever-growing collection of comps |
| Thoughts about SETI and SETI@home |
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I think it is unquestionable that extraterrestrial life exists, and I think its eventual discovery will be a pivotal event in human history, perhaps having enough impact to unite mankind as a global nation and put other conflicting concerns to rest n pursuit of universal betterment. Unfortunately, I think this result most likely only in the event of contact with humanoid, or at least sentient, extraterrestrial life. From what I've heard it seems more likely that alien life forms would take the shape of something we would most closely approximate to insects, and while such a discovery would be unequivocally extraordinary, I cannot help but hope that eventually we will encounter other life forms with which we will be able to interact intellectually.
The search for radio waves seems like a just pursuit and I happily support it, but I think it more likely that we will ultimately encounter extraterrestrial life with a probe to some far-away planet or asteroid, and whether that life is still alive or not is entirely up in the air. Still, I cannot help but think that given the universe's unimaginable size, it is not so unlikely that another ecosystem such as Earth's will have developed, allowing similar life forms to evolve.
It is of course possible that such life forms might be dangerous in terms of disease and whatnot, but the benefits of the knowledge that we are not alone and its implications for uniting humanity and resolving problems facing mankind as of late more than displace any concerns of danger. Again, I do not firmly believe that the transmission of radio frequencies will ultimately result in the discovery of an alien life form, not its discovery of us, but nonetheless I find the idea well worth pursuing.
Along this vein, I consider SETI@home worthy of worldwide attention, not necessarily for its pursuit of the discovery of extraterrestrial life, which is unarguably significant, but because of its contributions to legitimizing the possibilities of grid computing. |
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