|
| Personal background |
|---|
| I'm 50. I have a family. I play bridge. I practice law in a small town in the South. |
| Thoughts about SETI and SETI@home |
|---|
The chances of SETI's finding an extraterrestrial organism emitting radio signals are probably less than we think.
The Drake equation (suggesting a definable number of "planets" emitting organism-originated radio signals) is out-of date arrogant foolishness that begs every question it proposes to answer.
SETI hopes to find “intelligent life,†but we cannot know how probable that is. An oversized moon, a super-explosive volcano, continental drift and many other factors may have conspired to produce modern humans, Earth's only known intentional radio producer. There may be millions of other (unknown) conspirators, without which earth would not yet have produced a radio-capable population.
Even if an organism were radio capable, how likely is it that such an organism would emit signals and in a form we would recognize? Would an organism whose surroundings are liquid, heavy, dark, hot, or isolated “think†in terms that I could understand, or react to manipulate its surroundings? Who knows? We’re so human that it may be too hard for us to imagine the possibilities. Many people believe that their dog thinks in human terms; that it is “excited†or “depressed.†If dogs have emotions they’re nothing like mine; and if a fellow mammal, which lives in an identical environment “thinks†in a way wholly different from me, what of an alien organism? We truly can’t imagine.
Almost everything about this project exhibits our parochial estimation of our own universe. We are using beads and rattles to divine the existence of some neighbor we call an "intelligent life-form," when we have no idea what that might mean or how or whether such a form may exhibit itself (or, for that matter, what we would ever do if we did find and recognize it).
On the other hand, being who we are, we will listen for them all the same. For all we know, there may be Ralph Kramdens driving buses on Europa. |
| Your feedback on this profile |
|---|
| Recommend this profile for User of the Day: |
I like this profile |
| Alert administrators to an offensive profile: |
I do not like this profile |
|
| Account data |
View |
| Team |
None |
|
