Please read this for further edification on the subject:
http://www.aeiveos.com/~bradbury/MatrioshkaBrains/index.html
Larry
----- Original Message -----
From: "Reeve, Jack W." <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
To: <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Sent: Thursday, April 26, 2001 10:21 PM
Subject: RE: Two new online articles about SETI from S&T
Hello Gail and Roberta,
A couple of my thoughts which you may find worthy of a peek.
As a "technical civilization", we Earthlings are utter newborns. Consider:
we have been capable of talking across the void (radio) for about a hundred
years. This represents a miniscule portion of Earth's life presence; 100/+-
2, 000, 000, 000.
If a civilization has technology, it is unlikely that we'll find them at the
very time where their capability winks into existence. Instead, we are
likely to find them well along down the technology road.
Ergo, the probability is that any technologically advanced race in the
heavens would, in all probability, be perhaps 100's of thousands or, more
likely, millions of years into technology.
A big part of any technology is the movement knowledge; communication. A
civilization on this scale would likely be moving a lot of information
around over significant distances, spanning their empire. It should give
off a pretty significant glow, over a fairly wide spectrum.
One point though. Sending information around by spherical or radial
transmission is not particularly efficient. In truth, transmitting
outwardly in the shape of a ball is the best possible way to cause a signal
to weaken as quickly as possible. It is reasonable to assume that a good
part of an advanced civilization's long distance transmission technology
would be aimed. Why light up the entire sky just to illuminate a few
selected points? As a result, I think there is a good chance that we will
see these occasional flashes as we pass through these concentrated beams of
communication.
I am a bit troubled by the possibility that these advanced technical
civilizations may be transmitting their communiqués in media with which we
are utterly unaware. It may be that they are sending out our equivalent of
radio, and we are listening in our equivalent of sound waves. Ships in the
night, if you will.
Regards,
Jack
-----Original Message-----
From: Gail & Roberta [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]]
Sent: Friday, April 27, 2001 1:21 AM
To: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Subject: Re: Two new online articles about SETI from S&T
Very interesting, if a little deep for my shallow thinking. I signed up for
SETI@home, and participated for a while. I just don't have the computing
power or the time for the persistence necessary to make it worthwhile for
me.
However, in all the discussions, I don't see one question being asked. The
assumption seems to be that other civilizations on other worlds will be
doing the same thing we are doing, i.e., sending out beacons to see if there
is anyone else out there. Has anyone challenged this assumption? What if
there are such civs. out there, but they're not as curious as we are? Or
they know we're here, but just don't care? Maybe they're out there, but just
have their transmitters pointed in the opposite direction? What if they're
not even transmitting anything?
One possibility is that our signals have been going out, they have been
received, and the "others" are replying. Given the distances and times
involved, maybe it will be another hundred years or so before the first
signals get here. This, of course, has been discussed, but still doesn't get
to my original question. Any thoughts on this?
Watch the skies, or listen, as the case may be!
Gail Leatherwood
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