We are smart enough to pick up the signals?

[Anomalocaris]

I wonder if this is a sort of opposition in response to these other News :

"Super-intelligent aliens could be trying to contact Earth, but humans are too stupid to pick up the signals, says Seti’s top scientist"

At this very moment, an advanced alien civilisation may be trying contact Earth.

But despite our best efforts, we could be oblivious to their messages because humanity is not clever enough to pick up the signals.

This is according to Dr Nathalie Cabrol, who is leading the hunt for alien life at the Seti Institute in California.

Speaking to DailyMail.com, Dr Cabrol said we are getting closer to finding both microbial life in our solar system and intelligent life elsewhere.

Read more

[bubblykiss]

This has been one of the long bothersome devils in the search for intelligence.

Even now, I often go into Walmart searching for some sign of intelligence. Only to leave, time and time again. Disappointed.

But on point, the assumption that our best technology is the media by which alien minds convey information when they might express knowledge in heat code, radiation ghosts or light spectrums....like music expressed to the deaf....how do you even begin to understand what is being said when you can't even begin to imagine there is a message locked in the random chaos that is...well, everything we are bombarded with in the cosmos?

Right now this dude could be trying to tell us something profound about cosmic intellect verging on genius, that minds deeper than our paltry understanding of life and death and energy can even begin to illuminate....or maybe he is just saying, help me make rent this month.

Either way.

Edited September 18, 2015 by bubblykiss

[darkmoonlady]

It isn't that we are too stupid that sort of isn't fair. Given the age and level of technology our civilization is right now we are aware of the chance of life on other planets. That is about as far as we have gotten ans other civilizations could be behind us or far far ahead. It is one of the many factors involved in attempting content is the sheer luck of timing. Our intelligence level is one of those factors yes, but we have reached a level to begin the search, so we are at least that far ahead of the game.

[Frank Merton]

If "they" are trying to talk to us, they are the stupid ones.

[Lucas Cooper Merrin]

We think we are smart because we have nothing else to compare ourselves to! Im sure there are races out there who would see us as we see chimps!

What if instead of radio waves, an alien race were using light to transmit information, or had discovered a completely different method that we dont even know exists yet!

Its only been 150 years since we came up with methods of communication over distance, what if there are races out there that are millions of years ahead of us!

It would be like expecting Alexander Graham Bell to be able to receive and decode a modern day digital satellite transmission...he simply would have been completely unaware of it!

[Frank Merton]

I would expect other, older, societies would not make value judgments and think we are chimps. I would though think they would see us as needing work.

The amount of speculation around as to why the silence amazes me. An awful lot of people don't want to even imagine that maybe the silence is real and there is no one sending signals. It boggles my mind that there would be ways to communicate over such distances that are cheaper or better than the electromagnetic spectrum.

[+Hammerclaw]

I, on the other hand, would be surprised if a method of communication not much over a century old is state-of-the-art and the best the Universe has to offer. Now, I can no more imagine what other methods there would be than a telegraph operator in 1865 could imagine the cell phone. Still, if such a technological advance could occur in a mere one hundred and fifty years, what wonders will one hundred and fifty thousand years of advances produce? Personally, I haven't a clue, but I'm certain, if there really are other technological communicating species in the galaxy, many of them have already been there and done that.

Edited September 18, 2015 by Hammerclaw

[Lucas Cooper Merrin]

I would expect other, older, societies would not make value judgments and think we are chimps. I would though think they would see us as needing work.

The amount of speculation around as to why the silence amazes me. An awful lot of people don't want to even imagine that maybe the silence is real and there is no one sending signals. It boggles my mind that there would be ways to communicate over such distances that are cheaper or better than the electromagnetic spectrum.

I dont think there is silence! We just haven't discovered the technology to be able to receive it! For all we know the Universal medium of conveyance may lie within living beings rather than machinery! Its like giving somebody a short wave radio and expecting them to pick up DAB, its never going to happen! We are still in our communication infancy, how many of us 30 years ago had a cell phone? We have just touched the tip of the communication iceberg! To expect us to be be able to understand "it all" at our early stage in existence is quite absurd

[Frank Merton]

I dont think there is silence! We just haven't discovered the technology to be able to receive it! For all we know the Universal medium of conveyance may lie within living beings rather than machinery! Its like giving somebody a short wave radio and expecting them to pick up DAB, its never going to happen! We are still in our communication infancy, how many of us 30 years ago had a cell phone? We have just touched the tip of the communication iceberg! To expect us to be be able to understand "it all" at our early stage in existence is quite absurd

If you don't hear anything silence is the most reasonable conclusion, far outstripping all sorts of speculations, which one can do till one is blue in the face to rationalize any negative result.

[Frank Merton]

I, on the other hand, would be surprised if a method of communication not much over a century old is state-of-the-art and the best the Universe has to offer. Now, I can no more imagine what other methods there would be than a telegraph operator in 1865 could imagine the cell phone. Still, if such a technological advance could occur in a mere one hundred and fifty years, what wonders will one hundred and fifty thousand years of advances produce? Personally, I haven't a clue, but I'm certain, if there really are other technological communicating species in the galaxy, many of them have already been there and done that.

Common sense says go electro-magnetic. Speculation on advanced technology is just that, and misleads and distorts rational thinking, which has obviously happened to a few gentle folk here. Wishful thinking about advanced technology does not change the silence that is now several decades old.

[Lucas Cooper Merrin]

If you don't hear anything silence is the most reasonable conclusion, far outstripping all sorts of speculations, which one can do till one is blue in the face to rationalize any negative result.

Just because your ear cant hear a whisper, doesn't mean the whisper isn't there

[Lucas Cooper Merrin]

Common sense says go electro-magnetic. Speculation on advanced technology is just that, and misleads and distorts rational thinking, which has obviously happened to a few gentle folk here. Wishful thinking about advanced technology does not change the silence that is now several decades old.

Common sense limited by our own technological level of understanding

[+Hammerclaw]

Common sense says go electro-magnetic. Speculation on advanced technology is just that, and misleads and distorts rational thinking, which has obviously happened to a few gentle folk here. Wishful thinking about advanced technology does not change the silence that is now several decades old.

Common sense for a species at our level of technological expertise. Thank God for uncommon sense and all the people who thought outside the box to give us the world we live in today.

[spud the mackem]

How can we expect to read and interpret Alien signals when we cannot understand how mammals communicate, Elephants. Dogs, Whales ,Dolphins Birds etc all "speak" to each other and we haven't a clue what they say.

[Lucas Cooper Merrin]

How can we expect to read and interpret Alien signals when we cannot understand how mammals communicate, Elephants. Dogs, Whales ,Dolphins Birds etc all "speak" to each other and we haven't a clue what they say.

Good point!

In my opinion the distances of space are too far to be using our known methods of communication! When you are talking light years radiowaves just will not cut it! Advanced civilisations must have developed methods that we at our level of understanding just cannot comprehend yet

[kartikg]

Good point!

In my opinion the distances of space are too far to be using our known methods of communication! When you are talking light years radiowaves just will not cut it! Advanced civilisations must have developed methods that we at our level of understanding just cannot comprehend yet

Yes it's logical to assume so . Once any civilization progress towards interplanetary travel and beyond they have to develop better way of communication.

[Grey Area]

Any super-advanced civilisation trying to contact us would be able to customise a method of communication that we would be able to understand.

In the examples given, we are likened to chimps next to another advanced civilisation, well in the same respect we don't communicate with chimps using a 2 way radio, we use a means that they will respond to.

[ChewiesArmy]

If "they" are trying to talk to us, they are the stupid ones.

I wouldn't agree, I think we are a decent species. Now if the U.S. elects Trump, then you have understated.

[kartikg]

Any super-advanced civilisation trying to contact us would be able to customise a method of communication that we would be able to understand.

In the examples given, we are likened to chimps next to another advanced civilisation, well in the same respect we don't communicate with chimps using a 2 way radio, we use a means that they will respond to.

Yeah but we know that chimpanzees exist, they don't know anything about us and we don't know anything about them so we will choose a method which we both think is best and they might not be same.

[psyche101]

What if instead of radio waves, an alien race were using light to transmit information,

We have been doing that for a while now.

[Frank Merton]

Yes it's logical to assume so . Once any civilization progress towards interplanetary travel and beyond they have to develop better way of communication.

Yea I get that a lot -- like what? All you guys can say is that it must exist, but have no idea what. EMR is fundamental to the universe and is cheap to produce and goes on a long long way before becoming undetectable. Nothing else is going to go faster, so there you are.

[Frank Merton]

I wouldn't agree, I think we are a decent species. Now if the U.S. elects Trump, then you have understated.

No I think you missed my double-entendre and only got one half of it. Maybe sometimes I'm too subtle for my own good.

[+Sherapy]

If "they" are trying to talk to us, they are the stupid ones.

Ha ha ha ha ha ha, I agree! Good grief they could find better to do with their time. Ha ha ha ha

We need a lot of work!

Edited September 21, 2015 by Sherapy

[psyche101]

Just because your ear cant hear a whisper, doesn't mean the whisper isn't there

We have picked up background microwave radiation and the sounds of Jupiter's radiation, Frank is right, if they are trying to talk to us it is them who be a bit dim.

[+Sherapy]

We have picked up background microwave radiation and the sounds of Jupiter's radiation, Frank is right, if they are trying to talk to us it is them who be a bit dim.

Obviously, we are not very evolved, or intellectual as a whole, with the exception of a few, but we need work. I would never hold us up as some kind of example of anything yet, except as a work in progress.

Edited September 21, 2015 by Sherapy