Help me understand

I watched Peter Jennings on his UFO special. When you stop and think
about how far we are from most other solar systems you realize that we
are looking hundreds of thousands if not millions of years into the
past. If evolution occurs at a similar rate (and I agree it may not)
then how do we expect to get intelligent signals from a hundred
thousand years ago?

We sure are spending a lot of money on this - is my thinking sound?

Thanks

ZRexRider wrote:
I watched Peter Jennings on his UFO special. When you stop and think
about how far we are from most other solar systems you realize that we
are looking hundreds of thousands if not millions of years into the
past. If evolution occurs at a similar rate (and I agree it may not)
then how do we expect to get intelligent signals from a hundred
thousand years ago?

This comes onto the question of the Fermi paradox.
(:-))

There is no problem for whatever intelligence if their evolution had
similarly also started millions of years ago. Ofcourse, they may now be
super-advanced or long gone by the time we do get their message.

Our universe is very Old. A few million years is a negligible blip in
the timescales of the universe.


We sure are spending a lot of money on this - is my thinking sound?

The military might well be spending vast sums of money so that they can
identify better any possible attackers (and avoid shooting down
non-attacking passenger airliners).

SETI research in general is done on a minimalist and part time budget.
Not a good career to try!


Keep searchin',
Martin

--
---------- OS? What's that?! (Martin_285 on Mandrake)
- Martin - To most people, "Operating System" is unknown & strange.
- 53N 1W - Mandrake 10.1 GNU Linux - An OS for Supercomputers & PCs
---------- http://www.mandrakelinux.com/en-gb/concept.php3

ZRexRider wrote:
I watched Peter Jennings on his UFO special. When you stop and think
about how far we are from most other solar systems you realize that we
are looking hundreds of thousands if not millions of years into the
past.

Other Solar Systems, that scientists have found so far, are not that far
away. A few hundred light-years at maximum. But, sure, they must exist
all over the Galaxy.

The Galaxy is 100000 LY or so in diameter so that would be the maximum
distance one would search for life in our Galaxy.

The SETI Institute under Project Phoenix does a targeted search of
nearby stars, but I think the maximum range so far has been about 200LY.

Other programs such as seti@home using the Arecibo radio telescope look
for any narrowband or pulsed signals over the sky as covered by the
Arecibo radio telescope. These signals could come from anywhere, but no
one considers detections outside of the Galaxy as a likely possibility.
The energy required to transmit inter-galactic signals would vast and
almost beyond belief. Most likely a detection event would be from a
relatively nearby star (Solar System).

If evolution occurs at a similar rate (and I agree it may not)
then how do we expect to get intelligent signals from a hundred
thousand years ago?

A signal travels in space until it is intercepted. This could be
potentially any length of time. I think in the 60's scientists (the
concept of Dr. Frank Drake who was head of the Arecibo radio telescope
facility at that time) transmitted a signal (a digitized message!) from
Arecibo to the star cluster M13. M13 is about 25000 LY's away. It will
take that message 25000 years to reach M13. But the message will be
intact when it gets there and certainly if an intelligent civilization
exists there then they could decode the message and know it came from
our direction and learn something about the people that sent it. But
still it will take 25000 years for the message to get to M13. It will be
very a weak signal of course and barely detectable, but with the right
equipment it could be done. Of course someone would have to be looking
in our direction with that equipment or else they would miss the message
(I think the message only lasted for one minute).


We sure are spending a lot of money on this - is my thinking sound?

There is _alot_ of money being wasted on UFO ventures of course ... much
more money than is spent on SETI. The fact is, that there is almost _no_
money being spent on SETI projects as compared to other science programs ...


Thanks


You're welcome ...

Wasn't it ZRexRider who wrote:
I watched Peter Jennings on his UFO special. When you stop and think
about how far we are from most other solar systems you realize that we
are looking hundreds of thousands if not millions of years into the
past.

There may be planets millions of light years away, but most of the ones
we know about are less than 50 light years away.

If evolution occurs at a similar rate (and I agree it may not)
then how do we expect to get intelligent signals from a hundred
thousand years ago?

Planets suitable for life were probably forming several billion years
before the Earth formed. If the life on those planets evolved at a
similar rate to ourselves they could have developed suitable signalling
technology billions of years ago.

I also reckon that the rate of evolution on Earth has been very
variable, so we wouldn't expect it to run at exactly the same rate on
other planets. If life started on some other planet at the same time as
it did here but happened to evolve 1% faster, then they'd be 45 million
years ahead of us.

--
Mike Williams
Gentleman of Leisure

ZRexRider wrote:
I watched Peter Jennings on his UFO special. When you stop and think
about how far we are from most other solar systems you realize that we
are looking hundreds of thousands if not millions of years into the
past. If evolution occurs at a similar rate (and I agree it may not)
then how do we expect to get intelligent signals from a hundred
thousand years ago?

Given the distance holding a discussion is out of the question. But a single signal changes our
view of the universe. It goes from a high probability to a certainty. More than one lets us start to
estimate the number of civilization about at our level. And with a bit of luck they might be
transmitting their Encyclopedia of Science and Technology. Why not? By the time anyone hears it they
will have thousands of years additional progress, probably embarassed at all the wrong and dumb
things they sent.

We sure are spending a lot of money on this - is my thinking sound?

I spend the cost of electricity per extra hour my computers are on. Of course a few hundred
thousand others do so it adds up. But the really big contributers run them on large farms of
computers at low priority and they are already running 24/7. All together the largest cost might be
the Berkley salaries.

--
I am Zarquawi! I am Spartacus!
-- The Iron Webmaster, 3376

ZRexRider wrote:
If evolution occurs at a similar rate (and I agree it may not)
then how do we expect to get intelligent signals from a hundred
thousand years ago?

As a sideber, evolution is a non-starter in this discussion. There is no goal of evolution. There
is no "rate" of change. Therefore there is no way to infer how long it will take intelligence to
evolve. Intelligence is not a "goal" of evolution. There is no reason for it to happen.

That of course depends upon our one example of evolution. Out of all the species over all the
hundreds of millions of years, only once. In comparison tooth and claw are always present. Flight is
relatively rare but at least twice in insects, twice and maybe more in dino/birds and once in
mammals so far as we know.

Major changes here appear to coincide with major life destroying catastrophes. One assumes if they
are too frequent life has a problem and the fewer the slower major changes. But which kind of
catastrophe brings the desired results and what has to be in the mix of the catastrophe?

The rarity of intelligence in our one example suggests it is not a normal development. It has to
enhance survival in its early stages and whatever species has it cannot have things which more
easily enhance survival. Before tools, tooth and claw beat a chimp hands down. From our one example
we also find "requirements" to be both social and omnivorous and likely not pride oriented for a
very wordy reason. And then throw in the Rift Valley, on the jungle side there are no human fossils.
They are found only on the savannah side. A geological feature creating genetic isolation with
different environments on each side.

When we get to our kind of intelligence it didn't pay off (in higher population levels) until the
mind was enough to make tools. Range did not increase until fire and clothing. Increased
intelligence is not a selection factor until it increases population which is an objective measure
of increasing survival. But the conclusion is a little bit extra intelligence which certainly
happened millions of times is not a unique survival edge but complements tooth and claw.

This is not an argument for unique. We do not know if all of these are significant and required or
if this is just a partial list of what is significant and required. Nor is it to suggest these are
the only possible way intelligence could evolve. There must certainly be many others and different
sequences of different events but of all the possibilities it still only happened once.

But given the rarity of intelligence and the indication a number a unrelated things are required
and possibly in some sequence we can get a feel for why intelligence is rare.

PS: Finding an intelligent dinosaur, a dino wheel, would obviously revise the entire discussion.

--
I am Zarquawi! I am Spartacus!
-- The Iron Webmaster, 3376

Matt Giwer wrote:

Before tools, tooth and claw beat a chimp hands down. From our
one example we also find "requirements" to be both social and omnivorous
and likely not pride oriented for a very wordy reason.

The wordy reason is it is Believe it or Not material to find a species where the male raises the
young. There are no examples in social species. And we discount pride species like African lions.

The male has to go out and kill and learn to survive. As there can be no prior knowledge of how to
kill to survive in evolution the male that is more adaptive has the greater chance and thus more
offspring. A smarter male would appear the best solution. But that is not what we got.

A little remarked difference is in a particular population the average IQ of men and women is the
same regardless of the type of test. But men have a much wider standard deviation than women. Men
have more idiots and more geniuses. We likely got this same average because the IQ genes are not in
the Y chromosome but something there opens up the variation.

Because a lack of men such as after a major war never results in a lower birth rate for the
population it does not matter the dumb males are killed off. Nothing propinqes like propinquity. But
it does increase the average intelligence of the population.

Omnivorous is a requirement so that every member of the social unit can contribute to the group.
Equal numbers of each sex and social maximize survival. Whichever is weaker, likely the female, can
collect food that doesn't try to eat them first.

So when we get to the pride social species we have the females of equal ability in hunting and all
serviced more or less equally and no cause for differentiation in the sexes. Without differentiation
there is no source of selection for tooth or claw or brain. But note differentiation could lead to
tooth from the hunting sex and claw for the digging sex. Brain is not necessarily involved. One
human variant (habilis?) appears to have had a differentiation in size like double in height which
would suggest strength rather than intelligence was the male contribution.

But again, this is just the human way of doing it. And it does depend upon the oddity of the Y
chromosome making the difference between the sexes. Not to say that is a requirement but the
divergence in IQ by sex making it open to both selection and transmission by sex certainly contributed.

--
Fundamentalist Christians kick Arab ass for the lord.
-- The Iron Webmaster, 3368

Ed wrote:
Matt Giwer wrote in
m:

We sure are spending a lot of money on this - is my thinking sound?

I spend the cost of electricity per extra hour my computers are
on. Of course a few hundred
thousand others do so it adds up. But the really big contributers run
them on large farms of computers at low priority and they are already
running 24/7. All together the largest cost might be the Berkley
salaries.

Computers frequently cost more when they are running flat out all of the
time. Both for the power that they use and the extra A/C to get rid of
the excess heat generated. Right?

Correct but since you are going for the details ...

When they run at a constant temperature they tend to last longer. Temperature cycling for all
reasons is a cause of failure. So keeping them running balls out saves the cost of replacement. I
have not seen a way to calculate this.

--
Fundamentalist Christians kick Arab ass for the lord.
-- The Iron Webmaster, 3368

Ed wrote:
Matt Giwer wrote in
:

Computers frequently cost more when they are running flat out all of
the time. Both for the power that they use and the extra A/C to get
rid of the excess heat generated. Right?

Correct but since you are going for the details ...

When they run at a constant temperature they tend to last longer.
Temperature cycling for all
reasons is a cause of failure. So keeping them running balls out saves
the cost of replacement. I have not seen a way to calculate this.

True. But runing at no load is cheaper then running at full load. The
bottom line is that the cycles are not free.

But in normal usage without something as a load maximizer you go from idle to full throttle all the
time. From reading the news on a website at idle to downloading something new to read at full
throttle you are temperature cycling. Listening to music or watching videos take a certain number of
cycles to be without skips and slowdowns but between you are back to idle. Depending on your machine
and the material a music video can be balls out for your machine but is certainly way above the near
idle when you are selecting the next one.

With an application that consumes all available unused cycles (with linux

nice --adjustment=19 setiathome ) there is no slow down so it always runs balls out. Agreed S@H does
not exercise everything on the chip so some applications will increase the temperature a bit.

Of course this will draw more power but at the same time it puts off replacing the computer. Most
people upgrade before the CPU fails so that is not necessarily a consideration. Myself I have kept
as many as four older machines in my local net.

Assume replacement at three years or when the speed for the same price is twice as fast. So that
gives me 1 + 1/2 + 1/4 + 1/8 total by keeping them all active. The practicality of the the 1/8 was
only for a short time as it became too old to bother with for other other reasons. But have 1.75
times the "affordable" state of the art is more than the unaffordable cutting edge chip.

--
What is a conspiracy theorist when the US government believed
in an insane conspiracy by Iraq against the US?
-- The Iron Webmaster, 3366

Stars are always forming, I believe SOL is like a sixth generation star. So
solar systems to have been forming over time. Thusly, life has been
initiating and evolving at different times in the universe, independently.
aloha,
dave

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davon96720@hotmail
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"ZRexRider" wrote in message
oups.com...
I watched Peter Jennings on his UFO special. When you stop and think
about how far we are from most other solar systems you realize that we
are looking hundreds of thousands if not millions of years into the
past. If evolution occurs at a similar rate (and I agree it may not)
then how do we expect to get intelligent signals from a hundred
thousand years ago?

We sure are spending a lot of money on this - is my thinking sound?

Thanks