THE SEARCH FOR EXTRATERRESTRIAL INTELLIGENCE

Posted by admin_akashic on Jun 27th, 2022 in Space

on the realization that anything that can be quantified can be digitized. Silicon, the basis of the microchip, is basically sand, and is widespread throughout the universe. Nevertheless, such a scheme is based on a wildly optimistic belief in technological progress and instrument reliability. It is also worth stressing that what may be permitted by known laws of physics is not necessarily possible. Theories concerning robotic probes will be critically examined in Chapter 6.

The idea of membership of a galactic network has long been one of the optimistic objectives of SETI research. Project Cyclops (1971) arrived at the idea of such a network with reference to the age of some of the earliest stars in the galaxy, which were formed over 9 billion years ago. If one takes the 4-billion-year gestation time for life on Earth as a norm, then there could have been advanced civilizations in the galaxy as long as 5 billion years ago. By now many of them will have achieved interstellar contact, and as a result will be capable of exchanging large bodies of accumulated knowledge – for example, giving information about how the universe was 5 billion years ago. This knowledge could be passed on to new races who would add to it.

A network of this kind raises several imaginative possibilities and overcomes some of the problems of interstellar communication. It would alleviate the question and answer time lag, as terminals could be located near communicating worlds. A request for information from the network could be dealt with in years, rather than millennia. Communication would not be directly with beings from other cultures, who may be hostile, and it would not matter if information came from beings whose civilizations have become extinct. Communication would be with computers rich with information derived from all over the galaxy. The network could survive the death of societies, even whole worlds, and go on accumulating information, extending its scope, and disseminating it. Hundreds, possibly thousands, of worlds could keep in touch with each other, and yet it would only require one intelligent species in the entire galaxy to initiate it.

Communication via the network need not be confined to question-and-answer sessions, but, as Ferris suggests, could also be mediated by virtual reality (VR) computer interface systems. The network could store menus of VR options whereby extraterrestrials could communicate simulations (in VR jargon, ‘sims’) of their world. This is not so futuristic. Although still in its infancy, cyberspace technology can provide fairly convincing ‘sims’ of the Martian landscape as well as a range of physical experiences, and Zoo Atlanta has a VR system wherein viewers wear a headset which transforms them into an adolescent member of a group of gorillas.

One question remains. Has such a network already been initiated by some other advanced intelligence, and if so, why has it not made contact with us? It only requires one civilization in the entire galaxy to set the network in motion, which could then continue endlessly replicating long after the demise of that society. Such a possibility would greatly enhance calculations for the factor of L – the duration of an advanced intelligent civilization – in Drake’s equation (see Chapter 2). In the absence of any signal, the best that can be said is that probes may have been set up near not too distant stars in our galaxy and are sending out signals and awaiting our request for membership.