Seti@home pointless?

[The Atheist]

SETI.

Wow

 

[JoeTheJuggler]

I do believe SETI@Home is pointless, but it has nothing to do with how valid SETI itself is as a project.

I think this thread is mistitled. Based on the OP and what he's had to say since, his complaint or comment is about SETI using radio telescopy in general, and has nothing to do with the SETI@home project.

 

[Bill Thompson]

Nonsense! You're assuming that any intelligence making an effort being heard knows who it's sending to! That's woo territory.

The most "likely" scenario is that an alien intelligence would have detected Earth among other planets as a likely place for life (as we are currently trying to do with other starsystems). It would be plausible that efforts would be made to send radio signals Earths way.

Note to self: When insinuating stupidity in others at least make an effort to spell correctly...

Would they? Do you think we could detect something like our solar system elsewhere? We have four huge giant outer planets each with some huge moons. If they could detect the four small inner planets, could they detect that one or two were in the so-called "sweet spot". I think the orbits of the outer planets would overrun the detectability of the inner planets or their placement and ETI would move on.

Of course there must be other reasons as well. As Fermi said, "where are they?".

I think SETI@Home is (or was) an exercise in self-admiration. The participants assumed that Earth and her inhabitants would be somehow naturally appealing to ETI and they would eagerly want to contact us. They miss the fact that the human species (by our own definition of mediocrity) is not an intelligent species. I am reminded of the fact that IBM had non-disclosure agreements in the early days of Microsoft that were so strict that IBM would not sign them. In other words, if another company presented IBM with such documentation to sign, they would refuse. Likewise, WE would not be interested in contacting a civilization as stupid as us. It is like the old adage, "I would not join a country club that would have me as a member". Just having a planet in the sweet spot (the proper distance away from the sun) would not be enough. ETI would first likely look for some other signs of worthy intelligence and, let's face it, we don't have it.

 

[Bill Thompson]

I do believe SETI@Home is pointless, but it has nothing to do with how valid SETI itself is as a project.

Yes. I have heard that they are thinking of moving on to lasers or light or something other than the SETI@Home project. I feel that the whole project was started to show off a possible technology using millions of home computers connected together on some joint project. And since now they have moved on to include other number crunching works, I think I am right.

I think this thread is mistitled. Based on the OP and what he's had to say since, his complaint or comment is about SETI using radio telescopy in general, and has nothing to do with the SETI@home project.

They are connected or at least they were.

 

[JoeTheJuggler]

Bill Thompson, I think you're still using "SETI@home" erroneously. The SETI@home project is merely a way of dividing up the data to be crunched so that it can be done on otherwise idle CPUs all over the world rather than at a central place.

It sounds like your beef is with SETI's emphasis on radio telescopy rather than something about the SETI@home project.

 

[JoeTheJuggler]

Of course there must be other reasons as well. As Fermi said, "where are they?".

This argument depends on a number of assumptions, few of which are reasonable.

As you yourself pointed out, we wouldn't be able to detect our own presence even from the distance of the nearest stars without a narrowband beam sent long enough ago to reach us at the right moment, much less across galactic distances. Our civilization is nowhere near being able to leave ubiquitous evidence of our existence throughout the galaxy.

ETA: So by the same logic, one would conclude that we don't exist since such evidence of us (as self-replicating probes) isn't ubiquitous in the galaxy.

For a full refutation of the assumptions made in this argument, see this post.

 

[Bill Thompson]

I watched a documentary on how fast the remains of human civilization would disappear if we all vanished in an instant, and one of the things they mentioned was that radio signals dissipate pretty fast. Of course, I don't know their sources, and TV documentaries have been going downhill lately.

AH-HA!! That was where I heard that information! Thanks for jarring my memory.

 

[Wowbagger]

I think what Bill Thompson is referring to is the Inverse Square Law. But, it doesn't apply to focused beams, and makes little difference when radio signals eminate from around the entire body of the object.

 

[JoeTheJuggler]

They are connected or at least they were.

But you have no beef with the distributed grid computing approach to data analysis (which is what SETI@home is). Your beef is with SETI.

SETI@home could be discontinued, and the complaint you have about SETI would still exist. To clarify, surely you're not talking about signals degrading somewhere between Arecibo (and wherever they go to be divided into work packets) and my home computer, are you?

 

[AWPrime]

My position is that SETI is completely useless, but that doesn't mean that they need to stop. I allow other people to do stupid useless stuff all the time.


The only way that a SETI effort could be useful is if we invented a form of FTL communications and thus can possibly overhear alien communications.

 

[Bill Thompson]

http://www.faqs.org/faqs/astronomy/faq/part6/section-12.html

"It should be apparent then from these results that the detection of AM
radio, FM radio, or TV pictures much beyond the orbit of Pluto will be
extremely difficult even for an Arecibo-like 305 meter diameter radio
telescope! Even a 3000 meter diameter radio telescope could not
detect the "I Love Lucy" TV show (re-runs) at a distance of 0.01
Light-Years!"

Radio Astronomy, John D. Kraus, 2nd edition, Cygnus-Quasar
Books, 1986, P.O. Box 85, Powell, Ohio, 43065.

Radio Astronomy, J. L. Steinberg, J. Lequeux, McGraw-Hill
Electronic Science Series, McGraw-Hill Book Company, Inc,
1963.

Project Cyclops, ISBN 0-9650707-0-0, Reprinted 1996, by the
SETI League and SETI Institute.

Extraterrestrial Civilizations, Problems of Interstellar
Communication, S. A. Kaplan, editor, 1971, NASA TT F-631
(TT 70-50081), page 88.
​

Also, there are reasons why ETI would NOT target us with a direct
transmission. Our solar system was formed from the debris of an
exploded star that was much bigger than our sun. The complex and
heavy materials necessary to produce life as well as a protective
magnetic field like our Earth has was because of the denser material
from the star that our solar system came from. Our star system is not
in the middle of the GHZ. So we are both our of the range where ETI
would expect to see life and we are orbiting a non-impressive star.

About the GHZ:
http://www.thelivingcosmos.com/ExtrasolarPlanetsandLife/HabitablePlanets_12May06.html

And, by the way, it seems to me that as science and knowledge progress, these habital zones are shrinking (not expanding like we hope). If you can get your hands on this article, it is very good. It shows that there is not as much hope as finding ETI as we think:

http://www.sciamdigital.com/index.c...LEID_CHAR=C94598AF-2B35-221B-674229153009236A
Refuges for Life in a Hostile Universe; by Guillermo Gonzalez, Donald Brownlee and Peter D. Ward; 8 Page(s)

So there are lots of factors that add up to them not signaling us directly.
#1) We are not in an ideal place in the galaxy. #2) Our star is a small and
less than ideal sun. #3) There may not be as many ETI's as we would like
to believe.

 

[JoeTheJuggler]

http://www.faqs.org/faqs/astronomy/faq/part6/section-12.html

Note that I linked to this very page in Post #7 of this thread.

Do you get that the thread is mistitled yet? None of this has to do with SETI@home, does it?

Your complaint against SETI is that it is extremely unlikely to detect anything other than a narrow beam signal sent to us at an appropriate time in the past to be "audible" just exactly when we "listen" to that spot in our sky. That's a legitimate complaint, but it has nothing to do with the distributed processing project that is SETI@home.

My reply to your actual complaint is that it costs very little to do this sort of thing. Arecibo is not being re-directed from other work. Instead, SETI is just piggybacked onto whatever other research the telescope is doing. As someone else mentioned, the expenses are paid by private money, so I have no problem with it at all. (And, there is a vanishingly small but non-zero chance that they just might hit the lottery and find the needle in the cosmic haystack, if I might mix metaphors!)

 

[technoextreme]

I think what Bill Thompson is referring to is the Inverse Square Law. But, it doesn't apply to focused beams, and makes little difference when radio signals eminate from around the entire body of the object.

Focused beams have their own problem. If you take a laser pointer and shine it towards the moon by the time it hits the moon your beam is ten kilometers wide all because you focused it.

 

[BonkingBear]

http://www.faqs.org/faqs/astronomy/faq/part6/section-12.html


So there are lots of factors that add up to them not signaling us directly.
#1) We are not in an ideal place in the galaxy. #2) Our star is a small and
less than ideal sun. #3) There may not be as many ETI's as we would like
to believe.

That's wrong! 1) We are in a good place within our galaxy - a very stable region

2) Our Sun is an average size with sufficient stability to give life time to develop - at least 5 billion years - bigger stars ldo not live longer enough for life (as we know it to develop)

3) Hmm...how many do we like to believe ?

 

[JoeTheJuggler]

So there are lots of factors that add up to them not signaling us directly.
#1) We are not in an ideal place in the galaxy. #2) Our star is a small and
less than ideal sun. #3) There may not be as many ETI's as we would like
to believe.

What strange ideas! It sounds like you're making a case for the Rare Earth Theory but using the exact opposite arguments they use. They say everything about the Earth is required for an intelligent civilization--that the Earth is in the optimum spot in the galaxy and that the Earth is exceptionally massive, more massive than 95% of stars.

At any rate, you left out the one valid reason for why we're not likely to get a signal from an ETI: everything is spread apart by unimaginably vast stretches of space and time.

 

[Bill Thompson]

What strange ideas! It sounds like you're making a case for the Rare Earth Theory but using the exact opposite arguments they use. They say everything about the Earth is required for an intelligent civilization--that the Earth is in the optimum spot in the galaxy and that the Earth is exceptionally massive, more massive than 95% of stars.

At any rate, you left out the one valid reason for why we're not likely to get a signal from an ETI: everything is spread apart by unimaginably vast stretches of space and time.

Which is why other galaxies should be omitted when talking about this stuff as well.

I wish I could put Refuges for Life in a Hostile Universe online but there are probably copyright issues. If anyone disagrees with me, I would like to point them to this Scientific American article.

I knew Earth was the most dense planet in the solar system but I did not know that its density was also unique among stars (are you SURE about this? Can you tell me your sources?). The more I hear and learn the more I think we are rare and getting signals from space will be improbable.

Update: Arazona.edu has posted the the article here: http://atropos.as.arizona.edu/aiz/teaching/a204/etlife/SciAm01.pdf

 

[JoeTheJuggler]

Which is why other galaxies should be omitted when talking about this stuff as well.

Nowhere did I mention other galaxies.

Are you denying that there are vast stretches of space and time to consider even within our galaxy?

Do you know what percentage of the volume of our galaxy we have explored in any meaningful way?

 

[LarianLeQuella]

Jebus Cristo on a cracker... Not again...

I will say that I view SETI@Home as a longshot, but since it's all privately funded, SETI@Home (and SETI) are worth it on the off chance that something is sent here. In our history, whe have only sent FIVE signals worth anything in relation to communicating outside our solar system http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Active_SETI And even then I'm not sure how impressive those signals really are.

As I contend over and over again; we humans seem to lack a great deal of imagination when it comes to even considering how and under what conditions any alien type of life could start. Furthermore, we seem to be incredibly human/earth centric in all our thinking. I am betting that evolution will surprise us a great deal (and even freak a lot of us out!).

 

[thesyntaxera]

My position is that SETI is completely useless, but that doesn't mean that they need to stop. I allow other people to do stupid useless stuff all the time.


The only way that a SETI effort could be useful is if we invented a form of FTL communications and thus can possibly overhear alien communications.

Come on now. It makes for a great screen saver. One that helps sort through all the signals which ultimately helps them toward their goals.

I am curious to know how the search for life in the galaxy could be stupid or useless.

To me it seems to be the utmost of importance, regardless of the apparent futility of the efforts being conducted. Imagine what changes a truly positive result would create.

 

[AWPrime]

Come on now. It makes for a great screen saver. One that helps sort through all the signals which ultimately helps them toward their goals.

I am curious to know how the search for life in the galaxy could be stupid or useless.

I don't think that they even have a chance. Its their method that is retarded not the goal.