Stephen Hawking - Aliens
 

Stephen Hawking's Aliens

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A few interesting comments on Hawking's take on aliens:

http://scienceblogs.com/startswithab...ld_we_be_e.php
http://blogs.discovermagazine.com/ba...ephen-hawking/
http://blogs.discovermagazine.com/co...-alien-menace/
http://scienceblogs.com/pharyngula/2...ngs_aliens.php

He's got some interesting views on 'alien' life, absolutely. His main argument about conatcting them, I can agree with initially, but I don't think realistically it would ever happen. I agree mainly with the blogger in the first link. I don't think we should coward away from trying to invite them here and remaining as quiet as possible. There is no use in doing so, without embracing or basic human instincts to use our imagination we're basically useless, as we're considered in this existence.

Great videos though, I would definitely recommend that everyone check them out if you have some spare time.

It is a fun argument to agree to disagree on though.

True enough. Even if they do, immediately attack us, they would have done so, anyway, when they came here on their own. If they will destroy us, why delay it? If they will make peace with us, then why delay it? I say we invite them, and see how they handle it. Show us how mature these aliens truely are.

Because the longer we survive, the more we will evolve, and the more likely we can defend ourselves and have control over the situation. Ultimately we, or our planet, is just another organism fighting for survival. And from what I've seen in nature, weaker organisms tend to try to hide themselves. I think it would be safe to assume that if there is intelligent life beyond our little box, it's likely to be far more advanced than we are. In the grand scheme of things, we're in our infancy. Hell, we're all alone on our little ball and we are still barely managing to keep ourselves alive. I think we've got a lot of work to do before we should start advertising our existence. I'm not saying we should actually hide and not respond to any attempts that other life might make to contact us, though.

This may be true. But what if we have a much more optimistic approach to the situation? Maybe instead of wanting to destroy us they would want to help us develop new technologies? Maybe not? We don't even know if there is anything out there, atleast within our galaxy, or universe let alone. There are always going to be people wanting to push the envelope of alien exploration alongside space exploration and if we happen to find something, then so be it.

I wish I would've been born 1,000 years from now, maybe 2,000 years from now. I want to see how far we can advance and develop from this current point in time. Then again, I may not have even though this had I been born 2,000 years ago.

We can't just give potential predators benefit of the doubt. I have no doubt that we COULD interact with other lifeforms peacefully, I'm just saying that "optimism" isn't really the best approach from a simple survival standpoint. I would suggest more of an "expect the worst, hope for the best" approach. Even if you were to go with the assumption that it's unlikely that extraterrestrial life would be inclined towards violence rather than peace, we're still better off preparing for the unlikely event that they are violent. Like Hawking said, "We only have to look at ourselves for proof that extremely unlikely things can and do happen all of the time."

I mean, if we prepare for the worst, our asses are covered. If extraterrestrials do end up being peaceful, awesome! We still have the means to protect ourselves if they aren't.

I'll throw another wise adage out there: "Better to have it and not need it than need it and not have it."

True true, and given any scenario, these are all still hypotheticals. And great quote, that sums up your persuasion very well. And I agree with it, I just am on the side that thinks fear of extraterrestrials could somehow impact our search and exploration for them, given that people are less likely to venture and alott huge amounts of money if they progress into the notion that we should fear what is out there.

But by any means, protecting ourself would obviously be the best route. The only problem is, we have absolutely no clue what we're up against, potentially. For all we know, they could be about to attack/consume our planet any moment. Not likely, but something Hollywood has played up numerous times. I'm just eager for our Race/Planet to actually find some physical evidence of said life outside of our own planet. Mars, perhaps? I guess only time can tell.

But if they're already this far ahead of us, that means they'll develope better stuff than us, faster. Unless we find some secret that they never did, then the longer we live, the more both us and them progress. The problem is, 100 + 10% is 110. 200 + 10% is 220.
110 vs 220 is no better than 100 vs 200.

You're oversimplifying. There are a lot more than just two opposing forces at work. They could destroy themselves just the same as we could destroy ourselves, or even be destroyed/set back by catastrophe. It isn't one smooth curve to the top, it's a bumpy road which could (and most likely will) end with a crash.

Hm... true enough. Infact, they might even come here asking for our help, now that I think about it... I mean, there's just as much a chance at that, as the other, right?

"The possibilities are endless."

So where do you think our space progarms should go? In what direction? I honestly think Mars would be great to explore given the ample amount of frozen water to be studied. We've had rovers collecting data, but it's time we put a man, or woman on Mars.

I think we should explore places where life potentially does exist, like Europa, to see if we can find signs of life elsewhere, with an extra focus on trying to find new places for us to inhabit. We need to spread to survive. Even if we were to terraform Mars or something, we need to continue to spread even outside of our galaxy. What if something were to happen to our sun?

That's the next issue, in which fusion may be able to handle. If we can develop some sort of energy technology that has substainability and longevity to outlast many generations then of course we could manage to survive. I would imagine we would kill our own race off of this planet before anything were to happen to the sun, but if? Who knows.

And I would agree, Europa would essentially be the best place we could ever go to. But would it be possible within the next few hundred years? Could be. There needs to be an enormous breakthrough in prupolsion technology that could legitimately get humans to that planet in a managable amount of time (20-30 years?). 800,000,000 miles is the estimated average distance from the Earth to this unknown planet, and it does change with the orbit around Jupiter. There are so many obstacles including asteroids and other space debrit in the way of sending a satellite/ship that long of a distance. But I think in the next 50 years our technology should have evolved enough to make something like this feasible.

We need to atleast be gearing up to send unmanned ships and scientific gathering equipment to gauge more information of this other planet.

Europa is a moon, not a planet. And according to its wikipedia page, fly-by missions have visited it before, and a mission to Jupitor's icy moons is planned for 2020.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Europa_(moon)

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Europa_...System_Mission

Wait, you mean, like a space colony, or something? Something big enough that a large group could get on and travel for generations, then land and populate elsewhere?

So, how far have we come, exactly, from the 1960's? I mean, other than the moon, and exploring places... not much, huh? I agree with D3V, it's time we at least hit Mars. If we could find a way to live there, we could land a base, which would, at the least, shave a few years off later travels.

KA,

While I think searching for extraterrestrial life is fantastic, I don't see any real practical value to it. Not to say that I disagree with you -- I agree with you wholeheartedly, but in a society which places so much emphasis on practical results, how would you justify an expedition costing billions of dollars for a discovery whose practical benefits are uncertain at best? Say that you were a notable advocate for searching for life outside of our planet. What would you say to convince the rest of us that this is a good idea?

"Free Icecream" could always work.

Now, since I'm not expert on global affairs and what not, I can't really say this and be sure, but, if every country in the entire world (or, at least, the important countries) agreed on it, couldn't we do it all for free? I mean, the government does "run everything", right?

Well most of the idea behind searching for other life, in my eyes, is that if we find other life elsewhere, we find other places which can support life. I definitely think our focus should be on figuring out how we can get at least some of us off of this ball of dirt. We're essentially keeping all of our eyes in one basket, and if that basket drops the human race (as well as all life as we know it, potentially) is gone.

You're right though, past that there isn't really any value in finding other life, unless it is advanced enough that we can learn from it in some way. But honestly, I think the same could be said about any sort of space exploration, and a lot of science and research in general.

Interesting. I've never thought about looking for aliens from a utilitarian standpoint before. But if the rationale in looking for aliens is a search for hospitable planets, why spend money on something we've had absolutely no success at so far rather than learning how to terraform a planet, which we might be able to do in small, incremental steps, where each step has some sort of tangible result.

I think theoretical scientific research, even the research that is not eventually productive, can make a legitimate claim for public money and support. Since science by its nature investigates the unknown, we don't have the foresight to know which fields will be productive and which won't. I think we have to invest across all fields that are considered viable. Something useful will invariably turn up after a while. Seeing as we've had absolutely no success in finding aliens, I don't think the SETI program can make those same claims.

That said, I am, and probably always will be, a SETI supporter.

Well if you wanna fix out planet AND save money, have everyone suddenly turn off all electrical power plants. We'll suddenly all fall to pieces, and only to sane people, who have the brain power to actually live without watching the next episode of Lost will... live. Suddenly, nothing's poluting anything, the world repairs itself (seriously, it's practically programed to fix itself, we just damage it too much, too fast). It's all a matter of us suddenly stopping or not.
I think.

KA thinks that it's a good thing to get off this rock. I agree with him, and we were discussing the merits of different approaches to accomplish that. To that effect, you completely missed the point.

In fact, you missed the point of this conversation so hard, you deserve the following:

FAIL!

Stay in school nubface.

But to comment on your post, I agree -- we should work on fixing this planet. You go too far in my opinion, though.