Paul Davies, a scientist who has written a number of works on science for the general public, has come out with some interesting speculation on the possible nature of alien life out in the cosmos, and the possibility that we might come in contact with it.
Davies has a central role in the SETI (Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence) organization, but in his book
The Eerie Silence, he takes a fairly critical look at that project. SETI hopes to find evidence of alien life forms by monitoring radio signals coming from space. This has been an ongoing effort for about a half century, but to date, nothing has been found. Some may find this discouraging, but Davies makes the point in his book that to do a realistic search, we must broaden our horizons. In fact we must broaden them to the limits or our imagination.
It is often easy, even for scientists, to succumb to anthropocentrism; to see the universe in terms of our own limited framework of knowledge. When SETI started out, it did what seemed logical at the time. It looked out into space for signals in the radio/TV band of the electromagnetic spectrum, because that was an important form of communication at the time. But Davies points out that just in the last few decades, humans have been moving beyond this technology. Most information today flows through fiber-optic cables, and TV and radio transmissions are less important today than they were some years ago. If we could change that much in a few decades, how much technological change would a civilization a few million years old have seen? And given the age of the universe, that is a very likely prospect.
Searching the radio band may be quaintly outdated, and Davies suggests much more exotic methods. Alien beings may, for example, try to modify an already existing strong energy source in the universe, such as pulsars. These are spinning neutron stars that throw off a strong electromagnetic pulse, in the same manor as a lighthouse. A sufficiently advanced society may be able to change the physical properties of the pulsar in such a way that it sends out coded messages, similar to the blinking of marine navigation aids that encode important information for mariners.
Any beings that have survived that long would likely be radically different from what we might imagine, or even could imagine. A good bet, he speculates, is that they would have achieved some sort of biological/ machine hybrid combination, or perhaps be complete machine intelligence. This would make sense for a number of reasons. For one, it would allow for vastly increased intellectual capacity. These beings would also have a form of immortality, as parts would be able to be constantly upgraded and replaced.
It is highly probable that after a million years or so of evolution, these creatures would find they have nothing to say to us, and there would be nothing we could say that would be of interest to them. If they had advanced enough in computer technology, employing quantum theory, for example, they may have long since foregone any biological existence, and even any association with a planetary base. The aliens we are hoping to contact may in fact
be a quantum computer. This technology works best away from heat sources, and so they may exist in interstellar space, self-contained, and harnessing cosmic rays for energy. The virtual inner life of such beings would be rich and complex beyond our wildest imagining, and contact with the outside universe may be as appealing to them as going outside to mow the lawn or take out the garbage is to us.
What would we say, if contact were made? And what would they say?
http://www.amazon.com/Eerie-Silence-Ren ... 757&sr=1-1
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