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Originally Posted by maddog
Consider this analogy first. Say you would like to communicate with an ant. How would you go about it ? Forms of communication are very different. How would you get
your point across to a creature that is developmentally on a lower scale that ours. Now
reverse this; say we are the ants. How would we communicate with anyone out there ?
It may not be so much that they don't want to talk with. They not have the interest like
we what interest would we have conversing with ants.
Second, is the technology of communication. Who is to say that future civilizations wish
to modulate radio signals the way we do right now. Imagine a culture with 10,000 years
of technology advancements. Could we guess what types of communication is being sent
to us right now, only we don't know it ??? 
maddog |
My favorite form of this argument is from Carl Sagan's book The Cosmic Connection from 1973. Although it's kindof obscure, and although I broadly disagree with SETI, I'll post it here just because I think it's beautiful:
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We are like the inhabitants of an isolated valley in New Guinea who communicate with societies in neighboring valleys (quite different societies, I might add) by runner and by drum. When asked how a very advanced society will communicate, they might guess by an extermely rapid runner or by an improbably large drum. They might not guess a technology beyond thier ken. And yet, all the while, a vast international cable and radio traffic passes over them, around them and through them.
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