Aliens

[Freethinker]

Originally posted by: Stargazer

One might say the same about any of the planets or moons that we have sent probes or even people to...

That is exactly my point. In each and every space flight we ahve made, there has been an established goal, or set of them. An ROI (yes Return on Investment) is established. It might be subjective in part, such as the original "Moon Race" included political advantage. The US decided it had to beat the USSR to the moon. And the research and needed technical advancements have paid off many fold.

Can we show a direct financial benefit to the Mars roomers we have there right now? Perhaps not based on an ability to mine product from Mars today, but again the technologies have benefit as well as the cash funnelled into the marketplace. Not to mention potential benefits should we find some elements not known here.

But none were just for kicks. To make cute patterns in wheat fields. Or to stick stuff into various orifices of inhabitants.

To a sufficiently advanced species, interstellar travel could be as routin as flying is to us.

But even flying for pure fun has a cost to the person. They get a personal ROI out of their expenditure.

[Stargazer]

One problem as I see it is that we want to see immediate return on whatever we do, especially in space. Some people say that space exploration and colonization is a waste of money. I suppose it is the same kind of waste as the early European exploration journeys were, for example... What we need is a long term perspective. We might not colonize the moon and Mars tomorrow, but it will happen, and when it happens we might not get the scientific and economic return right away. Also, if alien species wish to observe and study us, then surely they could do it with technology so advanced we wouldn't notice it.

[Aki]

Originally posted by: Stargazer
Also, if alien species wish to observe and study us, then surely they could do it with technology so advanced we wouldn't notice it.

Alien abduction? But i'm not sure if I'll buy into that.

[IrishEyes]

and i always thought it stands for 'region of interest'.....

Bo,
you are also correct. ROI is the military acronym for region of interest. 10 years in Naval Cryptology taught me that.

As for the aliens, didn't any of you watch MIB II??? Of course there are aliens. i just saw a Madonna video earlier. What more proof do you need?

[Stargazer]

Originally posted by: Aki

Alien abduction? But i'm not sure if I'll buy into that.

Neither do I, of course. There is no real evidence anything like that ever happened. What I meant was the possible use of observing us from a great distance, or perhaps use nanotechnology. I'm only speculating in how they could do it, not how they have done it.

[Freethinker]

Originally posted by: Stargazer
What I meant was the possible use of observing us from a great distance, or perhaps use nanotechnology. I'm only speculating in how they could do it, not how they have done it.

It would seem, again based on (monetary) ROI, any (military) ROI RE Earth for "Aliens", that unaliened probes, with enhancements thru advanced technologies, would be most cost effective for basic research. Aliened probes, like anything we are working on, would only be needed for colonization or direct intentional contact.

Why wouldn't Aliens want to make formal contact? Would that not be the obvious process? The only reason I could see for not doing so would be based around the concept of not interferring with "Alien" (us) civilization. But if we found intellegent life with-in our travel access area, we'd jump at the chance to make direct contact. Why would other society's not do the same?

[Aki]

Well the Aliens have such high technology compared to us that we don't bring any good to them, so I guess they won't bother meeting us. It's like humans and ants, we only observe them, and we ignore their presence because there is nothing we need to learn from them.

[Freethinker]

Originally posted by: Aki
we only observe them, and we ignore their presence because there is nothing we need to learn from them.

I disagree. If ants could have any higher level of communications we would be interacting with it. In fact we strive to understand what our greatest level of communications is with ants. We use it to our advantage in "pest control".

Take any species we know of and there has been an effort to establish the highest level of communications possible with it. The same is true with every other species and every other species. Whenever two species are in geographical proximity enough to interact, they try to "understand" the other. Even an ant as a colony, follows a "reasoned" process to succesfully interact with it's surroundings, including other species. That communications my be a defensive one, such as a bad taste or coloring. But those are forms of communications.

It seems to be emperically connected with existence. Evolutionary hard wiring. Why would we expect extraterrestrials to do otherwise? If an intellegent species was not interested in exploring and interacting with what they find, why would they put any resources into it? Interplanetary vehicles don't grow on trees, or whatever version of life would be equivalent on other planets. Merely by spending resoources on the effort, they have identified themselves as interested in interacting.

[Stargazer]

Originally posted by: Freethinker
Why wouldn't Aliens want to make formal contact? Would that not be the obvious process? The only reason I could see for not doing so would be based around the concept of not interferring with "Alien" (us) civilization. But if we found intellegent life with-in our travel access area, we'd jump at the chance to make direct contact. Why would other society's not do the same?

It would be near impossible to guess what an alien civilization would like to do, especially since they would be all different. I mean, look at the different cultures on Earth, we're all the same species, yet some cultures and societies have been very active in exploring and colonizing new territories, while others seem to pretty much stick around where they are. Why would we like to establish contact with other civilizations? I think that many of us would like to do it because it would broaden our view on ourselves and the universe, and that there could be exciting exchange of ideas, technology, science, culture, etc. Then I am sure there are some of us humans who would like to keep as silent as possible so that the evil aliens wont come and eat our brains. But personally I would be surprised if a civilization with the capacity of space travel and interstellar communication would not want to establish contact at all, ever. But, I suppose whatever they would choose, they have their reasons. Maybe they don't want to interfer with us, maybe we are too different, or whatever. But being very different would make things interesting, wouldn't it...

[Stargazer]

Originally posted by: Aki
Well the Aliens have such high technology compared to us that we don't bring any good to them, so I guess they won't bother meeting us. It's like humans and ants, we only observe them, and we ignore their presence because there is nothing we need to learn from them.

There are scientists who do try to, with some success, to communicate with dolphins and chimpanzees. I suppose we wont get much return from them, though... other than that it is possible to communicate with other species. About ants, it made me remember a few lines from Carl Sagan's Contact, where some people get into a discussion on how to communicate with other species, including ants.