Voyager 1 officially in interstellar space

[Skybird]

Considering that we have no idea, absolutely no idea about other life out there, and can in no way conclude on this life's intentions and motivations, drives and ambitions, I wonder whether it really is a brilliant idea that we make this much noise and want to let everybody know that we are there, and where we are to find.

Trust and hoping for the best, is kind. Knowing is better. But we know nothing than that approximately 90% of the space within the milky way is dozens of millions of years older than the 10% of space our solar system lies in. So are the solar systems in these regions: much older than our Earth is. That means that life in these 90% of space and solar systems, if such life exists, is much older than all history of life on Earth, and thus most intelligences out there most likely have an advantage in knowledge over us that counts in the hundreds of thousands if not many millions of years.

And who said that that life with its superior knowledge is friendly? Who said we make contact with others on grounds of our conditions, and our superiority? This is no Star Trek. We are not Starfleet officers. This is the real galaxy. Here we are the ants.

We really should stop to make that much noise.

[vienna]

Your concept is based on the intelligence of life forms being based on the length of its existence; ameoba have existed for millions of years on earth and are no more intelligent, on the whole, or threatening than they were at inception. For all we know, there are no "nearby" complex intelligent life forms. If there are, and given how long it has taken Voyager to arrive at the distance it is now, there is no certainty they are any more developed than we are in terms of the necessary technology to "shortcut" the vast distances or to have weaponry to do us any more harm than we could do to ourselves. Additionally, our human construct of "hostile" alien races is more based on our own human rapaciousness as evidenced by our own history than by any known indicators. It is always amusing to hear of the possiblity UFOs already reported over the decades are "hostile"; if a race capable of solving the technological obstacles or faster-than-light-speed is indeed visiting us on a regular basis, they are also technologically capable of devastation greater than any we can cuurently unleash against them in defense of our planet; that there has been no harm done by the UFOs would tend to indicate their intentions are benign...


Now, where is my "How To Serve Man" book?...



<O>

[Skybird]

Vienna,

Imagine mankind to exist not for just 50-100 thousand years, but 10 million years. Imagine we did not exterminate ourselves, and sued thew time to constantly grow our knowledge and scientific understanding and technical capabilities. We poeple of the 21st century probably would not even recognize their technology as "technology", it probably would either miss our perception completely, or would perceive it as complete magic.

And hostility: am I "hostile" when stepping onto an ant when walking in the woods? Am I expressing "hostility" towards cattle when slaughtering cattle and eating it? Or using a rabbit in the lab? Is it hostile when the wolf hunts and kills the deer or sheep?

All your reasoning, vienna, is tremendously proving my point. It is arguing from a purely anthropomorphic standpoint, if I may out it this way. Extrapolating standards about reasonability, good and evil from a human standards and projecting it onto the rest of the galaxy.

I say that right this does not make sense. Or to be more precise: we have no clue whether it could make sense, now, or in the future. The term "alien" here implies a level of strangeness and the unknown that ends any reason for and purpose of formulating assumptions. The human scaling and standards have to be left behind completely. And the question nsi whether we can do that.

There is a reason why Arthur C. Clarke once said, or was it Isaac Asimov, I am not certain, that if we ever meet an alien intelligence between the stars, on a foreign world or our own, or between the stars - we probably would neither recognize it, nor would we recognize the condensate of its "scientific" (their closest equivalent of) and technical (their closest equivalent of) knowledge and abilities. Like the ant on the forest's floor is not aware of our presence, and us observing it, and us putting it into a lab and an artificial labyrinth where it builds its nest. Even if we want, we cannot communicate with the ant. It's mind complexity is much below ours.

Our limit lies in that for us only a reality makes sense in which we can reason about it only in the terms and scientific concepts we are familiar with. Recognising the alien life and intelligence and its abilities and motivations maybe would have us leaving our human nature behind as a necessary precondition!

Let's do not ignore that your scientific understanding and methodology NEVER formulates the final, the last, the ultimate truth about something, but formulates theories. And it is the nature of theories that they are preliminary. Theories are the nature and essence of science. We should be careful to be certain that they explain the universe to us in full. They do not, they cannot, and most likely they never will. Only mathematics allow us to go beyond the limits of our perceiving awareness of the total reality. It is the only tool we know of where by using something of finite reach a precise image of the infinite can be formed.

As far as we know, that is.

One could turn religious when thinking about these things...

[Stealhead]

Arthur C. Clarke I think it matches well with the monolith in 2001:a Space Odyssey.The monolith was completely incomprehensible to either the apes or the humans.

[Aktungbby]

Originally Posted by Stealhead

Arthur C. Clarke I think it matches well with the monolith in 2001:a Space Odyssey.The monolith was completely incomprehensible to either the apes or the humans.

Actually: all monoliths are totally incomprehensible to any primate. That is why they are MONOLITHS! A comprehensible monolith is essentially an statuesque oxymoron. We comprehend Mount Rushmore but do not totally comprehend Stonehenge or the Moas of Easter Island-the difference between a big statue and a mysterious 'monolith'! Our own ignorance is part of the 'wonderment' Hope this clarifies things...

[Wolferz]

Don't forget folks, Voyager 1 has visited the gas giants too and then used Saturn to slingshot it on out of here. Otherwise it might have reached the interstellar boundary a bit sooner. Voyager 2 will disembark the heliosphere soon also.
Voyager 1 has enough battery left to run until 2025, then she goes dark side of the moon.
Nobody builds them like we do.

Just think, sooner or later, an alien culture might discover the thing. What do you think they'll say?

"Columbia House has really slow record delivery!"

[Jimbuna]

Originally Posted by Wolferz

Just think, sooner or later, an alien culture might discover the thing. What do you think they'll say?

"ET phone home"

[Dowly]

Bad Astronomer/Phil Plait wrote an article about it, good read as usual:
Voyager 1 Reaches Interstellar Space. But Has It Left the Solar System? Wellllll…

[Aktungbby]

Originally Posted by Wolferz

Just think, sooner or later, an alien culture might discover the thing. What do you think they'll say?

" Hey check this gold disk map out! Yup, lets stop over for a quick bite! Yeah... looks kinda like Sol 3 in Mutter's spiral.. The DNA mod we did to those Sasquatches awhile back musta' caught on!"

[TarJak]

I'd love to be around to hear that Voyager had reached the galactic boundary or even another system. I'll be in the ground a long time before either event but it would be great to see.

[Penguin]

I find interesting that there are still people working on the Voyager project who had been doing so since before the launch. That's what I call job dedication.

[Stealhead]

Originally Posted by Skybird

Considering that we have no idea, absolutely no idea about other life out there, and can in no way conclude on this life's intentions and motivations, drives and ambitions, I wonder whether it really is a brilliant idea that we make this much noise and want to let everybody know that we are there, and where we are to find.

Trust and hoping for the best, is kind. Knowing is better. But we know nothing than that approximately 90% of the space within the milky way is dozens of millions of years older than the 10% of space our solar system lies in. So are the solar systems in these regions: much older than our Earth is. That means that life in these 90% of space and solar systems, if such life exists, is much older than all history of life on Earth, and thus most intelligences out there most likely have an advantage in knowledge over us that counts in the hundreds of thousands if not many millions of years.

And who said that that life with its superior knowledge is friendly? Who said we make contact with others on grounds of our conditions, and our superiority? This is no Star Trek. We are not Starfleet officers. This is the real galaxy. Here we are the ants.

We really should stop to make that much noise.

I would think that given the vastness there must be life forms out there with far greater intelligence than our own.We are still primitives we can not even get along with each other.

A life form that has been around for much longer say billions of years it would have developed advanced technology many millions of years ago or at least the possibility is there and given the odds something out there must be at that point.

Compare the jump just in the past 70 years in technology now imagine what something could do one million years on assuming that society did not destroy itself or perhaps it did and hashed out the petty issues long ago.


Who knows though perhaps there are many lifeforms that have been wiped out when their Voyager was discovered.What if something that we placed on those discs which is not offensive in any way is to another considered a threat or highly offensive?

Maybe the ant pile gets smashed by something more powerful.Maybe not.

[Dowly]

@Skybird

You make good points, but what is to say that the other lifeforms are as selfish and
outright a-holes like humanity?

[eddie]

Now the debate has started over whether or not it has really made it into interstellar space. According to this article, maybe not. But its way out there!

"Voyager still has to face the solar system's biggest frontier: a huge haze of comets known as the Oort Cloud. The science team at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory estimates that it could be another 200 to 300 years before Voyager enters the Oort Cloud, and another 30,000 years before it comes out the other side. The Oort Cloud may extend outward for 100,000 astronomical units (where 1 AU equals the average Earth-sun distance). That's more than a third of the way to the next star over."

Don't think it will run into any aliens anytime soon.

http://www.nbcnews.com/science/where...id=msnhp&pos=7

[Aktungbby]

Originally Posted by eddie

Now the debate has started over whether or not it has really made it into interstellar space. According to this article, maybe not. But its way out there!

"Voyager still has to face the solar system's biggest frontier: a huge haze of comets known as the Oort Cloud. The science team at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory estimates that it could be another 200 to 300 years before Voyager enters the Oort Cloud, and another 30,000 years before it comes out the other side. The Oort Cloud may extend outward for 100,000 astronomical units (where 1 AU equals the average Earth-sun distance). That's more than a third of the way to the next star over."

Don't think it will run into any aliens anytime soon.

http://www.nbcnews.com/science/where...id=msnhp&pos=7

1 AU =93,000,000 The Oort Cloud iss (93,000,000,000,000-Space/time doth continuem! Einstein was one of them