If we do make contact then what?

[imported_Ziggy]

I was just wondering. If we do make contact what do we say? What would they look like? Any star that you think has life? And what about that minute possibility that ET dosn't want to be friendly?





"Earth is the cradle of life, but one cannot live in the cradle forever"

[Rajiv]

Hi

Perhaps making first contact will be one of the most traumatic and transforming of experiences. There is not telling what it would do to our religious beliefs and moral convictions. And just imagine interacting with a species that is not held together by the same social rules and moral paradigms as we are. These are issues of lengthy and deep philosophical discourse. And what about the mass psychological reaction to the shattering of our idea of our uniqueness in the universe and the scheme of things. Issues like will it affect mankinds will to survive or to explore further than the solar system.
Our reactions can be fatalistic and self destructive ; it can also be energetic, rejenuvating and farsighted. But very difficult to predict. May be a "science" like psychohistory will be able to predict mass human reactions in such a case.
And of course it is more probable that the first contact will be radio contact rather than flying saucers landing in our backyard.

Regards
Rajiv

[QJones]

McGill university ran a public forum on this topic. Here it is, available for download (or listening). I really enjoyed it.

Part 1
Part 2

[Haglund]

I think that what we would say in a reply depends on what they said to us in the first place. We would perhaps say similar things as what they said to us. I think it would be a difficult job to compose a radiomessage.

[QJones]

The "we" is very important, since any radio reply would be rather inexpensive. Pretty well any millionaire would be able to send a signal.

[Haglund]

That is true, for some reason I'm seeing it as they contact "us" and therefor somebody like the UN or something would send the official reply. Maybe the communication will turn out to be not between civilizations but between smaller parties of each civilization.

[GOURDHEAD]

The devil is in the details. How we and they enable rational communication is fundamental to what we actually tell each other. Earthling to earthling communication is fraught with ambiguity; consider the likelyhood of mistaken intentions as well as logical content when communicating with culturally hyperaliens.

Has anyone read an account of how Columbus and his crew initiated rational communication with the aboriginal natives of the new world? Extrapolation from that process together with our modern skills at error checking should give us a good start. :unsure:

As you can readily discern, I am weak in communication theory. My guess is that one could take a transcendental number such as pi and arbitrarily select a digit N places to the right of the decimal as a starting point and, continuing for a sufficient number of places to the right, form a sequence of digits thus generating a message field. Are there coding/decoding techniques that could convert such a message field into an interpretation of numerous rational messages (within the length constraints of the message field) such as Exodus, the first Epistle of Paul to the Corinthians, the Magna Carter, (the U. S.) Declaration of Independence, the U. S. tax code, etc.,? My guess is that there is; though the effort to do so would be monumental!! Occam can no longer shave!! h34r:

[Planetwatcher]

I watched a program on TV Sunday night which almost had me in stitches laughing.
It was one of those unsolved mystery type of programs which claimed that aliens have been around for years, abducting humans, performing medical exams on them with special interest in our sexuality.

The progam claimed they made abducted humans partake in sexual activities with each other and that at times even the aliens themselves participated.
And natually all the aliens looked just like the Asgard aliens in Stargate. :blink:

This was all just too much for me, because if they want to know about our sexual activites so badly as to come all those gazillion light years, why kidnap people when all they got to do is to tap into the satalite brodcasted porn channels, or stop by a building with 3 Xs on it's sign. I don't think the people inside would mind demonstrating for the aliens. They'd proabley welcome their participation as well.

[Haglund]

Well I think that when we start communicating with other civilizations, we must be aware that they will be different in many ways, biology, society, technology, morals, etc., and really, how can we not be aware of this? Is someone expecting them to be exactly like us? I do expect, however, that some people will be afraid of them because they are different and that they will have a negative influence because they don't believe in god (of course not), or they have different morals (this is obvious) or some other blah-blah.

[etrc]

As a SETI astronomer I have thought deeply about "communicating" with alien intelligences,imagine we detect a "message" from a planet orbiting a star say 200 light years away,should we understand this message and we make a reply then it would take 200 years to get there,so this is a 200 year turn around,so basicly i cannot see actual "communication" with aliens happening, in the above case 200 years is a long time a,d when a reply is finally received all would be forgotton by then as to who sent the reply etc,so short answer,forget it,there wont be a 2 way conversation

[NakedEye]

Assuming we comphrehend the content of an incoming extra-terrestrial signal, our reply should express intelligent neutrality such as the transmission of universal constants or naturally occurring mathimatical algorithms. This establishes not only contact, but conveys sufficient intellect fully capable of space flight and self defense.

[Hydrok]

Heres a hint, lets not use guns. but i would like to point out that as far as i'm concerned, humans are fairly inteligent creatures, so by the time a species is ready to take off and search for other life, we'll be off doing the same. the question would probably be, do we blow em up star trek style or do we talk? But in my opinion the first place that we would find life is europa. And if i was a betting man, thats where i would put my money on first contact, if it were to happen in the next century.


The HyDRoK

[Tigran]

Hello there,

Everything here seams to be quite reasonable thinking. Thanks to
all of you for shearing this. As one more human concerned in this
issue I would just like to mention one thing here:

Look around you. We have life all around us. There are many-many
other creatures than humans on this earth. Have you ever wondered
to know what your dog or cat thinks about you? Maybe not ...

I think, before trying to outline some guidelines of our behavior
with aliens we must understand creatures right here - on Earth.
It's quite likely that when we understand for example our cats
and dogs we then will have more experience in establishing "The Contact".

I always thought that my dog understands more things than it was
used to think.

Regards,

Tigran

[DippyHippy]

I don't think dogs and cats have conscious thoughts but rather unconscious impulses they react upon... for example, we don't think "Get out of the way" when we see a car careening towards us, but rather we just instinctivley move. Likewise, I cat doesn't think "I'm hungry", it only knows that this sensation in it's stomach will go when it eats something.

Anyway... we're going off the track here...

I agree that any reply would have to be very carefully considered... that it should give some indication of not only us as a species, but also our technological state. Further consideration would have to be given to our message because as someone has mentioned, only our ancestors would be around to hear their reply...

...as for Europa... I don't think intelligent life is there... if there is life, it's going to be the kind of sea life you find at the bottom of the Earth's oceans, where the water is warmed by underwater volcanic eruptions...

[jeanne v.]

ok, dippy hippy! it's still 2000 here in chicago! you are east of me.
i must say, i am exhausted since i was fighting aliens last nite in my sleep! i was the only one who knew they really just wanted our resources and would not let those left on the planet live! kind of a cross between the borgs, but with faces like those in Indepence Day!
of course, the odds of something like that happening can be measured in light years! i agree, by the time we respond, those who sent a message we could receive would be long gone and returned to stellar dust!
just let's not be so arrogant to think we are the only ones out there!

[Victoria]

I would be strongly against an aggressive or controlling approach. I believe the best mode for communication would need the flexibility for the awareness of compassion and direction. To teach or be taught. -Victoria

[Tinaa]

I don't know how we'll communicate. We (humans) are not very good at communicating with each other, much less a whole different species!

[Forealfc]

Something you all have got me thinking about now.. What would it do the the religion part of our lives? I think there would be massive holy wars after we discover life other than Earth. Especially Preachers and Popes , what would be their reaction towards all this?

[Haglund]

Are there religions that are against the existence of life elsewhere in the universe?

[Forealfc]

I think what I was trying to get at is what if it is proven that life exisit beyond Earth. I would just think that Religion itself would probably be questioned. According to the Bible, Got created everything is 7 days. The Bible never mentioned anything about God creating other means of life besides Earth. I might be way off, but why not put my two cents in... hee hee.

[DippyHippy]

Guys, just a friendly reminder... steer clear of talking about religion if possible because it causes bad feeling in the end...

...although I will admit it's a major factor when it comes to the implications of first contact with another civilisation...

Thanks

[MarQ]

Another great topic where I learned alot.
In matters like these, nothing really happens the way we predict it. The First Contact will probably be a chemical or mathematical equation, just like our first contact we glued to the side of the Pioneer spacecraft, the famous gold record with two nude humans scratched on it. What would a civilization who found it 1,000 years from now think? They'd immediately realize those naked people aren't around anymore!
The unexpected is something like an alien version of The Honeymooners hitting our Big Ears. The expected is like the movie "Mars Attacks!"

[Haglund]

Originally posted by Forealfc@Nov 21 2003, 07:46 PM
I think what I was trying to get at is what if it is proven that life exisit beyond Earth. I would just think that Religion itself would probably be questioned. According to the Bible, Got created everything is 7 days. The Bible never mentioned anything about God creating other means of life besides Earth. I might be way off, but why not put my two cents in... hee hee.

My guess is that at that time, no one knew that Sol was just another star and the stars were different suns, and so solar systems other than ours was an idea no one came up with. So it would take a lot of imagination to come up with that concept, let alone life over there. And besides, does it really matter what the religions say, if we would one day discover intelligent life elsewhere? If we do, then that's how it is, and there wouldn't be much to do about it anyway.

[Matthew]

If any country finds signals from an alien species then they have to report them to the UN for the whole world to decide on the best course of action. Considering that replying to such a message would involve Earth for many ages.

But just remember, we have been sending aliens messages already; radio, TV, ect. Some might take these messages as replies, what would they see? Much of our history has been marked with wars, us being a violent race. If they are technologically advanced, seeing our primative technology, might they not try to destroy us before we became a major threat?

[DippyHippy]

Hmmmm... interesting point...

I'd say no, because if they were able to travel all this way and destroy us on the grounds that one day we might be a threat, then it would be a waste of time...

Why?

Because they'd be so far advanced of us that by the time we were evolved to the point where we'd be a threat to *them*, they'd have advanced even further and could probably wipe us out even quicker. They'd still be X years ahead of us.

Coming here to conquer us for whatever reason or to exploit the planet is some way is another matter though...

[Matthew]

Well what if they are learning things at x rate, they have alawys been learning at x rate. But we are learning at twice, triple their rate, faster than they were ever learning maybe the would find us a threat. Especially if it would take them 20+ years to reach us, since our learning is speeding up, they may realise that if they don't attack soon, our learning may increase to a point were we know how to defend ourselves from their attack.

I know its a fairly far fetched situation, but it could be true.

[DippyHippy]

Good point - I hadn't thought of that LOL

Maybe there's a kind of barrier... like, technology advances at X rate for some time... then a discovery or revolution occurs and the rate doubles... it could then hit a brick wall and progress could slow...

...so even if we stayed at a steady rate of progress, they might flounder and we might catch up...

[QJones]

I suggest you two read about the theoretical singularity. Here's a link.

Link.

It goes into the progression (at least for people) of technological advance. But remember, not every species needs to advance. Some might even specifically not.

In fact, check out the 'resource' link on that webpage, there's quite a bit there to intrigue the mind.

PS: the reason I like to promote technological progress so much (and encourage people to contribute where they can) is that I think that we'll eventually run into a time where we really needed more tech.

[Graceless]

Given the evolutionary aspect of a civilization enabling themselves to communicate through space, one can imagine that we would be dealing with an advanced species. We're certainly not going to be contacted on the galatic equivalent of tin cans on a string.

Now having said that, we also have to assume that either our evolutionary progress is similar to that which we are contacted/being contacted by, or that we are "catching up". I would be very surprised to learn that we are more advanced than extraterrestrials, given our current limitations in space travel and communications.

With those two options, we are presented with a few logical assumptions. If we are technologically and intellectually on par with ET, then it stands to reason that both civilizations understand the ramifications of such contact, and would not hesitate to strengthen the bonds through some form of diplomacy. If we have been catching up, we can be led to believe that other forms of galactic life have simply waited for first contact. An ET that waits, is not an agressive ET.

The logical conclusion of the after-effects of first contact is simple. Business. The trade of knowledge initially, most likely followed by trade of goods and wares. It stands to reason that if civilization on this planet has progressed as such, there is a good chance that intelligent life elsewhere operates in a very similar manner.

But then....I've also seen Independence Day. But I didn't see any of them attack Canadia. So I figure either way, I'm safe.

[Luke]

We should have universal greetings ready to be transmitted when ET arrives in his flying saucer ship. If we get it wrong it could spell the end for humannity. And we should have several key places on the planet ready to transmit these codes in multi - mechanical computer languages and not just in humble binary. Gene Roddenberry would have been pleased.

Love thy Alien neighbour and ET etc ...