You state: "The following article indicates that scientists believe they can
detect extraterrestrial intelligence by merely using mechanical devices,
viz. antennas. I ask you, isn't detector-man more capable of detecting
intelligence than mere machines? If you do not believe in a supernatural
component in man, then you must believe that man is the most complicated
machine---much more than a petty antenna. It is so self-evident to me that
we detect intelligence in nature and its workings. That is to say, there is
at least a brain orders of magnitude more powerful than ours that gave rise
to the whole thing is. Of course, I believe that that entity is God who is
actually beyond our comprehension. Speculations about how He did create the
whole thing are nothing but musings of proud minds"
IMHO, you may be missing the point. Surely the investigators are not only
going to rely on the signals but are going to interpret the signals. If,
for example, (and, I admit, this is a stretch) the antennae pick up the
Lord's Prayer coming in from a planet circling Sirius, that would, to me,
indicate extraterrestrial intelligence. The antennae are merely an extension
of our five senses, just as we use instruments such as microscopes and GC-MS
to observe and identify things that we cannot detect with the naked eye and
the naked nose. But maybe I'm missing something.
Having said this, I wonder what drives people to search for extraterrestrial
intelligence. Are they that lonely?
Chuck Vandergraaf
Pinawa, MB