Hi Chuck
Actually (don't call me Ashley!) I quite agree with you.
"Vandergraaf, Chuck" wrote:
> Jon,
>
> Maybe a bit of both;
>
> Theological:
> Not sure if I would know how to deal with ETL, for the reasons often cited:
> would these creatures be with or without sin? If intelligent, but without
> sin, how would we interact with them? If sinful, did Christ die for them
> and, if so, why did He pick this earth? If not, was His atonement not
> universal? How does one define "universal?"
>
Excellent questions. George Murphy, C. S. Lewis, Mark Worthing, and some others
have grappled with them. There are no answers of course, and won't be until we
interact with ETI (and perhaps not them, even assuming we ever encounter them).
However, I think there is value in at least some reflection. Forewarned is for
forearmed in such issues. Secondly, SETI is a interesting philosophical and
scientific issue, and therefore as Christians we should have something positive
to contribute. Thirdly, the idea can serve as a useful thought experiment,
which can teach us much about ethics, Christology, for example.
>
> Scientific:
> The odds are (to me) overwhelming both in time and space. How would we
> recognize a signal? So it comes down to sort of looking for a needle in a
> haystack except that we don't know what the needle looks like. How do we
> know that we have seen or heard the signal already but cannot recognize it?
> How strong would the signal have to have been at the source for us to detect
> it? For all we know, dolphins can hear and interpret the signals emitted by
> ETI and ETLs and have been trying to convey their messages to us for
> hundreds of years. The list goes on and on and on.
Exactly. Arthur C Clarke once said that astronomers looking for ETI
communications by radio might be like New Guinea tribesmen listening for drums
beyond their enclosing battery, unaware of radio and TV signals all round
them. That is why I suspect the most likely (least unlikely?) form of SETI to
succeed is one that looks for the byproducts of industrial civilization
operating on a planetary or even stellar system scale (unusual IR sources,
coherent radiation, and in the next few decades, pollutants in planetary
atmospheres), rather than direct communication. This of course assumes a
particular type of technological civilization. I think that SETI has
demonstrated that no such civilizations exist in the immediate stellar
vicinity. I must hunt the Scientific American article down that discusses this.
The interest in and consequences of ETI are such that surely modest research,
piggybacked on other programs. SETI budgets are hardly comparable to the hardly
ISS, SSC, ODP, or other big item TLA.
With respect to ETL, although it may well be unlikely that we will find life
elsewhere in the solar system, the fact that some terrestrial organisms would be
able to survive in the ocean of Europa, beneath the Martian surface, or even in
Jupiter's atmosphere, means that we should be alter both to the possibility of
life in these places and careful of the risk of contamination. These bodies are
all interesting in their own right, so surely a small fraction of the budget of
such programs should be devoted to answering these questions.
Looking further afield, within a few decades astronomical technology will be
likely able to resolve extra solar planets. Data on atmospheric compositions
and surface temperatures should be obtainable. If we detect a planet with a
surface temperature comparative with liquid water and an atmosphere containing
methane, ozone, and water vapour, than an earth-like biosphere is a clear
possibility.
>
>
> Chuck (sceptic in Manitoba)
>
respectfully
Jon (optimistically in Oz)
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