Is SETI a Waste of Time?

Okay, let see if I've got this right. You think "It is too slow to communicate by electromagnetic waves."

But you also think that "ET's will use the entanglement properties of matter to communicate FTL. Eavesdropping on these signals will be very difficult, if not impossible due to the nature of entanglement."

Sounds to me like you've already answered your own question: It is therefore a waste of time. One way is too slow, the other is impossible.

Keep in mind that SETI isn't really about sending signals, it's about listening for signals. Even though signals from Earth haven't gone very far into the Milky Way, some other civilization out there may have been broadcasting radio signals for thousand of years, and SETI may have a chance (a very tiny chance) of detecting these broadcasts (or perhaps fortuitously detect narrow-casts).

It does seem like a waste of time and money though OTOH the risk is small and the potential reward could be huge.

I agree with your basic premise here. (although it isn't fair to Humanists to call this disease humanism.... more like Nazism or Forcism) We can not change the mind of another person through force. I don't think very many people with political ambitions ever asked themselves "How do I change what people think, in order to...?" Usually, they all follow Sun Zsu's "Art Of War", in the conquering of enemies.

Great question and approach.

Chris

Ref. to some readers - See the original version of "The Day the Earth Stood Still."

Sounds like you subscribe to George Bernard Shaw's view that earth is probably an interplanetary lunatic asylum.

Looking at the pronouncements of our political masters and the general public reception of them tends to reinforce this view.

With all due respect, this is a load of old rubbish or mostly so. It consists of statements supported by nothing but belief. The condition of Earth is typical of what one should expect from evolution, and evolution is necessary short of the Universe being the work of a Creator. To be successful is to produce children and protect and nurture them until they are able to start their own child rearing cycle. To fulfill these duties it has been, and sometimes is, necessary to be unsocial to the point of murder. I do not doubt that we all have someone in our ancestry who has stolen the food from another's babe to feed their own. I do not doubt that our ancestors and their tribes, drove other tribes off desirable land. As long as we continue to develop there will be conflicts, as soon as we stop, another species will steal our niche.

If there is other intelligent life out there, and if it was not created whole by a Creator, will be analogous to ours.

So you think that FTL information is impossible? Consider this:They have entangled multiple particles, and are making progress to entangle more and more.They can send one bit of info FTL, by simply observing the partner.This has alredy been done.So they have sent one bit of data FTL.Now, entangle millions of particles, and you see where this is going.

A space traveler would have a small amount of matter with him, consisting of trillions of entangled particles.These would be used up as they were manipulated from the home source to generate messages..Eventually, he would run out of particles, and would need a refill, of course.But if properly planned for, they could carry several thousands of years supply.Of course, newer technology would probably make them obsolete before that happened.Older spacecraft would be passed by by a newer generation of spacecraft before they even reached the original destination.Consider a trip of 10 light years:If it took a modern (today) space ship 100 years to get there, then it would be passed by by a ship built 50 years later,etc.because of advances in technology.

FTL communication is possible.

Been done.

Accept it.

IMHO

You seem to be making a lot of very broad, very detailed statements on the subject (which is opinion and fine), BUT remember all of which are speculation based on both personal belief and based on what we know (and can imagine) about ourselves and a small part of the surrounding universe we occupy. This sort of logic can be very problematic and almost always incorrect in some way shape or form because (quite simply) we just plain don't have all the facts and those we don't have are guesses based on assumptions, life history and movies.

FTL communication is possible.

Been done.

Accept it.

This statement IS factual as myself and others have covered teleportation experiments and scientifically proven quantum theory right here on earth previously on CR4, but quantum teleportation of a person or ship is still debatable and still theoretically unproven at this moment let alone laboratory proven in concept. A great deal more research into quantum theory and mechanics (and likely a few other sciences that haven't been invented by us yet) is required before we can give more than "our best guess" as an answer.

Getting back to the original question "IS SETI a Waste of time?", my answer would be the same as if the question were "IS SOLAR POWER a Waste of time?" - NO. Yes both are unlikely to prove any useful result given the primitive technology being employed, BUT you have to start somewhere and developments are continuing that will potentially provide a good end result (for SETI and similar projects - be it finding extraterrestrial life, or a better understanding of the universe we live in).

In the end I believe the small investment is worth it.

FTL is possible, and currently proven.I made no claim for teleportation of large masses, merely entanglement of large numbers of particles, that would be used in FTL communicatiion.Presuming a traveler had a trillion "bits" (entangled half-pairs), he could receive a trillion bits of data or send a like amount back to the other half of the pair.I picked that number arbitrarily, not absolutely, merely to help explain the method to which I refer.The traveler would be moving at less than the speed of light, no violation of speed limit there, but the information could travel form Earth to the ship instantaneously, or vice versa.("Spooky Communication").

True, I was a bit gloomy in my judgement of the human race, but history has proven my statements to be true insofar as cooperation of the human species, and our regard for other species.

We could learn a lot from dolphins and whales if we could learn to understand their language.

We could learn a lot from one another if we could learn to really work together, realizing that we are only one species among millions, sharing this tiny dust mote, orbiting a non remarkable star in a non remarkable galaxy.

Our lives are short, and we wonder about our purpose.The only answer I have is we are here to help one another.Simple as that.

IMHO

FTL communication is possible.

Been done.

Er...I'm not so sure you're entirely correct there. You may be thinking of some rudimentary quantum computing that has been achieved - which is quite different animal than FTL communication. AFAIK, we have yet to transmit actual information across a distance in a manner that could be considered FTL.

The following link includes links to the most current developments in actual data teleportation experiments, as well as basic explanations on how it achieves this.

http://cr4.globalspec.com/comment/581988

Additionally try a search of CR4 for other teleportation articles (and personal opinions).

or this.

I don't know if FTL information transfer is possible or not. I remember some early discussions (a few years ago, on a different forum) that held that, although Quantum Entanglement could be used to know the state of a 2nd particle if you knew the state of the 1st particle, this was not sufficient to allow transfer of information at FTL. No doubt there have been new discoveries on QE that I am completely unaware of, so perhaps now they've decided that it is possible.

Nevertheless, I was using YOUR words. If you look, you'll see I copied and pasted your own introductory statements from when you posted the subject.

Regarding SETI, I like Arthur C. Clarke's comment on the possibility of life in the universe: "Sometimes I think we're alone in the universe, and sometimes I think we're not. In either case the idea is quite staggering".

what about entangled Tachyons? FTL transport?

If we use quantum techniques to find extraterrestrials, we may find that instead of discovering them, we precipitated them out of the realm of possible extraterrestrials.

but seriously, although the communications technology used by Seti may lag the latest and greatest technology in communications, then so long as they continue to be funded adequately, they should only lag a constant few years behind. I say that this is acceptable, due to the years involved in electromagnetic communications over interstellar distances.

The search for extraterrestrial intelligence is important. Discovering them will fundamentally change and expand our psychological space entirely, as a species. We will see things as possible, which were once considered impossible. Has anyone heard someone say recently, that it is impossible for men to travel to the moon, or robots to go to mars? No, because those precedents fundamentally changed our mindset and technology, for every person on planet. Most just take it for granted, which is the best evidence of that change.

Chris.

The best evidence for ETI is that these beings have used Earth for their loony bin....

My understanding is that you can't use intanglement to send signals faster than light. It's as if you can flip a coin and the result of that coin flip can be known instantly far away, but you have no control over the coin flip. You can transfer information instantly as long as it is meaningless.

"the result of that coin flip can be known instantly far away"

but Instantly IS faster than light.

but Instantly IS faster than light.

Granted. Say we each have a coin, and these coins magically come up the same when we simultaneously flip them - 50% heads and 50% tails. Even though they are somehow entangled, I can't control my coin and therefore I can't control yours. I have no way of using this entanglement to send you a message.

Frequency Modulation.

Ok I know nothing about this, but from what I read here communication IS possible just with your coin toss. Assume the receiver knows that I can toss the coin every 1/100th of a second ....... so if he gets a result i have tossed the coin. If he doesn't I did not toss the coin. result = 1, no result = 0 ..... we have a binary code.

No?

A CB-Radio technician once told me that artificial radio-waves "break-up" after traveling a certain distance through space (only several light-years, I believe). Although I personally have never checked to see if this is true, I was hoping that someone here could verify this. My first guess is that he must be correct, because then the 12-billion yr-old universe should be filled with artificial radio-signals (of which we have not picked up a single artificial transmission in 50-years.) I will finish by paraphrasing a quote from someone famous ...... "Either we are alone in the universe, or we are not. Either outcome is truly amazing."

Ah, SETI. Looking for a pattern in random radio radio signals to prove the existence of intelligence...But we ignore the exquisite design of everything we see, denying the existence of our glorious Creator.

SETI is not just a waste of time, but the intellectual equivalent of perpetual motion and free money.

Come on!

I admit I am glorious but I would never create a screwed up bunch like we have on planet earth.

Yes. A waste of time and money.

SETI does make the assumption that the most prevalent by-product of intelligent life is electromagnetic radiation.

Anyone who's read about aliens knows they communicate through thought transference. Just ask anyone who's been contacted by them.

Unfortunately, there is no way to "transmit" information instantaneously, through the entaglement of particles. (Why entaglement can't be used for doing this, is a long story and it needs a lot of discussion.) Generally speaking, there is no way to "transmit" information in a speed greater than c. Special relativity says so. Matter particles can travel at a speed near c and only photons (pure energy, with rest mass=0) travel at a speed exactly c. Information always need a kind of "carrier" in order to be transmitted, i.e. photons (light modulation), electrons (electric signals) or other particles. So, it is obvious that the maximum speed of information is c, i.e. by using photons as "carriers".

Maybe there are other "non conventional" ways of transmiting information (e.g. through wormholes, if there are such things). This will be a really revolution in science. But the laws of physics -as we know till now- don't permit the travel of information at v>c.

Actually the laws of relativity can, and have been, bypassed when working on the quantum scale because matter in the traditional sense is not actually in motion, merely an instantaneous transfer of quantum states. Here is just one article on the subject.

http://www.popsci.com/science/article/2010-05/researchers-achieve-quantum-teleportation-over-10-miles

I would say no. The money has already been spent to put the infrastructure in place, so the money being spent for ongoing monitoring is a drop in the bucket. If time is being wasted, it's only being wasted by the relatively few that are actively involved in the project. If one day they pick up that elusive signal that they are searching for, SETI will become one of the most important projects that humans ever came up with.

It may be a waste of my computers time, but not mine.