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Why we haven’t heard from ET …

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A new reason? ET is HAL, but not psychotic. From Aeon:

From the evolution side, a number of futurists are predicting the singularity: a time when computers will soon become powerful enough to simulate human consciousness, or absorb it entirely. In parallel, some visionaries propose that any intelligent life we encounter in the rest of the Universe is more likely to be machine-based, rather than humanoid meat-bags such as ourselves.

These ruminations offer a potential solution to the long-debated Fermi Paradox: the seeming absence of intelligent alien life swarming around us, despite the fact that such life seems possible. If machine intelligence is the inevitable end-point of both technology and biology, then perhaps the aliens are hyper-evolved machines so off-the-charts advanced, so far removed from familiar biological forms, that we wouldn’t recognise them if we saw them. Similarly, we can imagine that interstellar machine communication would be so optimised and well-encrypted as to be indistinguishable from noise. In this view, the seeming absence of intelligent life in the cosmos might be an illusion brought about by our own inadequacies. More.

See also: How do we grapple with the idea that ET might not be out there?

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The joke is " million and millions" of civilizations by Sagan and countless others. The bias of the atheists and others who want there to be aliens is truly pathological. Signals would be reaching us from all Time periods due the convenient lag from the speed of light. We would be bombarded with signals if there were aliens in the numbers they were claiming, yet they somehow were oblivious to this important fact. Bias causes a blindness that turns people into idiots I don't have a dog in this fight that's against aliens. I love Star Trek and all that minus the padantic 3rd grader notion that war poverty and muslims will disappear. But it looks like we're all there is, and pot headed toads who weap when they hear, " we're not alone" in a movie, or "it will change everything" as if our belief in God is based on Gaps and not because it's the freakin truth(you infants), should stop praying to ET and start embracing the facts. Its like the Eternal universe , you know where matter is eternal, thermodynamics don't work, and logic is suspended for infinite regress--then Big Bang ! Whoops---ohhh maybe Nothing can order up a universe from McDonald's. Then-- the parameters for a stable universe are "Wide". Whoops its Fine Tuned beyond comprehension---ohhh maybe there's a comic book multiverse but the biggest problem with saying there's a kajillion universes? Well......thats more than there are;) Then---- Life is just protoplasm goo that can form on the bottom of Darwins slippers. Whoops DNA comes included with a copy of Windows 10 Billion Now, the search for the umpteen billion civilizations Sagan says are mass producing Tricorders, berillian Spheres, and Captain Kirks pants sound more like my digestive juices than Prime numbers. ,...but wait, maybe they're hiding? Some of these atheists actually said that. At what point does one stop ridiculing us and focus on these comical denials of their own findings?serious123
March 26, 2016
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For all we know ET were destroyed by a giant asteroid and what ever ET survived is rebuilding its world, or may be their interstellar communication equipment has developed a bug, and signals are going the other way or may be they ran out of power or may be they just don't give a damn about finding out if there are other aliens or they are preparing for a war or their president shot down request for communication budget or ......Me_Think
March 25, 2016
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The first feeble manmade radio signals were generated a little over one hundred years ago. Our technology has progressed in this short span to low density parity codes which have obtained the theoretically possible rate for error-free information transmission. The more efficient a code is, the more it is indistinguishable (to an outside observer) from random noise. This means that we are transitioning to communications that cannot be easily detected outside our world. It is reasonable to assume if alien life exits, its technical capability is probably not within the short timespan of our steady-carrier based transmissions. For us to detect their signals they would likely have to deliberately target us with some sort of powerful narrowband transmission. I think most SETI engineers know this and realize they are pursuing an unlikely thing, but looking for some sort of narrowband energy with a simple nonrandom encoding is currently the only feasible way we would be able to detect any alien signal from astronomical distances. I would love for SETI to succeed but it does not seem very likely to me. However, I do not think failure can be interpreted as evidence that there is not extraterrestrial life.GBDixon
March 25, 2016
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Tyson: "Their (SETIs) goal is the ultimate prize in the life finding game. Someone out there we can talk to." Shostak: "Nothing to do but sit here and wait for them to call." (And exactly at that moment the phone rings right behind Shostak). Shostak: "And on cue they've called." - quotes as stated at 11:22 minute mark - Where are the Aliens Origins Nova Neil Degrasse Tyson - video - https://youtu.be/6pSYBwyP-Yo?t=677 As a Christian who has seen a few answered prayers during my life, I find it strange that the SETI (Search for Extra-Terrestrial Intelligence) organization spends millions of dollars vainly searching for signs of extra-terrestrial life in this universe, when all anyone has to do to make solid contact with THE primary 'extra-terrestrial intelligence' of the entire universe is to pray with a sincere heart. God, who created heaven and earth, certainly does not hide from those who sincerely seek Him. I would think that personally communicating with the Creator of the universe would be a lot more exciting than not communicating with some little green men that in all realistic probability, given naturalism, do not even exist. Isaiah 45:18-19 For thus says the Lord, who created the heavens, who is God, who formed the earth and made it, who established it, who did not create it in vain, who formed it to be inhabited: “I am the Lord, and there is no other. I have not spoken in secret, in a dark place of the earth; I did not say to the seed of Jacob, ‘seek me in vain’; I, the Lord speak righteousness, I declare things that are right.” “All my discoveries have been made in an answer to prayer.” Sir Isaac Newton (1642 - 1727) “When I was young, I said to God, 'God, tell me the mystery of the universe.' But God answered, 'That knowledge is for me alone.' So I said, 'God, tell me the mystery of the peanut.' Then God said, 'Well George, that's more nearly your size.' And he told me.” George Washington Carver “My sister asked me do you hear God speak to you. My reply was this. I hear Him in the whisper of the wind. In see Him in the sunsets as He paints the skies pink and gold. I feel His breath as it passes over the foxtail and the sagebrush. I cannot deny his presence. Do I hear Him? Yes!” - Greg Thomas - Man who saved 150-year-old church facing another fight http://www.kare11.com/story/news/local/land-of-10000-stories/2016/01/17/man-who-saved-150-year-old-church-facing-another-fight/78946094/bornagain77
March 24, 2016
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If there were more than 1 or 2 other planets with intelligent life out there, we should expect a RANGE of technological development. And part of that range should, in all probability, overlap our own. There is of course the problem that considering the distances involved transmissions from a sister planet at our current level of technology might arrive in another thousand years or so. But working from the other side, the odds of ANY other planet in the universe hosting Life is infinitesimally small, and so the rational, as opposed to fanatical, position is to accept Earth as unique for all practical purposes.mahuna
March 24, 2016
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Of related note: ARE YOU LIVING IN A COMPUTER SIMULATION? BY NICK BOSTROM Department of Philosophy, Oxford University VII. CONCLUSION A technologically mature “posthuman” civilization would have enormous computing power. Based on this empirical fact, the simulation argument shows that at least one of the following propositions is true: (1) The fraction of human-level civilizations that reach a posthuman stage is very close to zero; (2) The fraction of posthuman civilizations that are interested in running ancestor-simulations is very close to zero; (3) The fraction of all people with our kind of experiences that are living in a simulation is very close to one. If (1) is true, then we will almost certainly go extinct before reaching posthumanity. If (2) is true, then there must be a strong convergence among the courses of advanced civilizations so that virtually none contains any relatively wealthy individuals who desire to run ancestor-simulations and are free to do so. If (3) is true, then we almost certainly live in a simulation. In the dark forest of our current ignorance, it seems sensible to apportion one’s credence roughly evenly between (1), (2), and (3). Unless we are now living in a simulation, our descendants will almost certainly never run an ancestor-simulation. http://www.simulation-argument.com/simulation.html Also of note: Digital Physics Argument for God's Existence - video http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v2Xsp4FRgas Digital Physics Argument Premise 1: Simulations can only exist is a computer or a mind. Premise 2: The universe is a simulation. Premise 3: A simulation on a computer still must be simulated in a mind. Premise 4: Therefore, the universe is a simulation in a mind (2,3). Premise 5: This mind is what we call God. Conclusion: Therefore, God exists. “What you are calling a computer is really God. A non-physical, (laughter from audience),,, It is just another word if you rob it of all the attributes that make it a computer.” William Lane Craig vs. Lewis Wolpert - Is God No Better Than A Special Computer? – video http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Xinwkb_b4k4 Of humorous note: Anthropic Principle - God Created The Universe - Michael Strauss PhD. – video http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Vvr9q_2sSxs This preceding video, at the 6:49 mark, has a very interesting quote: "So what are the theological implications of all this? Well Barrow and Tipler wrote this book, The Anthropic Cosmological Principle, and they saw the design of the universe. But they're atheists basically, there's no God. And they go through some long arguments to describe why humans are the only intelligent life in the universe. That's what they believe. So they got a problem. If the universe is clearly the product of design, but humans are the only intelligent life in the universe, who creates the universe? So you know what Barrow and Tipler's solution is? It makes perfect sense. Humans evolve to a point some day where they reach back in time and create the universe for themselves. (Audience laughs) Hey these guys are respected scientists. So what brings them to that conclusion? It is because the evidence for design is so overwhelming that if you don't have God you have humans creating the universe back in time for themselves." – Michael Strauss PhD. - Particle Physics as to the limits of computers: Evolutionary Computing: The Invisible Hand of Intelligence - June 17, 2015 Excerpt: William Dembski and Robert Marks have shown that no evolutionary algorithm is superior to blind search -- unless information is added from an intelligent cause, which means it is not, in the Darwinian sense, an evolutionary algorithm after all. This mathematically proven law, based on the accepted No Free Lunch Theorems, seems to be lost on the champions of evolutionary computing. Researchers keep confusing an evolutionary algorithm (a form of artificial selection) with "natural evolution." ,,, Marks and Dembski account for the invisible hand required in evolutionary computing. The Lab's website states, "The principal theme of the lab's research is teasing apart the respective roles of internally generated and externally applied information in the performance of evolutionary systems." So yes, systems can evolve, but when they appear to solve a problem (such as generating complex specified information or reaching a sufficiently narrow predefined target), intelligence can be shown to be active. Any internally generated information is conserved or degraded by the law of Conservation of Information.,,, What Marks and Dembski (mathematically) prove is as scientifically valid and relevant as Gödel's Incompleteness Theorem in mathematics. You can't prove a system of mathematics from within the system, and you can't derive an information-rich pattern from within the pattern.,,, http://www.evolutionnews.org/2015/06/evolutionary_co_1096931.html What Does "Life's Conservation Law" Actually Say? - Winston Ewert - December 3, 2015 Excerpt: "All information must eventually derive from a source external to the universe", http://www.evolutionnews.org/2015/12/what_does_lifes101331.htmlbornagain77
March 24, 2016
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Reasons we haven't heard from ET: 1. There is no ET, anywhere at all. 2. God started all of us at the same time and we're all at the same technological level. 3. FTL travel is not possible, and never can be, so nobody bothers even communicating.EvilSnack
March 24, 2016
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I think the reason that we haven't heard from ET yet is simply due to the huge distances between habitable planets and the immense power that would be needed to transmit a signal between them.Indiana Effigy
March 24, 2016
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