Pathfinder
Editor, Senior Moderator
<TABLE border=0 cellSpacing=0 cellPadding=0 width="98%"><TBODY><TR><TD width="89%">Alien Life
Posted: 10/01/10
Author: Shaun McCormack
</TD></TR><TR><TD colSpan=2><HR style="LINE-HEIGHT: 10px" class=black></TD></TR><TR><TD class=subtitle1 colSpan=2>Summary: If we ever do receive a message from outer space, we?ll want to know what kind of aliens sent it. SETI researcher Seth Shostak says we shouldn?t expect them to be anything like us ? in fact, they might not be biological at all, but instead, extraterrestrial machines.</TD></TR></TBODY></TABLE>
Astronomer Seeks ET Machines
People have always held a biased view of the world around them. It?s an aspect of being human.
It took until the 17th century for us to reject Aristotle?s vision of a universe where our Sun and the stars revolved around the Earth. Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence (SETI) Senior Astronomer Seth Shostak points out that up until a century ago, the scientific community believed a vast engineering society was responsible for building an irrigation system on the surface of Mars. Discovering the Martians could, in principle, be done by simply turning an Earth-based telescope in the direction of the Red Planet. Now it seems that our best chance for finding Martian life is to dig deep into the surface in search of subterranean microbes.
Our idea of extraterrestrial life has changed drastically in 100 years, but our search strategies have not kept up. In his upcoming paper ?What ET will look like and why should we care?? for the November-December issue of Acta Astronautica, Shostak argues that SETI might be more successful if it shifts the search away from biology and focuses squarely on artificial intelligence. Shostak sees a clear distinction between life and intelligence: he says we should be searching for extraterrestrial machines.
?Continuing to hunt for our analogs ? technically competent biological sentients ? may be an enterprise with less than promising prospect, as it focuses on a highly transient prey,? Shostak says.
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Posted: 10/01/10
Author: Shaun McCormack
</TD></TR><TR><TD colSpan=2><HR style="LINE-HEIGHT: 10px" class=black></TD></TR><TR><TD class=subtitle1 colSpan=2>Summary: If we ever do receive a message from outer space, we?ll want to know what kind of aliens sent it. SETI researcher Seth Shostak says we shouldn?t expect them to be anything like us ? in fact, they might not be biological at all, but instead, extraterrestrial machines.</TD></TR></TBODY></TABLE>
Astronomer Seeks ET Machines
People have always held a biased view of the world around them. It?s an aspect of being human.
It took until the 17th century for us to reject Aristotle?s vision of a universe where our Sun and the stars revolved around the Earth. Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence (SETI) Senior Astronomer Seth Shostak points out that up until a century ago, the scientific community believed a vast engineering society was responsible for building an irrigation system on the surface of Mars. Discovering the Martians could, in principle, be done by simply turning an Earth-based telescope in the direction of the Red Planet. Now it seems that our best chance for finding Martian life is to dig deep into the surface in search of subterranean microbes.
Our idea of extraterrestrial life has changed drastically in 100 years, but our search strategies have not kept up. In his upcoming paper ?What ET will look like and why should we care?? for the November-December issue of Acta Astronautica, Shostak argues that SETI might be more successful if it shifts the search away from biology and focuses squarely on artificial intelligence. Shostak sees a clear distinction between life and intelligence: he says we should be searching for extraterrestrial machines.
?Continuing to hunt for our analogs ? technically competent biological sentients ? may be an enterprise with less than promising prospect, as it focuses on a highly transient prey,? Shostak says.
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Dark clouds in the image are known as Bok Globules, areas of space that may be hospitable to extraterrestrial machine intelligence. Image credit: NASA and The Hubble Heritage Team (STScI/AURA)