Thursday, September 18, 2003

 

Is there life out there in the vastness of the multiverse? I'll bet there is and also bet it will be bad news for us if we meet!
I just can't conceive that we are alone, that there is no other life out there, somewhere in the multiverse. I visualize it like a string of streetlights, each illuminating a spot, but with darkness between. Sometimes, streetlights are closer together and sometimes way far apart. The darkness represents the space between pockets where maybe, there might be life of some sort. We are in one spot, only our spot consists of this single planet at the moment. I think the chances are good that out there in the beyond of the planets we know that circle our star, lie other stars and planets and those planets could have some form of intelligent life. (An old joke goes like this: The surest sign there is intelligent life in the universe is that they have chosen not to get in contact with us.) We're isolated in our spot because of the space, time, distance problem, as they are in theirs. The closest star to ours is Alpha Centauri, about 4 light years away. If there is life in Alpha Centauri, we won't know unless they come visiting, or we go visiting, but it isn't practical for us to go visiting. We simply do not have the propulsion system which would make a round trip reasonable. Think about the speeds here. Light travels at 186,000 miles per second. Even light, takes 8 years for a round trip. Even if we had something which would get to half the speed of light, the round trip is 16 years. So, the space, time, distance problem faces us and limits us to our own planet even! We don't have the a craft capable of carrying people to another planet yet. So, here we are, stuck in our little bubble of humanity. If there is someone out there who has solved the problem of travel between stars, what could they be like? Would they be altruistic? Have characteristics which we associate with humanity? Or would they be the meanest of dictators? I suspect the latter. What would an alien have to gain by coming upon this ball of dust we call home by letting us live? We would just be in their way of taking whatever they eanted, minerals, resources, whatever. Drop a couple of planet buster bombs and that's it for us, as we face the equivalent of a nuclear winter. After all, building a planet buster class of super bomb probably would be trivial once they solved the space, time, distance problem. It would be easy for them to find an asteroid of a couple of miles across and nudge it a bit to put it on a collision course with us. Do this to three or four and goodbye life as we know it! Their technology would have to be so far ahead of us so as to seem like magic, if they had solved the space, time, distance problem. We would have no way to counter their technology and there would be nothing to stop them from using it on us and wiping us out. Time is on their side, so why not find a really big rock and nudge it our way and then wait? I would like to think if we have alien visitors from beyond, that they will be good guys, but there is no reason for them not to be a badass and kill us all off. Why would they let beings live who could eventually become a rival, competing for the same resources? Yes, it would be easier to just kill us all off and scavenge at their leisure, cheaper too, and maybe keep some of the survivors as slave labor. After all, what do we have to offer them that they don't have already, except maybe some slave labor or worse yet, wait for it, wait for it... a food source? (I remember an episode of Twilight Zone called "To Serve Man" which is eerily chilling, in which aliens have a book by this title, which turns out to be a cookbook.) Think about it... they might find a water/carbon based lifeform like us to be a tasty morsel indeed. And then remember this little tidbit, we even sent off two spacecraft, Voyager I and II, each with a MAP of how to get to where we live! And as if that isn't enough, we are sending a message out by radio which points right back at us and it too, contains a map of how to get to where we live. We don't have to worry today as these maps probably have not yet intersected one of those points of light where there is enough intelligence to know know what to DO with these maps. These maps may never fall into the wrong hands. It is a big multiverse out there and our maps may never be found. Here's hoping! Here's a link to a page I built where the 23 images we are sending to the stars is located. Visit this page and see if you are as smart as we expect E. T. to be. It takes a while to load since the images are a bit larger to make them easy to see the detail. Look at the top of the 1st image and you can see how the concept of numbers is introduced by graphical counting and equating a symbol with numbers, including zero, which indicate we use base 10 for our number system in the document. Further down, you will see a representation of the solar system with a mark at the 3rd planet. Further down, there is some explanation of the chemistry of our life, that it is carbon-water based. Near the bottom is a pair of images which when put side by side, cut out and folded together, makes a rough globe of the Earth. Wow, think about it... not only did we tell E. T. where we live, but that we might be edible too! Next thing we know, we'll have the Vogon Constructor Fleet in the sky telling us that we have to make way for a hyperspace bypass!

Posted by: Rowlfe - at: 9/18/2003 09:41:00 AM

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