COMMENT POSTED TO AN ARTICLE IN THE GUARDIAN
Why we keep scanning
the skies for signs of alien intelligence
The search for alien
life continues, but how near are we to finding life on other planets – and will
we ever answer the question ‘are we alone’?
Of course, we will answer the question. When? Who knows?
It is inconceivable that the universe is not teeming with
life, life at every stage of evolution and created life such as robots or
manipulations of biology and genes.
To believe otherwise is to accept a truly primitive notion
from three millennia ago as meaningful, the idea of a human-centered universe.
Whether with or without a god, that is simply silly at this
stage of our knowledge and discovery and just plain imagination.
Trouble is that the very nearest star is 25 trillion miles
away, with all the other trillions of them (literally, there are billions of
galaxies each with vast numbers of stars) going out from there to who knows
where.
And of course, there may even be a multiverse, not just our
universe.
Such immensity almost cannot be conceived by people, and no
technology we have could do the distances, at least not with living passengers.
Many forms of life will not have arrived at the stage to
communicate by radio. We only did about a century ago. Many forms of life may
not be interested in communication, as robotic ones. And, of course, there may
be other forms of communicating besides radio, forms we have not discovered.
Readers may enjoy this of some years ago:
