Keith Cooper (2)

This is a book that I think is very good at what it does, but it just doesn’t do what I was looking for.

The premise — examining assumptions behind our search for extraterrestrial intelligence — really appeals to me. I had found Jim Al-Khalili’s collection of scientific and speculative articles on the same subject (Aliens: The World’s Leading Scientists on the Search for Extraterrestrial Life) terrific in its questioning of some of those assumptions. So I was looking to get more show more perspectives and maybe go deeper.

And some of the early chapters more than met my hopes. Cooper challenges the assumption that alien civilizations would act “altruistically’ enough to spend resources on sending detectable signals (radio or otherwise). And he challenges the assumption that we could expect the evolution of intelligence itself (at least of the relevant type — technological, communicative intelligence) to be common where life originates at all.

The focus of the book changed a bit as Cooper began to examine such things as the detectability of intelligent, technological civilizations. And some of this is very good. For example, he discusses the “Arecibo Myth.” Researchers sometimes use the Arecibo radio telescope as a kind of benchmark — if we sent a signal, a relatively modest amount of information with some minimal recognizability as coming from an intelligent source, how far away could an alien civilization be and still detect our signal?

Calculations and included factors vary, giving a range of distances between Frank Drake’s original estimate of 10,500 light years and Seth Shostak’s more recent 400 light years. If Shostak is right, there’s little chance of a signal transmitted from Arecibo being detected by an alien civilization, even if such civilizations are abundant. Likewise, there’s little chance of our detecting a signal, using the Arecibo telescope, from an Arecibo-like telescope on an alien world. In order for detection to be feasible, we really have to count on the alien civilization possessing either immensely powerful transmitters or immensely powerful receivers, and of course the willingness to expend the resources necessary to build them.

This is setting aside what information may be contained in such a signal or how decipherable it might be.

But traditional SETI of that sort (i.e., detection of radio signals) may be anachronistic. After all, our own communications systems have moved on from radio to other media. So Cooper moves along to more contemporary efforts at detecting biosignatures (e.g., the presence of atmospheric gases like oxygen and methane that may indicate the presence of life) and technosignatures.

Technosignatures of course are more relevant to potential detection and contact with intelligent, technological civilizations. The detection of biosignatures that truly confirmed the presence of life on an alien world would be momentous in itself, but the detection and confirmation of technosignatures would be mind-boggling — the true “We are not alone” moment.

When we talk about detecting technosignatures, keeping in mind that the hypothetical civilizations we want to detect would be both alien and incredibly advanced with respect to us (given that we are likely only in the early stages of a technological civilization) we have to allow our imaginations free reign. Thus talk of Dyson Spheres, Dyson Trees, other “Megastructures,” the taming of black holes, and on and on. But the likelihood of our getting any of this right seems infinitesimally small — after all, we are not the aliens and we have no idea what a technological civilization, even one very much like our own, would develop over the next million or so years.

There’s nothing wrong with exploring different avenues of speculation, like Dyson Spheres and tamed black holes, but, as I said, the chances of getting such things right seem remote. I think the book lost some of my interest here, just on that very ground — that we literally don’t know what we are talking about.

I will mention, though, one approach I wasn’t aware of and that sounds especially interesting. In the final chapter of the book, on 21st Century SETI, Cooper discusses an approach led by Lucianne Walkowicz. Given the uncertainties surrounding what kinds of things we should be trying to detect by way of technosignatures, let’s not look for something specific. Instead let’s look for something “weird” — something that suggests artificiality because it doesn’t fit what we expect of the universe. Of course, much of what appears “weird” (fast gamma ray bursts, etc.) turn out to be natural phenomena that we just didn’t understand yet. But I think the potential genius in Walkowicz’s approach is the acknowledgement that we don’t know specifically what to look for but we do know that we are looking for something that doesn’t fit.

And we don’t necessarily need new observations and new data to conduct such a search. Existing sky surveys have already produced a wealth of data to analyze for anomalies.

Toward the end of Cooper’s discussion, I began to wonder what exactly the “paradox” is that the title is referring to. We do get it, also toward the end of the book. The paradox is really between our willingness to search, and to put resources behind a search, for extraterrestrial intelligence and our reticence to actually contact and communicate with any intelligence we may find. As Cooper puts it, “This is the Contact Paradox. We search the Universe for evidence of extraterrestrial life to make contact with others, for humanity to be able to share the Universe with others. Yet we find ourselves in a position of not being confident about whether we should try and make contact.”

Just as we have no idea what technologies (if any) an intelligent alien civilization might develop, we have no idea what their motivations might be in spending resources to detect and contact other civilizations. The specter of alien invasion may sound like 1950s SciFi movie stuff, but, again, our imaginations are unequal to the task of discerning the motivations of creatures we know exactly nothing about.

Although that tension is interesting and important, again, it diverges from what at least I hoped I was getting into with the book. I thought I was getting into a discussion of how to think about and how not to think about what we mean by “life,” “intelligence,” “technology,” and other key concepts involved in SETI.

Cooper isn’t responsible for my expectations, so I’m happy to recommend the book for what it is.

I’ll also mention (for anyone wanting to pursue something along the lines of what I was looking for) not only the book edited by Jim Al-Khalili (Aliens: The World’s Leading Scientists on the Search for Extraterrestrial Life), but also another collection edited by Chris Impey (Talking About Life: Conversations on Astrobiology). Both books contain fascinating discussions on those questions about the concepts of “life” (especially the Impey book), “intelligence,” and “technology.” show less

Very reaching and obviously self-interested. I was amused by the author's livid outrage at some guys who transmitted radio signals into space in case space aliens eat us. I found the theorising about alien cultures based on what we know about life and game theory etc. interesting. The history of SETI itself was boring but mercifully short.

The search for life beyond Earth...are we ready for what we will find...

Yes. Because there is fuck all.

Until of course we decide to go back there.

It could be that our destiny is to makes other planets habitable and then populate them.

Or even that we were introduced here ourselves maybe by a more advanced life form.

Just like sheep in the fields.

One day it might even be harvest time.

I thought the Star Wars crew were a bit silent recently.

Yes, Jedis are fucking real as well...

Swallow some show more science rather than Lucas-ade.

It seems just as ludicrous to believe that there is life somewhere else, as it is to blindly believe in a higher being.

And this is one of the reasons we are completely screwing up our beautiful planet, because we think deep down someone will save us, or somewhere else is better. And we can't be the only ones...because that doesn't make sense right? Bollox.

And even if there is intelligent life somewhere else - do you really truly think they would find us? No. Because we are not intelligent life, and we are sadly proving it every single day.

Sorry, but I believe more in the Cola Spangle God.

Could there be a similar one somewhere else, billions of light years away? Maybe. Maybe not. But I like many other scientists don't lose sleep about it.

And quite frankly, who gives a shit, other than SF writers and the fake alien abductees? Fun stories, especially those with warp speeds and light sabres.

In short, we would be the aliens when we returned to Earth. show less

Exoplanets galore, both imagined ones such as _Dune_'s Arrakis invented by fiction writers and real ones such as Alpha Centauri b discovered through scientific research, are what this fine astronomy/astrobiology book is all about. It is organized according to exoplanet categories and subcategories described by numerous adjectives such as all-desert, oceanic, always-winter, tidally-locked, and circumbinary. Exomoons, unusual orbital situations, ecumenopolises (all-city worlds), and even Dyson show more spheres get their share of attention too. I found a .pdf ebook version to be useful for viewing the central cluster of color illustrations and a .txt version to be useful for smooth out-loud reading by a browser such as Edge. The latter option is helped by the book's lack of endnotes, meaning that the main text is free of pesky endnote numbers. show less