Hmmm...
Should we announce ourselves??
We've been transmitting Radio, TV, and other broadcasts, for about 100 years or so... Every life form within 100 light years of Earth - whether it likes it or not - has been subjected to Justin Bieber, Sixty Minutes, and reruns of Gilligan's Island.
And we're asking whether we should announce ourselves.
Maybe... they missed our transmissions?
Unfortunately, the crux of the issue in transmitting our galactic presence is fundamentally flawed, ignorant to the inherent evolution of a sentient species. The idea of contact via radio signals speaks well enough — void of relevance to any message found in a transition.
ReplyDeleteAs noted previously, our civilization advances exponentially in the grasp of science. From the invention of the radio to the complex telecommunications of today, our knowledge of EM science has changed many fold.
Suppose we transmitted a signal to the area where the “Wow” signal was found (near Tau Sagittarii), 122 lightyears away. By the time the signal got there (2137), we’ll have advanced far beyond the “simple” technology used today. It’s this acknowledgment of our accelerating advancement that contradicts the reasoning in sending a signal. Not that we should wait until we have better radios, but that we might be using technology not limited to light-speed, surpassing all signals sent long ago.
Such a small window in our technological evolution points to how infinitesimal our chances would be in finding a possible civilization of similar advancement. Further to that, any recipient of the signal would understand that a response would not only be ignorant of our accelerating advancement, but equally short sighted knowing it would arrive 244 years after our call. Expecting a response might come across as insulting to such basic reasoning, daring them to make a fool of themselves in front of the galactic community.
In 244 years (2259), it’s likely we’ll have interstellar capabilities by then, and elect to visit their star system before their first response would have reached us. Interstellar communication is proportionate to the capabilities of any advanced civilization. The exponential characteristic of technological advancement mathematically surpasses capabilities not unlike Moore’s Law. What was our civilization doing 244 years ago (1771)? What might we be doing 244 years from now?
Our civilization has just taken the “training wheels” off telecommunications compared to possible civilizations being thousands if not millions of years ahead of our own. It’s mathematically evident the majority of possible civilizations would not be at our beginning stage — but well past the “walkie-talkie” era, employing methods not limited to the speed of light. That said, if we did make contact with a civilization equally advanced or evolved as ours, would we seek correspondence? Looking at our current evolved state, I’d think not.