Why is SETI not receiving signals? NOTE: Update video available

[scowi3]

My guess is that we dont get a signal because the power required to send a detectable signal over many light years is just too great.

If we cant detect light reflected off planets round other stars, surely that means that any signal would need an intensity greater than all the sunlight reflected off earth or even jupiter?

[Uberware]

Why do people trust SETI? I dont get it....

[benthemiester]

SETI is a very interesting endeavor however, if were going to be honest, it realty is a faith based modern tower of babel. The person or things being sought may be different, but the method is the same. Keeping your head towards the sky and searching for something that's unknown, except that pound for pound, SETI is much more expensive and requires much mote faith.

[endlessnameless16]

Hmmm... although I do go along with the fact that life, and so much life, on Earth is proof of life existing elsewhere under similar circumstances and conditions, this argument that intelligent creative lifeforms will eventually destroy themselves or die out in some random natural event is VERY plausible. Artificial signals are easily discerned from natural ones... makes you think. =p

[7chakras1]

I do enjoy froliicking in the wonderful world of Mr. Goodfellow. But why assume SETI is attempting to intercept communications from outerspace? Most organizations and corporations are not doing what they claim to be doing. Are the world's militaries ensuring peace and security? Are manufactured-food companies contributing to the health of our people? Is this false economy real? hmmm...

A quick look at crop circles and one method of communication chosen by another life form.becomes clear.

[sgfellow]

Crop Circles. It is the very impossibility of them that makes them impossible to dismiss as a hoax. I am ashamed to say that although I watch this subject very closely, I have yet to form any coherent opinion. Although crop circles leave me gob-smacked, until I can form an opinion, I'll continue to believe my SETI thesis may be valid.

[donaldmdunlop]

This speculation is short sighted and fails to take into account the fact that we've only been looking in an incredibly small area of the sky, in discrete wavelengths and for a very short time.

The potential civilization would also have to be minimally around the same level of development as we are.

My personal Drake Equation Estimate is around 10,000 civilizations. In a galaxy with 200-400 billion stars that's pretty much a needle in a haystack.

The video author's thinking is very flawed.

[sgfellow]

10,000 civilizations presently in existence? If we can we assume that civilizations have flourished for billions of years, I find it hard to believe that within such a plethora of sentience, none of the super-civilizations were able to create a self-sustaining galactic communication system capable of contacting emerging sentience (us). It stretches credulity.

[planetdarwin]

Speculation and mysticism. :(

[sgfellow]

Speculation, yes. Mysticism? I do not recall at any time in my discourse calling upon forces that could not be empirically discerned.

[MyOtherBeaver]

Wow what a top video absolutely wonderful and it makes sense but I do see one small problem.

If we can work this out then surely you have to say that other sentient beings have worked this out and if they have well...what are the chances that at least one of the alien races saw a way around it?

They might then make it there duty to promote and speed up sentient existence on other planets and warn them of abusing there planet?

Good Video 5 stars!!!

[sgfellow]

Thanks for the kind words, MyOtherBeaver. Sentience capable of discerning the pattern of nature and getting out of its path before the whip comes down? The one sperm that reaches the eg? You are a creature after my own heart. Being a die-hard homo sapien booster, I harbor such impossible hopes too :-)

[malignantpoodle]

I can think of many scientific reasons for no confirmed signals yet, before even having to consider philosophical ones such as these.

Signal strength, distance, broadcast time, method of transmission, and the like.

If we were to consider life exceedingly rare (I got 3 civilizations in the Milky Way via Drake equation which still equals almost half a trillion civilizations universe wide), the chance that neighboring civilizations only say, 50,000 light years away from one another... (cont)

[malignantpoodle]

would be sufficiently advanced at the same time to one another to intercept a signal that was even strong enough to be detected at such distances considering we would have only been able to receive it in the last several decades... becomes even more unlikely.

Then there's the rest of the universe up to 15 billion light years away, that could have been broadcasting continuous streams directly at us for billions of years and it hasn't reached us :)

So in effect, for the amount of time that we

[malignantpoodle]

have been actively listening (let's say 40 years), we've only explored a 40 light year globe in a 15 billion light year environment :)

Anything else is either on its way, or has already passed, if it was there to begin with.

Great video though, 5 stars even though I feel differently.

[zappedpyramid]

I applaud your persistence and enthusiastically support it. I would love to be proved wrong.

[zappedpyramid]

Plausible, but I would argue that until such signals are found, the burden of proof is upon you and the evidence - as it stands - supports my thesis.

[malignantpoodle]

Well, simply put our own existence is evidence that there is life in the universe. True it is not evidence that there is life elsewhere, but it is enough substantiation to look elsewhere.

Even if we found nothing out there at all, the search is worth it. Finding life, or not finding life, either prospect is a profound discovery.

[zappedpyramid]

I appreciate the communication difficulties, but if you will permit me, might I suggest that you are approaching the problem through the eyes of contemporary technology? I might argue that a super-civilization would be entirely cognizant of the difficulties you, an emerging sentience, would have. Do you not think they would have taken that into account?

[malignantpoodle]

Not necessarily.

Can we communicate with slugs? How about relay complex information like language or abstract ideas to rabbits?

Is it because we can't? Possibly. It might also be because we haven't tried, or simply don't want to. That's without considering the political and ideological problems that have the current SETI programs being EXTREMELY well guarded in the information they publish. They're not even releasing candidate information any more.

[danemisis2002]

Makes Sense, But if SETI is not working ... y does it still exist ? What purpose is it to use and maintain something that does not work ?

[zappedpyramid]

Well, because it would be really great if my thesis were proven wrong. You can only do that if you keep on looking.

[malignantpoodle]

I've left the SETI program because of the issues with secrecy. I'm not a conspiracy theorist, and I'm not saying that they're sitting on a signal. For a better explanation, I'll copy my message that I wrote to the community and send it to you in a private message.

[rbolo29]

I hope they aren't communicating through 'quantum entanglement' or some exotic form of ESP communications they might have evolved.

Frequency hoping, spread sprectrum and phased array communications would be hard enough to detect using narrow band scanning.

[zappedpyramid]

Considering the amount of sentience that is postulated to have been and is out there in our galaxy, some super-civilizations might have chosen such a communication system, but many may have chosen alternative forms of seeking contact. My argument is that one of these systems ought to be easily discerned.

[sp1r1c0m]

there is still the galaxies :(