The METI Debate

The New York Times ~ Paul Sahre

Since 1960, NASA has funded and supported efforts to search for extraterrestrial life. NASA's SETI, short for the Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence, is now a privately funded group that continues to look for signals. Some of its latest searches are guided by scientist Stephen Hawking and funded by the Russian billionaire Yuri Milner.

A newer and related group, METI, for Messaging Extraterrestrial Intelligence, also known as Active SETI, goes beyond passive searching and actively targets radio messages to known star systems that fit the Goldilocks zone profile of planets presumed capable of supporting life.

Recent transmissions of prime numbers and other visual and tonal mathematical data known as exosemiotics have stirred debate about the wisdom and consequences of advertising life here on Earth. Proponents say these "Hey, here we are!" messages are the continuum of man's existential search for meaning. Opponents warn that evolution pits species against one another and mankind's track record of exploration and colonialism is ample proof of the potential for "extinction-level risk."

As reported last week in The New York Times, Greetings E.T., Please Don't Murder Us:

"There is something about the METI question that forces the mind to stretch beyond its usual limits. You have to imagine some radically different form of intelligence, using only your human intelligence. You have to imagine time scales on which a decision made in 2017 might trigger momentous consequences 10,000 years from now. The sheer magnitude of those consequences challenges our usual measures of cause and effect. Whether you believe that the aliens are likely to be warriors or Zen masters, if you think that METI has a reasonable chance of making contact with another intelligent organism somewhere in the Milky Way, then you have to accept that this small group of astronomers and science fiction authors and billionaire patrons debating semi-prime numbers and the ubiquity of visual intelligence may in fact be wrestling with a decision that could be the most transformative one in the history of human civilization."

Calvin & Hobbes ~ Bill Watterson

An observation. Nowhere in this long and thoughtful article, or in as far as I got in the Comments section, did I find the word God. Is intelligent design purely a terrestrial notion? Cognitive scientists advance the ideas of teleological naturalism and Panpsychism that claim a universal proto-consciousness. Isn't that why are we searching for intelligent life beyond Earth?