Thursday, January 27, 2011

How Do We Craft A Message To The Stars?


Very interesting interview in the National Catholic Reporter with Dr. Douglas Vakoch, the Director of Interstellar Message Composition at SETI.

How Do We Craft A Message To The Stars?

An excerpt:

Rather than emphasizing our strength and wisdom in a message to more advanced civilizations, I suggest a more humble approach. I think the most powerful message that we could send to beings on another world is that we are a young civilization. We are in our technological adolescence. We are struggling. We are uncertain that we’re even going to survive. And yet, we have enough hope that we are willing to send a message and listen, maybe a hundred or a thousand years, with the hope that we’ll get a reply.
On the one hand, the type of message that Dr. Vakoch is describing makes eminent sense to me. On the other hand, however, given that we have no idea what we might encounter "out there", caution should be the order of the day.

Paul Kimball

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