Hawking on SETI

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It is only natural for people to expect pearls of wisdom from the minds of brilliant people. When Stephen Hawking recently made a statement that the endeavor to seek out alien intelligence from outer space is an unwise strategy, a lot of people reacted angrily – after all a scientific mind was expected to be curious and investigative – and here was, an acclaimed genius, going the opposite way. Many wondered if he had a bad dream after watching ‘Avatar’!

Mankind today is threatened on many fronts. Aliens from outer space are not a worry on the top of the list. We all know that many species have evolved and have died out. Those that have died, have died for various reasons


The environment in which the species could live changed, forcing it to extinction.

An unusual event like an asteroid collision depleted food supplies and caused extinction.

Lost the struggle for survival to a more able species

Forced to extinction by new diseases.


These threats remain true for us as they have for all other species. However, with our intelligence, we have done a few things that can potentially lead to the demise of our species. We also have done some things that can save us from disaster.


Monkeying with the Environment and Population Control:

How much development is enough development? Mankind has to collectively define what life experiences of humans should be like?"  We have never done that. For one man life can either be:

a happy life living on a 5 acre tract with enough food on the table, with recreation and leisure and with all modern amenities,
or
it can be a scrounging existence from birth to an early death in some slum where humans are packed like Sardines and live like animals and work 14 hours a day in a sweat shop.

What should human life be like? In parts of the world Humans have multiplied like rabbits to the point that they are so packed that they live off each others’ wastes? Despite our intelligence we have not adopted a formula of population loading on the earth’s resources. Is the Dow Jones Industrial Average an index that reflects the quality of life of humanity? Should all our efforts focus on increasing market size and keep adding complexity to life?



Procreation of the unfit and Genetic modification:

With intelligence and technology man has made it possible for people with various handicaps, (who would otherwise have been eliminated in the struggle for survival), not only to live, but to procreate. Eugenics is seen as a dirty word.  Our bad genes are getting magnified under protection of technology. The saving grace is that we have unlocked the human genome and have a better understanding of where our problems lie in the nucleotides sequences of our DNA. While we have tried to make drought tolerant crops, we have not yet worked on eliminating our genetic maladies like, bad eyesight, diabetes, hypertension, cholesterol, inherited cancers and other more serious gene-linked defects. In time we might have to get there.


New diseases:

In a short span of a few years we have seen changing strains of Bacteria and Viruses kill thousands of people. Ebola, AIDS, West Nile Disease are newer diseases. Some viruses evolve in our own bodies by borrowing our own genetic material! We have won the struggle so far. There has been a massive thrust to curb the irresponsible use of antibiotics in the developed world, but in developing countries antibiotic abuse is rampant. So far we have not been challenged by the bug with the combined virulence of small pox and the ability to spread like common cold – but that might happen some day. Swine flu came close, but we dodged the bullet on that one. Our fears are not the dinosaurs of Jurassic Park so much as the invisible bug that has the potential to transform genetically and wipe humanity out.


Humanity has endured since its inception in the Olduvai Gorge in Africa, but will it die out or, with the gift of intelligence, simply transform into another intelligent being that will be resistant to a wider climactic range and immune to biological pathogen?! Will it be possible sometime in future for people to migrate their minds into the electronic brain of a robot and simply ‘switch off’ their biological bodies? And if that becomes possible, what’s to prevent the knowing and conscious ‘mind’ to transfer from one robotic device to another? With that level of technology we might leave the naturally evolved carbon based existence and go on to silicon based life form. I know it is a stretch at this time, but every idea is a ‘stretch’ when conceived.

While humanity struggles with challenges to survive, Hawking is only warning against SETI (Search for Extra Terrestrial Intelligence) like activities. We as humans have reached out into space and beamed radio signals and sent galactic maps of our location aboard space probes to ‘whoever might be out there’. Should we be doing that? Most people have till now argued that it is a useless and expensive effort. Hawkins only warns that it could be dangerous as well. First, the conditions that support life have not been found for as far as we have looked up to now. If we find a place like earth, what is the likelihood of 'intelligent' life inhabiting it? If in the unlikely event we find a place which meets our criteria and has intelligent life, we must realize that we have had a hard time settling differences of race, language, national origin, hair color, height … (the list is endless), right here on earth.

Why expend so much money and effort to find an intelligent being (maybe more capable than us) with green skin, and one that can see all the wavelengths of the spectrum? Can we call that Pandoran a friend when we ourselves have the Muslim, jew, Christian jihads and crusades going among the Homo Sapiens?  As far as intellgence in non human species is concerned, we eat the Dolphin and the Octopus and enslave the dog and the elephant.

Let's look right here and treat other intelligent animals better. If you have seen the documentry "The Cove" you will know exactly what I am talking about.  More mental evolvement is needed right here on this blue planet before we seek ET out from among the stars!