Stories
Slash Boxes
Comments

SoylentNews is people

posted by mrpg on Saturday December 08 2018, @02:05PM   Printer-friendly
from the in-space-things-are-relative dept.

Dr Colombano told Califoria's SETI-backed Decoding Alien Intelligence Workshop back in March that scientists need to broaden their idea of what an extra-terrestrial would like like.

'I simply want to point out the fact that the intelligence we might find and that might choose to find us (if it hasn't already) might not be at all be produced by carbon based organisms like us,' his report read.

He added that scientists must 're-visit even our most cherished assumptions', which has implications for everything from an alien's lifespan to its height.

'The size of the 'explorer' might be that of an extremely tiny super-intelligent entity,' he says.

https://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/article-6457259/NASA-expert-says-alien-life-visited-Earth.html

Also at Tiny aliens may have visited us and we just didn't know: NASA scientist


Original Submission

 
This discussion has been archived. No new comments can be posted.
Display Options Threshold/Breakthrough Mark All as Read Mark All as Unread
The Fine Print: The following comments are owned by whoever posted them. We are not responsible for them in any way.
  • (Score: 3, Interesting) by VLM on Saturday December 08 2018, @05:27PM

    by VLM (445) Subscriber Badge on Saturday December 08 2018, @05:27PM (#771585)

    tiny super-intelligent entity

    I'm unclear on the fixation on it being super-intelligent.

    It takes a super-intelligent civilization to manufacture a successful nuclear reactor; its a logical error to assume the plunger in the mens bathroom has built in AI at the same level as the reactor designer physicists; its just a freak'n plunger.

    Likewise sending a really intelligent AI on a million year suicide mission to some distant world is likely to result in pissed off AIs coming back "VGER-style" with significant anger management issues. Don't kids they days watch classic Star Trek movies?

    My chromebook isn't really any "smarter" than my first black -n- white 1990 era 386 laptop. Its just a lot lighter. Likewise I'd guess a really advanced civilization would likely toss something like the viking mars lander across the galaxy at us, but why waste energy and mass so it would only be a milligram of nanotechnology not half a metric ton like we did half a century ago.

    As discussed by the late douglas adams, there's no point in replacing a nice floor cleaning roomba robot with a robot from 70s sci fi thats super smart and mentally ill and has motivation issues WRT being a floor mopping engineer.

    Starting Score:    1  point
    Moderation   +1  
       Interesting=1, Total=1
    Extra 'Interesting' Modifier   0  
    Karma-Bonus Modifier   +1  

    Total Score:   3