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Stephen Hawking: Intelligent Aliens Could Destroy Humanity, But Let's Search Anyway

posted by martyb on Friday July 24 2015, @03:47AM   Printer-friendly
from the To-Serve-Man dept.

Phoenix666 writes:

Since at least 2010, Hawking has spoken publicly about his fears that an advanced alien civilization would have no problem wiping out the human race the way a human might wipe out a colony of ants. At the media event announcing the new project, he noted that human beings have a terrible history of mistreating, and even massacring, other human cultures that are less technologically advanced — why would an alien civilization be any different?

And yet, it seems Hawking's desire to know if there is intelligent life elsewhere in the universe trumps his fears. Today (July 20), he was part of a public announcement for a new initiative called Breakthrough Listen, which organizers said will be the most powerful search ever initiated for signs of intelligent life elsewhere in the universe.
...
  Jill Tarter, former director of the Center for SETI (Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence) also has expressed opinions about alien civilizations that are in stark contrast to Hawking's.

"While Sir Stephen Hawking warned that alien life might try to conquer or colonize Earth, I respectfully disagree," Tarter said in a statement in 2012. "If aliens were to come here, it would be simply to explore. Considering the age of the universe, we probably wouldn't be their first extraterrestrial encounter, either.

"If aliens were able to visit Earth, that would mean they would have technological capabilities sophisticated enough not to need slaves, food or other planets," she added.

So, who's right, Jill Tarter, or Stephen Hawking? Will advanced aliens have no need of human popplers, or will survivors of the Centauran Human Harvest & BBQ of 2057 call this moment, "Pulling a Hawking?"

See also our earlier stories: Stephen Hawking and Yuri Milner Announce $100 Million "Breakthrough Listen" SETI Project and More Warnings of an AI Doomsday — This Time From Stephen Hawking.

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  • (Score: 2) by maxwell demon on Friday July 24 2015, @05:39AM

    by maxwell demon (1608) on Friday July 24 2015, @05:39AM (#213033) Journal

    Sorry, but entanglement doesn't work that way. You cannot detect at one part of an entangled system whether someone did a measurement on another part of the entangled system.

    --
    The Tao of math: The numbers you can count are not the real numbers.
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  • (Score: 2) by c0lo on Friday July 24 2015, @06:28AM

    by c0lo (156) Subscriber Badge on Friday July 24 2015, @06:28AM (#213047) Journal

    Sorry, but entanglement doesn't work that way.

    Correction: human entanglement doesn't work that way.
    (grin)

    On a more serious side (hehe), aliens may do some spooky actions at a distance. If you don't believe it, here's one published March 2015 [nature.com] (arxiv version [arxiv.org]) - (crazy alien aussies with no respect for Einstein).
    For the layman, some "explanation" [griffith.edu.au] (warning: reading it may make one feel too stupid for a layman; it certainly happened to me):

    According to quantum mechanics, a single particle can be described by a wave function that spreads over arbitrarily large distances, but is never detected in two or more places.

    This phenomenon is explained in quantum theory by what Einstein disparaged in 1927 as “spooky action at a distance”, or the instantaneous non-local collapse of the wave function to wherever the particle is detected.
    Almost 90 years later, by splitting a single photon between two laboratories, scientists have used homodyne detectors — which measure wave-like properties — to show the collapse of the wave function is a real effect.

    Professor Wiseman says this phenomenon is the strongest yet proof of the entanglement of a single particle, an unusual form of quantum entanglement that is being increasingly explored for quantum communication and computation.

    “Einstein never accepted orthodox quantum mechanics and the original basis of his contention was this single-particle argument. This is why it is important to demonstrate non-local wave function collapse with a single particle,” he says.

    Wiki on Homodyne detection [wikipedia.org]

    --
    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aoFiw2jMy-0 https://soylentnews.org/~MichaelDavidCrawford

    • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday July 24 2015, @08:03AM

      by Anonymous Coward on Friday July 24 2015, @08:03AM (#213063)

      https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/No-communication_theorem [wikipedia.org]

      I wish people would stop speaking about "spooky action at a distance" when speaking about entanglement. If you don't already know this stuff well, it makes you believe wrong things.

      To detect entanglement, you absolutely 100% need access to both parts of the entangled pair (either by having access to them yourself, of by having someone else send you information about measurements he did on his part). There is absolutely no way in quantum mechanics to detect a measurement on one part of an entangled pair by measuring the other part. It would violate fundamental principles of quantum mechanics. So if anyone should ever manage to experimentally determine a measurement on a far-away particle, that would be big news, since that would an effect beyond quantum mechanics (and BTW would enable lots of things, like FTL communication, breaking quantum encryption, and if the many worlds interpretation is right — which would then be a testable claim — even communication with parallel universes).

      • (Score: 2) by c0lo on Friday July 24 2015, @09:27AM

        by c0lo (156) Subscriber Badge on Friday July 24 2015, @09:27AM (#213078) Journal

        If you don't already know this stuff well, it makes you believe wrong things.

        Given the fact that I slided the thread with a "tongue in cheek" message, would a whoosh be Ok with you, sir? (I believe nothing in relation with quantum entanglement)

        To detect entanglement, you absolutely 100% need access to both parts of the entangled pair (either by having access to them yourself, of by having someone else send you information about measurements he did on his part).

        Begging the question [arxiv.org], eh?

        --
        https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aoFiw2jMy-0 https://soylentnews.org/~MichaelDavidCrawford