The Ultimate ET Space Probe

We currently search for signs of alien intelligence by scanning the sky with SETI and similar efforts.  It's a noble effort, but one that makes a needle in a haystack look like a five minute job.  The universe is very, very big while our current communications capability is very, very small.  Which is lucky, because it limits the volume of universe contaminated by reality TV.  Some propose the idea of using one of our greatest fears - self-replicating robots - to realise one of our greatests dreams: extra-terrestrial contact.

A Bracewell probe is a spacecraft containing all the information we might want to send an alien civilization.  Since communications can only proceed at lightspeed, any attempt at long-distance chatter would take years to travel each way (so if E.T. had ever managed to phone home, it would have taken an awful long time, never mind the wicked long-distance charges).  Instead of saying "Hello, how are you?  Over" and waiting a few decades for a response, we can bundle anything we think is cool into the ultimate intercivilization care package and hope that somebody returns the favor.

Shooting these probes off at random is still trying to hit a bulls-eye by throwing darts out of a plane - and if we knew where to send it, we'd sort of be done already.  This is where the Von Neumann machines comes in - a device built with the ability to construct a perfect copy of itself.  The idea is that stars take to long to get to, so instead of sending one ship on an extreme long haul we send a self-replicating army.  The robots build exact copies of themselves as they progress, and while it takes them just as long (or longer) to arrive, they reach millions of destinations simultaneously so it's much more efficient.

If an exponentially multiplying army of space robots seems like a bad idea to you, then well done, you've seen any sci-fi movie ever.  Plus, building a vast army of brainless drones which occasionally discover something interesting, but mainly just repeat their own message along networks designed for communication?  That's just a space internet. But (justified) fear of reproducing machines aside it does seem like the most sensible option.  Expanding into the universe based solely on the resources of a single orbital rock is obviously limited - to say nothing of the problems caused by digging up our finite material supplies and throwing them into space.  Using what we find up there will be essential strategy - and making the machines wait until we arrive to do it for them would be too slow.

We just have to hope they don't find someone they like better while they're up there.

Posted by Luke McKinney.

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Link: Uses for Von Neumann Machines

Comments

[knoxvilledaniel]

The problem with sending the encapsulated history & knowledge of Earth to an extra - terrestrial observer is that if we're going to be honest, we ought to send the best of our civilzation AND the worst. It's like wanting to meet someone on - line, getting to know them, & then finding out that they did time in prison. We have to include information about the Salem witch - trials, the Klan, Nazis, the Viet Cong & Al - Qaeda, as well as the Red Cross / Red Crescent, Mahatma Gandhi, Harriet Tubman, Mother Teresa, Oskar Schindler, etc.

& we also might express the wish that we're mostly a peaceful & liberty - minded species, with wishes that they are likewise, instead of being like the Klingons, Romulans, Borg, Daleks, Gouald & Wraith*. ( * From Stargate SG - 1 & Atlantis. )

[knoxvilledaniel]

As to the use of Von Neuman machines, what if a space - faring, technologically - advanced civilization that we were endeavouring to contact believed that WE were trying to prepare to invade THEM, co - opt their technology & resources, & make them like us ? Or stranger still, what if they could reprogram our nifty little Von Neumann machines to return home & put us in our place. Not an invasion, just like giving them a message to give to us telling us to go away ?

Food for thought.....

[Tjarkoon]

This is silly. If higher intelligent life like us is not something that happened just once by coincidence, and if so, if higher intelligent life doesn't annihilate itself by default, then the universe is full of intelligent life.

In that case, extra terrestrial beings would exactly know where earth is and what's going on there. And no, not by sending UFOs, hypnotizing housewives or abducting cattle. They wouldn't need probes, TV broadcasts or self declared psychics either.

We are slowly starting to understand what the universe is and who we are. Contact with ET's, if that's even possible for whatever reason, will not happen before human kind has some very simple things straightened out first.

[Marty Ferguson]

How old is everybody here in the room? Have you forgotten that it's already been done? They're called Voyager 1' and '2' and are due to hit the Taurus constellation in about 80,000 years. If you need reminders, here are a few:
SPECIES, CONTACT, THE LOVE WAR, STARMAN and, of course, STAR TREK: THE MOTION PICTURE (McCoy:"I shot an arrow into the air...")

[knoxvilledaniel]

Also take into account our current level of technology. With the speeds that our spacecraft travel at now, it would take hundreds of generations for a spacecraft to arrive at a destination in the star systems closest to Earth, like Alpha Centauri. Civilizations & governments can rise & fall in such time spans, I think that I'm being reasonably realistic. The Von Neuman machines might set out in search of a highly advanced civilization & find a society decimated by a plague or planetary civil war, or vice - versa. Such machines & probes might set out for a planet with an ALMOST Earthlike atmosphere, perhaps in hopes of seeding it, & find a completely terrestial - type environment on said planet.

Unless we can circumvent / break the light - speed limit, these Von Neuman machines will be subject to these conditions.

[henadzi]

http://henadzifilipenka.blogspot.com/