I think it's inevitable that if we meet another species we will war.

Our Bible states us as built in the form of god, and their Bible may too. This means that they may look on us as lessers just as Colonial Americans viewed the Native Americans.

Who's to say that hasn't already happened???

__________________
<*)
(__>
One skeptical little black duck...

An interesting notion. But will aliens have religion as we know it?? It's interesting that popular thought (just look at the media, movies, TV etc) all have aliens as basically humanoid. Then there is the assumption that, if they look a little like us then they must think/act a little like us. Of course, war may not be an option, Earth just may be in the way of that intergalactic bypass and we didn't get the 'vacate the premises' notice.

How do we define life, and then intelligence? I believe that we do it by comparing all theories to the only 'standard' we know - carbon-based life on our own planet. I don't know if we are 'alone' in the universe. Who's to say that there isn't silicon-based life out there. But I do know that it's fun being part of SETI-at-Home and explaining that to my nephews and nieces
The best part about the search for 'extraterrestrial' life is the imagination, discussion and debate

__________________
<*)
(__>
One skeptical little black duck...

Actually, the reverse is true. With proliferation of cable and fiber optic communications, Earth emits LESS radio-frequency energy into space every year. Note that the most powerful TV emitters today are geosynchronous satellites, and they emit only downward -- toward Earth, with no leakage into space.

__________________
Fiction has to be plausible. Reality is under no such constraint.

Excellent points.

Also, consider:

1. Less than 1/40 Millionth of the time live on our planet has been in existance has that life been broadcasting in the non-visible EM spectrum.

2. The vast majority of life on our planet (and probably throughout space) communicate chemically and visually (touch, color, body position). Very few actually communicate using sound.

3. The greater the evolution, the higher the frequency (or technology). Any scientist of the 60s listening to digital spread spectrum radio energy (assuming 2.4 GHz receivers were even available then!) would have heard nothing but what appears to be random noise.

This is why I have a problem with SETI. It's not looking for random noise, but patterns. Yet higher technology comms will probably not sound like they did in Independance Day, but rather, more like pure static - again, if we can "hear" them at all. I strongly suspect that higher tech comms are probably using something more along the lines of tangled particles, or, more probably, something we won't discover/imagine for many years.

Just look how far radio comms have come in just fifty years!

Interesting article in Space.com and how they are lookin into ways to seek a "Cosmic Rosetta Stone" here it is: http://space.com/searchforlife/050922_seti_thurs.html

life in the universe... of course. 100 billion stars in our galaxy alone.... 100 billion galaxies in the size of a pinhead picked up by the hubble... each containing 100 billion or more stars... pffft... why are we aven arguing the existence? just 'cause no tangible evidence? what about the bible? does that not prove intelligent life in the universe? if you disagree.. or this hurts your religius beliefs... read Ezekial... sure it exists!! it's nonsense to say otherwise! with calculations like 1,000,000,000,000,000,000(10,000)*1,000,000,000,00 0,000,000(10,000)*1,000,000,000,000,000,000(10,000 )*1,000,000,000,000,000,000(10,000)..... how can there be no life? geez God, what a waste of time! you create this whole big massive universe, make us explore it.. and leave us nothing to find...

__________________
Ay, amor
Dime como debo hacer
Para arrancarme este deseo
Que no me deja ni comer
Y que me da cuando te veo

Were are nothing of interest to other advanced forms! other then to see if were a threat to them. Like we have nothing to give them! there so advanced there nothing they could give us, in this trying time were in. How could they show us! also who owns this experiment. And what if they come back! only to see some other advanced forms have messed were there creation!! lets hope everything leaves us alone because if they do come in force and we don't like it how are we to get rid of them?

Actually, by the definition of "hard evidence" it's not.

__________________
"If this were play'd upon a stage now, I could condemn it as an improbable fiction."
Shakespeare, Twelfth Night
Illuminati's Razor-The most complicatedly evil answer is usually the most correct answer. - Fazor
"Every book is a children's book if the kid can read." - Mitch Hedberg
"Distance doesn’t matter much in space, where if you just start a thing off with the right kind of shove, sooner or later it will get where you want it to go." -Frederik Pohl, Mining the Oort

By building and using the power beam generators in solar orbit about the sun inside the orbit of Mercury as close to the sun as technology will allow. We need to get hopping and hoping they wait until we have some PBGs operational.

__________________
For those inclined to oppose human meddling with the structure of the universe or the composition and configuration of objects and groups of objects within the universe, consider:
Whether there is a limit to the magnitude of a modulation of chaos below which order remains invariant? Or, is order but a fiction invented by perspectives applied over finite, however large, time intervals?

one aspect that could differ between alien soecies that could affect communication is their relative time scale of operation. Michael Noonan raised this point about AI. If they communicate rapidly their microbursts will look like noise to use, and if they communicate on much longer timescales, we wouldn't detect the modulation. regardless of distance, signal strength etc

__________________
plenty of woo, at the hotel hoagaland...

It's not inevitable, however, when you find fungus growing in your bathroom wall, you tend to eliminate it and when you find a fire ant mound in your back yard, you tend to eliminate it. Considering the species might be more like a weed than a worm, our encounters could even be somewhat worse.

As for communicating, I've yet to hear of anyone even attempting to communicate a peace treaty with a hive of killer bees.

Considering the american indians were pretty much stone age for the most part in north america, it's understandable that they tended to treat them worse than they did the french - at least most of the time.