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From: royt@gitpyr.UUCP (Roy M. Turner)
Newsgroups: net.sf-lovers
Subject: Re: Meeting Advanced Aliens
Message-ID: <613@gitpyr.UUCP>
Date: Tue, 30-Jul-85 21:14:22 EDT
Article-I.D.: gitpyr.613
Posted: Tue Jul 30 21:14:22 1985
Date-Received: Thu, 1-Aug-85 20:32:24 EDT
References: <410@ttidcb.UUCP>
Reply-To: royt@gitpyr.UUCP (Roy M. Turner)
Organization: Georgia Institute of Technology
Lines: 51

In article <410@ttidcb.UUCP> jackson@ttidcb.UUCP (Dick Jackson) writes:
>
>
>
>Wasn't it Fermi who asked about 40 years ago "If there are advanced races
>out there in the stars, where are they?" meaning that at least one star
>faring race should have explored the whole place by now and we should have
>seen them. 

Well, 40 years ago the idea of going to the moon was considered preposterous,
and supersonic travel was "impossible"--so I wouldn't quote 40 year old 
predictions...

My own response is two-fold--the size of the galaxy relative to the size of
the earth is such that looking for a needle in a haystack would be child's
play by comparison (ie, even if they were looking for intelligent life, think
of *all* the area in which to look (don't quote me quotes of they receiving
our radio signals, either--this is forty years ago, remember?); the second
thing is, why would they come here?  Shoot, probably most of us wouldn't 
be here if we could leave (joke, joke!).


>
>They would talk to us, and be bored a lot of the time in doing so I guess.
>Probably they would plan for very long-term goals . Human's plans
>are generally of the order of one year (multiply or divide by ten). Gorillas
>and dogs don't plan more than a few seconds ahead. I'm assuming that THEY
>are ahead of us in roughly the same ratio as we are ahead of gorillas.
>
>Presumably they would have concerns that we could not even comprehend, and
>therefore cannot now speculate about! Or can we? Anyone care to try?

I would recommend Dorothy Lessing's works to anyone interested in these types
of questions...as a matter of fact, I would recommend her "Shikasta" series
to *anyone*, regardless of their interests.  They were primarily philosophical
and political criticism vehicles, I suppose, but they were quite good as 
science fiction in their own right.  Or as satire (especially "The Sentimental
Agents").  Alas, I can't remember a single other title...there goes the 
senility again!

Roy

-- 
The above opinions aren't necessarily those of etc, etc...but they
should be!!

Roy Turner
(a transplanted Kentucky hillbilly)
School of Information and Computer Science
Georgia Insitute of Technology, Atlanta Georgia, 30332
...!{akgua,allegra,amd,hplabs,ihnp4,seismo,ut-ngp}!gatech!gitpyr!royt