Communication with Extraterrestrial Intelligence By Carl Sagan

The first international conference on the problem of extraterrestrial civilizations, and contact with them, was held in September 1971 in Soviet Armenia. The conference was a gathering of specialists working in a wide variety of fields--astronomy, physics, radiophysics, computer science and technology, chemistry, biology, linguistics, archaeology, anthropology, sociology, and history--and included many scientists whose reputations are worldwide. For example, Freeman Dyson, Philip Morrison, and Charles Townes were among the American participants; their Russian counterparts were of comparable distinction. The conference was jointly organized by the U.S. National Academy of Sciences (with assistance from the U.S. National Science Foundation) and the U.S.S.R. Academy of Sciences. Scientists from several other countries also participated.Many aspects of the problem of extraterrestrial civilizations were discussed in detail, and these discussions are fully presented in this book. Particular attention is devoted to the following questions: the plurality of planetary systems in the universe, the origin of life on Earth, the possibility of life arising on cosmic bodies, the origin and evolution of intelligence, the origin and development of technological civilizations, problems in searching for intelligent signals or for evidence of astroengineering activities, and the problems and possible consequences of establishing contact with extraterrestrial civilizations. Communication with Extraterrestrial Intelligence

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This book has got some very interesting ideas (e.g. sending a signal containing a computer logic diagram instead of a picture, because the former can contain interactive teaching tools and will maintain its topology in the face of signal distortions). But a lot of it was hard to grind through, having not studied physics since college.

The names, though! Carl Sagan, Nikolai Kardashev, Frank Drake, Francis Crick (yes, that Crick), Freeman Dyson! These people are v good at thinking about stuff. 428 Clásico absoluto en la materia de la búsqueda de civilizaciones extraterrestres. Aunque el paso del tiempo ha dejado muy atrás el conocimiento de los fenómenos astrofísicos de la época sorprende lo actuales que resultan algunos de los debates presentes en el libro. Algunas especulaciones se han convertido en evidencias, otras han pasado de moda y han sido superadas, pero por eso es un clásico repleto de buenas ideas. 428 No puedo creer que esta conferencia se haya dado en 1971. 428 This book was almost exactly 50 years old when I read it. The book is a transcript of scientific luminaries who conferred about how to Communicate with Extra Terrestrial Intelligence (CETI).

The first half of the book is structured around the Drake equation, which is still an important tool for estimating how many aliens are out there. The conference begins with discussion about “easier” parts of the Drake equation (such as the rate of star formation and the number of planetary systems) before ending with less knowable parts of it (e.g., the average lifetime of advanced civilizations). It’s not long into the book that we realize the “easier” things are not so easy; several attendees seem to doubt that anything useful can come from the conference.

Carl Sagan, famous for the Cosmos TV series, is the leader of the conference and the editor of this text. He is an overeager schoolboy who can’t believe his luck that he gets to talk about ETI with a bunch of geniuses. Readers of Cosmos will remember his religious faith in astronomy. When confronted on some issues (e.g., “the reliability of the estimate for f1 is low” on page 66), he is likely to change the subject to one of his favorite science fiction concepts (in the example, panspermia). I felt like the other Western scientists were humoring Sagan throughout the book, like they all knew that the conference was kind of silly, but he didn’t.

Sagan’s fellow American, Freeman Dyson, is probably the most important attendee overall. He had influential ideas about CETI and many strong opinions. The best part of the book may be an essay of his that’s included as an appendix, describing Dyson’s prophecies about Earth and CETI. He has a strong personality and is clearly respected by the other attendees.

The famous Francis Crick (of The Double Helix) is also there. He doesn’t participate much, but he’s fun when he does. He is the same laconic skeptic that I remember from The Double Helix. He is more politically savvy than the rest, sure to commend both “businessmen in the U.S. and scientists in the Soviet Union” in the same sentence, since the Cold War is still ongoing.

The American historian W.H. McNeill also attends. He is wry and skeptical. He points out near the end of the conference that the attendees keep using the word “chauvinism” since they may not be thinking broadly enough beyond humanity. This seemed right to me: I thought they needed to take a step back and wonder if some of the phenomena that they thought were naturally occurring were already evidence of CETI, and how could they know? V. I. Moroz brings this up near the end of the discussion about the center of the galaxy: we know so little about it, maybe the observations that we do have are already evidence of CETI.

Except for Moroz, the rest of the Soviet scientists are bland. They are only distinguishable in that they champion their different pet research areas from time to time. They ask small technical questions. Maybe it’s a translation issue, but I didn’t think they had much to contribute. They seem to take the conference more seriously than the Western scientists (except for Sagan).

To me, the conference was not very promising for discovering CETI, but others disagree (it was a sourcebook for Gödel, Escher, Bach). I thought it showed how little we know about the subject. Fifty years hence, the hopes of the attendees have not proven true in mathematics and physics (artificial intelligence does not exist; space travel is still rare and expensive). Instead, biology looks like the real champion science of the atomic era. In Sagan’s introductory remarks, he says the title of the conference “CETI” is fortunate because it evokes a few things, including “cetaceans,” who are the closest thing we have to non-human intelligence on earth (check them out here). This concept is barely explored; I wish the attendees had discussed more about understanding other intelligence on earth first. They dodge it in some places. Even Freeman Dyson finds that advances in biology will be the most important in the long-term for CETI, but he laments the youth of the 1960s and 1970s for being too focused on ecology and not enough on the stars. His own arguments seem to work against him.

Overall, this was a fun book, even if you’ll get lost in heavy math and physics at times. I don’t think there is much like it: it’s a recording of some mid-twentieth century legends talking about aliens and taking it as seriously as possible. I enjoyed it for the personality that showed up in the discussion about big ideas as much as I enjoyed the big ideas themselves. 428 This book essentially consists of the proceedings (e.g., meeting notes and transcriptions) of an international multi-disciplinary conference of scientists from various fields (including astronomy, anthropology, physics, mathematics, computer science, physiology, electrical engineering, molecular biology, etc.) held in Armenia (USSR) in 1971 on the topic of Communication with Extraterrestrial Intelligence (CETI). Edited by Carl Sagan, each chapter includes presentations and discussions of the different factors of the Drake Equation, along with additional related material on astro-engineering activity, techniques of contact, and the possible message contents of ETI communications, along with concluding chapters on the consequences of contact and conference resolutions.

Dyson's essay The World, The Flesh, and The Devil in one of the Appendices, including his discussion of planting giant biologically engineered trees on comets to make them habitable abodes for human settlement/colonization, and by implication the possibility that aliens might use (interstellar) comets in the same way, is fascinating :-) 428

includes a formula to tabulate potential 'earths' in galaxy 428