5 ms·

If aliens did exist, they would probably compress their communications. And they might use a fault tolerant infrastructure like TCP/IP. In either scenario, real

by bawana 6y ago

If aliens did exist, they would probably compress their communications. And they might use a fault tolerant infrastructure like TCP/IP. In either scenario, real communications would not be periodic but closer to random noise. Has anyone performed a Zipf plot or calculated shannon entropy of non-periodic radio signals?

DiogenesKynikos 6y ago
What if they use error coding? My pet theory for a while has been that they use point-to-point communications (lasers), rather than wasteful omnidirectional radio waves, so that you have to get very lucky in order to eavesdrop on them.
Santosh83 6y ago
Not if they wanted to specifically send out a beacon to other aliens.
- dylan604 6y ago
  Exactly. If you wanted to get someone's attention, you make your signal something that would standout from all of the background noise. If someone send a RCPT signal back, then you could consider sending a more complicated signal.
- koheripbal 6y ago
  Why would an advanced intelligence advertise its location? It is a high-risk low-reward strategy.
  - EamonnMR 6y ago
    https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fermi_paradox#It_is_dangerous_to_communicate https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fermi_paradox#It_is_dangerou...
  - anoniuyiu33412 6y ago
    Maybe the transmitter is located far away from their civilization's main location. It should be a stronghold, just for comms, fully expendable, probably with no information in any local hard/soft/wetware about where they actually reside. If we answer, we would be probably be talking to "a phone tapped to another phone"
milquetoastaf 6y ago
This is a pretty big assumption? Humans use periodic beacons, too. In this case, I think it is most likely an astronomical object and not an artificial signal. Either way, it's interesting to see how we project ourselves on the extraterrestrial and the assumptions we make on aliens' behalf. There's a great book that came out last year, Extraterrestrial Languages[0] that covers this phenomenon in-depth as well as the "universal" methods some researchers devised in creating languages for transmissions. (it gets very technical! Highly rec'd for PL nerds) 0 https://mitpress.mit.edu/books/extraterrestrial-languages https://mitpress.mit.edu/books/extraterrestrial-languages
Supermancho 6y ago
TCP over radio? Direct communication by is the simplest implementation. Encoding a signal further seems counter intuitive, as opposed to a short repeating beacon that serves initial groundwork for a handshake. If the signal is supposed to cross vast interruptible distance, the bodies interrupting a continuous straightforward signal would appear periodic to the receiver.
cat199 6y ago
> closer to random noise in the data stream, sure, but the underlying data framing would probably still have very strong patterns as compared to true noise

by bawana 6y ago

DiogenesKynikos 6y ago

What if they use error coding? My pet theory for a while has been that they use point-to-point communications (lasers), rather than wasteful omnidirectional radio waves, so that you have to get very lucky in order to eavesdrop on them.

Santosh83 6y ago

Not if they wanted to specifically send out a beacon to other aliens.

dylan604 6y ago
Exactly. If you wanted to get someone's attention, you make your signal something that would standout from all of the background noise. If someone send a RCPT signal back, then you could consider sending a more complicated signal.
koheripbal 6y ago
Why would an advanced intelligence advertise its location? It is a high-risk low-reward strategy.
- EamonnMR 6y ago
  https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fermi_paradox#It_is_dangerous_to_communicate https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fermi_paradox#It_is_dangerou...
- anoniuyiu33412 6y ago
  Maybe the transmitter is located far away from their civilization's main location. It should be a stronghold, just for comms, fully expendable, probably with no information in any local hard/soft/wetware about where they actually reside. If we answer, we would be probably be talking to "a phone tapped to another phone"

milquetoastaf 6y ago

This is a pretty big assumption? Humans use periodic beacons, too. In this case, I think it is most likely an astronomical object and not an artificial signal. Either way, it's interesting to see how we project ourselves on the extraterrestrial and the assumptions we make on aliens' behalf. There's a great book that came out last year, Extraterrestrial Languages[0] that covers this phenomenon in-depth as well as the "universal" methods some researchers devised in creating languages for transmissions. (it gets very technical! Highly rec'd for PL nerds) 0 https://mitpress.mit.edu/books/extraterrestrial-languages https://mitpress.mit.edu/books/extraterrestrial-languages

Supermancho 6y ago

TCP over radio? Direct communication by is the simplest implementation. Encoding a signal further seems counter intuitive, as opposed to a short repeating beacon that serves initial groundwork for a handshake. If the signal is supposed to cross vast interruptible distance, the bodies interrupting a continuous straightforward signal would appear periodic to the receiver.

cat199 6y ago

> closer to random noise in the data stream, sure, but the underlying data framing would probably still have very strong patterns as compared to true noise