Sending messages into space

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I just read two articles about sending messages into space in an attempt to communicate with possible life forms out there.

I find it interesting, but also human-centered thinking.
If there are life forms on other planets, they might be very different from us. They might have evolved differently, different structures and different laws (I mean like the laws of nature) might apply on that planet, they might be in a different stage of evolution, they might not be able to detect our messages, if they detect them they might not be able to understand what we intended to bring across. And if they will, they might not be interested in communicating with us. And what if they will not be friendly to us?

I mean it sounds like fun, sending messages into space or to other planets, but does it make sense?

The articles:
New Scientist - Exolanguage: do you speak alien?
New Scientist - Earth calling: a short history of radio messages to ET

What do you think?

Well, the laws of nature would seem to be immutable, else the universe would not hold together.

If the aliens concerned were at a very different stage of evolution one way or another, the message would not be received - either they would not be capable of discerning it, or they wouldn't pay any attention to the noises of such a primitive species. Therefore, any aliens who receive the message should be at about the same level we are.

However, as pointed out by Dr. David Brin, this effort may not be a great idea - it assumes that any alien race that is capable of receiving and understanding the message, and acting upon it, must necessarily be benevolent, an assumption not justified by the evidence (or lack thereof). To borrow a Star Trek analogy, they assume that we'd be sending a message to the Vulcans - but we might get hold of the Klingons instead.

What's to stop THEM from sending us messages we can't receive because our technology doesn't exist yet to detect it?

What's wrong with getting on a ship with fuel and oxygen to replenish itself, and go out there and look? It worked for our ancestors...

i remember hearing a radio article where they talked to a scientist about this subject.

Due to the attenuation of the signal (the inverse square effect), everything just blends into the background radiation from the sun by about the orbit of Pluto.

I've heard of people using the 21cm band because it's relatively clean, but not much known about that.

There may be a technological 'window' where civilizations use broadcast media to communicate, until they evolve a more efficient (less likely to leak into space) method. Maybe that's why we haven't heard anything.

Species that use broadcast energy most likely die out in a hundred years, first the bees, then us.

I would like to see pictures of naked aliens. We are the only species that should wear clothes.

Basic childhood rules should apply, don't speak till spoken to, don't speak to strangers.

From intelligent and watchful aliens, the Bomb was all we had to say. That message has traveled 65 light years.

We do not come in peace, we never have, and only a lier would say so. That comes across like Nixon, "I am not a crook."

If we did find a planet that harbored intelligent life, we would be figuring out how to get there, kill them, and steal the planet. No one buys that, we just want to tell you about our god, line.

The most likely response is a planet killing weapon, which may take many years to get here, But as Ripley said, "we nuke them from orbit, it is the only way to be sure." Alien was about the most badass species of killers in the universe, and some reptiles who came in peace.

On earth only modern humans are using technology since maybe around 200 years.

Every other form of life specially animals doesn't need technology to live,
and often technology is destructive for our planet and most of form of life on this earth.

I'm not sure that other form of life on other planets use their intelligence to create something not usefull like technology to live.

sorry, I've listened to scientists on NPR for years, day after day, year after year, and I just don't remember the fellah's name..

Still, I guess there must be some way around the inverse square law...

Here's a recent NewScientist article about how to find life on other planets in space, suggesting we could look for other signs than radio signals sent to Earth:

NewScientist - Six tricks that alien trackers could use

Don't LASERS at least temporarily violate the inverse square law?
I can receive a signal from 1mW laser pointer easily a mile away when
a radio transmitter barely reaches outside with that little power.
I'm not sure what determines how long lasers stay in a beam before
inverse square law suddenly starts affecting them, or why. Dumb guess
is focus of collimating lens is limited by its molecular grain and the
length of the beam inside the laser helps lengthen the beam. I also
forgot why regular light can't stay in a beam so long except if it is
sunlight that goes through a small hole without too much diffraction,
and sunlight is really straight after going 93 million miles to get here.

Also the heliopause does not prevent radio waves from getting through.
A few years ago a Pioneer probe from the early 1970s was barely detected
at a distance beyond pluto and both later Voyager probes are also past
the heliopause I think. The probes are nuclear powered and they transmit
I think less than 100 watts. To receive the signal they have to combine
the inputs and integrate it over time like Lau said. The data is very slow
like morse code around a couple bits per second so that it can be
integrated over time, or correlated, so that signal is enhanced and
static cancels out, which works even when the static is a million times
stronger and the tones can not be heard by ear on a radio.

One more thing is that many advanced signals are like fake static,
very long random numbers, which can be on the same channel at
the same time without interference. Cell phones have 32 or 64 maximum
on the same channel using different fake static waves. Since that was
invented only about 90 years after AM radio, what are the chances of us
hearing alien radio that is not like static? We almost never saw any
E.T. analog TV, and we will NOT see digital E.T. TV because it will be ignored.
But there have been reports of NASA and Space Station being heard on baby
monitors because they do communicate on nearby frequencies and doppler
shift may cause the frequency to drift enough, not that those things are
very accurately tuned anyway.

Sometimes earth stations do bounce back from other planets. I am not
sure if Venus was mapped with radar from earth or only space probes but
people do hear earth signals bouncing off the moon, and a few people have
bounced them off mars, and satellite TV is well known by now, and there is
such a ring of them around the earth that if somehow we could get on one,
we could easily see many of the other ones on either side and maybe also
spares and used up ones behind it.

IIRC, traditional radio/TV signals degrade to the point of being unreadable within so many million miles. Even if aliens could notice an artificial signature to a signal, they could not decipher it.

If interstellar communication can work, it needs a level of technology we do not yet understand.