Greenhouse Gases Could Signal Alien Activity

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AnonymousAnonymous
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26 Jun 2024, 5:48 pm

https://www.eurekalert.org/news-releases/1049286


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cyberdad
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28 Jun 2024, 9:25 pm

I see these type of articles still don't get much traction or discussion on WP.

It's useful (even just as a mental exercise) to apply critical thinking to research in the public sphere rather than ignore it because it doesn't sit with one's ontological framework.

to simplify the hypothesis - the UCLA Riverside study proposes that greenhouse gases detected on a planet millions of light years away could be a sign of terraforming. Or put differently a sign of intelligent design/intervention in an otherwise barren planet.

As with the famous Drake equation, there are levels of probability to the hypothesis being true. Greenhouse detected gases on a barren planet in another solar system might illicit several questions
1. How valid/reliable are the sensors in detecting greenhouses gases?
2. establishing the likelihood of greenhouse gases being present, then are the gases:
a. due to natural geochemical processes?
b. due to natural microbial activity
c. due to indigenous sentient beings emissions on their home planet
d. due to sentient beings terraforming another planet

the actual probability of an event in another galaxy far far away is ultimately based on our projected speculation as currently we have no way to support any claim from a. - d.
However simply shutting down mention of point's c. and d. (specifically) is a form of mental regression in that many of us choose to protect our ontological frameworks at the risk of hiding from possibilities of how the universe is.



Last edited by cyberdad on 29 Jun 2024, 12:19 am, edited 1 time in total.

belijojo
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28 Jun 2024, 11:29 pm

Quote:
Since these gases are not known to occur in significant quantities in nature, they must be manufactured. Finding them, therefore, would be a sign of intelligent, technology-using life forms. Such signs are called technosignatures.

Quote:
If aliens modified a planet in their solar system to make it warmer, we’d be able to tell.

There is nothing wrong with this passage, but the probability of this is very low in my imagination: there is some kind of intelligent life, and they are sensitive to temperature, and they happen to have developed to the stage where they can consciously produce and control greenhouse gases, and they are in the "Ice Age" for them, and they happen to be captured by human detectors.


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cyberdad
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29 Jun 2024, 12:22 am

belijojo wrote:
Quote:
Since these gases are not known to occur in significant quantities in nature, they must be manufactured. Finding them, therefore, would be a sign of intelligent, technology-using life forms. Such signs are called technosignatures.

Quote:
If aliens modified a planet in their solar system to make it warmer, we’d be able to tell.

There is nothing wrong with this passage, but the probability of this is very low in my imagination: there is some kind of intelligent life, and they are sensitive to temperature, and they happen to have developed to the stage where they can consciously produce and control greenhouse gases, and they are in the "Ice Age" for them, and they happen to be captured by human detectors.


Agreed, although our capacity to accurately gauge probability of this proposal is compromised by our lack of advanced detection systems