"Joann Evans" <bondage@frontiernet.net> wrote in message

news:413CFD73.23221A4C@frontiernet.net...

"Alfred A. Aburto Jr." wrote:

"Linda" <.@.> wrote in message news:2pth0lFonvukU1@uni-berlin.de...
What's SETI looking for? Life forms able to communicate with us? Life
intelligent enough to communicate with other similar life forms? Life

that

can communicate with my dog?
How are the various SETI projects defining what they are searching

for?

It has to be another technological civilization "similar" to ours,

capable

of interstellar communication. The degree or level of technology and
intelligence required is not well defined. Too far below our current

level

(say 100 years even!!) and forget it as there is no technology capable

of

interstellar communication. Too far above our level and we probably

couldn't

understand or be able to detect their technology and forms of

communication.

For example, a very highly advanced technological civilization could use
"worm holes" in space to travel and communicate and we'd never know a

thing

about it (see no evidence of it) ... Stargate 1 :-) ...

   There are occasional times when I wonder if the starship paradigm is
all wrong, and things are happening out there that look more like
Stargate and/or Contact and/or Heinlein's 'Tunnel in the Sky.'

   It might tend to explain the lack of 'obvious' astroengineering. Or
not...

We know so little. There is probably no limit to the different possibilities
and when we finally figure out what is really going on it will be something
we never thought of.

   You know what to remove, to reply....