How do you think we will find intelligent alien life? Or will they find and contact us first? Be sure to visit, subscribe, and watch Isaacs new video on Fusion: ruclips.net/video/ChTJHEdf6yM/видео.html
I'd hope that we don't make contact with any civilizations any time soon, and am perfectly content in my blissful ignorance thinking that we are probably the only ones around this neck of the woods. That being said... We are looking, so they are looking too. I hope they haven't found...
Thanks Michael, as always love the show. I know this was talked about briefly on this episode but regarding black holes being used as energy. Science still does not know how super massive black holes form. There are some hypotheses out there but nothing close to conclusive. Additionally there is serious debate on the subject of super massive black hole merger, many lean to the side that it is not possible for two super massive black holes to merge. This would mean that ultra massive black holes would have to have formed a different way than the smaller super massive black holes. Could the type 2 civilizations we are looking for be the cause of these ultra massive black holes? A recent discovery found one of the largest known ultra massive black holes in the universe (50 billion solar masses as a low estimate) and is by far the largest in the area of our galaxy. On a universal scale it was nearby, just a few hundred million light years away. Anyhow, if you read this I think black hole energy on that scale would be a really good subject to talk about in length with someone much smarter than me. Thanks again
I dont think that we will find intelligent life, at least not in my lifetime. If we do find it it would probably be from one of the relatively nearby Galaxies since looking further out means looking further back in time.
@@faarsight That is brilliant! that may be why we didnt pick anything up yet. Just think about it. A civ that "looks" at us from 500 light years away would "see" knights riding around hacking eachother to bits with strips of iron. We could be looking at far away star systems that have space faring civ's but that are thus far away that the light of their bronze age is reaching us only now, and the radio signals are still 1000 years behind that. If they do have FTL they might be here sooner then we will ever "see" them. They might say "yes, we come from that star, overthere. Just wait 899 years, and you will get our first radio waves" LOL we might develop FTL and reach aliens before our broadcasts reach them, We might say "yeah when you get our first tv images, dont pay much attention to that guy with the tooth brush shaped moustache. We didnt like him much either and got rid of him 5 years after that" :P
Same question as to why we assume the history of earth is the way it is accepted right now, there may be fossils and carbon dating, however we may really never now until we have a time machine. Thats when theories will comem
Because they really should be EVERYWHERE, including here on Earth, assuming life is relatively common around the universe (which I'm not sure I agree with yet).
@@SubtleHawkwe don't have any telescopes that we can actually see on planets with so how would we have saw them? They might be everywhere they just aren't using radio waves. Our radio waves have only traveled 100 light years or so. We still have nothing to see them with. I always wonder what people mean when they say where are they? They could be in every solar system. We wouldn't know.
I am so sorry, but Mr. Arthur's speech impediment is far too distracting to continue to watch. To me, it makes him sound less believable than I'm sure he is. I give him an A+ if his imitation of Barry Kripke (Big Bang) is for real. (or perhaps Kripke is imitating Isaac Arthur?) I feel so guilty about commenting in what may be seen as a derogatory or worse, a hateful way. I'm not judging anyone, but simply stating a fact. Perhaps he would be more believable if he used a synthesized voice like Steven Hawking. Just say'n.
Tom Clark the actor who plays Kripke actually has a speech impediment. He’s also in the movie Heat with Sandra Bullock. Isaac is a well known and respected physicist.
@@PhilthCollinz No, as with most conspiracy theories, it requires the conspirators to be too smart and too dumb at the same time. If the goal was to make people think they were trying to contact aliens, it would be far more effective to say they're sending a repeating signal and not send anything than to say they're sending one blip in a direction for which there's nothing for 25,000 light years and raise your suspicions that way.
@@nkordich If they didn't send a signal though everyone would find out due to all the radio enthusiasts not picking up a signal so the only option left is send a signal for a short amount of time to an area where they hope nothing would hear it. Besides inviting something to our world is a massive gamble as even best odds is 50/50 good or bad outcome. Though practically speaking I think the bad scenario is more likely so 20/80 odds as I find it more likely for a predatory or warlike civilization to be the largest and closest to us as a warlike civilization would crush the peaceful ones. Just look at human history peaceful tribes nearly always got exterminated or enslaved by the warlike ones as such I see no reason for this rule to change out in the universe as the warlike ones would be used to and experienced in the art of war while the peaceful ones wouldn't have the experience or psychological strength to carry out a long conflict.
I LOVE THIS CHANNEL. Every single night when I go to bed I put in my alarms, put in a video from you guys and lie down and fall asleep while swallowing wisdom like a swamp. Thank you so much for these videos
@@EventHorizonShow Same for me. Everything you upload gets two views from me. I first listen until I fall asleep and then in the next day or two I listen again all the way through. I have a lot of trouble sleeping and listening to either JMG or Isaac somehow helps me relax. You both have such fascinating channels.
We are a barely emerging technological species. Even the most intelligent and imaginative among us can't accurately describe what's out there without falling into sheer speculation. The answer to the Fermi Paradox is: STILL TOO PRIMITIVE. NOT ENOUGH DATA.
You're right. All this speculating is fun but silly. The Universe may be a single consciousness & each developing civilization reaches the point where it joins the cosmic mind. That's where everybody went!
@@rameyzamora1018 That sounds like Chaos corruption to me. In the name of the Emperor, we must stop such heresy. Mankind will not fall to the ruinous powers of the Warp!
I believe our scientists are just like the industrial age scientists looking at sky's trying to find a trail of steam thinking aliens would use steam engines since it's the most advanced tech.
These collaborations with Isaac really are quality. I hope they get a lot of views because I would like to see them continue. Not to excess though - keep the quality high. Thanks, guys.
My personal issue with the virtual worlds scenario is that, even if you put every single human in the Matrix and let them live out their lives there, any scenario that includes that is also going to require a caretaker AI programmed to keep us safe and secure. I cannot imagine a likely scenario where this AI, upon realizing that the solar system is winding down, doesn't go full-on paperclip optimizer and begin expanding outward to keep humans going as it was programmed to do. Edit: Nevermind, Isaac sort of touched on that.
I was doing the exact same. The viewing conditions have been so excellent this summer I’m beginning to develop repetitive motion injuries in my spine/neck.
I was telling my wife about the idea of a bracewell probe that's been watching us for millions of years suddenly signaling us and being like, "hello humans, here's your entire history in 1080p." It blew her mind a little bit lol.
@@biteme8535 for real, love these guys. Two years later and everything they are talking about is still fresh and awesome to ponder. They are the good ones, some of the best RUclips science channels available today.
These guys should do a round the fire podcast with the cracking of flames as they talk ‘space’. In fact I’d happily supply the beer and sit alongside and listen.
The most excellent straight, unfiltered enjoyable two people on the internet. So smooth and able to vividly portray concepts into a memorable knowledge base I know of. Thank you gentlemen.
Either we are alone in the universe or we're not, both are equally terrifying. Edited: With the machine hypothesis. I think if we are to become them, we will mimic our biological forms still right down to a cellular level, it will be indistinguishable from our natural biological forms, so radically advance that we'll control & create biology. It comes down to the technological singularity that we can't tell between artificial & natural.
As a layman, I'm just guessing but might it be possible that when a planet does foster a civilization something like ours, it only gets so far to the point, say, where it can explore it's own system but never reaches an interstellar capability. The Galaxy could be teeming with societies similar to our own that are not readily obvious. Do I make any sense?
Our first contact with a machine civilization. Us-"Hi there, we were getting ready to build a Dyson sphere, want to help?" Them- "Yeah... about that, that's why were here, this whole universe is a preserve. NO BUILDING!"
Your presentation is always so damn good. I love the music and the atmosphere your interviews provide. If I could slam that like button harder, I would.
I've gone out of my way to give you (JMG) a shout out on social media, I'll just follow up by saying the reason why I've been evangelizing your channel as much as I can, especially the wake of all the buzz and chatter with these DOD UAP reports, has everything to do with the tone you set, and your expertise, and temperament. Your video posts are absolutely delightful and informative, each and every time. I learn so much listening to them over and over again! I'm a fairly tough customer in the sense that my Doctorate degree is in the foundations of physics and I've also spent years working on a separate PhD in theoretical particle physics. And I work in a field of analytic philosophy dealing with scientific methodology and analytic metaphysics. Anyway, without busting out my street creds too much, l must say what I find disappointing among some of my colleagues is their disdain and aversion and ignorance to the hard sci-fi world. Well, they ignore it at their peril! Chances are whatever notion a scientist or a philosopher has been conceiving or kicking around, it was already coined as a literary invention by some sci-fi author previously! You also do a great job with the guests whom you interview. But it's one thing to host interviews with distinguished guests, it's another to basically keep the subjects on a level that is both deeply informative but also leisurely and entertaining. That's hard to pull off. I think of some of your "competitors" out there like Joe Rogan and Lex Fridman. Granted, they are both highly intelligent and daring thinkers but sometimes I feel like the rabbit holes they get down into with their guests are a bit too obscure and narrow, and in some instances, just downright specious! So anyway, a great big thank you!! Truly one of the best damn channels out there on RUclips and it's great to see the enthusiasm and the curiosity and the interest just expand by leaps and bounds from your ever burgeoning audience base!
As a performer and speaker with a speech impediment myself, I love that IA didn't let that stop him from doing what he wanted to do. That said, I often ponder the sadistic names of impediments. Rhotacism, Lisp, Stutter, etc. As if they're named so you intentionally cannot say them. The R in Rhotacism, the S in Lisp, the double ST and double TTs in Stutter. Very suspicious titling indeed. ;).
Joe Riggs .....Hey Joe this saying is what helps me not to slap the living shit out of people who make fun of others impediments and it's what my GrandMa used to say and that is......"When you argue with ignorance.....You're whipped from the start!"......ok it may not keep you from jack slapping someone into the next galaxy but it's spot on.....Keep your head high which I have no doubt that you hold it as high as you can and keep up the good fight.....your brother from out here in the 1's and 0's.....lol.......
We tend to have ideas and theories based on what we can imagine , about life, tech, brain , intellect ... but just imagine in this same planet ,us , show them a mobile phone to someone in the 1800 ... they could not ever ever imagine such device... and we think we can imagine other brains , other tech, other life in other part of the galaxy, with maybe 1000 , a million , a billion years in advance ...or not ... we haven't the slightest idea ... what life (we can call it other stuff) could do in other galaxy , other time , with other some kind of brain (or we can call it other thing) for what we know could all be some beings or some machines , or some other form of stuff we cannot conceive in another dimension or some dimension we can not conceive. ... what i am writing is so out of the box , but nature is capable of doing stuff more imaginative, that me and no one can or will ever conceive ...
The person from 1800 would still SEE the phone, right? That's the point. The universe still runs on basic physics which we understand. At least we know what radiation is and how to detect it. And we don't see anyone giving off radiation. As Isaac states, hiding has no point, so not seeing any radiation is strange. We never presume to know their specific tech, culture, politics, biology. Just the radiation.
I'm not so sure whether intelligent aliens (at least their early forms) would be so shockingly alien. Reason? Evolution. Big brain. Carnivore or omnivore. Some limbs (or limb-like structure) to manipulate environment. At least basic care for young (K-reproduction strategy, otherwise big brain is pointless) and elders (keep tribal lore). Mostly land environment (otherwise good luck in kickstaring civilisation). Not solitary animal. In later times you transition to some kind of AI civilisation. In long run a destiny, as "silicon" outperforms "protein". Any ideology would not change that, just give a different flavour. Not necessary "Skynet". Technically speaking may involve some uploaded minds, who claim not being AIs. Or hedonist post scarcity, where anyway 99% of job is done by AIs. Or some small group of degenerates escape their stagnant home planet to finally start their heretic tech endeavours, which makes them expansive specie.
@@useodyseeorbitchute9450 the universe still has billions of years to go before predicted entropy. maybe this is the "stupid civilizations that wipe themselves or each other out" stage.
@@cwg9238 I don't think there would be much "wiping other civilisation stage". Either one is reasonably peaceful and curious civ, then he would treat other civilisations as highly valuable study subjects. Or one is highly violent one and would be too busy deploying new wonder weapons on his home planet.
Maybe we are like North Sentinel Island to other races lol. We are so primitive that they leave us alone. There have been encounters but they end up badly, so they leave us in our natural habitat lol. Because our leaders are more warlike and deceitful.
I think the intelligent life has already found us and has been observing. I think thats prob who Commander Fravor chased in those pentagon releases tapes.. John Michael Godier and Isaac Arthur two of may favorite people together! You guys should host eachother on the regular
In the zoo theory situation, an enormous universe would be much better to hide us. It puts us in overwhelming circumstances to “escape” or even just distract us from doing so. Assuming it is no more trouble to make, a larger cage would seem more practical honestly.
This is NOT irony! I try to avoid criticising other people's use of language online... but I can't let this pass. What is so hard to understand about irony?
@@mtop6867 Yeah your right; it is at best a coincidence. People have slowly ruined the usage of the term over the years, so its probably not his fault.
The Fermi Paradox is one of my favorite topics to discuss and ponder. I conjecture that Earth is wholly unique in the universe and that there is no other life out there, intelligent or otherwise. I thoroughly enjoyed listening to this discussion and wish there were more. Now I need to find out what the name of the music is that starts at 48 minutes in. I want to listen to that while I'm stargazing!
The musicians we use in our videos are listed in the details with links. And you can stream or download all their albums for free, though there is the option to pay/tip them. Highly recommend checking them out!
For me the most obvious explanation is one that I’ve never really heard said. It depends on what you define as intelligent life. Apes are intelligent, elephants are intelligent, dolphins and whales are intelligent. But conscious life like us? A species that looks at the sky and wonders, a species that questions their existence? As far as we know, after four billion years of evolution and millions of species, we’re the only time that has occurred. That’s the bottleneck if there ever is one. I think that’s what’s rare. I think simple life is common, complex life and intelligence is fairly common, just not life that has the ambition to build technology or leave their planet.
@@MrNote-lz7lh it could, but all chemistry and conditions necessary are common, so depending on the variables that we don’t yet know, the genesis of life could have been very complex or very simple. If it’s the latter you can assume that life must be reasonably common in the universe
An interesting quote: In 2012, researchers published the Cambridge Declaration on Consciousness, which said that an array of nonhuman animals, including but not limited to mammals and birds, have “the capacity to exhibit intentional behaviors” and that “humans are not unique in possessing the neurological substrates that generate consciousness.”
The thing about intelligent life might be time-scale. We look for beings and events and artifacts related to our own perception of time- our own lifespans, our own history. The universe is, of course REALLY HUGE, and what if there are"actors" in the universe who's "thought processes", and actions take place much more slowly than we can perceive, on a scale that is beyond anything we even know how to notice, as such?
The real issue with time-scales is how fast living beings move, in comparison with the size of the universe, and the speed of light. A species that evolved, became intelligent, developed technology, and destroyed itself 1,000,000 years ago on a planet that is 2,000,000 light years away would be completely undetectable.
The speed of physical process such as chemistry and things falling and so on don't vary enough. Such a 'slow intelligence' would be dealing with a universe to fast for their intelligence to provide any benefit.
@@MrCmon113 A brain is a biological phenomenon native to the conditions and materials available on this particular planet with it's functions being "tuned" to whatever we do here to maintain our lives. There could be other conditions that produce other things that do what brains do elsewhere, on whatever scale necessary to maintain whatever is being done.
I'm usually too easily distracted to watch a complete Isaac Arthur video. Somehow him talking to someone else makes his ideas even more engrossing and I watched the whole thing. Fascinating stuff. 😎
We are going to find something pretty soon with the James Webb and land based telescopes being build right now. I am pretty sure about this and I have been preparing myself mentally for it.
What if other intelligent life lives at a different frequency and we cannot see or communicate with them? They could be right here among us, but we may not even be aware of each other.
I think complexity in live is inevitable, not that we live in a microbial universe. but I think it requires strong stress that just almost kill the base species, to encourage-speed up evolution, but not quite enough to kill them outright. And that would mean we could easily be one of the first in this universe.
I know I comment a lot but I can't resist! I recently subscribed to Issac's channel it's pretty awesome I love long videos! Great work guys! Have a great weekend!
Would it be possible that the "WOW!" signal was an astronomically rare case of an alignment where the signal was lensed by an object passing between us and the source?
The problem is that when we look out we are not acting as we are looking through a window, instead, we act like we are looking into a mirror because what we expect to see is just another version of ourselves.
I think what people leave out of the life equation is ,what if for some reason all intelligent life started at the same time. Or I think the bigger answer would be, Life that begins on Planets is subject to the major chaos of the Planet 1st, Fellow life 2nd, and any space danger(asteroids,etc) 3rd. Making Advances very Sporadic and able to be set back or entirely wiped out at a moment's notice. Maybe life is plentiful in the universe, but overcoming all of the barriers to long term advancements is very very rare.
Once we thought everything is on a flat plain, then we thought there is the solarsystem, then the galaxy is everything, now we think the universe we see is everything! My guess would be, the cmb is not the edge, its just the extreme redshift of the rest! Possibly there is much more outside, we could not imagine! Well i think i will never know, we make hughe progress, but maybe there is a level we cant reach to find out, or we get extinct by AI or other things before wefind out, or we find out, but that will anyway not in my lifetime! I would be happy if we settle on Mars, colonize the Moon and find proves for alien life!
One of the answers that always occurs to me is that if we are the ‘standard case’ we’re mostly still not going to notice anybody else who’s at exactly our point in evolution since we’re necessarily still too far to receive their stray signals. We’re at no more than 80yrs of high power radio and radar and almost all of the signals we’ve ever produced will have become illegible if not completely indistinct before they leave our solar system.
RUclips premium I think cost $10 a month you can download things to watch without internet access and also everything comes on without commercials. Well worth it if you're a RUclips junkie like me.
Late to the show on this one but I haven’t enjoyed any YT video this much in a long time. Very fun listen! When respectable folks who are smarter than you wax theoretical on an endlessly interesting subject(s) 👍🏻.
Love this channel and really love the collabs with IA but the ads are getting silly. If there has to be five ads space them so they interrupt less frequently. Load up prior to video and at the tail. Really ruins the experience going from futurism to commercialism every 10 minutes.
So we looked out of the window and saw a street, not very long, not very wide. We wondered in amazement at what else there was to see. We ventured onto our doorsteps and saw much more. Now we knew everything and saw everything in our own deluded self-centric little way. Time passed and we saw the heavens above, wonderous bright points of light never moving or changing. We built telescopes, radars, gravity wave and neutron detectors to see and learn more. In just a few years we said "where are they all" "why do they not worship us", "why do they not recognise our achievement's and splendour. Even though we could not see any details of the planets around stars in our immediate vicinity. Even though we were still blind to much life on our own little blue planet. Even thought we were destroying the very planet that supports and provides habitat to every living creature of our own little Earth. To be worthy one must become worthy. All must become worthy.
I love listening to you two just talking! You should do an own show just about that! I mean it....1 hour is wwaaaaaaay to fast! At least 3 hours! Like rogans show!
Given the apparent size of the universe, the odds lean towards there being lots of other intelligently occupied planets, but they'd probably be so spread-out that they may never encounter another civilization. That, or interstellar travel just never manages to become practical. (That last seems pretty unlikely to me, though...)
You can't choose to colonise a virtual world. A simulated version of you is just a copy, like a twin, it is not you. In the end what you are choosing is not to colonise the universe but to remain where you are.
Isaac talks like there are millions of astronomers looking at every star for all this stuff. Dude we have very little data! Just because we have a picture of a star means very little if we aren't spending time on each star with telescopes beyond what we have access to today. Talk to me in 50 years when we have real data before ruling it out.
That's not a completely fair criticism, as the tech signatures we are looking for are in fact blindingly obvious, and a few seconds worth of data / star is entirely enough to identify whether an advanced civilisation is, or has been, present there. Stars are exceedingly simple systems, and the light output from them very predictable. If an anomalous light signature is found, and a natural explanation cannot be found very quickly, it's cause for serious study. Tabbys Star is a recent and quite famous example. Turned out to probably not be aliens, but it did have us wondering quite hard for a while, and we still don't really know what is causing it to look like it does
How do you think we will find intelligent alien life? Or will they find and contact us first?
Be sure to visit, subscribe, and watch Isaacs new video on Fusion: ruclips.net/video/ChTJHEdf6yM/видео.html
I'd hope that we don't make contact with any civilizations any time soon, and am perfectly content in my blissful ignorance thinking that we are probably the only ones around this neck of the woods. That being said...
We are looking, so they are looking too. I hope they haven't found...
I doubt we'd even know either way lol
Thanks Michael, as always love the show.
I know this was talked about briefly on this episode but regarding black holes being used as energy. Science still does not know how super massive black holes form. There are some hypotheses out there but nothing close to conclusive. Additionally there is serious debate on the subject of super massive black hole merger, many lean to the side that it is not possible for two super massive black holes to merge. This would mean that ultra massive black holes would have to have formed a different way than the smaller super massive black holes.
Could the type 2 civilizations we are looking for be the cause of these ultra massive black holes?
A recent discovery found one of the largest known ultra massive black holes in the universe (50 billion solar masses as a low estimate) and is by far the largest in the area of our galaxy. On a universal scale it was nearby, just a few hundred million light years away.
Anyhow, if you read this I think black hole energy on that scale would be a really good subject to talk about in length with someone much smarter than me.
Thanks again
I dont think that we will find intelligent life, at least not in my lifetime.
If we do find it it would probably be from one of the relatively nearby Galaxies since looking further out means looking further back in time.
@@faarsight That is brilliant! that may be why we didnt pick anything up yet. Just think about it. A civ that "looks" at us from 500 light years away would "see" knights riding around hacking eachother to bits with strips of iron.
We could be looking at far away star systems that have space faring civ's but that are thus far away that the light of their bronze age is reaching us only now, and the radio signals are still 1000 years behind that. If they do have FTL they might be here sooner then we will ever "see" them. They might say "yes, we come from that star, overthere. Just wait 899 years, and you will get our first radio waves"
LOL we might develop FTL and reach aliens before our broadcasts reach them, We might say "yeah when you get our first tv images, dont pay much attention to that guy with the tooth brush shaped moustache. We didnt like him much either and got rid of him 5 years after that" :P
I like the way the tittle appears: " Is Alien life hidden with Isaac Arthur?"
I have no doubt Isaac is hiding Alien life.
He keeps distracting us talking about where are the dyson spheres... oh yeah, where are you hiding them Arthur?! :D
Or he is the alien 👽 lol
@@khloerabnta4995 Quite possible
@@khloerabnta4995 aha, that's why he hides the spheres...
He might be hiding a hot alien girl.
Why are people always acting like we’ve searched the whole galaxy. We’ve only observed an extremely small percentage of the Milky Way
You are correct it's like one one trillionth of the universe
Same question as to why we assume the history of earth is the way it is accepted right now, there may be fossils and carbon dating, however we may really never now until we have a time machine. Thats when theories will comem
Because they really should be EVERYWHERE, including here on Earth, assuming life is relatively common around the universe (which I'm not sure I agree with yet).
I stg I say the same thing. It's so irritating!!!
@@SubtleHawkwe don't have any telescopes that we can actually see on planets with so how would we have saw them? They might be everywhere they just aren't using radio waves. Our radio waves have only traveled 100 light years or so. We still have nothing to see them with. I always wonder what people mean when they say where are they? They could be in every solar system. We wouldn't know.
These are some of the best two people on RUclips
No doubt
I am so sorry, but Mr. Arthur's speech impediment is far too distracting to continue to watch. To me, it makes him sound less believable than I'm sure he is. I give him an A+ if his imitation of Barry Kripke (Big Bang) is for real. (or perhaps Kripke is imitating Isaac Arthur?) I feel so guilty about commenting in what may be seen as a derogatory or worse, a hateful way. I'm not judging anyone, but simply stating a fact. Perhaps he would be more believable if he used a synthesized voice like Steven Hawking. Just say'n.
Tom Clark the actor who plays Kripke actually has a speech impediment. He’s also in the movie Heat with Sandra Bullock. Isaac is a well known and respected physicist.
@@tomclark6271
Subscribe to his channel, you'll get used to it.
Facts
I love the chemistry between you two. The conversation flows in a natural way. I want more collaboration between you two in the future!!
They should get married :)
You seemed like a kid..
@@Scorch428 yea...They don't seem that friendly to me...
Humans: "Signals from advanced civilizations MUST repeat."
Also humans: "Let's broadcast the Arecibo message for 3 mins ONE TIME."
Valid.
Could this obvious stupidity be the confirmation that they DO know what's actually out there??
@@PhilthCollinz No, as with most conspiracy theories, it requires the conspirators to be too smart and too dumb at the same time. If the goal was to make people think they were trying to contact aliens, it would be far more effective to say they're sending a repeating signal and not send anything than to say they're sending one blip in a direction for which there's nothing for 25,000 light years and raise your suspicions that way.
@@nkordich If they didn't send a signal though everyone would find out due to all the radio enthusiasts not picking up a signal so the only option left is send a signal for a short amount of time to an area where they hope nothing would hear it.
Besides inviting something to our world is a massive gamble as even best odds is 50/50 good or bad outcome. Though practically speaking I think the bad scenario is more likely so 20/80 odds as I find it more likely for a predatory or warlike civilization to be the largest and closest to us as a warlike civilization would crush the peaceful ones. Just look at human history peaceful tribes nearly always got exterminated or enslaved by the warlike ones as such I see no reason for this rule to change out in the universe as the warlike ones would be used to and experienced in the art of war while the peaceful ones wouldn't have the experience or psychological strength to carry out a long conflict.
Even if it was artificial, I’m not sure what its senders expected us to do with it.
I LOVE THIS CHANNEL. Every single night when I go to bed I put in my alarms, put in a video from you guys and lie down and fall asleep while swallowing wisdom like a swamp. Thank you so much for these videos
Thank YOU. This is why we do it. Knowing that someone such as you enjoys it this way.
@@EventHorizonShow Same for me. Everything you upload gets two views from me. I first listen until I fall asleep and then in the next day or two I listen again all the way through. I have a lot of trouble sleeping and listening to either JMG or Isaac somehow helps me relax. You both have such fascinating channels.
Same, quite a routine now
I thought I was alone 😅
Same ✊🏼
Michael and Isaac - two of my absolute favorite youtubers. This is a privilege to listen to.
This is such a high quality podcast intelligent guests, relevant visual art and atmospheric background music. Very glad to have found this.
Glad you found us!
Two of my favourite Sci-Fi presenters on the Universal Web,... I always look forward to these collaborations.
Nice one, John n Issac.
Exactly :)
I think they are science presenters, not science fiction.
This collabs are killing me! Love you both ❤️ Sagan is smiling somewhere in the universe. You’re it’s legacy
We are a barely emerging technological species. Even the most intelligent and imaginative among us can't accurately describe what's out there without falling into sheer speculation. The answer to the Fermi Paradox is: STILL TOO PRIMITIVE. NOT ENOUGH DATA.
I agree let's not get ahead of ourselves.
You're right. All this speculating is fun but silly. The Universe may be a single consciousness & each developing civilization reaches the point where it joins the cosmic mind. That's where everybody went!
@@rameyzamora1018 Oh shit, WE HAVE TO STOP THAT!
*FOR HUMANITY*
@@rameyzamora1018 That sounds like Chaos corruption to me. In the name of the Emperor, we must stop such heresy. Mankind will not fall to the ruinous powers of the Warp!
I believe our scientists are just like the industrial age scientists looking at sky's trying to find a trail of steam thinking aliens would use steam engines since it's the most advanced tech.
These collaborations with Isaac really are quality. I hope they get a lot of views because I would like to see them continue. Not to excess though - keep the quality high. Thanks, guys.
The two best channels on youtube! Please collaborate more!
Yeah. That. Please. 🙏💯💜
Indeed
My personal issue with the virtual worlds scenario is that, even if you put every single human in the Matrix and let them live out their lives there, any scenario that includes that is also going to require a caretaker AI programmed to keep us safe and secure. I cannot imagine a likely scenario where this AI, upon realizing that the solar system is winding down, doesn't go full-on paperclip optimizer and begin expanding outward to keep humans going as it was programmed to do.
Edit: Nevermind, Isaac sort of touched on that.
My favorite episode yet! Love Isaac in this informal mode and you two are a great duo for discussion and thought. Love it!
Now on to the life extension episode for more! 🤩
Just watching this four years later. These two need to do more content crossover episodes
This episode went deeper than any other, I think. Incredibly enriching and enlightening, gentlemen. Thank you!
Listening to this while observing saturn, jupiter, and the moon tonight!
That’s great
I was doing the exact same. The viewing conditions have been so excellent this summer I’m beginning to develop repetitive motion injuries in my spine/neck.
me too !
@@RexNunc How do they look?
@@EventHorizonShow Great ! Almost lined up tonight. Jupiter is real close to the Moon. About a diameter and a half.
I was telling my wife about the idea of a bracewell probe that's been watching us for millions of years suddenly signaling us and being like, "hello humans, here's your entire history in 1080p." It blew her mind a little bit lol.
Buzzing for this episode. Always great when Isaac is on and the subject is a fascinating possible solution to the fermi paradox.
They're both a bottomless well of interesting discussion
@@biteme8535 for real, love these guys. Two years later and everything they are talking about is still fresh and awesome to ponder. They are the good ones, some of the best RUclips science channels available today.
Isaac Arthur must be quite a guy if he can hide intelligent life from other parts of the universe.
🥰🥰
Maybe it just hides with him, you know.
Do not doubt the power of Isaac Arthur
These guys should do a round the fire podcast with the cracking of flames as they talk ‘space’. In fact I’d happily supply the beer and sit alongside and listen.
A chat with John and Isaac is over due.
Who's going to supply the healthy snacks? Such as sugar free marshmallows?
The most excellent straight, unfiltered enjoyable two people on the internet. So smooth and able to vividly portray concepts into a memorable knowledge base I know of. Thank you gentlemen.
Two of my favorite channels combined. Thank you Isaac and John! Keep up the good work!!
Thank you both for your content and thoughts. You truly have changed the way I think about the future and our present.
Either we are alone in the universe or we're not, both are equally terrifying.
Edited: With the machine hypothesis. I think if we are to become them, we will mimic our biological forms still right down to a cellular level, it will be indistinguishable from our natural biological forms, so radically advance that we'll control & create biology. It comes down to the technological singularity that we can't tell between artificial & natural.
As a layman, I'm just guessing but might it be possible that when a planet does foster a civilization something like ours, it only gets so far to the point, say, where it can explore it's own system but never reaches an interstellar capability. The Galaxy could be teeming with societies similar to our own that are not readily obvious. Do I make any sense?
This has become my favorite show on RUclips
I feel like we eliminated all other human subspecies just so we could sit back and wonder why it's so lonely out here.
N
I don't think we actively killed them; we probably outcompeted them
We interbred with them, and we ARE them.
Our first contact with a machine civilization. Us-"Hi there, we were getting ready to build a Dyson sphere, want to help?"
Them- "Yeah... about that, that's why were here, this whole universe is a preserve. NO BUILDING!"
?
Guess I need to know what preserve means
@@KillFriendsy think of it like a cosmic national park in this context.
Like we're animals in a zoo😅😅
That's basically a form of simulation / creation hypothesis.
Background music and visuals are just right. Definitely enhances the interview / podcast / whatnot. Great work.
Thank you very much. We try to find the right balance.
I sometimes struggle to understand what Isaac is saying (my brain struggles with his speech) but it's always worth it.
i thought he was foreign i couldn't understand shit and the subtitles are a joke
@Prowler Cam Isaac is american though
He sounds like Dr Arliss Loveless the evil mastermind who made an enormous steam-powered tarantula, in The Wild Wild West movie
I believe that our star system is, for many reasons, more unique that we have thought.
I’ve been waiting for this since the first collaboration you did on Uplifting. Thanks for making it happen
Thank you!
Your conversation flows so well here. Like two buds shooting the stuff over a couple beers. Great video!
Your presentation is always so damn good. I love the music and the atmosphere your interviews provide. If I could slam that like button harder, I would.
Thank you!
I've gone out of my way to give you (JMG) a shout out on social media, I'll just follow up by saying the reason why I've been evangelizing your channel as much as I can, especially the wake of all the buzz and chatter with these DOD UAP reports, has everything to do with the tone you set, and your expertise, and temperament. Your video posts are absolutely delightful and informative, each and every time. I learn so much listening to them over and over again! I'm a fairly tough customer in the sense that my Doctorate degree is in the foundations of physics and I've also spent years working on a separate PhD in theoretical particle physics. And I work in a field of analytic philosophy dealing with scientific methodology and analytic metaphysics.
Anyway, without busting out my street creds too much, l must say what I find disappointing among some of my colleagues is their disdain and aversion and ignorance to the hard sci-fi world. Well, they ignore it at their peril! Chances are whatever notion a scientist or a philosopher has been conceiving or kicking around, it was already coined as a literary invention by some sci-fi author previously!
You also do a great job with the guests whom you interview. But it's one thing to host interviews with distinguished guests, it's another to basically keep the subjects on a level that is both deeply informative but also leisurely and entertaining. That's hard to pull off.
I think of some of your "competitors" out there like Joe Rogan and Lex Fridman. Granted, they are both highly intelligent and daring thinkers but sometimes I feel like the rabbit holes they get down into with their guests are a bit too obscure and narrow, and in some instances, just downright specious!
So anyway, a great big thank you!! Truly one of the best damn channels out there on RUclips and it's great to see the enthusiasm and the curiosity and the interest just expand by leaps and bounds from your ever burgeoning audience base!
Literally waiting for the epic 4 hour special with yourself, Isaac, Fraser, Anton and Astrum.
Make it happen, dammit!
The worlds not ready
Yes! Anton and Astrum are definitely great choices. Such wonderful channels.
Do NOT invite Anton
Throw Tom Scott and Scot Manley into the mix.
@@r0cketplumber Throw in Alex Jones and grab the popcorn.
As a performer and speaker with a speech impediment myself, I love that IA didn't let that stop him from doing what he wanted to do. That said, I often ponder the sadistic names of impediments. Rhotacism, Lisp, Stutter, etc. As if they're named so you intentionally cannot say them. The R in Rhotacism, the S in Lisp, the double ST and double TTs in Stutter. Very suspicious titling indeed. ;).
Or logical, if you think about it.
humans are assholes what ya do?
@@Andronicus87 I wouldn't want it any other way. It's far more interesting this way... and fun.
Joe Riggs .....Hey Joe this saying is what helps me not to slap the living shit out of people who make fun of others impediments and it's what my GrandMa used to say and that is......"When you argue with ignorance.....You're whipped from the start!"......ok it may not keep you from jack slapping someone into the next galaxy but it's spot on.....Keep your head high which I have no doubt that you hold it as high as you can and keep up the good fight.....your brother from out here in the 1's and 0's.....lol.......
@@tmmetz08 Exactly right. (this is Joe Riggs replying from my other RUclips channel)
I really like the haunting music at the end of the video. Great content, as always. Keep up the good work.
The real life Barry Kripke is awesome. Great show
Oh good. Isaac Arthur! Always triggers the True Detective theme in my head.
We tend to have ideas and theories based on what we can imagine , about life, tech, brain , intellect ... but just imagine in this same planet ,us , show them a mobile phone to someone in the 1800 ... they could not ever ever imagine such device... and we think we can imagine other brains , other tech, other life in other part of the galaxy, with maybe 1000 , a million , a billion years in advance ...or not ... we haven't the slightest idea ... what life (we can call it other stuff) could do in other galaxy , other time , with other some kind of brain (or we can call it other thing)
for what we know could all be some beings or some machines , or some other form of stuff we cannot conceive in another dimension or some dimension we can not conceive.
... what i am writing is so out of the box , but nature is capable of doing stuff more imaginative, that me and no one can or will ever conceive ...
The person from 1800 would still SEE the phone, right? That's the point. The universe still runs on basic physics which we understand. At least we know what radiation is and how to detect it. And we don't see anyone giving off radiation. As Isaac states, hiding has no point, so not seeing any radiation is strange. We never presume to know their specific tech, culture, politics, biology. Just the radiation.
foamy pawadox
I'm not so sure whether intelligent aliens (at least their early forms) would be so shockingly alien. Reason? Evolution. Big brain. Carnivore or omnivore. Some limbs (or limb-like structure) to manipulate environment. At least basic care for young (K-reproduction strategy, otherwise big brain is pointless) and elders (keep tribal lore). Mostly land environment (otherwise good luck in kickstaring civilisation). Not solitary animal.
In later times you transition to some kind of AI civilisation. In long run a destiny, as "silicon" outperforms "protein". Any ideology would not change that, just give a different flavour. Not necessary "Skynet". Technically speaking may involve some uploaded minds, who claim not being AIs. Or hedonist post scarcity, where anyway 99% of job is done by AIs. Or some small group of degenerates escape their stagnant home planet to finally start their heretic tech endeavours, which makes them expansive specie.
@@useodyseeorbitchute9450 the universe still has billions of years to go before predicted entropy. maybe this is the "stupid civilizations that wipe themselves or each other out" stage.
@@cwg9238 I don't think there would be much "wiping other civilisation stage". Either one is reasonably peaceful and curious civ, then he would treat other civilisations as highly valuable study subjects. Or one is highly violent one and would be too busy deploying new wonder weapons on his home planet.
Maybe we are like North Sentinel Island to other races lol.
We are so primitive that they leave us alone. There have been encounters but they end up badly, so they leave us in our natural habitat lol. Because our leaders are more warlike and deceitful.
Purple I think I just found a person that thinks like me
@@johnniecortez5043 :D
I think the intelligent life has already found us and has been observing. I think thats prob who Commander Fravor chased in those pentagon releases tapes.. John Michael Godier and Isaac Arthur two of may favorite people together! You guys should host eachother on the regular
Isaac and John prove that there are good people on the net.
In the zoo theory situation, an enormous universe would be much better to hide us. It puts us in overwhelming circumstances to “escape” or even just distract us from doing so. Assuming it is no more trouble to make, a larger cage would seem more practical honestly.
I listen to these two individually all the time and ironically they appear together here. Fantastic.
This is NOT irony!
I try to avoid criticising other people's use of language online... but I can't let this pass. What is so hard to understand about irony?
@@mtop6867 Yeah your right; it is at best a coincidence. People have slowly ruined the usage of the term over the years, so its probably not his fault.
Best community of youtubers by far. Jon and Isaac are brilliant. Something tells me I will be back to listen to this one more than once ❤
Love these collaborations between both of you, please do MOAR!
The Fermi Paradox is one of my favorite topics to discuss and ponder. I conjecture that Earth is wholly unique in the universe and that there is no other life out there, intelligent or otherwise. I thoroughly enjoyed listening to this discussion and wish there were more.
Now I need to find out what the name of the music is that starts at 48 minutes in. I want to listen to that while I'm stargazing!
The musicians we use in our videos are listed in the details with links. And you can stream or download all their albums for free, though there is the option to pay/tip them. Highly recommend checking them out!
@@EventHorizonShow Thank you. I will be doing that very soon!
*Reads title* "Alright Isaac time to show us dem aliens"
Amazing stuff. +1 for the funny test card and +1 more for making a coffee machine ad appear right after you were talking about coffee!
10am in California, This has replaced my Saturday morning cartoons 😂
Saturday morning cartoons died around ~2005 or so.
For me the most obvious explanation is one that I’ve never really heard said. It depends on what you define as intelligent life. Apes are intelligent, elephants are intelligent, dolphins and whales are intelligent. But conscious life like us? A species that looks at the sky and wonders, a species that questions their existence? As far as we know, after four billion years of evolution and millions of species, we’re the only time that has occurred. That’s the bottleneck if there ever is one. I think that’s what’s rare. I think simple life is common, complex life and intelligence is fairly common, just not life that has the ambition to build technology or leave their planet.
But hasn't life only began once on Earth? Everything from plants to animals to humans are cousins. So life existing at all could very well be a fluke.
@@MrNote-lz7lh it could, but all chemistry and conditions necessary are common, so depending on the variables that we don’t yet know, the genesis of life could have been very complex or very simple. If it’s the latter you can assume that life must be reasonably common in the universe
An interesting quote: In 2012, researchers published the Cambridge Declaration on Consciousness, which said that an array of nonhuman animals, including but not limited to mammals and birds, have “the capacity to exhibit intentional behaviors” and that “humans are not unique in possessing the neurological substrates that generate consciousness.”
The thing about intelligent life might be time-scale. We look for beings and events and artifacts related to our own perception of time- our own lifespans, our own history. The universe is, of course REALLY HUGE, and what if there are"actors" in the universe who's "thought processes", and actions take place much more slowly than we can perceive, on a scale that is beyond anything we even know how to notice, as such?
The real issue with time-scales is how fast living beings move, in comparison with the size of the universe, and the speed of light. A species that evolved, became intelligent, developed technology, and destroyed itself 1,000,000 years ago on a planet that is 2,000,000 light years away would be completely undetectable.
Space Ents who take a few Earth years to say hello to eachother. And a few Earth millenia to wrap up the conversation. I like it.
The speed of physical process such as chemistry and things falling and so on don't vary enough. Such a 'slow intelligence' would be dealing with a universe to fast for their intelligence to provide any benefit.
They wouldn't be actors then. What you are suggesting is a kind of panpsychism: might other things than brains produce consciousness?
@@MrCmon113 A brain is a biological phenomenon native to the conditions and materials available on this particular planet with it's functions being "tuned" to whatever we do here to maintain our lives. There could be other conditions that produce other things that do what brains do elsewhere, on whatever scale necessary to maintain whatever is being done.
It was following Isaac that lead me to this channel. Thank you to both of you guys.
Great!
It was the opposite for me and now I'm hooked on both. :)
Fantastic episode thanks for all the hard work y'all do to make such great content. Sorry Anna stole your coffee John. 😁
It was great chatting today Strick!
@@EventHorizonShow I agree I had a good time thanks.
I'm usually too easily distracted to watch a complete Isaac Arthur video. Somehow him talking to someone else makes his ideas even more engrossing and I watched the whole thing. Fascinating stuff. 😎
man o man this a good episode. literally listened to it three times to catch everything i missed!!
Oh great... another brilliantly presented channel to squeeze into my RUclips time. 😃
Truly fascinating conversation, nice work indeed.
We are going to find something pretty soon with the James Webb and land based telescopes being build right now. I am pretty sure about this and I have been preparing myself mentally for it.
I am not caught up..could you explain why this telescope in particular would be gopd at finding intelligent life?
What if other intelligent life lives at a different frequency and we cannot see or communicate with them?
They could be right here among us, but we may not even be aware of each other.
Both you guys in one video! This is outstanding!
asteorid impacts, catastrophes are way more common than we'd ever figured
I think complexity in live is inevitable, not that we live in a microbial universe.
but I think it requires strong stress that just almost kill the base species, to encourage-speed up evolution, but not quite enough to kill them outright.
And that would mean we could easily be one of the first in this universe.
Or at least in this area. We are very new. Egyptians were 5000yrs ago and all we know about the universe is basically ~100 years of knowledge
I know I comment a lot but I can't resist! I recently subscribed to Issac's channel it's pretty awesome I love long videos! Great work guys! Have a great weekend!
Would it be possible that the "WOW!" signal was an astronomically rare case of an alignment where the signal was lensed by an object passing between us and the source?
Yes. And we will be addressing this on the channel very soon.
The problem is that when we look out we are not acting as we are looking through a window, instead, we act like we are looking into a mirror because what we expect to see is just another version of ourselves.
Both of you together... Awesome.
I think what people leave out of the life equation is ,what if for some reason all intelligent life started at the same time. Or I think the bigger answer would be, Life that begins on Planets is subject to the major chaos of the Planet 1st, Fellow life 2nd, and any space danger(asteroids,etc) 3rd. Making Advances very Sporadic and able to be set back or entirely wiped out at a moment's notice. Maybe life is plentiful in the universe, but overcoming all of the barriers to long term advancements is very very rare.
"Hidden with Isaac Arthur" I KNEW IT!
This is one of the best podcasts on youtube. Thank you!
Digital for me please, low on space and resources, high on freedom to explore virtual worlds of endless variety. Who's with me?
Nah, computers glitch out. I’m staying analog.🙃
@@evolution031680 to be fair we already glitch out quite often in new and interesting ways ;)
More convos between you two, please. 🙏💯
Soon.
'Why Intelligent Life in the Universe May Be Hidden with Isaac Arthur'
haha! Oh Isaac Arthur, do stop hiding it!
Dun duun Duuuun, it turns out that's why Issac knows so much, he is the alien civilizations! XD
I don't think so we r alone. Something super powerful is protecting the entire Galaxy.
The Guardians of the Galaxy!
The fact that we don’t see any aliens makes me think the universe is huge, real huge.
Once we thought everything is on a flat plain, then we thought there is the solarsystem, then the galaxy is everything, now we think the universe we see is everything!
My guess would be, the cmb is not the edge, its just the extreme redshift of the rest!
Possibly there is much more outside, we could not imagine!
Well i think i will never know, we make hughe progress, but maybe there is a level we cant reach to find out, or we get extinct by AI or other things before wefind out, or we find out, but that will anyway not in my lifetime!
I would be happy if we settle on Mars, colonize the Moon and find proves for alien life!
Or that we (no one) are not capable of space flight to other star systems.
Why?
One of the answers that always occurs to me is that if we are the ‘standard case’ we’re mostly still not going to notice anybody else who’s at exactly our point in evolution since we’re necessarily still too far to receive their stray signals. We’re at no more than 80yrs of high power radio and radar and almost all of the signals we’ve ever produced will have become illegible if not completely indistinct before they leave our solar system.
Any thought of making this series into a podcast? Would love to listen on my commute
Matthew Liu
The Event Horizon channel would be great to have on a podcast
Yeah or even a download link now and then so we could listen if we don't have access to the internet.
RUclips premium I think cost $10 a month you can download things to watch without internet access and also everything comes on without commercials. Well worth it if you're a RUclips junkie like me.
@@scottpierce9195
Wow, all I watch is youtube. I should really get that!
Yes of course if there's other life out there they will surly want to contact us! The great HUMANS! Obviously!!
Late to the show on this one but I haven’t enjoyed any YT video this much in a long time. Very fun listen! When respectable folks who are smarter than you wax theoretical on an endlessly interesting subject(s) 👍🏻.
Love this channel and really love the collabs with IA but the ads are getting silly. If there has to be five ads space them so they interrupt less frequently. Load up prior to video and at the tail. Really ruins the experience going from futurism to commercialism every 10 minutes.
Dovahbear hard to listen to when I’m trying to fall asleep when the ads hit me. And they are like 3 mins long if u don’t skip
So if we can find Isaac Arthur, we’ll find intelligent life?
Good luck catching him.
Of course we will find intelligent life if we find him. He's pretty smart
The answer to the Fermi Parradox is those darn "wascally wabbits!" Great collaboration, the two most interesting fellows on RUclips.
So we looked out of the window and saw a street, not very long, not very wide. We wondered in amazement at what else there was to see. We ventured onto our doorsteps and saw much more. Now we knew everything and saw everything in our own deluded self-centric little way. Time passed and we saw the heavens above, wonderous bright points of light never moving or changing. We built telescopes, radars, gravity wave and neutron detectors to see and learn more. In just a few years we said "where are they all" "why do they not worship us", "why do they not recognise our achievement's and splendour. Even though we could not see any details of the planets around stars in our immediate vicinity. Even though we were still blind to much life on our own little blue planet. Even thought we were destroying the very planet that supports and provides habitat to every living creature of our own little Earth. To be worthy one must become worthy. All must become worthy.
OMG, John and Isaac together! I'm a 49 year old man and I want to scream like a teenage girl at a Beatles concert!
Isaac has been on a few times. He’s a wonderful person.
The wow signal was when someone decided to send a signal, and after we didn't respond decided not to send another one.
I love listening to you two just talking! You should do an own show just about that!
I mean it....1 hour is wwaaaaaaay to fast! At least 3 hours! Like rogans show!
Thank you guys!! Sharing for sure! Keep it up!
I love the title 😂
The intelligent life is definitely hiding with Isaac :D
The Dynamic Duo, back at it again!
Thank you for the deep discussion of these interesting topics.
Thank you for watching
Two of the smartest and most articulate folks in the science and scifi community, together.
It's one of the best combos one could possibly ask for.
Just came across this video by chance in my suggested list... and I'm glad I did! A very fun topic. Thanks for posting.
Glad you found us! We have a lot of videos you might enjoy, especially if you liked this.
Given the apparent size of the universe, the odds lean towards there being lots of other intelligently occupied planets, but they'd probably be so spread-out that they may never encounter another civilization. That, or interstellar travel just never manages to become practical. (That last seems pretty unlikely to me, though...)
Pay no heed. I'm just getting my Isaac Arthur fix.
You can't choose to colonise a virtual world. A simulated version of you is just a copy, like a twin, it is not you. In the end what you are choosing is not to colonise the universe but to remain where you are.
My money is on our instruments not being sensitive enough, *and* that we still have not done enough surveying.
Let's keep hoping I want to believe honestly
How cool!! I hadn't seen this before, and I love Isaac Arthur!!! YAY!!
Isaac talks like there are millions of astronomers looking at every star for all this stuff. Dude we have very little data! Just because we have a picture of a star means very little if we aren't spending time on each star with telescopes beyond what we have access to today.
Talk to me in 50 years when we have real data before ruling it out.
Give them 10% of the 'defense' budget so they can build some more hardware.
More like 5,000,000,000 years. Our cell phones will be spaceships by then.
That's not a completely fair criticism, as the tech signatures we are looking for are in fact blindingly obvious, and a few seconds worth of data / star is entirely enough to identify whether an advanced civilisation is, or has been, present there. Stars are exceedingly simple systems, and the light output from them very predictable. If an anomalous light signature is found, and a natural explanation cannot be found very quickly, it's cause for serious study. Tabbys Star is a recent and quite famous example. Turned out to probably not be aliens, but it did have us wondering quite hard for a while, and we still don't really know what is causing it to look like it does
he is intelligent but too much of a smart ass with making big leaping assumptions with very little data. we have observed less than 1% of the universe