{"id":19078,"date":"2017-02-08T21:07:02","date_gmt":"2017-02-08T13:07:02","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/wp-productionenv-bjg9h2g2bgg5b8aa.southeastasia-01.azurewebsites.net\/news\/far-out-man-seti-astronomer-will-explain-the-search-for-aliens-to-potential-potheads\/"},"modified":"2017-02-08T21:07:02","modified_gmt":"2017-02-08T13:07:02","slug":"far-out-man-seti-astronomer-will-explain-the-search-for-aliens-to-potential-potheads","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/news\/far-out-man-seti-astronomer-will-explain-the-search-for-aliens-to-potential-potheads\/","title":{"rendered":"Far out, man! SETI astronomer will explain the search for aliens to potential potheads"},"content":{"rendered":"<figure id=\"attachment_309207\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-309207\" style=\"width: 630px\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full-width wp-image-309207\" src=\"https:\/\/cdn.geekwire.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/02\/170208-seth-shostak-2-630x367.jpg\" alt=\"Seth Shostak\" width=\"630\" height=\"367\" srcset=\"https:\/\/cdn.geekwire.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/02\/170208-seth-shostak-2-630x367.jpg 630w, https:\/\/cdn.geekwire.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/02\/170208-seth-shostak-2.jpg 632w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 630px) 100vw, 630px\"><figcaption data-nosnippet=\"\" id=\"caption-attachment-309207\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">SETI astronomer Seth Shostak has been seeking alien signals for more than two decades. (SETI Institute Photo)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<p>You don\u2019t have to be stoned to appreciate SETI scientist Seth Shostak\u2019s perspective on the search for extraterrestrials \u2013 but it wouldn\u2019t hurt.<\/p>\n<p>That\u2019s what the Goodship Higher Education Series&nbsp;is counting on when the SETI Institute\u2019s senior astronomer delivers the series\u2019 first lecture of the year in a marijuana-friendly environment at Seattle\u2019s Melrose Market Studios.<\/p>\n<p>Pot consumption isn\u2019t allowed at the venue, but if attendees want to show up under the influence on Thursday night, that\u2019s fine with the organizers. That\u2019s also fine with Shostak, although he admits that speaking to an unabashedly stoned audience would be something completely different for him.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cI\u2019ve never had the experience before \u2026 that I\u2019m aware of,\u201d the 73-year-old researcher&nbsp;told GeekWire.<\/p>\n<p>Musing about life elsewhere in the universe is just the sort of cosmic subject that comes up when folks kick back around the campfire or the living room, with or without intoxicating substances. The Goodship series is designed to create that cosmic feeling by \u201cpartnering altered states with big ideas.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>There are few ideas bigger than SETI&nbsp;\u2013 an acronym that\u2019s short for&nbsp;the search for extraterrestrial intelligence. For more than a half-century, radio astronomers like Shostak have been combing through data, looking for the telltale signature of intentional broadcasts beyond Earth.<\/p>\n<p>Nothing conclusive has been found yet, but Shostak is betting a cup of coffee that contact will be made within two dozen&nbsp;years. (He acknowledges, however, that he\u2019s been saying that for more than a decade.)<\/p>\n<p>\u201cHold onto your Starbucks stock,\u201d he joked.<\/p>\n<p><iframe title=\"Seth Shostak: ET is (probably) out there \u2014 get ready\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/-cvI1jKxlTM?feature=oembed\" frameborder=\"0\" allow=\"accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture; web-share\" referrerpolicy=\"strict-origin-when-cross-origin\" allowfullscreen=\"\" data-ratio=\"0.5625\" data-width=\"800\" data-height=\"450\" style=\"display: block; margin: 0px; width: 800px; height: 450px;\"><\/iframe><\/p>\n<p>To conduct the search, the SETI Institute uses the Allen Telescope Array, a complex of 42 linked radio dishes in Northern California that received its initial funding from Microsoft co-founder Paul Allen.<\/p>\n<p>The&nbsp;institute\u2019s latest listening campaign focuses on 20,000 red-dwarf star systems. One of those dwarfs is Proxima Centauri, which is only 4.2 light-years away and harbors a&nbsp;potentially habitable planet.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cWe\u2019re looking for aliens around these runty stars,\u201d Shostak said, in part because red dwarfs make up the most populous&nbsp;class of stars in our Milky Way galaxy. That means they might be the likeliest sources for alien signals.<\/p>\n<p>Or not.<\/p>\n<p>For years, Shostak has been suggesting that the first intelligent aliens&nbsp;we encounter probably won\u2019t be life forms at all, but \u201cpost-biological\u201d entities. \u201cThey\u2019re bound to be machines, and that\u2019s kind of a distressing strategy for SETI,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n<p>Once artificial intelligence kicks in, there\u2019s no longer any reason to congregate on&nbsp;habitable planets. In fact, the environments that we consider habitable may be undesirable neighborhoods for AI aliens.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cThey don\u2019t have to stick around in a place like Seattle, because they\u2019ll rust out,\u201d Shostak said.<\/p>\n<p>Within the next century, we may not even have to search distant&nbsp;stars to encounter intelligent aliens. Shostak predicts that the evolution of machines with artificial intelligence may well rank as the 21st century\u2019s biggest technological development.<\/p>\n<p>And you don\u2019t need&nbsp;to be stoned to have that idea blow your mind.<\/p>\n<p><em>Shostak\u2019s talk, titled \u201cWhere Are the Extraterrestrials,\u201d is sold out. The doors open at 7 p.m. Thursday at Melrose Market Studios, 1532 Minor Ave. in Seattle\u2019s Capitol Hill district, and the lecture&nbsp;begins at 8. Attendees must be 21 or older, so bring your ID. As for the marijuana angle, here\u2019s the advice from the organizers: \u201cCome \u2018pre-boarded\u2019&nbsp;\u2013 so toke up beforehand, not while you\u2019re there.\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n<p><em>The Goodship Higher Education Series is presented by The Goodship in partnership with The Stranger and the Cloud Room.<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>SETI astronomer Seth Shostak has been seeking alien signals for more than two decades. (SETI Institute Photo) You don\u2019t have to be stoned to appreciate SETI scientist Seth Shostak\u2019s perspective on the search for extraterrestrials \u2013 but it wouldn\u2019t hurt. That\u2019s what the Goodship Higher Education Series&nbsp;is counting on when the SETI Institute\u2019s senior astronomer [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"inline_featured_image":false,"footnotes":"","_links_to":"","_links_to_target":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[130,1874,5453,5120,3754,21],"class_list":["post-19078","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news","tag-artificial-intelligence","tag-astrobiology","tag-goodship","tag-marijuana","tag-seti","tag-space"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19078"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=19078"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19078\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=19078"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=19078"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=19078"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}