turboscrew wrote: ↑Wed Nov 24, 2021 3:37 pm
WilliamPaolini wrote: ↑Wed Nov 24, 2021 2:05 am
Being the technologically primitive species that we are,...
Umm, compared to...?
Why compared to the fictitious aliens that this post is positing that may have probes in our solar system. If one is going to assume there is an alien, then one also must make an assumption as to their technological capability as well. In my response I am making the inference that the original post is stating that these supposed aliens could be, if not likely, from another solar system. Given that premise, technologically humans are no where near being able to practically accomplish such a feat (except in our imaginations at present). Therefore, we would be technologically primitive in comparison.
And observing our own example, if in 1721 someone went about bringing all of human technology to bear to detect if there were people from other worlds, you know full well that they would not have tried to detect, or even envisioned, radio signals. Of course, hundreds of years later that is in the realm of possibility for current day humans. So point being, you only know what you know, and to assume that you know all there is to know is of course great folly (and extreme hubris), as history teaches us. So with that, it is a fairly low risk assumption that in the posit that there may be aliens in our solar system from outside our solar system, since they would be doing what we at present cannot, some of their technology as well would be outside our knowledge and understanding, and therefore we would not be able to detect it given we have no idea what to look for. And given our current understanding on the age of the universe and the progression of life at least here on Earth, if life has arisen elsewhere then well within the realm of possibility that it could be not just hundreds, but thousands or millions of years more advanced than we are, meaning that what we use and look for would be akin to stone tools.
Now, if the original question framed it as aliens of the same relative technological advancement as humans, then that would be a different story. But if it did frame it that way then since we cannot readily probe other solar systems from within those systems using technologies we have sent there, then neither would they, unless the aliens framed as being similar to us technologically were from our own solar system sending probes to the other planets -- unlikely or we would have seen. So the only reasonable framing of the question posed IMO is with the assumption that the aliens are not from this solar system, and therefore would be more advanced than we are definitely in engineering to accomplish that feat, and most likely technologically as well.