Image: still from the 1982 film E.T. about an alien who becomes stranded on Earth.
Firstly, listening to the talk with Jill Tarter I was completely enthralled by her accounts of the two occasions she believed she had come into contact with extraterrestrial intelligence. How incredible to hear her speak about staying up all night at the behest of the slightest palpitation of mechanical instruments, pointed towards the sky.
While I have broadly been aware of the search for life in space I had never heard what that search from Earth consists of, particularly with regards to electromagnetic signals. To then extend this knowledge into the realm of predictive systems forged a link I hadn’t previously considered about what it means to approach uncertainty with a specific framework, in particular thinking of the example of hearing a signal which may be from an extraterrestrial source, but then contextualising that within a historically-informed framework of predictive systems as set out by Prof Goodman.
I completely agree this was a super interesting and very informative interview! I honestly didn't realize how little I knew about the search for life in space or about the process itself. The region of the radio spectrum called the terrestrial microwave window which she mentions seems to play an essential role in this predictive system and I'm excited to see the possibilities this framework could have as the field is further developed! I wonder how deciding those frequencies have affected the results of her system and how changing them would affect it.