CAMILE ORILLANEDA
THE LIGHTHOUSE PROJECT : RETROSPECTION
THE PROJECT / RESEARCH
The Lighthouse Theory is a temporary name for this Voyager update project. In a nutshell we want to mark our territory. This post is
sort of the social connotations and implications of this effort. Before I get into the specifics of the social contextualization, I want to
first iterate why this idea of marking our territory is so compelling for us.
Curiosity & Humility
In thinking about why we want to communicate with an alien life form we realized that there is no way to really come up with anything
practical. The alien could be in the spectrum of our imagination, but most likely is something outside of that limited bandwidth
of the imaginary alien. This forces us to look within at our own Earth and Solar System.
Aside from us not being able to imagine or comprehend what we could be communicating with. There are some humane implications
that our group felt were worth considering. The first being that any sort of artifact blasted into space, particularly with contents
from our earth (a la KEO and Voyager), could render whatever life form overwhelmed.
A literary example would be Ice-Nine in Kurt Vonneguts’s Cat’s Cradle.
A commonplace example would be the episode of the Simpsons where the Simpsons go to Australia. The last scene in the episode
finds a Koala Bear on the plane that carries the Simpsons back to the United States. Subsequently the United States becomes overcome
with Koala’s.
The inclusion of these examples is to bring up the notion of colonialism. This overwhelming of an element or some other artifact
from Earth could damage and possibly hurt the recipient of our message. This is something we do not want as we desire a friendly or
at the very least platonic relationship with these aliens. The result is to look within and make our own planet the message.
So, we’re not looking to pillage like Western Europe has for the few hundred years. Well not yet at least. However, this message
isn’t intended to be so egotistical that we get stuck and stare at the pond like Narcissus. The contents of the message is still up in the
air, and for the message itself is not as important as making some kind of connection. That is why the driving force behind our idea is
curiosity. This is not like the 60’s where we were in hot pursuit of the moon to be better than Russia, this is an age of Web 2.0. This
collective knowledge is a powerful symbol of humanity and the curiosity that drives this is what our group wants to harness for this
project.
Contextualization
So what exactly is it that we’re doing? Well we’re marking our territory. More specifically, we want to create a lighthouse for the
rest of the universe. A beacon stemming from our planet or solar system. We see this in many forms from a dog peeing on a fire hydrant,
to pheromones, to the yellow stickers German Jews were forced to wear in Nazi Germany.
The Lighthouse of Alexandria
This lighthouse describes our marking system the best. Not for its physical qualities, but for the social qualities it happened to
exude. The Wikipedia article goes into further depth, but here are the main reasons for choosing this marking system.
It was a navigational beacon.
It was a resource silo.
It notified other nations, specifically the Chinese in the 13th century AD, that these lands have been accounted for.
Finally, it was a monument of spectacle.
This is just our first iteration, so the marking system will undoubtedly change. We are currently talking about the feasibility of cosmic
background radiation as the practical means of communication. But, figuratively this is the intent of the group.
Cosmic Background Radiation: The Medium
Cosmic Background Radiation is essentially a left over from the cooling of the universe. It originated 400,000 years after the big
bang. This was the time of last scattering, which is when the universe had cooled enough that there wasn’t enough energy to keep electrons
and protons apart. So the universe went from being a plasma to consisting of helium and hydrogen and the areas the were more
dense with these kept attracting more and more matter around them and formed the galaxies.
Our instrument of detecting CBR:
The CMB photons scatter off free charges such as electrons that are not bound in atoms. In an ionized universe, such electrons have
been liberated from neutral atoms by ionizing (ultraviolet) radiation. Today these free charges are at sufficiently low density in most
of the volume of the Universe that they do not measurably affect the CMB. However, if the IGM was ionized at very early times when
the universe was still denser, then there are two main effects on the CMB:
1. Small scale anisotropies are erased (just as when looking at an object through fog, details of the object appear fuzzy).
2. The physics of how photons scatter off free electrons (Thomson scattering) induces polarization anisotropies on large angular
scales. This large angle polarization is correlated with the large angle temperature perturbation.
So if we can ionize (removing charged particles such as electrons) parts of the CBR around us it will change the ripples (small scale
anisotropies) in the areas around our galaxies
There have already been machines built that have been able to do massive scale ionization on earth. This was done in the hopes of
being able to control the weather and is called atmospheric ionization.
RETROSPECTION
During the development of this project, we had discussed different meanings of the Lighthouse Project. Two purposes had emerged:
to create a beacon to potentially attract any potential intelligent life forms and to unite the people of earth and make them a part of the
universe. Somewhere in the compilation of our final deck, we somehow suppressed the latter.
The project transformed from an optimistic endeavor to an extremely optimistic one. Reaching the people of Earth was potentially
possible; in theory, the Lighthouse was to project itself into near space, creating an achievement to inspire humans to see each other as
Terrains instead of individual races separated by boundaries. Similar to other feats of mankind, the wonders, or even the first human
to the moon, united everyone; the Americans did not make it to the moon, mankind did. The Lighthouse Project abandoned this as its
main purpose, and, instead, opted for a ‘cool,’ ‘high-tech’, ‘communication with the unknown’ feel.
On the day of the critique, an important point has been brought up about the project: the Lighthouse is a representation of the extreme
optimism. There is, first, a very slight chance that there will even be intellectual life somewhere in the cosmos within a range close
enough for communication let alone will it be able to have the technology or senses to receive our “message”. Second, if by chance
there is some type of communication, the result can either be negative or positive. Like colonists arriving on a foreign piece of land,
there has always been some kind of drive of domination, or a need to colonize the land, and to take over its resources and reproduce.
The percentages of having aliens we can trade, communicate, and become allies with and having destructive invaders is 50-50.
Some countries would be encouraging the project because they would want to dive into the unknown for potential resources and to
prove the weight of mankind while some countries would withdrawal and protest on behalf of their cultural beliefs, religious standpoints
and for the very same fear created in a large percentage of Hollywood science fictions films. Daadler had brought up an interesting
point; some of the World War topics have revolved around power over another country, money, genocide, and the creation of
destructive and threatening technology. This would be the first advancement in technology that does not harm or influence the human
race or any specific country. This power-indulgent project to justify mankind’s advancement, to prove himself worthy of the universe,
out of fear, would divide our countries and encourage a war of differences. YouTube videos, online articles, newspapers, preachers
would encourage its followers to support or fight against the cause. Some groups would see this as a call for help from the extraterrestrials
while some would see it as doom. I believe that there will be so much controversy if this were created. Instead of bringing people
together with a common achievement as with the first purpose, it will tear it apart.
PAST RECOLLECTIONS
As a form of media art, we have debated the potential clients of¬¬¬¬¬ the Lighthouse Project. The main one, Dubai. If we had chosen
Dubai, instead of trans-national companies, we would have transformed our ‘baby’ to something we had opted it not to be. It would
truly be an power-indulgent project. “Why not? We have loads of money.” Though we have collectively agreed to not tread this route,
it was brought up that this would have made a possibly true standpoint about society. Although there are many causes around the
world that probably need a lot more money for necessities like food and water, making such a lavish project would probably be completed
before even a percentage of the starving people in third world countries have enough food to survive. By executing the Dubai
answer, we would have created a truth about society and emphasized the sad priorities of the rich. I must admit, I was a little disappointed
we have not gone through this route, I would have found it fun to bash rich people, but oh well. I am happy with the outcome
of our project.
THE LIGHTHOUSE PROJECT : RETROSPECTION
THE PROJECT / RESEARCH
The Lighthouse Theory is a temporary name for this Voyager update project. In a nutshell we want to mark our territory. This post is
sort of the social connotations and implications of this effort. Before I get into the specifics of the social contextualization, I want to
first iterate why this idea of marking our territory is so compelling for us.
Curiosity & Humility
In thinking about why we want to communicate with an alien life form we realized that there is no way to really come up with anything
practical. The alien could be in the spectrum of our imagination, but most likely is something outside of that limited bandwidth
of the imaginary alien. This forces us to look within at our own Earth and Solar System.
Aside from us not being able to imagine or comprehend what we could be communicating with. There are some humane implications
that our group felt were worth considering. The first being that any sort of artifact blasted into space, particularly with contents
from our earth (a la KEO and Voyager), could render whatever life form overwhelmed.
A literary example would be Ice-Nine in Kurt Vonneguts’s Cat’s Cradle.
A commonplace example would be the episode of the Simpsons where the Simpsons go to Australia. The last scene in the episode
finds a Koala Bear on the plane that carries the Simpsons back to the United States. Subsequently the United States becomes overcome
with Koala’s.
The inclusion of these examples is to bring up the notion of colonialism. This overwhelming of an element or some other artifact
from Earth could damage and possibly hurt the recipient of our message. This is something we do not want as we desire a friendly or
at the very least platonic relationship with these aliens. The result is to look within and make our own planet the message.
So, we’re not looking to pillage like Western Europe has for the few hundred years. Well not yet at least. However, this message
isn’t intended to be so egotistical that we get stuck and stare at the pond like Narcissus. The contents of the message is still up in the
air, and for the message itself is not as important as making some kind of connection. That is why the driving force behind our idea is
curiosity. This is not like the 60’s where we were in hot pursuit of the moon to be better than Russia, this is an age of Web 2.0. This
collective knowledge is a powerful symbol of humanity and the curiosity that drives this is what our group wants to harness for this
project.
Contextualization
So what exactly is it that we’re doing? Well we’re marking our territory. More specifically, we want to create a lighthouse for the
rest of the universe. A beacon stemming from our planet or solar system. We see this in many forms from a dog peeing on a fire hydrant,
to pheromones, to the yellow stickers German Jews were forced to wear in Nazi Germany.
The Lighthouse of Alexandria
This lighthouse describes our marking system the best. Not for its physical qualities, but for the social qualities it happened to
exude. The Wikipedia article goes into further depth, but here are the main reasons for choosing this marking system.
It was a navigational beacon.
It was a resource silo.
It notified other nations, specifically the Chinese in the 13th century AD, that these lands have been accounted for.
Finally, it was a monument of spectacle.
This is just our first iteration, so the marking system will undoubtedly change. We are currently talking about the feasibility of cosmic
background radiation as the practical means of communication. But, figuratively this is the intent of the group.
Cosmic Background Radiation: The Medium
Cosmic Background Radiation is essentially a left over from the cooling of the universe. It originated 400,000 years after the big
bang. This was the time of last scattering, which is when the universe had cooled enough that there wasn’t enough energy to keep electrons
and protons apart. So the universe went from being a plasma to consisting of helium and hydrogen and the areas the were more
dense with these kept attracting more and more matter around them and formed the galaxies.
Our instrument of detecting CBR:
The CMB photons scatter off free charges such as electrons that are not bound in atoms. In an ionized universe, such electrons have
been liberated from neutral atoms by ionizing (ultraviolet) radiation. Today these free charges are at sufficiently low density in most
of the volume of the Universe that they do not measurably affect the CMB. However, if the IGM was ionized at very early times when
the universe was still denser, then there are two main effects on the CMB:
1. Small scale anisotropies are erased (just as when looking at an object through fog, details of the object appear fuzzy).
2. The physics of how photons scatter off free electrons (Thomson scattering) induces polarization anisotropies on large angular
scales. This large angle polarization is correlated with the large angle temperature perturbation.
So if we can ionize (removing charged particles such as electrons) parts of the CBR around us it will change the ripples (small scale
anisotropies) in the areas around our galaxies
There have already been machines built that have been able to do massive scale ionization on earth. This was done in the hopes of
being able to control the weather and is called atmospheric ionization.
RETROSPECTION
During the development of this project, we had discussed different meanings of the Lighthouse Project. Two purposes had emerged:
to create a beacon to potentially attract any potential intelligent life forms and to unite the people of earth and make them a part of the
universe. Somewhere in the compilation of our final deck, we somehow suppressed the latter.
The project transformed from an optimistic endeavor to an extremely optimistic one. Reaching the people of Earth was potentially
possible; in theory, the Lighthouse was to project itself into near space, creating an achievement to inspire humans to see each other as
Terrains instead of individual races separated by boundaries. Similar to other feats of mankind, the wonders, or even the first human
to the moon, united everyone; the Americans did not make it to the moon, mankind did. The Lighthouse Project abandoned this as its
main purpose, and, instead, opted for a ‘cool,’ ‘high-tech’, ‘communication with the unknown’ feel.
On the day of the critique, an important point has been brought up about the project: the Lighthouse is a representation of the extreme
optimism. There is, first, a very slight chance that there will even be intellectual life somewhere in the cosmos within a range close
enough for communication let alone will it be able to have the technology or senses to receive our “message”. Second, if by chance
there is some type of communication, the result can either be negative or positive. Like colonists arriving on a foreign piece of land,
there has always been some kind of drive of domination, or a need to colonize the land, and to take over its resources and reproduce.
The percentages of having aliens we can trade, communicate, and become allies with and having destructive invaders is 50-50.
Some countries would be encouraging the project because they would want to dive into the unknown for potential resources and to
prove the weight of mankind while some countries would withdrawal and protest on behalf of their cultural beliefs, religious standpoints
and for the very same fear created in a large percentage of Hollywood science fictions films. Daadler had brought up an interesting
point; some of the World War topics have revolved around power over another country, money, genocide, and the creation of
destructive and threatening technology. This would be the first advancement in technology that does not harm or influence the human
race or any specific country. This power-indulgent project to justify mankind’s advancement, to prove himself worthy of the universe,
out of fear, would divide our countries and encourage a war of differences. YouTube videos, online articles, newspapers, preachers
would encourage its followers to support or fight against the cause. Some groups would see this as a call for help from the extraterrestrials
while some would see it as doom. I believe that there will be so much controversy if this were created. Instead of bringing people
together with a common achievement as with the first purpose, it will tear it apart.
PAST RECOLLECTIONS
As a form of media art, we have debated the potential clients of¬¬¬¬¬ the Lighthouse Project. The main one, Dubai. If we had chosen
Dubai, instead of trans-national companies, we would have transformed our ‘baby’ to something we had opted it not to be. It would
truly be an power-indulgent project. “Why not? We have loads of money.” Though we have collectively agreed to not tread this route,
it was brought up that this would have made a possibly true standpoint about society. Although there are many causes around the
world that probably need a lot more money for necessities like food and water, making such a lavish project would probably be completed
before even a percentage of the starving people in third world countries have enough food to survive. By executing the Dubai
answer, we would have created a truth about society and emphasized the sad priorities of the rich. I must admit, I was a little disappointed
we have not gone through this route, I would have found it fun to bash rich people, but oh well. I am happy with the outcome
of our project.
