Are we alone? The Fermi Paradox...
Is it possible that we are the first once that arrived?
Are we so primitive that we are the equivalent of tribal natives waiting being invaded by intergalactic conquistador?
Or is as simple as we have nothing of value to grab anyone’s attention?
Or maybe they are just waiting until we just kill ourselves off before they colonize the planet?
My belief is planet Earth is the equivalent to the Forbidden North Sentinel island and humanity are the Sentinel tribe people. And anyone familiar with the story will know what I mean by this theory. Which makes the most sense to me.
Are we so primitive that we are the equivalent of tribal natives waiting being invaded by intergalactic conquistador?
Or is as simple as we have nothing of value to grab anyone’s attention?
Or maybe they are just waiting until we just kill ourselves off before they colonize the planet?
My belief is planet Earth is the equivalent to the Forbidden North Sentinel island and humanity are the Sentinel tribe people. And anyone familiar with the story will know what I mean by this theory. Which makes the most sense to me.
Comments (133)
https://thephilosophyforum.com/discussion/comment/380303
Quoting SteveMinjares
Sure. Highly improbable I think. (Discussed in link.)
More or less 'our expectations' given terrestrial history since ... h. sapiens wiped out the rest of the other latter-day hominids tens of millennia ago. Scarcity drives the logic of conquest; only a post-scarcity civilization, it's reasonable to assume, is resourced enough to master interstellar travel.
Well, if you can travel the stars, then you've solved your life systems problems sufficiently enough for them to be self-sustaining (recycling). And that's if you (extraterrestrial intelligence) are even sending "manned" ships into deep space; you're probably not. The Oort Cloud about a half light year from the Sun has all the frozen hydrogen, etc locked up in countless billion years-old comets for refueling starships. Many orders of magnitude more than needed or which can be found in the inner solar system. The only thing of value we (Sol 3) might have that ETI might want is our social media or reality tv shows.
Nah, same as above. If you've come this far, then the last thing you need is a massive gravity-well you can't drag around with you through interstellar space. Interstellar travel, to my mind, implies a mostly planet-free 'civilization'. It's like when on Earth the first viable land animals had crawled (or got storm-tossed) from the ocean: once air-breathing was achieved, water-breathing got left behind and new evolutionary niches were explored and colonized. I imagine deep space is the same. Mid-twentieth century nostalgias for "navies" & "westerns" in spaaaaace are cartoons for bedazzling the inner "space cadet" in us all (I'm a lifelong 60's Star Trek, 2001 & Alien fanboy too!) and have no bearing on the actual prospects for a spacefaring civilization given the inherent hazards of the hard, irradiated, vacuum and the astronomical magnitude of the durations, distances and energy resources involved.
We are not important, I think, to them (ETI) unless we're deemed a threat (which given, like piranha in a goldfish bowl, we're confined to low orbit around this Earth for the foreseeable future, we certainy are not), so to "kill ourselves off" won't matter much either way – if I were them I'd wonder what the hell took us so long after the Trinity blast or Hiroshima & Nagasaki – but our machines may some day become sophisticated (i.e. intelligent) enough to warrant an ETI's attention and interest.
I guess you would like to read the theory of “dark forest” in the context you are asking for: https://www.google.es/amp/s/techcrunch.com/2019/01/20/technologys-dark-forest/amp/
On Earth at least, more primitive civilizations have not generally done well when introduced to more advanced ones. And we're all human. In the Liu Cixin's Three-Body Problem, nearby aliens need a new world because theirs is about to become inhabitable, and they learn of Earth from a Chinese radio signal.
Quoting SteveMinjares
Considering that which has given rise to everything else has to be infinite in duration, and anything that can happen in an infinite duration probably will, life is just as likely to be a 1 in a googolplex years occurrence. We have no reason to believe other life spawns exist/will exist in this universe, unless biology can show it can spawn relatively easily.
One would be, as Neil deGrasse Tyson said, that what we're doing is equivalent to taking a bucket to the ocean, scoop up some water, look in the bucket and then state that there's no life in the universe.
The second option, also worth seriously considering, is Ernst Mayer's view. He points out that in the only planet we know of that contains life in this universe, intelligence seems to be a lethal mutation. Look around, most of the species that survive and thrive are single cell organisms.
Likely not brilliant.
So it's not clear. I lean to the view that there is life, but I'm unsure about it being intelligent.
It takes a fleeting six hundred thousand years for humanity to reach the level of development of type I. of civilization on Kardashev scale, if of course we develop at such a pace and do not bomb ourselves back into the Stone Age, for which there is no guarantee. Not mentioning the possibility of mass extinction.
Even though we will be capable to reach that level, it won't be sufficient to visit another civilizations. If, on the other hand, an extraterrestrial civilization is advanced enough to visit us, it must have an infinite amount of resources.
But what can that kind of civilization want from us? It would be like we want to communicate with earthworms. The Fermi Paradox is a childishly naive assumption.
SP
I'm not sure what a highly advanced alien civilization might do, but I agree that assuming they would behave like us is not justified.
Quoting Art Stoic Spirit
Unfortunately, it doesn't seem unlikely to me that one of the reasons we haven't met alien civilizations is that whenever one reaches a certain level of technological advancement it destroys itself.
This is a great exemplification of the _weirdness_ of anthropocentricity: we don't seem to be able to consider life elsewhere in the universe without making it about us, which isn't remotely close to the most interesting questions we could ask.
https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1E7UTCFWSRk1vuyjmYhSvtmvINVSU9tWy5LabQeHW9t8/htmlview#
To save you some time, Isaac thinks intelligent life is extremely rare and that we are the only ones at least in our group of galaxies.
Based on very circumstantial evidence (and my own unjustified intuition), I'm betting on life being common and intelligence not being extremely rare. Here's some "evidence."
So, does that prove anything. No, but it does allow me to say what I want with at least a veneer of justification. I bet we find life on Mars or one of the planetary moons. Maybe I just hope we do. If we do, that will change everything.
Yep. It's certainly easier to just absorb sunlight or oxygen and just barely move and have no worries than it is to be human being.
If humans had been the second mature intelligent species on Earth, we probably wouldn't have been allowed to go on as we have, in fact we probably wouldn't have tried our luck in the first place.
It seems to me perfectly likely that there would be intelligent dominant life out there, be it past, present, or future, that isn't as cancerous as we are, and even perfectly possible that we are anomalous among intelligent species. We'd need to meet some to find out so we can do proper stats and that seems unlikely, but we can't take ourselves to be the norm in their absence.
Sounds reasonable. Yeah, I don't see why there could not be an intelligent species that was by default much more altruistic, empathic and so on.
I don't disagree with us taking ourselves to be the norm. Just pointing out that in this planet, the more intelligent a species is, generally, the less likely they are to survive and thrive. Maybe elsewhere things are different.
That Technology has advanced to a point where advancing any further technologically will no longer have any practical benefiting to there society. And focused on civil harmony and enlightenment of the mind.
It Is possible to reach a Technological dead end and that Technology advancement may hit its limit where it can’t go any further. As an advanced civilization they may have decided to embark on another different frontier.
1. Some people say they are here.
2. The paradox is based on the assumption that if they were here we they would make themselves known. Why would they?
Maybe their presence - for reasons known to them - is secret or semi secret? Maybe they make their presence known to some people and not to all...
1. Mechanical power - human
2. Mechanical power married to electromagnetic power - human
3. Mechanical + electromagnetic + computing power - human
4. Mechanical + electromagnetic + computing power + psychic power - alien.
Definition (from Macmillan Dictionary): used for saying that someone does not notice what is happening around them, or has ideas that are not reasonable or practical
Example sentence: The party doesn’t seem to be in touch with popular opinion – it’s as if they’re from another planet.
:chin: Hmmmmmm...
I think there is a raging intergalactic pandemic and a moratorium has been put in place to keep physical distancing at 6 million light years between civilizations. Once the disease has been eliminated, that's when the flying saucers will come to eliminate us.
Unless, of course, we speed up the bullet and annihilate ourselves ourselves.
You left out fission or fusion power. Not a criticism, just a note.
You also left out the power of desire.
The power of power. (Political, social or personal. Bullying, expecting and taking privileges, exploiting workers, etc.)
The power of powerlessness. (relying on sympathy, empathy, pity, kindness.)
The power of love. ("Jimi wrote this song The Power Of Love..." on the Band of Gypsys live recording.)
The power of faith, hope, and prediction.
The power of stupidity.
The power of knowledge.
The power of moeny. (Also called Moneypower.)
"The power of poetry."
Often people say that life must be abundant in the universe and this belief is based on the idea that life arises spontaneously from matter. The argument is that there are billions of stars and planets so the chances are that life evolves in lots of places. But what if life does not arise by chance? By a statistical physical mechanism? What if life only evolves if it is brought into existence by intelligence? This alters the picture radically.
Complicating the matter greatly is the fact that the evidence suggests two things:
1. These beings are nuts-and-bolts, biological, space-faring aliens.
2. They are spirits or interdimensional beings who travel here via the 'Astral Plane' as some call it.
If the evidence suggests both of these things then maybe they are both true.
If I'm right, then we don't need an explanation for life based on outside influence. As has been noted many times before - the idea of life being created by aliens or extra-dimensional entities just moves the question of how life started to a different location.
Quoting EnPassant
I am not aware of any convincing evidence.
Yes, but it also makes us reassess how likely the existence of life in the universe is and calls into question the assertion that life 'must' be abundant in the universe.
Quoting T Clark
The abduction accounts paint an interesting picture.
I don't think life must be abundant, but that's where I'll put my money if I have to bet based on the very limited evidence I provided and just because.
There are abundant grounds to suspect this "what if" puts the cart before the horse like saying "what eyes are brought into existence by sight?" or "what if wings are brought into existence by flight?" :roll:
Quoting 180 Proof
Even materialists state that it arises because it is caused, and not due to random chance.
The difference between creationists and materialists is that creationists assume a very intelligent thing put it together, while materialist reason that chemical reactions are bound to happen in ways that create (carbon-based) life forms. Not because someone designed it that way, say the materialists, but because the chemical elements that form the basis of life have an affinity to combine in this way.
The creationists will say, "yes, but did not someone make these chemical elements to have affinity to be the way they are?" And that is the dividing line between creationists and materialists. Creationists will insist it has been planned that way by a higher power or by some intelligent creature; materialists will insist that the combination of elements is not planned, but caused.
This "not planned but caused" is a tough cookie to digest. To materialists, it is the bread and butter of their world view; to creationists it is incomprehensible.
One day one person will come up with an ultimate explanation that puts this debate to sleep, much like this debate puts me to sleep.
:up: I'd rather say: not planned but happened, which might be slightly easier to digest. Just because stochastic processes and nonlinear dynamic systems, for instance, are "incomprehensible" to someone (e.g. children, scientific illiterates, 'philosophical suicides', cretins, etc) isn't grounds for woo-of-the-gaps that only begs the question of one mystery by attempting to explain it with another mystery.
While (incomprehensible philosophical jargon) is incomprehensible, you're right, it is not grounds for woo-of-the-gaps. That is true, and nobody could argue that. But then again, nobody could argue that faith requires any grounds. It is FAITH, for crying out loud. It is a belief that needs no proof or reason, or reasoned explanation. There is not enough explanation in materialist theory that will take that away from the faithful. Faith is independent of facts and of reason, and therefore no amount of facts or reason will shake anyone's faith (unless they give in to reason).
I refuse to stay quite! Who do you think you are to tell me that. (Indignantly refuses to believe the spell-checker, as it may be a device to check for spells and curses and other effects of faith.)
I think the same objection could be raised against materialists; they argue that biological structures bring intelligence into being when the evidence suggests intelligence comes first. It depends on which end of the telescope you are looking through!
Quoting god must be atheist
It is not just creationists who believe there is intelligence in the natural world. Creationism is a particular school of thought.
Quoting god must be atheist
Chemical do what chemicals do. There seems to be no limit to what they can do and the question is; Why are they doing this particular thing (creating physical 'life')?
Faith is not some vacuous belief that is without foundation. It is based on reason and intelligence but reason and intelligence that transcends the narrow bounds of academia. It is reason and intelligence that arise out of consciousness.
Art, music and literature cannot be reduced to what we normally call 'reason' but they are reasonable. They involve reason, order and intelligence on a more subtle level.
The theory of evolution is founded on chance. I know Dawkins would not agree but it is because it depends utterly on mutations coming up with useful combinations. These combinations are then - the theory goes - selected by Natural Selection. But the mutations are said to be random. If useful mutations don't randomly arise Natural Selection has nothing to select. The bottom line is that organisms are ultimately constructed by a random process because if randomness does not come up with the goodies nothing is going nowhere.
"Evidence" such as –?
@180 Proof
I'm signing up for more information.
What if EnPassant is correct and we have it backwards?
One piece of evidence is the mathematical nature of the universe. Math is an abstraction, something only a mind (intelligence) is capable of. If there's math in nature and there is, the universe, from the smallest to the largest, itself must be/could be the handiwork of a mind (intelligence).
What sayest thou?
Evidence is everything; everything from a dust mote to a galaxy. Russell argued that there is not enough evidence for God's existence but there is a whole universe of evidence. The real question is how do we interpret the evidence?. Some people interpret the evidence in a way that supports the existence of intelligence in the universe at large and does not limit intelligence to biological entities.
So explain where my thinking goes wrong.
Nonsense. If everything counts as evidence, then nothing counts as evidence.
I was wondering about the existence of abstraction in our universe in the form of math. Abstraction, last I checked, is a distinctly mind attribute. I simply followed that lead to where it took me - a mind/an intelligence behind it all.
This is the "realist" lie about faith. Not that I think there is a need for "intelligent design" for life to begin and proliferate. This is probably off subject, so I won't take this any further here.
Well, just as some are happy to say the universe is just one giant accident, this mind too could've been one.
This is a good point. Do you know your god's attributes because of the evidence? No, you don't. The evidence does not let you trace back to the creator. There is nothing linking to the fact that the creator is good, bad, green, red, tall, short, omnipotent or partially potent, is everywhere or just in one place.
There is nothing in creation that points at any one quality of god. Maybe intelligence; maybe the ability to create. But there are alternative explanations about the universe that are supported by evidence and do not need the god image.
What I am driving at is that if you take the universe or parts of it as evidence that there is a creator, you still don't know anything about the creator OTHER THAN WHAT YOU FANTASIZE ABOUT HIM. You say it is necessary that he be the ultimate smart and intelligent person. But that is not NECESSARILY true. It could be true, or not, and looking at the universe you don't know, you can NOT know if your fantasy is true or not.
There is a thought that comes out of this: if you don't know ANY attributes of your god, then you don't know there is a god; you can have a faith. And since you don't know any of his attributes, you can't have faith on knowledge.
Hence, you can't have faith on facts. Or on theories.
Therefore faith does not depend on facts or on evidence, or on reason; it is completely removed from all that.
Therefore my initial opionion stands.
Quoting T Clark You're right. There is no counter argument, so you elegantly avoid the discussion of it.
Who told you this bobimeiser? The universe has no mathematical nature. Man's interpretation and description of the universe uses mathematics. The universe only uses mathematics (as far as we know) in the minds of humans. The universe, and nature, IS. It is not calculating itself via math formulas.
Of course there's a counter argument. I'm not a theist and I can see it. The fact that you are so smug in dismissing the possibility just shows you are captive to the Dawkinsist ideology. I decided not to go further with the discussion because it is not consistent with the original post.
The description that's a good match for reality is mathematical. Put differently, natural phenomena follow mathematical laws.
If the universe contains beauty we can say that God knows and values beauty. You could counter this by saying the universe also contains ugliness. But ugliness/evil is a corruption of good. Evil is not some alien entity utterly other than God. It is a corruption of goodness/life. Evil cannot exist without good as a parasite cannot exist without its host. It is the positive that matters and it is the positive that God created.
Quoting TheMadFool
It seems to me that mathematics are the foundation and physical reality is mathematics made visible. Hawking asked 'What breathes fire into the equations?' If mind is the fundamental reality and if matter is contingent/created then it would seem that matter is a physical illustration or image of mind/mathematics. The material universe is thought made visible.
Sorry, EP, but we can't say that. Instead, we can say this:
If the universe contains beauty we can say that a God as we imagine him, knows and values beauty. But some of us deny that God is a real thing, so beauty may be a thing that human beings know and value, without any intervention of a supernatural bully.
You are your own lord, you do what you wish.
If you are not a theist then I'm a discarded cigarette still burning.
Quoting T Clark
There is no reason to go off topic. You said the realists' position on faith is a lie. I wish you would either retract it, or else support it with some reasonable explanation.
You are absolutely right in not going off in a tangent that has nothing to do with your claim. Stay with the topic, if I may ask you, and explain why you think the realists' position is a lie. The tangent you were going to go off on is the need or lack of need for intelligent design for life to start and propagate. Fine, don't go off on that tangent. Stay with the topic, and explain why you think the realists' position is a lie.
Since you used a false reason to retreat (to stay on topic, while introducing a topic nobody was touching, yet you made it as if that was the topic someone discussed, and was off-topic from the original post), you are no doubt in my mind are avoiding the topic because there is no legitimate argument you have against it.
But you don't have to stay just because I asked you. Go. Just go. If that's what you want. Except if you stay, then stay with the actual topic, and explain why you said the realists lie about faith.
No, sir, the natural phenomena and their laws are described by humans using mathematics. The natural phenomena do NOT follow mathematical laws.
Mathematics does not even have laws. It has some basic rules of computation and relationships, and everything else in mathematics is a corollary to that. Laws don't exist in math. The basic rules of math are called axioms. They can't be proven, they must be accepted as they are stated, and then a system of more complicated relationships is built on that as a superstructure. Nature has nothing to do with that.
You and TheMadFool have everything backwards. And you believe that that is how it is. That's how strong your faith is.
That sounds about right. No contest!
Quoting god must be atheist
Are you kidding me? The whole of western civilization chronicles the discovery of the mathematical laws of nature and their practical application..
Quoting god must be atheist
Rules = Laws
The material universe = the "physicalization" of mathematics, as Marcus du Sautoy puts it in his book, What we cannot know.
I guess I hurt your feelings with my last post.
Can you describe any aspect of reality which is demonstrably non mathematical or goes against mathematical reason?
Matter is not a substance it is a mathematical concept. It is a pattern in an energy field. These patterns can be described mathematically. Matter is a concept in God's mind.
What?
That depends on how you define evidence. I'm defining evidence as what exists be it a dust mote or a galaxy or anything in between. 'Evidence for' is not something that is objectively 'out there'. There is no "evidence for" anything out there in reality because "evidence for" is in the understanding, in the mind.
Evidence is mute. It only becomes evidence for something in our understanding. This is an important distinction.
Matter is two things. The substance of matter is energy. The form of matter is geometry. When energy cools it condenses into material patterns - like water forming ice crystals. These patterns are physical objects like a hydrogen atom, a rock, a planet...
These patterns can dissolve away as matter returns to its energy state. Material objects are transient patterns not substances.
Yes, I understand what matter is, but why do you mix it with religion saying is in God’s mind?
If God created the material universe then it follows logically that matter is a concept in God's mind. Matter is not an eternal substance, it is a mathematical idea. And if God exists that is where the idea originated, right?
The premise is wrong since the moment that you cannot prove God’s existence at all. Believing or not in something so personal as religion is free to someone’s thoughts. But I guess we should not mix it with science to be honest...
God never “created” the material universe neither the matter, universe and earth we live in. Science is the main academic source which develop and research the principles about physics writing tons of proofs and investigations.
God and religion are just beliefs...
The main point I'm making is that matter is a mathematical reality and this is evidence for God's existence since a mathematical concept needs a mind to originate in.
But why maths and matter need to be related to God? How do you know God has a “mind”?
If God created the universe He must be very smart indeed and have something that our word 'mind' approximates.
Prove me he created the universe. I am waiting here.
Bingo! Matter is anything that has mass and has volume; both mass and volume are mathematically defined.
Yes, even mass is understood to be a process, not a substance. See Higg's Field.
A little something to ponder upon:
1. We don't know the answer to "are we alone?"
but,
2. If there are aliens, we know the answer to their question, "are we alone?" No, definitely not!
I propose a new question be formulated: are they (aliens) alone? No!
Fitch's paradox of knowability:
1. Assumption: Everything is knowable
2. Conclusion: Everything is known
Suppose Fitch's argument is sound.
3. Everything is known (collective omniscience).
4. Not everything is known to humans.
Ergo,
5. Aliens exist.
We are not alone.
QED
I think it is more probable than not that we are the first, or one of the first, intelligent species in the galaxy. I think this because most Earth like planets are, so I have heard, younger than Earth (they formed after Earth). If that is the case, and it is the case that carbon lifeforms are the only kind, then it stands to reason that we are probably one of the first intelligent lifeforms in the galaxy.
Assuming that alien life started around the time or shortly after life on Earth started, and assuming a similar timeline of evolution, there may well be aliens like us right now in the galaxy. So why haven't we heard from them yet? I think we have not heard from aliens yet simply because the galaxy is big and any radio transmissions (which intelligent life elsewhere would presumably have developed) would take a long time to reach us. In fact, supposing the Milky Way to be about 100,000 lightyears in diameter, and if we estimate that most earthlike habitable planets are between 20,000 and 50,000 light years away (I am making some estimates but I don't think they are wildly incorrect), that means we will likely have to wait another 20,000 or so years before we contact aliens, or they contact us, or both.
Of course, if aliens are not just carbon-based, that should make alien life more abundant and increase the likelihood that we hear from aliens in a less massive time frame.
Final thought: each day that we do not detect aliens strengthens the case that aliens are carbon-based lifeforms only, like us.
I regret asking him to prove that God created the universe if God actually did. It was plainly a strawman fallacy.
Perhaps I need to focus on why a mathematical concept is evidence of God's existence, but at the same time, it needs a mind to originate in.
If a mathematical concept needs a mind to originate in, then God's existence follows the same fate.
Yep. Very nice point, Wayfarer. :up:
If there were other life forms however they’d face the same technical challenges we do when it comes to interstellar travel. And if they had mastered ftl travel our lifeforms to them would appear primitive just like bacteria appear to us
As ludicrously vast as the distances are between stars, the galaxy has been around for deep time; sufficient for an advanced ETI to have done several things that we can think of that would be detectable (and who knows how many more things that we are unaware of yet). Theres no reason we know of yet why the night sky couldn't have been lit up with the evidence of hundreds of thousands of species.
I wish it weren't so, but the deafening silence is reason to be pessimistic about the numbers.
Quoting kindred
I do not think it is infinitely unique; maybe it is unlikely. However, given that life arose on Earth fairly soon, in geological timescales after the planet formed, it seems like it would not be that unlikely an occurrence. But I agree with you that the odds of abiogenesis are important to the question of whether there are aliens.
Quoting Mijin
If life were not only carbon based, I do think we would be right to expect more aliens. That said, if it is carbon based and only forms on planets similar to Earth, most of those planets are either still forming or are young compared to Earth, meaning we would not expect there to be ETI, or at least not that many ETIs; so I agree that some pessimism is warranted in that regard, but not about the possibility of ETI.
As said, the odds of abiogenesis are relevant.
The timescale on when an ETI would be expected to send out a radio signal will consider 1. the odds of abiogenesis, and as pointed out, 2. the times at which those planets formed.
We know there are trillions of galaxies, and that each galaxy probably contains trillions of planets. Who's keeping the Almanac?
Does this really depend on the act of randomness or chance that much?
(As it happens I’m writing a novel on the subject of the propagation of life. It is very sympathetic to the idea of panspermia which is the theory that the there are clouds of proto-organic material in the Cosmos which form the basis of living organisms wherever the circumstances are propitious (hint: doesn’t include Mars.) But in this novel, this process doesn’t involve physical space travel, which is laughed off as a techno-barbarian fantasy.)
Now that you bring this up, I think the chance theory (or whatever it is called) forces us to make a choice/decision between extremes.
Quoting Wayfarer
Wow! This is very intriguing!
I don't think anything warrants that level of certainty. I have not seen any analysis that we can say that the earth is exceptional in how early it formed.
The only requirements I am aware of are a third-generation star and icy comet impacts. Even assuming these are mandatory requirements (which is debatable), it still leaves a window billions of years wide, including billions of years before the Earth formed.
Quoting NotAristotle
I wouldn't get too focused on radio signals. Yes, SETI and other organizations look for radio signals because what else can we do? But in the context of the Fermi paradox I think it is wrong to see it as requiring ETIs to be broadcasting a radio signal at just the right time for us to look.
For the Fermi paradox, we're talking about anything detectable, so that would include things like replicating probes spreading to our star system, and megastructures like Dyson spheres, both of which could persist in some form long after a species has gone.
And, importantly, it includes technology that we can't understand. What I mean by that is, we don't have to suggest that advanced species will make Dyson spheres. Maybe the most important technology for a million years+ advanced species is a giant helix, that radiates X-rays intensely, for reasons we couldn't possibly understand yet.
Well, we don't see that either. We don't see anyone absorbing, emitting or refracting EM radiation on a large scale anywhere.
Of course, it doesn't prove anything. But, given that there's no reason that we yet know of that the sky couldn't have been lit up with the lights of a million species, it's not a positive data point.
Most Earthlike planets are estimated to have yet to be born -- https://science.nasa.gov/universe/exoplanets/most-earth-like-worlds-have-yet-to-be-born-according-to-theoretical-study/. https://assets.science.nasa.gov/content/dam/science/missions/hubble/releases/2015/10/STScI-01EVSR5F1P8JVARK199WAZPNBQ.pdf
If this estimate is correct, and if it is also correct that life is carbon-based only, and if life only arises on some Earthlike planets but not all, then the fact that most Earthlike planets have not formed yet suggests that, as you said initially, we are one of the very first intelligent species. But I see no reason to reject the hypothesis that abiogenesis can happen on other planets. You are right that the timeline of discovery might be more like billions of years; that is a matter of when the other Earthlike planets form. (So my initial lower bound estimate of at least a 20,000 years waiting period for alien contact might have been an underestimate).
I see your point about detecting (or not detecting) other alien technologies. Given that the chances of ETI are low in my opinion, I think it unlikely that Dyson spheres or anything like that will be detected; at least, not in our lifetime.
I agree.
Now that we got to this point, I think it is worth asking ourselves: would they (the civilisations of an Earth-like planet) show themselves to us if they were capable of doing it?
Furthermore, what if it is actually better for us and for them that our paths haven't crossed yet?
Walk me through better to not have crossed paths; why would that be so?
This is ture. Indeed, there is a positive aspect to that assertion.
Quoting NotAristotle
Understandable. Perhaps the rest of the civilisations on the Earth-like planets are thinking the same thing right now. We always tend to select the cautious choice.
The cite doesn't really support the conclusion you're drawing though.
Yes, in a relative sense we might be "early" but even that tentative estimate still suggests around a billion rocky worlds before ours. And that's just in our galaxy.
Quoting NotAristotle
I also think we are not the very first intelligent species. As pointed out, the estimate suggests around a billion rocky worlds before ours, so it is difficult to believe that we are actually the only intelligent species in the universe. However, given that we accept this point, perhaps we should start to wonder why they would want to communicate with us, or perhaps they have already been here but we never noticed it. It appears that we are in the middle of this paradox—whether they would rather not communicate or they already did.
NOTE: When I say "they," I am referring to the possible intelligent lives of Earth-like planets.
Fair. My own view is that if there’s intelligent life out there, distance may not matter given technologies that would look like magic to us. We can imagine that the laws of physics we currently cherish might have 'workarounds' we simply don’t yet understand. And how would we determine that they aren’t visiting, or even aren’t here now? The usual assumption is that we’d be able to detect them and that they would announce themselves, but I don’t see why that follows.
Quoting javi2541997
Exactly, see above.
That said, I have no good reason at present to believe they’re here, or even that they exist.
This is what I like the most about this topic – it is open to many interpretations, and I consider them all valid. Furthermore, I am learning a lot precisely from having different perspectives. :smile:
Yes, this. I'm in a fermi paradox debate on another site (the straight dope) and there I am running into the problem that people don't appreciate how big a deal it is for an intelligent species to persist over deep time. When I talk about an advanced ETI making self-replicating probes, the responses are as though I am a hyper-optimist, talking about what humans will achieve in the next ~50 years. I'm not.
A technological species living for a million years or more is hundreds to thousands of times the duration of all of human history. Our stupendously hard engineering problems will be their prehistoric utterly trivial ones. More simple to them than a sharpened stone is to us.
When we're speculating what they could achieve, engineering challenges (like, say, shielding from micrometeorites) won't cut it as barriers to progress. We need to propose that certain things are physically impossible. And indeed, even many things we think are physically impossible will likely not look that way to an advanced ETI, but that's the level we need to at least start from for such problems to potentially explain the Fermi paradox.
Quoting javi2541997
1. Arguments like "they wouldn't want to" are not very convincing as primary Fermi filters.
Because, the problem with "behavioral" explanations for the paradox is that we are making a claim about all species, always. Every faction of every civilization has to always come to the same conclusion. If even 1% of species 1% of the time choose to be noisy, then it doesn't work as our main filter.
And note that humans have already attempted to be noisy: we've beamed out signals. These signals are feeble of course, but the point is, a hypothesis that requires all aliens to behave a way that the only technological species that we know of has not, doesn't seem promising.
2. The objection to aliens silently visiting the solar system is basically the same. If there are one or two advanced ETIs in our galaxy, then OK, maybe both came here, or are here, in a way that was/is silent.
It doesn't work as a primary filter though.
Quoting ssu
This is true, ssu.
Yet the topic gets intriguing when we fantasize about the possibility that another intelligent life may be able to send a better broadcast.
As ludicrously big as the universe is*, it's also billions of years old. When we put the two together, there has been ample time for thousands of species to have made noise detectable to us.
And I use terms like "noise" because in the context of the Fermi paradox we are speaking much more broadly than just radio signals:
1. Megastructures like dyson spheres
2. Self-replicating probes, that could "quickly" flood a galaxy
3. Anything else detectable, even if we have no idea what it is for**
* My favorite demonstration of this is: if the sun were the size of a golf ball, then the next golf ball, our nearest neighbor, would be 800 miles away. FTR the earth is the size of a grain of sand on this scale.
** I mentioned this upthread, but it bears repeating: things like Dyson spheres are just examples of detectable tech that would have a useful function that we can conceive of. People often make the error of thinking we are claiming to know that this is what advanced ETIs will do. We don't know. We just know that the set of useful, detectable tech is non-zero.
That is not to mention that our planet was hit by an asteroid (or meteor?) that wiped-out the dinosaurs and arguably paved the way for the emergence of intelligent life. So while life may be a more likely occurrence on a planet that is similar to Earth in key respects, intelligent life may be far more rare.
Quoting Tom Storm
You may be interested to read Sagan's article on interstellar diffusion/propogation: https://ntrs.nasa.gov/api/citations/19790011801/downloads/19790011801.pdf. There are more recent articles too that have narrowed down the estimate for galactic colonization based such factors as the rotation of star systems in the galaxy.
Quoting ssu
Agree. Any ETI that formed around the time we did and that sent out radio signals within the past century or so would take a long time to even reach us (10s of thousands of years).
Quoting Mijin
I think this claim may be contested. We really just may not know how rare planets similar to Earth are, life is, or ETI is.
Yes, I almost forgot this important feature. Our planet was hit by a rocky object but fortunately was not very destructive. Therefore, there is a big possibility that the same happened to the Earth-like planets. This makes the chances of finding intelligent life even lower. :confused:
Quite right.
The issue is that it gets repetitive typing out "based only on what we know right now" but that was the intended meaning.
The point is, when we're talking about filters like whether aliens will want to stay hidden etc, it needs to be borne in mind that, based only on what we know right now, there could be a million advanced ETIs in our galaxy alone. So there needs to be a pretty big filter(s) before things like behavioral filters are going to be relevant.
That filter could indeed be that small, rocky worlds, with liquid water and plate tectonics turn out to be astonishingly rare; we can't rule that out yet.
Pretty much all we can rule out is that planets in general, in the habitable zone of their parent star, are rare. From how many we've detected given our methods only allow detection in very specific circumstances, it's a pretty safe inference now that they are common. But beyond that, all bets are off.
Assuming every intelligent civilization lasts for 1 million years, what is the likelihood that there would be any time overlap in the civilizations? Even if there were 40 civilizations all at the same time, with the distances between them, it seems unlikely there would be any possible contact.
A very well-written reply.
It is true that distance is one of the main obstacles, and it makes the possible contact very hard or even almost impossible. However, I see plausible that there are civilizations living together at the same time. I think that the lack of sending and receiving broadcasts successfully doesn't mean they are not there. Perhaps Fermi should have formulated the paradox in another way, because he stated that these Earth-like citizens could have had a sophisticated way of communication, but they wouldn't want to communicate with us, paradoxically.
Interesting. What I learnt from your responses in this thread is that most of you are pessimistic on the probability of a possible contact.
Wait, what happens after 1 million years? :sweat:
Quoting javi2541997
I do not think anyone is saying that. And pessimistic is definitely the wrong word.
It’s just an assumption for the purposes of discussion. Strikes me as wildly optimistic. I doubt we’ll be around that long. Make it 10 million years and it doesn’t really change the situation much.
Okay. Yeah, I was curious why an advanced alien race would decide to call it quits at the 1 million year mark. I do not think it is "wildly optimistic" however. Why do you think we won't make it that long?
https://thephilosophyforum.com/discussion/comment/380306 :nerd:
Chatgpt flubbed then. A billion =10^9. And the number of stars in the observable universe is 10^23 to 10^24. So, that would mean 10,000 to 100,000 civilizations.
This would still mean a largely barren universe of course... Given the ludicrous distances this is very far from a "federation of planets" type scenario. But it's probably enough to be a problem for the fermi paradox. There are megastructures that would be detectable at intergalactic scales.
" the more rigorously we've observed the non-terrestrial universe the less we find non-terrestrial exotica "out there" as the same physics & chemistry which apply here more & more apply everywhere that we can observe"
"I can't imagine that other celestial objects made up of sufficiently chaotic physical & chemical systems-processes don't give rise to their own particular biological histories (i.e. evolutionary paths), of which some are, at least, as robust as Earth's."
"It seems to me that everything we're learning about the universe reasonably points in the direction of the non-uniqueness (though perhaps not "ubiquity") of biological phenomena however sparsely distributed throughout the universe."
Do you think the biological process necessarily leads to sapience in all cases; if so, what are your reasons?
I don’t know what you’re complaining about, I was only off by six orders of magnitude. That being said, if there were 100 million star systems with intelligent life evenly distributed throughout the observable universe, the average distance between them would be roughly 125 million light-years.
Keeping in mind that that might be six orders of magnitude off also.
Yeah, it was Chatgpt, the machine that is built to say smart things, that's probably who messed up in this situation.
Quoting T Clark
I'm not complaining.
There is no doubt in my mind that it’s not ChatGPT’s fault. I’m sure I set the problem up wrong. That’s why they wouldn’t let me design bridges.
No.
"No thanks."
optimistic NotAristotle "Sure! I'm sure it'll be fine."
No. "Sapience" seems quite rare (i.e. an evolutionary fluke), probably much more so than it is on Earth, if only because it is a feature of life that is least required for survival and species propagation. Clearly, the universe is only "fine-tuned" for nonsapient life.
Also this:
https://thephilosophyforum.com/discussion/comment/577846
If p is prime a^(p - 1) = cp + 1 is a non physical truth about math.
Quoting EnPassant
Afaik ...
Quoting 180 Proof
The argument is strong. For example, fine tuning suggests the physical universe proceeds from mind.