The Fermi Paradox

[QED]

In this debate I would like to see some resolutions offered to The Fermi Paradox:

[T]he apparent contradiction between high estimates of the probability of the existence of extraterrestrial civilizations and the lack of evidence for, or contact with, such civilizations.

The extreme age of the universe and its vast number of stars suggest that if the Earth is typical, extraterrestrial life should be common. Discussing this proposition with colleagues over lunch in 1950, the physicist Enrico Fermi asked: "Where are they?"

Note that when it comes to the colonization of our galaxy it would take only one ETC (extraterrestrial civilization) to pull it off. So offering an explanation such as "they blow themselves up before they embark on a program of colonization" wouldn't be particularly convincing as it would have to be something that got in the way of all ETC's ambitions.

Colonization seems to be a reasonable expectation as life appears to spread wherever resources permit. Various estimates range from around one to ten million years for a wave of colonization to sweep throughout the galaxy -- based on propulsion systems consistent with known physics. Although long in terms of a civilization, this kind of time-scale is nothing in terms of the age of the universe and is within the span of many of our own terrestrial species.

So, given the conservative estimate that conditions in the universe were amenable to life some 3 billion years before us (Livio 1999) we might expect ETC's to have expanded into every conceivable niche, or at least have left evidence of such an expansion behind by now.

Question for debate: Where are they?

[Furrowed Brow]

War of the worlds was one yesterday QED.

No one would have believed…this world was being watched keenly and closely by intelligences greater than man’s and yet as mortal as his own; that as men busied themselves about their various concerns they were scrutinised and studied, perhaps almost as narrowly as am an with a microscope might scrutinise the transient creatures that swam and multiply in a drop of water.

Perhaps they’re on their way. Da..da..da…dum.

Okay Seti goes its “ear” to the sky. If the universe was teeming with technological cultures you’d have thought they have heard something.

It might be that the way the universe is set up technological cultures are rare, or rather the chances of two or more such cultures existing at times and places that allow one culture to listen in to the broadcasts of another is a rarity.

Interstellar space travel might turn out to be way more difficult than Star Trek lets on. If there is a greater chance of being killed on the way to the next star than actually getting there (no matter how good your technology), then maybe the odds are just stacked against the spread of intelligent life. If interstellar travel is really difficult then that would explain not only why life has not spread, but also why civilisations die out. Stuck in their local vicinity the chances of getting wiped out by supernova or meteor increase. I think if interstellar travel is not on the cards then we should realistically expect technological civilisations to have a shelf life. The more I think about it I think interstellar space travel being intrinsically highly dangerous regardless of technological levels, seems a plausible answer.

I think nearly all of us buy into some sort of Star Trek future. One where - so long as we survive long enough- technology continues to advance at current rates. Moors law being a good example. However maybe a theory of everything is possible, but when it comes it heralds a plateauing of technological advance. Space travel at speeds faster than C/10 never arrives. Leaving the confines of your solar system means near certain death. Artificial Intelligence never gets more intelligent than a pet dog. As much as we think we can see clearly through it, maybe technology has a glass ceiling. Possibly we 've very nearly reached already. We might go on for another twenty millions or so but we don't get much more adavanced than we are today. In ten million years the internet will be faster, and less buggy, but it would be something we would recognise. At some point a civilsations luck runs out and along comes a global killing event. In fact maybe the odds have even getting to the level of an industrial revolution, let alone an IT revolution, are slim. The universe might still be teeming with life, just it never sticks around long another to get cable TV.

However, perhaps the universe is teeming with ultra advanced life with a moral code and a non intervention policy. If they are that advanced then it seems possible they might wish to deliberately stay below our “radar”. Or maybe we need another couple of decades before we’re ready to eat .

[QED]

It might be that the way the universe is set up technological cultures are rare, or rather the chances of two or more such cultures existing at times and places that allow one culture to listen in to the broadcasts of another is a rarity.

I wonder if the transit delay on intergalactic signals would guarantee an overlap between broadcasters and receivers though? I don't know if problems with EM signalling over intergalactic distances would count this out or not.

But the physical outreach is something else. Life has persisted on this planet for over three-billion years and could be considered as a potential calling-card wherever it is found -- no matter how primitive. Bacteria carried to the moon's surface apparently survived there long enough for it to be returned on later NASA missions. As an "indelible trace evidence", it couldn't be much better.

Interstellar space travel might turn out to be way more difficult than Star Trek lets on. If there is a greater chance of being killed on the way to the next star than actually getting there (no matter how good your technology), then maybe the odds are just stacked against the spread of intelligent life. If interstellar travel is really difficult then that would explain not only why life has not spread, but also why civilisations die out. Stuck in their local vicinity the chances of getting wiped out by supernova or meteor increase. I think if interstellar travel is not on the cards then we should realistically expect technological civilisations to have a shelf life. The more I think about it I think interstellar space travel being intrinsically highly dangerous regardless of technological levels, seems a plausible answer.

Difficult to gauge. Human ingenuity seems pretty unlimited, there have already been ways suggested of transporting frozen embryos in deep space as a way for humans to make lengthy journeys. OK, so this might never get off the ground for ethical reasons -- but would this stop all ETC's? Bio-engineering seems to offer the Intelligent Design of all manner of novel life-forms (just see what Craig Ventnor is up-to these days). If the universe is to be considered sterile, it's hard to see how it could remain uncontaminated for so long.

I think nearly all of us buy into some sort of Star Trek future. One where - so long as we survive long enough- technology continues to advance at current rates. Moors law being a good example. However maybe a theory of everything is possible, but when it comes it heralds a plateauing of technological advance. Space travel at speeds faster than C/10 never arrives. Leaving the confines of your solar system means near certain death. Artificial Intelligence never gets more intelligent than a pet dog. As much as we think we can see clearly through it, maybe technology has a glass ceiling. Possibly we 've very nearly reached already. We might go on for another twenty millions or so but we don't get much more adavanced than we are today. In ten million years the internet will be faster, and less buggy, but it would be something we would recognise. At some point a civilsations luck runs out and along comes a global killing event. In fact maybe the odds have even getting to the level of an industrial revolution, let alone an IT revolution, are slim. The universe might still be teeming with life, just it never sticks around long another to get cable TV.

However, perhaps the universe is teeming with ultra advanced life with a moral code and a non intervention policy. If they are that advanced then it seems possible they might wish to deliberately stay below our “radar”. Or maybe we need another couple of decades before we’re ready to eat .

Codes and policies need to be universal to account for any deliberate plot to keep us in the dark. Relativity rules out such a universal agreement even if it could be reached in principle.

[Cathar1950]

Question for debate: Where are they?

Maybe we are the first ones?
Someone has to be first, why not us.
Or would could be last and everyone else is gone and that is all the farther they got, somewhere beyond our reach or even theirs.
Maybe we need to go to other planets and live underground and build big Ecosystems and just keep going back and forth as we spread. If there is a way we could warp space and time, we might figure it out. If there is a need we might figure something out. We just need to find some useful resource somewhere else.
We would really need to work together here to go anywhere.
It would be interesting to see where were were in a few million years provided we have some decedents left.

[McCulloch]

Don't you know? Haven't you heard? They are out there. The Urantia book says so.

[Cathar1950]

Don't you know? Haven't you heard? They are out there. The Urantia book says so.

Maybe that is just one side of the story. Maybe they are the bad guys.
Maybe the bad guys own us and the good ones think we are ants that are pests.
Maybe they are all dumb as rocks.
Maybe rocks are the better form.

[QED]

Maybe we are the first ones?
Someone has to be first, why not us.

I think the margin for errors on Livio's calculations could allow for this. Although life on Earth showed an almost indecent haste to get started, it's still taken 3.5 Billion years to organize itself into something capable of voluntarily leaving the planet. That's a fair chunk of the total age of the universe, let alone the window of peak star formation.

Or would could be last and everyone else is gone and that is all the farther they got, somewhere beyond our reach or even theirs.

Wouldn't you expect some evidence to be left over after such a "big party"

Some have suggested that life on this planet got started as contaminating left-overs from some previous wave of outreach. But when life began on Earth the planet wasn't very hospitable and lacked an oxygenated atmosphere. If life needs to be vigorous in order to develop interstellar technologies it's hard to see how it would manage without oxygen in its chemistry set.

.........

I often wonder about the relative difficulty of interstellar exploration compared with developing virtual reality technologies. It could be that it's always much easier to explore a virtual reality than a real one. The VR could itself be a statistically accurate model of the real universe; a simulation run from known physical laws and real astronomical data. This would bring the stars and galaxies to you along with some interesting zoological consequences (or whatever it is that might tickle an ETC's fancy).

The motive for any physical outreach is something we can only understand in relation to our own evolutionary underpinnings. The benefits of seeking new habitats and resources are hard-wired into us in the combined form of curiosity and wander-lust. This seems rather inevitable in an environment always extending just over the horizon, while being pushed from behind by population expansion. Curiosity might then be satiated by any novelty derived from VR while resource demands may be met through a more conservative approach. Perhaps life always ends up as "brains in vats" because of this

[Cathar1950]

Maybe we are the first ones?
Someone has to be first, why not us.

I think the margin for errors on Livio's calculations could allow for this. Although life on Earth showed an almost indecent haste to get started, it's still taken 3.5 Billion years to organize itself into something capable of voluntarily leaving the planet. That's a fair chunk of the total age of the universe, let alone the window of peak star formation.

Or would could be last and everyone else is gone and that is all the farther they got, somewhere beyond our reach or even theirs.

Wouldn't you expect some evidence to be left over after such a "big party"

Some have suggested that life on this planet got started as contaminating left-overs from some previous wave of outreach. But when life began on Earth the planet wasn't very hospitable and lacked an oxygenated atmosphere. If life needs to be vigorous in order to develop interstellar technologies it's hard to see how it would manage without oxygen in its chemistry set.

.........

I often wonder about the relative difficulty of interstellar exploration compared with developing virtual reality technologies. It could be that it's always much easier to explore a virtual reality than a real one. The VR could itself be a statistically accurate model of the real universe; a simulation run from known physical laws and real astronomical data. This would bring the stars and galaxies to you along with some interesting zoological consequences (or whatever it is that might tickle an ETC's fancy).

The motive for any physical outreach is something we can only understand in relation to our own evolutionary underpinnings. The benefits of seeking new habitats and resources are hard-wired into us in the combined form of curiosity and wander-lust. This seems rather inevitable in an environment always extending just over the horizon, while being pushed from behind by population expansion. Curiosity might then be satiated by any novelty derived from VR while resource demands may be met through a more conservative approach. Perhaps life always ends up as "brains in vats" because of this

I am often amazed at how long it took to get rid of the iron in the water so the O levels could rise in the air.
I want to get that Spores game, if it ever comes out.
Happy New Year everyone. I feel asleep at about 9 and woke up at 2 am.
Seems I slept right through it all.

[byofrcs]

........ The universe might still be teeming with life, just it never sticks around long another to get cable TV.

......

...on the other hand that could be the problem. So far the only chance of detecting an ET is with SETI. It basically detects radio signals.

If everyone is using cable then there is very little EM radiation to leak out into space !.

Given the formation of hydrogen, nitrogen, carbon and oxygen in the universe is universal (due to nucleosynthesis that isn't really that special) and we know for a fact that there are some organic chemicals in interstellar space (e.g. acetamide) it is highly likely that there are organic chemicals on the surface of other planets.

The real question is does oxygen on the other planets get released for the planet to evolve to eukaryotes and then will some of those use technology ? We did but as we see with Mars, bootstrapping out of the releasing-oxygen-from-stuff stage is tricky.

But then the universe has billions of stars to work with though I don't expect Star-Trek or Star-Wars style critters within our reach in the near future. Once humans are completely instrumentality then that's a different matter as we could travel the Universe as pure synthetic life. It may take 1 Million years of travel but without a body that's nothing.

[Confused]

We are running this on the basis of life as we know it to exist, yes? Is there a reason some more evolved species exists that perhaps we cannot sense? Kind of like when that hair on the back of you neck stands tall for no apparent reason? (Yes, I am thinking "Sixth Sense" here). But we don't really have to go that sci-fi do we? Life could exist elsewhere, but it may not be life we are able to detect yet. Life may also exist elsewhere that isn't advanced enough to make itself known yet.

Consider life on a spectrum:

Newly evolved>>>>>>>>>>life on earth>>>>>>>>>>>advanced life forms

Now, the newly evolved wouldn't have the ability to make itself known, it is still in the primordial soup (per se). Life on earth, we are too advanced to revert back to such a minute basis that we could see life before we even understand what life is (the definitive origin of life rather than hypotheses). Then we have advanced life forms. Tell me, if they are advanced, why would they humble themselves to visit us? Why would they share their technology with a planet riddled with fairy tales and war?

If I was a betting person, I would say that if other life exists and is advanced enough to make itself known to us, then it would stay as far away as possible. I find movies like "War of Worlds" and "Independence Day" funny, because if life forms are so advanced in technology and have evolved to such extremes that they don't even require verbal words, then why would they not have figured out how to sustain themselves without having to move world to world to exist.