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The Fermi Paradox Is Not Fermi's, and It Is Not a Paradox
- cfcef 11y agoFermi: > ...technological civilization doesn’t last long enough for it to happen.” Writer: > Both York and Teller seemed to think Fermi was questioning the feasibility of interstellar travel—nobody thought he was questioning the possible existence of extraterrestrial civilizations What happens when a technological civilization 'doesn't last long enough'? It stops existing.
- herbig 11y agoThat's assuming a technological civilization's natural progression is towards space travel, which may or may not be true. The Aztecs were way "behind" when explorers first discovered them, but were doing pretty fine.
- DasIch 11y agoIndeed and wouldn't they have been "interrupted" they very well might have developed further towards space travel or is there anything to suggest that they wouldn't have progressed further technologically?
- pavel_lishin 11y agoIt might stop existing as a technological civilization, but it might continue existing as a civilization that's lost access to its technology.
- cfcef 11y agoUnlikely, as on the astronomical time-scales involved, that implies that some rare risk will eventually wipe them out - asteroids, pandemics, resource depletion, collapse.
- mannykannot 11y ago> What happens when a technological civilization 'doesn't last long enough'? It stops existing. But it did exist, which is clearly the point here.
- cfcef 11y agoIt's not clearly the point at all. If the solution to the Fermi paradox is 'they existed at one point but stopped before colonizing', then that implies they don't exist now and is why we don't see them.
- mannykannot 11y agoWhat is clear is that I did not take a large enough quote from the post I was replying to. Here is an expanded version: >> Both York and Teller seemed to think Fermi was questioning the feasibility of interstellar travel—nobody thought he was questioning the possible existence of extraterrestrial civilizations >What happens when a technological civilization 'doesn't last long enough'? It stops existing. (your emphasis.) Your observation that a civilization does not exist after it has ceased to exist does not "question the possible existence of extraterrestrial civilizations". To the contrary, unless we assume the author intended to state an empty tautology (which would be too pedantic an assumption to take seriously), then the statement I have just quoted is actually predicated on the assumption that it is possible for them to exist. So, when Fermi suggests that civilizations tend to fail before they colonize the galaxy, he is not questioning their possible existence.
- ramblerman 11y ago> and since we don’t see any obvious signs of aliens here, searching for their signals is pointless. That is a huge over simplification. The fermi paradox doesn't really conclude. It is called a paradox because we need to solve the riddle that combined with the drake equation it is awfully quiet in our universe, why is that? If you have 20 minutes: http://waitbutwhy.com/2014/05/fermi-paradox.html http://waitbutwhy.com/2014/05/fermi-paradox.html This is probably one of the best long reads on the internet dealing with this question.
- exratione 11y agoThe real issue is not that we haven't been visited (for which read, we exist, because the matter of the solar system wasn't turned into computronium by some group billions of years ago), but that everything we see is a wilderness. All of the observable universe appears natural in every place we can assess whether or not it is natural. No dyson spheres in evidence, no class 3 civilization in any of the nearest 100,000 galaxies, etc, etc. This makes no sense given that we exist, and the laws of physics show no indications that we are a special case, or that transforming the universe into intelligent matter is impossible. All it takes is one small group in one species to create the self-replicating probes that dismantle every natural grouping of matter to create more efficient arrangements to support more intelligence, and on a small timescale compared to the age of the universe entire galaxies are turned from wilderness to structure. https://www.exratione.com/2015/05/the-cosmological-noocene/ https://www.exratione.com/2015/05/the-cosmological-noocene/ "Per our present understanding of physics and intelligent economic activity, we will turn every part of that great span into our descendants if not diverted or stopped by some outside influence, stars and all. The cosmological noocene, an ocean of intelligence. That the natural universe remains present to be used by us indicates that something is awry, however, that some vital and important understanding is missing, and as a species we are still just making the first fumbling explorations of the bounds of the possible with regards to what it is that we don't know."
- Ygg2 11y agoOne pretty sensible argument is that life/intelligence takes a lot of time to develop. I.e. we aren't the upstart humans encroaching on Ancient Aliens, we are Ancient Aliens. If we are among first intelligence to develop, then of course, we won't see signs of intelligent life.
- simonoff 11y agoExcept the universe has been around 13 billion years, and our solar system has only been around 3-5 billion, so it seems unlikely we are the first.
- 11y ago
- pinkrooftop 11y agoI'm skeptical on looking for radio waves. How could interstellar intelligence use radio waves to communicate anyway, they're traveling at C and are still too slow
- nine_k 11y agoInterstellar intelligence can still travel at time frames much longer than human life. It's like complaining that a letter from America to Europe would travel for many months in 1495. There were still incentives for Europeans to go to America.
- pinkrooftop 11y agoEven our own plans for such a thing included lasers not radio https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Project_Longshot https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Project_Longshot. Still not solving communication speed limits
- pavel_lishin 11y agoI think the previous commenter was saying that the communication speed limits may not be a problem that can be, or needs to be, solved. If the speed of light is the ultimate speed limit, technological civilizations may just have to accept it and work within that limit. Just because a method of communication is slow doesn't mean it's not worth using.
- DasIch 11y agoIf that limit can't be broken, it would massively slow down space travel though. Our civilization currently consumes more resources than can be replenished. What if other civilizations have the same problem and can't travel to other planets before resource starvation comes in?
- krapp 11y ago> What if other civilizations have the same problem and can't travel to other planets before resource starvation comes in? They probably die.
- kordless 11y agoA better measure of whether there is other life in our universe might be the percentage of us which really believe, at our very core, we are the only life in a vast universe we understand less than the soil we tread on each day. It can't be a paradox if you know you can change the question.
- careersuicide 11y agoWhat a timely coincidence. I just finished reading Cixin Lui's "The Dark Forest" (it and the first book in the series "The Three-Body Problem" I cannot recommend enough). I think the central premise of the book is probably the worst of the possible reasons we haven't found anyone else out there... "The universe is a dark forest. Every civilization is an armed hunter stalking through the trees like a ghost, gently pushing aside branches that block the path and trying to tread without sound. Even breathing is done with care. The hunter has to be careful, because everywhere in the forest are stealthy hunters like him. If he finds other life—another hunter, an angel or a demon, a delicate infant or a tottering old man, a fairy or a demigod—there’s only one thing he can do: open fire and eliminate them. In this forest, hell is other people. An eternal threat that any life that exposes its own existence will be swiftly wiped out. This is the picture of cosmic civilization. It’s the explanation for the Fermi Paradox."
- ucaetano 11y agoExcept that we've been pumping radio waves out of this rock as loud as we can for decades. We're the loud cousin who can't keep quiet when hunting.
- SixSigma 11y agoThis is how far human radio broadcasts have reached into the galaxy http://www.planetary.org/blogs/emily-lakdawalla/2012/3390.html http://www.planetary.org/blogs/emily-lakdawalla/2012/3390.ht...
- adamio 11y agomaybe we're just the crickets
- nsns 11y ago...or an inconsequential assemblage of organic molecules; forming and disintegrating in the blink of an eye.
- adamio 11y ago
- acqq 11y agoNecessary read for reasonable discussion: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rare_Earth_hypothesis https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rare_Earth_hypothesis "the Rare Earth Hypothesis argues that the origin of life and the evolution of biological complexity such as sexually reproducing, multicellular organisms on Earth (and, subsequently, human intelligence) required an improbable combination of astrophysical and geological events and circumstances. The hypothesis argues that complex extraterrestrial life is a very improbable phenomenon and likely to be extremely rare."
- api 11y agoBottom line is we only have one example. We simply do not know. For all we know the frequency could be less than one per galaxy per billion years, in which case we are likely alone.
- cdelsolar 11y agoThere are hundreds of billions? of galaxies though.
- api 11y agoIntergalactic travel or communication is exponentially harder than interstellar.
- acqq 11y agoExactly. As far as I know, except for the Andromeda galaxy, which will collide with ours, all other galaxies zoom further away. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Andromeda%E2%80%93Milky_Way_collision https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Andromeda%E2%80%93Milky_Way_co... Far enough in the future, even if we survive, we won't see any other galaxy -- they will zoom out of our observable universe! The expansion of the Universe accelerates, according to our last estimates.
- skc 11y ago
- pklausler 11y agoIn a universe that is very old and very large, anything that can occur will eventually happen somewhere. This includes the launching of interstellar self-replicating von Neumann probes. All it takes is one civilization somewhere lobbing one sufficiently automated sublight probe, and in a few million years the galaxy is full of them for the rest of time. Either the galaxy is full of interstellar self-replicating probes, or empty of them. Their absence here is strong evidence that nobody, at least in our galaxy, has evolved a technical civilization, and that we are the first or only to approach that level.
- TrevorJ 11y agoI see what you are getting at, but in an infinitely large universe, those events may be infinitely distant from us.
- pklausler 11y agoIn which case they might as well not exist, from our perspective. In our Local Group of galaxies, however, we can confidently conclude that nobody has ever launched self-replicating interstellar probes. Which means nobody has ever evolved a technical civilization slightly more capable than our own. Radio signals are ephemeral; probes are forever.
- TrevorJ 11y agoNot necessarily, perhaps they choose not to use such technology, due to the obviously dangerous nature of it. Or maybe they will, at some point in the future, but haven't yet.
- krapp 11y agoThis assumes that all technical civilizations more capable than ours must launch self-replicating interstellar probes, and that said probes must be robust and perfectly efficient, because their mere existence guarantees the conversion of the galaxy into computronium. Perhaps the lack of probes means there is a fundamental flaw to the concept when applied to the actual, physical universe. Or that technologically advanced civilizations exist which aren't interested in sending self-replicating probes into interstellar space.
- joesmo 11y ago"The other is the so-called Fermi paradox, which claims that we should see intelligent aliens here if they exist anywhere, because they would inevitably colonize the Galaxy by star travel—and since we don’t see any obvious signs of aliens here, searching for their signals is pointless." Either this is worded wrong or illogical. If this is true, as it's worded now, then we humans either do not exist or are not intelligent, by its very definition. Both are ridiculous conclusions. The assumption is "because they would inevitably colonize the Galaxy by star travel". What if they're not advanced enough to do so yet? Does that make them not intelligent? If so, that would make us non-intelligent. Does that prove aliens don't exist? If so, then we humans are proven to not exist (which is ludicrous). Finally the stupid conclusion: "since we don’t see any obvious signs of aliens here, searching for their signals is pointless." So as a corollary, other aliens searching for us would be pointless since we humans don't exist since there are no signs of us on other planets. This is incredibly stupid. No wonder Fermi never wrote it. He would never write something this dumb.
- ChuckMcM 11y agoI've heard this before, that Fermi was really questioning interstellar travel, not alien existence. Given all the matter we've found in interstellar space, from dust clouds to brown dwarfs, it seems pretty clear that travelling near the speed of light out there would be perilous indeed. Even a small rock, colliding with your ship travelling at .5c is going to destroy it.
- ck2 11y agoGiven the sheer size of the galaxy, forget the universe, C is unfathomably slow in comparison. It's no wonder, at least not to my imagination why we haven't found any other life yet, or visa versa.
- cgriswald 11y agoc may be slow relative to distances in space, but the universe is incredibly old as well. A civilization a million years ahead of us could have colonized the entire galaxy by now. And in any case, if there is anyone out there, there should be some evidence. Scientists have looked in various ways for megastructures (e.g. Dyson Spheres) and have found no evidence for their existence, even in the oldest of galaxies. The picture in my mind is quite bleak. The evidence seems to point to a very limited number of scenarios: 1. We are unique (in existence, in our technology, in our desire to expand, etc.) 2. We are first. 3. Civilizations destroy themselves before they can expand. 4. Civilizations do something else we don't yet understand that doesn't involve gathering more and more energy from surrounding space.
- ck2 11y agoMaybe such civilizations instead have value in limited reproduction and doesn't have the need for colonies all over their galaxy and incredible resource consumption. Just because humans breed with no point or purpose and even invent religion to insist on unmitigated population growth, doesn't mean that's a value shared with a more intelligent alien race. If anything, there is proof that more educated humans breed far less than their counterparts. Extend that further and imagine a planet the size of earth with only a few million sentient life forms. They might not feel the need to leave, outside of general exploration, but even then they might just use probes.
- cgriswald 11y agoWhich points to either our uniqueness (1) or our not understanding their alien motivations (4). A few points I'll make for fun: 1. Life on Earth propagates as much as possible. It is only external factors (mostly resources, but also predation and other factors) which keep populations in check. This is likely a shared trait of all (successful) life in the universe. This doesn't preclude the possibility of a species moving beyond this trait* but it does suggest that either the trait fails at some point prior to stellar engineering or interstellar colonization or that all advanced civilizations move beyond it. 2. Even if spreading throughout the universe is not a species' goal, whatever their goals are will require energy. It is likely those goals will require greater and greater energies as our own goals have and will continue to do for the foreseeable future. The only way I see around this problem is novel physics which seem impossible in our current understanding of the universe. 3. At some point every species must leave their host star or perish. (However, if they find themselves around a red dwarf, they will have quite a bit of time - and will not have to have moved since the beginning of the universe. So it may be we are freaks because we are around a shorter-lived orange star.) But this is speculation at best. I'd rather speculate that they all created their own pocket universes that are ideally suited to their species and left the rest of us behind. :) *Although I would suggest that natural selection is an unlikely candidate for the development of such a trait. In my opinion, this would require directly modification of whatever passes for DNA in the species. Even enforced population controls would probably not be enough to contain a species.
- guelo 11y agoOur civilization has had radio communication for 100 years but we're well on our way to environmental collapse within the next thousand years. The milky way is over 100k light years wide. By the time our signals reach any other potential civilizations we'll be long gone. If the average civilization broadcasts for a thousand years but they're tens of thousands of light years apart, communication is not be possible within a civilization-span.
- bladedtoys 11y agoAnother possibility is: they never feel like it. It's possible intelligent species inevitably overcome/loose the desire for infinite self replication. It's clear other animals will breed to occupy all available habitats. But it seems humans uniquely are developing the idea of the preserve in which environments are intentionally left unoccupied. I have even heard a tiny amount of talk questioning the impact of even a Mars landing. If that question is already coming up centuries before interstellar travel, one wonders what attitudes will be prevalent then. Just a century ago it was quite desirable to intentionally release new species of bird's into new continents purely for aesthetic reasons. Now such an attitude would be abhorrent. I suppose if one could demonstrate that the desire to endlessly replicate across the universe is somehow beneficial to individuals currently living then I imagine their values will embrace it. If endless self replication is not beneficial to the exiting population then they will eventually reason their way clear of that instinct and that reasoning will be integrated into their ethical code. So while I, like most people reading this, am very excited by space exploration, that attitude may not be a permanent cultural characteristic.
- sjclemmy 11y agoThis is not my understanding of the Fermi Paradox and I've never heard this interpretation before. The paradox is; given the Drake equation, where is everyone? That's all it amounts to, hence the paradox. The author of the article states the paradox differently, that, because we can't see any evidence, we shouldn't look. That is not the Fermi Paradox. One of my favourite responses involves cryptography: Given a sufficiently advanced civilisation, one might imagine that their ability to encrypt information is perfect, therefore any signal is indistinguishable from noise.
- Symmetry 11y agoNo need for encryption. Sufficiently advanced compression will give signals apparently perfect entropy.
- krapp 11y agoWe don't even know how accurate the Drake Equation is - many of the variables are just filled with guesswork. As such, we can't even know whether the "Fermi Paradox" is a paradox or an artifact of our own anthropocentric ignorance.
- rumcajz 11y agoSee Stanislaw Lem: His Master's Voice https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/His_Master%27s_Voice_(novel) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/His_Master%27s_Voice_(novel)
- sjclemmy 11y agoThat's been recommended to me before, but I'd forgotten about it - I shall act this time. Thanks! I started to read Solaris, but found the translation stilted and difficult, so gave up. I've just read that Lem himself didn't like the Rnglish translation! It's unlikely I'll be learning Polish this lifetime.