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The possibilities that come to mind are: 1. We happen to be first. 2. They are on their way. 3. They are within reach and are not malevolent, nor allow the s

The possibilities that come to mind are: 1. We happen to be first. 2. They are on their way. 3. They are within reach and are not malevolent, nor allow the spread of malevolence, given the 'typical' billions years gestation period.

ianai 8y ago
Or they exist but because the universe is huge and sparse we’ll never encounter each other. My hunch is that life is actually prolific. It’s in the oceans of Encledeus (sp), may be in extremes on mars, and possibly more in other places. But it’s not industrial the ways we are.
- state_less 8y ago
  > Or they exist but because the universe is huge and sparse we’ll never encounter each other. That's a good hunch. As we've learned more, the universe has appeared to be larger over the years. This could keep destructive contagions from spreading. If destructive contagions are likely, we probably wouldn't be here. I sort of file it under 1. where they are causally unreachable and we are singular in our sphere of influence. Or maybe 2., but over time even if space is vast, we ought to bump into each other eventually. Folks won't rest until they probe under every rock. So maybe they are out there, maybe even prolific and they (or we) are on the way to meeting each other. Humanity ought to make itself durable to see it through.
- gnulinux 8y ago
  > But it’s not industrial the ways we are. I find this very unlikely. If you do some computer simulations, you can see that if "life" has minimal amount of freedom to get modified, it diverges to really interesting objects and exploits a lot of phenomenon happening in its virtual universe. Something as absurdly unlikely and crazy as symbiogenesis occured multiple times in our planet. It's unlikely if there is life out there, it'd stay simple and invisible. My hunch is that life is extremely rare, if it exists at all. We know from computer science that evolution is a very good method to find ever-improving local optimas, so to me it's very likely if life exists, it'll evolve to galactic empires in a few billion years. And thus thanks to Fermi paradox, this convinces me that life must be extremely rare, or the Great Filter must be very effective or intergalactic communication/travel must be extremely expensive.
  - ianai 8y ago
    Our industry is possibly an emergent phenomenon. There are many species on this plant and only one has taken technology to our extremes. That could be a differentiator.
ahje 8y ago
4. Or they haven't developed yet, or, they died out 50,000 years ago. The Universe is a big place. It's taken us billions of years to reach this point where we're on the brink of becoming a multi-planterary species, and frankly, I'm still not 100% convinced we'll make it. Depending on how much life there is in the Universe, and how effective The Great Filter is, the amount of civilizations reaching an advanced stage may simply be so low that the odds of two of them being within communication range of each other, while being at a suitable tech level, may be very low.
- state_less 8y ago
  They haven't developed yet seems possible. Someone will be first, however unlikely it seems to them. As scary as the great filter and dyeing out is, life is pretty durable. Even if we kill ourselves, some organism will probably slither out from under a rock after the ash settles and start afresh. There seems to be a selection force that works against aggressive forms of life becoming too powerful. If your both belligerent and powerful, you have a chance of shooting yourself (your species) in the foot. So it appears that any sufficiently advanced civilization would be pretty benevolent and that this might be a necessary condition to advancing.
  - ahje 8y ago
    If we fail, there's still a chance that another intelligent species manage to develop on Earth before the planet becomes inhabitable for whatever reason. That doesn't help us, although it does raise a few other questions, like "How do we preserve knowledge for the future?".

ianai 8y ago

Or they exist but because the universe is huge and sparse we’ll never encounter each other. My hunch is that life is actually prolific. It’s in the oceans of Encledeus (sp), may be in extremes on mars, and possibly more in other places. But it’s not industrial the ways we are.

state_less 8y ago
> Or they exist but because the universe is huge and sparse we’ll never encounter each other. That's a good hunch. As we've learned more, the universe has appeared to be larger over the years. This could keep destructive contagions from spreading. If destructive contagions are likely, we probably wouldn't be here. I sort of file it under 1. where they are causally unreachable and we are singular in our sphere of influence. Or maybe 2., but over time even if space is vast, we ought to bump into each other eventually. Folks won't rest until they probe under every rock. So maybe they are out there, maybe even prolific and they (or we) are on the way to meeting each other. Humanity ought to make itself durable to see it through.
gnulinux 8y ago
> But it’s not industrial the ways we are. I find this very unlikely. If you do some computer simulations, you can see that if "life" has minimal amount of freedom to get modified, it diverges to really interesting objects and exploits a lot of phenomenon happening in its virtual universe. Something as absurdly unlikely and crazy as symbiogenesis occured multiple times in our planet. It's unlikely if there is life out there, it'd stay simple and invisible. My hunch is that life is extremely rare, if it exists at all. We know from computer science that evolution is a very good method to find ever-improving local optimas, so to me it's very likely if life exists, it'll evolve to galactic empires in a few billion years. And thus thanks to Fermi paradox, this convinces me that life must be extremely rare, or the Great Filter must be very effective or intergalactic communication/travel must be extremely expensive.
- ianai 8y ago
  Our industry is possibly an emergent phenomenon. There are many species on this plant and only one has taken technology to our extremes. That could be a differentiator.

ahje 8y ago

4. Or they haven't developed yet, or, they died out 50,000 years ago. The Universe is a big place. It's taken us billions of years to reach this point where we're on the brink of becoming a multi-planterary species, and frankly, I'm still not 100% convinced we'll make it. Depending on how much life there is in the Universe, and how effective The Great Filter is, the amount of civilizations reaching an advanced stage may simply be so low that the odds of two of them being within communication range of each other, while being at a suitable tech level, may be very low.

state_less 8y ago
They haven't developed yet seems possible. Someone will be first, however unlikely it seems to them. As scary as the great filter and dyeing out is, life is pretty durable. Even if we kill ourselves, some organism will probably slither out from under a rock after the ash settles and start afresh. There seems to be a selection force that works against aggressive forms of life becoming too powerful. If your both belligerent and powerful, you have a chance of shooting yourself (your species) in the foot. So it appears that any sufficiently advanced civilization would be pretty benevolent and that this might be a necessary condition to advancing.
- ahje 8y ago
  If we fail, there's still a chance that another intelligent species manage to develop on Earth before the planet becomes inhabitable for whatever reason. That doesn't help us, although it does raise a few other questions, like "How do we preserve knowledge for the future?".