4 ms·
If we, here on Earth, are not unique precious snowflakes, then that makes the Fermi Paradox even more paradoxical.
by winestock 15y ago
If we, here on Earth, are not unique precious snowflakes, then that makes the Fermi Paradox even more paradoxical.
- cloudkj 15y agoAnd along those same lines, adds more weight to the implications of the Great Filter argument. That is, if the early steps in the path to intelligent life are really not that unlikely, then the later steps to advanced intelligent life are more unlikely.
- cpeterso 15y agoOr, as Carl Sagan often suggested, intelligent life is likely to destroy itself, perhaps if a civilization's technological progress outpaces its ethical capacity.
- gregable 15y agoAlternatively successful communication over vast distances turns out to be impossible or at least very rare.
- ori_b 15y agoI'd be extremely surprised if there was very little life on other planets. I'd also be extremely surprised if we could recognize it as life at a glance -- my guess is that it's so likely to be so completely different from us that that even knowing what to look for is going to be hard. Life is probably not that rare. Familiar life probably is.
- jarin 15y agoI think maybe on a macro level, but microbial life seems likely to be pretty similar to ours. Even on a macro scale though, I imagine you'd probably see some of the same themes (assuming an Earth-like planet): photosynthesis, bilateral symmetry, hemoglobin- or hemocyanin-based blood, etc.
- jcfrei 15y agoAnother possible explanation against the fermi paradox could be that interstellar communication, let alone travel is much more unlikely to occur even among highly advanced civilizations. maybe just travelling beyond our solar system might remain uneconomical for a long time.
- jarin 15y agoAccelerando by Charles Stross (available for free here: http://www.antipope.org/charlie/blog-static/fiction/accelerando/accelerando-intro.html http://www.antipope.org/charlie/blog-static/fiction/accelera...) has a great take on the whole idea (and is just a great novel for futurists in general). Its conjecture is that physical travel to other civilizations is so expensive, and light-speed communications are so slow and inefficient, that the only way highly advanced civilizations communicate is by digitizing their consciousnesses and transmitting those, to be run in simulations on the receiving end. However, since you wouldn't want to transmit a copy of your own consciousness to an alien only to have it tortured or worse (even in a simulation), there are very extensive negotiations around trust involved before full contact with other civilizations is established.
- InclinedPlane 15y agoThe Fermi Paradox is like the "bumble bees can't fly" paradox, it merely means we don't understand the fundamentals of technological life in the Universe. Edit: thanks downvoter, can you point me to your source of knowledge about all technological life in our Universe? I'd settle for just our galaxy if that's easier to come up with. The problem with the Fermi paradox is that it doesn't tell us much. It could tell us that colonizing civilizations are unlikely or have a limited lifespan, or it could tell us merely that colonizing civilizations don't work at all the way we'd predict.
- driverdan 15y agoYou were probably downvoted for saying "bumble bees can't fly" paradox since we know perfectly well how they fly. That's an urban legend.
- eru 15y agoOr we are the first.