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Interesting! I've always had an intuitive feeling that theories like The Great Filter theory was a pretty arrogant simplification of "actual reality" beyond ou

Interesting! I've always had an intuitive feeling that theories like The Great Filter theory was a pretty arrogant simplification of "actual reality" beyond our narrow biological lenses and even narrower western definition of "life" or even spatial dimensions and time. Just because some western scientist with only 350+ years of somewhat advanced tools, math and imagination can't see "something" doesn't mean something isn't there - we don't even know what "there" is, or who "we" are. Math and science is an awesome "thing", but the ridiculous existential pop-science extrapolations from simple equations is laughable if not sinister, especially in light of the paradigmatic shifts in science and worldview over just the last couple of centuries.

snikeris 4y ago
The Drake equation handles that case: fc = the fraction of civilizations that develop a technology that releases detectable signs of their existence into space
- poulpy123 4y ago
  The drake equation handle nothing, because all parameters are pure speculation
- yesbabyyes 4y ago
  Right; the parameter that would be of interest is rather L = the length of time for which such civilizations release detectable signals into space. Quoting Wikipedia: "Inserting the above minimum numbers into the equation gives a minimum N of 20. Inserting the maximum numbers gives a maximum of 50,000,000. Drake states that given the uncertainties, the original meeting concluded that N ≈ L, and there were probably between 1000 and 100,000,000 planets with civilizations in the Milky Way Galaxy." As I understand it, at the time it was estimated that a civilization would broadcast during its existence, from the time radio communications started until the fall of civilization (thus the Great Filter). Now, from our sample size of one, it looks like L would rather be on the order of 100 years (in our case, not because we are trying to hide in the Dark Forest, but because we don't want to waste energy beaming Dallas reruns into space for no good reason).
throwaway4aday 4y ago
I tend to agree, I don't think we have a good grasp on what life will be like in 50 years let alone 1000 or 10,000. My personal guesses are that we will continue to make improvements in efficiency and so will produce very little leakage of communications or even heat making us nearly invisible over vast distances. Sociologically, I think we'll be very different; population growth may approach 0 while lifespan increases dramatically so we'll continue to explore the universe but will do so remotely since we just won't have the numbers to physically colonize other star systems. Even the timescale on which we live may change drastically, perception of time isn't even fixed when it comes to biology there are other species that have much faster or slower perception of time and once we being to modify our biology and augment it by integrating with digital systems we'll be able to control that sense. Who can predict what other technological advances are on the horizon, for all we know alien probes or other technology could be as small as bacteria and might just be distributed through space as vast networks of dust clouds that harvest ambient chemical and solar energy and have transmission ranges measured in micrometers. How would we even detect such technology without physically going there and examining it up close?
satokausi 4y ago
Agreed. The Great Filter theory has weak assumptions that a) all ”living” systems evolve in a similar way as the biological systems on earth, and b) that this evolution ”advances” somehow towards space expansion. Our biological lenses make it seem like the complex system we call ”life” is the only similarly complex system that is possible in the entire universe.

snikeris 4y ago

The Drake equation handles that case: fc = the fraction of civilizations that develop a technology that releases detectable signs of their existence into space

poulpy123 4y ago
The drake equation handle nothing, because all parameters are pure speculation
yesbabyyes 4y ago
Right; the parameter that would be of interest is rather L = the length of time for which such civilizations release detectable signals into space. Quoting Wikipedia: "Inserting the above minimum numbers into the equation gives a minimum N of 20. Inserting the maximum numbers gives a maximum of 50,000,000. Drake states that given the uncertainties, the original meeting concluded that N ≈ L, and there were probably between 1000 and 100,000,000 planets with civilizations in the Milky Way Galaxy." As I understand it, at the time it was estimated that a civilization would broadcast during its existence, from the time radio communications started until the fall of civilization (thus the Great Filter). Now, from our sample size of one, it looks like L would rather be on the order of 100 years (in our case, not because we are trying to hide in the Dark Forest, but because we don't want to waste energy beaming Dallas reruns into space for no good reason).

throwaway4aday 4y ago

I tend to agree, I don't think we have a good grasp on what life will be like in 50 years let alone 1000 or 10,000. My personal guesses are that we will continue to make improvements in efficiency and so will produce very little leakage of communications or even heat making us nearly invisible over vast distances. Sociologically, I think we'll be very different; population growth may approach 0 while lifespan increases dramatically so we'll continue to explore the universe but will do so remotely since we just won't have the numbers to physically colonize other star systems. Even the timescale on which we live may change drastically, perception of time isn't even fixed when it comes to biology there are other species that have much faster or slower perception of time and once we being to modify our biology and augment it by integrating with digital systems we'll be able to control that sense. Who can predict what other technological advances are on the horizon, for all we know alien probes or other technology could be as small as bacteria and might just be distributed through space as vast networks of dust clouds that harvest ambient chemical and solar energy and have transmission ranges measured in micrometers. How would we even detect such technology without physically going there and examining it up close?

satokausi 4y ago

Agreed. The Great Filter theory has weak assumptions that a) all ”living” systems evolve in a similar way as the biological systems on earth, and b) that this evolution ”advances” somehow towards space expansion. Our biological lenses make it seem like the complex system we call ”life” is the only similarly complex system that is possible in the entire universe.