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If faster than light travel was possible any single species who discovered it would be able to cover an appreciable portion of the galaxy in only a few thousand

If faster than light travel was possible any single species who discovered it would be able to cover an appreciable portion of the galaxy in only a few thousand years out of billions. Either life is virtually non-existent thus far, virtually always suicidal, or discovering it is tremendously unlikely. Neither of the last two bode well for us. It seems to me most likely that ftl suggestions an empty universe or one in which we too are likely to die without learning it.

shepherdjerred 4y ago
You’re assuming that all species seek to grow infinitely. What’s wrong with a species of sentient house cats that just want to nap all day?
- geertj 4y ago
  > What’s wrong with a species of sentient house cats that just want to nap all day? Nothing wrong with that, but if life is common, you’d need all life to be like that to explain the Fermi paradox, which seems unlikely.
  - colordrops 4y ago
    It could also be that the technology to achieve FTL is just over a threshold where the civilization would be unrecognizable to us as humans. We aren't far from such technology already. For instance imagine just a few generations of biotech and computational technology - it may already be enough for us to transform and evolve into some biomechanical hive that bears little resemblance to our current selves. It could also be that once you are advanced enough, you transcend this physical universe. For example, the entire universe to a deep sea squid is cold dark water without much other life. They have no way to comprehend that there is so much more to reality. They just aren't capable of it. We are not special and also likely not able to detect or comprehend other levels of reality that would be more vast and interesting to advanced beings than simple FTL leaps around the galaxy. Perhaps they just aren't interested in our little ant hill the milky way. The lack of imagination around what is possible and the supposed paradox posited by Fermi is disheartening.
    - geertj 4y ago
      > The lack of imagination around what is possible and the supposed paradox posited by Fermi is disheartening. I think similar reasoning could apply though. If advanced civilizations escape into a different dimension or state of being where they are undetectable, we’d need all of them to do that to explain the Fermi paradox.
      - michaelmrose 4y ago
        Exactly. Life being rare and spread out, space requiring enormous resources to move between stars, most species never outgrowing their backyards seems like it could credibly explain the paradox without FTL.
      - colordrops 4y ago
        It doesn't seem unfathomable that it could be the case that most advanced civs escape the confines of our limited universe or even evolved outside of it. Considering how many species there are, millions, it seems unlikely that we are at the "top" of the tree of life, but rather that we are unable to detect more advanced "animals" that are part of it.
    - michaelmrose 4y ago
      The squid can see if not comprehend the fact that water continues or if it gets high enough that there is a boundary between water and air. If indeed it isn't able to see that there is more it would not merely be because of lack of specific knowledge but because of a lack of even basic analytical tools to reason abstractly, communicate between individuals, and pass down analysis between generations over time. I think there is a reason to believe that this represents a unique threshold rather than one of many and that even highly advanced beings would be fundamentally comprehensible and describable even if their technology is not in a way that probably isn't true of the squid because our abstract reasoning can represent the basic facts needed to describe what they are doing even if it misses the why or how. Even a biomechanical hive would have greater longevity and resources by expanding even if we don't much recognize what they are doing with said resources.
est31 4y ago
Assuming 0.1c travel, the galaxy can be covered in a million years already, which is way less than the lifetime of many species here on earth. But if you extend your argument to intergalactic travel, then you definitely have to start talking about billions of years. I generally think that this argument is the best one that FTL travel is impossible, because it would have increased the likelihood of non-human intelligent life close but outside of earth dramatically. Outside of course physics of the last 160 years being built on the fact that C is the fastest speed there is.
chimprich 4y ago
> Either life is virtually non-existent thus far, virtually always suicidal, or discovering it is tremendously unlikely. Or they tend to sublime [0], or advanced societies prefer to live in virtual reality, or they tend towards being enlightened enough not to mess with species in an earlier stage of development, or they're not very interested in us, or we've been unlucky/lucky to have avoided discovery so far, or FTL is possible but can only be exceeded slightly, or FTL is possible but requires billions of years of technological development to achieve, or FTL requires a prohibitive amount of energy to travel at longer distances, etc., etc. [0] https://theculture.fandom.com/wiki/The_Sublimed https://theculture.fandom.com/wiki/The_Sublimed

shepherdjerred 4y ago

You’re assuming that all species seek to grow infinitely. What’s wrong with a species of sentient house cats that just want to nap all day?

geertj 4y ago
> What’s wrong with a species of sentient house cats that just want to nap all day? Nothing wrong with that, but if life is common, you’d need all life to be like that to explain the Fermi paradox, which seems unlikely.
- colordrops 4y ago
  It could also be that the technology to achieve FTL is just over a threshold where the civilization would be unrecognizable to us as humans. We aren't far from such technology already. For instance imagine just a few generations of biotech and computational technology - it may already be enough for us to transform and evolve into some biomechanical hive that bears little resemblance to our current selves. It could also be that once you are advanced enough, you transcend this physical universe. For example, the entire universe to a deep sea squid is cold dark water without much other life. They have no way to comprehend that there is so much more to reality. They just aren't capable of it. We are not special and also likely not able to detect or comprehend other levels of reality that would be more vast and interesting to advanced beings than simple FTL leaps around the galaxy. Perhaps they just aren't interested in our little ant hill the milky way. The lack of imagination around what is possible and the supposed paradox posited by Fermi is disheartening.
  - geertj 4y ago
    > The lack of imagination around what is possible and the supposed paradox posited by Fermi is disheartening. I think similar reasoning could apply though. If advanced civilizations escape into a different dimension or state of being where they are undetectable, we’d need all of them to do that to explain the Fermi paradox.
    - michaelmrose 4y ago
      Exactly. Life being rare and spread out, space requiring enormous resources to move between stars, most species never outgrowing their backyards seems like it could credibly explain the paradox without FTL.
    - colordrops 4y ago
      It doesn't seem unfathomable that it could be the case that most advanced civs escape the confines of our limited universe or even evolved outside of it. Considering how many species there are, millions, it seems unlikely that we are at the "top" of the tree of life, but rather that we are unable to detect more advanced "animals" that are part of it.
  - michaelmrose 4y ago
    The squid can see if not comprehend the fact that water continues or if it gets high enough that there is a boundary between water and air. If indeed it isn't able to see that there is more it would not merely be because of lack of specific knowledge but because of a lack of even basic analytical tools to reason abstractly, communicate between individuals, and pass down analysis between generations over time. I think there is a reason to believe that this represents a unique threshold rather than one of many and that even highly advanced beings would be fundamentally comprehensible and describable even if their technology is not in a way that probably isn't true of the squid because our abstract reasoning can represent the basic facts needed to describe what they are doing even if it misses the why or how. Even a biomechanical hive would have greater longevity and resources by expanding even if we don't much recognize what they are doing with said resources.

est31 4y ago

Assuming 0.1c travel, the galaxy can be covered in a million years already, which is way less than the lifetime of many species here on earth. But if you extend your argument to intergalactic travel, then you definitely have to start talking about billions of years. I generally think that this argument is the best one that FTL travel is impossible, because it would have increased the likelihood of non-human intelligent life close but outside of earth dramatically. Outside of course physics of the last 160 years being built on the fact that C is the fastest speed there is.

chimprich 4y ago

> Either life is virtually non-existent thus far, virtually always suicidal, or discovering it is tremendously unlikely. Or they tend to sublime [0], or advanced societies prefer to live in virtual reality, or they tend towards being enlightened enough not to mess with species in an earlier stage of development, or they're not very interested in us, or we've been unlucky/lucky to have avoided discovery so far, or FTL is possible but can only be exceeded slightly, or FTL is possible but requires billions of years of technological development to achieve, or FTL requires a prohibitive amount of energy to travel at longer distances, etc., etc. [0] https://theculture.fandom.com/wiki/The_Sublimed https://theculture.fandom.com/wiki/The_Sublimed