5 ms·
Based on our own experience, we know of at least three Filters and can strongly guess as to another. (1) That life develops on a world whose mass allows achiev
by ethbr0 4y ago
Based on our own experience, we know of at least three Filters and can strongly guess as to another.
(1) That life develops on a world whose mass allows achieving orbital spaceflight using relatively low-technology means (i.e. at least partially chemical)
(2) That advanced life develops on a world with massive energy reserves easily accessible with low technology (e.g. coal, oil)
(3) That no environmental cataclysm occurs during the advanced life/industrialization gestation time period (e.g. climate change, asteroid)
To this, we can pretty strongly add another:
(X) That, during the brief window between energy surplus (and advanced technology) and environmental collapse (from energy exploitation), interplanetary colonization is launched, supported, and made self-sufficient
There's no law that says the window for something remains open forever, when you're talking about planet-scale economic requirements.
- jablongo 4y agoAnother major filter supposedly comes much earlier: the development of complex single celled eukaryotic life. Some people think this occurred due to a single subsumption event on earth between a bacteria and an archaea.
- awb 4y agoThere’s probably also a distance / lifespan filter: (4) That interplanetary colonization is possible (using relatively low-tech means) given the lifespan of the species and the distance to nearby habitable planets. For example, life could develop in a solar system with only 1 habitable planet and the next habitable solar system could be dozens or hundreds of light years away. Now you need to invent a fully self-sustaining long haul space craft, plus have the technology to pause death (or have the will to confine hundreds or thousands of generations to life on a space craft, plus have the ability to effectively pass down enough survival skill information from generation to generation that won’t use it, but will simply practice it in order to relay it).
- dylan604 4y ago>For example, life could develop in a solar system with only 1 habitable planet and the next habitable solar system could be dozens or hundreds of light years away. Did you just describe our solar system?
- midoridensha 4y agoIt sounds like you're describing our solar system. No, Mars is not habitable in any meaningful sense of the word, any more than the Moon is.
- gizmo686 4y agoDo we have any evidence any of those are filters. For (1), there was practically no gap between the development of powered flight (e.g. airplanes) and plausible fission powered powered (abandoned for political reasons). Further, space flight, while useful, has not been critical for our technological development. I see no reason a high tech society couldn't develop in a deep gravity well then escape it once their technology reaches a stage where doing so is possible. For (2), energy reserves definitely accelerated things, but I'm not convinced they are nessasary. The fossil fuel age was only a few hundred years. Even if it accelerated technology development by an order of magnitude, we still would reach what we would now call the green era in an evolutionary blink of the eye. Even in our own development, wind and water power predate fossil fuels. In fact, the lack of fossil fuels may actually help a civilization, in that would completely avoid the carbon based crisis we are facing now. That could easily outway the slowfown that non carbon power sources would have caused (3) seems important though.