3 ms·

What makes me very skeptical about this is the Fermi Paradox* * https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fermi_paradox https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fermi_paradox

m3kw9 4y ago
He is using logic which is from our current planets situation , technology situation , culture situation which could be completely different from a different species deciding if trying to contact another civilization makes sense. Also, even if this is most likely, the amount of time we have to observe visitors is very limited relative to millions/billions of years of existence, plus, there are trillions of planets that may have life that may or may not interest these guys. All in all it only proves how unlikely we will be visited but doesn’t say anything about if life is out there or not.
- MoSattler 4y ago
  I know this is not really your argument, but I think it's related: I don't buy that the problem is that we just don't know what to look for. There must be some observable characteristics that indicate its presence. It seems implausible that intelligent life forms would not leave any visible traces and that their planets would be indistinguishable from uninhabited ones.
  - Beldin 4y ago
    They aren't... from nearby. Cosmic distances are vast and the telltale signs are small. I'm not sure we would have detected an abundance of sealife deep in Titan's oceans or fliers deep in Saturn's clouds. I once looked into the reach of the Arecibo message; I can't quite remember the numbers but the main point stands: it's indecipherable but detectably artificial after a short distance (guess: 60-100 lightyears), and no longer distinguishable from natural radiation after about 5× that (guess: 250ish-600 lightyears). The point is that even an intentional message quickly (in cosmic terms) becomes gibberish and, fairly soon after, too faded to even recognise as being a signal. On top of that, the receivers would have to be looking. Basically, I doubt we would recognise artificial signals intentionally sent to us from further than 15 lightyears out except with much, much luck. That explains why we didn't find any clear non-intentional signals yet. An interesting take on this is to flip the question: from how far away would we, with our current approaches, be able to unambiguously, definitively detect life on Earth? And intelligent life? I'm not sure we're able to do even the former from Pluto, let alone from the interstellar medium.
    - MoSattler 4y ago
      > I'm not sure we're able to do even the former from Pluto We can communicate with Voyager 1 beyond the limits of the Solar System, so I am not sure if earth's constantly emitted signals would not be detectable from Jupiter.
      - giantrobot 4y ago
        The ability to communicate with Voyager is a function of the transmission and reception system. We have to send an incredibly focused transmission to Voyager for it to pick up our signal and listen with very sensitive instruments on a long temporal baseline to detect Voyager's signals. The inverse square law tells you that the flux of a signal decreases at a square of the distance. A receiver 2 miles away from a transmitter will receive a signal at a quarter of the strength of a receiver only a mile away. Our broadband omnidirectional broadcasts don't actually reach very far out into the solar system let alone the galaxy. Only very powerful narrowband signals reach very far and those are very directional.
  - nine_k 4y ago
    If you were Montezuma, would you prefer to advertise your presence so that it would be visible from Spain, or would rather try to conceal your presence?
    - MoSattler 4y ago
      Is earth Montezuma or Spain in that comparison?
    - nradov 4y ago
      It doesn't matter, the outcome would be the same either way.
- meroes 4y ago
  I think there are inevitable outcomes we can predict early on which are not sensitive to these considerations. You might think I’m doing a ton of guessing and hindsight reasoning, but I do want to at least say one of the principle characters in Foundation is someone thinking sociologically/cosmologically on 30,000 year scales. He wants minimize the future inevitable cluster collapse of the galaxy. He knows it’s unavoidable in the future, that space is subject to certain governing processes which will drive all starting points to the same collapse. At best he can minimize. By a magnitude of 1 or 2. The Fermi paradox can be outmoded or not really relevant at these scales. I avoided raising any particular outcomes other than the one thing which seems inevitable, the cluster-outlier dynamic. It’s weird this reasoning exists, or it was at least interesting to Asmiov imo. I think he found most interesting that a few distant inevitabilities can be known, and space-wise those relate to the cluster/very very few outliers. And I’m pretty sure there were aliens (The M**). Asimov was both relying on human sociology and history AND taking that to the largest backdrop. Like only needing a slice (statistics, modeling, or selective deep-thinking even) of something deep gain to gain immense wisdom about the future. That was the most interesting thing about the character who set the whole story in motion at least imo. Even the initiating character, The M**, and counter forces could not disrupt the course…No planet perpetually hidden, no stopping perpetual clustering…(sorry for spoilers)
no_wizard 4y ago
I sometimes wonder if the simplest answer for this is that nature / evolution obeys some principle of simultaneous discovery[0][1] and convergence. In which case all advanced civilization may simply be on roughly the same timescales. In another words, it’s possible that all intelligent life is more or less at the same level of development, and this creates a situation where we only discover each other at the same time [0]: https://qz.com/emails/quartz-obsession/1482596/simultaneous-invention https://qz.com/emails/quartz-obsession/1482596/simultaneous-... [1]: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Convergent_evolution https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Convergent_evolution
- 0cf8612b2e1e 4y ago
  That feels incredibly unlikely. The universe is billions of years old. There was nothing preventing an intelligence from developing on Earth a billion years earlier. That being said, our civilization got an enormous boon coming later in the history of the planet. Fossil fuels and the abundant energy economy would not be available without the right biologic circumstances (eg lignin metabolism developing late) and timing.
LarryMullins 4y ago
Calling it the Fermi "paradox" really seems like begging the question to me. You've got a theory ("this math says life should be common") which conflicts with observed reality ("we don't see shit!"). Is that a paradox? It seems more like an invalidation of the theory to me. The resolution to the "paradox" is realizing that something in your theory is wrong. What is the common refrain? If the facts don't fit the theory, then the theory is wrong! Isn't that the core essence of science? Empiricism is a repudiation of Platonic a priori reasoning. Beautiful and elegant theories that don't fit the facts are simply wrong.

m3kw9 4y ago

He is using logic which is from our current planets situation , technology situation , culture situation which could be completely different from a different species deciding if trying to contact another civilization makes sense. Also, even if this is most likely, the amount of time we have to observe visitors is very limited relative to millions/billions of years of existence, plus, there are trillions of planets that may have life that may or may not interest these guys. All in all it only proves how unlikely we will be visited but doesn’t say anything about if life is out there or not.

MoSattler 4y ago
I know this is not really your argument, but I think it's related: I don't buy that the problem is that we just don't know what to look for. There must be some observable characteristics that indicate its presence. It seems implausible that intelligent life forms would not leave any visible traces and that their planets would be indistinguishable from uninhabited ones.
- Beldin 4y ago
  They aren't... from nearby. Cosmic distances are vast and the telltale signs are small. I'm not sure we would have detected an abundance of sealife deep in Titan's oceans or fliers deep in Saturn's clouds. I once looked into the reach of the Arecibo message; I can't quite remember the numbers but the main point stands: it's indecipherable but detectably artificial after a short distance (guess: 60-100 lightyears), and no longer distinguishable from natural radiation after about 5× that (guess: 250ish-600 lightyears). The point is that even an intentional message quickly (in cosmic terms) becomes gibberish and, fairly soon after, too faded to even recognise as being a signal. On top of that, the receivers would have to be looking. Basically, I doubt we would recognise artificial signals intentionally sent to us from further than 15 lightyears out except with much, much luck. That explains why we didn't find any clear non-intentional signals yet. An interesting take on this is to flip the question: from how far away would we, with our current approaches, be able to unambiguously, definitively detect life on Earth? And intelligent life? I'm not sure we're able to do even the former from Pluto, let alone from the interstellar medium.
  - MoSattler 4y ago
    > I'm not sure we're able to do even the former from Pluto We can communicate with Voyager 1 beyond the limits of the Solar System, so I am not sure if earth's constantly emitted signals would not be detectable from Jupiter.
    - giantrobot 4y ago
      The ability to communicate with Voyager is a function of the transmission and reception system. We have to send an incredibly focused transmission to Voyager for it to pick up our signal and listen with very sensitive instruments on a long temporal baseline to detect Voyager's signals. The inverse square law tells you that the flux of a signal decreases at a square of the distance. A receiver 2 miles away from a transmitter will receive a signal at a quarter of the strength of a receiver only a mile away. Our broadband omnidirectional broadcasts don't actually reach very far out into the solar system let alone the galaxy. Only very powerful narrowband signals reach very far and those are very directional.
- nine_k 4y ago
  If you were Montezuma, would you prefer to advertise your presence so that it would be visible from Spain, or would rather try to conceal your presence?
  - MoSattler 4y ago
    Is earth Montezuma or Spain in that comparison?
  - nradov 4y ago
    It doesn't matter, the outcome would be the same either way.
meroes 4y ago
I think there are inevitable outcomes we can predict early on which are not sensitive to these considerations. You might think I’m doing a ton of guessing and hindsight reasoning, but I do want to at least say one of the principle characters in Foundation is someone thinking sociologically/cosmologically on 30,000 year scales. He wants minimize the future inevitable cluster collapse of the galaxy. He knows it’s unavoidable in the future, that space is subject to certain governing processes which will drive all starting points to the same collapse. At best he can minimize. By a magnitude of 1 or 2. The Fermi paradox can be outmoded or not really relevant at these scales. I avoided raising any particular outcomes other than the one thing which seems inevitable, the cluster-outlier dynamic. It’s weird this reasoning exists, or it was at least interesting to Asmiov imo. I think he found most interesting that a few distant inevitabilities can be known, and space-wise those relate to the cluster/very very few outliers. And I’m pretty sure there were aliens (The M**). Asimov was both relying on human sociology and history AND taking that to the largest backdrop. Like only needing a slice (statistics, modeling, or selective deep-thinking even) of something deep gain to gain immense wisdom about the future. That was the most interesting thing about the character who set the whole story in motion at least imo. Even the initiating character, The M**, and counter forces could not disrupt the course…No planet perpetually hidden, no stopping perpetual clustering…(sorry for spoilers)

no_wizard 4y ago

I sometimes wonder if the simplest answer for this is that nature / evolution obeys some principle of simultaneous discovery[0][1] and convergence. In which case all advanced civilization may simply be on roughly the same timescales. In another words, it’s possible that all intelligent life is more or less at the same level of development, and this creates a situation where we only discover each other at the same time [0]: https://qz.com/emails/quartz-obsession/1482596/simultaneous-invention https://qz.com/emails/quartz-obsession/1482596/simultaneous-... [1]: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Convergent_evolution https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Convergent_evolution

0cf8612b2e1e 4y ago
That feels incredibly unlikely. The universe is billions of years old. There was nothing preventing an intelligence from developing on Earth a billion years earlier. That being said, our civilization got an enormous boon coming later in the history of the planet. Fossil fuels and the abundant energy economy would not be available without the right biologic circumstances (eg lignin metabolism developing late) and timing.

LarryMullins 4y ago

Calling it the Fermi "paradox" really seems like begging the question to me. You've got a theory ("this math says life should be common") which conflicts with observed reality ("we don't see shit!"). Is that a paradox? It seems more like an invalidation of the theory to me. The resolution to the "paradox" is realizing that something in your theory is wrong. What is the common refrain? If the facts don't fit the theory, then the theory is wrong! Isn't that the core essence of science? Empiricism is a repudiation of Platonic a priori reasoning. Beautiful and elegant theories that don't fit the facts are simply wrong.