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> To me it seems like the probability could have been anything. The point is that we do know some things about the universe and, given what we do know, we thin

> To me it seems like the probability could have been anything. The point is that we do know some things about the universe and, given what we do know, we think the probability is high. So we're obviously missing something but we don't know what. The thing that makes the Fermi Paradox so interesting is that every resolution is either interesting or implies something interesting.

mewpmewp2 2y ago
How do we know the probability of chained events required to start life in any given planet with potentially suitable environment? How do we know that the probability isn't something like 0.01 to the power of some very large number, far higher than amount of total planets etc? If we don't know the exact mechanism for all we know the odds could be infinitely low, even so low that even after billions of big bangs only 1 would have had life occurring anywhere at all and lower than that. Because maybe the first life form literally had to appear spontaneously from bruteforce chemical reactions with such low odds of ocurring.
- killthebuddha 2y ago
  What you're describing is one possible resolution and part of what's interesting. A very big open question is "which, if any, of the known factors are wildly rarer than we think?". Another possible resolution is that most of our estimates are actually ok and there's some other variable that's going to whack us on the head at some point.
  - mewpmewp2 2y ago
    I just don't get how anyone can go past the idea that maybe it required freak N amount of specific chemical reactions to happen in a row for the first lifeform and without knowing N the odds could just simply be anything. It seems as if people seem to assume that odds of first life form occuring are high and basically just a matter of time, which doesn't make sense to me.
    - gilmore606 2y ago
      People go past that idea by noticing that it happened on Earth almost as soon as it possibly could have happened. If we just got incredibly lucky, you'd think the planet would have sat around a while before the big stroke of luck, but it didn't. This is fairly suggestive that abiogenesis is not that unlikely.
      - mewpmewp2 2y ago
        You can't make any such conclusion from a single event.
nonethewiser 2y ago
> So we're obviously missing something but we don't know what. Isnt the answer dead simple though? Space is mostly empty. Everything is very far away and getting even further as the universe expands. If there were bits of life scattered around the universe I wouldnt expect contact between them. The paradox seems to rely on the assumption that if aliens existed they would have colonized the entire universe by now but that seems like a huge leap when we look at ourselves. Universe is almost 14B years old. Life on earth is almost 4b years old. There have been several mass extinction events which almost completely whiped out life. There are planets in our system that may have had life but would have died off a very long time ago. Its kind of remarkable that we are here and how much progress we’ve made. We are certainly fitter than average (survivorship bias proves that). Yet we are nowhere even remotely close of expanding out into the solar system and beyond. And how could we, if virtually all of that space is void of resources we need to survive? Why is it inevitable that some alien would have solved that?
- jandrese 2y ago
  Exactly. One of the base assumptions of the Fermi paradox is that travel between solar systems is practical, which is far from proven at this point. If we are bound by the rocket equation, that is to say if Newton's First Law holds, then the answer to the Fermi paradox is simple. Travel between solar systems is less practical than just colonizing your own solar system, even through extreme measures like swarms of orbital colonies. When you think about it, an interstellar starship that must expend mass to change velocity is going to have to make a severe tradeoff between mass and travel time. In practical terms you have to first build a colony that can sustain itself indefinitely in your own solar system before you build one that can also accelerate/decelerate to a million kph and doesn't have the advantage of being near a free source of energy or any sources of new materials.

mewpmewp2 2y ago

How do we know the probability of chained events required to start life in any given planet with potentially suitable environment? How do we know that the probability isn't something like 0.01 to the power of some very large number, far higher than amount of total planets etc? If we don't know the exact mechanism for all we know the odds could be infinitely low, even so low that even after billions of big bangs only 1 would have had life occurring anywhere at all and lower than that. Because maybe the first life form literally had to appear spontaneously from bruteforce chemical reactions with such low odds of ocurring.

killthebuddha 2y ago
What you're describing is one possible resolution and part of what's interesting. A very big open question is "which, if any, of the known factors are wildly rarer than we think?". Another possible resolution is that most of our estimates are actually ok and there's some other variable that's going to whack us on the head at some point.
- mewpmewp2 2y ago
  I just don't get how anyone can go past the idea that maybe it required freak N amount of specific chemical reactions to happen in a row for the first lifeform and without knowing N the odds could just simply be anything. It seems as if people seem to assume that odds of first life form occuring are high and basically just a matter of time, which doesn't make sense to me.
  - gilmore606 2y ago
    People go past that idea by noticing that it happened on Earth almost as soon as it possibly could have happened. If we just got incredibly lucky, you'd think the planet would have sat around a while before the big stroke of luck, but it didn't. This is fairly suggestive that abiogenesis is not that unlikely.
    - mewpmewp2 2y ago
      You can't make any such conclusion from a single event.

nonethewiser 2y ago

> So we're obviously missing something but we don't know what. Isnt the answer dead simple though? Space is mostly empty. Everything is very far away and getting even further as the universe expands. If there were bits of life scattered around the universe I wouldnt expect contact between them. The paradox seems to rely on the assumption that if aliens existed they would have colonized the entire universe by now but that seems like a huge leap when we look at ourselves. Universe is almost 14B years old. Life on earth is almost 4b years old. There have been several mass extinction events which almost completely whiped out life. There are planets in our system that may have had life but would have died off a very long time ago. Its kind of remarkable that we are here and how much progress we’ve made. We are certainly fitter than average (survivorship bias proves that). Yet we are nowhere even remotely close of expanding out into the solar system and beyond. And how could we, if virtually all of that space is void of resources we need to survive? Why is it inevitable that some alien would have solved that?

jandrese 2y ago
Exactly. One of the base assumptions of the Fermi paradox is that travel between solar systems is practical, which is far from proven at this point. If we are bound by the rocket equation, that is to say if Newton's First Law holds, then the answer to the Fermi paradox is simple. Travel between solar systems is less practical than just colonizing your own solar system, even through extreme measures like swarms of orbital colonies. When you think about it, an interstellar starship that must expend mass to change velocity is going to have to make a severe tradeoff between mass and travel time. In practical terms you have to first build a colony that can sustain itself indefinitely in your own solar system before you build one that can also accelerate/decelerate to a million kph and doesn't have the advantage of being near a free source of energy or any sources of new materials.