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No, the argument here is specifically about the great filter. I know there are other possible resolutions to the Fermi paradox, although I haven't found most o

No, the argument here is specifically about the great filter. I know there are other possible resolutions to the Fermi paradox, although I haven't found most of them very convincing.

Enginerrrd 2y ago
I mean the most obvious solution to the fermi paradox is just that aliens are hard to see. If we put an equivalent human civilization even on one of the explanets we've identified, we'd never know it. Our signals are simply too weak and disorganized, and the switch to digital has made them even harder to identify from the background. Planets are located right next to huge sources of radio noise: stars. Until we can reliably detect a species like ourselves on another planet, it seems very silly to assume they aren't there. The assumptions on detection all kind of assume that aliens that are much more advanced will have much more obvious signals of emery usage or other detectable signals, but I've never been convinced by these assumptions. Energy usage is likely a logistic curve rather than an ever expanding exponential. There so much room at the bottom for greater efficiency. It also seems quite sensible that a species either eventually copes with equilibrium or dies out due to issues with unchecked growth. There's SO MUCH energy available here on the earth that we could go for millenia of computational/energy growth while pursuing more efficient systems. The assumptions that lead to conclusions about megastructures are pretty dubious. I could go on at length about that, but I will just leave it at that.
- marcosdumay 2y ago
  We can find life like our own hundreds of ligh-years away. And there are plenty of plans for improving this. Anyway, the Fermi paradox isn't about finding life on other planets.
- MattPalmer1086 2y ago
  It only takes one life form to achieve interstellar capability, and they would spread across the galaxy in only a few million years. That doesn't seem to have occurred (although, maybe it has and as you say, we just can't detect them, and they're leaving us alone).
  - Enginerrrd 2y ago
    Yeah but IMO expansion via "interstellar capability" is just not compatible with a civilization. As our species has developed, the time scales that matter to us have shrunk, not grown. I just don't think you can have a single coherent civilization work when relativity places such stringent limitations on communication speed. A super advanced civilization likely evolves and changes on much smaller time scales than ours does currently. It doesn't seem possible for such a civilization to not totally fracture at interstellar scales. Unless there's physics we don't know about, interstellar distances are probably just not really compatible with a civilization. So, if one exists, its probably a serious rarity within a rarity. i.e. the lack of observable existence of such a noticeable civilization does not make a good argument against aliens in my opinion.
    - MattPalmer1086 2y ago
      It's a good point, but there is no reason to suppose they have to be a unified civilization. Just that they can spread in the first place and their descendants can do the same.
    - rowanG077 2y ago
      I'm not so sure I agree. There is nothing stopping a species that experiences years as we do minutes. Such a species would have no problem with the time scales needed for interstellar travel.
      - sdenton4 2y ago
        A fun problem with this is that there are 500k minutes in a year, so the critical free minutes needed to get into orbit quickly would be like working at nanosecond scale... Our slow friends would presumably need 100% automation to survive just about any kind of launch. (Nevermind landing.) (This also raises for me a fun way to continue Moore's law by making lived experience slower...)
    - jacobolus 2y ago
      > time scales that matter to us have shrunk, not grown I don’t think this seems right. More realistically, the further back into the past we look, the more we notice people, institutions, and changes operating on longer time scales, partly because our knowledge becomes much less granular the further back we look and partly because slower changes are less noticeable or impressive when examined from partway through without the benefit of hindsight. Unless you just mean that with improved technology we can now do a better job inspecting and sequencing things that happen very quickly. That’s clearly true, but is substantially unrelated to human-scale goals or the behaviors of larger organizations.

No, the argument here is specifically about the great filter. I know there are other possible resolutions to the Fermi paradox, although I haven't found most of them very convincing.

Enginerrrd 2y ago

I mean the most obvious solution to the fermi paradox is just that aliens are hard to see. If we put an equivalent human civilization even on one of the explanets we've identified, we'd never know it. Our signals are simply too weak and disorganized, and the switch to digital has made them even harder to identify from the background. Planets are located right next to huge sources of radio noise: stars. Until we can reliably detect a species like ourselves on another planet, it seems very silly to assume they aren't there. The assumptions on detection all kind of assume that aliens that are much more advanced will have much more obvious signals of emery usage or other detectable signals, but I've never been convinced by these assumptions. Energy usage is likely a logistic curve rather than an ever expanding exponential. There so much room at the bottom for greater efficiency. It also seems quite sensible that a species either eventually copes with equilibrium or dies out due to issues with unchecked growth. There's SO MUCH energy available here on the earth that we could go for millenia of computational/energy growth while pursuing more efficient systems. The assumptions that lead to conclusions about megastructures are pretty dubious. I could go on at length about that, but I will just leave it at that.

marcosdumay 2y ago
We can find life like our own hundreds of ligh-years away. And there are plenty of plans for improving this. Anyway, the Fermi paradox isn't about finding life on other planets.
MattPalmer1086 2y ago
It only takes one life form to achieve interstellar capability, and they would spread across the galaxy in only a few million years. That doesn't seem to have occurred (although, maybe it has and as you say, we just can't detect them, and they're leaving us alone).
- Enginerrrd 2y ago
  Yeah but IMO expansion via "interstellar capability" is just not compatible with a civilization. As our species has developed, the time scales that matter to us have shrunk, not grown. I just don't think you can have a single coherent civilization work when relativity places such stringent limitations on communication speed. A super advanced civilization likely evolves and changes on much smaller time scales than ours does currently. It doesn't seem possible for such a civilization to not totally fracture at interstellar scales. Unless there's physics we don't know about, interstellar distances are probably just not really compatible with a civilization. So, if one exists, its probably a serious rarity within a rarity. i.e. the lack of observable existence of such a noticeable civilization does not make a good argument against aliens in my opinion.
  - MattPalmer1086 2y ago
    It's a good point, but there is no reason to suppose they have to be a unified civilization. Just that they can spread in the first place and their descendants can do the same.
  - rowanG077 2y ago
    I'm not so sure I agree. There is nothing stopping a species that experiences years as we do minutes. Such a species would have no problem with the time scales needed for interstellar travel.
    - sdenton4 2y ago
      A fun problem with this is that there are 500k minutes in a year, so the critical free minutes needed to get into orbit quickly would be like working at nanosecond scale... Our slow friends would presumably need 100% automation to survive just about any kind of launch. (Nevermind landing.) (This also raises for me a fun way to continue Moore's law by making lived experience slower...)
  - jacobolus 2y ago
    > time scales that matter to us have shrunk, not grown I don’t think this seems right. More realistically, the further back into the past we look, the more we notice people, institutions, and changes operating on longer time scales, partly because our knowledge becomes much less granular the further back we look and partly because slower changes are less noticeable or impressive when examined from partway through without the benefit of hindsight. Unless you just mean that with improved technology we can now do a better job inspecting and sequencing things that happen very quickly. That’s clearly true, but is substantially unrelated to human-scale goals or the behaviors of larger organizations.