4 ms·

Your entire post here is making a lot of incorrect assumptions about the paradox. As the other guy said, it's not some rigorous thing, but you're definitely not

Your entire post here is making a lot of incorrect assumptions about the paradox. As the other guy said, it's not some rigorous thing, but you're definitely not the first guy to think "Well... what if FTL travel isn't possible?" or "What if every single technological species in the entire universe all decided to hide their messages since their inception somehow?". A million years in a cosmological timescale is nothing. The Earth is 4.5 billion years old, and we only came in right at the end. If we'd come in 200 Million years earlier, we'd have covered many, many galaxies by now - we could expand in all directions pretty much simultaneously. This doesn't even begin to get into your assumption that every species in the universe would even WANT to hide - the concept of "territory" isn't exactly foreign to us. We don't need to prove that there IS a species acting this way to solve the paradox, we need to explain why NO species is doing this, or if they are, why NONE are putting up markers in a manner that's easy for everyone to see?

vlovich123 2y ago
I never said it's a rigorous thing; I'm highlighting that there's too many flaws to take seriously (i.e. evidence of absence in this case tells us nothing). Remember - it's a million to do a straight shot across the universe at quite a large portion of the speed of light. In terms of colonization we're talking billions of years for an unknown fraction of the galaxy, but definitely not the entire thing. And much of the galaxy may not even be suited for colonization (e.g. presumably you still need some raw resources & have to be careful about where you go to to expand) As for "hiding" I never said they want to hide. But you only need to look at the modern world to realize that digital communication and encryption are standard fare and "hiding" is a natural evolution of that. And the longer distances you are transmitting and the more signals you need to monitor, the more energy efficient you want to be (i.e. point to point + relays instead of broadspectrum broadcasts). And if advanced civilizations use neutrino comms or quantum entaglement somehow, then they'd naturally be hidden just because that's how more advanced tech would work. As for territory, I never said they wouldn't be territorial. But a lion isn't going to bother being territorial with a mouse. No reason to believe they're going to try to broadcast ownership in a way that a "stone age" species like ours could detect. Additionally, it's not impossible that communication barriers are real and therefore there's not really much to communicate out vs "show up in our heavily fortified star system & see disappear" kind of behavior. The counter argument is that you may actually want to hide unless you're the apex civilization because otherwise the apex civilization may choose to conquer and murder yours (e.g. Europeans vs Native Americans) to prevent competition. My point is that there's so many reasons that we're not finding anything (nonexistent priors, searching in the wrong spot, search for the wrong signals, not having enough people searching, having the wrong equipment, not even having the physics required to start searching, etc etc) that the Fermi paradox provides no insight & can't even be called a paradox yet. If faster than light travel is possible, this changes a lot of calculus of course. But similarly, is there any reason to believe our solar system would be interesting enough for the species to come to us? Or maybe there's even political things like Star Trek's first contact rule that put us in a bubble & intentionally mask the existence of the aliens in the first place.
- merman 2y ago
  Your statements are framed as arguments, like in a debate. But it’s clear to most, at least clear to the down voters and the other responders, that you haven’t thought about or investigated these concepts. Instead of writing many argumentative paragraphs, spend that time asking ChatGPT specific questions or skimming some Wikipedia articles. Some people don’t like to read, they’d rather explore ideas by arguing about them. But that’s a drain on discussions, not an addition to it. E.g.(paraphrased) “my point is the Fermi paradox is dumb”- no physicists think that is the case. Some people on the outside, looking in, with no understanding think so. A child walks into a theatre halfway through a movie that is geared towards adults, watches for 3 minutes, and announces defiantly that the movie is dumb. Is it worth arguing with that child?
  - vlovich123 2y ago
    It’s good as a thought experiment to think through why we don’t see signals, but that’s about it. The Wikipedia page lists plenty of reasonable hypotheses to explain. Heck, even the explanation of the paradox itself indicates a huge problem in the radio transmissions search: > The most sensitive radio telescopes on Earth, as of 2019, would not be able to detect non-directional radio signals (such as broadband) even at a fraction of a light-year away,[49] but other civilizations could hypothetically have much better equipment. So we don’t even have equipment that could detect equivalent passive signals from our planet in the nearest other solar system. And our planet is increasingly not emitting loud broadband signals instead preferring fiber optics and point to point links for bandwidth and efficiency reasons (+ encryption). I have yet to find anyone who believes that the Fermi paradox is real who bothers to offer a justification that doesn’t rely on assumptions about FTL or completely ignore the practical challenges of we’re not even seriously looking and don’t really know what to look for let alone the serious practical challenges that interstellar travel could be a huge barrier since we don’t even have a counter that such travel is indeed possible (eg even our furthest probe which required a confluence of orbital mechanics to make that speed possible in the first place would need to travel ~500x longer just to reach the nearest solar system). I’m glad insulting me makes you feel good but pointing me at convincing counter arguments to theist basic practical counter arguments might be a better use of time if you found any that are so obviously compelling.

vlovich123 2y ago

I never said it's a rigorous thing; I'm highlighting that there's too many flaws to take seriously (i.e. evidence of absence in this case tells us nothing). Remember - it's a million to do a straight shot across the universe at quite a large portion of the speed of light. In terms of colonization we're talking billions of years for an unknown fraction of the galaxy, but definitely not the entire thing. And much of the galaxy may not even be suited for colonization (e.g. presumably you still need some raw resources & have to be careful about where you go to to expand) As for "hiding" I never said they want to hide. But you only need to look at the modern world to realize that digital communication and encryption are standard fare and "hiding" is a natural evolution of that. And the longer distances you are transmitting and the more signals you need to monitor, the more energy efficient you want to be (i.e. point to point + relays instead of broadspectrum broadcasts). And if advanced civilizations use neutrino comms or quantum entaglement somehow, then they'd naturally be hidden just because that's how more advanced tech would work. As for territory, I never said they wouldn't be territorial. But a lion isn't going to bother being territorial with a mouse. No reason to believe they're going to try to broadcast ownership in a way that a "stone age" species like ours could detect. Additionally, it's not impossible that communication barriers are real and therefore there's not really much to communicate out vs "show up in our heavily fortified star system & see disappear" kind of behavior. The counter argument is that you may actually want to hide unless you're the apex civilization because otherwise the apex civilization may choose to conquer and murder yours (e.g. Europeans vs Native Americans) to prevent competition. My point is that there's so many reasons that we're not finding anything (nonexistent priors, searching in the wrong spot, search for the wrong signals, not having enough people searching, having the wrong equipment, not even having the physics required to start searching, etc etc) that the Fermi paradox provides no insight & can't even be called a paradox yet. If faster than light travel is possible, this changes a lot of calculus of course. But similarly, is there any reason to believe our solar system would be interesting enough for the species to come to us? Or maybe there's even political things like Star Trek's first contact rule that put us in a bubble & intentionally mask the existence of the aliens in the first place.

merman 2y ago
Your statements are framed as arguments, like in a debate. But it’s clear to most, at least clear to the down voters and the other responders, that you haven’t thought about or investigated these concepts. Instead of writing many argumentative paragraphs, spend that time asking ChatGPT specific questions or skimming some Wikipedia articles. Some people don’t like to read, they’d rather explore ideas by arguing about them. But that’s a drain on discussions, not an addition to it. E.g.(paraphrased) “my point is the Fermi paradox is dumb”- no physicists think that is the case. Some people on the outside, looking in, with no understanding think so. A child walks into a theatre halfway through a movie that is geared towards adults, watches for 3 minutes, and announces defiantly that the movie is dumb. Is it worth arguing with that child?
- vlovich123 2y ago
  It’s good as a thought experiment to think through why we don’t see signals, but that’s about it. The Wikipedia page lists plenty of reasonable hypotheses to explain. Heck, even the explanation of the paradox itself indicates a huge problem in the radio transmissions search: > The most sensitive radio telescopes on Earth, as of 2019, would not be able to detect non-directional radio signals (such as broadband) even at a fraction of a light-year away,[49] but other civilizations could hypothetically have much better equipment. So we don’t even have equipment that could detect equivalent passive signals from our planet in the nearest other solar system. And our planet is increasingly not emitting loud broadband signals instead preferring fiber optics and point to point links for bandwidth and efficiency reasons (+ encryption). I have yet to find anyone who believes that the Fermi paradox is real who bothers to offer a justification that doesn’t rely on assumptions about FTL or completely ignore the practical challenges of we’re not even seriously looking and don’t really know what to look for let alone the serious practical challenges that interstellar travel could be a huge barrier since we don’t even have a counter that such travel is indeed possible (eg even our furthest probe which required a confluence of orbital mechanics to make that speed possible in the first place would need to travel ~500x longer just to reach the nearest solar system). I’m glad insulting me makes you feel good but pointing me at convincing counter arguments to theist basic practical counter arguments might be a better use of time if you found any that are so obviously compelling.