6 ms·

Fermi Paradox Points To Fewer Than Ten ET Civilisations

17 points by timf 17y ago

ErrantX 17y ago
As WE are the only civilisation we know of is it not sensible to presume that we are the average. In which case there could be lots of civilisations out there. When we actually come into contact with one then perhaps it is time to refactor the theory. otherwise it just sounds like meaningless projections that will probably be wrong.
- jodrellblank 17y ago
  Do we have any reason to think we are either above or below average? Assuming other life forms exist so we can't claim 'existance' as an exceptional characteristic, isn't it more likely that we are somewhere in the middle of any given range than that we are an outlier?
  - nazgulnarsil 17y ago
    it depends entirely on the distribution. One of my pet peeves about statistics is that everyone thinks every statistical distribution is either uniform or a bell curve. a statistical distribution ca take on many shapes.
  - dmfdmf 17y ago
    Outlier, if you accept the Rare Earth argument. http://www.wikinfo.org/index.php/Rare_Earth_hypothesis_according_to_Wikipedia http://www.wikinfo.org/index.php/Rare_Earth_hypothesis_accor... Interesting book...
  - rsheridan6 17y ago
    Our technology changing so rapidly that we couldn't be average. On a geological or cosmic timescale, civilized humanity as we know it has been around and probably will be around for a blink of an eye. So, no, we're not average, because even if something like us might exist, might have existed, or might someday exist elsewhere, at any given time chances are it's either stuck in a primordial stage, or it's moved on to something else. Taking the long view, we're not even average for Earth-based life.
pmichaud 17y ago
It's laughable, really. To presume alien technology will in any way resemble ours is just arrogant. It's like the green DOS screens you see on "computers of the future" in 80s movies, except worse because it's trying to predict technology that's not 20 years ahead, but /millions/, and not invented by human engineers but /aliens/. Seriously?
- stavrianos 17y ago
  It doesn't seem to me that they're predicting all that much. 1) Aliens will be interested in spreading themselves. This isn't such a stretch, but at any rate we're only interested in ETs that DO spread. Insular societies will be basically impossible to find, and so for the purposes of this discussion may as well not exist. 2) When they do, we'll be able to tell. A little bit more of a stretch, but not totally crazy. Sure, we can't know what they'd invent, or what principles they'd work on. Maybe they go places in stable wormholes and do absolutely nothing when they arrive. But it makes sense to think that someone went for the low-hanging fruit and built a big-assed fusion drive armada. And we'd see that, I think.
  - deleted 17y ago
    [deleted]
  - swombat 17y ago
    But it makes sense to think that someone went for the low-hanging fruit and built a big-assed fusion drive armada. And we'd see that, I think. Maybe they built a big-ass gamma-drive armada. Which would explain all the gamma ray bursts.
    - wlievens 17y ago
      Is this in jest, or should we take it seriously? I mean the generalized version of this, of course: are there any astronomical phenomena we currently see as natural that could in fact plausibly artifacts of artificial processes?
      - 17y ago
cakeface 17y ago
It seems to me that they are making way too many crazy assumputions. They are assuming that a civilization that can make a probe that lasts 50 million years would only send out 8 probes? That seems to be the wrong mentality. I would rather think that the probes would last a shorter amount of time but they send out thousands. Also what kind of evidence would these probes leave behind that would last 1 million to 100 million years? More likely they would buzz by taking pictures and radio readings of a system and then just keep going.
- nazgulnarsil 17y ago
  I would send out von neuman probes that build more of themselves.
  - ivanstojic 17y ago
    This will end in nothing good, I can assure you.
    - nazgulnarsil 17y ago
      oh I know, I'm just an asshole on an interstellar scale. I would probably want to have it continuously transmit a video of keyboard cat, seeding the galaxy with my trolling.
    - cschneid 17y ago
      My favorite negative outcome from self replicating probes is the kind that are sent out to investigate the universe, and report back to a location some millions of years later to report. Except too many of them have been built, and when they show up, gravity is too much, and they form a black hole. For whatever reason, that's just funny to me.
  - mattculbreth 17y ago
    Go read Alastair Reynolds and see if you feel the same. Yikes.
    - 17y ago
raphar 17y ago
Perhaps WE are the evidence that a probe visited the solar system. As we still don't know exactly how life begun, we can't ignore that posibility
- dbz 17y ago
  We are the evidence we are looking for! How clever. +1 clever points.
rgrieselhuber 17y ago
Their calculations all seem to depend on (much) slower than light speed travel. Is it beyond the realm of imagination that if a civilization reached a sufficient level of sophistication to being "colonizing the galaxy" they would know how to travel at least faster than 1/10th the speed of light (the number mentioned in the article)?
- nazgulnarsil 17y ago
  we can already build a ship that would go 3-5% the speed of light (Orion). Assuming that a civilization with a million year head start could only double/triple this performance is laughable.
  - fh 17y ago
    True, I think that their ships would go at least a hundred times as fast. Oh wait...
10ren 17y ago
It's saying that even with probes that last 50 millions years, and visible from Earth for 1 million years, there could still be 1000 civilizations out there, and we wouldn't have heard from any of them. IOW: Space is big.
- wlievens 17y ago
  Space isn't that big at all, actually. In a couple of thousand years we would be able to expand at a rate of almost the speed of light: go to a neighbouring star, build a colony in about a century, go to the next star. You'd spread out over a significant portion of the galaxy in only a few aeons. It's not the gulfs of space that are huge, it's the gulfs of time that separate us. Stars' ages differ in billions of years. Maybe the total lifetime of the galaxy will harbour millions of civilizations all at some point, but rarely any at the same point in time?
  - 10ren 17y ago
    Time is big.
edw519 17y ago
Do you think that if they could travel at 1/10th the speed of light, they'd be able to figure out how to visit us undetected?
- stavrianos 17y ago
  do you think they'd care?
stavrianos 17y ago
An interesting counter to the Fermi paradox: http://www.projectrho.com/rocket/rocket3aa.html#killingstar http://www.projectrho.com/rocket/rocket3aa.html#killingstar
- e40 17y ago
  Thanks, interesting link. The book in question goes for insane prices (used) on amazon. I don't understand why in these cases the publisher doesn't do another printing. Clearly there is demand for it if the used book prices are hitting $100/copy.
  - anigbrowl 17y ago
    Nah, not really. That can just mean a few collectors/completists and a drastically limited supply. I am the author of a book that fetches high second hand prices (http://bit.ly/VdMUB http://bit.ly/VdMUB) but this is not due to any especial brilliance on my part, it's just that it's part of a set which had a limited print run and some people like collecting the set.

17 points by timf 17y ago

As WE are the only civilisation we know of is it not sensible to presume that we are the average. In which case there could be lots of civilisations out there. When we actually come into contact with one then perhaps it is time to refactor the theory. otherwise it just sounds like meaningless projections that will probably be wrong.

jodrellblank 17y ago
Do we have any reason to think we are either above or below average? Assuming other life forms exist so we can't claim 'existance' as an exceptional characteristic, isn't it more likely that we are somewhere in the middle of any given range than that we are an outlier?
- nazgulnarsil 17y ago
  it depends entirely on the distribution. One of my pet peeves about statistics is that everyone thinks every statistical distribution is either uniform or a bell curve. a statistical distribution ca take on many shapes.
- dmfdmf 17y ago
  Outlier, if you accept the Rare Earth argument. http://www.wikinfo.org/index.php/Rare_Earth_hypothesis_according_to_Wikipedia http://www.wikinfo.org/index.php/Rare_Earth_hypothesis_accor... Interesting book...
- rsheridan6 17y ago
  Our technology changing so rapidly that we couldn't be average. On a geological or cosmic timescale, civilized humanity as we know it has been around and probably will be around for a blink of an eye. So, no, we're not average, because even if something like us might exist, might have existed, or might someday exist elsewhere, at any given time chances are it's either stuck in a primordial stage, or it's moved on to something else. Taking the long view, we're not even average for Earth-based life.

pmichaud 17y ago

It's laughable, really. To presume alien technology will in any way resemble ours is just arrogant. It's like the green DOS screens you see on "computers of the future" in 80s movies, except worse because it's trying to predict technology that's not 20 years ahead, but /millions/, and not invented by human engineers but /aliens/. Seriously?

stavrianos 17y ago
It doesn't seem to me that they're predicting all that much. 1) Aliens will be interested in spreading themselves. This isn't such a stretch, but at any rate we're only interested in ETs that DO spread. Insular societies will be basically impossible to find, and so for the purposes of this discussion may as well not exist. 2) When they do, we'll be able to tell. A little bit more of a stretch, but not totally crazy. Sure, we can't know what they'd invent, or what principles they'd work on. Maybe they go places in stable wormholes and do absolutely nothing when they arrive. But it makes sense to think that someone went for the low-hanging fruit and built a big-assed fusion drive armada. And we'd see that, I think.
- deleted 17y ago
  [deleted]
- swombat 17y ago
  But it makes sense to think that someone went for the low-hanging fruit and built a big-assed fusion drive armada. And we'd see that, I think. Maybe they built a big-ass gamma-drive armada. Which would explain all the gamma ray bursts.
  - wlievens 17y ago
    Is this in jest, or should we take it seriously? I mean the generalized version of this, of course: are there any astronomical phenomena we currently see as natural that could in fact plausibly artifacts of artificial processes?
    - 17y ago

cakeface 17y ago

It seems to me that they are making way too many crazy assumputions. They are assuming that a civilization that can make a probe that lasts 50 million years would only send out 8 probes? That seems to be the wrong mentality. I would rather think that the probes would last a shorter amount of time but they send out thousands. Also what kind of evidence would these probes leave behind that would last 1 million to 100 million years? More likely they would buzz by taking pictures and radio readings of a system and then just keep going.

nazgulnarsil 17y ago
I would send out von neuman probes that build more of themselves.
- ivanstojic 17y ago
  This will end in nothing good, I can assure you.
  - nazgulnarsil 17y ago
    oh I know, I'm just an asshole on an interstellar scale. I would probably want to have it continuously transmit a video of keyboard cat, seeding the galaxy with my trolling.
  - cschneid 17y ago
    My favorite negative outcome from self replicating probes is the kind that are sent out to investigate the universe, and report back to a location some millions of years later to report. Except too many of them have been built, and when they show up, gravity is too much, and they form a black hole. For whatever reason, that's just funny to me.
- mattculbreth 17y ago
  Go read Alastair Reynolds and see if you feel the same. Yikes.
  - 17y ago

raphar 17y ago

Perhaps WE are the evidence that a probe visited the solar system. As we still don't know exactly how life begun, we can't ignore that posibility

dbz 17y ago
We are the evidence we are looking for! How clever. +1 clever points.

rgrieselhuber 17y ago

Their calculations all seem to depend on (much) slower than light speed travel. Is it beyond the realm of imagination that if a civilization reached a sufficient level of sophistication to being "colonizing the galaxy" they would know how to travel at least faster than 1/10th the speed of light (the number mentioned in the article)?

nazgulnarsil 17y ago
we can already build a ship that would go 3-5% the speed of light (Orion). Assuming that a civilization with a million year head start could only double/triple this performance is laughable.
- fh 17y ago
  True, I think that their ships would go at least a hundred times as fast. Oh wait...

10ren 17y ago

It's saying that even with probes that last 50 millions years, and visible from Earth for 1 million years, there could still be 1000 civilizations out there, and we wouldn't have heard from any of them. IOW: Space is big.

wlievens 17y ago
Space isn't that big at all, actually. In a couple of thousand years we would be able to expand at a rate of almost the speed of light: go to a neighbouring star, build a colony in about a century, go to the next star. You'd spread out over a significant portion of the galaxy in only a few aeons. It's not the gulfs of space that are huge, it's the gulfs of time that separate us. Stars' ages differ in billions of years. Maybe the total lifetime of the galaxy will harbour millions of civilizations all at some point, but rarely any at the same point in time?
- 10ren 17y ago
  Time is big.

edw519 17y ago

Do you think that if they could travel at 1/10th the speed of light, they'd be able to figure out how to visit us undetected?

stavrianos 17y ago
do you think they'd care?

stavrianos 17y ago

An interesting counter to the Fermi paradox: http://www.projectrho.com/rocket/rocket3aa.html#killingstar http://www.projectrho.com/rocket/rocket3aa.html#killingstar

e40 17y ago
Thanks, interesting link. The book in question goes for insane prices (used) on amazon. I don't understand why in these cases the publisher doesn't do another printing. Clearly there is demand for it if the used book prices are hitting $100/copy.
- anigbrowl 17y ago
  Nah, not really. That can just mean a few collectors/completists and a drastically limited supply. I am the author of a book that fetches high second hand prices (http://bit.ly/VdMUB http://bit.ly/VdMUB) but this is not due to any especial brilliance on my part, it's just that it's part of a set which had a limited print run and some people like collecting the set.