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It may be comforting that considering the Great Filter theory ( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_Filter http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_Filter ) finding li

It may be comforting that considering the Great Filter theory ( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_Filter http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_Filter ) finding life on mars might actually be bad news.

omgitstom 12y ago
It matters what stage of life is found on Mars. Regardless, one data point even if it is our own solar system won't be enough for us to determine what/where the Great Filter or Great Filters could be.
givan 12y ago
Great filter theory is pure speculation because this is the only thing you can have in absence of any data on the subject. Beyond our solar system the best data we have are shadows blocking star light that indicate an exoplanet sometimes they are false alarms being just star (sun) spots, radio waves are something we use at this point in our very young civilization, there is no indication that this is a standard or efficient way of communication to associate missing radio data to absence of other civilizations. In conclusion we have no data about life in the universe to jump to such conclusions or any conclusion, the only thing we can do is continue exploring and speculate on the question if there are advanced civilization capable of contact why aren't they contacting us?
- roywiggins 12y ago
  Von Neumann probes could reach every star in the galaxy pretty quickly. A civilization with a few million years start on us should have their robotic friends here already, basking in our sun. And there only has to be one civilization that 1) can and 2) does create such probes. If spacefaring civilization is common, it seems awfully unlikely that none of them have done so yet.
  - givan 12y ago
    > it seems awfully unlikely that none of them have done so yet. We don't know that, there is no way to detect that with our current technology unless one of the probes land on earth and the government/military agrees to disclose and confirm the information, maybe this already happened but nobody wants to see it because they are afraid of the implications http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Phoenix_Lights http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Phoenix_Lights http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Belgian_UFO_wave http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Belgian_UFO_wave
  - pavelrub 12y ago
    > it seems awfully unlikely that none of them have done so yet. Based on what? How did you estimate the probability of a random intelligent civilization sending detectable (from Earth) Von Nuemann probes into the universe? For a probability of 1/1000 there could be hundreds of intelligent civilizations within our galaxy without any such probes, and the probability can be much lower than that.
madaxe_again 12y ago
The great filter theory is subject to our own filter bubble. As I see it, there are other possibilities - Intelligent life doesn't want to be found - at least by us. Intelligent life tends towards simulation, rather than expansion. Further to the above, we are the only intelligent life in the simulation in which we reside. Intelligent life is far more of an aberration than we realise. Intelligent life is actually very dumb on a macro scale, and falls prey to Malthusian collapse, either by falling into a significant energy gap or by destroying their biosphere. Intelligent life tends to succumb to dysgenic fertility, and ceases to be intelligent. Therefore the discovery of life on other worlds means little for the Fermi paradox, as our model may grossly oversimplify or overlook one or more variables which lead to us, now. Personally I think we're in a sim and we're about to lose the game, as we're staring down an energy deficit Malthusian collapse, uh, right now.
- exratione 12y ago
  The important thing to realize about the Fermi Paradox is that all generalizations about behavior fail automatically as explanatory theories. It only takes one small group within one species to generate a self-replicating probe, at which point all of the galaxy is visited in a few million years. A solution to the Fermi Paradox has to explain why that event has never happened despite the fact that some element of our species will do exactly this at some point in the next thousand years. The laws of physics allow it, and our psychology is clearly up for it.
  - bsder 12y ago
    > It only takes one small group within one species to generate a self-replicating probe And what would that probe look like? For it to be a useful to the sending civilization, it needs to go out, replicate, and send information back. The first two are easy. Send out lots of meteorites with bacteria on them. The third is not so easy. Creating a self-replicating machine which can then transmit back across interstellar distances or store information in its replication program and then send more of itself out is hard. Or, you help life evolve and then wait for the results to reach the point where they can send out their own probes and signals...
maaku 12y ago
Great filter theory is nonsense. The period between intelligent life evolving and it taking over the universe at near the speed of light is so short, in cosmic time, that any civilization anywhere should expect to see an empty universe (in their light cone).
- Lost_BiomedE 12y ago
  Before reading Power, Sex, and Suicide, I may have agreed. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Power,_Sex,_Suicide http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Power,_Sex,_Suicide It is a possibility that there is a relatively small window where single celled life has the opportunity to become multicellular life. As one amazon review summed it: 'After the origin of life, the next big step on the way to us was the origin of eukaryotes. These are all the organisms - including people, trees, mushrooms, and slime molds - who package most of our DNA into chromosomes in cell nuclei. Mitochondria, the "powerhouses" of eukaryotes, are descended from bacteria which took to living in a very close relationship with another type of one-celled organism; in fact they came to live inside the other. Nick Lane argues that this merger must have preceded the formation of the nuclear membrane.' * The great filter is stronger and weaker in argument depending on where you place the filter, but the idea in general remains the same. *more info here but less than the book, via an article in new scientist by the author: http://ronbarak.tumblr.com/post/25996121029/life-is-it-inevitable-or-just-a-fluke-by-nick http://ronbarak.tumblr.com/post/25996121029/life-is-it-inevi...
  - maaku 12y ago
    I'm not sure what aspect of my post you are arguing against? I guess there could be different definitions at play here, but I was talking about a hypothetical developmental stage where most civilizations destroy themselves. E.g. nuclear war, climate change, etc. Regarding how common life is in the universe, I wasn't talking about non-intelligent life. I fully expect that we will find signs of such life elsewhere in the cosmos in the next hundred years, either on Mars, Europa, Titan, Enceladus, or perhaps in the atmospheric spectra of some extra-solar planet. No, I was talking about intelligent life, which if iot exists has a very short gestational period before transforming into lasting intelligence(s) expanding into the universe at close to physical limits. In particular the window between development of technology detectable from distant observation (e.g. radio) and a runaway singularity pushing that civilization's expansion rate to light speed limits is so small that regardless of the prevalence of intelligent life in the universe, we should expect to see an empty sky. Why? Because for most of the history of the cosmos we see an empty sky in our light cone. Then suddenly the most distant stars start to go dim with strangely shifted spectra, in an expanding wave that flows through visible star systems at >0.9c until it hits us, and ... well who knows what happens then. The Fermi paradox is: "if there are so many intelligences, why can't we see them?" The transhumanist response is: "if we could see them, we'd be dead." By the anthropic principle we can only expect to exist in the time period where we are alive, not dead, so we should expect with very high probability to see an empty sky, and with very low probability the coming onslaught of darkness.
Houshalter 12y ago
Only if it's independently evolved, if it's a fork of life on Earth then it doesn't tell us anything about the probability of life elsewhere. The great filter is very likely the evolution of multicelluar life and animals, which are unlikely to be found on mars. If we found living animals on mars I would be very concerned about the future of the human race.
- swombat 12y ago
  Are you saying you're not currently very concerned about the future of the human race?
- chc 12y ago
  Why? Mars lost its magnetic field long ago, and most of its atmospheric mass followed behind. Whether animals had evolved there before these events happened doesn't really have any bearing on the cause or effect of those events.
  - Houshalter 12y ago
    If animals independently evolved on mars, it would mean the great filter is ahead of us rather than behind us.
    - chc 12y ago
      This seems like some kind of strange magical thinking to me. If animal-like creatures evolved on Mars and then all died because their planet's atmosphere and water dissipated early in its history, that tells us nothing about some "great filter" ahead of us. Our planet is large and geologically active and will most likely remain so until the sun engulfs it, so what would have killed any hypothetical life on Mars is not the same thing that will kill us.
      - Houshalter 12y ago
        If animals evolved independently on mars, it probably means the universe is full of life and that animals have evolved many times before on other worlds. If so then we should expect many of those worlds to evolve intelligent life, and some of those worlds to still be around in the present day and colonizing, building stuff, or possibly even contacting us. And yet there is no sign of any intelligent life out there despite intense scientific effort to search for it. This increases the probability of the hypothesis that most intelligent life goes extinct, which means we will probably go extinct.
deleted 12y ago
[deleted]
cLeEOGPw 12y ago
One of the so called "Great Filters" is our Moon. It is providing Earth's metal core with constant moving force and refreshing the dynamo and keeping our atmosphere and water not blown away by solar winds. Since the size of Earths satellite is far from ordinary, this instantly reduces chance of advanced life appearing elsewhere. And if the theory of the source of Moon is right, it formed after collision with object of a size of Earth, the filter is restricted by star systems with the planets within a certain range that had a collision with other planet in a way that left long lasting big object rotating around that planet and generating magnetic field preventing water and atmosphere from escaping. So just by applying only this "Moon filter", reduces the chances of advanced life in our own Milky Way to probably just few cases in whole galaxy. And add the probability of intelligent beings appearing on random planet that has life, it starts to seem pretty realistic that we are only ones not only in Milky Way, but also surrounding galaxies. The conclusion is we better start working on colonization techniques, because chances are that the future of life in our galaxy is in our hands.
- givan 12y ago
  We have bacteria that live inside volcanoes or on the bottom of the ocean in extreme conditions, life adapts, without the moon life would only look differently there is no proof that without the moon life on earth would not be possible, looking at life in the universe from a human environment point of view is flawed.
  - minikites 12y ago
    But we only see complex life in a narrower range of much milder conditions. I bet there's lots of space microbes but I agree with the parent to this comment that complex, intelligent life is probably pretty rare.
    - givan 12y ago
      Milder conditions relative to our environment? this is subjective, where do you see complex life and how do you know that complex life requires "milder" conditions or that is rare if we only have ourselves as an example that happen to live in such an environment? What stops bacteria that live in harsh environments to evolve even if probably slower? harsh meaning hard/impossible for ourselves or for life as we know on earth.

It may be comforting that considering the Great Filter theory ( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_Filter http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_Filter ) finding life on mars might actually be bad news.

omgitstom 12y ago

It matters what stage of life is found on Mars. Regardless, one data point even if it is our own solar system won't be enough for us to determine what/where the Great Filter or Great Filters could be.

givan 12y ago

Great filter theory is pure speculation because this is the only thing you can have in absence of any data on the subject. Beyond our solar system the best data we have are shadows blocking star light that indicate an exoplanet sometimes they are false alarms being just star (sun) spots, radio waves are something we use at this point in our very young civilization, there is no indication that this is a standard or efficient way of communication to associate missing radio data to absence of other civilizations. In conclusion we have no data about life in the universe to jump to such conclusions or any conclusion, the only thing we can do is continue exploring and speculate on the question if there are advanced civilization capable of contact why aren't they contacting us?

roywiggins 12y ago
Von Neumann probes could reach every star in the galaxy pretty quickly. A civilization with a few million years start on us should have their robotic friends here already, basking in our sun. And there only has to be one civilization that 1) can and 2) does create such probes. If spacefaring civilization is common, it seems awfully unlikely that none of them have done so yet.
- givan 12y ago
  > it seems awfully unlikely that none of them have done so yet. We don't know that, there is no way to detect that with our current technology unless one of the probes land on earth and the government/military agrees to disclose and confirm the information, maybe this already happened but nobody wants to see it because they are afraid of the implications http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Phoenix_Lights http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Phoenix_Lights http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Belgian_UFO_wave http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Belgian_UFO_wave
- pavelrub 12y ago
  > it seems awfully unlikely that none of them have done so yet. Based on what? How did you estimate the probability of a random intelligent civilization sending detectable (from Earth) Von Nuemann probes into the universe? For a probability of 1/1000 there could be hundreds of intelligent civilizations within our galaxy without any such probes, and the probability can be much lower than that.

madaxe_again 12y ago

The great filter theory is subject to our own filter bubble. As I see it, there are other possibilities - Intelligent life doesn't want to be found - at least by us. Intelligent life tends towards simulation, rather than expansion. Further to the above, we are the only intelligent life in the simulation in which we reside. Intelligent life is far more of an aberration than we realise. Intelligent life is actually very dumb on a macro scale, and falls prey to Malthusian collapse, either by falling into a significant energy gap or by destroying their biosphere. Intelligent life tends to succumb to dysgenic fertility, and ceases to be intelligent. Therefore the discovery of life on other worlds means little for the Fermi paradox, as our model may grossly oversimplify or overlook one or more variables which lead to us, now. Personally I think we're in a sim and we're about to lose the game, as we're staring down an energy deficit Malthusian collapse, uh, right now.

exratione 12y ago
The important thing to realize about the Fermi Paradox is that all generalizations about behavior fail automatically as explanatory theories. It only takes one small group within one species to generate a self-replicating probe, at which point all of the galaxy is visited in a few million years. A solution to the Fermi Paradox has to explain why that event has never happened despite the fact that some element of our species will do exactly this at some point in the next thousand years. The laws of physics allow it, and our psychology is clearly up for it.
- bsder 12y ago
  > It only takes one small group within one species to generate a self-replicating probe And what would that probe look like? For it to be a useful to the sending civilization, it needs to go out, replicate, and send information back. The first two are easy. Send out lots of meteorites with bacteria on them. The third is not so easy. Creating a self-replicating machine which can then transmit back across interstellar distances or store information in its replication program and then send more of itself out is hard. Or, you help life evolve and then wait for the results to reach the point where they can send out their own probes and signals...

maaku 12y ago

Great filter theory is nonsense. The period between intelligent life evolving and it taking over the universe at near the speed of light is so short, in cosmic time, that any civilization anywhere should expect to see an empty universe (in their light cone).

Lost_BiomedE 12y ago
Before reading Power, Sex, and Suicide, I may have agreed. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Power,_Sex,_Suicide http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Power,_Sex,_Suicide It is a possibility that there is a relatively small window where single celled life has the opportunity to become multicellular life. As one amazon review summed it: 'After the origin of life, the next big step on the way to us was the origin of eukaryotes. These are all the organisms - including people, trees, mushrooms, and slime molds - who package most of our DNA into chromosomes in cell nuclei. Mitochondria, the "powerhouses" of eukaryotes, are descended from bacteria which took to living in a very close relationship with another type of one-celled organism; in fact they came to live inside the other. Nick Lane argues that this merger must have preceded the formation of the nuclear membrane.' * The great filter is stronger and weaker in argument depending on where you place the filter, but the idea in general remains the same. *more info here but less than the book, via an article in new scientist by the author: http://ronbarak.tumblr.com/post/25996121029/life-is-it-inevitable-or-just-a-fluke-by-nick http://ronbarak.tumblr.com/post/25996121029/life-is-it-inevi...
- maaku 12y ago
  I'm not sure what aspect of my post you are arguing against? I guess there could be different definitions at play here, but I was talking about a hypothetical developmental stage where most civilizations destroy themselves. E.g. nuclear war, climate change, etc. Regarding how common life is in the universe, I wasn't talking about non-intelligent life. I fully expect that we will find signs of such life elsewhere in the cosmos in the next hundred years, either on Mars, Europa, Titan, Enceladus, or perhaps in the atmospheric spectra of some extra-solar planet. No, I was talking about intelligent life, which if iot exists has a very short gestational period before transforming into lasting intelligence(s) expanding into the universe at close to physical limits. In particular the window between development of technology detectable from distant observation (e.g. radio) and a runaway singularity pushing that civilization's expansion rate to light speed limits is so small that regardless of the prevalence of intelligent life in the universe, we should expect to see an empty sky. Why? Because for most of the history of the cosmos we see an empty sky in our light cone. Then suddenly the most distant stars start to go dim with strangely shifted spectra, in an expanding wave that flows through visible star systems at >0.9c until it hits us, and ... well who knows what happens then. The Fermi paradox is: "if there are so many intelligences, why can't we see them?" The transhumanist response is: "if we could see them, we'd be dead." By the anthropic principle we can only expect to exist in the time period where we are alive, not dead, so we should expect with very high probability to see an empty sky, and with very low probability the coming onslaught of darkness.

Houshalter 12y ago

Only if it's independently evolved, if it's a fork of life on Earth then it doesn't tell us anything about the probability of life elsewhere. The great filter is very likely the evolution of multicelluar life and animals, which are unlikely to be found on mars. If we found living animals on mars I would be very concerned about the future of the human race.

swombat 12y ago
Are you saying you're not currently very concerned about the future of the human race?
chc 12y ago
Why? Mars lost its magnetic field long ago, and most of its atmospheric mass followed behind. Whether animals had evolved there before these events happened doesn't really have any bearing on the cause or effect of those events.
- Houshalter 12y ago
  If animals independently evolved on mars, it would mean the great filter is ahead of us rather than behind us.
  - chc 12y ago
    This seems like some kind of strange magical thinking to me. If animal-like creatures evolved on Mars and then all died because their planet's atmosphere and water dissipated early in its history, that tells us nothing about some "great filter" ahead of us. Our planet is large and geologically active and will most likely remain so until the sun engulfs it, so what would have killed any hypothetical life on Mars is not the same thing that will kill us.
    - Houshalter 12y ago
      If animals evolved independently on mars, it probably means the universe is full of life and that animals have evolved many times before on other worlds. If so then we should expect many of those worlds to evolve intelligent life, and some of those worlds to still be around in the present day and colonizing, building stuff, or possibly even contacting us. And yet there is no sign of any intelligent life out there despite intense scientific effort to search for it. This increases the probability of the hypothesis that most intelligent life goes extinct, which means we will probably go extinct.

deleted 12y ago

[deleted]

cLeEOGPw 12y ago

One of the so called "Great Filters" is our Moon. It is providing Earth's metal core with constant moving force and refreshing the dynamo and keeping our atmosphere and water not blown away by solar winds. Since the size of Earths satellite is far from ordinary, this instantly reduces chance of advanced life appearing elsewhere. And if the theory of the source of Moon is right, it formed after collision with object of a size of Earth, the filter is restricted by star systems with the planets within a certain range that had a collision with other planet in a way that left long lasting big object rotating around that planet and generating magnetic field preventing water and atmosphere from escaping. So just by applying only this "Moon filter", reduces the chances of advanced life in our own Milky Way to probably just few cases in whole galaxy. And add the probability of intelligent beings appearing on random planet that has life, it starts to seem pretty realistic that we are only ones not only in Milky Way, but also surrounding galaxies. The conclusion is we better start working on colonization techniques, because chances are that the future of life in our galaxy is in our hands.

givan 12y ago
We have bacteria that live inside volcanoes or on the bottom of the ocean in extreme conditions, life adapts, without the moon life would only look differently there is no proof that without the moon life on earth would not be possible, looking at life in the universe from a human environment point of view is flawed.
- minikites 12y ago
  But we only see complex life in a narrower range of much milder conditions. I bet there's lots of space microbes but I agree with the parent to this comment that complex, intelligent life is probably pretty rare.
  - givan 12y ago
    Milder conditions relative to our environment? this is subjective, where do you see complex life and how do you know that complex life requires "milder" conditions or that is rare if we only have ourselves as an example that happen to live in such an environment? What stops bacteria that live in harsh environments to evolve even if probably slower? harsh meaning hard/impossible for ourselves or for life as we know on earth.