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If there was an intelligent life form, like humans, it would have expanded into the cosmos and colonized the entire galaxy within only a million years of develo

by maaku 11y ago

If there was an intelligent life form, like humans, it would have expanded into the cosmos and colonized the entire galaxy within only a million years of developing technology. Since we don't see traces of them everywhere, we must presume they don't exist.

tjr 11y ago
Perhaps government funding for their space exploration programs dried up, industry regulations interfered with commercial space exploration programs, and they all just gave up and shifted technology resources to making games for their mobile phones.
lukasm 11y ago
If there is a intelligent live form millions years ahead of us it's most likely AI that doesn't want to make the contact.
- maaku 11y ago
  And also doesn't want to use any resources, or perform any heat-generating computation?
  - Udo 11y ago
    Your big unstated assumption is that any intelligence will always consume the maximum resources it can and cause the maximally possible transformation of any habitat. Normally, when physicists look for these kinds of large-structure signs, the implicit assumption is that it's sufficient for one civilization to behave this way, but you seem to assert they all must be like that. Any of the hypotheses we discuss in this thread (whether they are over-confidently stated as facts or marked as speculative) are inevitably deficient due to data derived from a sample size of one.
vectorjohn 11y ago
That's an unfounded presumption. It's like, nobody has considered that advanced life might not even feel a need to live on planets at all. It's expensive to get resources from, and there's a near limitless supply of easy to get smaller debris. Additionally, the difference a 2 billion year head start could make is hard to imagine. One thing that's not hard to imagine is that they don't live in meat bodies for most of that time. They could easily be machines or virtual, and then would look and act nothing like anything we're looking for.
- maaku 11y ago
  We have sensitive telescopes. If there was life out there, we would have noticed. You would have astronomy conferences filled with people trying to figure out what all these weird spectra objects are, or trying to decipher all these structured radio observations.
  - codewithcheese 11y ago
    We just found the first planet that is somewhat similar 1400 light years away... and you think our 'sensitive telescopes' would have definitely discovered all possible life in the universe if it existed???
  - vectorjohn 11y ago
    What? No, absolutely no we would not just see them with sensitive telescopes. Perhaps, if you're thinking of some sort of interstellar space travel, maybe we'd see the engines? But no, even that seems unlikely. Any space habitat of any plausible size will be completely undetectable, or at least indistinguishable from a planet. And I would think they'd be much smaller than that. And structured radio? Lots of possible reasons not to see it. One, possibly not using radio. Two, encryption. Communication will likely look like noise. But even so, the distances involved means long range transmissions will need to be very directed and narrow beam. And even then, it's only a few light years before the signal is undetectable. I would suspect any really long distance communication would be bounced through relays. Also, why? You have to wait years for messages to go around. All of this means no, we're not likely to easily find stray radio signals.
    - maaku 11y ago
      I think you are completely misunderstanding the point. He have to vent heat somehow in the most efficient ways of doing so are not natural in their spectra. An encrypted radio transmission is still perfectly detectable -- you may not know what it says but you know that it is there. Artificial signals are blindingly obvious. And this is without getting into Dyson spheres and other efficient but detectable technology.
msane 11y ago
I sometimes wonder if "like humans" is the key. What if past some level of technical advancement, organisms cease inhabiting the same scale as us. Physically and temporaly; they become microscopic and perceive+act on a time scale faster than us by orders of magnitude. Why inhabit the days/hours/seconds timescale when you can have the same experiences in micro/nanoseconds? So we would be mostly not interesting to them and expensive to interact with at our timescale. Not sure if we would notice them right under our noses.
codeshaman 11y ago
Or maybe the next step in the evolution of a civilization is the realization that 'colonizing' is much more fun if the colonists are just dropped off without any technology and let to develop into a civilization and discover who they are and do the same thing over again. You know, just to keep the game going. All that's needed for that is already encoded in their DNA. Maybe there are other channels of exploring spacetime than just the physical reality. Maybe that's where all the advanced civilizations reside.. Like the place we are in before we are born or after we die... 1 million years of mind evolution should not only bring advanced tech, but also advanced wisdom and understanding of who we are and what we are doing here. I doubt that expansion to all possible planets is the ultimate goal, the mystery must go much deeper than that ;).
unfunco 11y ago
Based on what evidence? I would posit that it there was an intelligent life-form, it would have descended into war and eventually extinction. Self-interest isn't exclusive to Earth. Edit: I've said that self-interest isn't exclusive to Earth, without providing evidence and I don't have any; I should have said that self-interest isn't exclusive to humans, the simplest forms of life (bacteria, as an example) make war also.
AreaGuy 11y ago
It's like an anthill in the middle of the Amazon saying "If there were life on Earth that is more intelligent than us, why can't we see their enormous anthills? Why haven't they tried to contact us yet?"

by maaku 11y ago

tjr 11y ago

Perhaps government funding for their space exploration programs dried up, industry regulations interfered with commercial space exploration programs, and they all just gave up and shifted technology resources to making games for their mobile phones.

lukasm 11y ago

If there is a intelligent live form millions years ahead of us it's most likely AI that doesn't want to make the contact.

maaku 11y ago
And also doesn't want to use any resources, or perform any heat-generating computation?
- Udo 11y ago
  Your big unstated assumption is that any intelligence will always consume the maximum resources it can and cause the maximally possible transformation of any habitat. Normally, when physicists look for these kinds of large-structure signs, the implicit assumption is that it's sufficient for one civilization to behave this way, but you seem to assert they all must be like that. Any of the hypotheses we discuss in this thread (whether they are over-confidently stated as facts or marked as speculative) are inevitably deficient due to data derived from a sample size of one.

vectorjohn 11y ago

That's an unfounded presumption. It's like, nobody has considered that advanced life might not even feel a need to live on planets at all. It's expensive to get resources from, and there's a near limitless supply of easy to get smaller debris. Additionally, the difference a 2 billion year head start could make is hard to imagine. One thing that's not hard to imagine is that they don't live in meat bodies for most of that time. They could easily be machines or virtual, and then would look and act nothing like anything we're looking for.

maaku 11y ago
We have sensitive telescopes. If there was life out there, we would have noticed. You would have astronomy conferences filled with people trying to figure out what all these weird spectra objects are, or trying to decipher all these structured radio observations.
- codewithcheese 11y ago
  We just found the first planet that is somewhat similar 1400 light years away... and you think our 'sensitive telescopes' would have definitely discovered all possible life in the universe if it existed???
- vectorjohn 11y ago
  What? No, absolutely no we would not just see them with sensitive telescopes. Perhaps, if you're thinking of some sort of interstellar space travel, maybe we'd see the engines? But no, even that seems unlikely. Any space habitat of any plausible size will be completely undetectable, or at least indistinguishable from a planet. And I would think they'd be much smaller than that. And structured radio? Lots of possible reasons not to see it. One, possibly not using radio. Two, encryption. Communication will likely look like noise. But even so, the distances involved means long range transmissions will need to be very directed and narrow beam. And even then, it's only a few light years before the signal is undetectable. I would suspect any really long distance communication would be bounced through relays. Also, why? You have to wait years for messages to go around. All of this means no, we're not likely to easily find stray radio signals.
  - maaku 11y ago
    I think you are completely misunderstanding the point. He have to vent heat somehow in the most efficient ways of doing so are not natural in their spectra. An encrypted radio transmission is still perfectly detectable -- you may not know what it says but you know that it is there. Artificial signals are blindingly obvious. And this is without getting into Dyson spheres and other efficient but detectable technology.

msane 11y ago

I sometimes wonder if "like humans" is the key. What if past some level of technical advancement, organisms cease inhabiting the same scale as us. Physically and temporaly; they become microscopic and perceive+act on a time scale faster than us by orders of magnitude. Why inhabit the days/hours/seconds timescale when you can have the same experiences in micro/nanoseconds? So we would be mostly not interesting to them and expensive to interact with at our timescale. Not sure if we would notice them right under our noses.

codeshaman 11y ago

Or maybe the next step in the evolution of a civilization is the realization that 'colonizing' is much more fun if the colonists are just dropped off without any technology and let to develop into a civilization and discover who they are and do the same thing over again. You know, just to keep the game going. All that's needed for that is already encoded in their DNA. Maybe there are other channels of exploring spacetime than just the physical reality. Maybe that's where all the advanced civilizations reside.. Like the place we are in before we are born or after we die... 1 million years of mind evolution should not only bring advanced tech, but also advanced wisdom and understanding of who we are and what we are doing here. I doubt that expansion to all possible planets is the ultimate goal, the mystery must go much deeper than that ;).

unfunco 11y ago

Based on what evidence? I would posit that it there was an intelligent life-form, it would have descended into war and eventually extinction. Self-interest isn't exclusive to Earth. Edit: I've said that self-interest isn't exclusive to Earth, without providing evidence and I don't have any; I should have said that self-interest isn't exclusive to humans, the simplest forms of life (bacteria, as an example) make war also.

AreaGuy 11y ago

It's like an anthill in the middle of the Amazon saying "If there were life on Earth that is more intelligent than us, why can't we see their enormous anthills? Why haven't they tried to contact us yet?"