Fermi Paradox - Where are they?

[deMangler]

I agree that extrapolating from the life we know to answer this question is using a very small sample possibly hugely out of context.
However it would seem that evolution itself is something reasonable to assume might work universally - eg, if it reproduces and it's offspring can inherit traits and there can be mutations and there is competition for survival resources then the fittest will survive, by weirdly tautological definition really.
So, I am going to take what we know from life but that seems to be not tied by earthly context (I know, I know...) That is, survival of the fittest.
There have been Billions of years of evolution time at least. Therefore I conclude that the universe is full of silent highly effective killers, that only reveal themselves to their prey when there is no chance of the prey winning and also no chance of the predator being spotted by another predator.
Sometimes they make mistakes but then they die silently, so that is ok.

 

[JeffRyan]

The one thing that is surprising from the study of life on our planet is that it appeared almost immediately. Which argues against the 'not likely to happen' camp. Which suggests (only suggests we still only have one sample) that biogenesis isn't that difficult (under natural conditions even if we still don't know how it happened, which is the problem).

And yeah, intelligence isn't a given, most of the history of life on our planet was single-celled.

Shaun (Ex-astrophysicist, always interested in the topic of biogenesis).

 

[Gee]

I agree that extrapolating from the life we know to answer this question is using a very small sample possibly hugely out of context.
However it would seem that evolution itself is something reasonable to assume might work universally - eg, if it reproduces and it's offspring can inherit traits and there can be mutations and there is competition for survival resources then the fittest will survive, by weirdly tautological definition really.
So, I am going to take what we know from life but that seems to be not tied by earthly context (I know, I know...) That is, survival of the fittest.
There have been Billions of years of evolution time at least. Therefore I conclude that the universe is full of silent highly effective killers, that only reveal themselves to their prey when there is no chance of the prey winning and also no chance of the predator being spotted by another predator.
Sometimes they make mistakes but then they die silently, so that is ok.

Indeed - another VERY interesting aspect of blindsight (I will stop plugging this book now, I promise) is the likelihood that any spacefaring aliens won't just be seriously smart - they'll be seriously mean.

"Technology implies belligerence"

 

[Juniper]

That was sorta my point.

And I was sorta agreeing with it, and expanding on it.

 

[JeffRyan]

And I was sorta agreeing with it, and expanding on it.

And I was sorta not getting you had got it and was sorta re-iterating it. Cos I'm sorta a doofus sometimes.

 

[metatheurgist]

For example - could you have intelligence, tool-building, technology, space-travel etc. - but totally lack concious thought? You'd get creatures that operate on auto-pilot, following complex decision-trees and yet they wouldn't be able to recognise themselves in the mirror.

Sounds weird, but that's basically how chimps, dolphins and computers all work... maybe we're the odd ones out expecting "conscious thought" to be the natural consequence of intelligence.

Er, chimps (most great apes), dolphins, some corvids all demonstrate self-consciousness.

 

[Gee]

Er, chimps (most great apes), dolphins, some corvids all demonstrate self-consciousness.

Some do some don't. Chimps can recognise themselves in the mirror about 50% of the time.

Interestingly Orang-utans always recognise themselves, despite being generally thought of as less intelligent than chimps.

 

[Morpheus]

Given the age of the Earth, we could have been visited countless times over the billions of years. Any alien survey in the last few hundred million years is going to say 'rocky world with water oceans and some primitive life'.

The short period of time that we have had written history, and the ability to understand an alien visitation if one happened, is like the blink of an eye.

We assume that just because we haven't noticed an alien visit in the last few thousand years, that it has never happened.

If they are out there, and they have visited, we can only be grateful that they put up the 'nothing to see here' signs and moved on. Because if there was something they wanted, someone would have stripped that useful natural resource and not worried about the primitive indigenous life they were wiping out in the process.

 

[ScottGust]

They mostly come out at night...mostly.
-Newt:Aliens (bless her)

 

[JeffRyan]

There's another paradox which is the Clement's Paradox, which is sorta similar and has to do with the fact that most civilisations we would encounter wouldn't be the star trek variety where they're mostly the same tech level as us. Either a few hundred or a thousand or so years ahead or a few hundred years behind.

In reality most civilisations would either be stone age or MILLIONS of years ahead of us. I've only really seen Babylon 5 deal with this.

edit: By coincidence came across this today as I was browsing Asimov's Gold collection. He says his all-human Foundation and Empire galaxy was his way of resolving the paradox by just saying there are NO alien intelligences.

 

[Daeron]

I like the Asimov solution to the problem much more than any gathering of stereotypical aliens, that will forever feel like an Earthly projection. I am happy to leave it at Thargoids. And lower forms of life of course. Alien plant life you can brew exotic drinks from, sounds very authentic by default.

 

[Splendour]

Wile leafing xkcd I was reminded of this:

 

[Arowx]

Or more like this ;0)

Could Cthulhu be a Thargoid!

 

[deMangler]

Or more like this ;0)



Could Cthulhu be a Thargoid!

“The most merciful thing in the world, I think, is the inability of the human mind to correlate all its contents. We live on a placid island of ignorance in the midst of black seas of the infinity, and it was not meant that we should voyage far.”
― H.P. Lovecraft, The Call of Cthulhu and Other Weird Stories

 

[OriginalBadBoy]

just because you can't see something doesn't mean it isn't there....

The point being given the size and age of the universe there should be some evidence one way or the other.

As others have alluded to the problem is time (isn't it always). The chances of us being at the same technological level as another species in the galaxy is highly unlikely, if not impossible. Even if there are hundreds of thousands of civilsations out there the odd are quite literally astronomical.

A species just a couple of hundred of years behind us technologically would be impossible to detect, and a species a couple of hundred years ahead of us would also be impossible to detect and would have very little interest in us 'cavemen' anyway. A couple of hundred years in the evolution of the universe isn't even a blink of the eye.

Unfortunately popular media, games (!) and such seem to suggest that isn't the case, which unfortunately it more than likely is.

The reason why we cannot detect any signs of life (currently) is more than likely because we are the only ones currently looking in our neighborhood. All other life either doesn't have the technology, or has probably gone extinct.

 

[dobbo]

Whoever discovers the first ringworld or Dyson sphere; their name will live forever.

How can you discover a Dyson sphere without actually going there? By definition a Dyson sphere captures all light put out by the star it encloses. Therefore it can only be illuminated by light from distant stars - against the star field a Dyson sphere is going to be incredibly dark.

For that matter, how are we going to discover a Ringworld? Surely the puppeteers that built it will coat it in some kind of stealth technology. Matt black paint for example.

 

[Mazhurg]

At the very least, we should be able to see the trace of more advanced civilisation, even if they are not in the same time line.

For less advanced civilisation, not so much but the point being that more advanced civilisation, and those much more advanced technologically would have a much larger requirement for energy and would / should be able to physically affect their local - IE system? - environment in such a way that it would be different and detectable from the background noise. This even if they went extinct.

That this has not been seen yet does not necessarily mean that it does not exist however, but the longer we look the lower the chances of that option being there.

 

[Lobstris]

“The most merciful thing in the world, I think, is the inability of the human mind to correlate all its contents. We live on a placid island of ignorance in the midst of black seas of the infinity, and it was not meant that we should voyage far.”
― H.P. Lovecraft, The Call of Cthulhu and Other Weird Stories

I was soooooo tempted to use this quote in the introduction to a project report I once wrote.

 

[Darkmatter]

I would like to meet some Boltzmann brains out there, for sure. :S

 

[Arowx]

How can you discover a Dyson sphere without actually going there? By definition a Dyson sphere captures all light put out by the star it encloses. Therefore it can only be illuminated by light from distant stars - against the star field a Dyson sphere is going to be incredibly dark.

For that matter, how are we going to discover a Ringworld? Surely the puppeteers that built it will coat it in some kind of stealth technology. Matt black paint for example.

Good point so could dyson spheres account for all the missing matter physicist have labelled dark matter! Wow it could be really really crowded out there. And lets face it if you haven't built your own Dyson sphere or two you're not going to be invited to any of the parties. And a vacuum cleaner just doesn't count.