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The Fermi Paradox -- Where is everybody?
- Thread starter pharmakos
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ShakyJake
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That's what I personally believe. Life is everywhere, we just don't have advanced enough tech to detect them yet. Alternatively, if we are alone then we're living in a simulation and reality isn't what we observe.
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Tolan
Member of the Year 2016
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Even our faux-, wannabe-communism got to space first.
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Lendarios
Trump's Staff
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The paradox is a fake one.
First. Not every planet out there will reach the point of interstellar travel.
Second. The time a species inhabits a planet, to the time it is wiped out by natural events is very small compared to the life of the planet ( in our own planets we had 4? natural major cataclysmic events)
Third. There is no guaranteed coordination among navigators in order to cover the spread of the milky way. the same place can be searched multiple times while other none at all.
First. Not every planet out there will reach the point of interstellar travel.
Second. The time a species inhabits a planet, to the time it is wiped out by natural events is very small compared to the life of the planet ( in our own planets we had 4? natural major cataclysmic events)
Third. There is no guaranteed coordination among navigators in order to cover the spread of the milky way. the same place can be searched multiple times while other none at all.
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Sentagur
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What does our planet have to offer to a species that conquered interstellar/intergalactic travel? Is there anything here that they cant get in a million different places all over the galaxy or even our solar system much easier and without having to deal with a bunch of insignificant apes who somehow managed to arm themselves with nukes?
Edit: maybe they can train some of us to be service animals
Edit: maybe they can train some of us to be service animals
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ShakyJake
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I think the general thought is that if a civilization achieves interstellar travel then it's game on. They would be able to colonize the entire galaxy within a couple million years traveling at sub-light speeds. And there has been ample enough time for this to have occurred.
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The question is, with the speed of light being what it is making collaboration between star systems virtually impossible - what advantage does this really serve? Whats the benefit to colonizing the next star? It can't send you anything back of any value. It can't trade with you. Each would basically be an island.
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Merrith
Golden Baronet of the Realm
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Your low energy captain checking in on his guacamole UFO
I wish I could Worf this twice.
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Zaara
I'm With HER ♀
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Then we'd see a lot more visible aliens and civilizations wouldn't we. Maybe nobody does this because it's fucking pointless.
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Asshat wormie
2023 Asshat Award Winner
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Oh yeah? What if Hugh Everett is correct and the quantum wavefunction doesnt collapse. And some alien species, from this universe or the second level up, has the ability to traverse the quantum fluctuations without the hindrance of the aforementioned wavefunction collapse? Then the Hilbert Space containing all the possible physical systems might not be impossible to travel through. This would effectively remove the need to physically move through spacetime and allow one to just jump around wherever the fuck you wanted to. Did they not cover this in your physics 101 class?
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Sentagur
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You are talking Transwarp here arent ya? I have seen that show, you turn into a lizard eventually if you try it.
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Tolan
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Asshat wormie
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Most of that post is legit physics and references one of the leading theories of cosmology. Aliens manipulating shit is a guess of course but given that there can potentially be an unaccountably infinite number of universes, who is to say that Bob the space martian from Universe # 42 doesnt have the technology to do so?
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iannis
Musty Nester
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Perelandra offers a viable solution to the question. I always hesitate to recommend it because while it is a great book, it is steeped in christian philosophy which would get in the way of the central argument.
The selfish gene idea is itself unstable above certain scales. We can see at the planetary scale it starts to break down. At an interplanetary scale it completely breaks down. It is an evolutionary strategy not suited to all environ!EMTs. Scale itself is an environmemt.
Its not an emotionally satisfying answer, but it is a strong one.
The selfish gene idea is itself unstable above certain scales. We can see at the planetary scale it starts to break down. At an interplanetary scale it completely breaks down. It is an evolutionary strategy not suited to all environ!EMTs. Scale itself is an environmemt.
Its not an emotionally satisfying answer, but it is a strong one.
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Admit USSR was real communism and first in space but communism doesn't work because the USSR collapsed.
Admit USSR was fake communism because it collapsed and communism getting to space first didn't count because it wasn't real communism.
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spronk
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We aren't that far away from the point as a species where a single individual could probably wipe out all life on the planet, intentionally (terrorist) or unintentionally (accident). Bioweapons that infect and kill everyone, replicating nanomachines that turn all organic matter into grey goo, a zero point explosion that destroys the planet and/or solar system, etc. Its not unreasonable to assume every intelligent species approaches that point and the 0.000001% of the population that happens to be homicidal, sociopathic, and highly intelligent wipes out the species, especially if the technologies involved -- biotech, nanotech, infinite energy sources -- are stepping stones to AI and space travel.
I believe its part of the Great Filter response to the Fermi Paradox, that something occurs in every civilizations ascent that wipes it out.
Great Filter - Wikipedia
Otherwise at SOME point some society would have evolved some sort of nanotech self reproducing von neumann machines that simply go out and seed the entire galaxy with something, it would take less than 1m years to "visit" every star system with something that replicates, whether its their version of Wikipedia, MTV, or killer terminator 2 skynets. Of course its possible something is "protecting" new civilizations from being contacted/exterminated and does it so well there is no way to know if thats happening, or that something has visited our solar system and we just haven't discovered it (The Expanse).
That sort of falls to me though under the idea that reality is a simulation so perfect there is no way to know we live in a simulation. All our experience says that everything screws up eventually, nothing is perfect, and its much more likely that a screw up will manifest itself somehow, someday rather than simulations or guardians doing their job perfectly for eternity.
I believe its part of the Great Filter response to the Fermi Paradox, that something occurs in every civilizations ascent that wipes it out.
Great Filter - Wikipedia
Otherwise at SOME point some society would have evolved some sort of nanotech self reproducing von neumann machines that simply go out and seed the entire galaxy with something, it would take less than 1m years to "visit" every star system with something that replicates, whether its their version of Wikipedia, MTV, or killer terminator 2 skynets. Of course its possible something is "protecting" new civilizations from being contacted/exterminated and does it so well there is no way to know if thats happening, or that something has visited our solar system and we just haven't discovered it (The Expanse).
That sort of falls to me though under the idea that reality is a simulation so perfect there is no way to know we live in a simulation. All our experience says that everything screws up eventually, nothing is perfect, and its much more likely that a screw up will manifest itself somehow, someday rather than simulations or guardians doing their job perfectly for eternity.
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