The Fermi Paradox
The Fermi Paradox is the apparent contradiction between the high probability extraterrestrial
civilizations' existence and the lack of contact with such civilizations.
It is obviously difficult to comment on the sociology of a possible extraterrestrial civilization. A fact
which seems nevertheless to be essential is that such a civilization would inevitably end up
seeking to spread itself beyond its planet of origin. One can quote three reasons for which this
objective seems natural:
1. Exploration. This consists of sending a mission towards other stars once the necessary
technological level are reached. From the human perspective it seems that this must happen one
day, whether it is out of curiosity or for prestige reasons.
2. Colonization. This seems to be the underlining goal of most patriarchal human civilizations
since the begining of time. Motivation may be political, economic or ever religious.
3. Survival. The lifespan of a star is finite. In approximately 5 billion years, our Sun will cease to be
the stable star. It will become a red giant that will probably absorb the Earth. Given that, escape
from the planet earth will be a motivation of whatever intelligent life occupies the earth at that
time. It follows that any extraterrestrial civilization will be confronted with a similar problem.
Are we the only technologically advanced age of the Universe? The common list of possibilities has
created a "box" inside which most people are thinking. The "posted to the blog" entry below shows
such a list. Outside this box are items such as “humans are not really as intelligent as they think
that they are”, “we think too small, things are much larger” and “other forms of life may live for
trillions of years”.
1. Humans use our 'intelligence' to rationalize what our emotions desire. That may not be
intelligence to superior beings who are actually intelligent.
-Thought experiment: There are ants in the forest who are wondering why no ‘other’ intelligence
has visited them. The error is that the ants may think that they are intelligent, but they give
themselves too much credit. Truly intelligent life may care about us as much as we care about the
ant colony in the woods next door.
2. There are other universes of which humans are not yet aware. In the future, we will realize that
everything is much larger than our little minds can imagine at present. We are proud of the fact
that we can comprehend 7x10^22, but everything may be much larger. Perhaps once we are more
advanced, we will realize that the better place to be is "somewhere else". When we go “somewhere
else” we may meet and communicate with other forms of intelligence. Other universes, other
dimensions in space, other kinds of matter with which to be constructed. Perhaps it is to be
discovered that one wants to recreate herself in a mirror image in anti-matter. Reason: there is no
swine flu or AIDS in antimatter. Everyone in anti-matter uses Linux and you can get away from
Microsoft software. Maybe there are universes in which the gravitational constant is more
‘friendly’ in some way.
-Analogy: Our family is sitting in our apartment and wondering why nobody is visiting us. We
hear noise but are unaware that it represents a party going on next door. The people at the party
are unaware of us simply because they are too busy doing “their own thing”. Even though we are
somewhat intelligent, there are “many stories in the Big City and ours is just one of them.”
3. Really advanced forms of life live for Trillions of years. We are simply too trivial to be bothered
with. Analogy: How long do white blood cells live? How much time do we spend looking at them
and trying to communicate with them? I choose white blood cells because they are a form of
swarm intelligence together with the immune system.
4. Really advanced forms of life live for Trillions of years. An equivalent of a teenager in one of
these advanced forms of life has biology lab and we are part of his ‘individual experiment’.
Humans are simply trivially small and short-lived.
5. More advanced forms of life wish to live in virtual worlds created within ‘natural computers’ of
which we are currently unaware. There are millions of possibilities such as this which sound very
strange simply because our knowledge is so extremely limited.
Posted to the blog:
All three assumptions are based on the one assumption that we humans are viewing a significant
part of "everything that exists in all dimensions". If what we see is only one trillionth of what is
and if living is more pleasant in "some other part" of "what is", then we shouldn't expect any
visitors. To make an analogy, perhaps we are at the equivalent of the north pole and other
intelligence is 'relaxing on the beach in the sun'.
We are also assuming that we are sufficiently intelligent to be interesting to creatures which may
be a billion times more intelligent. Since we are not interested in communicating with ants
because we are a billion times more intelligent, why should creatures superior to us pay us any
mind?
don
http://www.dailygalaxy.com/my_weblog/2009/05/the-18-gigayear.html
The 1.8 Gigayear Gap -A Galaxy Classic
Are we the lone sentient life in the universe? So far, we have no evidence to the contrary, and yet
the odds that not one single other planet has evolved intelligent life would appear, from a
statistical standpoint, to be quite small. There are an estimated 250 billion (2.5 x 10¹¹ ) stars in the
Milky Way alone, and over 70 sextillion (7 x 10²² ) in the visible universe, and many of them are
surrounded by multiple planets. The shear size of the known universe is staggeringly and
inconceivably vast.
The odds of there being only one single planet that evolved life among all that unfathomable
vastness seems so incredible, that it is all but completely irrational to believe. But then "where are
they?" asked physicist Enrico Fermi while having lunch with his colleagues in 1950.
Fermi questioned, if there are other advanced extraterrestrial civilizations, then why is there no
evidence of such, like spacecraft or probes floating around the Milky Way. His question became
famously known as the Fermi Paradox. The paradox is the contradiction between the high
estimates of the probability of the existence of extraterrestrial civilizations and yet the lack of
evidence for, or contact with, any such civilizations.
Given the extreme age of the universe, and its vast number of stars, if planets like Earth are at all
typical, then there should be many advanced extraterrestrial civilizations out there, and at least a
few in our own Milky Way. Another closely related question is the Great Silence, which poses the
question: Even if space travel is too difficult, if life is out there, why don't we at least detect some
sign of civilization like radio transmissions?
Milan Cirkovic of the Astronomical Observatory in Belgrade, points out that the median age of
terrestrial planets in the Milky Way is about 1.8 gigayears (one billion years) greater than the age
of the Earth and the Solar System, which means that the median age of technological civilizations
should be greater than the age of human civilization by the same amount. The vastness of this
interval indicates that one or more processes must suppress observability of extraterrestrial
communities.
Since at this point, there is no direct and/or widely apparent evidence that extraterrestrial life
exists, it likely means one of the following:
We are (A) the first intelligent beings ever to become capable of making our presence known, and
leaving our planet. At this point, there are no other life forms out there as advanced as us. Or
perhaps extraterrestrial life does exists, but for some reason extraterrestrial life is so very rare and
so very far away we’ll never make contact anyway—making extraterrestrial life nonexistent in a
practical sense at least.
Or is it (B) that many advanced civilizations have existed before us, but without exception, they
have for some unknown reason, existed and/or expanded in such a way that they are completely
undetectable by our instruments.
Or is it (C) There have been others, but they have all run into some sort of “cosmic roadblock” that
eventually destroys them, or at least prevents their expansion beyond a small area.
Then ancients once believed that Earth was the center of the universe. We now know that Earth isn’
t even at the center of the Solar System. The Solar System is not at the center of our galaxy, and
our galaxy is not in any special position in contrast to the rest of the known universe. From a
scientific viewpoint, there is no apparent reason to believe that Earth enjoys some privileged status.
Since Earth’s placement in space and time appears to be unremarkably random, proposition “A”
seems fairly unlikely. Assuming humans evolved like other forms of life into our present state due
to natural selection, then there's really nothing all that mystical, special or remarkable about our
development as a species either. Due to the shear numbers, there are almost certainly other
planets capable of supporting at least some form of life. If that is so, then for Earthlings to be the
very first species ever to make a noticeable mark on the universe, from a statistical perspective, is
incredibly unlikely.
For proposition “B” to be correct would defy all logic. If potentially thousands, or even millions of
advanced extraterrestrial civilizations exist in the known universe, then why would all of them,
without exception, choose to expand or exist in such a way that they are completely undetectable?
It’s conceivable that some might, or perhaps even the majority, but for all of them to be completely
undetectable civilizations does not seem likely either.
Proposition C in some ways, appears to be more likely than A or B. If “survival of the fittest” follows
similar pathways on other worlds, then our own “civilized” nature could be somewhat typical of
extraterrestrial civilizations that have, or do, exist. Somehow, we all get to the point where we end
up killing ourselves in a natural course of technological development and thereby self-inflict our
own “cosmic roadblock”.
“Perhaps the most disturbing aspect of the Fermi Paradox is what it suggests for the future of our
human civilization. Namely, that we have no future beyond earthly confinement and, quite
possibly, extinction. Could advanced nanotechnology play a role in preventing that extinction?
Or, more darkly, is it destined to be instrumental in carrying out humanity's unavoidable death
sentence?” wonders Mike Treder, executive director of the Center for Responsible Nanotechnology
(CRN).
Treder believes that some of the little understood new technologies now being developed such as
nanotech, and others, could well be either our salvation or just as likely end up causing our
ultimate destruction.
“Whatever civilizations have come before us have been unable to surpass the cosmic roadblock.
They are either destroyed or limited in such a way that absolutely precludes their expansion into
the visible universe. If that is indeed the case—and it would seem to be the most logical
explanation for Fermi's Paradox—then there is some immutable law that we too must expect to
encounter at some point. We are, effectively, sentenced to death or, at best, life in the prison of a
near-space bubble,” suggests Treder.
“Atomically-precise exponential manufacturing could enable such concentrations of
unprecedented power as to result in either terminal warfare or permanent enslavement of the
human race. Of course, that sounds terribly apocalyptic, but it is worth considering that the
warnings we heard at the start of the nuclear arms race, and the very real risks we faced in the
height of the Cold War, were but precursors to a much greater threat posed by an arms race
involving nano-built weaponry and its accompanying tools of surveillance and control.”
When we consider the chronological history of life on Earth, humans have only existed for a small
fragment of time and our existence has always been precarious. The entire time we’ve existed, we
been banding into various groups and attempting to kill each other—or at least are constantly in
the process of developing more effective ways of killing each other—just in case.
The US government, for example, spends on “Defense” (including “preemptive”
warfare) and Homeland Security, 8 times what it spends on educating the next generation. There
is enough nuclear weaponry in storage around the world to kill every living creature on the planet
several times over. Clearly, we’re a species with poor odds of surviving indefinitely.
Our self-destructive natures aside, curiosity may end up killing more than the cats. The faster
technology is advancing, the more our “leap now, look later” nature appears to grow as well. If
evolution on Earth serves as a somewhat typical template for evolution of other life forms, then
becoming a truly advanced civilization must be a very daunting task indeed and a very rare, if not
impossible, achievement.
In fact, Sir Martin Rees, Great Britain's Astronomer Royal and respected professor of astrophysics
at Cambridge University has estimated that humans have only a 50-50 shot of making it through
the 21st century. If Rees is right, and our standing on the planet is as precarious as he and others
believe it is, then we may be alone due to a built-in evolutionary self-destruct button. Others have
come before and others will exist after, but the cosmic roadblock may be an innate, finite nature,
which only allows sentient life forms to exist for a very small window of time—windows of life
which may be too small for our civilization to match up with the small windows of other
civilizations that have been before or will come after.
In a contrary point of view, Milan Cirkovic believes that highly efficient city-state type of advanced
technological civilizations could easily pass unnoticed even by much more advanced SETI
equipment, especially if located near the Milky Way rim or other remote locations.
Posted by Rebecca Sato with Casey Kazan.
NASA Image is the Double Helix Nebula near the center of the Milky Way.
Related Galaxy posts:
Cambridge Astrophysicist Gives Earthlings a 50/50 Chance of Making it Through the Century
Bigger Threat Than Global Warming: Mass Species Extinction
Renowned Cosmologist Says We Need Space Colonization NOW
The NEO Code -Countries Most At Risk Of Getting Hit by an Asteroid Are Identified
Links:
http://www.dailygalaxy.com/my_weblog/2007/07/sir-martin-rees.html
http://www.nanotech-now.com/columns/?article=149
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fermi_paradox
The Fermi Paradox is the apparent contradiction between the high probability extraterrestrial
civilizations' existence and the lack of contact with such civilizations.
It is obviously difficult to comment on the sociology of a possible extraterrestrial civilization. A fact
which seems nevertheless to be essential is that such a civilization would inevitably end up
seeking to spread itself beyond its planet of origin. One can quote three reasons for which this
objective seems natural:
1. Exploration. This consists of sending a mission towards other stars once the necessary
technological level are reached. From the human perspective it seems that this must happen one
day, whether it is out of curiosity or for prestige reasons.
2. Colonization. This seems to be the underlining goal of most patriarchal human civilizations
since the begining of time. Motivation may be political, economic or ever religious.
3. Survival. The lifespan of a star is finite. In approximately 5 billion years, our Sun will cease to be
the stable star. It will become a red giant that will probably absorb the Earth. Given that, escape
from the planet earth will be a motivation of whatever intelligent life occupies the earth at that
time. It follows that any extraterrestrial civilization will be confronted with a similar problem.
Are we the only technologically advanced age of the Universe? The common list of possibilities has
created a "box" inside which most people are thinking. The "posted to the blog" entry below shows
such a list. Outside this box are items such as “humans are not really as intelligent as they think
that they are”, “we think too small, things are much larger” and “other forms of life may live for
trillions of years”.
1. Humans use our 'intelligence' to rationalize what our emotions desire. That may not be
intelligence to superior beings who are actually intelligent.
-Thought experiment: There are ants in the forest who are wondering why no ‘other’ intelligence
has visited them. The error is that the ants may think that they are intelligent, but they give
themselves too much credit. Truly intelligent life may care about us as much as we care about the
ant colony in the woods next door.
2. There are other universes of which humans are not yet aware. In the future, we will realize that
everything is much larger than our little minds can imagine at present. We are proud of the fact
that we can comprehend 7x10^22, but everything may be much larger. Perhaps once we are more
advanced, we will realize that the better place to be is "somewhere else". When we go “somewhere
else” we may meet and communicate with other forms of intelligence. Other universes, other
dimensions in space, other kinds of matter with which to be constructed. Perhaps it is to be
discovered that one wants to recreate herself in a mirror image in anti-matter. Reason: there is no
swine flu or AIDS in antimatter. Everyone in anti-matter uses Linux and you can get away from
Microsoft software. Maybe there are universes in which the gravitational constant is more
‘friendly’ in some way.
-Analogy: Our family is sitting in our apartment and wondering why nobody is visiting us. We
hear noise but are unaware that it represents a party going on next door. The people at the party
are unaware of us simply because they are too busy doing “their own thing”. Even though we are
somewhat intelligent, there are “many stories in the Big City and ours is just one of them.”
3. Really advanced forms of life live for Trillions of years. We are simply too trivial to be bothered
with. Analogy: How long do white blood cells live? How much time do we spend looking at them
and trying to communicate with them? I choose white blood cells because they are a form of
swarm intelligence together with the immune system.
4. Really advanced forms of life live for Trillions of years. An equivalent of a teenager in one of
these advanced forms of life has biology lab and we are part of his ‘individual experiment’.
Humans are simply trivially small and short-lived.
5. More advanced forms of life wish to live in virtual worlds created within ‘natural computers’ of
which we are currently unaware. There are millions of possibilities such as this which sound very
strange simply because our knowledge is so extremely limited.
Posted to the blog:
All three assumptions are based on the one assumption that we humans are viewing a significant
part of "everything that exists in all dimensions". If what we see is only one trillionth of what is
and if living is more pleasant in "some other part" of "what is", then we shouldn't expect any
visitors. To make an analogy, perhaps we are at the equivalent of the north pole and other
intelligence is 'relaxing on the beach in the sun'.
We are also assuming that we are sufficiently intelligent to be interesting to creatures which may
be a billion times more intelligent. Since we are not interested in communicating with ants
because we are a billion times more intelligent, why should creatures superior to us pay us any
mind?
don
http://www.dailygalaxy.com/my_weblog/2009/05/the-18-gigayear.html
The 1.8 Gigayear Gap -A Galaxy Classic
Are we the lone sentient life in the universe? So far, we have no evidence to the contrary, and yet
the odds that not one single other planet has evolved intelligent life would appear, from a
statistical standpoint, to be quite small. There are an estimated 250 billion (2.5 x 10¹¹ ) stars in the
Milky Way alone, and over 70 sextillion (7 x 10²² ) in the visible universe, and many of them are
surrounded by multiple planets. The shear size of the known universe is staggeringly and
inconceivably vast.
The odds of there being only one single planet that evolved life among all that unfathomable
vastness seems so incredible, that it is all but completely irrational to believe. But then "where are
they?" asked physicist Enrico Fermi while having lunch with his colleagues in 1950.
Fermi questioned, if there are other advanced extraterrestrial civilizations, then why is there no
evidence of such, like spacecraft or probes floating around the Milky Way. His question became
famously known as the Fermi Paradox. The paradox is the contradiction between the high
estimates of the probability of the existence of extraterrestrial civilizations and yet the lack of
evidence for, or contact with, any such civilizations.
Given the extreme age of the universe, and its vast number of stars, if planets like Earth are at all
typical, then there should be many advanced extraterrestrial civilizations out there, and at least a
few in our own Milky Way. Another closely related question is the Great Silence, which poses the
question: Even if space travel is too difficult, if life is out there, why don't we at least detect some
sign of civilization like radio transmissions?
Milan Cirkovic of the Astronomical Observatory in Belgrade, points out that the median age of
terrestrial planets in the Milky Way is about 1.8 gigayears (one billion years) greater than the age
of the Earth and the Solar System, which means that the median age of technological civilizations
should be greater than the age of human civilization by the same amount. The vastness of this
interval indicates that one or more processes must suppress observability of extraterrestrial
communities.
Since at this point, there is no direct and/or widely apparent evidence that extraterrestrial life
exists, it likely means one of the following:
We are (A) the first intelligent beings ever to become capable of making our presence known, and
leaving our planet. At this point, there are no other life forms out there as advanced as us. Or
perhaps extraterrestrial life does exists, but for some reason extraterrestrial life is so very rare and
so very far away we’ll never make contact anyway—making extraterrestrial life nonexistent in a
practical sense at least.
Or is it (B) that many advanced civilizations have existed before us, but without exception, they
have for some unknown reason, existed and/or expanded in such a way that they are completely
undetectable by our instruments.
Or is it (C) There have been others, but they have all run into some sort of “cosmic roadblock” that
eventually destroys them, or at least prevents their expansion beyond a small area.
Then ancients once believed that Earth was the center of the universe. We now know that Earth isn’
t even at the center of the Solar System. The Solar System is not at the center of our galaxy, and
our galaxy is not in any special position in contrast to the rest of the known universe. From a
scientific viewpoint, there is no apparent reason to believe that Earth enjoys some privileged status.
Since Earth’s placement in space and time appears to be unremarkably random, proposition “A”
seems fairly unlikely. Assuming humans evolved like other forms of life into our present state due
to natural selection, then there's really nothing all that mystical, special or remarkable about our
development as a species either. Due to the shear numbers, there are almost certainly other
planets capable of supporting at least some form of life. If that is so, then for Earthlings to be the
very first species ever to make a noticeable mark on the universe, from a statistical perspective, is
incredibly unlikely.
For proposition “B” to be correct would defy all logic. If potentially thousands, or even millions of
advanced extraterrestrial civilizations exist in the known universe, then why would all of them,
without exception, choose to expand or exist in such a way that they are completely undetectable?
It’s conceivable that some might, or perhaps even the majority, but for all of them to be completely
undetectable civilizations does not seem likely either.
Proposition C in some ways, appears to be more likely than A or B. If “survival of the fittest” follows
similar pathways on other worlds, then our own “civilized” nature could be somewhat typical of
extraterrestrial civilizations that have, or do, exist. Somehow, we all get to the point where we end
up killing ourselves in a natural course of technological development and thereby self-inflict our
own “cosmic roadblock”.
“Perhaps the most disturbing aspect of the Fermi Paradox is what it suggests for the future of our
human civilization. Namely, that we have no future beyond earthly confinement and, quite
possibly, extinction. Could advanced nanotechnology play a role in preventing that extinction?
Or, more darkly, is it destined to be instrumental in carrying out humanity's unavoidable death
sentence?” wonders Mike Treder, executive director of the Center for Responsible Nanotechnology
(CRN).
Treder believes that some of the little understood new technologies now being developed such as
nanotech, and others, could well be either our salvation or just as likely end up causing our
ultimate destruction.
“Whatever civilizations have come before us have been unable to surpass the cosmic roadblock.
They are either destroyed or limited in such a way that absolutely precludes their expansion into
the visible universe. If that is indeed the case—and it would seem to be the most logical
explanation for Fermi's Paradox—then there is some immutable law that we too must expect to
encounter at some point. We are, effectively, sentenced to death or, at best, life in the prison of a
near-space bubble,” suggests Treder.
“Atomically-precise exponential manufacturing could enable such concentrations of
unprecedented power as to result in either terminal warfare or permanent enslavement of the
human race. Of course, that sounds terribly apocalyptic, but it is worth considering that the
warnings we heard at the start of the nuclear arms race, and the very real risks we faced in the
height of the Cold War, were but precursors to a much greater threat posed by an arms race
involving nano-built weaponry and its accompanying tools of surveillance and control.”
When we consider the chronological history of life on Earth, humans have only existed for a small
fragment of time and our existence has always been precarious. The entire time we’ve existed, we
been banding into various groups and attempting to kill each other—or at least are constantly in
the process of developing more effective ways of killing each other—just in case.
The US government, for example, spends on “Defense” (including “preemptive”
warfare) and Homeland Security, 8 times what it spends on educating the next generation. There
is enough nuclear weaponry in storage around the world to kill every living creature on the planet
several times over. Clearly, we’re a species with poor odds of surviving indefinitely.
Our self-destructive natures aside, curiosity may end up killing more than the cats. The faster
technology is advancing, the more our “leap now, look later” nature appears to grow as well. If
evolution on Earth serves as a somewhat typical template for evolution of other life forms, then
becoming a truly advanced civilization must be a very daunting task indeed and a very rare, if not
impossible, achievement.
In fact, Sir Martin Rees, Great Britain's Astronomer Royal and respected professor of astrophysics
at Cambridge University has estimated that humans have only a 50-50 shot of making it through
the 21st century. If Rees is right, and our standing on the planet is as precarious as he and others
believe it is, then we may be alone due to a built-in evolutionary self-destruct button. Others have
come before and others will exist after, but the cosmic roadblock may be an innate, finite nature,
which only allows sentient life forms to exist for a very small window of time—windows of life
which may be too small for our civilization to match up with the small windows of other
civilizations that have been before or will come after.
In a contrary point of view, Milan Cirkovic believes that highly efficient city-state type of advanced
technological civilizations could easily pass unnoticed even by much more advanced SETI
equipment, especially if located near the Milky Way rim or other remote locations.
Posted by Rebecca Sato with Casey Kazan.
NASA Image is the Double Helix Nebula near the center of the Milky Way.
Related Galaxy posts:
Cambridge Astrophysicist Gives Earthlings a 50/50 Chance of Making it Through the Century
Bigger Threat Than Global Warming: Mass Species Extinction
Renowned Cosmologist Says We Need Space Colonization NOW
The NEO Code -Countries Most At Risk Of Getting Hit by an Asteroid Are Identified
Links:
http://www.dailygalaxy.com/my_weblog/2007/07/sir-martin-rees.html
http://www.nanotech-now.com/columns/?article=149
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fermi_paradox
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