The Fermi Paradox - Are We Alone in the Universe

[RadioAstronomer]

I take it then that you don't believe humankind can ever explore another solar system.

I did not say that. What I said was that the Fermi Paradox does not correlate to the possibility of life out there. It only addresses that they are not here. So when I hear that we are alone in the universe because the Fermi Paradox says so, my reply is codswallop.

[edsheppa]

Because of the distances and energies involved...

They aren't as great as they seem, in cosmic terms of course. It's entirely reasonable with realistic improvements in current technology to cross the galaxy in a million years or so. Basically you'd need a 100 fold increase in rocket exhaust velocities. I think that'd be easily achieved with nuclear based propulsion.

[RadioAstronomer]

How do you stay alive, where are you headed, and would your spacecraft last that long? Also the faster you go, your radiation exposure will increase.

[chickens]

The argument that, if intelligent life did exist in the universe, it would already be here -- is akin to the time travel argument, that if time travel did indeed exist, time travelers would also be among us. This takes us back to the space time continuum, and tends to make the case that time and distance, although relative, have irrefutable laws that cannot be bent or breached to cause Earthlings to venture into the void, and conversely keeps venturers from the void from Earth.

Time-line studies show that every time a level I civilization perfects a device that scientists agree may be capable of going where no man has gone before, someone starts a war. The price of gasoline goes up, and the costs associated with the program skyrocket. Congress cuts the funding and the project languishes on the drawing board -- until the cycle is repeated. This process goes on for billions of years.

[AndrewC]

What I said was that the Fermi Paradox does not correlate to the possibility of life out there.

But it does, in a roomful of air, what is the probability of encountering a neon atom in a cubic inch of that room? An atom of nitrogen?

[Yeti]

The Krell Theory (from "Forbidden Planet"). Technology evolves to the point where any insane individual can wipe out civilization on a whim.

That is actually a serious problem we all face. Anything that can travel at anything near light-speed could be a problem if it were pointed at Earth.

It creates a bit of a dilemma, if you consider the good for humanity. Technology builds on other technology, and for us to advance optimally, we need everything out there, freely avalable for for all six billion of our minds minds to mull.

On the one hand, we have this death-decay culture evolving toward dominance, when it needn't even exist. The widespread prosperity that could develop from colonizing the solar system is almost incomprehensible, but here we live in this unecessarily competitive, factionalized society. The guys who discover nifty intertia extraction drives to take us to the stars(first, the planets and the asteroid belt!) want to run out into the street shouting "Eureka, I've found it! We're free!"

But then there's that recent suicide bombing.

But, then again, we might be better able to protect ourselves from suicide-bomber types if the technology were more widespread, and humans would also be more widely distributed, geographically.

Yeti's Dilemma: If you love Humanity and The Good, what is the best thing to do, all-in-all?

I'm inclined to put it out there.

[Phsstpok]

Are you arguing with the article's worth or that of the paradox which many of the world's top physicists have wrestled with for over 50 years?

Article

I don't believe that Fermi was arguing against the existence of other life, or intelligent life. He was saying, like any good proponent of the scientific method, that he didn't understand it, given the notions laid out in the paradox. This was what Einstein would have called a “gedanken experiment” or “thought experiment.” When you can't measure something directly because of lack of instruments you have to lay out reasonable models in your head (or across a lunch table) and then try to deduce what it was you couldn't see.

Are they not there? Problem with that is that it assumes that we're it, or we're the first (what are the odds of that?)

Are they there but we can't detect them? I think this is the most likely, but what's wrong with that premise? He argues that odds are better than not that if they are there then we should see evidence that we can detect. So what are we missing?

The author lays out those arguments like a dead fish on the table but then locks himself in to the MUST NOT BE SINCE WE CAN'T SEE THEM ALREADY (absence of evidence IS evidence of absence) side of the equation, without asking the "what are we missing" part of the “gedanken experiment.”

Bad science. Fermi was not a bad scientist. He would not have said that they were there (on faith) if he hadn't found evidence. He wanted evidence, one way or the other.

[samtheman]

God created atomic numbers over 90 to limit intelligent life forms to one planet.

Very clever.

[wbill]

I'll throw one other idea out here.....

All of the discussion on this thread assumes that if a) There are aliens and b)They are here and c) They want to contact someone that ..... they'd contact us. They might not even look at us as life forms.

[Doctor Stochastic]

There's a percolation theory approach to the Fermi paradox. One looks at the probability of colonizing the "next" region of space. If this is below a critical value, there will be no universal saturation of colonies. If it is above that, colonies spread everywhere.

[Just another Joe]

I understand that, Doc, but we also must have the mind open enough to allow that an extraterrestrial species may be unlike us enough that we wouldn't even recognize it as being alive. Even an intelligent species.
What if they would have life spans in the tens of thousands of years instead of in the hundreds of years? Would they really be moving as fast as we do? What if they don't even move physically at all but only in some sidereal fashion.
The possibilities are endless in an infinite universe.

[zeugma]

God created atomic numbers over 90 to limit intelligent life forms to one planet.

I like that. Really funny! I believe it is Administratium though, that is the real civilization killer.

[Pharmboy]

I thought this settled all the questions:

[zeugma]

Actually, I believe two did. Cro-magnon(sp?) didn't survive the experience though.

[ZULU]

I', impressed. As a layman, I have always been interested in cosmology, deep space astromony and astrophysics and read the popular books on the subject. I haven't got the math background to get into the technical material - just had one semester of Calculus in undergradute school.

[zeugma]

Crapweasles. I just knew I shouldn't post before I'd had two cups of coffee this morning. The neanderthals where the folks I was thinking about in my previous post.

[Phsstpok]

They might not even look at us as life forms.

Sagan's ants on an anthill analogy from Contact comes close to this as well. A life form, but worth communicating with?

There are lots of other possibilities as well. They're out there, but they've all discovered just how dangerous the universe is and have shut themselves up inside their own Dyson spheres and are intentionally hiding, lest some other beastie finds THEM. The ones who survived, that is. The ones (like us) who sit there, radiating out a "we're here" message get to do that for around 100 years. By that time the Vogon's see us and come read us some poetry. Fini.

[AFreeBird]

B4L8r

[longshadow]

(And I even worked on the Space Station)

You meant to say "Mir II," right?

;-)

[OregonRancher]

"It has often been said that, if the human species fails to make a go of it here on Earth, some other species will take over the running. In the sense of developing high intelligence this is not correct. We have, or soon will have, exhausted the necessary physical prerequisites so far as this planet is concerned. With coal gone, oil gone, high-grade metallic ores gone, no species however competent can make the long climb from primitive conditions to high-level technology. THIS IS A ONE SHOT AFFAIR. IF WE FAIL, THIS PLANETARY SYSTEM FAILS SO FAR AS INTELLIGENCE IS CONCERNED. The same will be true of other planetary systems. On each of them there will be one chance, and one chance only." (Hoyle, 1964)