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Astrophysicist Believes Technologically-Advanced Species Extinguish Themselves (sciencedaily.com)
Why haven't we heard from intelligent life elsewhere in the universe? wisebabo writes:
In the Science Daily article "Where is everybody? The Implications of Cosmic Silence," the retired astrophysicist Daniel Whitmire explains that using the principle of mediocracy (a statistical notion that says, in the absence of more data, that your one data point is likely to be "average"), that not only are we the first intelligent life on earth but that we will likely be the only (and thus the last) intelligent life on this planet... Unfortunately that isn't the worst of it.
Coupled with the "Great Silence", it implies that the reason we haven't heard from anyone is that intelligent life, when it happens anywhere else in the universe, doesn't last and when it does it flames out quickly and takes the biosphere with it (preventing any other intelligent life from reappearing. Sorry dolphins!). While this is depressing in a very deep sense both cosmically (no Star Trek/Wars/Valerian universes filled with alien civilizations) and locally (we're going to wipe ourselves out, and soon) it is perhaps understandable given our current progress towards reproducing the conditions of the greatest extinction event in earth's history.
That last link (reprinting a New York Times opinion piece) cites the "Great Dying" of 90% of all land-based life in 252 million B.C., which is believed to have been triggered by "gigantic emissions of carbon dioxide from volcanoes that erupted across a vast swath of Siberia." But if we're not headed to the same inexorable doom, that raises an inevitable follow-up question.
If intelligence-driven extinction doesn't explain this great cosmic silence, then what does? Why hasn't our species heard from other intelligent civilizations elsewhere in the universe?
Coupled with the "Great Silence", it implies that the reason we haven't heard from anyone is that intelligent life, when it happens anywhere else in the universe, doesn't last and when it does it flames out quickly and takes the biosphere with it (preventing any other intelligent life from reappearing. Sorry dolphins!). While this is depressing in a very deep sense both cosmically (no Star Trek/Wars/Valerian universes filled with alien civilizations) and locally (we're going to wipe ourselves out, and soon) it is perhaps understandable given our current progress towards reproducing the conditions of the greatest extinction event in earth's history.
That last link (reprinting a New York Times opinion piece) cites the "Great Dying" of 90% of all land-based life in 252 million B.C., which is believed to have been triggered by "gigantic emissions of carbon dioxide from volcanoes that erupted across a vast swath of Siberia." But if we're not headed to the same inexorable doom, that raises an inevitable follow-up question.
If intelligence-driven extinction doesn't explain this great cosmic silence, then what does? Why hasn't our species heard from other intelligent civilizations elsewhere in the universe?
As has already been demonstrated by the permian extinction event, the biosphere can take a hell of a hit, and life will go on.
I think that you really have to understand timescales here. A 100 million years is a long time, just like space is big, really big. So that's a long damn time, and life will go on. intelligent life, maybe not so much.
as for why we haven't heard from anyone, why isn't the simple answer not the best ?
Remember how space is really big ?
if there's no FTL travel, and it's likely there is not, then HOW would we hear from someone ?
It would be an exceedingly difficult thing for the intelligent civilization in the Andromeda galaxy to talk us, and us to them.
First of all, there's the 2,000,000 year latency, and then the amount of power you would need to transmit that signal, etc...
I'm not worried. There's intelligent life elsewhere in the verse. I'm pretty sure we're not going to hear from them any time soon, if ever.
Absolute statements are never true
The universe is just too big to hear anyone else.
Standing on the shore in Spain you couldn't hear anyone shouting from Hispaniola, yet when Columbus landed there he found loads of people. Space is a hell of a lot bigger than the Atlantic Ocean and relatively any radio signal we can send is quieter than the man screaming on the beach in our example. So quit it with the all life will destroy itself pessimism.
Not only is space incomprehensibly vast, but so is time. 16 billion years sounds easy to say, but if an intelligent species only broadcasts "clear", identifiable uncompressed unencrypted radio for ~100 years, then we have only 1 in 160 million chances of finding them with something like SETI.
So by these principles of mediocrity is all civilised life also bipedal, with two eyes, two arms, and five digits on each extremity?
systemd is Roko's Basilisk.
Across several million years, yeah the bulk of large civilizations may just fall to entropy of some crucial resource they can't build past. ...but with sufficient civilization, you'd create artificial intelligences and artificial life.
Those would scale far better over time, and would be far less vulnerable, and across millions of years would be nigh-innevitable.
Even if they're just existing as spores that hop from star-orbit-to-asteroid-to-star-orbit, they'd build up to an enormous mass over time, and be able to try an enormous number of strategies for continuing existence through networking.
The artifacts and legacy of civilization should stand a much greater chance of returning communication over time than just civilization alone.
But perhaps to those creatures, we're the common noise that they have learned to ignore.
Ryan Fenton
You find a nice writeup about the Cosmic Silence and possible reasons for that in Stanislaw Lem's essay "Summa technologiae", published in 1966. Apparently, not much has changed in the last half a century.
We're using AIM and we assume if people have internet connection then they must also use AIM. If we see no one on AIM then there must be no one else with an internet connection.
I'm with the theory that we're just at the beginning of life in this part of the universe. 13.7 billion years from the Big Bang. Multiple generations of star formation and death before getting to our Sun. Then another 4 billion years before complex life. Sounds like it takes awhile for intelligent life to get started.
THEY'RE MADE OUT OF MEAT
"They're made out of meat."
"Meat?"
"Meat. They're made out of meat."
"Meat?"
"There's no doubt about it. We picked up several from different parts of the planet, took them aboard our recon vessels, and probed them all the way through. They're completely meat."
"That's impossible. What about the radio signals? The messages to the stars?"
"They use the radio waves to talk, but the signals don't come from them. The signals come from machines."
"So who made the machines? That's who we want to contact."
"They made the machines. That's what I'm trying to tell you. Meat made the machines."
"That's ridiculous. How can meat make a machine? You're asking me to believe in sentient meat."
"I'm not asking you, I'm telling you. These creatures are the only sentient race in that sector and they're made out of meat."
"Maybe they're like the orfolei. You know, a carbon-based intelligence that goes through a meat stage."
"Nope. They're born meat and they die meat. We studied them for several of their life spans, which didn't take long. Do you have any idea what's the life span of meat?"
"Spare me. Okay, maybe they're only part meat. You know, like the weddilei. A meat head with an electron plasma brain inside."
"Nope. We thought of that, since they do have meat heads, like the weddilei. But I told you, we probed them. They're meat all the way through."
"No brain?"
"Oh, there's a brain all right. It's just that the brain is made out of meat! That's what I've been trying to tell you."
"So ... what does the thinking?"
"You're not understanding, are you? You're refusing to deal with what I'm telling you. The brain does the thinking. The meat."
"Thinking meat! You're asking me to believe in thinking meat!"
"Yes, thinking meat! Conscious meat! Loving meat. Dreaming meat. The meat is the whole deal! Are you beginning to get the picture or do I have to start all over?"
"Omigod. You're serious then. They're made out of meat."
"Thank you. Finally. Yes. They are indeed made out of meat. And they've been trying to get in touch with us for almost a hundred of their years."
"Omigod. So what does this meat have in mind?"
"First it wants to talk to us. Then I imagine it wants to explore the Universe, contact other sentiences, swap ideas and information. The usual."
"We're supposed to talk to meat."
"That's the idea. That's the message they're sending out by radio. 'Hello. Anyone out there. Anybody home.' That sort of thing."
"They actually do talk, then. They use words, ideas, concepts?"
"Oh, yes. Except they do it with meat."
"I thought you just told me they used radio."
"They do, but what do you think is on the radio? Meat sounds. You know how when you slap or flap meat, it makes a noise? They talk by flapping their meat at each other. They can even sing by squirting air through their meat."
"Omigod. Singing meat. This is altogether too much. So what do you advise?"
"Officially or unofficially?"
"Both."
"Officially, we are required to contact, welcome and log in any and all sentient races or multibeings in this quadrant of the Universe, without prejudice, fear or favor. Unofficially, I advise that we erase the records and forget the whole thing."
"I was hoping you would say that."
"It seems harsh, but there is a limit. Do we really want to make contact with meat?"
"I agree one hundred percent. What's there to say? 'Hello, meat. How's it going?' But will this work? How many planets are we dealing with here?"
"Just one. They can travel to other planets in special meat containers, but they can't live on them. And being meat, they can only travel through C space. Which limits them to the speed of light and makes the possibility of their ever making contact pretty slim. Infinitesimal, in fact."
"So we just pretend there's no one home in the Universe."
"That's it."
"
....but they know better not to contact our violent, religious crazed, heartless and fucked up world
They just aren't there! Why can't people of science accept this?
It's sometimes called the Rare Earth Hypothesis but KS Robinson really explains it well in his Mars Trilogy books.
Basically the theory goes that lower level life may or may not be 'common' in the universe, but intelligent life is so rare that given distances and the speed of light and whatnot we just probably won't ever encounter each other.
It's elegant and explains everything and should be the accepted theory in exobiology (if it isn't already) until evidence proves otherwise.
Thank you Dave Raggett
Of all the Homo genus we are the only one that did not go extinct. Whatsmore there is so little genetic varation in humans that researchers believe we decended from a population of as few as 2000 individuals. With such numbers humans were basically on the critically indengered list. Why would you go make up some theory about intelligent life inevitably destroying itself when intelligent life on this planet nearly went extint without ever sending a signal that intelligent life existed on this planet
Space is big. Really big. You just won't believe how vastly, hugely, mind-bogglingly big it is. I mean, you may think it's a long way down the road to the chemist, but that's just peanuts to space.
For all we know, the universe is all chatting with each other via quantum entanglement or something even more advanced, and we're off in the corner thwacking our electromagnetic equipment on the side saying, "Is this thing on? Where is everybody?"
consider an advanced race on another planet eavesdropping on the Khardasians and the news. they want no part of us. enough said.
if this is supposed to be a new economy, how come they still want my old fashioned money?
If intelligence-driven extinction doesn't explain this great cosmic silence, then what does? Why hasn't our species heard from other intelligent civilizations elsewhere in the universe?
Distance. Distance in space, which renders actually finding another civilization impossible. And distance in time. Any number of civilizations might have already risen and fallen, or will after we are gone. The universe is very very big, and very very old. To expect everything to happen in the instant we are around and aware is quite short-sighted.
Seven puppies were harmed during the making of this post.
It seems a bit early to write off humanity as extinguishing itself. Yeah, so we've heated up the planet, and we put trash where it doesn't belong. But excesses do tend to undo themselves, as we can see with even China and India starting to curb emissions. Survival is a powerful instinct, and it hasn't been exhausted just yet.
Our technology is to the point where we could prevent a recurrence of the Great Dying. All you have to do is unshackle your mind from the popular notion that the only solution to CO2 emissions is passive (reducing emissions via renewable energy sources).
CO2 (and water) are popular end-products for exothermic chemical processes (e.g. burning gasoline, cellular respiration) because it sits at an extremely low energy potential. That is, chemical processes which result in CO2 give off a lot of energy. To reverse the process, you have to put a lot of energy into the CO2 to break apart the carbon and oxygen atoms.
If you have sufficient energy, you can actively drive that reverse process. Plants do it via photosynthesis, driving it with energy from sunlight. We could do it with nuclear power - generating massive quantities of electricity (more than can reasonably be obtained from solar, wind, hydro) to decompose CO2. Generating sufficient power to offset volcanic emissions of CO2 would be incredibly expensive, but given the alternative (extinction) we're technologically capable of doing it.
The same is true if this push for renewables as the only solution to global warming fails. If renewables can't be developed quickly enough to supplant fossil fuel energy sources and CO2 levels continue to rise, at some point we concede that renewables aren't arresting CO2 levels quickly enough. Then we'll be forced to switch to nuclear power to buy ourselves more time. This is why shuttering operational nuclear plants as Germany is doing is extremely short-sighted. Nuclear is our ultimate trump card. We want to keep it ready in our back pocket as a hedge in case renewable energy can't be rolled out quickly enough.
this guy sounds like a short signed moron.
Well, that explains it. He can only see a maximum of 32,767 light years away, or years into the future. That's certainly not enough for this topic, given the galactic scales involved.
Irony: Agile development has too much intertia to be abandoned now.
Unfortunately, the gas producing establishment is too strong to push this solution
Uh...it would also cost several trillion dollars to do it on a sufficient scale to reverse climate change before it's pretty disastrous. That just might be a factor in this approach.
You need an absurd number of carbon-capture-factories built in a couple decades. That's not cheap.
Here's a short film version: https://www.youtube.com/watch?...
There is a lot to be said for diminishing signal strength over the distances involved and the difficulties of picking a dispersed signal out of background noise.
Also, we are only looking at a narrow band of spectrum called the water hole.. AND we listen there because it is relatively quiet. The supposition is that will make it easier to get signals, but it could just as easily be that we are looking in the wrong portion of the em spectrum.
In any viable biological system, intelligence evolves without bound.
Until it invents an internet, at which point it quickly drowns in its own vice and stupidity.
Sheesh, evil *and* a jerk. -- Jade
I guess it's time to bring this up. I have been waiting a many years, but I think the day has arrived.
Ceti Alpha Six exploded?! And everyone just glosses over that and accepts it?! WTF. Planets don't just explode. But this one did? Uh huh. Why? How? What happened?
"The shock shifted the orbits?" WTF. I'm supposed to believe that not only did a planet explode (how?!) but there was a shockwave through the medium of space .. ? .. and it travelled across interplanetary distances losing energy at inverse-square rate, and it hit Ceti Alpha Five so hard that it changed its orbit. Um.. okay. So, I think we are probably talking about an event with considerably more energy than a nova. Depending on the distance, this might be a bigger deal than a supernova.
And nobody in the federation happened to notice that it happened.
But, years later, they sent people to the Ceti Alpha system for possible Genesis testing. And they not only didn't notice a missing planet and nothing being where it's supposed to be (and if you're not using old pre-explosion charts, then how were you counting up to 6 to guess which planet was Ceti Alpha Six?), but they didn't notice there's probably a new asteroid belt, etc. It's going to be a very interesting looking system to any astronomer.
I think Khan's story doesn't add up. It's so bullshit. They were on Ceti Alpha Six. So how did Khan and team get there?
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