What we have is proof that none of the other advanced technological civilizations is hanging out here, talking to us. The fermi paradox is all about why that might be. Because without something to slow them down, they ought to have populated the entirety of the usable planets in the galaxy by now. It's all about guessing at what might be the explanation for that observed fact.
I mean our conventionally understood 3-dimensional visible universe. Some (legitimate theoretical physicists) think our universe might be part of a larger 'multiverse' of additional universes, residing in a higher dimensionality. If we could visit those other universes, or the multiverse 'itself' (whatever that would mean), we might get access to a more hospitable place to live. The universe we have now seems to be doomed in the long run.
That's definitely true. There's no guarantee our civilization will want to make the effort, and there will definitely be effort involved, even if none of the problems are particularly hard to solve, they will still be somewhat expensive to solve for some time. The advent of general construction robots, though, is going to make a radical change in what we consider possible and affordable, and that is clearly not that far off into the future.
We already build things much faster than that, this is mostly just scaling up. Build 100K production lines and launch every 4 hours. This will be a trivial effort in two hundred years time.
The clock starts after the third generation of supernovae fill the galaxy with enough metal to make earth-like planets. After that, there's no reason we're special, and we're very late in that process. There are earth-like planets a billion years older than ours.
The actual science says there were stars with planets with elemental compositions like ours dating back about a billion years before our star. Everything after the third generation of supernovae had access to the right mix of elements, we just happen to be in the middle (as you'd expect, statistically) of the fourth generation. Now had we been near the beginning, one might more reasonably make the argument that we could be first. But this late in the game, that just doesn't seem likely.
Someone did have to be first. But that is more likely to happen earlier in the process, the odds are not equal for all planets. That our planet could be first is less likely than many others. So if we are in fact first, that is a surprising outcome.
A million years seems excessively pessimistic. We are capable of breeding up a large population far faster than that, and our colonies would presumably get a huge technological head start. That it could run more than the 20K years it took us to build modern civilization seems implausibly slow to me.
No, your theory has definitely been considered by many. Technological singularity changing the priorities of the civilization and/or rendering it invisible is definitely a possible explanation for the missing gating factor. That escape from the universe might be possible with a technology only slightly ahead of our own would explain everything (because this universe with its stupid second law of thermodynamics is a dead end that any reasonably advanced civilization would WANT to leave).
It doesn't matter. Our sun started late in our generation of stars. There were plenty of sun-like stars in any galactic neighborhood you choose, about a billion years ahead of us.
Yep, 1 in 8 has life! And indeed the percentage with life has to fall below 1 in many billions before it could explain the lack of alien visitors. That's the paradox, none of our best guesses on those filters you're mentioning (distance from star, double planet, magnetic field) etc has the kind of rarity required to explain the problem. There must be some other gating factor we haven't figured out.
Re:How is the "Drake Equation" filling in so far?
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There are clearly hurdles. I'm just not sure we really understand enough about how life could function to rule that out. There's a lot of energy and materials available to work with down at the cores of gas giants.
We are pretty much exactly as late as I think. While I agree that the metalicity was probably too low another 5 billion years back, 1 billion years before the earth formed it was not.
Re:so if we annihilate ourselves in nuclear holoca
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You need fidelity, actually. Monogamy is not required.
The notion that you can only build so many probes seems off. There's plenty of raw materials. We could build a thousand-times voyager size probe and send one to every star in the galaxy for less than a percent of a percent of the mass of mars, and could easily do so within a thousand year window (assuming some relatively minor advancements in materials and manufacturing capabilities).
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Absolutely. But why skip this one? What makes this system special? Are we in a sort of game preserve? (This is one proposed theory).
What we have is proof that none of the other advanced technological civilizations is hanging out here, talking to us. The fermi paradox is all about why that might be. Because without something to slow them down, they ought to have populated the entirety of the usable planets in the galaxy by now. It's all about guessing at what might be the explanation for that observed fact.
Thanks. I thought that was one of my funnier posts this month, but the mods obviously did not see it in that light. :-)
I was just looking to see if someone else had posted a good reply like yours. :-)
I mean our conventionally understood 3-dimensional visible universe. Some (legitimate theoretical physicists) think our universe might be part of a larger 'multiverse' of additional universes, residing in a higher dimensionality. If we could visit those other universes, or the multiverse 'itself' (whatever that would mean), we might get access to a more hospitable place to live. The universe we have now seems to be doomed in the long run.
That's definitely true. There's no guarantee our civilization will want to make the effort, and there will definitely be effort involved, even if none of the problems are particularly hard to solve, they will still be somewhat expensive to solve for some time. The advent of general construction robots, though, is going to make a radical change in what we consider possible and affordable, and that is clearly not that far off into the future.
I'm left a little curious to know which documentary that was (sounds like it could be good for a dull night).
Not the way I say it! ;-)
We already build things much faster than that, this is mostly just scaling up. Build 100K production lines and launch every 4 hours. This will be a trivial effort in two hundred years time.
Entirely true. I for one am hopeful that it will just be obvious how to leave for a better universe in the next hundred or so years.
1 in 10 billion leaves the galaxy teeming with life.
There are 200-400 billion stars, with perhaps 5-10x as many planets.
Indeed, it's depressing how much better that was than what we have now.
Well, it's a lot less expensive to get a lander to Europe, and the chance of finding any intelligent life is only marginally worse.
It's hard to imagine that taking more than 5 thousand years, even pessimistically, with a modest advancement in technology.
Indeed, that's a common theory. If life can escape our universe, it's not hard to imagine an other or designed universe that is superior to our own.
The clock starts after the third generation of supernovae fill the galaxy with enough metal to make earth-like planets. After that, there's no reason we're special, and we're very late in that process. There are earth-like planets a billion years older than ours.
The actual science says there were stars with planets with elemental compositions like ours dating back about a billion years before our star. Everything after the third generation of supernovae had access to the right mix of elements, we just happen to be in the middle (as you'd expect, statistically) of the fourth generation. Now had we been near the beginning, one might more reasonably make the argument that we could be first. But this late in the game, that just doesn't seem likely.
Someone did have to be first. But that is more likely to happen earlier in the process, the odds are not equal for all planets. That our planet could be first is less likely than many others. So if we are in fact first, that is a surprising outcome.
A million years seems excessively pessimistic. We are capable of breeding up a large population far faster than that, and our colonies would presumably get a huge technological head start. That it could run more than the 20K years it took us to build modern civilization seems implausibly slow to me.
No, your theory has definitely been considered by many. Technological singularity changing the priorities of the civilization and/or rendering it invisible is definitely a possible explanation for the missing gating factor. That escape from the universe might be possible with a technology only slightly ahead of our own would explain everything (because this universe with its stupid second law of thermodynamics is a dead end that any reasonably advanced civilization would WANT to leave).
It doesn't matter. Our sun started late in our generation of stars. There were plenty of sun-like stars in any galactic neighborhood you choose, about a billion years ahead of us.
Yep, 1 in 8 has life! And indeed the percentage with life has to fall below 1 in many billions before it could explain the lack of alien visitors. That's the paradox, none of our best guesses on those filters you're mentioning (distance from star, double planet, magnetic field) etc has the kind of rarity required to explain the problem. There must be some other gating factor we haven't figured out.
There are clearly hurdles. I'm just not sure we really understand enough about how life could function to rule that out. There's a lot of energy and materials available to work with down at the cores of gas giants.
We are pretty much exactly as late as I think. While I agree that the metalicity was probably too low another 5 billion years back, 1 billion years before the earth formed it was not.
You need fidelity, actually. Monogamy is not required.
The notion that you can only build so many probes seems off. There's plenty of raw materials. We could build a thousand-times voyager size probe and send one to every star in the galaxy for less than a percent of a percent of the mass of mars, and could easily do so within a thousand year window (assuming some relatively minor advancements in materials and manufacturing capabilities).