Aaron
Goonsquad Officer
- 8,735
- 20,474
I've thought about this a lot, especially a few years back when I was deeply into all sorts of UFO conspiracy stuff. My opinion is as follows:
I think that life in the universe is unbelievably common. We keep on pushing back the boundaries for environments that can support life, while at the same time finding the building blocks of life in more and more locations in our solar system, and even elsewhere. I would be really surprised if we did not find evidence for life on other planets or moons of our solar system within 20 years (I'm talking about microbial life here).
That means complex life may be relatively common too. Now, the problem therefore lies not in a lack of "aliens", but in communication. Depending on who you ask, modern humans have been on this planet between 50,000 to 200,000 years. Yet it is only during the last century or so, and more accurately, the last half century if we are brutally honest, that we are in some way aware that there may be other life out there, and searching for it. And when you add in the relatively high likelihood that we may destroy our civilisation, or at least set it back for a good while, through an atomic miscalculation or major war, then our time span for searching for such life is very short.
If advanced alien life follows a similar evolution then there would be a very small chance of finding them. How many alien civilisations were broadcasting their Hitler speeches and episodes of The Simpsons into the ether for their ~50-200 year life span before nuking themselves to hell, while we were busy living in caves?
Then there is the other side of the question, would all civilisations embark on a similar technological course as we have? Again, take radio, that which we spew forth into the ether ourselves. Most of it is done for purposes of communication and entertainment. What if their need for using radio frequencies were far less than ours? They might have jumped over them for the most part in favour of something more advanced (quantum teleportation?) without a lot of detectable emissions.
There is also the thought of life communicating in vastly different means than technological. What if shroomers like Terrence McKenna (my avatar) are actually in some way correct, that psychedelics is a medium for communicating with other, real, but non corporal alien entities? Might we be the odd ball in the universe in our technological focus as opposed to "higher" consciousness?
Not going to make this any longer, but the point I'm trying to make (I think) is that the main flaw of the Fermi equations is that the rely so much on our own view of how advanced life would evolve its civilisations. It's not a flaw as such, in that we have to start from some point to try and figure this out, but the paradox might lie in a fault in the equation's principles themselves, than in a lack of advanced alien life.
I think that life in the universe is unbelievably common. We keep on pushing back the boundaries for environments that can support life, while at the same time finding the building blocks of life in more and more locations in our solar system, and even elsewhere. I would be really surprised if we did not find evidence for life on other planets or moons of our solar system within 20 years (I'm talking about microbial life here).
That means complex life may be relatively common too. Now, the problem therefore lies not in a lack of "aliens", but in communication. Depending on who you ask, modern humans have been on this planet between 50,000 to 200,000 years. Yet it is only during the last century or so, and more accurately, the last half century if we are brutally honest, that we are in some way aware that there may be other life out there, and searching for it. And when you add in the relatively high likelihood that we may destroy our civilisation, or at least set it back for a good while, through an atomic miscalculation or major war, then our time span for searching for such life is very short.
If advanced alien life follows a similar evolution then there would be a very small chance of finding them. How many alien civilisations were broadcasting their Hitler speeches and episodes of The Simpsons into the ether for their ~50-200 year life span before nuking themselves to hell, while we were busy living in caves?
Then there is the other side of the question, would all civilisations embark on a similar technological course as we have? Again, take radio, that which we spew forth into the ether ourselves. Most of it is done for purposes of communication and entertainment. What if their need for using radio frequencies were far less than ours? They might have jumped over them for the most part in favour of something more advanced (quantum teleportation?) without a lot of detectable emissions.
There is also the thought of life communicating in vastly different means than technological. What if shroomers like Terrence McKenna (my avatar) are actually in some way correct, that psychedelics is a medium for communicating with other, real, but non corporal alien entities? Might we be the odd ball in the universe in our technological focus as opposed to "higher" consciousness?
Not going to make this any longer, but the point I'm trying to make (I think) is that the main flaw of the Fermi equations is that the rely so much on our own view of how advanced life would evolve its civilisations. It's not a flaw as such, in that we have to start from some point to try and figure this out, but the paradox might lie in a fault in the equation's principles themselves, than in a lack of advanced alien life.
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