The Fermi Paradox
brianlux
Moving through All Kinds of Terrain. Posts: 42,408
Last night I watched the eco-horror movie END:CIV and couldn't sleep because one of the concerns the film made was over the possibility of humans eradicating all life on earth. I've mostly gone along with George Carlin's notion that "the earth will shake us off like a bad case of fleas" and will go on producing life but the film raised some doubts that way. So in my search for answers to the question, "How likely is it we will destroy all life on earth", I came across this (an article that is mostly unrelated to my initial quest for information) discussion of the Fermi Paradox on Wikipedia:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fermi_paradox
The Fermi paradox (or Fermi's paradox) is the apparent contradiction between high estimates of the probability of the existence of extraterrestrial civilization and humanity's lack of contact with, or evidence for, such civilizations.[1] The basic points of the argument, made by physicists Enrico Fermi and Michael H. Hart, are:
The Sun is a young star. There are billions of stars in the galaxy that are billions of years older;
Some of these stars likely have Earth-like planets[2] which, if the Earth is typical, may develop intelligent life;
Presumably some of these civilizations will develop interstellar travel, as Earth seems likely to do;
At any practical pace of interstellar travel, the galaxy can be completely colonized in just a few tens of millions of years.
According to this line of thinking, the Earth should have already been colonized, or at least visited. But no convincing evidence of this exists. Furthermore, no confirmed signs of intelligence elsewhere have been spotted, either in our galaxy or the more than 80 billion other galaxies of the observable universe. Hence Fermi's question "Where is everybody?".
That was a much less disturbing thing to think about and I finally got some sleep. So now I'm fascinated with this concept- the Fermi Paradox.
Thoughts?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fermi_paradox
The Fermi paradox (or Fermi's paradox) is the apparent contradiction between high estimates of the probability of the existence of extraterrestrial civilization and humanity's lack of contact with, or evidence for, such civilizations.[1] The basic points of the argument, made by physicists Enrico Fermi and Michael H. Hart, are:
The Sun is a young star. There are billions of stars in the galaxy that are billions of years older;
Some of these stars likely have Earth-like planets[2] which, if the Earth is typical, may develop intelligent life;
Presumably some of these civilizations will develop interstellar travel, as Earth seems likely to do;
At any practical pace of interstellar travel, the galaxy can be completely colonized in just a few tens of millions of years.
According to this line of thinking, the Earth should have already been colonized, or at least visited. But no convincing evidence of this exists. Furthermore, no confirmed signs of intelligence elsewhere have been spotted, either in our galaxy or the more than 80 billion other galaxies of the observable universe. Hence Fermi's question "Where is everybody?".
That was a much less disturbing thing to think about and I finally got some sleep. So now I'm fascinated with this concept- the Fermi Paradox.
Thoughts?
"Pretty cookies, heart squares all around, yeah!"
-Eddie Vedder, "Smile"
-Eddie Vedder, "Smile"
"Try to not spook the horse."
-Neil Young
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So really, the solution to Fermi's Paradox is the very fear that prompted your initial search. Evolution's final stage (highly intelligent life) is destined to reset the cycle. Back to amoebas we go!
It would seem so, MotoDC-- and this would support Byrnzie's statement above as well. Yet if this is true then Fermi's paradox could be seen as a kind of quintessential futility that defines intelligent life such that Fermi's question, "Where is everybody?", would lead that age old question, "Why are we here?"
-Eddie Vedder, "Smile"
Not my personal viewpoint on responsibility in general, but the thread of logic is there for the taking nonetheless.
As for the why-are-we-here bit, I think you could take almost any cosmological or evolutionary argument and boil it down to that if you were so inclined, but I'm curious to understand exactly what you're getting at here. Care to elaborate? I'll start -- I have a hard time grasping how we can answer that question in a purely scientific context; or, stated more strongly, how the question can even be fathomed in the first place. Certainly we can all make up or own "why", but that doesn't count for much in the cosmological context.
I know this is "far out there" and so easily categorized as nutty and rejected by most ... but my assumption (meditating on the general line of though posed here, and also I think about Vedder's line in Bushleaguer -- "the onion skin plausibility of life") ... but life is far too involved to just be spit out by happenstance, and IMHO (and the opinion of every occult writer down through the ages) REQUIRES a non-physical entity behind it to "inspire" it to animation \ evolution \ and intelligent direction. (why do cells form cohesive organisms to begin with? why do they evolve? how did noses and eyes get their start? what impulse drove the eye to formation? if it had to "evolve" what were the steps in the evolution of an eye? was it functional to begin with? what impulse told the organism that an eye would be useful? how did it "know" this? ... i mean seems beyond random to me) ...
anyway ... back to the main point ...
my assumption would be that, as old as the universe is ... it is still "young" in terms of developed physical life. The life impulse of the godhead required (who knows how long, and we know space and time are intwined, so before there was space, there probably was no time, anyhow) to even spit itself out in to physical reality to begin with (the big bang) ... it took billions of years after that for this same god-impulse to begin organizing the new universe into discreet parts ... sub atomic particles to particles to molecules to very loose gases, to denser gases ... all the way on to these giant light emitting bodies we call "stars" (that may well, and probably are, in some way we don't yet understand, "alive" themselves ... and i mean that in truth, not as metaphor) ...
it took billions more for OUR particular star to form ...
and cutting to the meat of my commentary ...
i would say, as "old" as the universe is, it absolutely took this long exactly for the life spirit of the universe to form THIS planet, and THIS small quadrant of life in the universe ... and that, given the enormity of the task involved in forming life ANYwhere ... it is probably not as paradoxical as one would think ... The spirit of god had to subdivide all the way out from itself (the one godhead, the nothing and the everything, the beyond words "one") to "something" ... to non indivdualized life (those organized forms of "life" that probably do not have their own "souls" but are more or less what we would describe as automatons (in some sense) ... all the way up to the lesser forms of individualized life ... and eventually to human beings ...
this is a PHENOMENAL feat.
Yes it absolutely took THIS long,
and in all likelyhood, given the nature of this feat,
we can reasonably expect (given the right frame of reference) ourselves to be it.
Yes, we are it.
We are the only "sons of god" in the universe.
The cutting edge.
This is THE experiment, and WE are IT.
Yeah yeah, i know.
Numbers and probabilities suggest otherwise.
But the nature of the data so far processed suggests overwhelmingly that we ARE it ... even if relatively we have only searches a small swath of the universe. We have seen nothing. Nothing "alive".
Anways ... you take my point, i'm sure.
agree or disagree. it's how i feel.
If I opened it now would you not understand?
Well, again this came up in an attempt to get an inkling of how likely we are to kill all life on earth- knowing full well that an pat answer to that would not be found. One of the less-than-likely scenarios that came up was the idea of aliens destroying us which lead to looking at the Fermi paradox. As far as intelligent life on other planets not visiting here I came to two conclusions:
1) they have used their intelligence to find ways to live in harmony with their ecosystems and have no need or desire to move beyond their own planet or
2) the succeeded in destroying themselves because they were too short sighted to see their world as a living organism and take care of it- much as we are doing.
Seeing #1 above as a possibility untangles the futility of intelligent life on earth and gives meaning to our lives- that is, to seek ways to live as an integral part of the living whole and accept the fact that, as is true with our individual selves, the planet itself will die someday and others will go on after us.
So, you might ask, if we/the planet are going to die anyway, why bother trying to save it? To that I would answer- it's much like if you've come close to a successful suicide yet you are still alive and you now find living your life out to its natural end not only worth while but desirable, you would do what you can to take care of yourself. I see the dominant culture as being suicidal and hope that we can somehow survive long enough to see the sense in taking care of ourselves and the living planet as a whole.
-Eddie Vedder, "Smile"
OR
3. It's entirely possible (although most humans would not like to admit this, because it leads to even deeper questions) that WE ARE IT. No one is avoiding us. No one has killed themselves off. WE are the leading wave of physical life evolution. Maybe there are other waves of life that have graduated to other frequencies of existence (for our purposes, other "dimensions" or "worlds") and maybe there are other types of life that are similar to the phenomenon that we understand as "light" (which behaves in oddly "sentient" ways at times -- see the "delayed choice quantum eraser" experiments to get a hint of this) ... but it IS entirely possible that human beings are it. I know it is a difficult conclusion to wrestle with, but it is no more or less plausible than the existence of other physical sentient life in the universe.
If I opened it now would you not understand?
It took me a little while to get there, but I see your point Drifting. First off, I imagine the immensely long period of time it took for all this to happen is irrelevant to a god or like-like power (assuming there is one- I'm not certain and to me it's all a mystery which is OK with me.)
The idea that we are the first fully conscious entity in the universe, a pioneer species so-to-speak, is interesting and certainly possible. My own suspicion is that we are not. I can't explain why I believe that. If I knew for a fact that we are indeed the only species with a soul that would I would be that much more adamant that we have a responsibility to see our live as a species a gift and take care of it. For me, that is a bit too self-involved. I see us as a more integral part of the life of a planet- a whole, living organism- not better or more important that that whole but potentially a danger to that life.
But let's get back to being the experiment you referred to. If that were the case, how do you view our roll in the experiment? A passive or active? And why the experiment in the first place?
-Eddie Vedder, "Smile"
Now that we're out of election cycle, the moving train looks to have become quite the monday brain bender...
Anyways, Brian you got me thinking -- even if there is intelligent life elsewhere, and they are capable of technology required for extreme space travel, they need a brain that has created "curiosity" "desire", or the "will/need to explore. Sometimes I really get to thinking about if we could travel a million times farther that we are currently capable of, why would we need to? Curiosity is a very unique trait of the human brain.
Now that the elections are over, it's almost like a responsibility to bring intelligence back into discussions!
Edward O. Wilson made an interesting point in one of his books while talking about exploration and frontiers. He said that several human cultures have been curious in the sense of wanting to explore, to keep looking for new places and that movement had, for a long time, been a westward movement until we reached the Pacific ocean. Now we want to move outward, to the stars. He pointed out that in many ways this is a harmful activity- that exploration has often led to exploitation. He suggests that rather than use precious resources to attempt to leave the planet, that we might well consider the option of going in the opposite direction, exploring the micro rather than the macro. He points out that we have only identified a small percentage of microbes and bacteria and other tiny forms of life and that this pursuit is not only fascinating and could well serve our desire to explore, but could also lead to discovering many useful things- cures for disease and that sort of thing- and would be far less wasteful and polluting than shooting off rockets that consume huge amounts of energy.
Yes, I'm opposed to the space program and I know I'm going to catch some flack for stating this! Have at it.
-Eddie Vedder, "Smile"
Thats interesting too -- yeah, sometimes I get queasy thinking of us going to the Moon and Mars..more places for us to tear up. :?
They also say we know more about space than we do about the deepest crevasses of our oceans. We've got a lot to learn right here!
You may see my point, but you have kind've derailed at the first turn.
You seemingly dismiss time as irrelevant for "god" ... the implication being that it (time) has no bearing on his ability to create embodied sentient life ... following your implication, you appear to be suggesting that time is irrelevant to god, and therefore my assertion that it took "this long" for life to happen is erroneous, as that life could have been created anywhere at anytime by said creator.
But do you not see where the understandings of modern science flatly contradict your assertion?
Look here: we KNOW (at least, our best science compels us to a supposed understanding) that the universe (after it did finally explode in to existence, and maybe not even for the first time) took millions to billions of years to form in to discreet matter that we term "stars" and "planets". We KNOW this. [recent science suggest the first stars may have formed 30 million years after the big bang] ... so take that as a starting point. The first star formed 30 million years ago. And the first planet around that star? How many millions of years after that? And how many millions or billions after that before said planet may have become hospitable to life?
This is my point.
It IS relevant to god.
It is ENTIRELY relevant to god.
Even the will of god is bound by the physical laws that were willed in to existence on his behalf.
You say "I imagine the immensely long period of time it took for all this to happen is irrelevant to a god", but it was categorically relevant. Regardless of whatever other life you are asserting he may have created in the universe, it could NOT have existed until at LEAST 30 million years after the big bang. I'm not saying it couldn't have existed then. I'm saying time IS relevant to this assumed god. He could not have made intelligent life any sooner than 30 million years after the big bang, because it took him that long to condense the first star. Let alone the first planet, and the first hospitable atmosphere. He can't just magically make life pop up before he has willed all the pre-requisites in to discreet existence.
Now sure we can argue (fruitlessly) about when and where this other life may have occured.
I'm just conveying to you that it is NOT unfathomable that THIS is it. WE very well could be that first chance. There were MANY pre-requisites to intelligent life, and it just may be that NOW is that "first time" for EMBODIED intelligent life.
Not to split hairs here, but i didn't say that. I said we are very probably the first *embodied* intelligent life. I firmly believe it is possible that their are other intelligent lives out there.
The esoteric "sciences" assert that the sun and the earth are both such lives, and *highly* advanced ones at that -- far beyond man's narrow band of consciousness these towering giants soar. Man's limited understanding of the laws of the universe and of their inner workings blind him to the possibility of this, for he seeks only for life in his own image, and with his own requirements. But that precludes him from finding it in things that do not conform to his own preconceived notions of what life is. There may also be intelligent life out there in invisible and incomprehensible forms to us. Speculation on this is probably fruitless, but it is certainly possible. When i say "invisible", i don't mean cloaked, i mean beyond our current understanding of "matter". Non material beings. Light beings. Angels. Devas. Whatever you want to call them. There may also have been previous waves of life in previous worlds. We know that the big bang occured, but we do NOT know whether it was the FIRST bang or the third, or the thirty third. How many times has this cycle unfolded, and how many other beings in other worlds have come from and gone back in to the heart of god before us?
I don't see it as such. Only when mans' own perspective is distorted is it self-involved. But recognizing one's importance in the grand scheme of things is a first step towards making an active difference in the world, it is not necessarily a step towards arrogance and abrogation of responsibility. If you don't know you ARE important, you can not BE important.
Absolutely active. Carl Sagan said it best: "we are a way for the universe to understand itself".
This isn't just some cute saying. It is the living truth. God may be all knowing and all powerful, but the physical world has physical limits, and the all-knowing-truth of god is held discreet and apart from the physical reality. Man, as the front-runner of physical intelligence within the world, is charged with the task of uncovering and organizing these facts and reassembling in the physical world, the hidden truth of god's world. This is bordering on poetry, as words fail to capture all the relevant facets of this herculean task.
Paraphrasing esoteric thoughts here: the lower spirit descends in to matter, the less it remembers of its one-ness and of eternal truth. But the task of that descent is to organize itself intelligently and to recover in the world of forms, what it knew in the world of spirit.
If I opened it now would you not understand?
Sorry- I had in no way intended to derail you post. Perhaps irrelevant was a poor choice of words. I just meant that if there is a god, to that entity I would think billions of years is not a "long time". With all due respect, I don't argue about god things because I have no solid knowledge about such things. God is Mystery to my and I'm good with Mystery.
I'm certainly in favor of being an active participant. Like I said, I don't have much god knowledge. I get my spiritual fix in watching clouds, looking into the eyes of a cat or dog, smelling pines in the forest, watching the tide come in and the tide go out-- that sort of thing. The rest of it is sweet Mystery.
-Eddie Vedder, "Smile"
I feel you Brian.
No worries.
If I opened it now would you not understand?
NA-TA-LIE!!
DA-VID!!
I love the work of both these people. Thanks, Drifting!!
-Eddie Vedder, "Smile"