The Fermi Paradox — Where Are All The Aliens?

originally posted by: Indigent
We are not listening hard enough, I have to agree with that.

We think we know too much, but we are barely doing things in the last 150 years, give it another 300-500 years and our current knowledge will look like the one of the Romans

The Romans were brilliant by today's standards.

I'm starting to think that the peaceful ones are so shocked at how violent and self destructive we are that they are avoiding us and that the not so peaceful ones are sitting back watching us blow ourselves to hell.......like watching a "reality TV" episode.

"This Week on :Earthlings !!!! "the Cloth Hat Earthlings fight with a group of the Loud, Flag Waving Earthlings, who will win, who'll come out on top ????? stay tuned to station x57mooz for more !!!!"

In my opinion, the answers are in our history. Modern man seems to underestimate the people of the past. These people lived off the stars. They knew about the solar system before modern science did, they already knew the world wasn't flat and the Sun didn't revolve around Earth. They knew the difference between a comet or shooting star and a flying object. They spoke of Gods and battles fought amongst them. They spoke of Bioengeneering and forbidden comingling. Its in Greek myth, Roman myth, Hindu, Chinese, ancient Egypt, the Aztecs, Mayans, The bible. Every civilization around the globe had contact with some sort of advanced beings. They built megalithic structures we still cant match ,with mud slides, nah. They were better at astrology, Math, masonry, and art. I trust them more so than Modern man. We are always on the wrong side of knowledge till someone proves the masses different.

What happened, who knows they wiped us clean with a flood, we have scientific evidence of a global flood, and historical reference cross various civilizations. Maybe because they fought over us too much and formed a truce, maybe some other aliens came and took them out and they now have a no contact policy. Humans could be looked at as a temptation that of itself, and just as we break the rules maybe some rogue aliens do the same. We could be looked at as Cancer, or outta control experiment. We could just be a long term experiment, we do it to other species, why not us. They could already be here in the deep ocean or among us. Someone who was engineering humans 1000s of years ago could surely disguise themselves with ease by now.

In reality if we were bioengineered, and have been visited multiple times. I'd imagine they have all the samples they currently need to sprinkle more humans across the galaxy, without ever having to come back here. Look at us War, Reproduction, Greed, and gluttony , we take more than we give back. Sounds like a virus to me. If I wasn't one. I wouldn't want to be one. In my opinion we did not evolve naturally, why would we lose our hair? only to replace it with clothing? What environmental trigger caused that evolutionary trend? How did that help us overcome a challenge? Where are all the bodies and bones to coorelate. Why are we still finding Dinosaur fossils and eggs, but the stages of modern man are still unaccounted for? Where is that missing link in the Human evolutionary path?

One possible answer to the Fermi Paradox is The Great Filter. I'm not sure if this has been touched on yet but I'll go ahead and elaborate a bit. The Great Filter states that there have been many intelligent species in the galaxy, and the universe, but they all inevitably destroy themselves before achieving FTL travel and colonizing other planets, or go extinct due to some natural catastrophe they didn't yet have the technology to prevent.

Some additional reading for anyone interested

a reply to: Gemwolf

The civilizations which are advanced enough to come here understand how dangerous it is to interfere in the development of a much more primitive civilization like us. Likewise, our technology has only recently even acknowledged the existance of exoplanets. What evidence would we find if we can barely see planets?

originally posted by: ScientificRailgun
One possible answer to the Fermi Paradox is The Great Filter. I'm not sure if this has been touched on yet..

That was covered in the video.

Carl Sagan made some drake equation calculations using pessimistic and optimistic numbers on Cosmos. The optimistic number of intelligent civilizations in the Milky way was huge, but the pessimistic number was something like ten.

If there are only nine other intelligent civilizations in the Milky way, and they are randomly distributed, they would be immensely far apart. Not as far as other galaxies, but far.

Maybe FTL isn't possible and maybe .95 light speed travel has too much radiation, so the practical limits of velocity may be far lower than our optimistic expectations.

I also keep in mind that even on Earth, intelligent life is extremely rare, on a cosmic time scale. We tend to forget this with our current 7 billion human population, but humans have only existed for the blink of an eye in the cosmic scheme of things and as far as we know for most of the Earth's existence, it didn't have intelligent life, and furthermore, we don't see intelligence as an inevitable consequence of evolution.

So, one possibility is that life is very common, but intelligent life is extremely rare.

I don't think the video covered all these other points.

a reply to: Arbitrageur

Ah thanks, I can't watch the video since I'm at work.

I believe that earth is considered protected fauna to aliens. Just like other un-evolved planets with "intelligent" life, we have been cloaked by more advanced aliens, maybe even by some sort of galactic federation.

They are up there, I can feel it. They watch us and who knows, maybe even diffuse our movies, arts and music to their civilizations. I don't know if other races are the same but I feel humans are capable of the greatest good and the greastest evil.

I often see posters talking about humans like we are not worth it to aliens, too dangerous, greedy etc. Well, the problem is just a minority of people, the psychopaths that take control. I'm sure the majority of human beings are good people that are hoping for some sort of disclosure. I personally can't wait to share ideas, arts, philosophies, sports, video games and spirituality with other alien beings.

Imo e.t beings brought life here and are now traversing to the next solar system. They left behind a few grays to tend the garden.
Faster than light travel is probably impossible nevertheless it would only take a few million years to populate the galaxy.

a reply to: Arbitrageur

I agree with what you are saying. Have posted those thoughts myself on many threads here over the years. What if intelligence is so rare that we would never meet another? We might find planets full of life but no one to talk to.

We might have to create someone to talk to if that is the case. We might have to modify the genome of life on other planets in order to evolve them to intelligence. I wonder if any other intelligent species out there might have done that somewhere...

If we are indeed so rare that we may be only intelligence the universe has ever formed then it might be our job to continue to bring intelligent life to the universe, else it die out for ever...

I'm not certain our propensity toward violence is to be a deterrent to visit. The whole of the world, and the Universe for that matter - is a destructive and dangerous place. Watch the discovery channel or something - about space, the ocean, wildlife, and natural disasters.

Humans are just one other kind of animal in this thing we call life. I cannot imagine any scientific aliens or inter-dimensional beings not wanting to examine and experiment on not just us - but all facets of our world, moon, solar system and sun. After all, there be life here!

CdT

I think time is an issue, namely the question "how many technological alien civilizations exist right now concurrently with us?"

ET life in general may be abundant in the universe, and there many have even been a relatively large number of technological civilizations that have existed in our galaxy over the a short time span of, say, 200 million years -- which is very short compared to the age of the universe -- and even compared to the age of the Earth. 200 million years ago is about the time of the dinosaurs, which is a relatively recent time in the long history of the Earth (believe it or not, the age of the dinosaurs should be considered a very recent time compared to the history of life on Earth)...

HOWEVER, even if the "life span" of those technological alien civilizations is, say, 2 million years (and that may be a HUGELY LONG lifespan for a civilization), there could have been 100 civilizations that have come and gone (died out) in our galaxy since the relatively recent time of the dinosaurs.

What I'm saying is that our galaxy may have had many technological civilizations over the past 200 million years, or even 1 Billion years, but most of those civilizations may not have existed concurrently with each other, and maybe only a small number exist concurrently with us today. Technological civilizations may be abundant when considering the general history of the galaxy, but they may be very rare when talking about how many exist "right now".

So the time scale of the universe -versus- the theoretical lifespan of technological civilizations needs to be considered when discussing the Fermi Paradox.

a reply to: [post=19322829]Gemwolf[/pos t]

I propose they are nothing we can imagine yet, because we don't have the means to do so.

They travel in ways we cant imagine, on things and means we've can understand because theyve been made or produced on places we've not discovered, with materials we don't know about, with processes we cant understand because they cant be made anywhere else but other spots in the universe(s) we are unaware of yet.

1. We don't know what to look for
2. We assume they will have traits that we only now can speculate on
3. We haven't a clue of their "sciences"
4. Their means of moving through time and space
5. Their agendas or lack of agendas

We have no concept when we haven't been exposed to the above.The best we can do is speculate in scientific circles, theories, discussions, movies and video games.

They are prob. right next to us...and we don't even know it.

With all of the sightings, case documents, and aviation accounts, we are allready being visited. There are just too many ancient depictions of beings from other worlds. I mean cave art from all around the world displays craft and there occupants. I feel that open contact is soon. There was even a crop circle that spoke of "The coming of the Lords of the Stars".

originally posted by: MrStyx
In my opinion, the answers are in our history. Modern man seems to underestimate the people of the past. These people lived off the stars. They knew about the solar system before modern science did, they already knew the world wasn't flat and the Sun didn't revolve around Earth. They knew the difference between a comet or shooting star and a flying object. They spoke of Gods and battles fought amongst them. They spoke of Bioengeneering and forbidden comingling. Its in Greek myth, Roman myth, Hindu, Chinese, ancient Egypt, the Aztecs, Mayans, The bible. Every civilization around the globe had contact with some sort of advanced beings. They built megalithic structures we still cant match ,with mud slides, nah. They were better at astrology, Math, masonry, and art. I trust them more so than Modern man. We are always on the wrong side of knowledge till someone proves the masses different.

That relevant history you speak of is so often overlooked, sometimes even outright ignored. Now add distortion, misinterpretation and disinformation to the mix and it makes it that much harder to extract the truth. If the above, which is true, is applied to everything that consists of ufology (not just looking at/identifying ufos), then the realization would come that there is subject to be an abundance of intelligent life throughout Earth's history which have, and still are interacting with humanity to this day. The downside is that some of this interaction is/was counterproductive to human progress and evolution.

originally posted by: The Vagabond

4. Maybe we are missing a fact of time and space that explains it. I doubt it's exactly this, but let's just suppose that the means of travel causes you to arrive before you leave, therefore you can't possibly have a motive to travel in that way because it can only take you to places where you already are.

Hold on pard-nor..... just wait a cotton pickin' second whilst eye thinks 'bout dat.

Yes, we are living in a time-based illusion.
Yes, we are not who we think we are...

However, the paradox you suggest sounds more
like a episode from The Twilight Zone. It would
make a good sci-fi story. Man builds time travel
machine and meeting himself where he is...

...sitting at home typing messages on ATS.

originally posted by: pheonix358
Well yes ... but.

Our primary tech development in this area is for warfare. That has always been the major impetus. We have only had this type of tech for less than a hundred years... We are a woeful race really. I would not want us out there. The first chance we got, we would be at war and building Star Ships and would get wiped out in short order.

P

Human civilization is indeed a woeful thing, driven by greed and opportunity for selfish gain.... our technology is advanced by war, that is true.... but it may not always be that way... in the long run we may become more like the civilization depicted by Gene Rodenberry's Star Trek.... but as you said, we could still get wiped out in short order when we attempt to form a United Federation of Planets.

originally posted by: wasaka

originally posted by: pheonix358
Well yes ... but.

Our primary tech development in this area is for warfare. That has always been the major impetus. We have only had this type of tech for less than a hundred years... We are a woeful race really. I would not want us out there. The first chance we got, we would be at war and building Star Ships and would get wiped out in short order.

P

Human civilization is indeed a woeful thing, driven by greed and opportunity for selfish gain.... our technology is advanced by war, that is true.... but it may not always be that way... in the long run we may become more like the civilization depicted by Gene Rodenberry's Star Trek.... but as you said, we could still get wiped out in short order when we attempt to form a United Federation of Planets.

Well maybe we have a shot against the borg. On a serious note there is likely other civilizations out there. The problem is simple they can't get here. And even if they could why would they we are the backwoods of the galaxy. All the cool stuff happens in the center where you can travel to diffrent solar systems easy they are close. But let's suppose they detected us and wanted to visit still is a major undertaking at least energy wise. Even if they could move 100 times faster than light unless they are close by a major trip. Think of star trek and how long it took them to get into certain quadrants of space and still a large part of the galaxy remained unexplored. But here's the rub as they say if they advanced that far into the galaxy we should detect them and havnt.

So Odds ARE WERE NOT Alone but they don't have the ability to get here.

Not sure if you looking for legal or illegal aliens...

All jokes aside, there might be many different scenarios and at our current technological level (we are able to see some planets that are crossing our view of their sun ( not sure if you guys understand how small fraction of a fraction change is that) we are FAR away from ability to see anything else. For all we know, galaxy can be filled with life, but there is simply no reason for life to develop into self aware life like it happened with us, here on earth.

There is huge difference between looking for a life (be it microbial, flora or fauna life), and looking for some intelligent aliens. Add to this that for all reason different people have already mentioned in this thread, I would never put humans as intelligent, not while its OK for as to resolve problems with wars and warfare.

I am sure that if there is developed and advanced race, last thing it would do is send its ships with scientist/ambassadors/researchers everywhere. Most likely if they explore universe, it is close to Michio Kaku's vision with robot factories that build more mobile robot factories that will then build more robot factories once it reached its destination... I know it sounds like science fiction, but same our life and internet are Sci-Fi for our ancestors...

a reply to: Gemwolf

"This argument also assumes the mediocrity principle, which is an argument from probability that we should not expect the Earth to be special, but merely a typical planet, subject to the same laws, effects, and likely outcomes as any other world." en.wikipedia.org...

The mediocrity principle suggests, given the existence
of life on Earth, that life typically exists on Earth-like
planets throughout the universe.

The mediocrity principle is the philosophical notion that "if an item is drawn at random from one of several sets or categories, it's likelier to come from the most numerous category than from any one of the less numerous categories". The principle has been taken to suggest that there is nothing very unusual about the evolution of the Solar System, the Earth, humans, or any one nation. It is a heuristic in the vein of the Copernican principle, and is sometimes used as a philosophical statement about the place of humanity. The idea is to assume mediocrity, rather than starting with the assumption that a phenomenon is special, privileged or exceptional.[2][3]

Consistent with the notion, astronomers reported, on 4 November 2013, that there could be as many as 40 billion Earth-sized planets orbiting in the habitable zones of sun-like stars and red dwarf stars within the Milky Way Galaxy, based on Kepler space mission data.[4][5] 11 billion of these estimated planets may be orbiting sun-like stars.[6] The nearest such planet may be 12 light-years away, according to the scientists.

en.wikipedia.org...

"David Deutsch argues with Richard Dawkins's opinion that humans, as result of natural evolution, are limited to the capabilities of our species — Deutsch responds that even though evolution did not give humans the ability to detect neutrinos, scientists can currently detect them, significantly expanding their capabilities beyond what is available as a result of evolution."

Alternative view: Rare Earth Hypothesis en.wikipedia.org...