The Fermi Paradox - What It Is and Categories

originally posted by: Czulkang
I think that there is a hyper agressive speciex out there that stamps out all life before they can pose a threat to them, because of a near E.L.E in their past that molded their psyche in a hyper aggressive form.
There thats my 2 cents.

Possible. The "Berserker" Scenario isn't all that ridiculous. Two spacefaring civilizations have a war and one of them builds a super-destructive, self-replicating Von Neumann Machine to go over and wipe the other guys out. And it gets out of control. And now it's spreading like a virus through the universe, slowly finding life and then sterilizing it.

Machines taking over the universe is a very plausible scenario. And they just haven't found us yet.

After that, if we really are "living" in a simulation, maybe they were just never programmed in.

a reply to: eriktheawful
Allow me to play devils advocate. My theory is that the laws of probability stack up against life existing elsewhere in the universe. To understand this it would be helpful to understand how probability works. How the math works. Here is a minor example: What is the probability that I will catch a fish tomorrow when I go fishing? I usually do so let's say the probability is 70% or .7 . But it is not as simple as that. There are other factors. What if I oversleep and miss the best feeding time so assume there is a 80% chance I wake on time. Weather, availability of bait, will my boat start in the morning? How long can I stay? Etc. So, lets say there is a 70% (.7) chance the weather will be good. Let's say there is a 20% chance the bait shop will be out of the minnows I favor for bait (so that means there is a 80% (.8) chance I will have the appropriate bait. And there is a 10% chance my boat will not start in the morning (again that means a 90% chance it will so .9 is calculated in. And then the pure chance the fish are biting....50% (or .5). Now given these are the only factors involved with fish catching (they aren't, there are many many more but for simplicity sake assume these are the only factors. The calculation looks like this: .8 x .7 x .8 x .9 x.5 = .2016 probability at this moment I will be successful fishing tomorrow. Of course the calculation changes as each event happens or doesn't. If the bait availability drops to 0 then the end probability drops to 0 as well. If I get to the bait shop and the minnows are there the calculation changes to .8 x .7 x 1.0 x .9 x.5 =.252 .

The point is when you are calculating a probability that depends on a series of events happening it is a simple multiplication. It gets more complicated when an event is not in series but can happen in parallel. It still affects the outcome but I am trying to keep this simple to make my point.

Now, consider all that had to happen for Planet Earth to have life introduced; for life, from the first single cell animal, to reproduce; for a food chain to develop; for the proper atmospheric conditions to magically happen (realize that during the dinosaur periods the atmosphere oxygen content was much higher than the 21% it is now. That is one reason dinosaurs grew to be so large) There are thousands of factors that had to be right, from the Moon causing the tides, to the amount of water asteroids brought to our planet, to every little bug that has ever lived causing decay of plant life which enriches the soil and allows for new growth. Then consider gravity, the mass of the Sun, radiation from the sun, how the other planets in our system affect us, the electro - magnetic shield that protects us from all the bad radiation not just from the sun but from other systems. There are so many factors that I do not even know about but that happened even though the probability of them happening was .000000001 or less. Even more that happen everyday now that are essential for life to continue to prosper. All of them have many zeros to the right of the decimal. All of these are essential. All MUST have happened or must happen in order to contribute the the miracle of life on our planet. From tides to weather to chemistry to the food chain starting with the tiniest plankton in the oceans. And on and on.

The end probability is incalculable. But it is infinitesimal. It is a freaking miracle that it happened once in the universe but to assume it has happened again and again in other places in the Universe...well, that is a lot to consider. I realize the Universe is a big place but I truly believe that the laws of probability just do not support life anywhere else.

a reply to: eriktheawful

After some thinking, i came to this conclusion:

-There is intelligent life capable of interstellar travel in the Milky Way (at least 20-50 races)

-Some of this life has and does visit Earth

-While many focus on Earth bound governments hiding their presence, its clear to me that the visitors are masking their own presence and are careful to disclose themselves fully.


With this in mind, i think what we have is a galactic organization involving a number of interstellar races that determine the "readiness" of a planet's life for disclosure...

a reply to: eriktheawful

So the problem is we cant differ between nuclear weapons used in space and gamma ray bursts that came from a supernova or a black hole that burps?

Arent there way more intense compared to our weapons?

The question is: are THEY able to detect our nuclear space tests from the 60s?
Sure its speculation cause we dont know how far advanced they are but the problem is that we always tend to think that WE (LOL) are at the technological top level.. wrong..

Look at you guys!

THIS is the ATS I remember!

Woo Hoo!

Lots of opinions, not all of them agreeing, but each of you THINKING.....HYPOTHESIZING.......and even if you disagree......you're doing it in a very civil way!

THIS is what brought me to ATS!

Thank you guys. Nice to see this.

I best get cracking on that next thread then.

originally posted by: CreationBro
a reply to: eriktheawful

After some thinking, i came to this conclusion: -There is intelligent life capable of interstellar travel in the Milky Way (at least 20-50 races), etc.

The question on the table is essentially, "If intelligent life is so common, Where are these guys?" THAT is the Fermi Paradox. We see no evidence of their presence (according to Fermi.) Your conclusion appears to be that there are 20-50 races capable of interstellar travel and they are already here. How did you come to that conclusion? What evidence do you have that your conclusions are true?

a reply to: I realize the Universe is a big place but I truly believe that the laws of probability just do not support life anywhere else.icewater

We are the best example that it could happen! Y not twice? Its far more possible than the solution that we are alone in this gigantic universe..
And again.. humans tend to speak only of themselves..
Who says that live needs the exact recipe from what we are made?

Europa could inhabit live under the icy shell. Yeah not intelligent but live..

originally posted by: schuyler

originally posted by: CreationBro
a reply to: eriktheawful

After some thinking, i came to this conclusion: -There is intelligent life capable of interstellar travel in the Milky Way (at least 20-50 races), etc.

The question on the table is essentially, "If intelligent life is so common, Where are these guys?" THAT is the Fermi Paradox. We see no evidence of their presence (according to Fermi.) Your conclusion appears to be that there are 20-50 races capable of interstellar travel and they are already here. How did you come to that conclusion? What evidence do you have that your conclusions are true?

Entirely valid question Schuyler.

Personal experiences, accounts of others, and some guesstimation based off:

the age of the universe vs the age of Earth vs the age of the Milky Way

what we know about evolution and the rate of evolution on Earth

the Kepler project already finding Earth like planets (at least in size and received flux from the host star [goldilocks zone]

estimated number of planets in the Milky way

the rate of technological Earth human progress (some say interstellar travel is impossible, but we went from horse drawn buggies to rockets in less than 200 years)

the propensity for life in even extreme environments (extremophiles)

the theme of order vs chaos within the construct of the universe/multiverse (life is a form of order in my opinion)

ancient myth and lore of other worlders, megalithic structures dedicated to the stars/heavens

the common concept of curiousity, discovery, and interest in others (e.t. may be interested in us for a variety of reasons, as we them).


There are other reasons, and my estimated number could very well be off (quite possibly more), but these are the notions that float around in my mind.

As for the fermi paradox, its not much of a paradox to me tbh. I see evidence of their presence, some of which is very personal. That is what leads me to believe our paradigm regarding the subject is being carefully handled, not just by those in the know here, but by them as well.

a reply to: eriktheawful

I'll keep an eye on this, main reason why I started ATS

originally posted by: CreationBro
a reply to: eriktheawful

After some thinking, i came to this conclusion:

-There is intelligent life capable of interstellar travel in the Milky Way (at least 20-50 races)

-Some of this life has and does visit Earth

-While many focus on Earth bound governments hiding their presence, its clear to me that the visitors are masking their own presence and are careful to disclose themselves fully.


With this in mind, i think what we have is a galactic organization involving a number of interstellar races that determine the "readiness" of a planet's life for disclosure...

You are actually very close!

Indeed advanced races are capable of interstellar travel, however, they have removed the issue of having to 'travel', they simply relocate, they teleport. They can stop existing at one spot, and start existing at another as they please.

Also there IS an organizaion of alien species, and they DO measure the readiness of a plantet's community for disclosure!

Multiple alien races are observing Earth, and they are eagerly waiting for the time to arrive where they can present themselves officially.


People underestimate their intelligence, the 'advanced' races are VERY intelligent. Hollywood should also stop putting aliens on display as warmongerers, 99% of the universe is at peace. War is rare. Why would someone in their right mind kill one their own, truly it is not hard to understand, and alot of aliens do understand this and live in harmony, as could we one day.

Maybe every planet out there is just not able to communicate. Maybe we're all so far away from one another, and we don't have and never will have the technology of light speed space warping, or apace/time jumping. There's only so many resources on any given planet, and I still have yet to see anyone, cut the fabric of space and time and teleport or anything. Maybe Earth and all other inhabited planets, are only allowed to grow so advanced, with the limited resources they have, before wiping ourselves out eventually. We can't even get past the looming threat of Nukes taking us all out yet. How will we advance further?

a reply to: Vratyas

It's quite possible that life thrives all over our galaxy and the universe.

However, that alien life might have the odds stacked against it in many ways:

Metal poor planet, hardly any to speak of, much less mine, smelt, and build with.

A water world with intelligent creatures on it like our whales and dolphins.....who will never be able to harness fire, so they can make tools and build in ways that we can here. Seriously doubt they'll get a radio signal out, or anything into orbit.

Gigantic blimp like creatures that evolved in the upper cloud deck of a Jupiter like gas giant......pretty cool idea (in fact, when I was a kid back in the 1970s, I saw a painting once showing this)......they too will have issues building high technology.

Does it have to be an exact recipe of us? Well:

Again, we and all life on Earth are made up of the 4 most common elements found in the universe. Carbon, Hydrogen, Oxygen and Nitrogen. Stands to reason that other life out there would also more commonly be made up of the same things. I mean, we might find something that is made out of other elements, but the math says that life made out of CHON will be more common than anything else.

Air born bacterial living in a think layer in the atmosphere of Venus will most likely not develop communications satellites and put them in orbit about the planet.

So basically: yah. More than likely any intelligent life out their that becomes advanced enough to create technology that we can detect, or surpass us to where they are doing interstellar or even intergalactic travel will need to form on:

A rocky, metal rich world, that orbits a stable, long lived star (there are more of these than others), and must have a mostly circular orbit that keeps it within that star's green zone (if the planet's orbit is to eliptical where it spends half it's time outside of the green zone, that's not going to be good, you'll either have boiling oceans or oceans that are frozen solid....along with parts of the atmosphere if it goes out too far).
It needs to be a big enough planet. Too small, and it's core cools down too soon....which could disrupt or make it's magnetic field that protects it from it's sun's radiation and cosmic radiation.

It must be also big enough to retain it's atmosphere. Be a bad thing to loose it.

But then there is the evolutionary picture to consider too: motivation for the life to develop advance intelligence.

Again, yes, we can look at the Earth. How long were dinosaurs around for? They were here for almost 200 million years.

200 million years.....and in all that time, they didn't end up becoming a advanced tool using race. None of them.

But look at the clever primates......7 million years ago. Then 3 million years ago a group of them started to change and tahdah! Here we are.....humans. Putting satellites into orbit, sending space craft to other worlds, right down to using computers and mobile devices where we can discuss things on the internet.

So what does that mean?

Well, it could possibly mean that while yes, there are millions of planets in our galaxy alone that has life all over those planets......they just might be like the dinosaurs. Thriving.........but not tool using or advanced like we are. It could mean, that intelligence that advances to tool using is a much rarer thing. That it only happens if the right circumstances present themselves, and those circumstances might be very rare.

Problem is: we just don't know yet.

For all I know, tomorrow Curiosity on Mars is going to fall into a cavern, and still be working long enough to send back images of ancient martian statues of a long forgotten civilization.......which means we'll have to change our understanding of evolution of life since most scientist believe that while Mars was a "habitable" planet billions of years ago, it lost it's atmosphere too soon for anything advanced enough to evolve there.

But I'll also be sitting here thinking "Holy crap! We found evidence of an advanced life form outside of Earth! Woo Hoo!" and be drooling at the mouth waiting for more information.

But, alas, in the mean time, we have to deal with what we know, and can only speculate.

Not to jump in line, but one aspect is the fact advanced civilizations could cloak themselves from us, more or less effectively. Their presence could be insignificant or vast.

a reply to: eriktheawful
But look at the clever primates......7 million years ago a group of them started to change and tahdah! Here we are.....humans.

Love the gap

You r taking the words out of my mouth (fingers)^^

Intelligent tool using live need a dry environment to develope technology. But they also neey water to thrive so it has to be a certain amount of water on the planet.
Not too much and not too little. Too much and no tech will emerge.. too litte and every water will be absorbed from the ground.. so yeah, there has to be the right amount of comets hitting this planet..

But again, look @ the scale of the universe and the amount of water..
Im sure u k ow about the exoplanet hunt. How many earth likes where recently in the news?
en.m.wikipedia.org...

Im pretty sure that mars had living creatures on it and maybe.. just maybe.. they are the gap that u mentiont above

There is also the possibility of an absolutly deadly predetor that is animal-like but far more intelligent than ours. On a different intelligence lvl that we are.. what i mean? One of the best sci fi horrorfilms ever made: the black creature from alien

a reply to: For all I know, tomorrow Curiosity on Mars is going to fall into a cavern, and still be working long enough to send back images of ancient martian statues of a long forgotten civilization eriktheawful

Planetary scientists and Mars rovers have a special method for choosing vacation days - they wait for the Sun to get in the way.

"From July 22 to August 1, NASA won't be sending communications to any of its Mars gear - two rovers and three orbiters - thanks to the joys of a Mars solar conjunction which takes place every two years or so."
www.sciencealert.com...
:-/

a reply to: Vratyas

Yah, about that term "earth like"

They tend to call anything they think orbits in the green zone and is smaller than Neptune as "earth like"

Unfortunately, we still don't know too much more than that. We can get some gas readings from the planet as it passes in front of it's star, things like that. I think we'll know a lot more once the James Webb telescope is launched and in place next year.

oooo! I forgot to mention Przybylski's star.

That star.......there is something strange about it. Not like Tabby's star with the strange dimming that people have speculated a lot on.

Pryzybylski's star is interesting because it seems to have plutonium in it. Also quite a few other elements that we don't normally find in stars in any significant abundance.

It's been suggested that someone dumped these elements into the star. I know, highly speculative, but considering the star's spectrum does not fit other stars, it makes for a highly suggestive ideas.

Imagine a tribe in the Amazon jungle that has never made contact with modern humans. Suppose Brazil decides to deny access to outsiders.

Now Humanity goes into the heavens. Meets the Vulcans, Romulons, goes to a galaxy far far away, and meets the last surviving Twileks and Wookies too. Then meets and defeats the Zerg, contacting the Protoss along the way.

However, Brazil survives as a country this whole time. Keeps its boundaries, and its government remains in power.

What becomes of that tribe that has never met modern humans? It stays right where it is. Never meets modern humans.

My point is: maybe the Galaxy has already been claimed and conquered by somebody. We live inside that empire's borders. That empire has laws regarding who is and is not allowed to contact us.




Everyone who dreams of space likes to imagine that it is like the Wild Wild West out there. But it's more likely that, if anyone is out there, it has already been colonized and then civilized.

Cool thread, lots to think about. Just a couple thoughts off the top of my head(not saying I agree with all of it either)pertaining to the following;

3) The Universe Is Much Too Young: This one can be hard for some to wrap their head around, but even though the universe is around 14 billion years old, there are several reasons to consider this possibility, one being that of heavier elements like Iron have not existed at the beginning of the universe, so there has been a lot less time for life to have come about.

That or distance and travel is not accessible to all but is possible to some to far and few between. It's also not cut and dry, that all forms of it must be by a space vehicle/ufo. There has been theories of inter dimensional travel to black hole travel.

4) They Are Here and Do Exist: This is where most of the conspiracy theorist will thrive, that they are here, meddling with us humans, but we're too stupid to notice, or it's been hidden too well from us.

Maybe some do know deep down. Ancient Alien theories point to aren't we all alien mixed genomes. Some even claim as a far as being a star seed, but in at least one case I know of, genetic evidence had proven them otherwise. If mixed within humans, possible it's stored in the genetic DNA to not meddle once again.

originally posted by: icewater
a reply to: eriktheawful
Allow me to play devils advocate. My theory is that the laws of probability stack up against life existing elsewhere in the universe. To understand this it would be helpful to understand how probability works. How the math works. Here is a minor example: What is the probability that I will catch a fish tomorrow when I go fishing? I usually do so let's say the probability is 70% or .7 . But it is not as simple as that. There are other factors. What if I oversleep and miss the best feeding time so assume there is a 80% chance I wake on time. Weather, availability of bait, will my boat start in the morning? How long can I stay? Etc. So, lets say there is a 70% (.7) chance the weather will be good. Let's say there is a 20% chance the bait shop will be out of the minnows I favor for bait (so that means there is a 80% (.8) chance I will have the appropriate bait. And there is a 10% chance my boat will not start in the morning (again that means a 90% chance it will so .9 is calculated in. And then the pure chance the fish are biting....50% (or .5). Now given these are the only factors involved with fish catching (they aren't, there are many many more but for simplicity sake assume these are the only factors. The calculation looks like this: .8 x .7 x .8 x .9 x.5 = .2016 probability at this moment I will be successful fishing tomorrow. Of course the calculation changes as each event happens or doesn't. If the bait availability drops to 0 then the end probability drops to 0 as well. If I get to the bait shop and the minnows are there the calculation changes to .8 x .7 x 1.0 x .9 x.5 =.252 .

The point is when you are calculating a probability that depends on a series of events happening it is a simple multiplication. It gets more complicated when an event is not in series but can happen in parallel. It still affects the outcome but I am trying to keep this simple to make my point.

Now, consider all that had to happen for Planet Earth to have life introduced; for life, from the first single cell animal, to reproduce; for a food chain to develop; for the proper atmospheric conditions to magically happen (realize that during the dinosaur periods the atmosphere oxygen content was much higher than the 21% it is now. That is one reason dinosaurs grew to be so large) There are thousands of factors that had to be right, from the Moon causing the tides, to the amount of water asteroids brought to our planet, to every little bug that has ever lived causing decay of plant life which enriches the soil and allows for new growth. Then consider gravity, the mass of the Sun, radiation from the sun, how the other planets in our system affect us, the electro - magnetic shield that protects us from all the bad radiation not just from the sun but from other systems. There are so many factors that I do not even know about but that happened even though the probability of them happening was .000000001 or less. Even more that happen everyday now that are essential for life to continue to prosper. All of them have many zeros to the right of the decimal. All of these are essential. All MUST have happened or must happen in order to contribute the the miracle of life on our planet. From tides to weather to chemistry to the food chain starting with the tiniest plankton in the oceans. And on and on.

The end probability is incalculable. But it is infinitesimal. It is a freaking miracle that it happened once in the universe but to assume it has happened again and again in other places in the Universe...well, that is a lot to consider. I realize the Universe is a big place but I truly believe that the laws of probability just do not support life anywhere else.

Even though this was a really great and very insightful post, I have to disagree with you, because your theory is based on the assumption that life can only exist as we understand it, which I think would be ignorant at worst, and arrogant at best. We barely understand the true nature of who or what we are, so to use humans on earth as a metric in determining if life could exist elsewhere would be extremwly naive of us.

Theoretically there are Infinite possibilities in an infinite space, throughout infinite time, so if a "miracle" has happened once, it will happen again. And again.. and again..