Immortality as a solution to Fermi paradox

Here is an idea I've been pondering on for some time since watching Altered Carbon.

Imagine a species achieving immortality. There will probably a transition period with a mortal and immortal population first. But the immortals should quickly dominate the mortals due to their immortality advantage.

What would be their primary motivation? I think it would be self preservation first and foremost. Self preservation also means resource conservation. There would be no point in having offsprings as they would compete with you for resources. You also would want to get rid of the mortal resource wasters.

Now imagine a first species, becoming immortal, stopping growth, being mostly concerned with their own existence for millions or even billions of years. It makes me think of Lovecraft's Great Old Ones. And this is where things get a bit disturbing.

How would they perceive any new life arising in the universe? There might of course be some curiosity at first, especially if the species is different from them. But they'd probably want to get rid of it at some point, seeing it as a rival for resources.

So maybe that is the reason we are not getting any signals from aliens. And maybe we are just lucky to not have piqued their interest yet...

originally posted by: moebius
Now imagine a first species, becoming immortal, stopping growth,

What's funny is the human head (skull) keeps on growing as we age (it shifts AND grows). Think of some of the 'swollen head' celebrities out there that look totally different (and its not about plastic surgery, if anything its despite it).

Picture Tom Beringer age 60 in Inception (2010), now imagine the size of George Soros head at age 476.

I've been meaning for some time to do a spoof piece about this topic, and our elite masters whom seek to be living immortal "GODS", all caricature like these creatures.

I think it would be more like the Immortals rule over the mortal slave class. I don't think the ruling elite immortals would care much about the slave class or the resources. They'd live like gods while everyone else suffers.

I posit that a species may achieve the opposite.

Mass decisional apathy with self-destruction, rather than preservation.

What if the "ultimate question" the "ultimate meaning" the reasons for existence are such that when discovered, you are of no useful consequence?

Maybe extremely advanced civilizations make the conscious decision to self-delete, based on their findings and revelations.

From where we are right now, that seems just as likely as it's inverse.

a reply to: moebius

If a species "ascended" by which I mean they no longer needed physical
bodies, the Universe could be full of them and we'd never know it,
or they could have left "our universe" / slice of space-time entirely,
leaving an empty universe behind.

Everyone thinks that our Universe is so big.. and so important.. but per
eternal chaotic inflation theory (which is pretty much accepted),
our Universe could be nearly empty, and in any case insignificant..

so...

no paradox.

But yah... it's always fun to play the Fermi game.

You would have to be pure energy to be immortal , Even if you/they figured out how to live forever odd's are 100% that you would eventually meet with disaster .

a reply to: Archivalist

Definitley.

To survive long enough to become advanced, you probably have to be the top
alpha predator in your tree of life.

Once such a predator (like us) is at the top, there is nothing left to kill,
except for themselves, which we are starting to see (the ridiculous wealth
transfers to the 1%).

It would seem that nearly all organic life would destroy itself before making
it to another star.

Kev

originally posted by: moebius
How would they perceive any new life arising in the universe? There might of course be some curiosity at first, especially if the species is different from them. But they'd probably want to get rid of it at some point, seeing it as a rival for resources.

Not sure what resources they would need if they are already immortal?

If we are talking billions of years of evolution on this, I think we could start liken such a species with the universe itself. Maybe they where strong individuals with personal goals at first but after a while they are just drifting apart in an expansion that make all relations pointless.

Every species that manages to become immortal presumably has to go through a phase when they are not immortal. It's unlikely that one day they're stringing telegraph wires and the next they've merged with the universal energy matrix as pure immortal information/thought forms.

So every species would still have to go through a phase when they're sending out radio signals (unless they're psychic) and building small rockets, then big rockets, then other kinds of space ships -- and we would probably have seen at least one of them doing this -- or that they have done this. But we haven't. At least not yet.

One big filter is probably that once a species gets smart enough to understand just how big the universe is and how there is a pretty solid speed limit and very little chance of having any meaningful interaction with aliens, maybe they just give up. Some humans are adventurous and want to travel among the stars, but out of the entire population of the Earth, there probably really aren't that many.

a reply to: Blue Shift

I don't disagree.

but consider this:

we wouldn't even have all these fantasies about space travel;
we'd know almost nothing about the cosmos, (if we do in fact
know anything) if we had a dense cloud cover, which in fact
many planets do.

All it would take is one advanced species, that lived on such
a planet, and instead of pining for the stars, which they
might never even know about..

they turn their technology or (whatever) towards "ascension"
to get away from all the decay, pain and death.

Once in the history of the Universe that might have happened..
and if it did.. and they started to run rampant over time and
space..

you'd get an empty-seeming universe, just like we have..

it could have happened a trillion galaxies over.. even past
the "light cone" of the expanding Universe.. and we'd
never see it.

But it's certainly honest to say this about such a theory:

+ ridiculous time passing = *MAGIC*

And I don't want to rely on that..

but it's true.. a robust life form and tons of time.. could cook up
some very interesting results of SOME kind.

Kev