The Fermi Paradox was first stated by Enrico Fermi in 1950 during a lunch time conversation. Fermi, a certified genius, used some straightforward math to show that if technological civilizations were common and moderately long-lived, then the galaxy ought to be fully inhabited. The vast distances of interstellar space should not be a significant barrier to any such civilization --assuming exponential population growth and plausible technology.

"Contact" should thus be completely inevitable; we ought to find unavoidable evidence of "little green men" all about us. Our Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence (SETI) should have been quickly successful.

We don't. It hasn't been. That's the paradox.

This paradoxical failure is sometimes called "The Great Silence".

The Great Silence suggests that space traveling technological civilizations are extremely rare (or very discrete). There have been a number of explanations for the why such civilizations might be rare. I list four explanations below. You can choose the one you like; they are as close to destiny as we are likely to get.

Technology civilizations may rarely form. We live in a very dangerous universe. One big gamma-ray burster can sterilize a galaxy. Supernovae are common, and they sterilize a pretty good chunk of space every time they blow.

Intelligence might be hard for natural selection to produce, or perhaps multicellular organisms are hard to make. This thesis was well presented in a July 2000 Scientific American article "Where Are They"?

July 2000 by Ian Crawford. Vernor Vinge, in his science fiction murder mystery Marooned in Realtime includes "rare intelligence" among the several hypotheses he suggests.


Technological civilizations may be very short-lived; they may universally fail. We've lived with nuclear weapons for a while, but our past challenges are dwarfed by our increasing "Affordable Anonymous Instruments of Mass Murder" problems. The latter problem will afflict every technologic civilization. This is the most common of the "universal failure" explanations. It is easy to see how this might be so for humanity, but need all sentient entities be as self-destructive as we are?


The universe we live in was designed so that we would be alone. There are a few variants on this idea, but they're fundamentally very similar. I list three here. In some ways the Fermi Paradox may be an even stronger "existence of God" argument that the usual "balance of physical parameters" argument.


Some non-omnipotent entity created our universe (there are allegedly serious physicists who speculate about how one might create a universe) and deliberately tweaked certain parameters so that sentience would occur on average about once per galaxy. Maybe they lived in a crowded galaxy and thought an alternative would be interesting.


God created the world in 7 days, and He made it for man's Dominion. He didn't want anyone else in our galaxy, maybe in the entire universe.


Nick Bostrom makes a credible argument that there's a reasonable likelihood that we exist in a simulation. If so, then perhaps the existence of an non-human civilizations does not suit the purposes of the simulation. (This could be considered a special case of "God created the world...")


All technological civilizations may lose interest in exploration quickly and comprehensively, in spite of whatever pre-singular predilections they might have had.

It's a kind of variant of the "self-destruction" solution, but I think it's more likely to be universal and inevitable.


What would cause all technological civilizations everywhere to lose interest in colonizing the universe -- despite whatever biologic programming they started with? The process would have to be inescapable, perhaps an inevitable consequence of any system in which natural selection operates. Others suggest that this something is the "Singularity", a consequence of hyperexponential growth. In the set of "universal failure" solutions to Fermi's Paradox this is sometimes called the Transcendental solution or the Deification solution.

http://www.faughnan.com/setifail.html

I personally think that perhaps there is some sort of Singularity event that is naturally occuring in civilizations that could be an explanation of this.


Or perhaps these Singularity events are artificial in nature,set in place almost as time bombs by a supremely advanced ETI civilization (gods).To keep other life from evolving into competition with them

I'm not privy to the cpabilities of the SETI reserach, so the main question I have is this: If there were ETIs that had the exact same technology, would their SETI experiments be able to detect us?

And I assume there is some limit to the range of our SETI capabilities. So that would mean we can only detect ETI within a certain distance of us.

And one must also consider the qualitative aspects - that is, we are only looking for things within our technological capabilities - i.e. certaing radiations within the electraomagnatic spectrum. But if ETI posessed "superior technology", it may be that such technology is completely undetecteble by us.

I can think of at least one possibility there - the ability to "focus carrier waves in a tight beam".

An analogy might be us trying to detect the signal inside a shielded fiber optic cable. We simply don't have the technolgy to detect it.

Another possibility could be that any such communication is "encrypted" in a way that would simply look like "noise" to us.


And then there is the "purpose and intent" issue...

If an ETI had the capability of traveling intra-galactic (or even inter-galactic) distances, we'd have to postulate that they wanted to contact us, which may not necessarily be the case. In other words, we could simply be the "backwoods slum" where no one wants to go.

Just some ruminations.

Very interesting post John, but in all honesty I had to truly crack up when I read the following:

"What would cause all technological civilizations everywhere to lose interest in colonizing the universe"

I had to laugh because the very phrase "lose interest" implies an assumption that every technological civilization should automatically have an interest in colonizing the universe.

I personally see no reason to assume that. Isn't that a psychologically-based assumption that all beings are going to think like most humans? I don't even think like most humans.

I personally have no desire to colonize the universe. So if all humans were like me, we'd pretty much stick around the solar system. I could see terriforming planets and things like that.

Besides, based on our current theories of phsyics it's not easy to bop around the galaxy, much less the universe.

We call ourselves a 'technological society' and we haven't even colonized our own moon yet, much less our own solar system.

In fact, look at what we're doing! Rather than terriforming other planets in our solar system into habitable worlds we're terrorizing our own planet and destroying our own ecosystems and biosphere.

Are 'technological societies' worth anything? They might be a dime a dozen and just destroy their own planets before they even colonize their own moons, just like us.

Truly. Our current knowledge and technology would be like cavemen compared to such advanced civilizations. Maybe even more like amoebas. Aliens could be perfectly aware of our existence and just realize that we're not evolved enough yet to even bother with.

It occurs to me that we have similar situations right here on earth.

Some people believe that we have "corrupted" some primitive societies by the simple act of introducing them to advanced technology that is effectively centuries past their own, effectively "destroying their culture".

It could be that such is the "political climate" with intra/inter-galactice ETIs.

One might compare it to the "experience is the best teacher" philosophy - "leave them alone and let them find out their own path".

Well, even as humans, when we write sci-fi space thrillers we give them the prime directive of non-interference.

And then in every episode we have them interferring with everybody.

That's probably about as well as we'd follow that directive anyway.

Humans are monkeys just monkeys with sparse body hair.

I subscribe to "lose interest" and "blow ourselves up".

"Lose interest" is not a loss of interest, but a realization that man cannot create a self-sustaining biosystem. Diligently, to colonize space would take decades if not thousands of years to reach a dwellable planet. The biosystem that's necessary to sustain lives until the system gets there would be humongous. If we can afford the price of shooting up a city-sized ship into the great beyond, and we can navigate it to go to the spot we want it to go, my point is that man and similarly technologially advanced aliens cannot build a bio-system. We try to tweek it, you know, no cold viruses, no tapeworms, no scorpions, no woolly mammoths, no whales and no chickenbones -- all these may be necessary ingredients to a viable ecosystem or biosystem. If not these, then billion and one other organisms, elements, proteins. It's not God that's stopping us, it's not a curse, it's not secret deathrays. It's our limitation as intelligent beings.

(I.e. the biggest difference between genius and stupidity is that genius has its limits.)

"Blow ourselves up" -- I don't agree with the OP that humans are self-destructive. We're selectively desctructive, as in a species, we ethnic cleanse and we imrison and in other ways castrate the unwanted. But we strive to survive, and the destruction of the self while we try to destruct others, is nothing more than mere collateral damage.

Yeah,Captain Kirk got in a fight on just about every planet he went to

Another thing. Technology does not allow for biosystems to energize themselves. The basis for renewed metabolical activity for man is photosynthesis. It uses solar power to reverse the enthropy we use as animalistic biological creatures.

In space there is no sunshine. You get the same effect, once you leave the solar system, that the night sky gives you. Plainly not enough to grow wheat or grapes.

It is conceivable that nuclear power could be used to create light that sustains photosynthesis. Can it be done? for decades, for sure. A kilogram of matter, when successfully converted to energy one for one, will sustain a city-sized place for a decade for sure. For a hundred years, too. But for thousands of years? I don't think so, but I don't know.

I can't believe I never heard that one before.

So true!

What we refuse to admit to ourselves is that we are the Planet of the Apes.

<=== Was hoping this thread would be related to fermions


The galaxy isn't populated because every technological civilization discovers the Wii before they get around to colonizing.

This entire idea above is based on the incorrect premise that we have NOT made contact with extraterrestrial beings.

Just because they did not land on the white house lawn and announce themselves to the world does not mean we have not made contact.

Millions.. (not thousands) of people have reported contact (and abductions) by and with non-human intelligent life forms...some probably not of this world or this earth. This is not to be ignored as far as I am concerned.

I would answer all of the points in this thread if I agreed with that first premise. I don't.

We have made contact. They are here among us.

Just like a game or story, you have to make assumptions. Mankind, in it's narrowmindedness, expects other creatures to think and act like us when there is no reason to think they wouldn't be more interested in a dolphin or a whale... less violent, better natured.

If we still had smoke signals, we would be wondering why they weren't sending smoke signals. There is no reason to think they haven't progressed beyond electromagnetic radiation communication technology just because we haven't. We are already learning to bend light around objects to be invisible. Wouldn't it make sense to think that they would be much farther advanced than that? If so, they could be seen, or not, at will. As JB says, they could have been here for centuries or much longer.

If we can learn to the manipulate genetic material, wouldn't they have learned it long ago? There is substantial evidence of alien visitation to this world. The evidence is mixed with tons of hoaxes and bad information, but it is still there.

There was a long time where SETI could only listen to one frequency at a time because that is all the technology they had. The fact that the "general population" has not be made "officially aware" of "formalized investigations" by the various governments just means the governments do not see fit to do so. Mexico and Russia have released some data. NASA is prohibited from doing so.

Maybe many of them are just drinking wine and watching the stars..........................................................

................................................

from next door.


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Very Funny.

However, gamma ray bursts, which pose no known threat to us in the foreseeable future,are usually not added into the equation of alien life on other worlds. Gamma ray bursts can sterilize an entire galaxy so if this discussion is about "what happened to all those aliens guys out there?", part of the answer would be that they got smoked by a large collapsing star which turned much of its mass into pure energy in the form of gamma rays which killed life for tens of thousands of light years.

Well said. The existence of a huge number of hoaxes and delusional people has nothing at all to do with whether or not alien visitation has occurred. (Not that I believe the evidence is strong - but evidence of alien delusions is not evidence against alien visitation.)

The evidence, obviously, has levels of credibility. Astronauts have had intense stress testing and psychological evaluations. Multiple sighting by multiple astronauts combined with photographic documentation would have to be considered "high credibility".

NASA cannot take a stand or investigate sightings.

Multiple military pilot sightings combined with gun camera and other documentation also has "high credibility". While US pilots are sometimes instructed "You did not see what you thought you saw." other nations, notably Russia, have different attitudes.

That is true. That will probably be what sterilizes the alien life forms living in this galaxy, eventually. Sterilization is a very human way of aniallating a species. They just don't reproduce, and in a generation or two, they are gone.

What is or is not a "delusion" is questionable. I guess you can call any personal experience that has no physical proof or evidence "delusion" if you choose, but it was probably a real experience to the person having it. So you may be getting into another dimension of mind and the decision of what is "real" and what is not "real" comes into play.

I have met people who claim to have been abducted, and yes, they appear to be very "confused." (And who wouldn't be?) If it is true, they have messed with his memory-- that would be very confusing.

While I was working as a private investigator I had a guy come to me for help. He claimed "they" had put a chip in his head. He was hiding from them. He had escaped from the State Hospital in Colorado Springs apparently. Now escaped patients were not a big deal. It happened all the time, people walking away. But when I called the local authorities to just check up on this fellow they were extremely interested. More than you would expect.

Colorado Springs is the location of NORAD, Peterson Air Force Base, Fort Carson, and a place where UFO sitings were frequent, and cattle mutilations were rampant at that time. There was a lot of "alien" activities going on there.

Anyway, they jumped on this guy and my apartment so fast you would think they were after some terrorist or spy. Then, they called me back to assure me that they had the guy in custody and wanted me to tell them everything he has said to me.

Very strange indeed. Then there was this private investigator that followed me for two weeks and my phone was bugged.

Weird City. There be dragons there I think.