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InvisibleDividedQuantumM
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Fermi’s paradox: Where are all the aliens?
    #26440258 - 01/18/20 01:33 PM (4 years, 29 days ago)

The Fermi paradox is the contradiction between the fact that, according to mathematical calculations, the probability of detectable alien activity is estimated to be quite high, yet there is no reliable evidence of their existence. Even according to common sense – i.e. if there are billions of solar systems in our own galaxy – there should be many alien species around, and Fermi is alleged to have remarked, “But where is everybody?”

The statistical argument is that there are indeed billions of suitable stars in the Milky Way galaxy, many tens or hundreds of millions of these stars should (with high probability) have planets suitable for life, many millions of these should have the capacity for intelligent life and civilization, many of which would presumably eventually develop interstellar travel. Even estimating the development of cosmic exploration at a slow pace, the entire Milky Way could be traversed and explored in only a few million years. Since many of the stars in our galaxy are billions of years older than our Sun, it would seem that plenty of time has been provided.

So, as Fermi asks, “Where is everybody?”

The three main explanations for the lack of traffic are these: Intelligent extraterrestrial beings evolve extremely rarely (or never); the lifetime of civilizations is quite short; and that they exist but we cannot see them (perhaps they exist in higher dimensions, don’t want to be seen (listening but not transmitting), what have you).

Other reasons are that most civilizations destroy themselves with their technology (e.g. nukes), intelligent civilizations are simply too far apart in space and time to make frequent contact with others, and that most intelligent species do not wish to leave their homes.

The Chinese author Cixin Liu believes it is impossibly dangerous to communicate. In his Three-Body trilogy, the whole premise is that any civilization that makes enough (or really any) noise will be conquered as soon as possible by much more powerful civilizations, in order to preserve the balance of power, and prevent upstarts. May sound strange, but look at Earth’s history. Often when peoples meet, there is intense violence. His books are amazing, by the way.

And some feel aliens are among us, and the government knows and is covering it up. I find this unconvincing, because governments are simply not powerful enough to hide something like that. Plus, over time it would get out, and it never has.

Obviously, this is all speculative, and so must such a thread be, but what are your thoughts on the matter? Do you feel one or several of the reasons given might be right, or do you have a few of your own? How would you answer Fermi’s paradox?


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Invisiblenooneman
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Re: Fermi’s paradox: Where are all the aliens? [Re: DividedQuantum]
    #26440276 - 01/18/20 01:48 PM (4 years, 29 days ago)

I think about this a lot. In my opinion, the options that I think are the most likely are either that life is extremely rare, or that life doesn't last. Between the two, given the size of the universe or even the size of the galaxy and the number of planets we've discovered in the habitable zone, I think the second option is more likely.

I think it's likely that something is killing off life after it arises. Whether it's a natural disaster or life annihilating itself, I'm not sure. Maybe there is some very rare but very dangerous astronomical event (kinda like the asteroid that wiped out the dinosaurs) that always inevitably ends up killing off life, but it seems unlikely to me that all life would be unable to predict or avoid something in nature. Surely some life somewhere would be smart enough or lucky enough to correctly recognize the threat.

Given how war like and violent our civilization has been over the past 2000 years, and given how violent most people are in every day life even today, and given the power of the weapons and viruses we've developed... I think life consistently annihilating itself is a very real option.

On the other hand, if an asteroid from outside the solar system came in at just the right angle, it's likely no one would see it coming even if it was very large. And then bam, there goes humanity. So I think a natural event is also very realistic.


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Invisiblelaughingdog
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Re: Fermi’s paradox: Where are all the aliens? [Re: nooneman]
    #26440414 - 01/18/20 03:13 PM (4 years, 29 days ago)

From my reading I gather that it is only due to many coincidences that homo sapiens even exist.
Without the asteroid that killed the dinosaurs for example the mammals would probably never have become dominant.
Then there were times in Africa long ago, when the whole species was reduced to a small population.
There were many hominids, is Sapiens, just the accidental, survivor?
The human brain is really too big for birthing safely and easily thru the human pelvis.
Any evolutionist can find & point out many other, sub optimal aspects of human anatomy.
No native peoples wore glasses, in some ways we are de-volving.
Neanderthals brains were larger than ours.
The default mode for humans, is for emotion, the unconscious mind, & reproductive and aggression related hormones to run the show most of the time, not reason--hence the state of the world today.
We are not as special as we think we are.

Enrico Fermi was a physicist & mathematical guy, not a biologist. I'm sure he left a lot out of his calculations, with regards to the possibility of any really intelligent life.
Intelligence is not the "goal" of evolution. Out reproducing competitors within a niche is all "the goal" seems to be.
Even viruses that are simpler than any life form, give us a run for our money.
Ebola & Aids are just 2 well known examples.
About 50% of animals themselves are parasitic.
I think Enrico Fermi was a dreamer, as regards biology.


Edited by laughingdog (01/18/20 03:15 PM)


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InvisibleDividedQuantumM
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Re: Fermi’s paradox: Where are all the aliens? [Re: laughingdog]
    #26440481 - 01/18/20 04:18 PM (4 years, 29 days ago)

Good points by both above posters. Indeed, it was probably never quite likely that everything would line up so fortuitously as to produce humans, and then the typical human, we must remember, is a hunter-gatherer, who existed in the mode of evolution going back over four million years to australopithecus. So then, it is clear that the whole notion of space-faring and civilization at all is more of an unnatural anomaly than anything that was destined to happen. From that I take it that species interested in off-planet colonization may be quite rare after all. Certainly, the idea is quite new compared to the age of civilization (10,000 years), and that compared to the age of our species (about 200,000 years). So it helps, of course, for people to have things in perspective.

I personally tend to lean more toward, as I have indicated, unlikelihood. It may be phenomenally improbable that life itself could come into existence, making complex life, mammals, and animals with language even less likely. Then one might couple that with the fact that exploding outward into outer space is a meme peculiar to us, not necessarily an inevitable feature of any given culture. As indicated in the original post, it could be that many or most species who evolve technology might not be interested in leaving their home world. In the end, intelligent life that seeks to colonize the galaxy may be very unlikely to evolve. Of course, we don't really know.

It is interesting, though, that there is such a dearth of anyone or any signal. It is of course a possibility that aliens are out there and don't want to announce themselves to us, but then, one would have to conclude that there could be thousands of other species who would. All in all, a mystery for anyone who believes in aliens.

(I don't think Fermi himself had a horse in the race. He was merely addressing UFO claims bouncing around in the forties and fifties, and for him it was a math problem. In my readings I have only come across his suggestion of a paradox, not that he cared about aliens).


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Invisibleredgreenvines
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Re: Fermi’s paradox: Where are all the aliens? [Re: DividedQuantum] * 1
    #26440744 - 01/18/20 08:15 PM (4 years, 29 days ago)

I think we have been observed and allowed to find our own future,

Cost benefit wise, aliens should wait till we are able to build our own starships.

prob not in my lifetime...

I recently enjoyed "Unconventional Flying Objects: A Former NASA Scientist Explains How UFOs Really Work
Hill, Paul R."

Some aspects of UFO's are pretty much understood, though we have a technology gap.


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OfflineMr. D Green
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Re: Fermi’s paradox: Where are all the aliens? [Re: DividedQuantum]
    #26440757 - 01/18/20 08:22 PM (4 years, 29 days ago)

What do these two words mean to you?? "Dead Zone"


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OfflineNorthernerM
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Re: Fermi’s paradox: Where are all the aliens? [Re: DividedQuantum]
    #26440767 - 01/18/20 08:28 PM (4 years, 29 days ago)

I've thought about this before today and what appeared as the is missing link isn't where other intelligent civilizations existed but when. Even if we assume low odds, say for example one in a billion, that a single planet per system would spawn "advanced" society on it's surface then the dimension of time prevents us from communicating anyway. Assuming those odds, there's more than 250 other "advanced" civilizations in our galaxy and we are spread over more than 50,000 years of light and 13 billion years of history. That assumes that we can travel close to light speed as well which because of mass is impossible for living creatures, with current technology. So much time dimension reducing the odds of ever meeting again and again.

Even if we did spy a signal in the cosmos and made our way there the probability that the signal would be many thousands of years old by the time we got there is pretty high, then returning that information back to our plant in a communication form that would be understandable is really low because so much would have changed and the earth would no longer be in the same place either. Even if we developed time travel we wouldn't be able to get there either because the location of it would have changed significantly also. These sort of distances are literally inter-dimensional.

I would bet my own life that other life exists throughout the universe, but the odds of ever communicating with it are obtusely remote. Remote enough to make me a true non-believer in ET contact.


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InvisibleHartford
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Re: Fermi’s paradox: Where are all the aliens? [Re: DividedQuantum]
    #26440863 - 01/18/20 09:39 PM (4 years, 29 days ago)

Where are even the simplest organisms, like bacteria or protists? These theories fail to explain why the simplest organisms haven't been discovered yet, outside of earth.


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OfflineNorthernerM
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Re: Fermi’s paradox: Where are all the aliens? [Re: Hartford] * 1
    #26440876 - 01/18/20 09:54 PM (4 years, 29 days ago)

We haven't even taken moon ice core samples, let alone interplanetary or intersystem samples. It's not that we have any negative results in our search for life, we just have a zero sample size.


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InvisibleAntigov
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Re: Fermi’s paradox: Where are all the aliens? [Re: DividedQuantum] * 1
    #26440991 - 01/18/20 11:56 PM (4 years, 29 days ago)

Or maybe in this simulation there is no aliens?


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OfflineLoaded Shaman
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Re: Fermi’s paradox: Where are all the aliens? [Re: DividedQuantum] * 2
    #26441076 - 01/19/20 02:07 AM (4 years, 28 days ago)

I think the entire cosmology people assume "is going on", in fact, ISN'T, and the aliens are inter-dimensional vs physical. No need for ships when you can bend matter at the quantum level, bitches! :sunny:


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InvisibleDividedQuantumM
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Re: Fermi’s paradox: Where are all the aliens? [Re: Loaded Shaman] * 2
    #26441334 - 01/19/20 08:50 AM (4 years, 28 days ago)

Quote:

Loaded Shaman said:
I think the entire cosmology people assume "is going on", in fact, ISN'T, and the aliens are inter-dimensional vs physical. No need for ships when you can bend matter at the quantum level, bitches! :sunny:





I've often speculated that. Perhaps if some intelligent species can get past blowing itself up, technological advancement reaches the point that beings transcend matter and energy and go into a higher dimension of reality. Of course, several hypotheses in physics, including to an extent quantum theory, unequivocally posit dimensions beyond the four we are familiar with. So perhaps at a certain point, putative aliens would not exist in physical bodies transmitting light signals, but simply vanish from our consensus reality. Good point.


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Invisibleredgreenvines
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Re: Fermi’s paradox: Where are all the aliens? [Re: DividedQuantum] * 1
    #26441514 - 01/19/20 11:02 AM (4 years, 28 days ago)

If the government propaganda or secretive behavior denies the existence of UFO's then a majority of people will ignore all claims to the contrary even by scientists who were called in (by said government) to inspect the site damages that were done by UFO's (which could not have been done by nature or human engineering) such as:
Isolated locations with clear impressions/compressions in soils from landing saucers with regularly shaped landing pads leading to computations of vehicular weights ranging from 20,000 lbs to 60,000 lbs.

The NASA Scientist who wrote the book referenced has also examined flattened crops demonstrating similar size and computed weight offsets without direct contact (due to compression by shaped fields emitted by UFO's), often with residual radioactivity and no other explanations where vehicles were observed hovering and taking off at rapid accelerations.

In the book, "Unconventional Flying Objects: A Former NASA Scientist Explains How UFOs Really Work
Hill, Paul R.", the evidence is used to generate consistent mathematical formulas explaining UFO behavior in space, in the sky and on land such that no known physical laws are flaunted, and strongly suggesting that these craft do indeed achieve interstellar speeds that traverse space faster than the speed of light (for the occupants, not for an observer) apparently in each case by manipulating fields such as gravity in a precision directed way.

The Glowing and indefinite outline shapes that are seen are due to field effects in the surrounding air required to keep the crafts aloft and to shape the surrounding space to enable supersonic speeds that would otherwise burn up metal flying machines in our atmosphere.  Humming sounds reported correspond generally to colors and behaviors or the craft, and a series of computations are shown that address that as well.

A few physical samples of one exploded UFO suggests composition that uses unique alloys of magnesium; and the strange hairy webbing that is often collected which falls from the craft also have odd metallic composition which if not kept cold will sublimate - and as such usually vaporize at room temperature.

It was an enjoyable read, but I am hoping to hear something even more interesting soon from that "To The Stars" company which formed 2 years back, and which claims to have more physical evidence and factual evidence than has so far been made public.

In any case, I have not personally witnessed any UFO, but see no reason to discount the possibility that they have been here - that they are more advanced than our flying machines - and that the powers that be, who  have no defense against them, are worried that people will act weird if Aliens are admitted to be here (illegally, and 'threateningly' with more advanced tech).


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OfflineNicodArleone
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Re: Fermi’s paradox: Where are all the aliens? [Re: Hartford]
    #26441529 - 01/19/20 11:20 AM (4 years, 28 days ago)

Quote:

Hartford said:
Where are even the simplest organisms, like bacteria or protists? These theories fail to explain why the simplest organisms haven't been discovered yet, outside of earth.




They don't want to be found just like sasquatch.


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InvisibleDividedQuantumM
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Re: Fermi’s paradox: Where are all the aliens? [Re: redgreenvines] * 1
    #26441764 - 01/19/20 02:03 PM (4 years, 28 days ago)

Quote:

redgreenvines said:
If the government propaganda or secretive behavior denies the existence of UFO's then a majority of people will ignore all claims to the contrary even by scientists who were called in (by said government) to inspect the site damages that were done by UFO's (which could not have been done by nature or human engineering) such as:
Isolated locations with clear impressions/compressions in soils from landing saucers with regularly shaped landing pads leading to computations of vehicular weights ranging from 20,000 lbs to 60,000 lbs.

The NASA Scientist who wrote the book referenced has also examined flattened crops demonstrating similar size and computed weight offsets without direct contact (due to compression by shaped fields emitted by UFO's), often with residual radioactivity and no other explanations where vehicles were observed hovering and taking off at rapid accelerations.

In the book, "Unconventional Flying Objects: A Former NASA Scientist Explains How UFOs Really Work
Hill, Paul R.", the evidence is used to generate consistent mathematical formulas explaining UFO behavior in space, in the sky and on land such that no known physical laws are flaunted, and strongly suggesting that these craft do indeed achieve interstellar speeds that traverse space faster than the speed of light (for the occupants, not for an observer) apparently in each case by manipulating fields such as gravity in a precision directed way.

The Glowing and indefinite outline shapes that are seen are due to field effects in the surrounding air required to keep the crafts aloft and to shape the surrounding space to enable supersonic speeds that would otherwise burn up metal flying machines in our atmosphere.  Humming sounds reported correspond generally to colors and behaviors or the craft, and a series of computations are shown that address that as well.

A few physical samples of one exploded UFO suggests composition that uses unique alloys of magnesium; and the strange hairy webbing that is often collected which falls from the craft also have odd metallic composition which if not kept cold will sublimate - and as such usually vaporize at room temperature.

It was an enjoyable read, but I am hoping to hear something even more interesting soon from that "To The Stars" company which formed 2 years back, and which claims to have more physical evidence and factual evidence than has so far been made public.

In any case, I have not personally witnessed any UFO, but see no reason to discount the possibility that they have been here - that they are more advanced than our flying machines - and that the powers that be, who  have no defense against them, are worried that people will act weird if Aliens are admitted to be here (illegally, and 'threateningly' with more advanced tech).





I agree that there is a lot of evidence of weird stuff that is not so easily dismissed. The New Inquisition by Robert Anton Wilson makes this very obvious. What these phenomena objectively are is a mystery, but I think the psychological dimension is what is interesting. Frequently, several people, up to hundreds and in some cases thousands, will report otherworldly phenomena in which they all saw the same thing, at the same time. Obviously, mainstream science cannot account for such mass "hallucinations," so very few in that community take such things seriously. But there is, for sure, a lot of weird and essentially inexplicable stuff that has really happened.

How this all ties in psychologically, and what the nature of these phenomena is, are completely mysterious. On the other hand, I have a hard time with the notion that some species of alien, after traversing the galaxy at light speed, should be so inept as to crash on Earth. Of course, many of these reports do not involve crashes, and it is clear that something is happening, coherently, consistently and repeatedly, over time in these reports.

Who knows what.


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OfflineNorthernerM
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Re: Fermi’s paradox: Where are all the aliens? [Re: NicodArleone]
    #26441785 - 01/19/20 02:11 PM (4 years, 28 days ago)

You got to the same point as me, we were typing at the same time.  :toast:
__________________

Aliens fly millions of years across the universe in a short time using advanced gravity and time bending technology, then crash into a tree on earth. Seems ridiculously improbable, though ET's probably aren't immune to irony either. 

Not really sure how they figured out we are here either, with the whole "when" in space dilemma. Another civilization could have come to technological advancement a billion years ago and started logging living planets and checking in on them from time to time. Unlikely, but probably similar odds to crashing the interstaller Buick into a tree on a Saturday night.  :lol:


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InvisibleRahz
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Re: Fermi’s paradox: Where are all the aliens? [Re: Northerner]
    #26442071 - 01/19/20 05:51 PM (4 years, 28 days ago)

I'd like to see the math that suggests the existence of alien life is quite high. The Drake equation provides a formula for estimating the number of planets supporting life/intelligent life but because some parameters aren't know it doesn't provide an actual estimate. It's just an interesting idea with no useful output.

One could posit that if intelligent life happens, it is quite rare. Even if a civilization advances to the point where they quit transmitting to potential enemies there would be a phase, like our current, where they do transmit energy that could be seen as an indicator of intelligent life. The fact that we haven't detected such signals doesn't necessarily mean anything but it doesn't help the case for intelligent aliens being abundant.

The obvious answer (right or wrong) is that there's no intelligent life beyond Earth. We have to conjecture things, like them evolving to another plane, or evolving to the point they have no interest in humans, using undetectable communication methods, etc. Sometimes the simple answer is the correct one.

There's also the possibility that life is abundant, intelligent life less so but that there are still beings out there as smart as us but they never transmitted signals... maybe because they had no hands or other appendages for building machines.

It's interesting that all popular alien models with documented encounters (greys, nords, lizard, etc.) are humanoid, which tends to make me think they're all made up.

With a combination of AI and nanotechnology, or even just AI and larger self replicating machines that can do other work, humanity is on the cusp of harvesting and industrializing space. If we assume space travel at 1/10 the speed of light we could potentially colonize the Milky Way in about 1,000,000 years which is not much.

Or maybe this has already happened. Perhaps there was a time when the Milky Way was teeming with intelligent life. That is, until the galactic war. Eventually only one race persisted and they made sure they would never have competition again. But that too is just fiction.


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OfflineNorthernerM
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Re: Fermi’s paradox: Where are all the aliens? [Re: Northerner]
    #26442076 - 01/19/20 05:54 PM (4 years, 28 days ago)

Was watching this one on Betelgeuse when the topic habitable planets and their star types came up. Was most revealing and enjoyable.



Star stuff from 19 mins.

K type stars planets have 30 or 40 billion years to sort their shit out and have their spawn get advanced and start flying around the galaxy, doing anal probes and making crop circles and stuff like that.


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InvisibleDividedQuantumM
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Re: Fermi’s paradox: Where are all the aliens? [Re: Rahz]
    #26442321 - 01/19/20 08:47 PM (4 years, 28 days ago)

I think when I wrote that I was vaguely remembering Carl Sagan's comments on the Drake equation. I found this link: https://interestingengineering.com/the-drake-equation-and-carl-sagans-unshakable-optimism which says that in some interpretations of the Drake equation, the odds of our being the only civilization in the universe is as high as 39%, while in others the odds of humans being the only intelligent lifeforms in the universe is tens of billions of trillions to one. My fuzzy awareness of this latter optimistic estimate was what I seem to have been remembering.

You're right that the simplest and most obvious and most logically consistent answer is that we're the only intelligent beings around, anywhere. It would seem that, given the trillions upon trillions of stars and the lack of evidence of just one race making any noise at all indicates its correctness.

As you point out, all of our rationalizations are contrived. The fact is that there is no evidence of beings having done anything anywhere. And if aliens have existed and made an imprint, the reason they're not here is probably something we haven't imagined.


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Invisiblenooneman
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Re: Fermi’s paradox: Where are all the aliens? [Re: DividedQuantum] * 1
    #26442359 - 01/19/20 09:07 PM (4 years, 28 days ago)

Quote:

DividedQuantum said:
Quote:

Loaded Shaman said:
I think the entire cosmology people assume "is going on", in fact, ISN'T, and the aliens are inter-dimensional vs physical. No need for ships when you can bend matter at the quantum level, bitches! :sunny:





I've often speculated that. Perhaps if some intelligent species can get past blowing itself up, technological advancement reaches the point that beings transcend matter and energy and go into a higher dimension of reality. Of course, several hypotheses in physics, including to an extent quantum theory, unequivocally posit dimensions beyond the four we are familiar with. So perhaps at a certain point, putative aliens would not exist in physical bodies transmitting light signals, but simply vanish from our consensus reality. Good point.



I speculate about this too sometimes just because of what I've seen on psychedelics. Still, it assumes a lot about physics that we don't yet have any evidence for. Perhaps there might be some good reason to live in a higher dimension, and perhaps we simply lack the technology to communicate with or even know of the existence of such a place. However, given the lack of any current scientific evidence in support of anything like that... :frown:

On the other hand, I do find the possibility that we're the only one to be realistic. The earth existed with advanced life on it for billions of years and never even once developed intelligence before us. Even after we developed intelligence, we spent tens of thousands of years as hunter gatherers. Then we spent another good ten thousand years as subsistence farmers up through the beginnings of real civilization, and then finally at the very end of that we developed technology. If any one of those steps hadn't happened, our planet would appear as dead as all the rest.

Even worse, our sun is only about a billion years away from destroying the earth. Life existed for billions of years, but if it had existed for just one more billion without producing intelligence then the earth would have become as cold and dead as all the rest.

On the other hand, there are so many exoplanets in the habitable zones of their stars, and so many stars with longer lifespans than ours, and the universe is so old that really we should see evidence everywhere. But the universe seems to be cold, dead, and silent as far as we can tell.

The earth has been throwing out massive amounts of evidence of our existence at least since the invention of radio. If an alien species did exist, we should see evidence. To convince an entire alien population to  keep humanity perpetually in the dark of its existence would be the greatest feat of social engineering of all time. Some individuals somewhere would violate that, and beyond that our detection equipment and methods are so good that aliens really shouldn't be able to hide from us if they exist.

If they exist, they should be obvious: they are not obvious, therefore I propose that they do not currently exist. But perhaps they did and destroyed themselves, or abandoned our universe in one way or another.

Even if they didn't leave our dimension, perhaps they uploaded their minds into computers and created a simulated utopian paradise for themselves in the process free from pain, disease, hunger, inequality, work, etc. They might subsequently have little interest in the outward universe. But even then, I think they'd have interest in trying to find other life, but maybe not. Maybe they're highly xenophobic.


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