Life & The Fermi Paradox

[CraigS]

Here we go again !

New explanation postulated for Fermi paradox

Enrico Fermi, the famous Italian physicist, once asked the question; if intelligent life has come to exist many times in our galaxy, why is there no sign of it? It’s a clearly valid point, when you consider the number of planets and solar systems that exist out there. If there are other intelligent beings out there somewhere, how come they haven’t responded to our messages?

We've discussed the Fermi paradox a few times here lately. The Wiki entry provides a really broad summary coverage of most of the various perspectives we've come up with, and then some.

I'm excited .. because this is the first time I've seen anyone legitimately paying any credence to the alternative possibility of no exo-life…

… is it conceivable, that the events that led to our existence are so rare that there really isn’t anyone else out there?

and then even my perspective on it all (a huge rarity, and yet the most supportable):

Kent’s paper has no doubt some added credence due to his support of Stephen Hawking’s parallel suggestion in “Into the Universe,” the Discovery Channel documentary that made headlines all over the world last year; but as with all hypothetical suppositions, ultimately, it’s all, as Kent himself reminds us, pure speculation; at least until we hear otherwise from someone out there who can settle the matter for us, once and for all.

By the way, this guy, 'Adrian Kent', is no slouch in the Quantum Physics field. He was a member of the Cambridge Centre for Quantum Information and Foundations (CQIF), reflecting the broad range of its research activities. The Cambridge CQIF is based at the Department of Applied Mathematics and Theoretical Physics (DAMTP), within the Centre for Mathematical Sciences.

The paper: "Too Damned Quiet", is well worth the read.

Cheers

[renormalised (Carl)]

Very easy answer to that paper... for example, how does a tribe of isolated amazon jungle natives communicate with the rest of the world when their best technology for communication are clap sticks and smoke signals. What sort of response are they looking for??...a response using their methods of communication. Little do they know that all around them is a cacophony of noise and plethora of signals that they not only can't even detect, but would they even know what was being said even if they could detect them.

Here's another example....from Star Trek. The V'ger space probe sends a signal down to Earth. No one responds to the signal because no one even knows what the message is that's being sent. Spock figures out that the signal is a simple carrier wave message....radio. Everyone, including himself, is perplexed. How would you respond to such as simple technology. Luckily enough, they aren't too far ahead technologically speaking to have forgotten what a radio is and manage to be able to respond accordingly. What would happen if they had've been 1000, 10000, 100000 or more years ahead of that stage of technological development. How many people alive today can competently make a flint knife or stone tool. Haft a spear or even light a fire!!!!.

If you were flying over the Amazon, would you necessarily stop and go check out who was burning some wood on a fire in an isolated village 39000 feet down below??? Would you even bother to be interested???

The only extraterrestrial civilisations that would even bother with us would most likely be those relatively close to us in technological development and that had their own reasons for wanting to come here. Unless they were interested in the "primitive cavemen" in a scientific sense or had some vested interest themselves in Earth, those civilisations many millenia ahead of us would have little interest in wanting to interact with us. Do most people alive today particularly want to go and have an in depth philosophical conversation with isolated Amazonian tribes people??? I think you'll be able to answer that question quite easily yourselves.

[bartman (Bart)]

Hey Carl,
Thank you for those examples!
Never thought of it in that way......

Originally Posted by renormalised

If you were flying over the Amazon, would you necessarily stop and go check out who was burning some wood on a fire in an isolated village 39000 feet down below??? Would you even bother to be interested???

Me personally , I would be interested. I imagine that there are a lot of scientists out there that are just doing that......looking at some odd forms of communication. However Time, Money and Technology ( old or new) would be ( I guess) the hampering factor.

Craig I'm yet to read the three links provided ( I have skimmed over the wiki one) . You say that "legitimately paying any credence to the alternative possibility of no exo-life… ", yet you quote "Kent himself reminds us, pure speculation"
So how can it be ' legitimate' when it is all speculation.....or am I reading it wrong?

Bartman

[yusufcam (Colin)]

i thought the comment in the wiki article about the drake equation (by Drake himself), that it was just a way to "organize our ignorance" was as apt if not more so, (and funny to boot) as anything else being said on the topic.

[renormalised (Carl)]

Originally Posted by yusufcam

i thought the comment in the wiki article about the drake equation (by Drake himself), that it was just a way to "organize our ignorance" was as apt if not more so, (and funny to boot) as anything else being said on the topic.

That is spot on...the fact that despite knowing how ignorant they really are, they have a hide to then come out and make "grand" pronouncements on what is reality is nothing more than a massive case of hubris, academic or otherwise.

It's like saying "We don't really know what's going on here, but hey, we're the experts on this and you better listen to us because we know the answers".

[CraigS]

Originally Posted by bartman

Craig I'm yet to read the three links provided ( I have skimmed over the wiki one) . You say that "legitimately paying any credence to the alternative possibility of no exo-life… ", yet you quote "Kent himself reminds us, pure speculation"
So how can it be ' legitimate' when it is all speculation.....or am I reading it wrong?

Bart, you have extraordinary perceptiveness ! I compliment you on it !
Amazing .. (I really mean this .. please take it as a compliment ..I'm making no attempts at sending you up … and I need to go out of my way to make sure of this, in this medium )

From an observation of the paper however, the "Comments: April 20011" section, has some awesome words which hit the nail right on the head (and, by some sheer co-incidence), reiterate my past words, precisely:

To arxiv readers who feel that speculating about possible explanations for the lack of visible alien life goes beyond the boundaries of current science,

I would say
(a) you clearly have an arguable point, and part of me salutes your scientific rigour and notes that reading the article isn’t obligatory, yet;

(b) on the other hand, the borderline between the scientific and extra-scientific isn’t necessarily forever sharply fixed on this topic – after all, the ideas are ultimately testable in principle by searching the cosmos and seeing what is out there, and even now one could make some sort of test of the arguments’ (im)plausibility, however inconclusive, with suitable models, and also;

(c) sometimes it is intellectually legitimate for scientists to engage in reasoning about subjects that go beyond the current boundaries of experimental or observational science: we just need to be clear that’s what we’re doing when we do that (and clear too about the limitations of our arguments).

Right on the money !

Supports my new catch cry for participation in the Science Forum, (awaiting full ratification ):

Purpose: To promote scientific rationale in Astronomy, Space Exploration, Physics, Bio-sciences and related fields. Be aware of your beliefs and biases. Present them as beliefs. Respect others’ beliefs at all times. No spamming.

As far as the possibility of no exo-life, he says:

Now, it could be that cosmically conspicuous life, or life capable of interstellar travel, or even just life, has evolved nowhere but on Earth. It could also be that, …..

He later explains that his paper is not about these possibilities, so he doesn't develop his ideas on this further. None-the-less, he does acknowledge that no exo-lfe is possible.



Cheers

[renormalised (Carl)]

To be brutally honest, most of science is just speculation. We know a few things which, by consensus and relevant observation, we have concluded are facts. The rest is just assumptions thrown into the mix in order to try and explain what we think we see. No matter how successful an idea is in explaining something, it's still just speculation until all the ''i's" are dotted and "t's" crossed and the consensus agree with the matter. Even then further down the track the consensus can, and in most cases does, change and a new paradigm is created.

Here's the real crunch with this notion of no exo-life...if that is the case, then how do you explain the existence of life here, on Earth. Even given the statistics of such an occurrence with respect to the subject at hand, all things being equal we shouldn't be here to be having this conversation. Now, this brings up the touchy subject of intelligent design and divine intervention, because if you were hard pressed to come up with a scientific answer...one that was not only suitable but made scientific sense and could be verified, then you would be made to take the other course of explanation, no matter how distasteful and uncomfortable it might be. How could you prove or disprove of it, otherwise. Once you put a foot on that slippery slope, your whole rationale of science could be called into question. It'd probably get to the stage where we'd all be burnt at the stake for being heretics!!!!. Especially if some people got their way with things (the "moral majority", loony, fundamentalist far right wing of society).

Now, let's look at it in another perspective...for the sake of the argument, let's say that life and intelligent life are very common in the universe. All the scientists are saying "Where are they??!!!". What if they're already here and most scientists just don't want to handle the implications of this. So they dismiss (at least publicly) the whole idea out of hand and use their science to prove this is the case. They come up with things like "extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence", "it's all misidentification of manmade or natural objects...the planet Venus, optical illusions, car headlights etc etc", "it's all mass hallucinations or mass hysteria", "people have been watching too many B grade sci-fi movies", "Einstein's Theory says......and so it's impossible", and who knows how many other "explanations". What happens is the evidence that is present is just dismissed out of hand, or "studied" and then dismissed out of hand (e.g. the Condon Report, Project Bluebook etc). It's then ridiculed and made fun of by the mainstream press and other media. People then tend to makeup their own minds based on what's going on and what the "experts" have to say. Then you get the government types and the military-industrial complex making up our minds for us and hiding anything they may come across because they don't think the general public can handle the truth or is even entitled to know the truth. They want it and whatever they can get out of it for themselves. People start saying "oh it's conspiracy theory this and that....what a lot of rubbish, no one could keep a secret like that". Problem is, they can and do. Most of the public are too clueless to even figure it out and in any case, if you really want to hide something from everyone, the best place to do so is in plain sight. The whole idea of it being secret ends up a running joke and no one then believes it's true. Little do they realise they're being sold up the creek and hoodwinked so convincingly they mostly don't even know what's going on and other things can also be gotten away with the same impunity. No one knows what's really happening except those intimately involved with the whole enterprise.

Now, what if that scenario is the one being played out. You just don't know for a solid fact, do you. You can't know because you don't have access to all, if any, of the really pertinent information.

Makes the scientists look like idiots...mostly unintentional idiots, but idiots nevertheless because they're supposed to be the smarties here and know enough to prove or disprove this. Scientists are human, just like the rest of us and can be just as easily, if not more easily, hoodwinked. Even by their own ideas. Many just don't like to admit that.

Many also don't like to admit that the data on which many of their ideas are based is just as "flimsy" as any of the UFO reports and data are supposed to be in their eyes, and the eyes of other "experts".

In the final analysis, the only true way we're ever going to be 100% sure of anything is to go and see for ourselves. No use sitting on our collective rear ends pontificating about the merits, either way, of what we think is going on. That ultimately gets us nowhere. Like looking at minerals in rocks from an orbiting satellite around any planet, the only thing you're ever going to know for a fact that you're seeing something that's really there is go and see for yourself. Otherwise, all you're really doing is looking at an approximation of what might be there. Useful though that may be, and generally is what's there anyway, but still it's just an approximation.

[CraigS]

Ah Carl;

Glad you're back !

I get a smile 'on me face' with some of your posts !

I'll have to exclude myself from sharing your views on other people (like the scientists you mention in you previous posts), however … because of my new Science Forum catch-cry (which is pending ratification, of course ).

You must be a fan of the X-Files, man .. Fox Mulder, Scully, the Smoking Man, Spender, AD Skinner, conspiracies everywhere … if you haven't ever gotten into it .. ya gotta, man! Its right down that same alleyway !


Ok .. whilst you were away, I took a bold stand on all this and somehow (thanks to bartman, I think), I've become known as 'the Fence-Sitter'. My contention is that it is certainly not 'fence-sitting'. The only scientifically supportable position in all of these debates, is the one of asserting that the possibilities of exo-life are inherently unpredictable. This statement can be made with the assurance of 100% mathematical certainty. Sounds highly arrogant to many, (its not intended that way), but we are talking about mathematical certainty, here.

And I agree, that with the benefit of such assurance/confidence, that exploration is totally justified because of this, and I'm totally in support of exploration, with everything and every bit of technology we can muster !

My 2 cents worth.

Cheers & Rgds

[renormalised (Carl)]

"Fence Sitter"....I think it would be far more appropriate to call you "Capt' Chaos"

[multiweb (Marc)]

Originally Posted by CraigS

You must be a fan of the X-Files, man .. Fox Mulder, Scully, the Smoking Man, Spender, AD Skinner, conspiracies everywhere …

And don't forget the SGC Jokes aside, I don't find it far fetched that a lot of well placed individuals have interests in keeping secrets from the masses whether it is for power, money or safety. Hell, pollies do it on a daily basis

[renormalised (Carl)]

X-Files.....a really big fan of the show

Also, been interested in UFO's ever since I was a kid. But don't hold that against me

And what so funny about my posts!!!

[CraigS]

Originally Posted by multiweb

And don't forget the SGC Jokes aside, I don't find it far fetched that a lot of well placed individuals have interests in keeping secrets from the masses whether it is for power, money or safety. Hell, pollies do it on a daily basis

Go and have another birthday beer, man !!

That's why I love the X-Files !! .. It's sooooo credible !!

Cheers

[CraigS]

Originally Posted by renormalised

And what so funny about my posts!!!

Ooops ! I didn't think you were serious !!

Better pay better attention next time !



Cheers

[sally1jack (Phil)]

Originally Posted by CraigS

Ah Carl;


Ok .. whilst you were away, I took a bold stand on all this and somehow (thanks to bartman, I think), I've become known as 'the Fence-Sitter'. My contention is that it is certainly not 'fence-sitting'. The only scientifically supportable position in all of these debates, is the one of asserting that the possibilities of exo-life are inherently unpredictable. This statement can be made with the assurance of 100% mathematical certainty. Sounds highly arrogant to many, (its not intended that way), but we are talking about mathematical certainty, here.



Cheers & Rgds

We don't need science to tell us that life possibly exists in the universe somewhere, thats just common sence. science has no more credibility on this subject than anyone else , which is zero.

I think the possibilities on this subject are beyond our capabilities to solve at this point in time.
I agree with carl, also the distances & time frame of the universe would allow other life to go undiscovered very easily. but this is just my opinion & i have nothing to back it up other than common sence
phil

[CraigS]

Originally Posted by renormalised

"Fence Sitter"....I think it would be far more appropriate to call you "Capt' Chaos"

.. or Mr Complexity !!

Kind of has a 'Je ne sais quoi' about it, don't you think ?



Cheers

[renormalised (Carl)]

Originally Posted by CraigS

Ooops ! I didn't think you were serious !!

Better pay better attention next time !



Cheers

I am serious...you'll know if I'm not

[renormalised (Carl)]

Originally Posted by CraigS

.. or Mr Complexity !!

Kind of has a 'Je ne sais quoi' about it, don't you think ?



Cheers

Capt Chaos sounds better

[CraigS]

Originally Posted by sally1jack

We don't need science to tell us that life possibly exists in the universe somewhere, thats just common sence. science has no more credibility on this subject than anyone else , which is zero.

Phil, I think the point is, that science specifically does not say this.

The outcome of the mathematical statement is completely at odds with what our 'common sense' is telling us. Many things in science are counterintuitive. This is one of them.

What is actually supportable, is that:

i) we absolutely know, that we cannot say that exo-life exists.
And, also;
ii) we absolutely know, that we cannot say that exo-life doesn't exist.

I know its a bit tricky. But what this means is, that we cannot make use of statistical inferences about exo-planet candidates, or confirmed exo-planets, that are backed up with anything other than a human belief and speculation.
(Which is fine .. all we need to do is to accept this, and then go looking for it, in order to remove the uncertainty).

Cheers

[renormalised (Carl)]

We can't say too much about the exoplanets we have found and confirmed, plus those others which are yet to be confirmed, simply because they're not a statistically significant sample of what might be out there. Given what they can deduce from the numbers and what they've found, even if all the candidates are confirmed as planets, what's 2000 or so planets going to tell you when the total number of planets just in this galaxy alone most likely numbers in the many billions. Not much at all. Even if only 1/10000 planets was habitable and actually inhabited, that would still be billions of inhabited worlds. We can only barely imagine what's out there. There'd be civilisations around that have been going for so long and are so advanced, to us they would be gods (well, at least the old definition of). Arthur C Clarke said, once, "Any sufficiently advanced technology would seem to be like magic"...we wouldn't even know where to start if we found anything technical from a civilisation that's been around for, say, a billion years. Even one only a million or so years ahead would be so much more advanced than us, we would be stumped to even know what they were on about. Hell, there's plenty of people around who are stumped with what we've managed to figure out!!!!

As for mathematics, especially statistics...the equations are only as good as the people who design them and the data which is entered into them. You can make them say anything you like, but that doesn't make then true or have any veracity at all. That only comes with a great amount of trial and error, a lot of experimentation and the consensus as to their veracity by the whole body politic of the (in this case, science) community.

[sally1jack (Phil)]

No it's not tricky at all,my point was nobody has any idea if there is life out there at all , no matter which way you want to phrase it