Fascinating read...

[gaseous (Patrick)]

A quite thought-provoking article, which may have been posted here before. Some may question the accuracy of some of their speculations, but still an interesting/entertaining read.

http://waitbutwhy.com/2014/05/fermi-paradox.html

[xelasnave]

It seems unimaginable that we could be the only life form even the only intelligent life form.
Thanks for the link knew about it but always good to go over it.

Alex

[Wavytone]

Sigh... Arts faculty "science".

[Renato1 (Renato)]

It's an interesting read, but it leaves out a lot.

For example, when they talk about "earth-like planets" they don't mean earth-like as in an earth orbited by a huge moon to keep its axis stable.

And all those planets with "hot" Jupiters that keep being detected, most probably wrecked any little planets that were originally there, whereas our Jupiter has been very benign in cleaning up solar system debris

And as for life and intelligence, the dinosaurs ruled the earth for over 160 million years, and it seems to have been an accident that they were wiped out. In that 160 million they never built a fire or displayed any intelligence.

And the article ignores Project Orion type nuclear space travel - at a tenth to a third the speed of light. Which makes the Fermi Paradox even more paradoxial.
Regards,
Renato

[xelasnave]

http://www.seti.org/drakeequation

The equation is a speculative attempt at the numbers with unfortunately no data to work with...
It just boils down to this... Could there be so much out there and we remain unique.
Any answer is a guess but I go with if we are it there has been s terrible waste of space.
Alex

[deanm (Dean)]

An outstanding piece - thanks for posting!

Dean

[AussieTrooper (Ben)]

There seems to be an assumption here that intelligence is a positive attribute when it comes to evolution/colonisation. History shows otherwise.
This planet is dominated by bacteria, not humans. Humans fight each other, and the technology to travel to other worlds is very similar to that which would send us all back to the stone age. Even if an alien species did gain the necessary technology, competitive evolution may prevent them from ever actually using it.
We aren't very hardy either. Even with a climate as benign as earth's, we still only occupy about 10% of it, and that's not likely to increase.

[xelasnave]

Originally Posted by AussieTrooper

There seems to be an assumption here that intelligence is a positive attribute when it comes to evolution/colonisation. History shows otherwise.
This planet is dominated by bacteria, not humans. Humans fight each other, and the technology to travel to other worlds is very similar to that which would send us all back to the stone age. Even if an alien species did gain the necessary technology, competitive evolution may prevent them from ever actually using it.
We aren't very hardy either. Even with a climate as benign as earth's, we still only occupy about 10% of it, and that's not likely to increase.

Hi Ben
I learnt a new word... Deepity... And reading your post wondered if it could be applied.
May I ask you more about your statements before I make any final conclusion.

You said "There seems to be an assumption here that intelligence is a positive attribute when it comes to evolution/colonisation. History shows otherwise." and I personally cant think of where history supports your claim and ask are you able to set out some examples in support?
The other thing that I could not work out is what you had in mind when you said the following so may I ask you for a possible scenerio to illustrate what you had in mind.

. "Even if an alien species did gain the necessary technology, competitive evolution may prevent them from ever actually using it."

Your 10% figure surprises me also and assuming you are correct I find same most encouraging as I tend to think of humans as being plague like.
I am more pessimistic and although I cant support my fear with any study suspect if humans survive a time will come where there will be high rise on every square meter of the planet.
Alex

[AussieTrooper (Ben)]

Originally Posted by xelasnave

You said "There seems to be an assumption here that intelligence is a positive attribute when it comes to evolution/colonisation. History shows otherwise." and I personally cant think of where history supports your claim and ask are you able to set out some examples in support?

- The most resilient forms of life are usually the most basic. For instance, a species that has become intelligent needs a massive support network, be it local environment, food source, whatever. A big asteroid strike is far more likely to wipe out intelligent life, but bacteria, tiny insects etc. are more likely to survive. The same could be said for a great variety of realistic extinction scenarios.

Originally Posted by xelasnave

"Even if an alien species did gain the necessary technology, competitive evolution may prevent them from ever actually using it."

- That's just me speculating in the same manner as the article speculates on possible causes. Given the sample size is 1, that's not really a reliable statistic.

Originally Posted by xelasnave

Your 10% figure surprises me also and assuming you are correct I find same most encouraging as I tend to think of humans as being plague like.

The earth is 70% water. So straight away we are down to 30%. Of the rest, we inhabit almost none of the polar regions, deserts, swamps, semi-arid areas and mountainous terrain.
I agree that humans are in plague proportions, but we are concentrating that in just a small portion of the earth's surface.
My point is that even on earth, we don't inhabit much of it, so the chances of a human/alien equivalent friendly world may be quite low.
Add in all the other factors that work against any species leaving their planet, let alone us being able to detect them, and it's not too surprising that we haven't seen any.

[xelasnave]

Hi Ben
Thanks for taking the time to explain things to me.
I knew my first impression only needed a little help which is why I asked.

Alex

[sjastro]

Here is some science thrown into the mix.
(Warning tongue in cheek might apply.)

In the thread on the accelerating Universe in the Science forum an explanation was given on a possible cause for dark energy.
http://www.iceinspace.com.au/forum/s...4&postcount=17

If this mechanism is correct, then destroying the entire Universe by an advanced civilisation would be a fairly simple exercise.

While technology has advanced, human intelligence hasn't (as exemplified by the election of Trump).
If the same principles applied to billions of advanced civilisations out there, a percentage would be stupid enough to have set off catastrophic events leading to the destruction of the Universe.

Now you might be wondering what might be capable of destroying the Universe, the answer being the humble particle accelerator such as the LHC.
One of the more "interesting" doomsayer notions was that the LHC had enough energy to destroy the false vacuum through quantum tunnelling.
The scientists assured the doomsayers that this was not possible pointing out the much higher energies from cosmic rays bombarding the Earth's atmosphere did not trigger any catastrophic events.

All is not good news however, extrapolating the increases in particle accelerator energies over the last century reveals that by 2150 particle accelerators might hit energy levels which reach the quantum tunnelling threshold level.
Hence any civilisation only "slightly" more advanced might possess this capability for destruction.

There are two possibilities for why we are here.
(1) Advanced civilisations are rare.
(11) The above explanation is BS. (A distinct possibility).

For more information on false vacuums and the destruction of the Universe.
http://www.popularmechanics.com/scie...um-apocalypse/
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ijFm6DxNVyI

[AussieTrooper (Ben)]

Interesting stuff. At various stages of atomic and general physics research, there have been concerns that scientists may accidentally create a black hole, or some other calamity.
It would be logical to assume that as our knowledge of physics increases, that the resultant experiments may pose new risks not previously known about.
Whether or not the threat was real is generally something you find out in hindsight.