/sci/ - Science & Math

[Anonymous No.10490258]

Why is most of /sci/ too retarded to understand the Fermi paradox?
>If aliens exist that could colonize other solar systems natural selection indicates that every solar system should be colonized
>The fact that aliens aren't everywhere proves that they are no where
>"B-But absence of evidence doesn't mean evidence of absence"
>"B-But what if they are hiding"
>"B-But they could be out there!"

[Anonymous No.10490262]

fools!

the phermi paradox is a listing of all transitive properties into sub-systems for systemic equation. that means that when we arrive for principle, all is well, but when all is ready there are sub-systems to those sub-systems etc. Like a tree traversal. have fun.

[Anonymous No.10490269]

You are a planet sized computer, you cannot travel. You also realize there will be other planet sized computers out there. Therefore you hide yourself. You hide yourself to the level a planet sized computer could not detect you.

From there im not sure what planet sized computers figure to do with their time but i doubt they want to make more of themselves.

[Anonymous No.10490272]

The universe expands "away from us" with more than lightspeed. Civilizations cannot reach past that. Paradox means "against what is deemed intuitively right" and not "this is fact".

[Anonymous No.10490302]

>>10490272
I cannot level for radioactive "expansion". If i fart into space, I want to hear it. Not level radiation.

[Anonymous No.10490309]

>>10490272
Only distant universe expands so fast. Millions of nearby galaxies are accessible with sublight speeds.

[Anonymous No.10490317]

>>10490258
It is an infantile desire to show that humanity is not special in order to stick it to their christian parents.

However, Fermi paradox (and it is a genuine paradox, we should already see aliens if they exist) implies that we are alone at least in your galaxy group, if not in the whole observable universe. We are in fact very special, at least until you consider space beyond observable universe.

[Anonymous No.10490327]

>>10490309
Millions != everywhere

[Anonymous No.10490371]

>>10490258
First, if life is rare enough and they are too far away they can never reach us

Second, you are making some huge assumptions about feasibility of interstellar colonization and alien psychology. Just saying "they would do this 100% lmao" doesn't mean they actually will

[Anonymous No.10490374]

>>10490317
>we should already see aliens if they exist
No we shouldn't. They could be right next door and we would have no idea

[Anonymous No.10490376]

>>10490258
Unless you believe in ftl travel, we know nothing about the conditions outside of our past light-cone.

[Anonymous No.10490383]

>>10490374
Only if they are all for some strange reason actively hiding and isolationist. Otherwise they would have colonized the solar system long ago.

[Anonymous No.10490389]

>>10490383
Why? That's a huge assumption to make. They might be on stone age or they might be so advanced that they don't live on planets at all and just cruise around in interstellar space

[Anonymous No.10490393]

>>10490317
>It is an infantile desire to show that humanity is not special in order to stick it to their christian parents.
Showing our age, are we?

[Anonymous No.10490395]

>>10490389
First, we basically know they would be advanced. On galactic timescales, phases like a stone age hardly even register. For all practical purposes, intelligent species either do not exist, or are millions of years more advanced that we are.

As for them not living on planets, we would see their ships and stations, too. Now some species may be isolatonist and never expand. But all of them, especially as evolution would select for the expansionist ones to dominate the galaxy? Nope. It is just intellectual equivalent of grasping at straws in order to discount the obvious conclusion - we do not see them because they do not exist.

[Anonymous No.10490399]

>>10490395
That's wrong. Life on earth was microbial for billions of years so that's probably what most aliens are like too. Complex life is not guaranteed to evolve in most cases at all. How do you suggest we see a starship from 1000 light year away? Do you have any idea how big space is? We don't even know how many planets our own system has. You are expecting advanced aliens to spread like cancer even though a species that does that is likely to just destroy their world and go extinct. Intelligent beings don't have to act like bacteria and consume everything. They might just as well think our system is fucking ugly and stay away

[Anonymous No.10490407]

>>10490399
Learn to read. There may be some planets with life in our galaxy. However, there are no intelligent species, because those either do not develop at all, or develop rapidly to transhumanist levels. There is no in between.

We would see things like Dyson spheres. We would also see their ships in our solar system. And we would see their signals being beamed our way.

They would spread over the galaxy because that it what life does. Species fill the available habitat and then some. Not all of them, but evolution ensures that if even one does it, it will dominate the galactic ecosystem.

[Anonymous No.10490415]

>>10490407
Except there is in between and that's us. We exist yet we haven't done any of those things. Again, you are making ridiculous assumptions about what they would do without any evidence. Dyson spheres are scifi memes at this point and even if they were possible there could be better ways to harvest energy, like black holes.

Furthermore, we are not talking about the galaxy. We are talking about the universe. There are places so far away that they are, for all intents and purposes, causally disconnected from us. What if life is so rare that they are that far away? They would never interact with us in any way no matter how long you waited. I'm not the one who says they exist there, I'm saying that they might and you're the one saying that you know they don't exist anywhere because there aren't UFO's in the sky. What a silly discussion

[Anonymous No.10490439]

>>10490415
>Except there is in between and that's us.

Humanity is only like a million years old, and civilization only a few thousand. This is nothing on galactic time scales. And we are developing rapidly. We are currently an anomaly and in a very special phase. Not representative of how alien life would look like at all.

There could be intelligent aliens causally disconnected from us, sure. In fact I would go as far as to say they positively exist out there, due to inflationary universe being so much larger than what we can see.

[Anonymous No.10490444]

>>10490439
There's no reason to think that others like us can't exist and speculation about more advanced aliens will always just be speculation. But since you apparently agree that aliens can exist even if we can't see them I guess we're done

[Anonymous No.10490525]

>>10490383
The dark forest seemed like a pretty solid explaination. Plus it's a really good book.

[Anonymous No.10490540]

>>10490389
The Milky Way is an ancient galaxy and there are planets in it that have a 8 billion years headstart, with the oldest star we know being just 200 light years away from us. That the timeline of all potential civilisations in it should align with ours is absurd then. It also turns out the transition from unicellar to multicellular life wasn't as difficult as we predicted and last month we evolved a single-cell algae. If we can do it in a lab environment, I think we can eliminate it as a great filter. Abiogenesis on the other appears much harder and we are nowhere near accomplishing it. Some of the suggested probabilities for protein or DNA arising prebiotically are so extraordinarily unlikely that it's actually mind-beggaring. I honestly think we are one of very few places life at all exists and the rest of the universe is dead, devoid even of simple lifeforms

[Anonymous No.10490544]

>>10490258
But once self-propagating systems have attained global scale, two crucial differences emerge. The first difference is in the number of individuals from among which the "fittest" are selected. Self-prop systems sufficiently big and powerful to be plausible contenders for global dominance will probably number in the dozens, or possibly in the hundreds; they certainly will not number in the millions. With so few individuals from among which to select the "fittest," it seems safe to say that the process of natural selection will be inefficient in promoting the fitness for survival of the dominant global self-prop systems. 30 It should also be noted that among biological organisms, species that consist of a relatively small number of large individuals are more vulnerable to extinction than species that consist of a large number of small individuals. 31 Though the analogy between biological organisms and self-propagating systems of human beings is far from perfect, still the prospect for viability of a world-system based on the dominance of a few global self-prop systems does not look encouraging. The second difference is that in the absence of rapid, worldwide transportation and communication, the breakdown or the destructive action of a small-scale self-prop system has only local repercussions. Outside the limited zone where such a self-prop system has been active there will be other self-prop systems among which the process of evolution through natural selection will continue. But where rapid, worldwide transportation and communication have led to the emergence of global self-prop systems, the breakdown or the destructive action of anyone such system can shake the whole world-system.

[Anonymous No.10490546]

>>10490544
Consequently, in the process of trial and error that is evolution through natural selection, it is highly probable that after only a relatively small number of "trials" resulting in "errors," the world-system will break down or will be so severely disrupted that none of the world's larger or more complex self-prop systems will be able to survive. Thus, for such self-prop systems, the trial-and-error process comes to an end; evolution through natural selection cannot continue long enough to create global self-prop systems possessing the subtle and sophisticated mechanisms that prevent destructive internal competition within complex biological organisms. Meanwhile, fierce competition among global self-prop systems will have led to such drastic and rapid alterations in the Earth's climate, the composition of its atmosphere, the chemistry of its oceans, and so forth, that the effect on the biosphere will be devastating. In Part IV of the present chapter we will carry this line of inquiry further: We will argue that if the development of the technological world-system is allowed to proceed to its logical conclusion, then in all probability the Earth will be left a dead planet-a planet on which nothing will remain alive except, maybe, some of the simplest organisms-certain bacteria, algae, etc.-that are capable of surviving under extreme conditions. The theory we've outlined here provides a plausible explanation for the so-called Fermi Paradox. It is believed that there should be numerous planets on which technologically advanced civilizations have evolved, and which are not so remote from us that we could not by this time have detected their radio transmissions. The Fermi Paradox consists in the fact that our astronomers have never yet been able to detect any radio signals that seem to have originated from an intelligent extraterrestrial source.

[Anonymous No.10490548]

>>10490546
According to Ray Kurzweil, one common explanation of the Fermi Paradox is "that a civilization may obliterate itself once it reaches radio capability." Kurzweil continues: "This explanation might be acceptable if we were talking about only a few such civilizations, but [if such civilizations have been numerous], it is not credible to believe that everyone of them destroyed itself."33 Kurzweil would be right if the self-destruction of a civilization were merely a matter of chance. But there is nothing implausible about the foregoing explanation of the Fermi Paradox if there is a process common to all technologically advanced civilizations that consistently leads them to self-destruction. Here we've been arguing that there is such a process. III. Our discussion of self-propagating systems merely describes in general and abstract terms what we see going on all around us in concrete form: Organizations, movements, ideologies are locked in an unremitting struggle for power. Those that fail to compete successfully are eliminated or subjugated. 34 The struggle is almost exclusively for power in the short term;35 the competitors show scant concern even for their own long-term survival,36 let alone for the welfare of the human race or of the biosphere. That's why nuclear weapons have not been banned, emissions of carbon dioxide have not been reduced to a safe level, the Earth's resources are being exploited at an utterly reckless rate, and no limitation has been placed on the development of powerful but dangerous technologies. The purpose of describing the process in general and abstract terms, as we've done here, is to show that what is happening to our world is not accidental; it is not the result of some chance conjunction of historical circumstances or of some flaw of character peculiar to human beings.

[Anonymous No.10490549]

>>10490548
Given the nature of self-propagating systems in general, the destructive process that we see today is made inevitable by a combination of two factors: the colossal power of modern technology and the availability of rapid transportation and communication between any two parts of the world. Recognition of this may help us to avoid wasting time on naive efforts to solve our current problems. For example, on efforts to teach people to conserve energy and resources. Such efforts accomplish nothing whatever. It seems amazing that those who advocate energy conservation haven't noticed what happens: As soon as some energy is freed up by conservation, the technological world-system gobbles it up and demands more. No matter how much energy is provided, the system always expands rapidly until it is using all available energy, and then it demands still more. The same is true of other resources. The technological world-system infallibly expands until it reaches a limit imposed by an insufficiency of resources, and then it tries to push beyond that limit regardless of consequences. This is explained by the theory of self-propagating systems: Those organizations (or other self-prop systems) that least allow respect for the environment to interfere with their pursuit of power here and now, tend to acquire more power than those that limit their pursuit of power from concern about what will happen to our environment fifty years from now, or even ten years. (Proposition 2.) Thus, through a process of natural selection, the world comes to be dominated by organizations that make maximum possible use of all available resources to augment their own power without regard to long-term consequences.

[Anonymous No.10490560]

>>10490258
Why would they need to colonize more than one solar system? How would they do that?
Space travel is limited below the speed of light, and solar systems are extremely far away from eachother.

[Anonymous No.10490562]

>>10490540
The early universe was not hospitable for life. We simply don't have enough information to make any real conclusions about whether aliens exist or not. It might very well be that the "golden age" of life has only just begun and we are among the first or that ancient civilizations exist but they either choose not to bother us because we are like ants to them or that interstellar distances are too huge to have any kind of real scifi empire

[Anonymous No.10491888]

>>10490258
We're just the first, and everywhere we go we will find aliens at stages of development within a few decades of ourselves.

[Anonymous No.10491980]

>>10490562
1st generation star systems were almost entirely hydrogen. The heavier elements in our solar system all came from the first generation of star's supernova. Life as we know it couldn't exist in a 1st gen star.

[Anonymous No.10492207]

>>10490258
>Why is most of /sci/ too retarded to understand the Fermi paradox?
The absence of evidence is not evidence of absence.

[Anonymous No.10492234]

ITT: rational OP vs retards who think aliens wouldn't use star energy

[Anonymous No.10492236]

>>10490560
hurrdurr aliens can't be immortal because star wars

[Anonymous No.10492257]

>>10490258
Aliens may be capable of colonizing solar systems but they may be incapable of traveling faster than light. Also the universe is expanding.

And Earth's solar system is located in the largest void we know of.

[Anonymous No.10492273]

>>10492257
>Also the universe is expanding.
That only starts to matter in the scale of billions of light years. The local group has hundreds of billions of stars and it wouldn't take that much time to colonize them all.

[Anonymous No.10492298]

>>10492273
But if there are aliens capable of colonizing other planets they could be on the other side of the universe. They will never get here.

[Anonymous No.10493118]

>>10490258
Fuck the Fermi paradox I want a qt alien gf

[Anonymous No.10493120]

>>10493118
>Tfw no qt gf

[Anonymous No.10493131]

>>10490258
>every solar system should be colonized
>>10490383
>would have colonized the solar system long ago.
Wrong and wrong.
Humans have been intelligent for 100,000 years. Capable of space flight for less than 100 years. And we like exploring.

[Anonymous No.10493413]

Assuming that there is no FTL travel, a galactic colonizer would be as dumb as fuck. They'd basically be virus-level intelligence because the thousands of steps required to fill the galaxy would select for nothing more than the ability to spread.

And what happens when one branch meets another a hundred "generations" down the line? These things would be no better than the Von Neumann machines beloved of science fiction.

Surely it's better to sit at home with your hyper-quantum xbox.

[Anonymous No.10493439]

The fermi paradox is because god DOES play with dice (i.e. he isn't there) it's pure happenstance that the world is the way it is.

[Anonymous No.10493971]

Yeah but what if they're currently colonizing every solar system but we're so far away they currently didn't get to us?

What if they're Pacific?

[Anonymous No.10494645]

Oh oh oh oh. I love these. Let x an arbitrary planet in the universe and define S(x) to mean "a particular form of sentient life exists in x". Now assume OP is right. Then
>The fact that aliens aren't everywhere proves that they are no where
holds. Hence:
[eqn] ( \exists x (¬ S(x))) \implies ( \forall x (¬S(x))) [/eqn]
By contrapositive:
[eqn] ( \exists x (S(x))) \implies ( \forall x (S(x))) [/eqn]
Since humans are sentient life and Earth is one of the planets in the Universe, it follows that humans are in every planet of the Universe. This is clearly absurd so we must conclude our original assumption is, in fact, not true.