The Fermi Paradox in Cartoon Form

[Fr8monkey]

[Bill Phil]

The Kardashev Scale wasn't fully explained in the vid. If it was, then we would understand why we can't see them.

A type I would have 1000 times our power generation, Type II would have 13 zeroes behind it more than we do. A Type III, way more.

We are just ants to these types, if not less. Ants hardly notice roads, they just walk on them. They're insignificant on the planetary scale, and on the galactic scale, we are much more insignificant.

[LN400]

The question "is there life anywhere else in the Universe?" is to me one of the most intriguing ones. Unfortunately it is also one of the trickiest when it comes to building any reliable foundation for which questions we'd need to ask. The number of unknowns and the vastness of the unknown make it near impossible to know if we are asking the right questions.

For starters, we still have no definition of where the line between life and no life is, at least not one everybody can agree on. Even something as "simple" as defining species is a task that is horribly difficult and one that keeps coming back, reminding us that nope, we still haven't figured out this species business, and that's just for life here on Earth.

Next is, it seems that every new planet we discover outside our own solar system opens up a whole new package of questions on how planets are formed, and ultimately how many planets are there in the first place?

There is more but for starters it should be a reminder that there are only a few things we know:

All our theories on Life, Universe and Everything are up for fundamental changes without warning, which can turn all our calculations into irrelevant scribblings we'd be embarrassed to show anyone.

We have not seen any trace of alien civilisations and we are absolutely clueless as to the actual why. The theoretical whys we have a much better grasp on. We have theories. Some good, some not so good but no matter how good, they are still only theories and one weakness of theories is the uncertainty: Are we asking the right questions at all?

The Karadshev scale is purely hypothetical. It is based on what we do know and what we think we know and what we know until we learn we didn't know after all as well as speculations, guesswork and assumptions and the hope that we by a fantastic stroke of luck managed to ask the correct questions. Same for all models, scales and explanations. We can only hope we got it right.

That is... until we get hard evidence that there really are someone out there. The Question is intriguing but I'm wondering if it's more a philosophical question than a scientific one, for the time being. It's very much like questions like "is there a God?", "are parallel Universes a physical reality?", "is there something outside our Universe? Like more Universes?". Questions we can't find the answer to, scientifically. Intriguing, exciting but scientifically not really relevant.

So, should we stop looking? No, why should we? If there is something out there then the probability of us discovering it is not zero. Might be depressingly low but it is not zero.

Edited May 8, 2015 by LN400

[kerbiloid]

Just imagine a typical light bill in the Galaxy Capital, with its energy prices, and you see: there is no "Fermi paradox".

There is just a "saving every dime". The mighter is a civilization, the lesser its energy wastage.

- Contact lenses with wireless video monitors inside;

- Fiber optics instead of radio broadcasting;

- Low leakage appartments with virtual things instead of material things (see Cloud Atlas);

- A Great Pyramid multi-layer house for million dwellers instead of metropolis smeared across a thousand of square kilometers - 500 m to cross with elevator instead of of 50 km to drive through with a car;

- No cars; no trams; no buses;

- Magnetic trains running between several dozens of mega-city compounds instead of thousand of airlines;

- Constant population which needs no expansion;

- Tiny industry just to replace miserly irrecoverable wastes.

A homely cyber-hippy paradise.

[Ralathon]

Just imagine a typical light bill in the Galaxy Capital, with its energy prices, and you see: there is no "Fermi paradox".

There is just a "saving every dime". The mighter is a civilization, the lesser its energy wastage.

- Contact lenses with wireless video monitors inside;

- Fiber optics instead of radio broadcasting;

- Low leakage appartments with virtual things instead of material things (see Cloud Atlas);

- A Great Pyramid multi-layer house for million dwellers instead of metropolis smeared across a thousand of square kilometers - 500 m to cross with elevator instead of of 50 km to drive through with a car;

- No cars; no trams; no buses;

- Magnetic trains running between several dozens of mega-city compounds instead of thousand of airlines;

- Constant population which needs no expansion;

- Tiny industry just to replace miserly irrecoverable wastes.

A homely cyber-hippy paradise.

The problem is that if even 1 of those thousands of cyber hippies decides to stop being cyber hippies and do something cool we'd notice them.

If even 1 species decided to start expanding their empire. Either for exploration or conquest, they'd colonize the entire milky way within a few million years. Since our star system isn't currently littered with extraterrestrial remains (cities, asteroid miners etc) that means this has never happened in the history of the solar system. Seems pretty unlikely that you are able to make sweeping generalizations that apply to millions of species.

[magnemoe]

The problem is that if even 1 of those thousands of cyber hippies decides to stop being cyber hippies and do something cool we'd notice them.

If even 1 species decided to start expanding their empire. Either for exploration or conquest, they'd colonize the entire milky way within a few million years. Since our star system isn't currently littered with extraterrestrial remains (cities, asteroid miners etc) that means this has never happened in the history of the solar system. Seems pretty unlikely that you are able to make sweeping generalizations that apply to millions of species.

True, however how long would they carry on? Remember without faster than light you can not really have an large empire.

Else I agree that scale 2-3 civilizations are unlikely, first we would notice, second its limited how much energy you need, we are currently in an expansion phase and has been since we discovered steam, now would 1000 times more be useful? note you are still not scale 1.

[kerbiloid]

If even 1 species decided to start expanding their empire.

Either for exploration or conquest.

There are 2 sticking points.

1. Why would they want to expand?

Any civilization would appear on a, say, Earth-like planet as primitive tribes.

Then they step by step grow and colonize the whole planet, in some kind of intraspecific competition.

So, until the space colonization, first they must solve their mundane problems - in any way.

Just because the space colonization takes too much money and efforts which are required to survive among other competitors, but not gives immediate economical results.

That means, any civilization will (peacefully or no) achieve the population equilibrium before mass space colonization.

And if their population is constant and live in a hand-made self-sustained paradise, they have no need in expansion.

They need assurance, safety and acquaintance to protect several highly comfortable planets where they live and to study the Universe for their pleasure.

(So, any E.T. we can meet would not be agressive, but maybe self-satisfied and insensitive.)

2. How would such cyber hippy appartment or outpost look like - if they use virtual/augmented reality translated directly into their... er... eyes?

And neurointerface getting commands directly from their brain.

Just an empty strict-style room.

Several "stone blocks" (in fact: server, tranceiver/receiver, field laboratory and life-support module, all created with 12-femtometer technology not observable by human eyes).

Simple bed, simple table and chairs with several people looking into infinity. Absolutely nothing to look at.

But if you watch through their interface...

So, they would probably place their outposts here and there, but probably you wouldn't know about this even if it is at next door.

[cicatrix]

Here's a good articles explaining the Fermi Paradox and 'The Great Filter' concept.

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

This is why Oxford University philosopher Nick Bostrom says that “no news is good news.†The discovery of even simple life on Mars would be devastating, because it would cut out a number of potential Great Filters behind us. And if we were to find fossilized complex life on Mars, Bostrom says “it would be by far the worst news ever printed on a newspaper cover,†because it would mean The Great Filter is almost definitely ahead of usâ€â€ultimately dooming the species. Bostrom believes that when it comes to The Fermi Paradox, “the silence of the night sky is golden.â€Â

Personally, I'm hoping that we are the first. The other options are too upsetting.

[A_Burnt_Rodent]

Stephen Baxters Manifold trilogy (Time,Space & Origin) are excellent explorations of the Fermi paradox.

[Wanderfound]

The most obvious (and most likely) solution to the Fermi paradox is that interstellar travel and Kardashev X civilsations are a practical engineering impossibility. Einstein was right.

[cicatrix]

The most obvious (and most likely) solution to the Fermi paradox is that interstellar travel and Kardashev X civilsations are a practical engineering impossibility. Einstein was right.

Even with sublight colony ships an advanced civilization can colonize the most part of Milky Way within 100 million years. If there was a civilization that had appeared 4-5 billions of years before us (theoretically it's possible) then they would have had plenty of time to do that.

[Ralathon]

True, however how long would they carry on? Remember without faster than light you can not really have an large empire.

But being united in 1 big empire doesn't matter for colonization.

Say a civilization has a small chance every 500 years for the right social and economical circumstances to arise to make colonization possible. It doesn't matter if those new colonies are part of one big empire, or scattered fragments of the original empire, or separatist rebels that hate the original star. They'll have the same chance to start their own colonies. It is still an exponential process that will colonize the milky way very rapidly.

The only way to not have a runaway exponential colonization effort is if the odds of colonization drop to 0% very very early in the process. And this had to happen to all civilizations that ever arose in the milky way for the past 4 billion years. If even one slipped past this filter we would notice their remains.

For this reason I'm tending towards the great filter hypothesis. It becomes a lot more likely that every civilization ever decided to hang out in cyberspace instead of colonizing if there have only been 3 technological civilizations in the past 4 billion years.

[cicatrix]

We assume (falsely, I think) that life can ONLY exist in a certain conditional 'envelope' concerning temperature/pressure/radiation level/oxygen and water. The truth is that WE DO NOT KNOW ANYTHING about life, what life is (how to define the word itself) and certainly we do not know the extremes at which life can exist and what forms can it ultimately take. I can perfectly imagine an intelligent 'life' existing in forms of electromagnetic waves, for example. I can imagine 'life' as stone boulders which exchange information using generated electricity. I can imagine life in forms of plasmoid clouds that live in photospheres of stars... Why do we expect life to be in a form of a bipedal humanoid that breathes oxygen and needs water?

[Ralathon]

We assume (falsely, I think) that life can ONLY exist in a certain conditional 'envelope' concerning temperature/pressure/radiation level/oxygen and water. The truth is that WE DO NOT KNOW ANYTHING about life, what life is (how to define the word itself) and certainly we do not know the extremes at which life can exist and what forms can it ultimately take. I can perfectly imagine an intelligent 'life' existing in forms of electromagnetic waves, for example. I can imagine 'life' as stone boulders which exchange information using generated electricity. I can imagine life in forms of plasmoid clouds that live in photospheres of stars... Why do we expect life to be in a form of a bipedal humanoid that breathes oxygen and needs water?

The reason we do this is because we have to start looking somewhere. We know for sure that Carbon based chemical life can exist, so that's as good a place as any to start looking.

Sure, there could be intelligent plasma based worms in the outer corona of stars. But if we start looking specifically for those we will miss out on the sapient gas clouds. And if we look for those maybe we'll miss the strong force mediated chemistry on the surface of neutron stars.

If we don't make at least some assumptions on the kind of life we're intending to find we may as well stop looking altogether, else we have no idea where to even start.

[magnemoe]

But being united in 1 big empire doesn't matter for colonization.

Say a civilization has a small chance every 500 years for the right social and economical circumstances to arise to make colonization possible. It doesn't matter if those new colonies are part of one big empire, or scattered fragments of the original empire, or separatist rebels that hate the original star. They'll have the same chance to start their own colonies. It is still an exponential process that will colonize the milky way very rapidly.

The only way to not have a runaway exponential colonization effort is if the odds of colonization drop to 0% very very early in the process. And this had to happen to all civilizations that ever arose in the milky way for the past 4 billion years. If even one slipped past this filter we would notice their remains.

For this reason I'm tending towards the great filter hypothesis. It becomes a lot more likely that every civilization ever decided to hang out in cyberspace instead of colonizing if there have only been 3 technological civilizations in the past 4 billion years.

However interest and funding are likely to fall off, one other problem is distance to a planet you would want to live on. For the first colonies this is not so important as they are prestige projects. Afterwards the requirements will go up and so does the travel distance. That the matrix is more fun is also an plausible explanation.

[Ralathon]

However interest and funding are likely to fall off, one other problem is distance to a planet you would want to live on. For the first colonies this is not so important as they are prestige projects. Afterwards the requirements will go up and so does the travel distance. That the matrix is more fun is also an plausible explanation.

You are vastly underestimating the time spans we're talking about here. Sure, interest and funding might fall. But society is not stagnant. Even if it takes 1000 years before people are interested in colonization again, that's still fast enough to colonize the galaxy in a dozen million years. And 1000 years is more than enough for the colony to grow strong enough to launch its own missions. It took us just a few centuries to go from farms to the space age, and we had to do that from scratch. A colony should have a decent industry in a few decades, and a civilization rivaling its parent after 1k years.

And this is assuming alien civilizations are sending out colonists. As far as we know Von Neuman probes are entirely possible to build. Once a civilization sends out one of those it would colonized the galaxy even if its parent lost interest. So nobody has build a single one of those probes for the past 10 billion years?

[Wanderfound]

Even with sublight colony ships an advanced civilization can colonize the most part of Milky Way within 100 million years. If there was a civilization that had appeared 4-5 billions of years before us (theoretically it's possible) then they would have had plenty of time to do that.

You're assuming that a technological civilisation is able to maintain cohesion for millions/billions of years without destroying itself through military or environmental catastrophe.

While not impossible, it doesn't strike me as likely. So far, we've only managed that for a very short time scale, and it's entirely possible that we're not going to manage it for that much longer.

[magnemoe]

You're assuming that a technological civilisation is able to maintain cohesion for millions/billions of years without destroying itself through military or environmental catastrophe.

While not impossible, it doesn't strike me as likely. So far, we've only managed that for a very short time scale, and it's entirely possible that we're not going to manage it for that much longer.

If they are spread over multiple star systems total destruction will be very unlikely. Even spreading out in the solar system will decrease this risk significantly.

[Fr8monkey]

I'm thinking it is more like all the aliens in the galaxy have decided to put our solar system and the area around it into a "Wild Life Reserve" where there is no contact to keep those primitive animals alone... Except for the scientific 'probes' to determine our health.

Edited May 8, 2015 by Fr8monkey

[magnemoe]

You are vastly underestimating the time spans we're talking about here. Sure, interest and funding might fall. But society is not stagnant. Even if it takes 1000 years before people are interested in colonization again, that's still fast enough to colonize the galaxy in a dozen million years. And 1000 years is more than enough for the colony to grow strong enough to launch its own missions. It took us just a few centuries to go from farms to the space age, and we had to do that from scratch. A colony should have a decent industry in a few decades, and a civilization rivaling its parent after 1k years.

And this is assuming alien civilizations are sending out colonists. As far as we know Von Neuman probes are entirely possible to build. Once a civilization sends out one of those it would colonized the galaxy even if its parent lost interest. So nobody has build a single one of those probes for the past 10 billion years?

Yes it will be waves of interest, however only the outermost colonies will have the option with the exception of systems dropped in the first waves.

My promise was that after the first waves of colonization, you have done it, its kind of planting the flag on moon, give few returns except securing the species who you do in the first wave anyway.

yes the galaxy is full of planets however how many would you like to colonize? Think that the distances might be closer to 40 lightyear than 4.

You could use Von Neuman probes for teraforming or building infrastructure, you could also use them for deep exploring, however if someone checked out earth millions of years ago we would not know.

Note that I agree with your cyperspace idea, only raising an the fact that colonization might well stop after some colonies.

[AndrewBCrisp]

We don't even have to assume that a society must destroy itself to lose the impetus to expand. Granted, it's "the only way to be sure", but...

As has been mentioned, the universe is a big place, and so is our home galaxy. But while individual star systems are tiny compared to galaxies, and planets tiny to star systems, they are still huge in an absolute sense. It's taken us tens of thousands of years to truly explore and settle our home planet, and it can conceivably take tens of thousands of years to truly explore and settle our home system. That should absorb most of our exploratory energies before embarking on a serious program to colonize nearby stars, let alone the entire galaxy.

While there may be some groups that will want to go to the stars before that point, they will face a huge barrier: economics. Interstellar travel requires a huge investment in resources, and any interstellar adventurers or manifest-destiny groups would have to get those resources from whatever governments exist at the time. Chances are, these governments - and the societies represent - will only give enough resources to exploration that they think they can spare, which may not necessarily be enough to build even one starship.

To understand this, let's take a look at current world spending for space exploration. The best estimates I can find give global space exploration budgets in 2013 at approximately $72.1 billion. The Gross World Product for that same year, according to the World Bank, sits at $75.59 trillion. So, space exploration consumed roughly 0.095% of the GWP. Let's be generous and round it up to 0.1%. This is our baseline, and shows the general priority our species places on space exploration. Barring some fundamental shift in human thinking - which can neither be ruled out nor counted upon - we can safely say that this will be the level of funding compared to total economic strength for the lifetime of our civilization. As Gross World Product rises (and eventually becomes Gross System Product - the total GDP of an entire solar system), space funding will also increase - but will still remain the same percentage of the GWP / GSP.

Now that 0.1% is not just one program, but many. Future explorers will find their interstellar dreams must compete with other programs - planetary colonization and development (including terraforming), continuing exploration of the home system, SETI, planetary monitoring, solar monitoring and space weather tracking, etc. So our starship-builders find they will have to content themselves with a smaller chunk of the very tiny piece of the GWP pie. We can safely say therefore, that, barring a sudden need to launch a starship Right. Freaking. Now!, a starship will only be built once the cost of building and launching one fits nicely inside that 0.1% either by the GWP climbing to a nicely wealthy level, or sudden science and technological breakthroughs lowering the needed cost, or both.

But let's say that happens. Say a thousand or two thousand years from now, the resources are available, the starship is launched, and a new colony is founded. Hooray! The colonists of a new system now have an entire solar system to explore and settle, and will likely go through the same cycle of local, in-system expansion consuming all their energies before they start looking to the stars again. Their exploration budget will likely be a larger percentage of their GWP at first, but will drop to that same 0.1% as the colony expands and matures and more people become interested in building lives for themselves where they are, than fulfilling some nebulous "manifest destiny" to Conquer The Galaxy for Mankind. So, once again, those wanting to go to another star must go, cap in hand, to their governments and ask for the needed slice of resources of that 0.1% to build the starship. Once again, the governments will not yield that slice from other, more practical and urgent programs until and unless they can safely afford it, or until and unless a Pressing Need to build a starship presents itself. Lather, rinse, and repeat for every interstellar colony that is successfully seeded.

Those few million years to colonize the galaxy is suddenly looking like it needs a lot more time to complete. Starships remain possible, but become much rarer, and hence less detectable.

For those who may despair at the thought of several thousands of years between starships, or argue "but exploration is in our NATURE!", I would remind them that the civilizations launching those starships are still living full "lives", and that exploration of a single star system by its inhabiting civilization (either native-grown or seeded) will provide a healthy sink for exploratory urges. We may dream of colonizing the stars today, but Mars, Europa, Titan, and other in-system worlds are much closer, and many more people dream of exploring and settling those worlds than do those of settling the stars.

We can expect similar attitudes among alien civilizations, even though the particulars will vary. Economics, like physics, is universal, and any alien civilization must deal with finite resources and decide how to best divide them to satisfy its needs and wants.

Edited May 9, 2015 by AndrewBCrisp
Removed a couple of phrases that were questionable in tone. If I caused offense I apologize - it was not my intent.

[cicatrix]

You're assuming that a technological civilisation is able to maintain cohesion for millions/billions of years without destroying itself through military or environmental catastrophe.

That's one of many possible 'great filters'. Still, we can't expect that ALL theoretically possible civilizations end the same way. And even one, or ten, or even a thousand colonies ended this way this wouldn't have stopped this civilization to colonize the rest of the galaxy. We're talking about billions of years here. Just try to imagine this figure.

[Perry Apsis]

It's obvious that once a civilization reaches a certain level of development, they can create simulations that are more satisfying than reality, where those most interested in space exploration would waste the most productive years of their lives putting strangely-colored and curiously stretched-out aliens into simulated spacecraft and achieving all the satisfaction available through spaceflight without the horrible risk and unimaginable expense.

- - - Updated - - -

I always thought the Kardashev scale was silly. I know what the responses to this statement will be, but I do not imagine that any descendant of human civilization, no matter how numerous, will find use for the entire output of a star. Of course it looks to us like all roads lead upwards, that we will always be doing more with more. We haven't yet found that we just don't need more energy, and we're not even starting to level off. But we're at the beginning of our journey. The fact that our energy use continues to climb is not evidence that it will do so in the future, when only a few short generations ago, muscle power was the primary source of energy for manufacturing and agriculture.

As for interstellar travel, I... Well, I'm a romantic. I like to imagine that we have a grand destiny among the stars. But will it ever really be to the personal benefit of enough people to spend the vast resources needed to confine themselves and their offspring to a box for a thousand years before they face an uncertain future on a marginally habitable world? What could we do to the earth to render it uninhabitable? We could turn it into an airless, arid, barren, lifeless wasteland. Compared to interstellar space it would be paradise. If you can survive for a thousand years in space, do you really need a planet?

Does that mean that our descendants may die here, prematurely, from a gamma ray burst, cursing their short-sighted forebears? Yes, perhaps it does. But I don't see us making the sacrifices necessary to get us to other star systems, and there are good reasons for us not to. What has always mystified me about the Fermi paradox is the assumption that of course a civilization would colonize the stars unless they died first. I don't know why they would try.

Probably not a popular opinion here, and I don't like it much myself, but it's what I'm left with after decades of thinking about this.

[Rakaydos]

We are experiencing a great filter right now- getting to space is hard with no immediate or near future benifit. Who cares if the sun explodes in however many billion years?

There was an article about how planets might be even easier to create life on if they're different from earth... but some of those suggested changes (larger, ect) would make it even more difficult to reach space than it is to do so from earth. Earth is only marginably habitable, but it may actually be one of the easier life-giving worlds to escape from, and we have nearby near-habitable worlds that could hypothetically be colonized- our co-orbiting airless partner, a frozen desert, a hell-planet with a temperate upper atmosphere, even a frozen icemoon protected by it's parent planet. (that's Callisto, not Europa- Europa's in the radiation belt, Callisto is just outside)

But even with our advantages, we are more concerned with our own affairs than expansion, even though we are ineviably dooming our civilization. While we have individuaals striving to reach past this great filter (SpaceX's Mars Colonial Transpoirter, various moonbase ideas, venus cloud city concepts) naysayers constantly point out the challanges and impracticality of it. What's the point?

If technological life cannot even get off it's home planet, what chance does it have of seeding a galaxy? How many civilizations are out there who made the same choice, to ignore space and become cyber-utopias? What are the odds of a civilizations making that leap not once, to just the planets of their own system, but again to the stars?

Space isnt a sea, it's a desert. We are one of the first creatures to stick our heads out of the sea and flop arround on land, but we do not have the lungs to survive away from home. Will we evolve lungs, as our seaborn predecessors did before us? Or will we give it up as a lost cause after our first kessler cascade?

[PakledHostage]

Kurz gesagt has now posted a Part II to their previous Fermi Paradox video: