A theory on why we probably haven't received signals from aliens

[PB666]

Its funny that in this group we chat alot about things that have never happened in recorded history and most likely will never happen. Not picking on this exactly, but trying to find reasons why all but obvious aliens don't talk to us ponders on the absurb.

Ok, so if aliens decided to go silent they would communicate using entangled particles, and due to quantum mechanics we no know that this a completely private way to communicate. There, we are surrounded by cloaked aliens whispering out of earshot. They see you endulging in that double mocha latte on your sick day sitting by the pool. Of course after we build that super great space port on the moon, they will take over!

[Randazzo]

Aliens wouldn't get our attention for the same reason you don't stick your finger in a Fire Ant hill.

Probably won't kill you, and you could wipe it out at a whim, but it's darn unpleasant in the meantime.

And in the end, the ants don't learn anything new anyway.

[GeneralVeers]

That we have managed not to kill ourselves with nukes does not mean other species in similar situations did not have their own "cuba missile crisis"

Doesn't mean they did, either. And there's no reason to assume that they would.

Of the aliens that devlope technoligy, they will inevitably discover the power of the atom eventually.

Based on what?? This is entirely hypothetical. Keep in mind, a large percentage of the scientific discoveries we've made in the past were the results of accidents or mistakes. Vaccines, TNT, plastics, potato chips. Even Burma Shave shaving cream (the founders had pretty much given up on finding a decent formula, till they discovered that one sample they'd forgotten about and left on the shelf for six months was perfect).

The Theory of Relativity--and the Magic Formula that eventually led to the invention of nuclear weapons--were things Albert Einstein hit on almost entirely by accident. Almost certainly any advanced civilization would figure out the subatomic structure of matter, but that's no reason to assume they would hit on the concept of smashing pieces of matter together at high velocities to create really big explosions. They might (or, they might discover entirely different ways to blow things up!) but we can't know for sure unless we find aliens and observe them.

[SuperFastJellyfish]

My thinking is that the Universe exploded into being into mostly similar parts that grouped up into mostly similar groups. These groups gravitationally danced around other groups and similarly coalesced into similar coelescenses. These coelescenses cooled into spheres of similar kinds of spheres, and so on until us. As far as we can tell, we are just a consequence of chemistry and thermodynamics in action. With this line of thinking there should be an immense number of life bearing planets out there.

Why haven't we heard from any of them? Prime Directive? It seems the most logical with a human mind, but who knows what motivations are possible?

[Rakaydos]

Based on what?? This is entirely hypothetical. Keep in mind, a large percentage of the scientific discoveries we've made in the past were the results of accidents or mistakes. Vaccines, TNT, plastics, potato chips. Even Burma Shave shaving cream (the founders had pretty much given up on finding a decent formula, till they discovered that one sample they'd forgotten about and left on the shelf for six months was perfect).

The Theory of Relativity--and the Magic Formula that eventually led to the invention of nuclear weapons--were things Albert Einstein hit on almost entirely by accident. Almost certainly any advanced civilization would figure out the subatomic structure of matter, but that's no reason to assume they would hit on the concept of smashing pieces of matter together at high velocities to create really big explosions. They might (or, they might discover entirely different ways to blow things up!) but we can't know for sure unless we find aliens and observe them.

Without a military industrial complex to drive things, I doubt the liquid engine rocket would get invented, let alone a nuke. Rendering the question of meeting them in space moot.

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My thinking is that the Universe exploded into being into mostly similar parts that grouped up into mostly similar groups. These groups gravitationally danced around other groups and similarly coalesced into similar coelescenses. These coelescenses cooled into spheres of similar kinds of spheres, and so on until us. As far as we can tell, we are just a consequence of chemistry and thermodynamics in action. With this line of thinking there should be an immense number of life bearing planets out there.

Why haven't we heard from any of them? Prime Directive? It seems the most logical with a human mind, but who knows what motivations are possible?

The answer to the fermi paradox is that space is hard. We have it relatively easy and we're still arguing whether it's worth doing.

[Sampa]

I have a different theory. Other aliens are trying to contact us, but we do not recognize the wavelength as a communication method. They are in a more advanced stage so the method of communication would be FAR more advanced than our own.

[PB666]

Without a military industrial complex to drive things, I doubt the liquid engine rocket would get invented, let alone a nuke. Rendering the question of meeting them in space moot.

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The answer to the fermi paradox is that space is hard. We have it relatively easy and we're still arguing whether it's worth doing.

You mean the answer to the fermi paradox is that all aliens create space games with odd colored men, then chat rooms where people argue incessantly why there are no aliens instead of building ships that can explore their galaxy?

i can see that with some of the sprites here, but at least a few have to work and earn a living, maybe one or two at NASA.

[Rakaydos]

You mean the answer to the fermi paradox is that all aliens create space games with odd colored men, then chat rooms where people argue incessantly why there are no aliens instead of building ships that can explore their galaxy?

i can see that with some of the sprites here, but at least a few have to work and earn a living, maybe one or two at NASA.

Compared to the planetary profile most likely to produce life-as-we-know-it, NASA, ROCOSMOS, ESA, ect all have it easy. a mere 1g, 1 bar of atmosphere, with even a free 465 meters/second of rotational speed at the equator. Moreover, we have a nearby celestial object clearly visible our entire history to inspire us, an internatial rooster-measuring contest that drove most of our space tech R&D (well beyond the bounds of common sence), that actually DIDNT kill us all, and a potential colonization target the next orbit over.

Let life be common in the galaxy. Let inteligent life be inevitable, 1 per world. How many lotteries did Earth win to have as good a shot as we have now of colonizing space? Even for us, as NASA said about the SpaceX explosion, Space is hard. How much harder would it be for aliens lacking the helpful coincidences we have? Would it even be worth attempting?

[SuperFastJellyfish]

Compared to the planetary profile most likely to produce life-as-we-know-it, NASA, ROCOSMOS, ESA, ect all have it easy. a mere 1g, 1 bar of atmosphere, with even a free 465 meters/second of rotational speed at the equator. Moreover, we have a nearby celestial object clearly visible our entire history to inspire us, an internatial rooster-measuring contest that drove most of our space tech R&D (well beyond the bounds of common sence), that actually DIDNT kill us all, and a potential colonization target the next orbit over.

Let life be common in the galaxy. Let inteligent life be inevitable, 1 per world. How many lotteries did Earth win to have as good a shot as we have now of colonizing space? Even for us, as NASA said about the SpaceX explosion, Space is hard. How much harder would it be for aliens lacking the helpful coincidences we have? Would it even be worth attempting?

I think you're underestimating how unimaginably huge the Universe is. Space is hard is definitely at play, but we've only just started exploring beyond our planet. Space travel has only existed since the 50's. Less than 100 years. The Universe is ~14,000,000,000 years old. Our star is not a first generation star. There just has to be more advanced life out there. This is my opinion, obviously.

[Rakaydos]

I think you're underestimating how unimaginably huge the Universe is. Space is hard is definitely at play, but we've only just started exploring beyond our planet. Space travel has only existed since the 50's. Less than 100 years. The Universe is ~14,000,000,000 years old. Our star is not a first generation star. There just has to be more advanced life out there. This is my opinion, obviously.

First generation stars had only hydrogen- there wasnt any heavy elements (anything beyond iron on the perriotic table) to build a technological civilization till the first generation stars exploded. This isnt Robinsun Cruso- you need more than bamboo to make a TV.

The first geneation stars that exploded first would have been in galactic cores, where stars are very close together and there's a nova every few thousand years- a super high radiation enviroment that would kill ANY life attemptig to develop there in a second generation star.

Out in the arms here, it is safer for organic life to develope, and now we have heavy elements for technological development. Other galaxies could have reached this point faster, but they are far enough away to not matter. In our galaxy, we might not be the first, but we're close enough that the others havnt conquered the galaxy yet.

[Bill Phil]

Without a military industrial complex to drive things, I doubt the liquid engine rocket would get invented, let alone a nuke. Rendering the question of meeting them in space moot.

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The answer to the fermi paradox is that space is hard. We have it relatively easy and we're still arguing whether it's worth doing.

The liquid rocket engine was developed during peacetime...

By Robert Goddard..

In the 1920s.

[magnemoe]

Compared to the planetary profile most likely to produce life-as-we-know-it, NASA, ROCOSMOS, ESA, ect all have it easy. a mere 1g, 1 bar of atmosphere, with even a free 465 meters/second of rotational speed at the equator. Moreover, we have a nearby celestial object clearly visible our entire history to inspire us, an internatial rooster-measuring contest that drove most of our space tech R&D (well beyond the bounds of common sence), that actually DIDNT kill us all, and a potential colonization target the next orbit over.

Let life be common in the galaxy. Let inteligent life be inevitable, 1 per world. How many lotteries did Earth win to have as good a shot as we have now of colonizing space? Even for us, as NASA said about the SpaceX explosion, Space is hard. How much harder would it be for aliens lacking the helpful coincidences we have? Would it even be worth attempting?

Smaller planets should be more common but are harder to detect, mars is too small but something with 0.8-0.5 g should support life easy enough. An smaller and closer Moon would also be more useful for space activity.

But yes space is hard, interstellar travel is many magnitudes harder than everything else.

[PB666]

I think you're underestimating how unimaginably huge the Universe is. Space is hard is definitely at play, but we've only just started exploring beyond our planet. Space travel has only existed since the 50's. Less than 100 years. The Universe is ~14,000,000,000 years old. Our star is not a first generation star. There just has to be more advanced life out there. This is my opinion, obviously.

As the vid says, The Universe is not at issue, even our clustervis out of bounds, the life discussion is pertinent only to our galaxy and at the moment 1000 light years in any direction.

[magnemoe]

I simply think that the incidence of advanced life is sufficiently rare on both a spatial and temporal scale that it's highly improbable that any signal has or will ever be sent within our detection range within our species' existence. Even if a shockingly high percentage of stars do in fact harbor life at some point in their existence (say, 1 in 1000, even 1 in 100 would make only so much difference here), consider the fraction of a microcosm of time in which our own planet has harbored life capable of generating signals. Now take a nice, generous (but finite) guess as to how long we'll survive. You'll find that the odds do not favor two such civilizations existing anywhere near each other with most even halfway reasonable numbers - it takes something really, really extraordinary, like a multi-million year starfaring civilization, to improve probabilities of overlap. I, personally, don't think such civilizations are likely to be common, if they exist anywhere.

But it has led me to an interesting thought in the past. The wonderful thing about astronomical numbers is that even conservative Drake estimates suggest there are/were millions, billions, or more, planets harboring life throughout the universe. However improbable, the universe is vast enough that the improbable becomes practically inevitable. This suggests to me that somewhere, in a galaxy far, far away (and maybe even long, long ago ), there very possibly are two planets, both harboring some kind of advanced life, maybe both orbiting one star, maybe closely neighboring stars, but close enough that contact became probable - and reality. For those two planets, our fanciful sci fi is a reality. Who knows what wonderous saga played out for those races?

Two planets with life in a star system is plausible, make mars larger and we would probably have it here. Because of impacts is an good chance that they would share biochemistry.

However you will not get two advanced civilizations in one solar system as it would require extreme luck, time from radio to probes is less than 100 years. had mars had intelligent life we would have sent an manned mission some time ago and the chance that the two civilizations is just 1-200 year apart technologically is very low, you might find someone at the stone age.

One exception, put two stars in far orbit around each other, have one civilization come first but this slows down, perhaps goes mostly VR as the matrix is more fun.

Have an second one be more adventurous and active and they travel to the other star and do first contact.

Now we don't know how old an civilization can get. However if you have two planets with life you can afford an catastrophe who destroy life on one planet.

An independent asteroid civilization will also serve as an backup here, in this cases it would be hard for it to destroy itself.

Possible but harder. This is far more true if you manages to go interstelar,

[JetJaguar]

You mean the answer to the fermi paradox is that all aliens create space games with odd colored men, then chat rooms where people argue incessantly why there are no aliens instead of building ships that can explore their galaxy?

i can see that with some of the sprites here, but at least a few have to work and earn a living, maybe one or two at NASA.

I suspect that somewhere in the universe there are little green aliens playing a game called "Human Space Program", and they spend all their time on message boards complaining about the weak reaction wheels and being forced to rely on overpowered RCS thrusters for control, and that the early game is unrealistically focused on airplanes and unmanned rockets.

[JedTech]

I have a different theory. Other aliens are trying to contact us, but we do not recognize the wavelength as a communication method. They are in a more advanced stage so the method of communication would be FAR more advanced than our own.

I share this theory. It is highly possible that all of intelligent races out there have developed Faster-Than-Light communications.

Imagine a galaxy wide internet that aliens share across the galaxy. Maybe a galactic wikipedia with a small entry about an emerging intelligent species called humans.

[Godot]

Most likely explanation: they simply haven't found us.

One particular YouTube personality (and KSP player!), Kurtjmac, recently raised this theory: that human beings have only been emitting radio and television signals for a century or so. That means that a technologically-advanced civilization would have to be (or their ships would have to fly) within one-hundred light-years of Earth to even spot us. That's a pretty tiny needle in a colossally gigantic haystack.

On further reflection, I think I can safely throw this in: for aliens to contact us based on the above, is assuming those aliens are searching for RADIO signals. Why would they? There's no reason to assume they would even invent radio, therefore no reason to assume they would even know about radio. Throw in the fact that pretty much the entire planet Earth is switching to digital and cell transmission in an entirely different frequency range, and the problem of spotting Earth becomes even more complicated.

But, of course, Occam's Razor. The question of why aliens haven't contacted us can be answered very elegantly, by simply flipping it around and asking: "hey, humans, why haven't YOU made contact with ALIENS???"

I agree.

ALso, for ourselves to detect any alien radio signals, they have to fall into a rather narrow frequency spectrum which we selected for our own SETI-Programs because it is not as affected by cosmic interferences as other spectra.

If alien scientists, for reasons alien to us, select other frequency spectra to listen and transmit messages from their SETI programs, tehy won´t receive any messages we send ... as well as we won´t receive any messages they send.

[Hagen von Tronje]

Two planets with life in a star system is plausible, make mars larger and we would probably have it here. Because of impacts is an good chance that they would share biochemistry.

However you will not get two advanced civilizations in one solar system as it would require extreme luck, time from radio to probes is less than 100 years. had mars had intelligent life we would have sent an manned mission some time ago and the chance that the two civilizations is just 1-200 year apart technologically is very low, you might find someone at the stone age.

One exception, put two stars in far orbit around each other, have one civilization come first but this slows down, perhaps goes mostly VR as the matrix is more fun.

Have an second one be more adventurous and active and they travel to the other star and do first contact.

Now we don't know how old an civilization can get. However if you have two planets with life you can afford an catastrophe who destroy life on one planet.

An independent asteroid civilization will also serve as an backup here, in this cases it would be hard for it to destroy itself.

Possible but harder. This is far more true if you manages to go interstelar,

Ah, but not every planet/life combo would necessarily be like Earth/Mars or any variant thereof. Who can say how different environments and species would develop technology, and how that would play out into their fate?

Consider also that a species could vary in its willingness to take risks for progress. Our own space programs came (and still come) at not insignificant economic costs and risks to those involved; another species might be far less, or far more, willing to endure those hardships - to say nothing of where they'd prioritize space exploration as a science at all. An alien race could conceivably have devoted very little of its resources to space technology yet be unassailably more advanced than us in surface technology.

But as I said, any given scenario is highly unlikely. The great thing is that the universe is so vast that somewhere, at some time past or future, something we think highly unlikely almost certainly took place (though what exactly, we will probably never know!).

[PB666]

I share this theory. It is highly possible that all of intelligent races out there have developed Faster-Than-Light communications.

Imagine a galaxy wide internet that aliens share across the galaxy. Maybe a galactic wikipedia with a small entry about an emerging intelligent species called humans.

Nothing to figure out, if they can travel out of their system then they have Quantum Mechanics, and if they have quantum mechanics they can do quantum encryption. The chinese have announced they are creating a new state communication system based on quantum encryption and they only managed to place a half-functional rover on the moon. All you need to do to have FTL communication is to know what your communication needs are in advanced and carry a good supply of entangled particles with you, you don't even need to have particles for every where, just for a single communication base (since it is FTL you don't care where) and communicate with that base a predefined periodic intervals, they then can send information to its final destination, sort of like a phone company.

BTW, humans are an English term that has meaning in one of homo sapiens 5000 languages. Global Official designation is scientific-latin Homo sapiens sapiens. If they were sophisticated enough to know we had an English Language they should also know we had biological systematics for defining biotypes and that at least some humans were self-aware enough to know that they were animals falling into the catagories

Archea; Eukaryota; Opisthokonta; Metazoa; Eumetazoa; Bilateria; Deuterostomia; Chordata; Craniata; Vertebrata; Gnathostomata; Teleostomi; Euteleostomi; Sarcopterygii; Dipnotetrapodomorpha; Tetrapoda; Amniota; Mammalia; Theria; Eutheria; Boreoeutheria; Euarchontoglires; Primates; Haplorrhini; Simiiformes; Catarrhini; Hominoidea; Hominidae; Homininae; Homo sapiens [sapiens]

And more than likely the aliens have their own version of systematics in which they refer to us by other names such as annoyingly oblivious radio-frequency polluters, easily addicted electronic device users, or highly inadequate self-grandizing space fearers (following our walk away from satellite exploratioon after apollo 17), Vertical phototrophic destroyers, irrational apex predator killers, or something of that variety.

[JedTech]

BTW, humans are an English term that has meaning in one of homo sapiens 5000 languages. Global Official designation is scientific-latin Homo sapiens sapiens. If they were sophisticated enough to know we had an English Language they should also know we had biological systematics for defining biotypes and that at least some humans were self-aware enough to know that they were animals falling into the catagories

Archea; Eukaryota; Opisthokonta; Metazoa; Eumetazoa; Bilateria; Deuterostomia; Chordata; Craniata; Vertebrata; Gnathostomata; Teleostomi; Euteleostomi; Sarcopterygii; Dipnotetrapodomorpha; Tetrapoda; Amniota; Mammalia; Theria; Eutheria; Boreoeutheria; Euarchontoglires; Primates; Haplorrhini; Simiiformes; Catarrhini; Hominoidea; Hominidae; Homininae; Homo sapiens [sapiens]

And more than likely the aliens have their own version of systematics in which they refer to us by other names such as annoyingly oblivious radio-frequency polluters, easily addicted electronic device users, or highly inadequate self-grandizing space fearers (following our walk away from satellite exploratioon after apollo 17), Vertical phototrophic destroyers, irrational apex predator killers, or something of that variety.

Right.... I assumed that was a given. They probably don't call it Wikipedia either.

[K3achas]

My theory is a combination of two factors:

Economics and polotics (the reason we don't have a moon base, mars landing, the Space Shuttle anymore, the Buran anymore, ...) and

Incorrect search bands (namely because we can't any decent frequencies that we use).

[Aethon]

The main reason no signal has been detected is SETI (until recently) has been chronically strapped for cash. World wide there are about 12 people that search for signals from ETI, five of them at the SETI institute. The Milky way has 300 billion stars. SETI has examined slightly over 1000 of the nearest stars for a signal, and those in total for about 3 minutes each. If you want a better result, you should send them some money.

Edited September 3, 2015 by Aethon

[regex]

My hypothesis: FTL travel is impossible and wormholes cannot be constructed or traversed. The gulf between stars is a nigh insurmountable goal by most beings, which are scattered. If they can pass the Great Filter (nuclear annihilation is surely one of those Filters) and become an actual space-faring race they are likely a super-predator and will assume other intelligent beings of their technological stature are the same, meaning that contact is a very dangerous proposition.

Alternatively, we're in the galactic hinterlands and any life in our neighborhood is either extinct (Great Filter) or not anywhere near our technological level.

[Sampa]

I share this theory. It is highly possible that all of intelligent races out there have developed Faster-Than-Light communications.

Imagine a galaxy wide internet that aliens share across the galaxy. Maybe a galactic wikipedia with a small entry about an emerging intelligent species called humans.

Meaning we are the native americans of the galaxy atm. And the alien visitors we have had in the past are simply anthropologists.

[Godot]

The main reason no signal has been detected is SETI (until recently) has been chronically strapped for cash. World wide there are about 12 people that search for signals from ETI, five of them at the SETI institute. The Milky way has 300 billion stars. SETI has examined slightly over 1000 of the nearest stars for a signal, and those in total for about 3 minutes each. If you want a better result, you should send them some money.

Actually SETI has a lot of help by the (probably millions of) people who take part in SETI@home,

where people sacrifice a little bit of their processing time in order to help with automatically scanning the huge data volume (that years of radioastronomy by SETI have generated) in order to find interesting signals.

Edited September 3, 2015 by Godot