Fermi Paradox

[PB666]

18 hours ago, ElJugador said:

@PB666

As may have been pointed out earlier, and I have already said elsewhere: Due to the (very) high biases our detection and observation methods impose to larger worlds and smaller suns on our data, your severe reliance on it as a chokepoint is automatically highly suspect. Imagine if we were nearsighted, hard-of-hearing anthropologists from some completely different civilization, and we visited a favela in Rio for a few minutes. You're telling us, in essence, that all of human civilization and Earth as a whole must have, ipso facto, about the same living conditions, language, demographics, culture, climate, geology, and terrain.

I'm sorry, and I'm almost certainly going to come across as naive to you, but I... don't buy it. (I also don't really buy the Rare Earth hypothesis, either, but my cute little analogy for that will come another time.)

 

Evidence?

[ElJugador]

http://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/kepler/overview/index.html

https://lcogt.net/spacebook/transit-method/

The transit method is severely biased. As it's the only one used by Kepler/K2, the 'scope that has found the most exoplanets, that's as good (or, more likely, better) an explanation for our observations as yours.

Edited August 4, 2016 by ElJugador

[Green Baron]

 

@EIJugador is right, in addition to this the transit method gives us only those planets in systems whose ecliptic plane is nearly "edge on" towards us during transit.

 

[PB666]

That's true for nearly all methods.

[magnemoe]

6 minutes ago, PB666 said:

That's true for nearly all methods.

Yes, except that the transit actually prefer brighter stars, close planets have far higher chance of getting detected. star wobbling care more about the relative size, I guess Jupiter would be easier to spot with wobbling than transit. 
The amount of super earths and Neptune like planets found by kepler over smaller planet or even larger one is puzzling. it would be nice to know if this is an artifact of the method and that earth sized ones and smaller is get too small to detect easy by kepler.   

[PB666]

But his critique is partially wrong, given all the stars were we see transits, lots of planets, none of them what I would call earth-like, even though they are called earth like because they are in earth like orbits, or earth-like size. But none have earth-like atmosphere, few have the same surface temperature, none have stable temperatures similar to earth. Of 2400 observed so far, nothing I've seen so far is remotely earth-like IMHO.

You can dredge web-sites and hand wave all you want about the potential for life, but the reality is that Earth is not a surrogate for potential earth-like planets that have not been discovered.

 

[ElJugador]

"Of 2400 observed so far, nothing I've seen so far is remotely earth-like.."

You don't seem to really get my critique. To resummarize it: I'm saying that that outcome is quite likely an artifact of our detection methods. All of them are very biased against earthlike worlds. I'm trying to point out that you're jumping the gun a bit by trying to draw conclusions out of our data sets because of that.

 

 

Edited August 5, 2016 by ElJugador

[Green Baron]

25 minutes ago, ElJugador said:

"Of 2400 observed so far, nothing I've seen so far is remotely earth-like.."

You don't seem to really get my critique. To resummarize it: I'm saying that that outcome is quite likely an artifact of our detection methods. All of them are very biased against earthlike worlds. I'm trying to point out that you're maybe, just maybe, jumping the gun a teeny little bit by trying to draw conclusions out of our data sets because of that.

 

 

 

Many (usually?) publications on the subject point out exactly that problem.

Only solution is to wait for a new generation of instruments/methods.

 

Edited August 4, 2016 by Green Baron

[magnemoe]

2 hours ago, PB666 said:

But his critique is partially wrong, given all the stars were we see transits, lots of planets, none of them what I would call earth-like, even though they are called earth like because they are in earth like orbits, or earth-like size. But none have earth-like atmosphere, few have the same surface temperature, none have stable temperatures similar to earth. Of 2400 observed so far, nothing I've seen so far is remotely earth-like IMHO.

You can dredge web-sites and hand wave all you want about the potential for life, but the reality is that Earth is not a surrogate for potential earth-like planets that have not been discovered.

 

The problem is the cutoff diameter of the planets, why so few martian sized ones, this is more puzzling than the lack of earth sized ones.
All statistic shows it should be plenty of them, if not our solar system is seriously weird, we have Mercury and Mars. Venus and Earth. People once though Earth's moon was weird then we found Charon.
Why no larger gas giants..
It should be petty simple to find the lower bounds with an simulation. 
Note that this does not degrade the Kepler data, you work with the junk you have and try to avoid confusing. 
Our knowledge of planetary systems is probably mostly like out knowledge about nuclear physic 110 years ago. the best parts is educated guesses, the rest if junk. 

[KerikBalm]

Earth's moon is weird... charon and pluto are also weird in a different way.

Mars is a runt that (according to planet formation models) would have grown much bigger if jupiter hadn't sucked up most of the material during its formation.

 

As to the bias of the techniques... there is some size bias, but the transit method required the plane to be edge on is not biased, it doesn't favor or disfavor any particular planet type.

It limits our sample size, but it doesn't bias the sample

[PB666]

11 hours ago, magnemoe said:

The problem is the cutoff diameter of the planets, why so few martian sized ones, this is more puzzling than the lack of earth sized ones.
All statistic shows it should be plenty of them, if not our solar system is seriously weird, we have Mercury and Mars. Venus and Earth. People once though Earth's moon was weird then we found Charon.
Why no larger gas giants..
It should be petty simple to find the lower bounds with an simulation. 
Note that this does not degrade the Kepler data, you work with the junk you have and try to avoid confusing. 
Our knowledge of planetary systems is probably mostly like out knowledge about nuclear physic 110 years ago. the best parts is educated guesses, the rest if junk. 

It think the planet hunters defocus on obvious gas giants, they spend most of their focus on characterizing rocky planet sized things. There are alot of gas giants in that database just they are not well characterized. The mars sized planets will become more obvious with JWST, largely because its abou 10 fold better at inspecting stars in the red dwarf range. Although honestly, apart from the hype, I see these with the very rare exceptions as being lifeless duds. Productive photochemistry shares both ends of the visible spectrum. 

[PB666]

20 minutes ago, KerikBalm said:

Earth's moon is weird... charon and pluto are also weird in a different way.

Mars is a runt that (according to planet formation models) would have grown much bigger if jupiter hadn't sucked up most of the material during its formation.

 

As to the bias of the techniques... there is some size bias, but the transit method required the plane to be edge on is not biased, it doesn't favor or disfavor any particular planet type.

It limits our sample size, but it doesn't bias the sample

There is a lower limit that cannot be statistically sorted from the noise.

The smaller the planet the more transects need to be made to verify

The smaller the star the smaller the transect zone

The younger and redder  the star the more transects need to occur because of instability. 

K2, the method by which we have seen the most planets, does not survey for long periods, therefore it tends to see planets from smaller stars with closer orbits, if gas giants are typically more abundant in outer stellar systems because of initiation phase dynamics, then we cannot see them because their orbital periods are two long. 

[Hotel26]

Allow me to please phrase the following as a confession.  As a dilemma.  And a plea for help.

I find this conversation fascinating and erudite.  I understand that science is interested in everything that is factual and can be learned.  It's a mistake to question utility before the discovery.  You never know where our wonderful universe is going to lead.

The dilemma is whether I should open a meta-topic that links to and discusses this one.  But I don't think I have that much to say.  And I think the pith might actually be useful here for momentary introspection.

Philosophically, why is it so important to settle this question: "are we alone?".  Truly, my plea is for some one to cogently explain to me why we want to know more urgently.

The confession is that I don't understand why we are so imperatively interested.  Indeed, settling the question now, within our lifetimes, may be the same mistake the early ancient armchair philosophers made: attempting to decide matters related to the nature of 'stuff' with insufficient facts and inadequate powers of observation, overpowered by excessive curiosity.

Now, a host of suspicions.

Why are little kids so danged obsessed with dinosaurs?  (Monsters?)

Why is everybody so interested in black holes?  (Speculation about things that are going to rip you to shreds for doing more than thinking about them...  monsters)

It's likely mankind will never go near the center of any galaxy and if we could, we would want a fare refund.

Why does NASA couch everything in terms for the average TV viewer primarily as "the search for life"?  Wait.  Why?  Is this the Marketing Dept appealing for ratings share?

(Oh, hey, is it a religious vendetta to avenge Galileo??)

The plea is "can anyone help me understand why people are so fascinated with this particular question [are we alone?]?"  Is it just that we are anthropomorphically biased?

I get that any question in science is worthwhile...?

I think that Fermi's Paradox is very interesting and even enlightening as a kind of koan.  It makes one think, introspectively.  I for one would be happy if we just took a vote here on KSP Forum and ratified that we don't see much life out there because their politicians strangled them before they learned anything profound, same as is happening here.

Is it that we refuse to accept that some things are unanswerable, permanently, or even temporarily (next billion years)?

S'posing I said it might be more worthwhile in terms of scientific payback to just get out there...  Colonize.  Even terra-form.  We'd learn a lot.  And we might meet those dang aliens, too, if they really are out there!

(Bet that would top the nightly TV news for about 3 nights running and then drop off the scope, too!?)

Then s'posing we found out that actually, it's pretty hostile and lonely out there.  And we'd likely work on some kind of electronic life form to go explore for us.  It wouldn't be intentional.  It'd spring out of robotics.  (We actually ought to be doing that now.  Especially instead of the keyhole missions we keep running!)  And it might couple with some singular event in machine intelligence.  Who knows where that would leave us?

But it might be like this.

The universe threw us up.  We know that much.  It did that out of chemistry and some game theory.  So it could do it again, elsewhere, or have already done that.  Evolution.  It's not fast or inefficient: it's really brute force, but it's a specialist at shifting metaphors.

It threw us up, so we may be alone because that's the difficulty of producing sentient life.  Or we may be alone because other forms have and will exist but never simultaneously because that's the sheer statistics of it.

Or the more I personally comprehend the sheer size of the cosmos, the more Fermi's Paradox seems no paradox to me.  It's teeming with life out there and we will never bump into it.  We assume we can conquer all distances in the universe, assuming also we have the technology, but the more one understands about the unchartable expanse of the universe, the more one understands that it wasn't made for us or our travel plans and there are no money-back guarantees for our vacation plans.

So we are here and that is monumental, if we are a singleton.  We have it made already.  Because even though it is hostile and lonely out there, We Are Here.  Cogito ergo sum.

Alternatively, there may be other life, via the same processes, and we are not alone.  That is monumental, too.  We may even meet up with it (I bloody doubt it!) and then the TV masses can get their entertainment for a very short while before their attention turns to something else.

Or we could be the first(?) (or possibly sole) life form in the history of the universe that actually transcends the obsolete random biological process and progenates an Intelligently Designed (electronic), living entity that truly has the capacity to explore the universe to the full extent that the remaining lifetime of this universe, and its physical laws, allows.

Now.  Tell me.  Honestly.  Which is more cool?  (And more importantly, what do you think you could get more traction on today?  That would also have immediate payback in automating the means of production here, now?)

Yeah, I didn't start writing this thinking it would be a koan, but that is exactly what it is...

Edited August 5, 2016 by Hotel26
emphasis

[ElJugador]

@Hotel26

The former. I find robots and machine intelligences frakkin' boring or useless in most of their incarnations and their proponents sort of annoying. They don't work as antagonists (Asimov ruined that) and they don't work as protagonists either because they're non-objects or gag characters or they're portrayed as ~oh so incomprehensible~ (see Orion's Arm.)

To the rest: Nuts.

@PB666

That's what I was trying to get at.

Edited August 5, 2016 by ElJugador
detail detail detail

[PB666]

10 minutes ago, ElJugador said:

@Hotel26

The former. I find robots and machine intelligences frakkin' boring or useless in most of their incarnations and their proponents sort of annoying. They don't work as antagonists (Asimov ruined that) and they don't work as protagonists either because they're non-objects or gag characters or they're portrayed as ~oh so incomprehensible~ (see Orion's Arm.)

To the rest: Nuts.

@PB666

That's what I was trying to get at.

Yes but science works off of evidence, it works most poorly when it guesses.

 

[ElJugador]

10 minutes ago, PB666 said:

Yes but science works off of evidence, it works most poorly when it guesses.

 

Something you don't seem to have grasped at first.

To add to my previous post, those words are for fictional depictions. Real life might (more like will) be quite different, I'm aware. My personal motivations for such things as colonization, though, completely rule any kind of robot-only scenario out so it's a moot point.

Edited August 5, 2016 by ElJugador

[Green Baron]

@Hotel26, a lot of text. Hope i got the main points.

Fermi's paradox is called a paradox but will cease to be when we either discover that there is another civilization or that this is not the case. Since the latter is impossible (yes, there are unanswerable things) we can only wait for a positive discovery or ponder this paradox until whenever.

Life as we understand has different stages. There may be other life even in our solar system, microbial, extinct, under ice, wherever, we do not know. Whether there is life in other systems, we cannot judge from here. We can only interpret data in a way as to say "that allows it" or "that forbids it". We'll probably never have a positive discovery as well cause it's too far, too uncertain and we do not have all the data to judge it. We could as well step on life and not even realize that it had lived.

Ask an astrophysicist: we cannot conquer the distances of space to other solar systems because space is deadly for us, the distances are far too huge and the theoretically achievable speed is as slow as a snail trying to get from hamburg to rome. It simply will not make it out of town.

SciFi makes it possible to fly to other stars but this is mere fantasy, so we leave it to our pleasure to watch or read in our sparetime.

Colonization right now is for gamers only. Building a production-chain for the necessary materials, tools and devices off-world is far beyond what our technology allows. We don't even know whether humans can survive in interplanetary space. Just recently medicin-men and -women have warned that more shielding etc. might be necessary so that humans survive a journey to mars for example.

 

So. cool or not, there might be other life, even civilizations out there, maybe one day we'll know. Maybe not.

Satisfied :-) ?

 

 

Edited August 5, 2016 by Green Baron

[ElJugador]

@Green Baron, above:

I'm afraid this is the part where we disagree. Greatly. I'd strongly dispute all the points you make there.

[Green Baron]

Go ahead, eager to learn ...

Edit: honestly, i have no problem with being corrected, this is a game forum. Worst case scenarios are, i adopt some new thoughts on this (except creation, that's where my brain snaps close and refuses) or i retreat if being scoffed at in an uncivilized form.

No pasa nada :-)

 

Edited August 5, 2016 by Green Baron

[ElJugador]

37 minutes ago, Green Baron said:

Go ahead, eager to learn ...

I don't have my research to hand right now, but I'll try:

A) Well, there are a few things detectable from here that are unambiguously and undeniable signs of (intelligent) life. Megastructures are the biggest and most unmistakable ones I can think of. (Remember that star a few months ago that everyone raised a minor tempest about for just this reason?) I'd also say that the vagaries of chemistry and physics limit the variations of life and technological civilizations to reasonably recognizable (if still not communicable) bounds. There are a few other possible mediums for life other than water and proteins, however. If any of those turn out to be workable at all, then all bets are off with regard to life in general

B) There are a few propulsion techniques that are reachable within about a century or two of the 2010s that can do the trick of traveling at fractions of c. Although I personally don't expect to see any serious attempts at interstellar within my lifetime unless A) it greatly increases or B) someone pulls an FTL miracle from their colons. ^{(looking at you, Eagleworks!). Barring either of those, the best I'll get is to see the first manned missions to other planets and then the beginnings of colonization.}

C) Well, if you're so skeptical of even interplanetary travel, then why do you even bother with KSP? I would think it's a little out of your tastes? Besides that, I agree with Zubrin et al. that the radiation, although noticeably troublesome, is probably still less dangerous than smoking barring freak solar storms and a few other things. Regarding micro/low gravity: Valery Polyakov spent just over a year in those conditions and he's pretty much fine now.

^{(Although I'm of a very optimistic disposition when it comes to things like this, I recognize that most of it is kind of a long shot.)}

Edited August 5, 2016 by ElJugador

[Green Baron]

41 minutes ago, ElJugador said:

I don't have my research to hand right now, but I'll try:

A) Well, there are a few things detectable from here that are unambiguously and undeniable signs of (intelligent) life. Megastructures are the biggest and most unmistakable ones I can think of. (Remember that star a few months ago that everyone raised a minor tempest about for just this reason?) I'd also say that the vagaries of chemistry and physics limit the variations of life and technological civilizations to reasonably recognizable (if still not communicable) bounds. There are a few other possible mediums for life other than water and proteins, however. If any of those turn out to be workable at all, then all bets are off with regard to life in general

B) There are a few propulsion techniques that are reachable within about a century or two of the 2010s that can do the trick of traveling at fractions of c. Although I personally don't expect to see any serious attempts at interstellar within my lifetime unless A) it greatly increases or B) someone pulls an FTL miracle from their colons. ^{(looking at you, Eagleworks!). Barring either of those, the best I'll get is to see the first manned missions to other planets and then the beginnings of colonization.}

C) Well, if you're so skeptical of even interplanetary travel, then why do you even bother with KSP? I would think it's a little out of your tastes? Besides that, I agree with Zubrin et al. that the radiation, although noticeably troublesome, is probably still less dangerous than smoking barring freak solar storms and a few other things. Regarding micro/low gravity: Valery Polyakov spent just over a year in those conditions and he's pretty much fine now.

^{(Although I'm of a very optimistic disposition when it comes to things like this, I recognize that most of it is kind of a long shot.)}

ad A) Yep, if a civilization in our vicinity built a megatsructure we could probably luckily accidentally detect it. The difficult thing would be to rule out all possible natural causes which would be absolutely necessary before such an assumption could be made. Maybe not today but in the future with huge interferometers, why not. *If* is the word here. Until now there is no such thing except for some overeager journalists, right ? It was an unexplained flickering in a lightcurve of a star. One of many. But that one somehow managed it in the headlines and it was not on the first of april.

I do not understand that comic page (too much information). If it's about life forms: (a metabolism) based on other elements (sulphur, silica) is possible but would probably not be as effective as what we know (carbon-based). Without proof, i kindly ask to browse for more information. If it's silica based we would step on it carelessly. But it probably couldn't run away or ponder about the meaning of life (pure speculation here !).

ad B) I do not know what is reachable within a century (that's an old one: predictions are difficult, especially those regarding the future ;-)) but will revoke as soon as a prototype has been built. For now it's fiction, or not ?

ad C) Skeptical ? I just read the latest publication on this. Nobody spent time in "these conditions" (outside of earths magnetosphere) except for the Apollo-Astronauts (the paper is linked in this forum). It would be very careless to send out a superexpensive yearlong lasting expedition and not rule all known dangers for the humans on board out. More work must be done and i'm sure it will be done before someone gets locked up in a spaceship to mars.

 

Don't get me wrong, i'd be fascinated if fantastic things would happen and they will not happen if there weren't visionaries. I'd probably be a reasonable project manager, not a pilot :-)

 

Edited August 5, 2016 by Green Baron

[Aethon]

2 hours ago, Hotel26 said:

 

Philosophically, why is it so important to settle this question: "are we alone?". 

 

I think in the past it was in our best interest to know what or who was over that next hill/mountain/waterbody, and how big and sharp their teeth were.  

People are also fascinated by things that may kill them.  Animal planet doesn't have gerbil week, they devote their programming to powerful dangerous animals in general because we're genetically programmed to gather information about dangerous things.

Edited August 5, 2016 by Aethon

[Hotel26]

10 hours ago, ElJugador said:

@Hotel26

To the rest: Nuts.

@PB666

I'm glad you provided the link!!

There's a scene in the Mars Underground documentary in which Robert Zubrin is shown testifying before a Congress committee and one of the critters there (well-known, but I don't recall which one) addresses Zubrin, saying, "You're mad aren't you?  [pregnant pause]  You're mad that your govt hasn't made enough progress fulfilling your boyhood vision to....[paraphrased]".  I'm pretty sure the committee men had a good chuckle about the double entendre, afterward.    (Which is about what one would expect in Congress...)

[magnemoe]

On 5.8.2016 at 6:06 PM, Green Baron said:

@Hotel26, a lot of text. Hope i got the main points.

Fermi's paradox is called a paradox but will cease to be when we either discover that there is another civilization or that this is not the case. Since the latter is impossible (yes, there are unanswerable things) we can only wait for a positive discovery or ponder this paradox until whenever.

Life as we understand has different stages. There may be other life even in our solar system, microbial, extinct, under ice, wherever, we do not know. Whether there is life in other systems, we cannot judge from here. We can only interpret data in a way as to say "that allows it" or "that forbids it". We'll probably never have a positive discovery as well cause it's too far, too uncertain and we do not have all the data to judge it. We could as well step on life and not even realize that it had lived.

Ask an astrophysicist: we cannot conquer the distances of space to other solar systems because space is deadly for us, the distances are far too huge and the theoretically achievable speed is as slow as a snail trying to get from hamburg to rome. It simply will not make it out of town.

SciFi makes it possible to fly to other stars but this is mere fantasy, so we leave it to our pleasure to watch or read in our sparetime.

Colonization right now is for gamers only. Building a production-chain for the necessary materials, tools and devices off-world is far beyond what our technology allows. We don't even know whether humans can survive in interplanetary space. Just recently medicin-men and -women have warned that more shielding etc. might be necessary so that humans survive a journey to mars for example.

So. cool or not, there might be other life, even civilizations out there, maybe one day we'll know. Maybe not.

Satisfied :-) ?

Civilization would be hard to detect, either we are lucky to listen to an random radio signal or spot an laser or we detect something blocking their star or other obvious effect then looking trough an good telescope. 
Life as in an oxygen atmosphere is far simpler to detect however it only tells us that they have an oxygen atmosphere however this question will likely be answered later this century:
How common is planets suited for life and how many of them have life 

An manned starship is way out of our experience, even interstellar probes or colonization in our solar system is far ahead.  interstellar colonization would be hard even for someone far more advanced than us, more so as it looks like its an decent distance between habitable planets, not 4 lightyear in average but more like 20-40. 
Most alien civilizations either don't take the cost who would be significant even for an scale 1 civilization. 

Now if we found an easy stardrive the first question would be where are the aliens? 

[Dispatcher]

I really think that with the age of the universe and vast stellar system count, it would be a challenge for our technologies to detect evidence of intelligent life in the known universe (and for that matter in just our galaxy) given that the Drake equation accounts for a civilization's detectable transmission (and also popular now; leakage) lifespan.  We should not assume that we are able to observe all signals or observe all evidence of megastructures at a star.  Even if we could, such evidences may have ceased reaching us (EM detection) just prior to our achieving such ability to observe, or such evidence might make its way to us anytime from next Thursday to the time Earth is a toasty ball skimming our red giant sun's surface in a half billion years.