Some words on the Fermi Paradox

[cubinator]

Last night I was looking at the stars, and while I have always believed it is likely there are other beings more advanced than us in the sky, I thought about the time it would take us to colonize the galaxy. Even without FTL travel, we could use high-impulse colony ships to reach the other side in just a few million years. If there were some other beings to achieve this, they would probably have spread throughout the entire galaxy, perhaps even to Earth. But we see no evidence of this. I considered the possibility that we are the first ones in the universe to come this far. We may be the only living beings in the universe with even a chance at outlasting our sun, and answering those ultimate questions. If we really are the only ones, we really must hold together for the next hundred years. If we can make it out to the other planets of our star, we will be able to eventually find a way out into the galaxy, and doing that will very nearly guarantee that Earthly life lives on for at least 100 billion years, by my estimate. Even if there is an end to all things, as our understanding of the laws of nature predicts, we can do better than dying on this little planet. I want a future where people can explore other star systems. A future where we outlive our sun opens up so many more possibilities for worlds and histories, it is too good a chance not to take. I am not ready to leave yet. There is much to be done on Earth before I am ready to leave the cocoon of our world. But Mars is where I will go. I want to be a part of setting up the first real settlements on another world. We have the chance to colonize Mars in this lifetime. If we succeed, we will almost certainly be able to move on into the galaxy. That is the difference I want to make. A positive influence lasting, at a minimum, 100000000000 years. If we are the only ones in the universe to get this far, we must prevail, because if we don't go to the stars it may not ever happen.

[Gargamel]

I really hate the Fermi paradox for those very reasons. 

[kerbiloid]

Once a civilization invents social networking, it disappears under its event horizon.

[Green Baron]

... and is there a correlation between bandwidth and Schwarzschild radius ?

Edited August 2, 2018 by Green Baron

[kerbiloid]

18 minutes ago, Green Baron said:

... and is there a correlation between bandwidth and Schwarzschild radius ?

Probably, there is a critical threshold.
Once the former sapient beings can transmit photos of their vacation, a food to be eaten, and kittens (whatever form of organics they call so), the collapse gets inevitable.

[Bill Phil]

Us not seeing evidence may be a result of the aliens and their works being indistinguishable from nature.

[tater]

Yeah, I'm in the camp that sees technologically capable life as being exceedingly rare. 1 per galaxy is still on the order of 100 billion civilizations, but they could for the most part be functionally alone.

[HansonKerman]

But, how do we know that these so-called "other species" even want to leave, or even think, or are humanoid? That's why I hate Star Trek.

[cubinator]

1 hour ago, HansonKerman said:

But, how do we know that these so-called "other species" even want to leave, or even think, or are humanoid? That's why I hate Star Trek.

I don't question the fact that they would probably not look anything like us. Different environments call for different adaptations, after all. And there are plenty of known lifeforms that don't want to leave, like trees and mice and beetles. The question is whether anything besides us would try to go to space, and succeed. Of course, there are ways to colonize space even without intelligence. Primordial microbes have an aptitude for surviving in space, and given the right conditions could spread to many planets.

[NSEP]

3 minutes ago, cubinator said:

Primordial microbes have an aptitude for surviving in space, and given the right conditions could spread to many planets.

Maybe this happends all the time and we just don't notice.

[kerbiloid]

13 minutes ago, cubinator said:

I don't question the fact that they would probably not look anything like us.

 

2 hours ago, tater said:

Yeah, I'm in the camp that sees technologically capable life as being exceedingly rare. 1 per galaxy is still on the order of 100 billion civilizations, but they could for the most part be functionally alone.

And this will be a shock when humanity meets alien species everywhere, and realize that they not just look like us, but are genetically compatible.
And live mostly in empires, kingdoms, and tribes.

Spoiler

Them durn Elder Ones...
Once having found the only inhabited planet in Galaxy (a rarest occasion!), since then they were using the Earth as a zerg incubator to inhabit any "habitable" place with decorative sapient monkeys.

 

[0111narwhalz]

I think it's not just for our own sake that we need to become starfaring.

I've noticed that life seems to be about rejecting entropy. There are complex structures in many organisms dedicated to this. When something stops rejecting entropy, it dies. But I feel this is not just a descriptor of life, but a defining purpose. Intelligence, a remarkably complex emergent behavior, is a great triumph against entropy. I think our purpose not just in but as life is to reject entropy entirely. How to achieve this, I do not know. Maybe by somehow opening the system or by remaking the universe. But it's certainly not by immolating ourselves before we even know if anyone else can cover for us.

[p1t1o]

40 minutes ago, 0111narwhalz said:

I think it's not just for our own sake that we need to become starfaring.

I've noticed that life seems to be about rejecting entropy. There are complex structures in many organisms dedicated to this. When something stops rejecting entropy, it dies. But I feel this is not just a descriptor of life, but a defining purpose. Intelligence, a remarkably complex emergent behavior, is a great triumph against entropy. I think our purpose not just in but as life is to reject entropy entirely. How to achieve this, I do not know. Maybe by somehow opening the system or by remaking the universe. But it's certainly not by immolating ourselves before we even know if anyone else can cover for us.

You ever read "the last question" by Asimov?

http://www.multivax.com/last_question.html

 

[0111narwhalz]

1 minute ago, p1t1o said:

You ever read "the last question" by Asimov?

http://www.multivax.com/last_question.html

 

That may have been a small influence on this idea. 

Edited August 3, 2018 by 0111narwhalz

[Green Baron]

Na, life doesn't reject entropy. In order for an organism to keep up its functions it needs energy which must be provided by the environment. In the end, the upkeep is only borrowed for short time, on a cost elsewhere, e.g. a food chain that is based on solar or geothermal power.

Sooner or later everybody realizes that entropy is taking its toll ;-)

Think i.

 

Edited August 3, 2018 by Green Baron

[0111narwhalz]

26 minutes ago, Green Baron said:

Na, life doesn't reject entropy. In order for an organism to keep up its functions it needs energy which must be provided by the environment. In the end, the upkeep is only borrowed for short time, on a cost elsewhere, e.g. a food chain that is based on solar or geothermal power.

Sooner or later everybody realizes that entropy is taking its toll ;-)

Think i.

 

Sure, life requires energy. But that's not what makes it life. All kinds of spontaneous processes which are not alive need energy. And of course it doesn't win against entropy in the global scope. But it does its damnedest to get rid of entropy inside itself, and—especially with intelligence—to expand that area of influence beyond itself.

[p1t1o]

25 minutes ago, 0111narwhalz said:

Sure, life requires energy. But that's not what makes it life. All kinds of spontaneous processes which are not alive need energy. And of course it doesn't win against entropy in the global scope. But it does its damnedest to get rid of entropy inside itself, and—especially with intelligence—to expand that area of influence beyond itself.

The thing is, you cannot talk about entropy without defining the system, and entropy in a closed system always increases, no exceptions (known to current science anyway.)

It is possible to talk about a decrease in the entropy of a defined open system (an open system is just part of a closed system) - such as a living creature - but it is neither profound or unusual and all decreases in entropy are balanced and paid for by increases elsewhere (usually the sun or surrounding space).

 

What can be said is that life harnesses an energy gradient, a flow of energy from A to B, hijacks it, slows and disperses it. Life actually creates MORE entropy (you are quite literally exhaling entropy right now), in the end, but in doing so changes its direction a small amount, in a small part of the system.

To put it another way, it might seem like an entropy reversal, but anything that requires energy to happen, is by definition causing an increase in entropy.

 

The profound, miraculous thing, would be if you could reverse entropy without energy input. This equates to something like putting an empty gas cylinder in a room with its valve open and waiting for all the air in the room to spontaneously rush into the bottle, leaving the room in vacuum. 

 

Does that sound like something that would ever happen in reality?

 

Spoiler

Technically, if you want to be super-pedantic, the probability of this occurring on its own is non-zero, but the number of universes that would have to live and die before you would expect it to happen spontaneously is staggering.

 

Edited August 3, 2018 by p1t1o

[Green Baron]

That's the thing. An organism only exists because it takes energy from its environment and because it exists in the right environment it is adapted to and were all necessary interactions can take place. Take it out of its natural environment and it stops working or starts to stutter :-)

The fact that some organisms can survive some time in vacuum and low temp near earth does not change this. Their decay is slowed down, but still takes space.

In the end intelligence is only a body function, not higher or lower than digesting which as well extends beyond itself. Keeping a brain working needs a lot of energy btw. Edit: nevertheless as time goes by and even under optimal conditions, no energy intake can keep body functions from failing.

 

Edited August 3, 2018 by Green Baron

[Bill Phil]

7 hours ago, p1t1o said:

You ever read "the last question" by Asimov?

http://www.multivax.com/last_question.html

 

Let there be light...

 

[p1t1o]

1 hour ago, Bill Phil said:

Let there be light...

 

<windows noise>

Edited August 3, 2018 by p1t1o

[Kernel Kraken]

What if the life on Earth was planted by the aliens after they became a class- 3 civilization, to see how it's do?

[cubinator]

20 minutes ago, Kernel Kraken said:

What if the life on Earth was planted by the aliens after they became a class- 3 civilization, to see how it's do?

Then we go find them, and tell them how we did.

[Kernel Kraken]

4 minutes ago, cubinator said:

Then we go find them, and tell them how we did.

If we can't figure out how to find them by now we're probably not doing well enough :p

[Bill Phil]

4 hours ago, Kernel Kraken said:

If we can't figure out how to find them by now we're probably not doing well enough :p

They may have moved on completely, like the aliens in 2001: A Space Odyssey

[YNM]

On 8/3/2018 at 6:25 PM, p1t1o said:

What can be said is that life harnesses an energy gradient, a flow of energy from A to B, hijacks it, slows and disperses it. Life actually creates MORE entropy (you are quite literally exhaling entropy right now), in the end, but in doing so changes its direction a small amount, in a small part of the system.

I think I read someone's thought like this before, somewhere.

It adds that perhaps, surprisingly, life itself is the best way to spread the increase of entropy around them, compared to other natural processes.

Maybe we should be careful of ourselves.