Fermi "Paradox" (was Extropian Productivity)

From: Lee Corbin (lcorbin@tsoft.com)
Date: Sun Jul 20 2003 - 17:44:57 MDT

  • Next message: Natasha Vita-More: "RE: Extropian Productivity (was RE: flame wars)"

    Michael Dickey writes

    > This is why I work for the Lifeboat foundation, which is the only
    > concentrated effort out there to ensure the continuation of intelligent
    > life. I have seen little mention of it on the Extropy list, none that I
    > recall that I did not bring up.

    Always eager to hear more about stuff like this!

    > Observing this list leads me to the conclusion that many extropians
    > take it as blind faith that humanity, and intelligent life, will
    > survive, and generally do little to ensure that continues.

    Yes, you are right----people are, IMO, much too complacent about
    the future. A study of past human civilizations prompts the question
    "if they can fall, why can't we?".

    > To them I ask (among other things), what of the Fermi paradox?
    > Where are the rest of the universes intelligent beings? I
    > have still yet to hear any decent counters to the Fermi paradox.
    > (are there any?)

    I am sure that you have heard the answer that I first read in 1986
    in Tipler and Barrow's book: Within billions of light years, we
    are the only civilization. Why don't you consider that a decent
    counter?

    The Drake Equation, as you, know, is just this product of a lot
    of probabilities which taken together is supposed to give some
    kind of overall probability of life developing around some star.
    I've always thought that a kind of kindergarten exercise,
    because it would only take one near-zero factor to make the
    entire product near-zero.

    To me it's just *obvious* that some one or something within another
    civilization would get a few hundred years past where we are and
    would colonize the universe with Von Neumann probes. That hasn't
    happened to the Earth, and so there isn't anyone within a few
    billion light-years.

    > If none exist, we should take this as a deep warning. It leaves only a
    > few possibilities, 1) no other intelligent technologically advanced life
    > has yet evolved

    quite likely IMO

    > 2) it has evolved but has not made it here

    also very likely, but they're still hundreds of millions of light-years
    away

    3) it has evolved and it tends to destroy itself

    I would be amazed that the course of civilization would be so
    identical throughout the cosmos. When one stops to realize the
    uncanny diversity of civilizations just among HOMO SAPIENS, then
    for there to be a common denominator among all non-human
    civilizations seems fanciful.

    > 4) it has evolved, is here, and is undetectable.

    I've always thought that the most silly possibility. For what
    reason would they make their presence so difficult to detect?
    If they're made of ordinary matter, there is a lot of energy
    that they are willingly ignoring.

    I can just imagine Europeans in the 15th century asking,
    "how do we know that we have not already ourselves been
    colonized by a great Chinese fleet?", or wondering "should
    we obey the Prime Directive if we encounter other peoples
    below the equator or on faraway islands?".

    Lee



    This archive was generated by hypermail 2.1.5 : Sun Jul 20 2003 - 17:53:01 MDT