I think that aliens exist but we're really far away from one another and our means of communication are incompatible at current level.
The Fermi Paradox has a wide variety of interesting hypothesis (just check [url=http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fermi_paradox]the wiki page[/url]), and it'll be interesting to see what the eventual 'answer' will be. IF there is a signal out there already arriving at earth, but we're just not listening in the right direction, it's said that technically it shouldn't be more than a few decades before we discover that signal at the current rate at which we search through the sky. Fingers crossed that we'll reach that technological threshold within our lifetime.
The Fermi Paradox is the basis for the sci-fi lore I've been writing.
Humanity is focused on itself it does not notice nor acknowledge ruins of previous civilizations until its accidentally activated and thus first contact starts counting down.
[QUOTE=Clavus;47877762]The Fermi Paradox has a wide variety of interesting hypothesis (just check [URL="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fermi_paradox"]the wiki page[/URL]), and it'll be interesting to see what the eventual 'answer' will be. IF there is a signal out there already arriving at earth, but we're just not listening in the right direction, it's said that technically it shouldn't be more than a few decades before we discover that signal at the current rate at which we search through the sky. Fingers crossed that we'll reach that technological threshold within our lifetime.[/QUOTE]
The thing is, if intelligent life like us was possible and existed, and capable of making generation ships that can colonize habitable planets, chances are that almost every single habitable planet/star in our galaxy would've been colonized by now. Including ours. Even with ships that go only a tenth of lightspeed, it would still be doable. We'd probably have a galaxy where it's harder not to see the signs of life with radioastronomy than it is to see it.
That is, if intersolar colonization/travel over hundreds of years is possible. If it isn't, well, that's a solution to the paradox. Also if we're not the very first, which is unlikely. But even if there is a great filter that filters 99.99 percent of civilizations, there'd still be one, and that one would proliferate.
My personal solution to the paradox has always been in the style of Stanislaw Lem's Fiasco, in which our 'civilization' or even our life is so dissimilar and strange (as is any other life/culture/intelligence) that anything else with intelligence would likely be completely different or unrecognizable, and would not share our desire for mass proliferation. Or even 'intelligence' as we define it would be some strange occurance of many. Civilization as we know it would be a fluke. A fluke brought by many, many different stages and filters of life that may not be as linear of a path as presented in the filter hypothesis. Maybe there could be many filter pathways leading to even more diverse forms of life and civilization, rather than a certain linear pathway that is necessary to become 'us.'
But there is so many solutions. It could be a linear progression, except that technology gets so out of hand that the singularity dealio becomes a thing and we change ourselves to the point where mass proliferation and extrasolar colonization becomes unnecessary.
Tier 3 civilizations fuck me up. Something as powerful and advanced as that would literally be godlike. That is the craziest shit I've ever heard.
[QUOTE=lifehole;47881447]The thing is, if intelligent life like us was possible and existed, and capable of making generation ships that can colonize habitable planets, chances are that almost every single habitable planet/star in our galaxy would've been colonized by now. Including ours. Even with ships that go only a tenth of lightspeed, it would still be doable. We'd probably have a galaxy where it's harder not to see the signs of life with radioastronomy than it is to see it.
That is, if intersolar colonization/travel over hundreds of years is possible. If it isn't, well, that's a solution to the paradox. Also if we're not the very first, which is unlikely. But even if there is a great filter that filters 99.99 percent of civilizations, there'd still be one, and that one would proliferate.
My personal solution to the paradox has always been in the style of Stanislaw Lem's Fiasco, in which our 'civilization' or even our life is so dissimilar and strange that anything else with intelligence would likely be completely different or unrecognizable, and would not share our desire for mass proliferation. Or even 'intelligence' as we define it would be some strange occurance of many. Civilization as we know it would be a fluke.
But there is so many solutions. It could be that technology gets so out of hand that the singularity dealio becomes a thing and we change ourselves to the point where mass proliferation and extrasolar colonization becomes unnecessary.[/QUOTE]
what if we are a colony（；￣д￣）
[QUOTE=itisjuly;47877552]I think that aliens exist but we're really far away from one another and our means of communication are incompatible at current level.[/QUOTE]
If extrasolar colonization is not possible, and we're both stuck on one planet on far away solar systems, it's likely we would never communicate with eachother, regardless of the means. Unless we had some magical FTL tech.
If it is possible, we would likely not even exist, having been colonized much earlier.
Ofcourse a lot of that depends on our current understanding of physics and the limits of technology. If there is some superintelligent FTL aliens out there, well, I guess that's that. Maybe we wouldn't notice them, being to them as ants are to humans or somesuch. But I've never agreed with that hypothesis. Unless they've totally transcended the physical universe (wut) we'd probably atleast see signs of them, unless they stayed utterly docile/domestic in their ascent and never left their system.
Much of the solutions to the fermi paradox are either depressing or completely strange.
I loved all the references in this video, I saw Mass Effect, FTL, Star Wars, and Star Trek.
Don't forget the Pokemon references.
Dragon Ball Z as well.
what about type 4
[QUOTE=theevilldeadII;47882531]what about type 4[/QUOTE]
Type 4 would mean harvesting all of the energy of an entire universe, or universes.
Beyond even speculation.
I was expecting this thread to be about Nvidia.
What do you guys think of the this idea: Earth existed for about half as long as the entire universe did, and (correct me if i'm wrong) our own sun is only the second-generation star, born of the gas from remains of the first stars ever. What if stars like ours are among the first that are even able to support life? What if, for some reason, the conditions on Earth allowed microscopic life to evolve a few hundred million years before anywhere else in the universe? What if we are literally the [i]first[/i] intelligent life in the galaxy?
[QUOTE=lifehole;47881447]The thing is, if intelligent life like us was possible and existed, and capable of making generation ships that can colonize habitable planets, chances are that almost every single habitable planet/star in our galaxy would've been colonized by now. Including ours. Even with ships that go only a tenth of lightspeed, it would still be doable. We'd probably have a galaxy where it's harder not to see the signs of life with radioastronomy than it is to see it.
That is, if intersolar colonization/travel over hundreds of years is possible. If it isn't, well, that's a solution to the paradox. Also if we're not the very first, which is unlikely. But even if there is a great filter that filters 99.99 percent of civilizations, there'd still be one, and that one would proliferate.
My personal solution to the paradox has always been in the style of Stanislaw Lem's Fiasco, in which our 'civilization' or even our life is so dissimilar and strange (as is any other life/culture/intelligence) that anything else with intelligence would likely be completely different or unrecognizable, and would not share our desire for mass proliferation. Or even 'intelligence' as we define it would be some strange occurance of many. Civilization as we know it would be a fluke. A fluke brought by many, many different stages and filters of life that may not be as linear of a path as presented in the filter hypothesis. Maybe there could be many filter pathways leading to even more diverse forms of life and civilization, rather than a certain linear pathway that is necessary to become 'us.'
But there is so many solutions. It could be a linear progression, except that technology gets so out of hand that the singularity dealio becomes a thing and we change ourselves to the point where mass proliferation and extrasolar colonization becomes unnecessary.[/QUOTE]
I think an interesting idea about why we don't see that is literally luck. We exist and live in a time period where those things aren't happening, and we could be unlucky and be living in that time period, but we aren't. Existing in the gaps of empires expansions or deaths, that might be a natural way of the universe for some beings.
I believe Neil DeGrass Tyson said something like "If we lived in a different time period, we might not be able to observe the Cosmic background radiation, giving us our understanding of the beginning of the universe." That could be a case of something expanded across many different types of things perhaps.
I like to think there is some kind of do not disturb sign around us, like in star trek. They'll wait for us to get gud, then come say hi.
[QUOTE=Nikita;47882737]What do you guys think of the this idea: Earth existed for about half as long as the entire universe did, and (correct me if i'm wrong) our own sun is only the second-generation star, born of the gas from remains of the first stars ever. What if stars like ours are among the first that are even able to support life? What if, for some reason, the conditions on Earth allowed microscopic life to evolve a few hundred million years before anywhere else in the universe? What if we are literally the [i]first[/i] intelligent life in the galaxy?[/QUOTE]
Or maybe are part of the first wave of intelligent civilizations, or maybe the ones that did evolve early enough faced apocalypse scenarios they couldn't forsee or overcome? It's possible intelligent life gets wiped out before a huge proliferation happens.
[QUOTE=HumanAbyss;47882768]Or maybe are part of the first wave of intelligent civilizations, or maybe the ones that did evolve early enough faced apocalypse scenarios they couldn't forsee or overcome? It's possible intelligent life gets wiped out before a huge proliferation happens.[/QUOTE]
How?
I mean, if we're talking about one solar system life, then yeah, there is an endless numbers of possible filters. Maybe even a great filter.
But if a civilization proliferated the entire galaxy, I don't really think there would be massive ups and downs where they literally made themselves so extinct that we don't see them today. Speculating on the cohesion of galactic life is pointless, but I really, really doubt they would wipe themselves out after they've proliferated in more than 10 solar systems. If we're talking about our kind of life.
Self destruction of multiple extrasolar civilizations/planets would require a level of organization probably only given from faster than light communication/travel. And natural destruction is pretty much out of the question.
Even with cycles of collapse (or even total collapse) for those individual colonies, they'd still have a net positive proliferation, with a civilization being capable of launching a colony to another world before collapsing entirely. In that case, like I said previously, we probably would have had a largely colonized galaxy by now.
It's possible that it's extremely quiet because all planets are colonized then the civilization dies off on each individual world after a while due to lack of resources or some other instability, but even in that unlikely scenario, even if only 1/100 planets manage to get a colony off before collapse; within a few million years the galaxy would be fully proliferated. Probably many times over.
I'm still sticking with us being one fluke of many, and the idea of a civilization, or even type of life with the same motives and desires as us may be completely unlikely.
Either that, or there is indeed a great filter that is behind or ahead.
[editline]4th June 2015[/editline]
[QUOTE=Nikita;47882737]What do you guys think of the this idea: Earth existed for about half as long as the entire universe did, and (correct me if i'm wrong) our own sun is only the second-generation star, born of the gas from remains of the first stars ever. What if stars like ours are among the first that are even able to support life? What if, for some reason, the conditions on Earth allowed microscopic life to evolve a few hundred million years before anywhere else in the universe? What if we are literally the [I]first[/I] intelligent life in the galaxy?[/QUOTE]
In terms of intelligent life, I don't know. I doubt anyone really does. But with the amount of habitable zone exoplanets we've seen with just a few years of looking I really doubt we're the first life in the universe. Complex organic molecules have been found in interstellar space before. Not life ofcourse, but some possible building blocks.
To be honest, although I don't have any academic experience with it, I don't think we still completely understand all the intricacies of abiogenesis to really have a full answer for this yet.
I like the Reaper and the FTL ship. But the Fermi Paradox is very puzzling, simply because of the number of possible solutions.
That sounds like a cool movie idea... I think I'll call it [I]War of the Earths[/I]
[editline]5th June 2015[/editline]
I personally believe that the great filter isn't some apocalyptic ending to every intelligent civilization. If nuclear war were to break out, I think it would have happened a good 30 years ago. I like to think that the world has become too interconnected both socially, and economically. Anyone that dares drop a nuke in the 21st century will have then entire world against them, I can't imagine a scenario where everyone loses their minds and starts nuking every major foreign city that they've competed with throughout history.
It could just be ignorant optimism on my part, but based on my limited understanding of how civilization is structured today, I'd say your scenario seems the most likely.
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