Why do we assume extraterrestrials might want to visit us? • Hacker News Board

Re: Why do we assume extraterrestrials might want to visit us?

#71

Post by patcon » Thu, Jan 21, 2021, 2:35 PM UTC

chii wrote: post #56

drclau wrote: post #48

What bothers me quite a bit, both in more-or-less scientific conversations and in Science Fiction, is that we virtually always assume a human-like psychology for aliens, and we judge what they may want or not based on our thinking. Even when we think about potentially highly advanced aliens, we still assume they'll have a psychology similar to ours, and they'll just be more advanced technologically (ie. the aliens an…

The "Three Body Problem" trilogy ( https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Three-Body_Problem_(novel) ) makes an argument for why the behaviour of an intelligent species is going to mimic humans (or more accurately, humans' behaviour converge towards a universal set of behaviour - one of survival of the fittest). I don't want to spoil the books so i won't discuss any further, but worth a think about if you have read the bo…

I've only read book 1, but I'm inclined to believe this as well.

This video provides a neat complexity science view of intelligence: https://www.ted.com/talks/alex_wissner_gross_a_new_equation_...

I'm intrigued that it points toward a "curiosity" at the heart of all intelligences, that we will recognize.

Re: Why do we assume extraterrestrials might want to visit us?

#72

Post by bluGill » Thu, Jan 21, 2021, 2:36 PM UTC

vidarh wrote: post #44

Blikkentrekker wrote: post #19

> Fermi’s paradox is pretentious in that it assumes we humans have some sort of cosmic significance. No, it assumes that of all the incalculable advanced civilizations it hypothesizes to exist, at least some would be interested, not all, not the majority, not a significant number, but at least one in a million.

It doesn't even assume that. There are a whole lot of scenarios where we'd still assume we'd spot signs of aliens even if they're all totally disinterested in us.

The universe is too big for that. Civilizations just 150 light years away could not spot us by any means we can even imagine.

Re: Why do we assume extraterrestrials might want to visit us?

#73

Post by Dirlewanger » Thu, Jan 21, 2021, 2:38 PM UTC

imglorp wrote: post #21

The hard fact is there are no shortcuts to interstellar travel, barring new physics. Any trip will consume vast amounts of energy and it will take decades if not centuries or longer. Advanced tech may reduce the expense to your civilization but the fact won't change. While all life, ants or not, may be universally worthy of study, is it worth that much sacrifice? Also, if the ants talk, exchanging messages would make…

Interstellar travel simply isn't happening without something like the Alcubierre drive.

Re: Why do we assume extraterrestrials might want to visit us?

#74

Post by [deleted] » Thu, Jan 21, 2021, 2:38 PM UTC

nend wrote: post #2

>We may be a phenomenon as uninteresting to them as ants are to us; after all, when we’re walking down the sidewalk we rarely if ever examine every ant along our path. Not really the most convincing argument. There are professions that study ants. And I'm sure I'm not the only person on this forum that has a casual interest in observing ants. Pretty sure aliens would still be interested in us even if we were as primi…

[deleted]

Re: Why do we assume extraterrestrials might want to visit us?

#75

Post by krapp » Thu, Jan 21, 2021, 2:39 PM UTC

cortic wrote: post #35

>The silence implied by Fermi's paradox (“Where is everybody?”) may mean that we are not the most attention-worthy cookies in the jar. I've always thought of Fermi's paradox as ultimately a math problem, assuming a conservative amount of time between a civilization in one star system colonizing a neighboring star system, over billions of years every star system in the galaxy should be colonized by now. The fact that…

>I've always thought of Fermi's paradox as ultimately a math problem, assuming a conservative amount of time between a civilization in one star system colonizing a neighboring star system, over billions of years every star system in the galaxy should be colonized by now.

I've never found this argument particularly compelling, as it seems too simplistic and ignores a vast number of possible confounding variables such as stars not being equally amenable to colonization, or even equidistant to each other, and the likely stability of civilizations over such timescales.

It seems far more likely to me that any civilization that colonizes another star sees diminishing returns given the risk and reaches some limit rather than seeking infinite, exponential expansion.

>The fact that we are not getting signals from the considerable number of stars that are within a reasonable distance is concerning. It does point to a great filter that we are not seeing or understanding. Or at least an enormous misconception about our universe.

For one thing, the observable universe contains billions of galaxies, which means the vast majority of stars are unreasonably distant.

Re: Why do we assume extraterrestrials might want to visit us?

#76

Post by b112 » Thu, Jan 21, 2021, 2:40 PM UTC

bluGill wrote: post #62

b112 wrote: post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The presumption that "today we know precisely how the universe works, and therefore, all stories must follow this mindset", is odd here. Would you insist that Newtonian physics was the Only Way to Think of Things, prior to Einsteinian? Why, then, do you presume this will remain static forever? And therefore, suggest that a story should follow this logic?

While it is possible relativity is wrong, anything that replaces it must fit all the observations we have about the universe that we currently use to prove relativity. That leaves very little room for the replacement for relativity to be different. Newtonian physics is a special case of relativity when you keep relative speeds slow. We don't know how quantum mechanics fits in. There is a known hole in current physics…

I find it difficult to respond without emotion, to such a comment. We likely know very very little about physics right now.

My point with Newtonian physics is that at the time, it was The Physics. According to observation capable at the time, it seemed to make sense, with a few little oddities.

To them, they thought they had a small hole in current physics. Does that sound like your "small hole" in current physics today?

You believe we are knowledgeable, for we posses knowledge our ancestors do not. You believe we are right, for our observations tell us so. Yet how will we observe the universe 1000 years from now? 100? What tools will we have?

Place yourself 1000 years hence. Our ancestors will look back, and see our current physics as we view Romans babbling on about The Elements and aethers. Yes, to our descendants, our science is absurdly simple, filled with holes, broken, the list goes on.

We are not even remotely sure if space/time is consistent outside of our local region of space!

Back to your Newtonian statement, what if all of our current physics was thus? A viewpoint which only worked under certain circumstances. From where I sit, this is the reality.

We work with what we have, but must keep the knowledge of our massive ignorance in play too!

Re: Why do we assume extraterrestrials might want to visit us?

#77

Post by GistNoesis » Thu, Jan 21, 2021, 2:41 PM UTC

It's all about computation.

The computer running universe-simulations needs to be able to run fast. Regularities can be integrated quickly. Life not so much.

Life can make computers which can ask computations which can't be reduced.

Therefore as soon as a big enough computer is built somewhere in the universe, the whole simulation-time starts crawling to an halt because the inner computer use all the resources, and future times in the universe where there are many of those computers never get to be materialized.

Alternatively, solutions using time-travel allows to run simulations of longer simulation-time, by introducing a time-coherence force which prevent such computer (aka biological-numerical instabilities) to ever emerge.

Re: Why do we assume extraterrestrials might want to visit us?

#78

Post by throwaway2245 » Thu, Jan 21, 2021, 2:44 PM UTC

s_dev wrote: post #10

nend wrote: post #2

>We may be a phenomenon as uninteresting to them as ants are to us; after all, when we’re walking down the sidewalk we rarely if ever examine every ant along our path. Not really the most convincing argument. There are professions that study ants. And I'm sure I'm not the only person on this forum that has a casual interest in observing ants. Pretty sure aliens would still be interested in us even if we were as primi…

>There are professions that study ants. Not only that we've incorporated armies of scientists in to the public realm to advise on such envoirnmental/biodiversity policy issues. It's possible an Interstate Freeway project may not happen because an bunch of endangered ants live along its planned route.

> an bunch of endangered ants

As best as I can tell, there are no ant species on any endangered list, so this is a hyperbolic point.

(In general, we don't even study ant species enough to know whether they are endangered)

Re: Why do we assume extraterrestrials might want to visit us?

#79

Post by rindalir » Thu, Jan 21, 2021, 2:54 PM UTC

Maybe it's not a technological problem or a sheer-numbers problem of why we haven't been "visited". Maybe, after billions of years, aliens have gotten so weary and emotionally drained from watching primitive species (some with potential) torture and kill one another into extinction, and now they just are not even looking. "Call us if you grow up".

Re: Why do we assume extraterrestrials might want to visit us?

#80

Post by patcon » Thu, Jan 21, 2021, 2:55 PM UTC

ruined wrote: post #70

throwaway2245 wrote: post #55

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I'm sure I'm not the only person on this forum that has a casual interest in observing ants From Wikipedia for "ant": "More than 12,500 of an estimated total of 22,000 species have been classified." From our human perspective, we are interested in ants. Everybody has seen ants. Everybody is curious about ants. From an ant perspective, humans scarcely exist. There are 10,000 ant species that don't have a relationshi…

and not only this, even among classified species, most colonies will never interact directly with a human. when ants do come into contact with things we have made, they do not comprehend it. and when they interact with us directly, even in a mode where we are identifiable to them as an entity, they can't identify much about us beyond the practical facts that we are dangerous or perhaps edible.

And further, to the extent that we might say "a lot of ants experience people now", it's perhaps more a function of us being way overextended beyond the sustainable carrying capacity of our system.

In a world where humans somehow kept themselves from risking their own existence through limitless growth (which I'm assuming wiser intelligences would navigate better), the vast majority of ants colonies would never have any human take notice of them through their whole existence.