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

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

#81

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

krapp wrote: post #75

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…

What you are proposing is a great filter of confounding variable and diminishing returns. You really think these limitations are so overwhelming that practically no civilization could expand exponentially? Cause that's what you need to be saying, if even one in a trillion could then they should be everywhere by now.

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

#82

Post by cortic » Thu, Jan 21, 2021, 2:57 PM UTC

drichel wrote: post #66

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…

We might as well be among the first ones. I find the idea quite fascinating, it kind of puts the Earth back into the center and makes us special in a way.

If we are the first, then its likely the 'great filter' is behind us. And it means we will never find life that isn't related to us.

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

#83

Post by smelter » Thu, Jan 21, 2021, 2:57 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.

To an ant, I am a mountain/ thunderstorm/earthquake/quasar.

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

#84

Post by behnamoh » Thu, Jan 21, 2021, 2:59 PM UTC

GistNoesis wrote: post #77

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 f…

It's a very interesting point that I hadn't noticed before. Of course, this relies on assuming (believing?) the universe is a giant simulation run on a computer with limited resources.

I did not get your last sentence though. Could you elaborate?

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

#85

Post by Udo » Thu, Jan 21, 2021, 3:00 PM UTC

bluetomcat wrote: post #69

Udo wrote: post #12

In general we don't assume that of everyone. What we do assume is that at least some aliens would be interested, because we assume intellect comes with innate curiosity. In an advanced culture, even a small number of individuals exhibiting an interest would be enough to form a field of study, just as it is here on Earth. Asserting that nobody us studying is because we're uninteresting to every single alien creature i…

> We also don't assume everyone builds megastructures or emits huge technosignatures Popular culture skews our expectations towards two-legged creatures flying on saucers, roughly our size, but forms of intelligent life can manifest in radically different ways at micro and macro levels. Perhaps, what looks like a sand particle to us might be a complex microorganism, in a complex interconnected self-regulating network…

Unless every single civilization out there is made up of inert sand particles, that's not a solution for why we don't see anyone. You're right of course that we tend to assume somewhat similar properties to ourselves, because that's what we know, and we tend to assume that we're at least in some ways "normal" - or at least not unique.

> with no physical artifacts of "civilisation"

I would not be surprised if there are quite a few intelligent organisms out there that are not tool users. Earth itself has a few, as well. These would potentially make great candidates for a visit, if we could detect their biome from afar.

> just not at the pace and scale we are accustomed to

I don't disagree that these are probably out there. But that's not the same as asserting that every single culture besides our own is on a completely different and imperceptible scale than us. We'd expect at least some organisms to build tools that we can detect, that is unless we're one of the first civilizations in the universe. Another solution would be that FTL travel is possible and/or thermodynamics can be at least partially circumvented, but even if such techology existed, it would have to be ubiquitous in order to explain why we don't see anyone.

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

#86

Post by s_dev » Thu, Jan 21, 2021, 3:01 PM UTC

throwaway2245 wrote: post #78

s_dev wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>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)

Theres a few species classified as endangered ants on the IUCN Red List.

However didn't aliens crush humanity to make space for a Intergalactic Super Highway in Hithchikers Guide to the Galaxy? We aren't even endangered according to those ruling fictional aliens who epitomise the "not interested in humanity" aspect.

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

#87

Post by krapp » Thu, Jan 21, 2021, 3:02 PM UTC

cortic wrote: post #81

krapp wrote: post #75

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>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…

What you are proposing is a great filter of confounding variable and diminishing returns. You really think these limitations are so overwhelming that practically no civilization could expand exponentially? Cause that's what you need to be saying, if even one in a trillion could then they should be everywhere by now.

>You really think these limitations are so overwhelming that practically no civilization could expand exponentially?

Yes, including the set of all civilizations that chose not to continue to expand exponentially as well as those that tried and eventually failed, due to any number of factors.

I think interstellar expansion (to say nothing of infinite exponential expansion) turns out to be just that hard and, for the relatively few civilizations that may actually advance to the point of even being capable of considering the effort, not worth the effort.

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

#88

Post by [deleted] » Thu, Jan 21, 2021, 3:05 PM UTC

op03 wrote: post #64

hans1729 wrote: post #3

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Ants are interesting because of the complex behavioral systems emerging from their comparatively simple biological systems, reminiscent of the game of life. Seeing the insane complexity of the human condition (look at the amount of scientific disciplines we come up with) and thinking "nay, this won't be interesting to a higher mind" feels awfully dismissive. sure, depending on the leap of sophistication we may appear…

Recently I had a bunch of snails appear out of nowhere all over the garden. And I spent a whole lot of time, trying to figure out what they were feeding on, cuz some were getting really big. The whole thing was quite fascinating...like how the hell were they producing these huge ass shells without tearing all the plants apart? So I call a good buddy over (PhD in bio something or the other) thinking he would be as fas…

[deleted]

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

#89

Post by joshspankit » Thu, Jan 21, 2021, 3:08 PM UTC

op03 wrote: post #64

hans1729 wrote: post #3

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Ants are interesting because of the complex behavioral systems emerging from their comparatively simple biological systems, reminiscent of the game of life. Seeing the insane complexity of the human condition (look at the amount of scientific disciplines we come up with) and thinking "nay, this won't be interesting to a higher mind" feels awfully dismissive. sure, depending on the leap of sophistication we may appear…

Recently I had a bunch of snails appear out of nowhere all over the garden. And I spent a whole lot of time, trying to figure out what they were feeding on, cuz some were getting really big. The whole thing was quite fascinating...like how the hell were they producing these huge ass shells without tearing all the plants apart? So I call a good buddy over (PhD in bio something or the other) thinking he would be as fas…

“Listen: I’m fascinated 23 hours a day. When I go over to a buddy’s house I just wanna eat things. Yaknow?”

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

#90

Post by behnamoh » Thu, Jan 21, 2021, 3:13 PM UTC

simonh wrote: post #57

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…

It's hard to be sure what a 10 or 100 million year old civilisation might still find interesting. I certainly wouldn't think a few hundred years of industrialisation, and a few decades of the information technology age gives us any real idea.

This. Plus, who says those ETs are of biological form anyway? Even we are thinking about AI doing most of the work, transhumanism and uploading our minds to machines, and finally, integrating with technology. Why think that a 10 million year old civilization still has flesh bodies, needs, and curiosities?

Another comment also mentioned that ETs don't necessarily share the same interests and thought process as we do, and I agree. For an insanely sophisticated civilization, mental representations and the abstract concepts they can think about are just unimaginable for us.