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Dissolving the Fermi Paradox

arxiv.org

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Re: Dissolving the Fermi Paradox

#51

Post by jk7tarYZAQNpTQa »

MauranKilom wrote: post #9

TL;DR: "We don't know how often abiogenesis happens, and our uncertainty for its rate is extremely large. The error bars extend so far into 'effectively zero' that we could or could not be alone, it's a toss-up". Seriously, this paper hinges entirely on the prior distribution for the abiogenesis rate. Longer comment: The paper considers each parameter of the Drake as a probability distribution over some range. Notabl…

> We're extremely unsure how often abiogenesis happens

Lacking any credentials on the subject whatsoever, and based on what (little) I know about abiogenesis, intuition tells me it happens with a probability of 1, if (and here's the key) the conditions are right, and given enough time. (A fun corollary of this is that intelligent life also happens with a probability of 1, under proper conditions [1]).

So, we just need to find how many planets have had the right conditions for a long enough period of time.

[1] p(abiogenesis)=1 + "evolution is a universal law" => p(intelligent_life)=1

Re: Dissolving the Fermi Paradox

#52

Post by koheripbal »

sinuhe69 wrote: post #26

If we just stop for a moment and think how little we can “receive” from our surrounding (100 hundred light year max?) and how vast the universe, even our galaxy is and how incredible long the time span between the birth of the first stars and the birth of our petite civilization then we will realize we still can deduce nothing about the existence or non-existence of other civilizations.

This is only for omnidirectional radio signals. Directional beams can go arbitrarily further.

Re: Dissolving the Fermi Paradox

#53

Post by AnIdiotOnTheNet »

wildermuthn wrote: post #30
gfxgirl wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm fairly confident the great filter is ahead of us. It won't be long (20-50yrs) until any hacker minded 14yr old can create a virulent virus in their bedroom and release it to the world when their girlfriend/boyfriend dumps them or just for the lulz. And that's just one of the many ways coming where any average person can decide to ruin the world. It's already possible today for a single rich person, if they wanted…

You paint a compelling picture here. But if we extend this picture to a galactic timescale and space, then even a minuscule chance of surviving distributed technology would mean a galaxy full of intelligent life. So if we can imagine even a small chance of humanity surviving itself, then we’re no longer dealing with a Great Filter, but a Small (and in the aggregate, Ineffective) Filter. We don’t really have to imagin…

Or maybe the singularity realizes there's more to existence than indefinite propagation.

Re: Dissolving the Fermi Paradox

#54

Post by taneq »

matheusd wrote: post #39
plutonorm wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It seems fairly obvious to me that the vast majority of civilisations will wire head themselves and disappear into virtual worlds of their own making. It takes a very rare soul to forsake eternal bliss and an eternal world of your own creation. Most civilisations will have just enough of a life support to keep the machines running. They might be spurred into action each time a sun burns out, but other than that why b…

You only need a single Elon Musk and a bit of tech infra slightly better than ours for a civilization to Von Neumann its local galaxy (and possibly its affectable universe).

In what way is a von Neumann machine not alive? Wouldn’t this just change the chemistry?

Re: Dissolving the Fermi Paradox

#55

Post by SyzygistSix »

taneq wrote: post #28
gfxgirl wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm fairly confident the great filter is ahead of us. It won't be long (20-50yrs) until any hacker minded 14yr old can create a virulent virus in their bedroom and release it to the world when their girlfriend/boyfriend dumps them or just for the lulz. And that's just one of the many ways coming where any average person can decide to ruin the world. It's already possible today for a single rich person, if they wanted…

The Sum Of All Fears was partly about this. In that case it was atomic weapons being in reach of wealthy individuals, but the same principle applies. The barrier to entry is just getting lower every year. That experiment/art project with E. Coli on a penicillin gradient a few years back was terrifying.

Any links or more identifying info?

Sounds interesting to me too.

Re: Dissolving the Fermi Paradox

#56

Post by koheripbal »

MauranKilom wrote: post #9

TL;DR: "We don't know how often abiogenesis happens, and our uncertainty for its rate is extremely large. The error bars extend so far into 'effectively zero' that we could or could not be alone, it's a toss-up". Seriously, this paper hinges entirely on the prior distribution for the abiogenesis rate. Longer comment: The paper considers each parameter of the Drake as a probability distribution over some range. Notabl…

The other thing I believe they are missing is that they are treating the Earth as a single data point for ambiogenesis.

The entire Earth's history is hundreds of millions of data points.

Each year that a habitable Earth existed prior to life evolving can be seen as a data point. ... and with life emerging very very near its habitability transition, this reduces the drake error bars considerably.

The real limitation of the Drake equation is the duration at which life sends out radio signals - which given technological advancement and AI is probably only a couple hundred years.

Re: Dissolving the Fermi Paradox

#57

Post by marcus_holmes »

keiferski wrote: post #41

The Fermi Paradox always seemed like an incredibly simple-minded idea to me. So much so, that I don't quite understand how someone as intelligent as Fermi could seriously put it forward. The idea that life in the universe will be comprised of humanoid-esque beings that have the same perception of time as us, or the ability to communicate in a "language", is just a human-centric idea. It's us, projecting our own world…

> beings that have the same perception of time as us, or the ability to communicate in a "language", is just a human-centric idea

Well, we do see this behaviour in other animals, and not just humans, or mammals even.

I realise that's not broadening the net much - we share a common ancestor with everything that could be considered "living" on this planet, so ultimately it's all "human-centric" to an extent.

But if there are forms of life that are wildly different, to the point we can't communicate with them or even understand that they're "alive" in any meaningful sense, then that's kinda out of scope ;) The definition of "alien intelligence" only includes things that we would be able to recognise as an alien intelligence. Otherwise we're just talking to the trees, and they're dull conversationalists.

Re: Dissolving the Fermi Paradox

#58

Post by plutonorm »

taneq wrote: post #54
matheusd wrote: post #39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You only need a single Elon Musk and a bit of tech infra slightly better than ours for a civilization to Von Neumann its local galaxy (and possibly its affectable universe).

In what way is a von Neumann machine not alive? Wouldn’t this just change the chemistry?

Exactly, I think life is probably a von Neumann probe. What is the easiest way to spread yourself through the galaxy? Throw bacteria and parcels of your genetics out into the void. Easy and low cost. What about radiation you say? I'm sure there are ways to engineer a survival rate > 0.

It also follows: If it is possible that one civilisation spreads itself in this manner, it is likely that we are decedents of that civilisation. Simply because there will be many more copies of the original civilisation with a penchant for spraying their seed around than other kinds of civilisation.

Re: Dissolving the Fermi Paradox

#59

Post by koheripbal »

gmuslera wrote: post #50

The streetlight effect, we are searching in our close neighborhood, for signals that we would use in our current kind and stage of civilization, and because we didn't find anything we conclude that in the whole universe there is no life or intelligent life at all. Maybe SETI search should add several terms to the drake equation to understand odds of hitting gold. Is not enough to be intelligent life, to be found in t…

People over-estimate the scope of the Drake Equation.

fc - "the fraction of civilizations that develop a technology that releases detectable signs of their existence into space"

This term for many people, is near 1. They assume that "detectable" means that WE can detect them with our current level of technology, and/or that "releases" means that it would be something familiar like radio or laser beam transmission.

...but the scope of this assumption is based upon a scant hundred years of human history. The rate of technological and AI advancement (on galactic timescales) is so brief, it is imperceptible. ...and recall that if life exists, the average age of such civilizations would be hundreds of millions to billions of years older than ours.

When we look at popular sci-fi media, one thing that is blatantly obvious is our inability to even imagine what our "civilization" will look like beyond a few hundred years - and often those shows are even superficially wrong.

If AI surpasses us (or integrates us, or exterminates us), our technological existence to "release detectable signals" will be a relative flash in the pan. Remember that AIs aren't limited by our meat lifespans. To them, taking 100 million years to populate the entire galaxy, is a reasonable amount of time. To them, WE may not be the life they are looking for - the emergence of an AI might be of some significance (or perhaps even not), and we are just the slime on the surface of the rock. ...the precursor to what THEY consider THEIR abiogenesis.

...and if AIs encountering one another in space are constructive rather than combative, then the rate of abiogenesis may not be all that relevant. It might simply be like adding another drop of water to an already full glass.

Re: Dissolving the Fermi Paradox

#60

Post by userulluipeste »

bloak wrote: post #10
JohnJamesRambo wrote: post #3

> we find a substantial {\em ex ante} probability of there being no other intelligent life in our observable universe This is very sobering to read if true. It’s all on us. Life is even more precious than we thought and every human life extinguished even more of a loss to the universe. If we could only band together and see this.

Except that human life is causing many other species to be extinguished here on Earth so perhaps it would be better for the universe if humans would go extinct, in a gradual and humane way: see vhemt.org.

vhemt.org = The Voluntary Human Extinction Movement

I imagine that people attracted to this movement to either stay true to the "voluntary" aspect and pay with genetic demise for their mental susceptibility, or realize that their movement will be never manage to voluntarily attract the number of people necessary for movement's "success" and at some point look for more effective ways of achieving the said human extinction. Anyway, this is next level kind of awkward stuff.

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