Beyond “Fermi’s Paradox” XVI: What Is the “Dark Forest” Hypothesis?
universetoday.com
Beyond “Fermi’s Paradox” XVI: What Is the “Dark Forest” Hypothesis?
1–10 of 327 posts
Re: Beyond “Fermi’s Paradox” XVI: What Is the “Dark Forest” Hypothesis?
#2Note that this is just one in a series of articles - check out the links at the end.
Re: Beyond “Fermi’s Paradox” XVI: What Is the “Dark Forest” Hypothesis?
#3Huh. I could've sworn the name and concept of the Dark Forest hypothesis predated Liu Cixin's book. Obviously I have it completely arse-about-face - I thought he developed the series based upon the concept, not the other way around.
Re: Beyond “Fermi’s Paradox” XVI: What Is the “Dark Forest” Hypothesis?
#4Am I missing something, or is this article very narrowly missing the most damning criticism of the Dark Forest hypothesis according to the article's own logic? The first paragraph of the “Criticism” section says:
> Overall, the Dark Forest Hypothesis has an internal logic and consistency that makes it an appealing (if somewhat somber) potential resolution to Fermi’s age-old question. Unfortunately, it also suffers from an inherent flaw that is capable of unraveling the whole thing. Like many other Fermi-related hypotheses, it only takes one exception to this rule to prove it wrong.
Given this, I thought it was going to follow on to point out that we are the exception to the rule, but instead it goes on to talk about malevolent exceptions. But, as the article mentioned earlier, we have made many active attempts to communicate our existence to other hypothetical civilisations, and we make no effort in obscuring our radio signals.
Is it possible that other civilisations follow the “Dark Forest” principle? Of course it is! But why would we happen to be the only civilisation that doesn't really worry about getting seen? The possibility that we are not alone and we are the only ones trying to communicate sounds even more fanciful and anthropocentric than any of the alternatives.
Re: Beyond “Fermi’s Paradox” XVI: What Is the “Dark Forest” Hypothesis?
#5Am I missing something, or is this article very narrowly missing the most damning criticism of the Dark Forest hypothesis according to the article's own logic? The first paragraph of the “ Criticism ” section says: > Overall, the Dark Forest Hypothesis has an internal logic and consistency that makes it an appealing (if somewhat somber) potential resolution to Fermi’s age-old question. Unfortunately, it also suffers…
> The possibility that we are not alone and we are the only ones trying to communicate sounds even more fanciful and anthropocentric than any of the alternatives.
Well, yes. But it could also make the (possibly) few blithe spirits who do want communicate be in general much further away, and thus much harder to communicate with.
Re: Beyond “Fermi’s Paradox” XVI: What Is the “Dark Forest” Hypothesis?
#6Am I missing something, or is this article very narrowly missing the most damning criticism of the Dark Forest hypothesis according to the article's own logic? The first paragraph of the “ Criticism ” section says: > Overall, the Dark Forest Hypothesis has an internal logic and consistency that makes it an appealing (if somewhat somber) potential resolution to Fermi’s age-old question. Unfortunately, it also suffers…
Wouldn't the counterpoint be that those civilizations like us that do not obscure their location are quickly eradicated by others in the forest? So the forest also acts like a filter for those that are not careful enough.
Re: Beyond “Fermi’s Paradox” XVI: What Is the “Dark Forest” Hypothesis?
#7Am I missing something, or is this article very narrowly missing the most damning criticism of the Dark Forest hypothesis according to the article's own logic? The first paragraph of the “ Criticism ” section says: > Overall, the Dark Forest Hypothesis has an internal logic and consistency that makes it an appealing (if somewhat somber) potential resolution to Fermi’s age-old question. Unfortunately, it also suffers…
We are early in our "Space age". It's possible that inexperienced civilizations emit their position only to start hiding after realizing the dangers. Other possibility is that we are in a short period until we are wiped out because we broadcast our position.
All of this would drastically reduce number of visible civilizations at any time making the detection of civilizations much less likely.
Re: Beyond “Fermi’s Paradox” XVI: What Is the “Dark Forest” Hypothesis?
#8Am I missing something, or is this article very narrowly missing the most damning criticism of the Dark Forest hypothesis according to the article's own logic? The first paragraph of the “ Criticism ” section says: > Overall, the Dark Forest Hypothesis has an internal logic and consistency that makes it an appealing (if somewhat somber) potential resolution to Fermi’s age-old question. Unfortunately, it also suffers…
I don’t think the Dark Forest principle asserts that all civilizations adhere to it. We might simply be the naive (or stupid) ones that get destroyed. That wouldn’t discredit the hypothesis.
We are also the only civilization we know of so we again may just be the dumb ones with a sample size of 1.
Re: Beyond “Fermi’s Paradox” XVI: What Is the “Dark Forest” Hypothesis?
#9Am I missing something, or is this article very narrowly missing the most damning criticism of the Dark Forest hypothesis according to the article's own logic? The first paragraph of the “ Criticism ” section says: > Overall, the Dark Forest Hypothesis has an internal logic and consistency that makes it an appealing (if somewhat somber) potential resolution to Fermi’s age-old question. Unfortunately, it also suffers…
Wouldn't the counterpoint be that those civilizations like us that do not obscure their location are quickly eradicated by others in the forest? So the forest also acts like a filter for those that are not careful enough.
I don't see there being that big a technological leap between annihilating another civilization and starting a colony in another star system. If you're the type of civilization that would be interested in killing a competitor off you're probably the type that's going to colonize and fill the entire galaxy in a few million years. We evolved, so that hasn't happened, in a galaxy thirteen billion years old. I suspect we're alone.
Re: Beyond “Fermi’s Paradox” XVI: What Is the “Dark Forest” Hypothesis?
#10Am I missing something, or is this article very narrowly missing the most damning criticism of the Dark Forest hypothesis according to the article's own logic? The first paragraph of the “ Criticism ” section says: > Overall, the Dark Forest Hypothesis has an internal logic and consistency that makes it an appealing (if somewhat somber) potential resolution to Fermi’s age-old question. Unfortunately, it also suffers…
1 exception doesn't disprove this rule. There could be any number of reasons for one or some civilisations to broadcast but not be destroyed:
* it takes time, we've only been broadcasting for 70 years or so. 70 light years isn't that far.
* we are far from dangerous listeners (we are right out on an arm in the milky way galaxy)
* all planets broadcast for a while at least (we did so without any serious consideration) and not all broadcasts end in annihilation. Up until just 40 years ago we seemed pretty likely to wipe ourselves out with war, even if an alien were planning our destruction, why not wait and see if we did it ourselves?
* Popular methods of destruction might not apply to our solar systems. If you rely on near by asteroids or free-floating planets to destroy civilisations and there happen to be none near sol, then we are safe to broadcast even if no one is safe to reply.
* if more than 1 alien actively destroys planets we might be lucky and have the aliens who detected us assume other aliens will destroy us. As long as they are happy to wait, we can broadcast in blissful ignorance believing we disproved the dark forest when we're actually just in the middle of a Mexican standoff...
* If a civilisation destroys other civilisations as soon as it detects them, you can use the abrupt destruction of civilisations to triangulate that civilisation. And destroy it. And that's a high priority since that way you find hidden civs AND ones which pose an immediate and serious threat to you. The best defence against this is to allow plenty of time between detecting and destroying a civilisation, especially a harmless unarmed (in the cosmic scale) one like ours. The lack of many close neighbours to us means a would be destroyer needs to wait even longer before striking us to maintain their annonimity.
Ironically this last point is the best argument against the dark forest: why destroy soft targets like earth when doing so reveals your existence? Why not wait, let someone else hit us and then hit them since they were a much bigger threat. So you'd expect a certain amount of noisy "prey" to be left as bait by one predator for another...
Also, I don't think we are broadcasting very much anymore. The move to digital broadcasts (lower power) and to Internet based comms/media (99% undetectable even from orbit) mean we're a lot less visible than we were previously.