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A Lonely Universe

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Re: A Lonely Universe

#51

Post by abhishekjha »

fleddr wrote: post #15
mongol wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Is it not possible that colonizing a galaxy is simply too hard, no matter what intelligence?

Exactly. For an optimist, we might one day colonize Mars. Next, getting out of our solar system is incredibly unlikely as the first habitable destination in our own galaxy is just so far away. Say we stretch our optimism and do make it. Now the colonization of the Milky Way starts. It's a 100,000 light years to the other end. You'd be a completely different species by the time you arrive. Say you achieve that (you wo…

>The only path would be to become a machine instead, slowly replacing biological parts with superior silicone. Until nothing biological remains.

Reproduction has to be intact. But I do agree. We as a species are not fit to these interstellar or intergalactic travels. It has to be dominantly machines.

Re: A Lonely Universe

#52

Post by akomtu »

api wrote: post #13

On top of all these probabilities I think you also have to add the probability of high technology. Humans existed for 100k years before we started doing things like harnessing steam and electricity and we have no evidence early humans were insufficiently intelligent. There is a whole chain of mental and cultural developments that may very well not be common.

The official history says humans started diverging from advanced monkeys only 12k years ago. The unofficial history describes a few impressive and socially advanced civilizations before that "flood" event, but all of them valued knowledge only so long as it helped with day to day tasks. So they've built some interesting structures, but weren't technologically advanced by our standards. Our generation, that started 12k years ago, is the first that values knowledge for the sake of knowledge, so we we have things like theoretical math.

Re: A Lonely Universe

#53

Post by m3kw9 »

The article states that intelligent life is rare because it took earth 4 billion years(a long time) to evolve human intelligence, which doesn’t really make sense because given every planet in the universe isn’t destroyed by violent events, they all would get a chance reach 4 billion years, to me that’s a lot of tries.

Re: A Lonely Universe

#54

Post by m3kw9 »

To me, the more advanced we get the more fragile we are from getting wiped out. Mainly because of weaponry that gets unnecessarily strong that can be easily triggered to wipe us out. It’s already hard for us to keep nuclear weapons at bay and we one deterrence mistake from huge set back. Now imagine 3000 years later what type of weapons we’d invent. Mini black holes? Antimatter bombs?

Re: A Lonely Universe

#55

Post by DrBoring »

m3kw9 wrote: post #54

To me, the more advanced we get the more fragile we are from getting wiped out. Mainly because of weaponry that gets unnecessarily strong that can be easily triggered to wipe us out. It’s already hard for us to keep nuclear weapons at bay and we one deterrence mistake from huge set back. Now imagine 3000 years later what type of weapons we’d invent. Mini black holes? Antimatter bombs?

I like to think that a society that can control antimatter has solved the problem of scarcity. Which would hopefully end most human discontentment and hostility.

Re: A Lonely Universe

#56

Post by lhorie »

Causality1 wrote: post #2

Either intelligent life is rare in the universe or there's something that happens to it that prevents it from what we envision as the future of our own species, i.e., colonizing and spreading among planets. Maybe 99.99% of species ruin their own climate before getting off-world. Maybe they all decide it's happier living as hunter-gatherers. Unless we're alone, there is some fate that's common to all intelligences and…

Why are we assuming that we would be able to see intelligent alien life by just looking at the right spot in space? If we take it at face value the figure that the universe is 13 billion years old, and that the observable universe is 90 billion light years wide, presumably that means that there's a whole lot of universe that could have evolved intelligent life at a pace similar to our own, but that we just can't see because there hasn't been enough time for light to get from there to here.

The assumption that an advanced life form would be able to take over the universe and be visible to us requires that said life form is able to travel large distances. So to be able to travel far enough to enter our field of vision, they need to basically speedrun evolution and space travel proportional to the distance from us, i.e. the farther they are, the faster they need to evolve and the farther they need to travel for us to be able to see them. But the age of the universe poses a hard limit on how much of a head start a civilization can get over us.

So if we think this way, it seems somewhat plausible that life could exist, but be undetectable due to the sheer size of the universe and time constraints, even if they are capable of interstellar travel.

Re: A Lonely Universe

#57

Post by pfdietz »

thrashh wrote: post #44
lubujackson wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The third option is that everything is simply too far apart and any detectible transmissions are either too faint or buried behind all those massive fusion furnaces. For instance, if our best Earth tech was pointed at Earth from a distant star, how far away would we be able to detect our own traces of life? We know that life is "a little rare" at least, but there is a huge range of rarity where life is everywhere acr…

Another possibility is that energy is really hard to come by. Humans absolutely struggle to amass much energy. Think of the insane amount of energy required to lift things into space, and how many millions more amounts of energy we’ll need just to build something in space. Heck if you go drive off grid on Earth, you can barely bring any energy with you and you won’t really be able to generate an appreciative amount o…

It actually doesn't require THAT much energy to get into orbit. The energy of a kilogram of mass in low earth orbit is about 9 kWh, although rockets will use a bit more than that (not enormously more, though). Fuel cost remains a minor fraction of launch cost, even with Falcon 9.

In comparison, the best aluminum plants in the world use 13 kWh to make a kilogram of aluminum. Yet no one says aluminum is out of reach because it takes too much energy to make it.

The per capita primary energy consumption in the US is about 10 kw; your share of this energy over your lifespan would be enough to accelerate 1 kg to 2% of the speed of light.

Re: A Lonely Universe

#58

Post by m3kw9 »

7thaccount wrote: post #48
kingcharles wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How about the possibility that perfect VR is invented, every person can live inside their own perfect universe, and the whole species just doesn't give a fuck about exploring the (real) universe? That would stop a civilisation from exporting any spacecraft or signals outside its homeworld.

This is my main theory. Humans will eventually abandon their own bodies and live in a VR world. I think you'd still have massive energy requirements in the real world to deal with of course.

Yeah there is really no “need” to explore other than survival. If vr can provide an exponentially better world for life, the entire planet goes dark.

Re: A Lonely Universe

#59

Post by frankish »

kingcharles wrote: post #30
Causality1 wrote: post #2

Either intelligent life is rare in the universe or there's something that happens to it that prevents it from what we envision as the future of our own species, i.e., colonizing and spreading among planets. Maybe 99.99% of species ruin their own climate before getting off-world. Maybe they all decide it's happier living as hunter-gatherers. Unless we're alone, there is some fate that's common to all intelligences and…

How about the possibility that perfect VR is invented, every person can live inside their own perfect universe, and the whole species just doesn't give a fuck about exploring the (real) universe? That would stop a civilisation from exporting any spacecraft or signals outside its homeworld.

I think there is always going to be diversity in how humans choose to live. Just like the Amish, whom have neglected much modern technology in their world, there will always be cultures that choose a different path. Some will want to never leave Earth, avoid the Matrix for the real world and experiences, not want to become a cyborg, etc. Diversity of opinion really is beautiful and is the modern evolution.

Edit: and some will want to dedicate their lives to the expansion of life throughout the universe

Re: A Lonely Universe

#60

Post by lukasb »

lkrubner wrote: post #22

We know this much from planet Earth, and therefore this should be our starting point when considering life elsewhere: The Earth is 4.5 billion years old. Life existed by roughly 3.5 billion years ago, possibly earlier. Multicellar life only got going about 0.7 billion years ago. So, roughly speaking, 1 billion years to get to life, but 4 billion years to get to multicellular life. So we know that multicellular life i…

Congrats, yours is the first comment I saw to discuss the point of the article.
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