Why We'll Never Meet Aliens
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Why We'll Never Meet Aliens
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Re: Why We'll Never Meet Aliens
#2The idea that advanced aliens wouldn't bother talking to us / visiting us if they could because we're too primitive is obviously wrong.
We still have tons of interest and even affection for animals on our own planet who are far less advanced than ourselves.
And it's obvious that if we could travel around the galaxy and we detected life forms on another planet, we would obviously go visit them and check them out.
The issue is that, for it to have any hope of ever visiting or communicating with us the intelligent life would have to be in our own galaxy. Which is a lot less likely (going down from billions of billions to just billions of stars.)
Even then the task is far from trivial. But I think it's a certainty that if intelligent life does exist in our galaxy which is more advanced than ourselves, it will obviously try to contact us.
Also based purely on what we know about life on earth intelligent life which is capable of developing technology is exceedingly rare when compared to life in general. It's not necessarily required that any planet which gives rise to life ever eventually develops intelligent life. If not for the extinction of the dinosaurs we'd never exist. So personally I tend to think it's most likely there are other planets with life in the Milky Way, but possibly none with intelligent life. And even less likely for it to be more advanced than us.
Re: Why We'll Never Meet Aliens
#3This article seems to gloss over the hypothesis that aliens evolved under evolutionary pressure, and are thus likely to want to reproduce and expand. So no matter how advanced they may become technologically, they might still want our resources and our planet, simply because they're reproducing themselves at an exponential rate--especially if they've solved the immortality problem, which is likely. Even with advanced birth control, aliens may still want to have cute alien babies. They could chose to simulate their lives in a computer instead, likely it's cheaper to acquire a real planet than simulate one.
Re: Why We'll Never Meet Aliens
#4[deleted]
Re: Why We'll Never Meet Aliens
#5Never is a strong term.
But on the whole, not a viable collection of answers to the Fermi Paradox, even with the usual qualification that it is most likely a machine phase civilization that would come knocking rather than its biological ancestors. All it takes is one faction within one species to decide on self-replicating probes that can recreate its own biosphere at each stopover, and the whole galaxy will be visited in a time that is very short compared to its lifespan.
That species will be us unless the Great Filter makes itself known sometime within the next century or two; I haven't seen any compelling suggestions as to what it might be at this point, however.
Further, the article fails to consider the value of data, which I think is the most likely trade good for any sort of interstellar commerce. I think one could make good information-theoretic and game theory arguments as to why you really have to send an intelligent data extractor/compiler of some sort to a very remote source in order to maximize the rate at which you can obtain the data that's most valuable to you.
Re: Why We'll Never Meet Aliens
#6if they are like us but more advanced, that's better. remember what happened to american indians? ;)
Re: Why We'll Never Meet Aliens
#7They must take into account the effects of raw aether upon sailcloth!
Re: Why We'll Never Meet Aliens
#8> The bottom line is that if an alien race is capable of getting here, all the other technology they've requisitely developed in the meantime would make the trip unnecessary at best - and more than likely, simply meaningless.
This argument is structurally similar to the argument that God exists because God is perfect, and a necessary attribute of perfection is existence. It begs the question.
Personally I think the real reason we'll never meet aliens is that such travel is physically impossible.
Re: Why We'll Never Meet Aliens
#9My theory is that once a life form gets advanced enough, their brains start penetrating a hidden dimension that we know nothing about. This dimension is so much richer than "our universe", that they never come back to this one.
Re: Why We'll Never Meet Aliens
#10"It's easy to get lost in the numbers thrown around - there are billions of stars and planets in our galaxy and billions of galaxies. Humans are rather bad at fully understanding such large numbers."
Speak for yourself.