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Grabby Aliens (2021)

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Re: Grabby Aliens (2021)

#31

Post by pavel_lishin »

kiba wrote: post #24
gmuslera wrote: post #19

It feels like talking about religion. In a lot of them at the very least, there is an almighty, omniscient god, the alpha, the everyday, and the omega god, the one that maximizes knowledge, intelligence, power, whatever. And people following that religion know exactly how that entity thinks and behave. Because that entity should think like humans of the current culture does, no? With aliens, with a different culture,…

We don't even know if it will be ever practical interstellar travel, because we didn't reach that stage yet. In theory it should work... in theory I could climb stairs till reaching the moon too. People is too busy trying to figure out how advanced aliens should think, and didn't stopped to analyze how they are thinking By using our knowledge of physics, we can make reasonable speculation on what is possible and not…

> By using our knowledge of physics, we can make reasonable speculation on what is possible and not possible, and what engineering we need to do to make these effort successful

Our speculation is only as good as our understanding of physics. Which is pretty good! But people in 1800s thought they had discovered just about everything to be discovered, and thought themselves at the end of physics, too.

Re: Grabby Aliens (2021)

#32

Post by Charon77 »

morkalork wrote: post #20
actionfromafar wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Barely spacefaring. We are like fish on the shore who can survive in the mud long enough for the tide to come back to rescue us, if that.

That's a pretty good comparison. We go to space but it's a fleeting excursion so far and we haven't yet evolved the necessary abilities to make it permanent

If a planet in the nearest star harbors life form that launched a rocket, would we know?

Re: Grabby Aliens (2021)

#33

Post by behringer »

pavel_lishin wrote: post #30

> that early deadline explains human earliness. I don't buy these statistical arguments. If only one sentient species is born before 20 billion years have passed since the big bang, and ten million sentient species are born after that time, yes - statistically, you're more likely to be one of the later species. But that early worm species still exists, and experiences its existence. If they thought to themselves, "ob…

20 billion is a long time, and the universe is very big. And we're not the first galaxy to form within that 20 billion year time frame.

It's very likely we're not the first in the universe and it's also likely we're not alone in coming to sentience at this very moment in the universes life.

Re: Grabby Aliens (2021)

#34

Post by kiba »

pavel_lishin wrote: post #31
kiba wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

We don't even know if it will be ever practical interstellar travel, because we didn't reach that stage yet. In theory it should work... in theory I could climb stairs till reaching the moon too. People is too busy trying to figure out how advanced aliens should think, and didn't stopped to analyze how they are thinking By using our knowledge of physics, we can make reasonable speculation on what is possible and not…

> By using our knowledge of physics, we can make reasonable speculation on what is possible and not possible, and what engineering we need to do to make these effort successful Our speculation is only as good as our understanding of physics. Which is pretty good! But people in 1800s thought they had discovered just about everything to be discovered, and thought themselves at the end of physics, too.

Eh, people like to extrapolate by analogies. Doesn't actually mean that it's true.

We can only reasonably speculate using our existing knowledge base. Doesn't mean that people literally think we know all there is to physics. People even acknowledged that it's incomplete.

Re: Grabby Aliens (2021)

#35

Post by Matt_Mahgerfteh »

GavinB wrote: post #10

This is a compelling theory, especially the implication that humans are early. I do wonder whether we should see the evidence of spheres of growing alien influence out in the stars, but instead we see a highly uniform universe in all directions. This would indicate a few possibilities: 1. Expanding alien civilizations are relatively low impact and don't collect all of the energy of stars in ways that are visible to o…

Yeah, it's like we're playing cosmic detective trying to figure out if there's anyone else out there in the universe. The fact that we haven't seen any clear signs of alien civilizations doing their thing is kind of mind-boggling. It's like, are they just really subtle about it, or are we just super early to the party?

Re: Grabby Aliens (2021)

#36

Post by ionwake »

kiba wrote: post #26
echelon wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> implication that humans are possibly one of the earliest sentient spacefaring species to have appeared so far. Or that perhaps we're a simulation. We exist in a very interesting time in history when the pieces are coming together. Our hypothetical future robot descendents may be very interested in learning about their past.

We wouldn't know if we're in a simulation unless the diety/programmer wanted us to know that.

Not really I disagree.

With software that encourages emergent behaviour we are unaware of the abilities the entities take on. So in theory I think we could.

Re: Grabby Aliens (2021)

#37

Post by Veserv »

delichon wrote: post #18
distortionfield wrote: post #4

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That’s the exact opposite of the grabby alien’s hypothesis tho. The grabby aliens hypothesis says that we’re very much average but that life as a whole is still quite young in the universe.

The galaxy is around 100k light years across and 13 billion years old. For us to be among the first generation born within 10^5 years of each other after a gestation of 10^10 years, would make us special. Being among the first civilizations in the galaxy is less special than being the first civilization, but more special than being just another in an ongoing ecosystem.

The hypothesis goes:

I want humans to be casually interstellar and expand across the galaxy. I want this to occur in less than N years, N If humans are casually interstellar and expansionist, then we would colonize the galaxy in M years, M Humans are not special, therefore if another alien species existed in the past at current human tech levels, then they would do the same as humans would and colonize the galaxy within N + M We believe we can detect such a civilization. Therefore, if we are more than N + M years after a another civilization with current human tech level, then we would see them.

We do not detect any such civilizations.

Therefore one of the assumptions must be wrong.

1. We can not detect a galactic civilization.

2. No alien civilization has reached current human tech level within N + M years of now.

3. Humans are special. Only humans would colonize the galaxy if they had casual interstellar travel.

4. Humans are not special, but we will never invent casual interstellar travel/spread to the stars.

So, if you think humans are not special (3 is false) and you hope humans will spread to the stars in the future (hope 4 is false), then you hope the answer is 1 (humans are bad at detection) or 2 (humans are early).

If you rule out 1 and 2, then 4 can only be true if 3 is true. If you rule out 3 as well, then you must conclude humanity will never spread to the stars for unknown reasons.

Re: Grabby Aliens (2021)

#38

Post by cryptoz »

Charon77 wrote: post #32
morkalork wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's a pretty good comparison. We go to space but it's a fleeting excursion so far and we haven't yet evolved the necessary abilities to make it permanent

If a planet in the nearest star harbors life form that launched a rocket, would we know?

No, we wouldn't know today. But this is knowable in about 50 years or so, if we send probes to ~550AU and use the Sun as a gravitational lens; we will then be able to get high-res (1km resolution?) photos/videos of nearby extrasolar planets themselves. This may be enough to find a spacefaring civilization. (sure, rockets aren't 1km big, but they do leave big traces. maybe we could see that)

Re: Grabby Aliens (2021)

#39

Post by sevensevennine »

Veserv wrote: post #37
delichon wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The galaxy is around 100k light years across and 13 billion years old. For us to be among the first generation born within 10^5 years of each other after a gestation of 10^10 years, would make us special. Being among the first civilizations in the galaxy is less special than being the first civilization, but more special than being just another in an ongoing ecosystem.

The hypothesis goes: I want humans to be casually interstellar and expand across the galaxy. I want this to occur in less than N years, N If humans are casually interstellar and expansionist, then we would colonize the galaxy in M years, M Humans are not special, therefore if another alien species existed in the past at current human tech levels, then they would do the same as humans would and colonize the galaxy wit…

I don't follow the last point in your argument.

Isn't 4 equivalent to, 'no civilization will invent casual interstellar travel/spread to the stars'?

And isn't that hypothesis extremely likely, given what we now know about the costs of _interplanetary_ travel and its relative ease compared to interstellar travel?

That's another assumption, that it's _possible_ to colonize a galaxy from a planetary base. We don't even know that it's possible to colonize a nearby planet. If we were confident that we could, we'd be filling up Siberia, Ellesmere Island, and Greenland first.

There's also another assumption missing from your list- that technological civilizations can last long enough to colonize the galaxy. I'm also surprised that there isn't any discussion on the site or here of Great Filters. If the average technological civilization wipes itself out within a few hundred years of developing technologies that enable space travel or even radio, then all discussion of "filling the galaxy" is castles in the air.

Re: Grabby Aliens (2021)

#40

Post by 7thaccount »

Matt_Mahgerfteh wrote: post #35
GavinB wrote: post #10

This is a compelling theory, especially the implication that humans are early. I do wonder whether we should see the evidence of spheres of growing alien influence out in the stars, but instead we see a highly uniform universe in all directions. This would indicate a few possibilities: 1. Expanding alien civilizations are relatively low impact and don't collect all of the energy of stars in ways that are visible to o…

Yeah, it's like we're playing cosmic detective trying to figure out if there's anyone else out there in the universe. The fact that we haven't seen any clear signs of alien civilizations doing their thing is kind of mind-boggling. It's like, are they just really subtle about it, or are we just super early to the party?

Or if there is some dark foresting going on or one of a dozen other theories
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