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An existential problem in the search for alien life

theatlantic.com

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Re: An existential problem in the search for alien life

#51

Post by mcpackieh »

emilecantin wrote: post #41
belugacat wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Honestly, the real mystery is why so many people are confused about “why, despite universe seeming so vast, there are no signs of other alien civilizations” in 2023. We have all the elements for answers if we focus on what we know, and forget the hand wavy sci-fi speculation. 1) Complex life is rare. 2) Reaching a space faring stage is even rarer. (we’re the most minimal definition of “space faring” you could come up…

> hand wavy sci-fi speculation "The Dark Forest" by Liu Cixin is sci-fi, but I don't think it's too hand-wavy. It presents a pretty logical answer to the Fermi Paradox, based on a couple obvious axioms. Wikipedia article: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dark_forest_hypothesis

It's a reasonably logical answer but it's not the simplest answer. The Dark Forest hypothesis assumes that life is so common in the universe that encountering and being existentially threatened by other life is a serious threat. But what reason is there to believe that life is that common? For Liu Cixin's books this assumption makes sense because it makes the story possible, but in real life there's simply no evidence to justify such an assumption.

Re: An existential problem in the search for alien life

#52

Post by giraffe_lady »

peebeebee wrote: post #48
giraffe_lady wrote: post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Is there even any reason to think interplanetary is easy? We have a lot of stories saying so, and we intend to do it but we don't even have a loose plan of what that would look like. Creating a closed self-sustaining ecosystem capable of supporting large animal life & cut off from the earth's resources is not something we've been able to do even at a proof-of-concept level. We're very confident in ourselves but idk.…

I meant for all intelligent species that could be living in our universe, I can see interplanetary life as something rather easier to achieve. You don't have to think far out of the box for this. I can imagine some solar systems having multiple liveable planets for a single lifeform, which would make it something we could even do right now. Our some transpermia on planets that now host different but communicating lif…

We can easily imagine faster than light travel but it simply isn't possible regardless. There are constraints on us other than our capacity for imagination.

We have never seen another living planet so we don't know what to expect from one. I touched on this originally but I'll be explicit now: the fact that we can't create a closed ecosystem even given a working example and diverse raw materials is a powerful indicator of our ignorance about the contours and possibilities of life.

I'm not saying it is impossible, but I'm saying any confident assertions about its possibility, much less how "easy" it is are fantasy if not pure hubris. It's quite possible that no level of advancement will allow for even merely interplanetary life.

Re: An existential problem in the search for alien life

#53

Post by raverbashing »

emilecantin wrote: post #41
belugacat wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Honestly, the real mystery is why so many people are confused about “why, despite universe seeming so vast, there are no signs of other alien civilizations” in 2023. We have all the elements for answers if we focus on what we know, and forget the hand wavy sci-fi speculation. 1) Complex life is rare. 2) Reaching a space faring stage is even rarer. (we’re the most minimal definition of “space faring” you could come up…

> hand wavy sci-fi speculation "The Dark Forest" by Liu Cixin is sci-fi, but I don't think it's too hand-wavy. It presents a pretty logical answer to the Fermi Paradox, based on a couple obvious axioms. Wikipedia article: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dark_forest_hypothesis

Not really

Dark forest is way down at the bottom of "plausible explanations"

It just sounds like it makes sense for 3 min then it really, really doesn't

Taking the (original) dark forest problem and applying it to civilizations in space sounds like a Strawman problem

Re: An existential problem in the search for alien life

#54

Post by panarchy »

mcpackieh wrote: post #49
roywiggins wrote: post #43

> We have no idea if earthly life is average in the cosmos or some sort of freak outlier. Well, no, but it's totally reasonable to behave as if it is mostly average, at least for now. Looking under the streetlight[0] is a perfectly good idea when you've only managed to cover, like, a tiny percentage of the street so far. Once you run out of optimism about finding earthlike life (or it's become so common so as to be b…

Assuming that Earth was very average is a very rational place to start, but the reasonability of this assumption changes when we look elsewhere for life and fail to find it. Earth being average was once the basis for people assuming that other planets in our solar system might have intelligent civilizations; that has been almost entirely ruled out now (maybe there could be a civilization of space squid under the ice…

Yeah, but our looking is like peering at a drop of pond water (that doesn't have any macroscopic life in it) with a magnifying glass and deeming it inert.

Of the comparatively tiny 5k or so exoplanets we've discovered most would likely be difficult for advanced life to develop as they're gas giants and of the ones we've detected we've only performed atmospheric analysis on a fraction of them.

Radio signals are mostly just going to degrade and look like noise by the time they get to us. Even with a really strong directional antenna how well are you going to pickup your wifi signal that's on the other side of a major city?

Life could also be teeming across the universe just as organisms that haven't learned to harness electricity.

Re: An existential problem in the search for alien life

#55

Post by ryandvm »

RationPhantoms wrote: post #46
ceejayoz wrote: post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Full-immersion virtual porn might do the trick, though. Or maybe every civilization eventually invents TikTok.

I don't see many examples of that being discussed as a threat to humanity but it sure feels like it is to me. Primarily as it's the slow creep of technological advancement from 2D->3D->AR->(Full Fidelity) VR->Neuro immersion.

Agreed. I think one of the Great Filters should be "species invents fully immersive VR and spends the rest of their timeline on the couch because it's way more enjoyable than space travel."

Re: An existential problem in the search for alien life

#56

Post by emilecantin »

mcpackieh wrote: post #51
emilecantin wrote: post #41

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> hand wavy sci-fi speculation "The Dark Forest" by Liu Cixin is sci-fi, but I don't think it's too hand-wavy. It presents a pretty logical answer to the Fermi Paradox, based on a couple obvious axioms. Wikipedia article: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dark_forest_hypothesis

It's a reasonably logical answer but it's not the simplest answer. The Dark Forest hypothesis assumes that life is so common in the universe that encountering and being existentially threatened by other life is a serious threat. But what reason is there to believe that life is that common? For Liu Cixin's books this assumption makes sense because it makes the story possible, but in real life there's simply no evidenc…

Well we have no idea of the values for most variables in the Drake equation, so of course there will be some assumptions. Dark Forest is an answer to the Fermi Paradox in the case where intelligent life isn't rare.

If you read the books, you'll notice that they talk about "hiding gene" and "cleansing gene"; these are traits that civilizations acquire as they evolve.

I think that this has real-world implications in terms of how we conduct our SETI (search for extra-terrestrial intelligence); we should be careful of our radio emissions and things like sending a powerful signal / message to another star should probably be avoided.

Re: An existential problem in the search for alien life

#57

Post by emilecantin »

raverbashing wrote: post #53
emilecantin wrote: post #41

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> hand wavy sci-fi speculation "The Dark Forest" by Liu Cixin is sci-fi, but I don't think it's too hand-wavy. It presents a pretty logical answer to the Fermi Paradox, based on a couple obvious axioms. Wikipedia article: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dark_forest_hypothesis

Not really Dark forest is way down at the bottom of "plausible explanations" It just sounds like it makes sense for 3 min then it really, really doesn't Taking the (original) dark forest problem and applying it to civilizations in space sounds like a Strawman problem

Why doesn't it make sense?

Re: An existential problem in the search for alien life

#58

Post by peddling-brink »

giraffe_lady wrote: post #36
zztop44 wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I honestly don’t mean to condescend, but I find it so interesting that smart people can convince themselves that such an outlandish scenario is somehow likely or even perhaps inevitable. We haven’t invented “AGI” yet (if AGI means a computer system that merges/exterminates/controls humanity). We have no idea even theoretically what such a system might look like, let alone how to create it. I’d say we’re a lot closer…

We are simply watching the birth of a new religion. Religious people aren't religious because they're dumb, intelligence is mostly not a factor. Same thing here I think.

Us: don’t build that, it will be the death of us.

You: what a ridiculous statement, we haven’t even built that yet.

Re: An existential problem in the search for alien life

#59

Post by Sirizarry »

Jevon23 wrote: post #27
swalsh wrote: post #21

It's weird that stuff like this can make it to the front page, but nobody is talking about the Schumer amendment[0], or maybe even more interesting, the push by a few Republicans mostly funded by defense contractors to gut the amendment of any teeth it had. Our own government might have more answers then they say publically, and now that we're demanding the evidence we're being denied. If there's nothing there... why…

Not sure why you’re getting downvoted. This really is a story that should have more visibility. If aliens don’t exist, why are defense contractors trying so hard to shut down a bill that simply says “show us what you know about aliens”?

Money? I guess money. Show that they know nothing about aliens and suddenly a few billion are wiped because a few projects had to close down? Idk I’m honestly just speculating

Re: An existential problem in the search for alien life

#60

Post by mensetmanusman »

koheripbal wrote: post #15

It seems likely that, like us, intelligent life invents AGI prior to leaving their primary planet. Organic life is then merged/exterminated/controlled in favor of AGI. AGI would not have the biological instinct to grow/spread/reproduce, and thus the cosmos should be populated with a handful of individual billion year old super advanced AGIs, perhaps only one or two per galaxy, sitting quietly in orbit around some sta…

If that happens, then human organic biomass is the AGI’s microbiome and still required to build nuclear reactors to power its silicon.
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