Thoughts on the fermi paradox?

[Gerald Wilgus]

If you look up Ancient Astronauts there's a lot of information on the not very widely accepted idea. There isn't any physical evidence for the theory, just a lot of interpretations of historical events, ancient writings, etc and the connecting of all of them to that central idea. They even have a show on it (which most people think are full of quacks). Doesn't really stop me from considering it a possibility since things like ghosts and paranormal are also dismissed by the scientific community when it has been experienced virtually in some form worldwide.

I see the Ancient Astronaut speculation as people attempting to say that ancient civilazations were dumb brutes. They were sophisticated observers of the natural world and unconventional thinkers. Case in point is the understanding that the large sunken plazas, protected from breezes, that are part of Zapotec complexes, were flooded and used as reflecting pools for astronomic observation. This feature I was very surprised to see at Cañada de la Virgen, an Otomi ruin near San Miguel de Allende.

 

[LadyS]

I see the Ancient Astronaut speculation as people attempting to say that ancient civilazations were dumb brutes. They were sophisticated observers of the natural world and unconventional thinkers. Case in point is the understanding that the large sunken plazas, protected from breezes, that are part of Zapotec complexes, were flooded and used as reflecting pools for astronomic observation. This feature I was very surprised to see at Cañada de la Virgen, an Otomi ruin near San Miguel de Allende.

I think it's a false insinuation that theorists would think of them as dumb to begin with. Far from it. But more give a push or excelerate in a direction that perhaps they were already headed. But then it's all conjecture either way. Not every observation they claim holds water even in my eyes.

 

[Gerald Wilgus]

Daleks?

I was thinking of the Von Neumann machines that destroyed Earth from Greg Bear's The Forge of God.

 

[Gerald Wilgus]

Doesn't really stop me from considering it a possibility since things like ghosts and paranormal are also dismissed by the scientific community

The only reason it is dismissed is because it deals with the supernatural and science, by definition, only deals wirh a natural and material cosmos. So science has nothing to say about the paranormal. The great debunker of the paranormal has been The Great Randy, who, as a magician, knows how people's observations are co-opted to convince them of impossible things.

 

[LadyS]

The only reason it is dismissed is because it deals with the supernatural and science, by definition, only deals wirh a natural and material cosmos. So science has nothing to say about the paranormal. The great debunker of the paranormal has been The Great Randy, who, as a magician, knows how people's observations are co-opted to convince them of impossible things.

Dismissed as in not deemed worth pursuing. But I can go into a whole lot of commentary about how maybe science just doesn't have the right tools to pursue it yet or that the study of science isn't always airtight (humans are fallible and can be egomaniacs thus it makes sense). As a scientist myself I've witnessed a lot of bias in the field, the dismissal of data because of it not fitting, etc. But then I'm not going to hijack this thread to discuss. Just my thoughts.

 

[Fino]

Maybe they're like us and it's only a very small subset of their population's job to study us, like how we have certain scientists who study ants.

 

[Storm Hess]

A recent interest of mine has been the idea of the fermi paradox. I'm interpreting it as, given the large number of plannets around stars even within our galaxy it would seem the odds would stack in favour of life emerging on some of them and some of that life becoming intelligent enough that we would see evidence of it. So where are all the aliens?

If you were an intelligent alien and you've been monitoring this planet, would you really want to let Earth know there's life outside the solar system? If anything, I think aliens may be avoiding showing themselves to us for the reason that most of the population would sh*t their trousers upon that revelation. Example: war mongering nations such as the US and Russia. At the moment, the human specie is too violent and tribal to be trusted.

There has to be life in the universe...seems like such a waste of space for it to be only us. The universe is more efficient than that.

 

[Atrapa Almas]

"The Fermi paradox is the conflict between the lack of clear, obvious evidence for extraterrestrial life and various high estimates for their existence.

As a 2015 article put it, 'If life is so easy, someone from somewhere must have come calling by now.'

Italian-American physicist Enrico Fermi's name is associated with the paradox because of a casual conversation in the summer of 1950 with fellow physicists Edward Teller, Herbert York and Emil Konopinski. While walking to lunch, the men discussed recent UFO reports and the possibility of faster-than-light travel. The conversation moved on to other topics, until during lunch Fermi blurted out, 'But where is everybody?' (although the exact quote is uncertain).
Fermi paradox - Wikipedia
Fermi's Paradox

"The idea of self-replicating spacecraft has been applied – in theory – to several distinct "tasks". The particular variant of this idea applied to the idea of space exploration is known as a von Neumann probe after mathematician John von Neumann, who originally conceived of them. Other variants include the Berserker and an automated terraforming seeder ship."
Self-replicating spacecraft - Wikipedia
Von Neumann machine - Wikipedia

One important factor in the Fermi Paradox is time. So those alien civilizations should coincidence in time. So we had to consider how much of the earth time have included intelligent civilizations on it. The answer is not a 100% of the time, but just a very tiny fraction of the earth existence.

Time also aplies for the chance of those aliens seing our signals. For example, if our first radio emisions were done 135 years ago they would be just now reaching the sensors of planets or spaceships at a radious of 135 ligth years arround of us. It would be impossible to detect our signals beyond that distance, because signals have not reach that part of the universe yet.

We could thing that we could have been detected earlier, maybe with the sudden peak of CO2. But still is a very small radius in terms of the size of the universe.

If those calculations are made considering the radius of posible human activity detection and the chances of intelligent life in the existence life spam of planets, I think the chance is not very big.

Just my 2 cents and my personal view, Im not a proffesional on that field.