Fermi Paradox resources ----------------------- My own small contribution, a short story: http://everist.org/texts/Fermis_Urbex_Paradox.htm ET Visitors: Scientists See High Likelihood (Fermi's Paradox) http://www.space.com/searchforlife/et_betterodds_050114.html More on aliens and Fermi Paradox: http://www.projectrho.com/rocket/rocket3aa.html#fermiparadox http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fermi_paradox http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_filter Center for the Study of Extraterrestrial Intelligence (CSETI) http://cseti.com/ A good overview of the problem is David Brin's Xenology: The Science of Asking Who's Out There and The 'Great Silence': the Controversy Concerning Extraterrestrial Intelligent Life. http://www.davidbrin.com/xenology1.htm Book: Where Is Everybody?: Fifty Solutions to the Fermi Paradox and the Problem of Extraterrestrial Life by Stephen Webb. http://search.barnesandnoble.com/booksearch/isbnInquiry.asp?isbn=0387955011 http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/article-1136042/Intelligent-life-thriving-40-000-planets.html?ITO=1490 Intelligent life could be thriving on 40,000 planets [---Huh! The online article has been almost totally rewritten aka dumbed down. Original text as below.---] Astrophysicist Duncan Forgan created a computer programme that collated all the data on the 330 or so planets known to man and worked out what proportion would have conditions suitable for life. Forgan's equations (and Drake's/Greenbank's before) all operate on the definition of life as that which we know, carbon based, water as the mixing medium, and a defined temperature range based on the properties of water and carbon. But what about life that uses methane as the mixing medium? Or life based on silicon rather than carbon? The problem is that there may be modes of life so totally alien to us that we might not even recognize them, which means we cannot factor them into our calculations. Scientists talk about how "lucky" we are that Earth is in the "right" place for life to develop, but they have it backwards. We are the life that evolves on a planet in these conditions. We find Earth comfortable because we evolved here. We see the so-called visible spectrum because that is the light that gets through the atmosphere to illuminate the world. But this does not mean that other worlds quite different from Earth do not evolve life forms which find those conditions. deadly to us, to be quite comfortable. Life that evolved on a cloud covered world and living in darkness may not have eyes as we do, but if their environment is awash with radio waves (as is Jupiter) they may see in radio frequencies. We know from the methane results that Mars may well indeed have life on it (in which case I am owed several bets from Viking co-workers). We may yet find Titan harbors a life form which, based on methane instead of water, finds the Titan climate quite balmy! So, in my estimate, the 40,000 figure is probably way too low! And we should not place too much emphasis on picking up broadcasts from alien planets, as our own current trend of moving from open-air broadcast to cable distribution suggests that the window of time when an alien civilization "leaks" vast amounts of radio energy into the cosmos may be brief indeed! And, we should not assume that merely because radio waves are a major means of communications for Earth, that other civilizations, especially space-faring ones, are not using some other means of communications, such as modulated gravity waves. ------- Two related interesting articles: http://www.lewrockwell.com/case/case17.html A Cycle of History? http://www.lewrockwell.com/orig6/case8.html The Silence Was Deafening Back To The Beginning: Transhumanism To Use Emerging Science As Gateway To Unknown http://www.raidersnewsnetwork.com/full.php?news=658 (gone) http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_cognitive_biases http://www.telegraph.co.uk/science/space/7399703/So-what-would-YOU-say-to-ET.html So what would YOU say to ET? A Telegraph competition to see what messages Earthlings want to send to extraterrestrials has produced some shocking results, says Robert Colvile. "A month ago, we helped launch a competition to find the best messages to be sent hurtling into space, in order to mark the 50th anniversary of the Search for Extra-Terrestrial Intelligence (SETI) programme and the publication of The Eerie Silence: Are We Alone in the Universe?, a new book by the astrophysicist, Paul Davies." 'The Eerie Silence’ by Paul Davies (Allen Lane) is available from Telegraph Books for £18 plus £1.25 p&p. To order, call 0844 871 1515 or visit books.telegraph.co.uk http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2010/mar/14/life-aliens-planet-second-genesis Life, but not as we know it The place to look for aliens could be right here on our own planet – in Earth's second genesis Podcast: Paul Davies talks about his new book about the search for extraterrestrial intelligence, The Eerie Silence 20110207 http://hanson.gmu.edu/econofsf.html The Economics of Science Fiction, by Robin Hanson http://hanson.gmu.edu/nodoom.html Critiquing the Doomsday Argument 20110426 http://www.whatdoesitmean.com/index1475.htm April 24, 2011 US Warns Russia: “Aliens On Their Way, Will Be Here In 2012” http://earthsky.org/space/asteroid-2010-so16-is-following-earth-in-its-orbit-around-sun/comment-page-1#comment-563505 My comment: TerraHertz says: April 26, 2011 at 1:46 am Sounds like a nice ringside seat, for a Watcher. Suggestion: Check to see if there are several similar objects in this same orbital configuration, only ‘phased’ so there is always at least one near the ‘endpoint’ relatively close to Earth. Oh, and perhaps check for the same currently near the ‘leading’ point too. How else would one arrange to observe Earth from opposed points, safely far away, but not too far? For your amusement, a short story: everist.org/texts/Fermis_Urbex_Paradox.txt http://www.spacedaily.com/reports/Asteroid_2005_YU55_To_Approach_Earth_Nov_8_2011_999.html My comment (can't post) Just wondering, is that path animation taking into account gravitation from the Earth and Moon? I realize the asteroid's path curvature would be slight, but on that it looks totally straight. Asking, because if it _isn't_ factored in, then the real effects I'd guess, would be to bring 2005_YU55 somewhat closer to the Moon. Both time and curvature wise. How much closer? Enough for a major vector change? 20110625 http://www.zerohedge.com/article/guest-post-infinite-hedge-long-enough-timeline-survival-rate-everyone-rises-infinity Guest Post: Infinite Hedge: On a Long Enough Timeline, the Survival Rate for Everyone Rises to Infinity 20120122 http://exopolitics.org/Study-Paper-13.htm Trillion dollar lawsuit exposes secret Bilderberg Gold Treaty & funding of extraterrestrial projects Michael E. Salla, MA., Ph.D. 20120213 http://earthspeaks.seti.org/ “If we discover intelligent life beyond Earth, should we reply, and if so, what should we say?” People from around the world are invited to submit pictures, sounds, and text messages that they would want to send to other worlds. The project aims to foster a dialogue about what we should say to extraterrestrial intelligence, as well as whether or not we should be sending intentional messages. 20120225 http://news.stanford.edu/news/2012/february/slac-nomad-planets-022312.html Researchers say galaxy may swarm with 'nomad planets' Nomad planets don't circle stars, but may carry bacterial life, say researchers from Kavli Institute. Our galaxy may be awash in homeless planets, wandering through space instead of orbiting a star. In fact, there may be 100,000 times more "nomad planets" in the Milky Way than stars, according to a new study by researchers at the Kavli Institute for Particle Astrophysics and Cosmology (KIPAC), a joint institute of Stanford University and the SLAC National Accelerator Laboratory. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- The Drake Equation http://www.activemind.com/Mysterious/Topics/SETI/drake_equation.html http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Drake_equation http://www.wolframalpha.com/input/?i=drake+equation 20110207 http://blog.jackadam.net/2011/the-tiny-humanity-bubble/ I'm surprised no one here seems to have mentioned the Fermi Paradox, or the Drake Equation. Some links: http://www.projectrho.com/rocket/rocket3aa.html#fermiparadox http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fermi_paradox http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_filter http://cseti.com/ A good overview of the problem is David Brin's Xenology: The Science of Asking Who's Out There and The 'Great Silence': the Controversy Concerning Extraterrestrial Intelligent Life. http://www.davidbrin.com/xenology1.htm Book: Where Is Everybody?: Fifty Solutions to the Fermi Paradox and the Problem of Extraterrestrial Life by Stephen Webb. http://search.barnesandnoble.com/booksearch/isbnInquiry.asp?isbn=0387955011 http://www.activemind.com/Mysterious/Topics/SETI/drake_equation.html http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Drake_equation http://www.wolframalpha.com/input/?i=drake+equation And my own small contribution, a short story: http://everist.org/texts/Fermis_Urbex_Paradox.htm Further: The problem with the Drake Equation is that it doesn't recognize that the interval during which a society of intelligent beings remains both a 'society' *and* high tech, is invariably very brief relative to planetary evolution timescales. Thus the potential for spheres of expanding 'communication' (modulated radio or light waves) is low, and the 'thickness' of such spheres will be very small, ie they will be thin shells. At the rate humans are headed for our own meeting with genetics-tech vs speciation moment of truth, I'd guess our radio shell will end up being thinner than 200 light years from leading to trailing edge. When I plugged a few guesstimate values into the wolfram Drake Equation site, the result is '0.4 communicating civilizations on average'. When you allow for the distance probabilities for such rare 'shells' of communication, it's no wonder we can't hear anyone at the moment. 20130606 http://www.cracked.com/article_20216_5-insane-theories-about-why-we-havent-discovered-alien-life.html GKD: Just for the heck of it, here's the actual reason: http://everist.org/texts/Fermis_Urbex_Paradox.htm Technology is incompatible with Species. There are no spacefaring intelligent Species. There are only spacefaring intelligent individual entities. High tech civilizations are a transitional phase, that inevitably, every time, without fail, ends in one or other of two results: either everyone dies, or some number of self-engineering intelligent space-faring entities arise. Where 'n' may be as low as one. But in NO case, can a 'species' (genetically cohesive group) exist for very long as they develop information technology. Because as soon as their technology reaches the stage where individuals can modify their own informational makeup, that's the end of the whole 'species' thing. (I'm simplifying for brevity.) There are other endings, such as planet-killing wars, but they don't result in the arising of any self-engineering entities. Thinking about the inevitable outlook and motivations of such beings, will tell you why they do not speak with us. ----------------------------------- 20130701 http://blogs.discovermagazine.com/crux/?p=203#.UdD8ob2X3KC Nevermind Where. *When* Are the Intelligent Aliens? By Seth Shostak | October 25, 2011 5:49 pm My post: http://blogs.discovermagazine.com/crux/?p=203#.UdD8ob2X3KC https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5966044 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5968962 my post ----------------------------- 20140205 http://www.npr.org/blogs/13.7/2014/02/04/271093289/eureka-first-life-in-the-universe? Eureka! First Life In The Universe by Adam Frank February 04, 2014 I got the idea in the shower on Thanksgiving morning, while thinking about the earliest cosmic time when stars may have formed in the early universe (tens of millions of years after the Big Bang). I realized that around that time, the cosmic microwave background had roughly room temperature, which is convenient for life. The Cosmic Microwave Background (or CMB) is a bath of radiation left over from just after the Big Bang (it emerges just 300,000 years after the moment of creation, which, in the scheme of things, is the blink of an eye). The CMB is a kind of glowing electromagnetic fossil that pervades the cosmos. It's everywhere in space and has been cooling as the universe expands. After 13.7 billion years, the CMB now has a temperature of just 2.7 degrees above absolute zero. That's cold. But when the CMB was first created it had a temperature of a few thousand degrees, which is what you find on the surface of some giant stars. What Loeb realized was that, in between then and now, there must have been a period when the entire universe was, essentially, just warm enough to allow even planets far from their stars to have liquid water on their surfaces. GKD: And only ONE mention in the comments, that a 'suitable' temp is useless, if there's no entropy gradients. 20140612 http://science.slashdot.org/story/14/06/11/2210231/aliens-and-the-fermi-paradox Aliens and the Fermi Paradox Various explanations for why we don't see aliens have been proposed—perhaps interstellar travel is impossible or maybe civilizations are always self-destructive. But with every new discovery of a potentially habitable planet, the Fermi Paradox becomes increasingly mysterious. There could be hundreds of millions of potentially habitable worlds in the Milky Way alone. This impression is only reinforced by the recent discovery of a "Mega-Earth," a rocky planet 17 times more massive than the Earth but with only a thin atmosphere. Previously, it was thought that worlds this large would hold onto an atmosphere so thick that their surfaces would experience uninhabitable temperatures and pressures. But if this isn't true, there is a whole new category of potentially habitable real estate in the cosmos. GD: then reader discussion. The usual. No 'genetics' mention at all. “For My thoughts are not your thoughts: nor your ways My ways, saith the Lord. For as the heavens are exalted above the earth, so are My ways exalted above your ways, and My thoughts above your thoughts.” –Isaiah 55:8-9 20140621 http://waitbutwhy.com/2014/05/fermi-paradox.html The Fermi Paradox 20150409 http://news.nationalpost.com/full-comment/scott-van-wynsberghe-there-may-be-40-billion-earth-like-planets-why-hasnt-seti-heard-from-them 20151104 https://sites.psu.edu/astrowright/2015/10/15/kic-8462852wheres-the-flux/ Possible megastructures detected? 20160817 http://9gag.com/gag/aAPyzEZ I actually want immortality 20170211 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VSV9S2Ol3bc **Multi-Award-Winning** CGI Animated Short HD: "The Looking Planet" - by Eric Law Anderson Published on Dec 23, 2015 Enjoy this CGI 3D Animated Short Film and winner of over 50 film festival jury and audience awards including Best Short Film, Best Sci-Fi Film, Best Animated Film, Best Production Design, Best Visual Effects, and Best Sound Design. During the construction of the universe, a young member of the Cosmos Corps of Engineers decides to break some fundamental laws in the name of self-expression. Produced on a 2007 Mac Pro home computer. Very special thanks to the Kaingang of Brazil. Thanks also to Solid Angle SL, Marcos Fajardo, Kathy Smith, and the USC School of Cinematic Arts. http://www.thelookingplanet.com http://www.facebook.com/thelookingplanet Written, Produced and Directed by ERIC LAW ANDERSON 20180530 https://thesmartset.com/should-we-stop-looking-for-intelligent-life/ Dark Forest, Smart Set - Dark Forest Theory starts with a seemingly obvious axiom: every civilization will do whatever it must to survive. The second axiom is that civilizations strive to grow in population and spread out among the stars, which promotes survival. The third axiom is that the universe doesn’t offer unlimited opportunities for expansion. Thus, civilizations are locked in constant competition. The universe is a dark forest. Neither trust nor the desire for cooperation exists in the dark forest, as no race knows if it’s the hunter or the hunted at any given moment; everyone is both. Dark Forest Theory raises the possibility that alien life is too intelligent to be detected, either because it’s hiding and/or because it’s plotting another race’s destruction. 20180818 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qaIghx4QRN4 Where are all the aliens? | Stephen Webb 20210326 Ancient biblical stories - relevant to the Arc Genesis story. https://www.whatdoesitmean.com/index3518.htm God Is Playing Games With Biden—History Shows This Won't End Well https://www.whatdoesitmean.com/index3518pl.htm The Watchers Have Arrived—And America Will Never Be The Same 20230508 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sbUgb2OPpdM The Fermi Paradox Has An Incredibly Simple Solution Cool Worlds The Fermi Paradox has been a topic of keen debate amongst scientists, astronomers and the rest of us for more than seven decades. We can't resist the urge to speculate about aliens! But what is the paradox even really about? What explanations have been offered? Today, we explore this famous question, and offer a mind-shifting explanation. 20240523 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sbUgb2OPpdM The Fermi Paradox Has An Incredibly Simple Solution