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PhoneLobster
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### The Big Silence

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Post by PhoneLobster » Mon Feb 20, 2012 4:12 am

So anyway, blah blah, amidst some utter stupidity of some stuff on some other thread ALIENS! Anyway. This brings up an interesting subject, and hell dunno, think we've talked about it before but HEY.
This isn't about "Aliens? What are they?". It isn't even ENTIRELY about "Aliens DO they exist?". It's about the big silence, it's about "Aliens, where the fuck are they?". The proper name here is "The Fermi Paradox".
So anyway we all know the old Drake's equation thing. Some big numbers go into that thing, big enough that with what we THOUGHT were modest estimates of the large number of variables that are basically pure guess work you end up with "Aliens! Some where between a bunch and far too many!".
Only. We aren't finding any. And by all rights by now we SHOULD. And I'm not talking "Alien Visitors" and UFOs our old Drakes equation supporters were expecting somewhere between "stray ancient alien TV shows" and "Early Civilization Tutorial Broadcasts For New Species Wanting To Join The Galactic Society!" depending on how big the drakes results are and how big optimism about intergalactic culture and the limits of advanced civilizations/science might be.
So. This means, most probably, some of our guesses in Drakes equation were VERY optimistic. And depending on which ones that has interesting and FAIRLY scary implications for US. Possibly BIGGER implications for humanity than if we DID pick up the alien version of "I Dream Of Genie".
So. Our estimates for POTENTIAL life bearing planets are probably pretty good and getting better, it's almost certainly not a lack of planets that COULD do it.
Our estimates for how often life emerges AT ALL on planets where it could... those MIGHT be right off, but, and increasingly so, probably not.
Our estimates about the emergence of Intelligent life on planets that DO have life, now THAT might be way off. Evolution has no goal, and as far as we are aware no stable end state, and if it did, it probably wouldn't be "human level or higher intellect", it would be like, poisonous fungus farming colony instects or some other bullshit. So Human Level intelligence MIGHT be MUCH more of a crazy niche strategy that almost never succeeds in evolution and we are a massive giant fluke STARTING way WAY back with the first early hominids. But that's not actually that big a deal for anyone bar the non-existent aliens.
Our estimates about how often Intelligent life gets out of the fucking feudal religious dark ages THOSE could way off. So could our estimates of how long we STAY out. And the second part of that COULD have massive implications IF we are highly likely to drop back into a technological feudal religious dark age and STAY THERE pretty much forever.
Our estimates about how long or often Intelligent life SURVIVES getting out of the dark ages and developing real science and industry, that, is unfortunately VERY probably our biggest likely flaw. And also one of the scariest. It is very very very possible that the emergence of technology and science is VERY briefly followed by a species destroying itself with nukes, global warming, toxic waste, nuclear waste, some mix of technological dooms... or worse ONE technological doom, like say runaway feed back loop global warming, or some as yet unseen bullshit like the threat of surprise Roomba rebellion, which will turn out to be, much more than we had ever feared, very very likely and very very deadly.
I mean then you can go through the whole what's up with these effing aliens? list of potential excuses. But... it's actually a really interesting issue and one that I think requires much more public interest and wild speculation.
Especially I think the "Any advanced civilization is incredibly likely to (somehow) rapidly destroy itself" explanation needs a LOT of looking into, because the Fermi Paradox rings some SERIOUS alarm bells on that one and it's a major "just in case" issue for us as a species. The "well fuck it we got through one atomic cold war we're fine NOW." response is... a bit blasé all things considered.
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Post by erik » Mon Feb 20, 2012 4:52 am

A roomba rebellion would potentially still leave something to broadcast signals as our robot overlords take over and become the new dominant life form.
And it's damned hard to wipe out all of humanity, enough of us are likely to survive and get a do-over from all but the most cataclysmic events. Maybe if we keep fucking things up we will get it right and kill ourselves off tho. It's depressing that we haven't grown sick of war and exploitation of our fellow people.
Yeah, I dunno.
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Post by Juton » Mon Feb 20, 2012 5:04 am

Say they had radio and television like us, what's the maximum range that some one can receive those messages? A cursory googling suggests a range of about 1000 light years, about 1% of the diameter of this galaxy, so we can search only a tiny fragment of the larger galaxy. That also assumes that they would use a technology like radio instead of something else.
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Post by Kaelik » Mon Feb 20, 2012 5:20 am

Indeed, I think the actual range at which we can see the galaxy is much smaller. We can see in out X distance into the current time (where X is zero) and then we go further into the past, and it is even less likely that there are intelligent species broadcasting by any method 3 billion years into the past.

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Post by erik » Mon Feb 20, 2012 5:28 am

Well if it is 1000 light years of range and the transmissions travel at light speed then all we get is 1000 years into the past.
Given that it took us this long to come about however, the margin of error for when other planets might likewise gain transmission capabilities is going to be on geological timescales. So another give or take another million years easily.
We're either too early or late to the local parties probably.
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Post by PhoneLobster » Mon Feb 20, 2012 5:51 am

Ranges and known transmission speed limits are known constants. The Drake's guys are generate big enough numbers for that to not be a problem by several orders of magnitude. These things are seriously not an explanation for the Fermi Paradox.
As for the resilience and potential re-ascendance of the human species after the Roomba Rebellion.
1) We as a species are not that resilient.
We really COULD go extinct. ONE of the worst case potential scenarios of global warming is pretty much Venus. That's a "MAYBE life as tough single celled thingies maybe survives, maybe". And there are plenty of other, far less extreme "no more humans" scenarios.
2) Even if it's just some portion of history being in non-technological dark ages that's really bad news for us because if THAT is the explanation for the discrepancy of Fermi's Paradox we are talking about the vast majority of our time as a species being enslaved as ignorant mud eating serfs, as vast enough to pretty much dwarf our current historical ratio of being ignorant mud eating serfs compared to being guys who can watch television some of the time.
3) If we go with "humans are not persistent but life in general will return to civilization" then, again, the ratio is really bad news for civilization if not life itself, because again, that's a lot of time crawling out of increasingly radioactive swamps again and again and VERY little time eating popcorn and watching TV.
Also the roomba rebellion was less a reference to the much anticipated anti-climax that will likely NOT be the great AI rebellion of the 2050s. It was more a reference to "Random bullshit we haven't even thought of because we didn't spend any time thinking about Fermi's paradox".
And that's where the spookiest bit comes in. I mean if the greenhouse effect comes and eats us, if the AI really DO rebel, if we carpet the earth in nuclear fire, if our cuts on astronomy and space programs just see us blind sided by a big dumb floating rock. We saw all those threats coming and can tell ourselves we told you so. One of them turning out to be pretty much a statistical inevitability is pretty fucking scary but those are known threats.
Now if the earth being consumed by an unstoppable insatiable mega colony of hybrid toxic poodle X fire ants turns out to be a well nigh statistically inevitable doom. That's even scarier because we had no fucking idea that was even POSSIBLE let alone LIKELY. But if the threats we DO know of aren't threatening enough... then there pretty much MUST be one or more other threats out there which ARE threatening enough and we don't even know what they are in the slightest.
Or you know, one of the zanier Fermi Explanations instead. But any of the "civilization is short" variants basically require SOMETHING to be a MUCH bigger threat than we think it is.
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Post by tussock » Mon Feb 20, 2012 6:04 am

Compressed data is indistinguishable from random noise. Most transmissions are now compressed and many are also encrypted for extra fun. Our own patterns of electromagnetic radiation into space being readily distinguished from background noise (which is immensely loud) will last maybe 100 years. Even if you ignore how interference between multiple signals also creates overwhelming noise, which is a fairly critical concern for anyone "listening".
Those signals of ours have travelled not far at all so far, and if anything bothers to listen for them as they pass the window for curiosity will be very short, incredibly faint, and without any comprehensible signal anyway.
Finally, it seems quiet because the stars are so loud.
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Post by K » Mon Feb 20, 2012 6:27 am

I subscribe to the theory that the universe is probably full of life, but our method of pointing telescopes and listening to radio waves has enough problems to keep us from seeing them because of the vast technical problems and the negligible advantage in doing so.
That being said, that leaves the question of "why hasn't more advanced intelligent life talked to us?"
I suspect the answer is the same.
There is also the possibility that we are the Ancient Ones. We could be the first advanced civilization in our region of the universe and we'll be the ones to seed life throughout the galaxy.
The sci-fi writer in me likes the latter.
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Post by Username17 » Mon Feb 20, 2012 6:53 am

Life has existed on our world for about 3 billion years. Life has been creating radio signals of any kind for less than one hundred. We can only listen to radio a few hundred light years away unless someone was sending targeted pulses to us.
The chances of any particular species having gotten radio exactly a few hundred years before us within a few hundred light years seems pretty small. The chances of some species a thousand light years away having decided a thousand years ago that we were worth sending a continuous transmission to based on how we looked to powerful telescopes (which would have shown us two thousand years ago) are, I'm prepared to admit, essentially zero.
The thing is, we can't look very far. Right now we can't even rule out the idea that there is a giant thriving galactic civilization chattering away on all frequencies. Just that it isn't in our immediate vicinity. Remember that we can see such a small portion of our own galaxy that there is legitimate argument as to whether there are a hundred billion stars or four hundred billion stars in it. And the portion we can actually listen to is way smaller than that.
Then again, there's stuff like the Wow! Signal, that indicate that even if we did hear nearby aliens, the chances of us being able to be sure about it would be pretty low.
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Post by PhoneLobster » Mon Feb 20, 2012 8:14 am

The "limitations of detecting and identifying radio signals" argument has some weaknesses. Failing anything else because we aren't seeing ANY sign of alien civilization, it's not just back episodes of soaps that are missing here.
Without some pretty harsh as yet unseen limits to technological advancement, or thoroughly unpredicted directions in technological advancement, we very possibly should be able to SEE stellar engineering from here.
Hell if Drake's Equation is being estimated even at all correctly the fact that we aren't personally knee deep in physical evidence in the form of von Neumann probes is actually a bit odd and implies various things associated to remarkably harsh (and for us VERY near future) technological advancement limitations or... something.
As for us being the "ancient ones". Well if we are the first then we are wrong about Drake's Equation, because it tells us that we almost certainly aren't.
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Post by K » Mon Feb 20, 2012 8:39 am

> PhoneLobster wrote:
> As for us being the "ancient ones". Well if we are the first then we are wrong about Drake's Equation, because it tells us that we almost certainly aren't.

Drake's Equation is not even cocktail-napkin math. At best, it's an explanation of an rough idea represented in the language of math.
Several of the variables are not only unknown, but might actually be unknowable. We can't find out "number of life-bearing planets that develop intelligent life" until we find a representative sample, thus neatly avoiding the need for Drake's equation in the first place.
There are missing variables as well, such as "civilizations that develop the ability to send signals we can detect, and they happen to choose a signal technology we don't mistake as noise."
How about "cultures that don't bypass radio completely for some other tech" or "cultures that don't encrypt radio at the same time they develop it" or "cultures that happen to be at just the right stage of development to be sending signals."
As for probes, Von Neumann machines imply a far more advanced level of technology than we currently have, and also it implies a culture that is even interested in other worlds. I mean, what can other cultures teach you or offer you after you've got self-replicating and resource-extracting machines?
And who says the Von Neumann machines aren't out there? Any culture that could solve the technical problems of interplanetary probes can easily make something that is invisible to our primitive tech. Heck, we can make things invisible to our primitive tech.
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PhoneLobster
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Post by PhoneLobster » Mon Feb 20, 2012 9:21 am

> K wrote:Drake's Equation is not even cocktail-napkin math. At best, it's an explanation of an rough idea represented in the language of math.

Yes it's a big pile of guesses. But it is a big pile of important guesses.
It's not just about the result, which is difficult to confirm. It's about the questions it makes us ask in the process of trying to determine that result.
Our guesses on number of planets and potential life supporting planets are looking good and getting better.
You have to guess VERY low for the emergence of life and the emergence of intelligence for those to be the breaking points. And while the science isn't looking too promising on the emergency of intelligence rate, what little we increasingly know on the emergence of life front is relatively optimistic.
But if it's the duration of civilization variables... that's a big deal.
Adding new variables is all very well... but then that to is potentially a big deal in a variety of ways. No one communicates like us, or no one develops compatible techs or something? Means a LOT to technology and industry.
Von Neumann probes, at their most primitive level, are NOT especially technologically advanced. Our technological advancement has to stop almost NOW in order to prevent their potential development. And that in itself is big news, as would any notably change in our interest as a species in exploration, science, and territory in that sort of time frame.
And von neuman probes also actually potentially strengthen the Fermi paradox, you should watch this long bit of wild, but in depth, and entertaining speculation. Because then you get to add extra GALAXIES into the Drake Equation and things get even stickier with Fermi.
Long story short that guy's estimates put somewhere between 4 million to 4 billions galaxies within range of having sent us Von Neuman probes that should be here now, this is, I think, free of bullshit faster than light stuff, virtually the only especially questionable technology assumptions are "basic" AI tech OR the ability to build artificial independent biomes, both of which are big deals to us right now if it turns out we can't do them, what with us already trying to do so and wanting to for good reasons and all...
Anyway at the low end this ups the Drake Equations our Galaxy only 100 Billion stars estimate up to something like 1 million trillion stars. And that was just the 4 million galaxy number, not the 4 Billion one.
So, where are the probes? OR why did no one send them? Those are BOTH good questions to ask for any number of reasons. Because seriously if WE can't or won't COMPLETE doing this sometime indistinguishable from right now on a galactic time scale it has implications for us pretty much... now...
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Post by sabs » Mon Feb 20, 2012 6:00 pm

Ian Douglas wrote a very interesting series of books based on the Fermi Paradox. It follows Marines over the course of 1000's of years.
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Post by DSMatticus » Mon Feb 20, 2012 6:25 pm

Everyone always exaggerates the potential of self-replicating machines. Evolution has spent billions of years producing self-replicating machines, from as small as a handful of proteins to as large as whales. You are covered and full of self-replicating machines right now. Now, there's something to be said for the guided design and ingenuity a human touch would bring, but even then: the idea of building a self-replicator which is universally survivable (compare: Venus and Europa) and is just "aim, fire, forget" to seed the entire universe? That's pretty laughable.
Any project whose goal is to seed the entire galaxy with autonomous self-replicating machines begins with a goal to create a huge variety of designs that can survive in almost all targeted climates, and then teach those self-replicating machines to identify which design is appropriate for which climate (easy once you have the designs, at least), and then build and colonize appropriately (which is a massive variable resource gathering task, and also not easy to design without knowing anything about the target environment). You can make this a lot simpler by narrowing your search to "Earth-like planets" if you happen to like Earth-like planets, but choosing planets you like is going to narrow collisions.
But mostly? What rational, self-motivated organization do you propose your idea "to finish seeding the galaxy with habitable biomes by the time everyone you could ever care about is dead?" to? The biggest problem with space colonization is that the costs are short-term and the benefits are so long-term you will never see them. Any actor with reasonable self-interest spits on space travel. That's really damn depressing, but I'd wager it's true.
I'd have to say that immortality is a functional prerequisite for space empires. And even once you have it, spending the resources to seed "that place you might go sometime in the super distant future" is kind of pointless.
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Post by Username17 » Mon Feb 20, 2012 6:38 pm

> PhoneLobster wrote:So, where are the probes?

How would we see probes? We only recently got good enough to see planet sized objects, and even those only when they are right next to stars. We discovered the Kuiper Belt in 1992, and since then we think we've found almost 2% of the objects in it that are over one hundred kilometers long.
This group of objects, some of whom are more than half the diameter of Pluto and literally inside our solar system, were discovered since the fall of the Belrin Wall. There could be dozens or tens of thousands of probes that were merely the size of the largest structure ever built by man in our solar system right now, and we wouldn't necessarily know.
The Fermi paradox really honestly underestimates the sheer vastness of space and the very very small amount of it that we've given even a cursory glance to. Which is odd, because one of the premises of the actual argument is "space is really big, like really big!" so you'd think that would go without saying.
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Post by fectin » Mon Feb 20, 2012 6:50 pm

Why would you believe that any other species values communication?
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Post by sabs » Mon Feb 20, 2012 7:35 pm

Other than the fact that every species on the planet that's more than a single cell organism seems to value communication?
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Post by JonSetanta » Mon Feb 20, 2012 8:19 pm

What if, in opposition to K's theory about humanity being the first, we are the last to gain sapience because it was such an easy state to attain across the entire universe millions of years ago?
Then, like all things, entropy sets in and the inherent nature of life winds down to nothing. No big nukes or biological warfare. It simply... tires out.
So we're left with galaxies crammed with grave worlds.

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Post by erik » Mon Feb 20, 2012 9:37 pm

> sabs wrote:Ian Douglas wrote a very interesting series of books based on the Fermi Paradox. It follows Marines over the course of 1000's of years.

Like, 40,000 years?
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Post by sabs » Mon Feb 20, 2012 9:43 pm

No, he didn't write Warhammer 40K
It's a rahrah marines are special breed of people.
But basically the plot works out that a Planet Killer probe shows up in our SOlar System to destroy us, because there's an ancient race that destroyed the races before it, and doesn't want the same thing to happen to them. So anytime someone hits a level of technology that means they might make it to interstellar travel, a planet killer gets sent to destroy them.
It's kind of cute, and there's some fun pseudo science coolness. Just as long as you don't mind reading about how awesome the Marines are.
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Post by DSMatticus » Tue Feb 21, 2012 12:17 am

> sabs wrote:Other than the fact that every species on the planet that's more than a single cell organism seems to value communication?

Well, everything on this planet has a common origin, so of course we'll see trends. But more importantly, intelligent life/society without communication sounds absolutely impossible, so I think it's safe to say any intelligent life out there is filling their portion of the universe with noise pollution.
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Post by Whatever » Tue Feb 21, 2012 1:37 am

Not necessarily. An intelligent species that evolved from/as a colony organism could have a scaled-up biological communication that obviated the need for technology like radio or television.
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Post by PhoneLobster » Tue Feb 21, 2012 1:51 am

Telepathic hive minds is a more complex explanation for aliens being undetectable than them just not being there because of very low appearance/survival rates.
Similarly while the space is big argument IS somewhat valid and we COULD tomorrow actually have a look at say, the asteroid belt and actually FIND a von Neumann probe the assumption that we've just not looked enough yet is one that shrinks in viability every day and the assumption that ALL the alien evidence is here, or there, or both, but just kinda sneaky and hard to spot and that NONE of it matches predicted "highly visible" signs... again seems like a bit of a larger assumption than simply having very low appearance/survival rates in the first place.
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Post by Whatever » Tue Feb 21, 2012 2:11 am

When I said "biological communication" I didn't mean telepathy. Ants communicate just fine with smells.
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Post by DSMatticus » Tue Feb 21, 2012 2:36 am

> whatever wrote:Not necessarily. An intelligent species that evolved from/as a colony organism could have a scaled-up biological communication that obviated the need for technology like radio or television.

That seems physically suspicious. Radio waves and the like are good for communication. They are fast, penetrate well, and are cheap to make. Spreading information with chemically-loaded cropdusters (or the alien equivalent) seems difficult. I know that's a grossly unfair hypberbole, and the sense of smell in some animals is absolutely friggin' amazing, but I think the point about waves being more feasible than airborne chemicals stands.
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