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Velika tišina: nauka i filozofija Fermijevog paradoksa
Naučnici veruju da je kosmos dovoljno prostran i star i da je život evoluirao i postao inteligentan i tehnološki razvijen mnogo puta na različitim svetovima, ali do sada nismo videli trag vanzemaljske civilizacije. Ova zagonetka, poznata kao Fermijev paradoks, postala je najdublja misterija u potrazi za vanzemaljskom inteligencijom. U Velikoj tišini profesor Milan M. Ćirković želi da postavi najjaču moguću verziju problema kako bi otklonio mnoge srodne zabune, nejasnoće i predrasude. Knjiga nudi nove uvide u postojeće teorije i pruža novu taksonomiju predloženih rešenja. Relevantnost Fermijevog paradoksa za biološke discipline, studije budućnosti, makroinženjering i filozofiju detaljno je razrađena, kao i izgledi sa kojima se čovečanstvo suočava u našem najširem kosmičkom kontekstu i u sveukupnosti vremena.
Cilj ove knjige je da osvetli ono najveće pitanje: gde su svi?
Velika tišina predstavlja detaljno, logično, nepristrasno i preko potrebno istraživanje jedne od najfascinantnijih kontroverzi ove (ili bilo koje druge) ere.
Cilj ove knjige je da osvetli ono najveće pitanje: gde su svi?
Velika tišina predstavlja detaljno, logično, nepristrasno i preko potrebno istraživanje jedne od najfascinantnijih kontroverzi ove (ili bilo koje druge) ere.
400 pages, Paperback
Published January 1, 2022
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408 people want to read
About the author
Milan M. Ćirković
15 books25 followersMilan Ćirković is Senior Research Associate at the Astronomical Observatory of Belgrade and Assistant Professor of the Department of Physics at the University of Novi Sad in Serbia and Montenegro. Milan’s interests include astrobiology and SETI studies, the evolution of galaxies and baryonic dark matter, the philosophy of science (especially philosophy of cosmology and quantum mechanics), future studies (in particular related to existential risks and transhumanism), science fiction, and the history of physical sciences. Milan is co-editor with IEET Chair Nick Bostrom of the 2008 volume Global Catastrophic Risks from Oxford University Press.
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Displaying 1 - 13 of 13 reviews
December 1, 2018
Before I get into a discussion of the finer points of the book, I’ll start with a brief general review. In other words I’ll address the question, “Should you read this book?”
“The Great Silence” is the best thing I have ever read about the paradox, though to be fair, that’s a pretty small field. So I’ll point out, additionally, that I thought it was good enough to deserve a spot in the bookshelf on my desk. A bookshelf set aside for the 50 or so books I expect to reference again and again for a long time to come. That praise aside, this is not a book for everyone. It’s very scholarly, and sometimes goes too far in assuming background knowledge which not everyone will posses. (Including me.) But for that narrow slice of people who agree with Ćirković (as I do) that:
[Fermi’s Paradox] is...a conundrum of profound scientific, philosophical and cultural importance. By a simple analysis of observation selection effects, the correct resolution of Fermi's paradox is certain to tell us something about the future of humanity.
(I would change “something” to “quite a bit”.) Also...
The very richness of the multidisciplinary and multicultural resources required by individual explanatory hypotheses enables us to claim that [Fermi’s Paradox] is the most complex multidisciplinary problem in contemporary science.
If you are in this group, then “The Great Silence” is invaluable and I could not recommend it more highly.
Obviously the first thing to be done in a book like this is to define what Fermi’s Paradox is, starting with the obligatory discussion of the famous lunch where Enrico Fermi asked his question, “Where is everybody?” Once that’s out of the way, Ćirković breaks his definition up into three levels:
ProtoFP: Exactly what Fermi said. The absence of extraterrestrials on Earth is incompatible with the rest of our assumptions.
WeakFP: The absence of any evidence of extraterrestrials in the Solar System is incompatible with our assumptions:
Strong Fermi’s Paradox (a.k.a. The Great Silence, Silentium Universi): The lack of any intentional activities or manifestations or traces of extraterrestrial civilizations in our past light cone is incompatible with the multiplicity of extraterrestrial civilizations and our conventional assumptions about their capacities.
The strength of the paradox when stated this way is perhaps most apparent when we consider how easy it is would be to detect traces of humanity if the situation were reversed and we were the extraterrestrial civilization being searched for. There are already many ways for the presence of humans to be detected by someone outside our Solar System and even more ways to detect the presence of life on Earth. All of this technology consists of things we’ve already mastered, and only engineering to implement them on the scale required. Meaning that it should be child’s play for a civilization even a few hundreds years more advanced than where we are currently.
The next challenge one faces when discussing explanations for Fermi’s Paradox, is how to organize those explanations. I think Ćirković’s system is the most useful I've seen. He starts by identifying four assumptions we have made about the universe, and then grouping explanations for the paradox in buckets corresponding to which assumption would have to be incorrect for that explanation to possible.
The four assumptions are:
Realism: The assumption that what we see is reality. Explanations which violate this assumption include things like the Simulation Hypothesis which posits that we live in The Matrix, and the “Include Aliens” flag has been set to false.
Copernicanism: Also called the Mediocrity Principle. This is the idea that there’s nothing particularly special about humans or Earth. Explanations which violate this assumption mostly fall into the “Rare Earth” category, and include things like the theory that multicellular life is exceptionally difficult.
Gradualism: The assumption that things will continue much as they have. That humanity will continue to expand outward, that the galaxy wasn’t markedly more dangerous in the past than it is now, etc. The popular worry that we’re going to wipe ourselves out with nukes is one example of something which violates this assumption.
Non-exclusiveness: The assumption that there is diversity among potential extraterrestrial civilizations, that they are not likely to all behave in exactly the same manner or agree to the same things. This is closely related to the last assumption, for example maybe some civilizations will blow themselves up, but for that to be the answer we have to violate this assumption by assuming all civilizations blow themselves up.
Ćirković’s framework is designed to help solve the paradox, and in that sense I think it's invaluable.
The next requirement of any good book about the paradox, grading the possible solutions, which Ćirković does literally.
There are quite a few D’s and F’s (18 out of 36 total), but we’re obviously interested in the A’s. No explanation gets a straight A because that would be equivalent to declaring it The Solution, but he does give out one A- for the Gaian Window explanation. A Rare-Earth hypothesis which basically states that stable biotic feedback loops are rare, which creates several narrow bottlenecks all of which we managed to pass through, but which no else has.
Rare-Earth explanations are fairly common, but in general they’re the least interesting of the possibilities. In recognition of this Ćirković includes a list of his subjective favorites, these are:
New Cosmogony (Grade: B)- Aliens change the laws of physics and blend into the background.
Astrobiological Phase Transition (Grade: B)- Something we don’t understand makes life possible only relatively recently, and may in fact periodically reset things such that life has to start over.
Deadly Probes (Grade: B+, the next highest grade and the only B+ given)- There is a galactic ecosystem of self-replicating probes that destroy all intelligent life.
Transcension Hypothesis (Grade: B-)- All advanced civilizations get reduced to information flows which are hard to detect, particularly if you don’t know the protocols.
Galactic Stomach Ache (Grade: C)- The removal of stress becomes the dominant preoccupation of civilizations, which not only absorbs all their resources, but also removes all the beneficial stress which dominated all pre-technological progress.
I agree with Ćirković that all of these are pretty interesting, and I’m glad he lists his favorites even if subjectivity is discouraged from a scientific perspective. Because really it's the personality of the author that made this book great. Ćirković has obviously devoured this topic, along with any science fiction evenly remotely related to it, and his excitement really shines through.
If you are at all interested in Fermi's Paradox, and you're willing to do the work to really grapple with it, then you definitely need to get this book.
“The Great Silence” is the best thing I have ever read about the paradox, though to be fair, that’s a pretty small field. So I’ll point out, additionally, that I thought it was good enough to deserve a spot in the bookshelf on my desk. A bookshelf set aside for the 50 or so books I expect to reference again and again for a long time to come. That praise aside, this is not a book for everyone. It’s very scholarly, and sometimes goes too far in assuming background knowledge which not everyone will posses. (Including me.) But for that narrow slice of people who agree with Ćirković (as I do) that:
[Fermi’s Paradox] is...a conundrum of profound scientific, philosophical and cultural importance. By a simple analysis of observation selection effects, the correct resolution of Fermi's paradox is certain to tell us something about the future of humanity.
(I would change “something” to “quite a bit”.) Also...
The very richness of the multidisciplinary and multicultural resources required by individual explanatory hypotheses enables us to claim that [Fermi’s Paradox] is the most complex multidisciplinary problem in contemporary science.
If you are in this group, then “The Great Silence” is invaluable and I could not recommend it more highly.
Obviously the first thing to be done in a book like this is to define what Fermi’s Paradox is, starting with the obligatory discussion of the famous lunch where Enrico Fermi asked his question, “Where is everybody?” Once that’s out of the way, Ćirković breaks his definition up into three levels:
ProtoFP: Exactly what Fermi said. The absence of extraterrestrials on Earth is incompatible with the rest of our assumptions.
WeakFP: The absence of any evidence of extraterrestrials in the Solar System is incompatible with our assumptions:
Strong Fermi’s Paradox (a.k.a. The Great Silence, Silentium Universi): The lack of any intentional activities or manifestations or traces of extraterrestrial civilizations in our past light cone is incompatible with the multiplicity of extraterrestrial civilizations and our conventional assumptions about their capacities.
The strength of the paradox when stated this way is perhaps most apparent when we consider how easy it is would be to detect traces of humanity if the situation were reversed and we were the extraterrestrial civilization being searched for. There are already many ways for the presence of humans to be detected by someone outside our Solar System and even more ways to detect the presence of life on Earth. All of this technology consists of things we’ve already mastered, and only engineering to implement them on the scale required. Meaning that it should be child’s play for a civilization even a few hundreds years more advanced than where we are currently.
The next challenge one faces when discussing explanations for Fermi’s Paradox, is how to organize those explanations. I think Ćirković’s system is the most useful I've seen. He starts by identifying four assumptions we have made about the universe, and then grouping explanations for the paradox in buckets corresponding to which assumption would have to be incorrect for that explanation to possible.
The four assumptions are:
Realism: The assumption that what we see is reality. Explanations which violate this assumption include things like the Simulation Hypothesis which posits that we live in The Matrix, and the “Include Aliens” flag has been set to false.
Copernicanism: Also called the Mediocrity Principle. This is the idea that there’s nothing particularly special about humans or Earth. Explanations which violate this assumption mostly fall into the “Rare Earth” category, and include things like the theory that multicellular life is exceptionally difficult.
Gradualism: The assumption that things will continue much as they have. That humanity will continue to expand outward, that the galaxy wasn’t markedly more dangerous in the past than it is now, etc. The popular worry that we’re going to wipe ourselves out with nukes is one example of something which violates this assumption.
Non-exclusiveness: The assumption that there is diversity among potential extraterrestrial civilizations, that they are not likely to all behave in exactly the same manner or agree to the same things. This is closely related to the last assumption, for example maybe some civilizations will blow themselves up, but for that to be the answer we have to violate this assumption by assuming all civilizations blow themselves up.
Ćirković’s framework is designed to help solve the paradox, and in that sense I think it's invaluable.
The next requirement of any good book about the paradox, grading the possible solutions, which Ćirković does literally.
There are quite a few D’s and F’s (18 out of 36 total), but we’re obviously interested in the A’s. No explanation gets a straight A because that would be equivalent to declaring it The Solution, but he does give out one A- for the Gaian Window explanation. A Rare-Earth hypothesis which basically states that stable biotic feedback loops are rare, which creates several narrow bottlenecks all of which we managed to pass through, but which no else has.
Rare-Earth explanations are fairly common, but in general they’re the least interesting of the possibilities. In recognition of this Ćirković includes a list of his subjective favorites, these are:
New Cosmogony (Grade: B)- Aliens change the laws of physics and blend into the background.
Astrobiological Phase Transition (Grade: B)- Something we don’t understand makes life possible only relatively recently, and may in fact periodically reset things such that life has to start over.
Deadly Probes (Grade: B+, the next highest grade and the only B+ given)- There is a galactic ecosystem of self-replicating probes that destroy all intelligent life.
Transcension Hypothesis (Grade: B-)- All advanced civilizations get reduced to information flows which are hard to detect, particularly if you don’t know the protocols.
Galactic Stomach Ache (Grade: C)- The removal of stress becomes the dominant preoccupation of civilizations, which not only absorbs all their resources, but also removes all the beneficial stress which dominated all pre-technological progress.
I agree with Ćirković that all of these are pretty interesting, and I’m glad he lists his favorites even if subjectivity is discouraged from a scientific perspective. Because really it's the personality of the author that made this book great. Ćirković has obviously devoured this topic, along with any science fiction evenly remotely related to it, and his excitement really shines through.
If you are at all interested in Fermi's Paradox, and you're willing to do the work to really grapple with it, then you definitely need to get this book.
October 14, 2021
There’s a huge mystery out there waiting to be solved: the question of why a publisher would even think of putting a book on the market in a condition such as this.
Its subject is the Fermi Paradox, which can be summarised as follows. How come we’ve never picked up so much as a single stray radio transmission from another civilisation elsewhere in space? If the laws of nature work in the same way everywhere, then there should be planets, whole systems of them, everywhere; atmospheres, landscapes and oceans everywhere; plants and animals everywhere; stone tools, agriculture, books…radio technology… As the Nobel-winning physicist Enrico Fermi remarked, ‘Where is everybody?’
This isn’t just ‘odd’. Any way you look at it, it’s telling us something profound about either the Universe itself or ourselves as part of it, and is arguably the greatest of all scientific mysteries. Yet it’s routinely dismissed with a collective shrug, not only by scientists, but also philosophers, the media, the general public. So there certainly is, as Milan Ćirković says, the need for a book to clearly spell all that out—and The Great Silence should have been that book.
It isn’t. In places it’s almost unreadable, due to the lack of editing. For example, the determiners ‘a’, ‘an’, ‘the’, and ‘this’ are left out—repeatedly, endlessly—throughout, which makes it difficult to concentrate on what the author is actually saying; at its worst, the effect produced is like that mangled half-strangulated English you sometimes get using Google Translate—and I even found myself wondering whether someone (author? agent? publisher?) had used it to translate the manuscript. (Surely not. Unthinkable. Or is it?) It could also do with a copy edit to prune back some of the digressions and rambling.
The book itself has a laudable aim, but if I gave a higher rating that would be saying ‘Editing doesn’t matter’, when what I really think is that proofreaders and editors are as much a part of the team which produces a book as its author. I know this sort of slapdash stuff is becoming almost routine with e-books, but this was a hardback from the Oxford University Press.
Or is it just me? Maybe I’m old-fashioned and this is part of a new trend: inspired by the tidal wave of completely unedited self-published crap which has swamped the market in the last two decades, the publishing industry has decided that this is the way forward, the future of books. If it is, I’ll give up reading.
Its subject is the Fermi Paradox, which can be summarised as follows. How come we’ve never picked up so much as a single stray radio transmission from another civilisation elsewhere in space? If the laws of nature work in the same way everywhere, then there should be planets, whole systems of them, everywhere; atmospheres, landscapes and oceans everywhere; plants and animals everywhere; stone tools, agriculture, books…radio technology… As the Nobel-winning physicist Enrico Fermi remarked, ‘Where is everybody?’
This isn’t just ‘odd’. Any way you look at it, it’s telling us something profound about either the Universe itself or ourselves as part of it, and is arguably the greatest of all scientific mysteries. Yet it’s routinely dismissed with a collective shrug, not only by scientists, but also philosophers, the media, the general public. So there certainly is, as Milan Ćirković says, the need for a book to clearly spell all that out—and The Great Silence should have been that book.
It isn’t. In places it’s almost unreadable, due to the lack of editing. For example, the determiners ‘a’, ‘an’, ‘the’, and ‘this’ are left out—repeatedly, endlessly—throughout, which makes it difficult to concentrate on what the author is actually saying; at its worst, the effect produced is like that mangled half-strangulated English you sometimes get using Google Translate—and I even found myself wondering whether someone (author? agent? publisher?) had used it to translate the manuscript. (Surely not. Unthinkable. Or is it?) It could also do with a copy edit to prune back some of the digressions and rambling.
The book itself has a laudable aim, but if I gave a higher rating that would be saying ‘Editing doesn’t matter’, when what I really think is that proofreaders and editors are as much a part of the team which produces a book as its author. I know this sort of slapdash stuff is becoming almost routine with e-books, but this was a hardback from the Oxford University Press.
Or is it just me? Maybe I’m old-fashioned and this is part of a new trend: inspired by the tidal wave of completely unedited self-published crap which has swamped the market in the last two decades, the publishing industry has decided that this is the way forward, the future of books. If it is, I’ll give up reading.
Currently reading
January 25, 2019"Therefore I use this opportunity to state that I am optimistic regarding the existence of extraterrestrial intelligence, and hence meaningful SETI targets, mainly because I hold a deflationary view of the crucial attribute “extraterrestrial”…"
Milan M. Ćirković
(The Fermi Paradox according to the WIKI)
I've been interested in the SETI research for "ages"; and yet, Cirkovic, calls it a failure; a philosophical failure. Is the question "are we alone" an impossible puzzle?
The author seems to have grown unsatisfied with the fact that people didn't take seriously the Fermi paradox.
To the astrophysicist, the Great Silence can only be broken by "abandoning past prejudices" and an "awakening". Also by some changes in Culture.
Milan M. Ćirković
(The Fermi Paradox according to the WIKI)
I've been interested in the SETI research for "ages"; and yet, Cirkovic, calls it a failure; a philosophical failure. Is the question "are we alone" an impossible puzzle?
The author seems to have grown unsatisfied with the fact that people didn't take seriously the Fermi paradox.
To the astrophysicist, the Great Silence can only be broken by "abandoning past prejudices" and an "awakening". Also by some changes in Culture.
August 3, 2018
Milan Cirkovic is rare among astrophysicists, in that he combines scientific expertise with a healthy respect for how scientists and philosophers can work together on hard problems. Fermi’s Paradox is a good fit — after all, this is a problem that calls equally upon empirical data and sound reasoning, much of it speculative.
First, what is Fermi’s Paradox? Cirkovic distinguishes strong and weak (as well as a “proto”) version of the paradox. But it is the strong version that really is the hardest problem to solve — “The lack of any intentional activities or manifestations or traces of extraterrestrial civilizations in our past light cone is incompatible with the multiplicity of extraterrestrial civilizations and our conventional assumptions about their capacities.” Fermi’s original lunchtime conversation was actually motivated by talk of UFOs, actual visitors, but I think Cirkovic is certainly right to formally broaden the scope of the paradox to include our not having found or encountered any evidence at all — radio signals, telescopically detected artifacts, etc. — of other intelligent life in the universe.
Either the other intelligent civilizations are there or not. If they are there, why haven’t we found them? If they aren’t there, what’s wrong with our reasoning that leads us to believe they should be?
Like Stephen Webb’s book, Where Is Everybody?, Cirkovic provides a survey of representative solutions to Fermi’s paradox, along both the why-haven’t-we-found-them and the why-are-we-wrong-to-think-they-are-there varieties. What is a little different, and provides the structure for Cirkovic’s thinking, is his providing what he terms a “philosophical” structure for thinking about the solutions.
Cirkovic identifies a set of key philosophical assumptions behind Fermi’s Paradox, and then groups potential resolutions to the paradox according to which assumptions they reject. “Solipsist” resolutions — oddly named, to my mind, but including such claims as that UFO sightings are valid sightings of extraterrestrial visitors or that we live in a grand simulation — reject assumptions of realism, that the evidence scientists gather about the world reveals the world as it truly is. “Rare-Earth” resolutions — ones that claim very special and rare conditions required by intelligent life, possibly met only by our own planet — reject Copernican assumptions, that we, and our planet, do not occupy a special place in the universe. “Neocatastrophic” resolutions invoke the likelihood of self-imposed or natural limitations on the lifetimes of intelligent civilizations to limit their detectability, rejecting an assumption of “gradualism” (that life, intelligence, etc. subsist on continuums, dominated by only gradual development processes). And a final category, “Logistic” resolutions appeal to “economic” considerations, e.g., resource constraints on intelligent civilizations, to limit the abundance and detectability of civilizations, rejecting a collection of “economic” assumptions about the capabilities of advanced intelligent civilizations.
Although Cirkovic does rank and grade potential resolutions, he doesn’t strongly support any of them. He has some personal favorites, and he has some thoughts on the likelihood of any of the resolutions being valid. But the fact is we don’t know enough to know how to resolve Fermi’s Paradox. As it stands, it’s a matter of knowing what additional empirical data we need and of sharpening our reasoning regarding our assumptions, the data, and what follows from them.
Cirkovic’s final discussion takes Copernicanism as central, and I think that is right. Given that we know of only one instance, our own, of an intelligent civilization in the universe, how we draw the kinds of generalizations needed to gauge the abundance of other intelligent civilizations, and our ability to detect them, is critical. And that’s where we appeal to Copernicanism as an engine of speculation.
But what exactly is Copernicanism? In practice, it seems more an attitude (we are not special) than a sharply defined principle, especially when it requires application, as in the case of extraterrestrial life and intelligence, to so many fields — really the “xeno” versions of biology, sociology, etc. — beyond its home field of astronomy.
My own thinking is that we aren’t taking the “alien” in “alien” seriously enough. We imagine intelligence to be advantageous in evolution, even to the point of an implicit teleological treatment of evolution, as if intelligence were a goal or a preferred direction (as against what seems well established, that only adaptation provides anything we could call a “direction” and even that is a stretch). It could be that there are no intelligent creatures (of the preferred sort for communication, dialogue, mutual investigation, etc.) other than us in the universe just because intelligence isn’t special enough that it should have mattered elsewhere. Or it may be that our particular brand of intelligence is just one of a vast variety of forms that intelligence can take, and that mutual recognition of, much less communication with, other intelligent species across completely separated islands of evolution is very unlikely.
Cirkovic ends with an exhortation towards an open-minded, speculative, and above-all adventurous science to meet Fermi’s Paradox, where we have a problem involving so many kinds of questions (cosmological, sociological, political, philosophical, biological, . . . ) and so many unknowns (both of the “known unknown” and the “unknown unknown” varieties — Cirkovic actually quotes Donald Rumsfeld’s disquisition on these). He’s very critical of what has become “traditional SETI” — listening to radio signals for signs of intelligence, essentially as premature closure on how to detect something we haven’t really, and cannot with confidence, define.
The book is not an easy read. It’s not breezy, and it’s not an introduction (I think I would recommend Webb’s book — Where Is Everybody? — as a more accessible place to start with Fermi’s Paradox). And, although I’m hesitant to complain about such things as editing errors, this is an outlier — there are consistent grammatical mistakes and oddities throughout the book. It’s a shame and a distraction from a fascinating discussion.
First, what is Fermi’s Paradox? Cirkovic distinguishes strong and weak (as well as a “proto”) version of the paradox. But it is the strong version that really is the hardest problem to solve — “The lack of any intentional activities or manifestations or traces of extraterrestrial civilizations in our past light cone is incompatible with the multiplicity of extraterrestrial civilizations and our conventional assumptions about their capacities.” Fermi’s original lunchtime conversation was actually motivated by talk of UFOs, actual visitors, but I think Cirkovic is certainly right to formally broaden the scope of the paradox to include our not having found or encountered any evidence at all — radio signals, telescopically detected artifacts, etc. — of other intelligent life in the universe.
Either the other intelligent civilizations are there or not. If they are there, why haven’t we found them? If they aren’t there, what’s wrong with our reasoning that leads us to believe they should be?
Like Stephen Webb’s book, Where Is Everybody?, Cirkovic provides a survey of representative solutions to Fermi’s paradox, along both the why-haven’t-we-found-them and the why-are-we-wrong-to-think-they-are-there varieties. What is a little different, and provides the structure for Cirkovic’s thinking, is his providing what he terms a “philosophical” structure for thinking about the solutions.
Cirkovic identifies a set of key philosophical assumptions behind Fermi’s Paradox, and then groups potential resolutions to the paradox according to which assumptions they reject. “Solipsist” resolutions — oddly named, to my mind, but including such claims as that UFO sightings are valid sightings of extraterrestrial visitors or that we live in a grand simulation — reject assumptions of realism, that the evidence scientists gather about the world reveals the world as it truly is. “Rare-Earth” resolutions — ones that claim very special and rare conditions required by intelligent life, possibly met only by our own planet — reject Copernican assumptions, that we, and our planet, do not occupy a special place in the universe. “Neocatastrophic” resolutions invoke the likelihood of self-imposed or natural limitations on the lifetimes of intelligent civilizations to limit their detectability, rejecting an assumption of “gradualism” (that life, intelligence, etc. subsist on continuums, dominated by only gradual development processes). And a final category, “Logistic” resolutions appeal to “economic” considerations, e.g., resource constraints on intelligent civilizations, to limit the abundance and detectability of civilizations, rejecting a collection of “economic” assumptions about the capabilities of advanced intelligent civilizations.
Although Cirkovic does rank and grade potential resolutions, he doesn’t strongly support any of them. He has some personal favorites, and he has some thoughts on the likelihood of any of the resolutions being valid. But the fact is we don’t know enough to know how to resolve Fermi’s Paradox. As it stands, it’s a matter of knowing what additional empirical data we need and of sharpening our reasoning regarding our assumptions, the data, and what follows from them.
Cirkovic’s final discussion takes Copernicanism as central, and I think that is right. Given that we know of only one instance, our own, of an intelligent civilization in the universe, how we draw the kinds of generalizations needed to gauge the abundance of other intelligent civilizations, and our ability to detect them, is critical. And that’s where we appeal to Copernicanism as an engine of speculation.
But what exactly is Copernicanism? In practice, it seems more an attitude (we are not special) than a sharply defined principle, especially when it requires application, as in the case of extraterrestrial life and intelligence, to so many fields — really the “xeno” versions of biology, sociology, etc. — beyond its home field of astronomy.
My own thinking is that we aren’t taking the “alien” in “alien” seriously enough. We imagine intelligence to be advantageous in evolution, even to the point of an implicit teleological treatment of evolution, as if intelligence were a goal or a preferred direction (as against what seems well established, that only adaptation provides anything we could call a “direction” and even that is a stretch). It could be that there are no intelligent creatures (of the preferred sort for communication, dialogue, mutual investigation, etc.) other than us in the universe just because intelligence isn’t special enough that it should have mattered elsewhere. Or it may be that our particular brand of intelligence is just one of a vast variety of forms that intelligence can take, and that mutual recognition of, much less communication with, other intelligent species across completely separated islands of evolution is very unlikely.
Cirkovic ends with an exhortation towards an open-minded, speculative, and above-all adventurous science to meet Fermi’s Paradox, where we have a problem involving so many kinds of questions (cosmological, sociological, political, philosophical, biological, . . . ) and so many unknowns (both of the “known unknown” and the “unknown unknown” varieties — Cirkovic actually quotes Donald Rumsfeld’s disquisition on these). He’s very critical of what has become “traditional SETI” — listening to radio signals for signs of intelligence, essentially as premature closure on how to detect something we haven’t really, and cannot with confidence, define.
The book is not an easy read. It’s not breezy, and it’s not an introduction (I think I would recommend Webb’s book — Where Is Everybody? — as a more accessible place to start with Fermi’s Paradox). And, although I’m hesitant to complain about such things as editing errors, this is an outlier — there are consistent grammatical mistakes and oddities throughout the book. It’s a shame and a distraction from a fascinating discussion.
December 15, 2024
(Нулта) хипотеза пустињака: интелигентна бића никада се не шире изван матичног планетарног система, не комуницирају нити на ма који други начин постају подложна детекцији на међузвезданим раздаљинама. Приговори: ниска плаузибилност, једнообразност таквих бића и импликација активног онемогућавања неких технолошких аспеката.
Неприсутност ванземаљаца (и њихових артефаката) на Земљи (прото-ФП), у Сунчевом систему (слаб ФП) и светлосном конусус наше прошлости (јак ФП) у нескладу је са постојањем великог броја ванземаљских цивилизација и нашим конвенционалним претпоставкама о њиховим могућностима.
Кардашев тип цивилизације по пореклу енергије која се користи са матичне: 1) планете, 2) звезде или 3) галаксије. Кардашев-ФП: у Млечном путу не постоји цивилизација типа 3.
Ферми-Хартова временска скала потребна за колонизацију галаксије износи 10^5 – 10^8 година и мања је од старости Сунчевог система (4.5 х 10^9 година). Просечна старост стеновитих планета је за 1.8 милијарди година већа од Земље (Лајнвиверова временска скала). Ако су ванземаљци имали више времена да еволуирају од нас, зашто се још нисмо сусрели?
Детекција једног сигнала не решава парадокс!
Огледање наше будућности: сваки икс-фактор који делује у ванземаљским цивилизацијама старијим од наше мора деловати и на нас.
Додатне претпоставке: научни реализам (опсервабилни објекти постоје независно од нашег ума), натурализам (абиогенеза и ноогенеза су природни процеси), коперниканизам (неједиственост Земље, Сунчевог система и наше галаксије), не-ексклузивност (разноликост има тенденцију да преовлада уколико не постоји неки механизам који намеће уједначавање; хипотезе које постулирају мањи број локалних узрока стога имају предност). Између градуализма и неокатастрофизма/салтационизма не би требало да има превише трвења, барем ако као модел користимо земаљску филогенију.
Солипсистичке хипотезе (конвенционални научни увиди не описују спољашњу стварност на адекватан начин) – неоповргљиве, нереалистичне и натуралистичке
▪ Планетаријум (Стивен Бакстер): крупне астрономске одлике васионе које опажамо су илузија створена од стране ванземаљаца.
▪ Симулација (Ник Бостром): физичка стварност је рачунарска симулација ванземаљаца, плашт иза кога су сакривени.
▪ Нова космогонија (Станислав Лем): опсервабилно је делимично артефакт који потиче од ванземаљаца и неразлучив је од природних процеса и законистости. Сродно: Себични биокосмос (Џејмс Гарднер) – бебе-васионе стварају софонти који су потпуно овладали физик(ус)ом.
Хипотезе ретке Земље (нарушавају коперниканизам)
▪ Рани Велики филтер (Робин Хансон): у раној биолошкој еволуцији постоји најмање један захтевни корак чије остваривање премашује старост свемира. Приговор: абиогенеза и еволуција су модуларни процеси чија вероватноћа није ниска под одређеним физичко-хемијским условима (постанак живота није ни срећна случајност ни чудо).
▪ Гајански прозор (Адитја Чопра и Чарлс Лајнвивер): успостављање глобалних биотичких повратних спрега представља уско грло кроз које је прошао мали број бића. Контра: супернастањива планета (Рене Хелер и Џон Армстронг). Слично: еволуциона пумпа (Џон Крамер) – насумични неокатастрофички догађаји утичу на (макро)еволуцију и могу отворити прозор/простор за појаву нове врсте.
▪ Сталност (Дејвид Рауп и Карл Шредер): интелигенција у новој средини може бити маладаптивна и постати рудиментарна; еволуција не води ка техногенези, већ нетехнолошком/некосмонаутском живљењу или изумирању. Приговор: јак адаптационизам.
▪ Исцрпљење менталне хране: када бића потпуно спознају све(т), мозак одлази на пашу и дегенерише се јер се више не стимулише. Приговор: изразито неплаузибилна и антропоцентрична.
Неокатастрофичке хипотезе (нарушавају градуализам)
▪ Милијарду година опасног живљења: услед бројних катастрофичних догађаја, интелигентне врсте настају као редак изузетак.
▪ Астробиолошки фазни прелаз: галактички регулаторни механизми (попут гама блескова) слабе током времена, те није могло доћи до појаве софоната старијих од нас. Приговор: адаптације (ванземаљаца) на високо зрачење?
▪ Интровертни Велики брат: галактичке бункер-цивилизације су оробљене тоталитаризмом који забрањује колонизацију. Приговор: нарушава не-ексклузивност.
▪ Исцрпљење ресурса: ми смо у мехуру у коме је дошло до исцрпљења ресурса од стране ванземаљских цивилизација које су потом изумрле. Приговор: где су њихови трагови?
▪ Смртоносне сонде: аутореплицирајуће, уништавају све живо и стићи ће до нас.
▪ Информатички прелаз (Џон Смарт): нека врста сингуларности. Приговор: трансхуманистички мит.
Логистичке хипотезе (нарушавају економске претпоставке)
▪ Перзистенција: међузвездана колонизација оставља велике области нетакнутим, попут наше. Приговор: нарушава и не-ексклузивност.
▪ Живот на ивици: софонти се шире на обод галаксије где им ниже температуре повећавају информатичку ефикасност.
▪ Велики првенци: софонти се налазе у стању естивације чекајући повољније (хладније) услове за обраду информација и пресек за детекцију им је изузетно низак. Приговор: ослањање на технологију равну чуду.
▪ Одрживост (Џејкоб Хак-Мисра и Сет Баум): колонизација васионе је спора.
▪ Галактичка трбобоља (Алистер Нан и сарадници): ванземаљци су недетектабилни јер уместо да троше ресурсе на истраживање свемира, улажу у лечење јер су, уклонивши стресоре, спречили хормезу и довели до контраефекта – патофизиолошких пандемија. Приговор: уклањање свих стресора је утопијски мит + нарушава не-ексклузивност.
🎵 Labirinthus Stellarum – Vortex of the Worlds
Неприсутност ванземаљаца (и њихових артефаката) на Земљи (прото-ФП), у Сунчевом систему (слаб ФП) и светлосном конусус наше прошлости (јак ФП) у нескладу је са постојањем великог броја ванземаљских цивилизација и нашим конвенционалним претпоставкама о њиховим могућностима.
Кардашев тип цивилизације по пореклу енергије која се користи са матичне: 1) планете, 2) звезде или 3) галаксије. Кардашев-ФП: у Млечном путу не постоји цивилизација типа 3.
Ферми-Хартова временска скала потребна за колонизацију галаксије износи 10^5 – 10^8 година и мања је од старости Сунчевог система (4.5 х 10^9 година). Просечна старост стеновитих планета је за 1.8 милијарди година већа од Земље (Лајнвиверова временска скала). Ако су ванземаљци имали више времена да еволуирају од нас, зашто се још нисмо сусрели?
Детекција једног сигнала не решава парадокс!
Огледање наше будућности: сваки икс-фактор који делује у ванземаљским цивилизацијама старијим од наше мора деловати и на нас.
Додатне претпоставке: научни реализам (опсервабилни објекти постоје независно од нашег ума), натурализам (абиогенеза и ноогенеза су природни процеси), коперниканизам (неједиственост Земље, Сунчевог система и наше галаксије), не-ексклузивност (разноликост има тенденцију да преовлада уколико не постоји неки механизам који намеће уједначавање; хипотезе које постулирају мањи број локалних узрока стога имају предност). Између градуализма и неокатастрофизма/салтационизма не би требало да има превише трвења, барем ако као модел користимо земаљску филогенију.
Солипсистичке хипотезе (конвенционални научни увиди не описују спољашњу стварност на адекватан начин) – неоповргљиве, нереалистичне и натуралистичке
▪ Планетаријум (Стивен Бакстер): крупне астрономске одлике васионе које опажамо су илузија створена од стране ванземаљаца.
▪ Симулација (Ник Бостром): физичка стварност је рачунарска симулација ванземаљаца, плашт иза кога су сакривени.
▪ Нова космогонија (Станислав Лем): опсервабилно је делимично артефакт који потиче од ванземаљаца и неразлучив је од природних процеса и законистости. Сродно: Себични биокосмос (Џејмс Гарднер) – бебе-васионе стварају софонти који су потпуно овладали физик(ус)ом.
Хипотезе ретке Земље (нарушавају коперниканизам)
▪ Рани Велики филтер (Робин Хансон): у раној биолошкој еволуцији постоји најмање један захтевни корак чије остваривање премашује старост свемира. Приговор: абиогенеза и еволуција су модуларни процеси чија вероватноћа није ниска под одређеним физичко-хемијским условима (постанак живота није ни срећна случајност ни чудо).
▪ Гајански прозор (Адитја Чопра и Чарлс Лајнвивер): успостављање глобалних биотичких повратних спрега представља уско грло кроз које је прошао мали број бића. Контра: супернастањива планета (Рене Хелер и Џон Армстронг). Слично: еволуциона пумпа (Џон Крамер) – насумични неокатастрофички догађаји утичу на (макро)еволуцију и могу отворити прозор/простор за појаву нове врсте.
▪ Сталност (Дејвид Рауп и Карл Шредер): интелигенција у новој средини може бити маладаптивна и постати рудиментарна; еволуција не води ка техногенези, већ нетехнолошком/некосмонаутском живљењу или изумирању. Приговор: јак адаптационизам.
▪ Исцрпљење менталне хране: када бића потпуно спознају све(т), мозак одлази на пашу и дегенерише се јер се више не стимулише. Приговор: изразито неплаузибилна и антропоцентрична.
Неокатастрофичке хипотезе (нарушавају градуализам)
▪ Милијарду година опасног живљења: услед бројних катастрофичних догађаја, интелигентне врсте настају као редак изузетак.
▪ Астробиолошки фазни прелаз: галактички регулаторни механизми (попут гама блескова) слабе током времена, те није могло доћи до појаве софоната старијих од нас. Приговор: адаптације (ванземаљаца) на високо зрачење?
▪ Интровертни Велики брат: галактичке бункер-цивилизације су оробљене тоталитаризмом који забрањује колонизацију. Приговор: нарушава не-ексклузивност.
▪ Исцрпљење ресурса: ми смо у мехуру у коме је дошло до исцрпљења ресурса од стране ванземаљских цивилизација које су потом изумрле. Приговор: где су њихови трагови?
▪ Смртоносне сонде: аутореплицирајуће, уништавају све живо и стићи ће до нас.
▪ Информатички прелаз (Џон Смарт): нека врста сингуларности. Приговор: трансхуманистички мит.
Логистичке хипотезе (нарушавају економске претпоставке)
▪ Перзистенција: међузвездана колонизација оставља велике области нетакнутим, попут наше. Приговор: нарушава и не-ексклузивност.
▪ Живот на ивици: софонти се шире на обод галаксије где им ниже температуре повећавају информатичку ефикасност.
▪ Велики првенци: софонти се налазе у стању естивације чекајући повољније (хладније) услове за обраду информација и пресек за детекцију им је изузетно низак. Приговор: ослањање на технологију равну чуду.
▪ Одрживост (Џејкоб Хак-Мисра и Сет Баум): колонизација васионе је спора.
▪ Галактичка трбобоља (Алистер Нан и сарадници): ванземаљци су недетектабилни јер уместо да троше ресурсе на истраживање свемира, улажу у лечење јер су, уклонивши стресоре, спречили хормезу и довели до контраефекта – патофизиолошких пандемија. Приговор: уклањање свих стресора је утопијски мит + нарушава не-ексклузивност.
🎵 Labirinthus Stellarum – Vortex of the Worlds
January 22, 2019
This has to be the most thorough and methodical treatment of Fermi's paradox out there right now.
Besides the usual talk of the assumptions behind SETI research and what/where/how we might find extraterrestrial intelligences, Cirkovic explores an angle I'd never come across before. The exploration of Fermi's paradox in its strongest form -- if they exist at all, why do we see no signs of intelligent action anywhere in the universe? -- is also an exploration of the contours of intelligent cognitive systems. Not just life, which is an evolutionary accident, but what about artificial agents? Why hasn't someone built robots to colonize the whole night sky?
The implications of these questions touch on the deepest philosophical problems about the human soul and the future of our species. It was lucky coincidence that I happened to read this alongside Dupuy's On the Origins of Cognitive Science: The Mechanization of the Mind and Hayles' How We Became Posthuman: Virtual Bodies in Cybernetics, Literature, and Informatics. The books all play off one another in asking hard questions about the nature of mind, cognition, and intelligent beings.
The book is technical, thankfully void of academic jargon, but it won't be a casual night-side read.
Besides the usual talk of the assumptions behind SETI research and what/where/how we might find extraterrestrial intelligences, Cirkovic explores an angle I'd never come across before. The exploration of Fermi's paradox in its strongest form -- if they exist at all, why do we see no signs of intelligent action anywhere in the universe? -- is also an exploration of the contours of intelligent cognitive systems. Not just life, which is an evolutionary accident, but what about artificial agents? Why hasn't someone built robots to colonize the whole night sky?
The implications of these questions touch on the deepest philosophical problems about the human soul and the future of our species. It was lucky coincidence that I happened to read this alongside Dupuy's On the Origins of Cognitive Science: The Mechanization of the Mind and Hayles' How We Became Posthuman: Virtual Bodies in Cybernetics, Literature, and Informatics. The books all play off one another in asking hard questions about the nature of mind, cognition, and intelligent beings.
The book is technical, thankfully void of academic jargon, but it won't be a casual night-side read.
October 3, 2018
The problem of the Great Silence, better known by the name "Fermi's Paradox", is a fundamental question of science and of philosphy. It will continue to provoke discussion and thought until the time comes that it is in some way resolved.
'Cirković clearly knows his stuff and this is a well-researched, if not well-written, book on this particular problem. I tempted to think that the editing staff of Oxford Univerity Press must have been away when this manuscript hit the publisher's desk. There are constant digressions leading to references to other parts of the book, see next paragraph for more. We also the extremely annoying (ab)use of parantheses. If this book is any guide, 'Cirković is incapable of using the word "(in)famous" without adding superfluous brackets. The auther also over-indulges in (un)necessary use of exclamation marks! The text in places is very messy - and a great hindrance! - to readability.
As mentioned in the paragraph above we get constant references to (other) chapters, which are unnecessary (and intrusive!) to the flow of the text. It felt like hacking - with a machete - my way through a jungle of superfluous (and needless) punctuation, sentences and re-iterations - that add nothing to the context! - to get to the heart of the matter.
It is annoying writing in a similar style used in the book (never mind reading it!).
On to the subject at hand, we get coverage and critique of a wide range of hypotheses that attempt to solve the Great Silence problem. He glosses over the "(in)famous" Drake equation" as he calls it; the centrepiece of the Search for Extra-Terrestrial Intelligence. 'Cirković is obviously not a fan of the equation, presumably because of the speculative nature of the some of the numbers put into it. A proper handling of the equation and is implications is conspicuous by its absence and I believe the book is poorer for it.
In summary, it covers hypothetical solutions to Fermi's paradox quite well but is let down by weak editorialship. I shan't be reading another book written by Milan M. 'Cirković but I may use this as a reference work if I need to look up information on the Great Silence Problem (assuming I can cut may way through the superfluity in the text).
'Cirković clearly knows his stuff and this is a well-researched, if not well-written, book on this particular problem. I tempted to think that the editing staff of Oxford Univerity Press must have been away when this manuscript hit the publisher's desk. There are constant digressions leading to references to other parts of the book, see next paragraph for more. We also the extremely annoying (ab)use of parantheses. If this book is any guide, 'Cirković is incapable of using the word "(in)famous" without adding superfluous brackets. The auther also over-indulges in (un)necessary use of exclamation marks! The text in places is very messy - and a great hindrance! - to readability.
As mentioned in the paragraph above we get constant references to (other) chapters, which are unnecessary (and intrusive!) to the flow of the text. It felt like hacking - with a machete - my way through a jungle of superfluous (and needless) punctuation, sentences and re-iterations - that add nothing to the context! - to get to the heart of the matter.
It is annoying writing in a similar style used in the book (never mind reading it!).
On to the subject at hand, we get coverage and critique of a wide range of hypotheses that attempt to solve the Great Silence problem. He glosses over the "(in)famous" Drake equation" as he calls it; the centrepiece of the Search for Extra-Terrestrial Intelligence. 'Cirković is obviously not a fan of the equation, presumably because of the speculative nature of the some of the numbers put into it. A proper handling of the equation and is implications is conspicuous by its absence and I believe the book is poorer for it.
In summary, it covers hypothetical solutions to Fermi's paradox quite well but is let down by weak editorialship. I shan't be reading another book written by Milan M. 'Cirković but I may use this as a reference work if I need to look up information on the Great Silence Problem (assuming I can cut may way through the superfluity in the text).
October 8, 2019
Llamar a este libro "el mejor y más serio sobre la paradoja de Fermi/por qué aún no hemos visto aliens" es casi insultar con un cumplido tan endeble, pero de verdad lo es. Explica bien rápido lo elemental de por qué hay que dejar atrás especulaciones sobre los parámetros de la ecuación de Drake y por qué el SETI hasta ahora es normal que no haya encontrado nada: no es solo el escaso rango cubierto con señales de radio, es que la verdadera búsqueda se debería hacer a rastros reconocibles de astroingeniería, colonización espacial, explotación de recursos, etc. (con, contrario a otros autores, varias predicciones empíricas de qué nos permitiría realmente detectar estas señales de estar ahí, la página 250 es un notable compromiso a la clase de avances y búsquedas que deberían detectar algo de realmente haber algo que encontrar https://i.imgur.com/kQtuyal.jpg).
La estructura del libro es un tour primero por las cifras que establecen el problema, no solo como ha *empeorado* respecto a cuando primero se planteó al subir la estimación de planetas habitables, si no lo que para muchos no es obvio hasta que se paran a hacer las cuentas de que para este tema la edad de la galaxia (a favor de que deberíamos esperar vida en otros planetas de no ser esta lo bastante improbable y que se extienda) es muchísimo más importante que su tamaño (no lo bastante como para factor importante) y una vez explicado esto, un tour por las distintas hipótesis en base a la "presunción filosófica" que hay que aflojar para que se sean plausibles. Algunas seguramente hagan poner los ojos en blanco al lector que crea que se apoya su seriedad solo con citarlas, y la verdad es que no sé si esta estructura en la que no evalúa las explicaciones hasta el final del libro (algunas realmente mal puntuadas) era la mejor posible.
Hay también algún error inevitable con un único autor intentando acaparar tanto. Por lo demás, una revisión excelente que ojalá cambiase el debate hacia los términos que presenta.
La estructura del libro es un tour primero por las cifras que establecen el problema, no solo como ha *empeorado* respecto a cuando primero se planteó al subir la estimación de planetas habitables, si no lo que para muchos no es obvio hasta que se paran a hacer las cuentas de que para este tema la edad de la galaxia (a favor de que deberíamos esperar vida en otros planetas de no ser esta lo bastante improbable y que se extienda) es muchísimo más importante que su tamaño (no lo bastante como para factor importante) y una vez explicado esto, un tour por las distintas hipótesis en base a la "presunción filosófica" que hay que aflojar para que se sean plausibles. Algunas seguramente hagan poner los ojos en blanco al lector que crea que se apoya su seriedad solo con citarlas, y la verdad es que no sé si esta estructura en la que no evalúa las explicaciones hasta el final del libro (algunas realmente mal puntuadas) era la mejor posible.
Hay también algún error inevitable con un único autor intentando acaparar tanto. Por lo demás, una revisión excelente que ojalá cambiase el debate hacia los términos que presenta.
did-not-finish
September 8, 2019This books spends most of its words not focusing on any concrete points, following various philosophical threads. It seems like a missed opportunity, as there are plenty of scientists and engineers that could have been interviewed, to give the best picture of what is known know about the variables in the Drake equation, and more recent additions to it, such as Brin’s. In fact, David Brin passed on the opportunity to write this book, stating he was too busy, but perhaps we can read between the lines here and guess that there are just so many unknowns at the moment that Brin didn’t see how to write an entire book on this subject, without filling the pages with the casting about you see in this one.
I put the book down after reading 20% of it. There are plenty of succinct, recent discussions on the topic out there by scientists, which tend to end in “we don’t know yet.”
I put the book down after reading 20% of it. There are plenty of succinct, recent discussions on the topic out there by scientists, which tend to end in “we don’t know yet.”
August 23, 2023
This is a far ranging book on the topic of Fermi's Paradox but unusual in that it mentions very few well-known explanations and covers some in far too much depth. Also, the author begs to be acknowledges as intelligent; sounds like Milan wrote the book while sitting on a Thesaurus in an uncomfortable (to most) position. Still those the writing is difficult to appreciate there were some worthwhile thoughts, mostly on Why Fermi's Paradox is such due to our inaction to look (and in the right place and for the right objects).
March 2, 2021
Probably the most comprehensive book about Fermi's paradox since farming himself had written about his own paradoxical theories and how they correlate to other great thinkers such as Kardashev i.e. how his alien civilization classification relates within what I might call as a 'theorietical but true working model.'
February 20, 2023
A lot of speculation but little or nothing is said to give a hint to solve the paradox, very disappointing book.
November 7, 2024
Among other things, Ćirković argues - convincingly - that our continued failure to detect other intelligent life in the universe poses a profound philosophical challenge. I can only agree. The book could have benefited from more rigorous editing, but it certainly deserves 4 stars for its comprehensiveness and for how seriously it takes its subject matter.
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