Science Fiction & Philosophy discussion

Hey.

How are you all doing ? New to Goodreads but not new to the Fermi’s Paradox. I can’t get enough of it.

I have read

If the Universe Is Teeming with Aliens - Where Is Everybody?: Fifty Solutions to Fermi's Paradox and the Problem of Extraterrestrial Life

But I’m looking for books similar to this or about the subject. Does anyone have any recommendations ?

Thanks

Jon

I'm fascinated by this subject too Jon, and have read Webb's book (wrote a review of it).

There's also The Great Silence: Science and Philosophy of Fermi's Paradox by M Cirkovic, The Fermi Paradox: The History and Legacy of the Famous Debate over the Existence of Aliens by C Rivers, Extraterrestrials: Where Are They? by B Zuckerman, and a couple by Paul Davies, The Eerie Silence: Renewing Our Search for Alien Intelligence and Are We Alone? Philosophical Implications of the Discovery of Extraterrestrial Life.

Oh thanks so much !!!

Fermi's paradox is a battle of big numbers, in my opinion.
You've got the vast distances of interstellar space, and the vast time frames of the universe, pitted against the (probably) huge number of intelligent extra-terrestrials 'out there'.
Even assuming some of them build billions of nano-bots and shot-gun them out into space, what are the chances one of these nano-bots encounters earth and is found by someone?

I know. It’s so interesting.

Let's analyze a few of the details from what we know about physics and the vast expanse of the universe (or even the galaxy to start with.) Space is Big. I mean, it is really, really, really big. That settled, then for one, how does anyone cross it (other than my characters and Captain Kirk). One light-year is a big deal. Dozens, hundreds, or thousands is way worse. This reduces our probability of contact unless some new physics is found.

Next, in my opinion, the SETI project is seriously flawed. Sufficiently advanced beings are not going to be using photons of radio or light waves to communicate. The inverse-square law drops the transmitted power just that way -- by the square of the distance. Even now, we are struggling to communicate with Voyagers I and II. They have barely left the solar system. I trust everyone here has seen the intimidating image of our galaxy and our position in it. Surrounding this tiny dot is a tiny circle indicating how far our radio waves have traveled in just over a century. That is a tiny neighborhood in one rather insignificant spiral arm (gap).

It is speculated that in the arms with the higher densities of stars that the radiation may be too intense for life to survive there. Certainly, I don't expect much to happen near the centers with the massive black holes. The number of stars would make darkness next to impossible and the radiation levels could be severe.

The James Webb, that incredibly huge optical telescope under construction in Chili, or other fancy telescopes may, in fact, be able to detect oxygen/nitrogen atmospheres on exoplanets. That is a long way from sending ET an e-mail. There may even be bio-signatures that are detectable, but that is highly open to interpretation by today's standards. Some still believe that CO2 is toxic at 400 ppm and that life was never discovered on Mars (Vikings I & II found it!) If, we are super lucky, (or unlucky), we will discover one or more incredibly advanced star systems with Dysan Rings, or Dysan Spheres. God help us if they decide to pay us a visit. We have a great thing going here on our humble planet. On the other hand, they may be completely benign. Humans will make great pets, as the song goes. And, why not? Governments have been making pets out of people for millennia. Most volunteer.

Lord Kelvin, I believe, declared around 1900 that there was no new physics. This was a very learned, yet very arrogant and accomplished scientist. People like this stand in the way of progress -- not promote it. Especially if new thinking is a threat to their legacy -- their ego. We know, of course, that he was way off base. Einstein came along right at that time, Heisenberg, Fermi, Hubble, then Richard Feynman... and the list goes on. Physics and our whole conception of the universe was turned on its head. Nobody knew about quantum mechanics or strong and weak nuclear forces, quarks, gluons, and the rest. The universe turned out to be vast -- not static but expanding. Now we know that not only is it expanding, but that expansion is accelerating! From what force, nobody knows. It is also mostly full of matter that is nearly undetectable with mysterious energies to match.

These are new discoveries for us. The Fermi Paradox may not be a paradox much longer. The next revolution could be a week from now or two centuries into the future, but I believe it will happen. If there is a God, or even if there isn't. It just seems wrong to me that hundreds, thousands, of advanced civilizations would all be sitting in the dark on their islands of dirt, water, and atmosphere eternally wondering if they were alone.

SETI is not only flawed, Michael, I’ve always thought there’s something faintly ridiculous about it somehow. In Victorian times quite a few authors sent explorers on journeys to the Moon in their novels—but sent them there in rockets powered by steam engines. I can’t help feeling that there’s something steam-powered-rocketships—the same failure of the imagination—about searching for alien civilisations using radio.

The facts are these. The laws of nature seem to work in the same way everywhere; we are here, so ‘we’ should be everywhere; yet ‘we’, apparently, are only here. It’s not so much a ‘paradox’ as just a flat contradiction between what we should be seeing when we look out at the Universe, and what we are seeing. Is it our understanding of the laws of nature which is flawed, or the reasoning we use to piece our worldview together? If neither, then there seem to be only two other general possibilities: either that we are the first civilisation to exist and ask the question, or they are all out there but don’t want us to know that. I think most so-called solutions to the Fermi Paradox reduce, one way or another, to these two—and both are also flawed.

Richard wrote: "SETI is not only flawed, Michael, I’ve always thought there’s something faintly ridiculous about it somehow. In Victorian times quite a few authors sent explorers on journeys to the Moon in their n..."

Richard,

One point I was trying to make was this -- which would be the greatest tragedy. The chemistry and conditions here are probably not unique in such a vast universe. What if it is inevitable that life at least as advanced as ours is constantly popping up, yet the limitations of space-time will forever doom us to live in speculative isolation? I believe that is at the heart of Fermi's Paradox.

Nice turn of phrase - speculative isolation.
This universe is just too damn big! If it was the size of the solar system I'd be happier.
Sending out AI robots that are capable of surviving for millions of years is one possibility? Another is sophisticated signals of coherent light pulses which would at least travel at the speed of light and so make return signalling/communication possible within one lifespan?
Dark energy signalling, once we know what it is?
Otherwise, we are all we've got...

Yes I agree Michael. The problem that I think we have is that we are limited to our own imaginations, it’s as if we need to think like a potential alien civilisation to understand how to communicate. For me the jury is still out as to whether we are the top of the evolutionary chain or at the bottom of it. One thing I am sure of is that we aren’t in the middle. It’s going to be one polar end of the scale or the other.

If we are at the bottom then we are effectively pets for someone to play “God” with. If we are at the top, then we need everyone else to catch up.

It’s a tricky situation and I find it very very interesting. Thank you for all commenting.

Given the numbers and timelines, I'd say we are in the middle where most of the activity is on the normal curve....

It could be that the 'speculative isolation' scenario is true, sure, but to me that sounds suspiciously like Lord Kelvin again—that physics has now peaked and our thinking just goes ahead in a straight line from here. To me, the Fermi Paradox is a hint that this probably isn't so.

But the Fermi Paradox entails there being advanced civilizations 'out there'. So it doesn't matter how limited we are, they should have the advanced technology to contact us. The fact that they haven't suggests 'speculative isolation' for all sentient beings in the universe.

I wonder if we would be able to detect or interpret an alien communication even if one did reach us? After all, we only use human mental constructs to talk about intelligence, risks, communication and life. One of my biggest gripes about shows like Star Trek has always been how human the aliens are portrayed: human motivations, human power struggles, human emotions. Surely a sentience from a different part of the Galaxy would exist within entirely different set of parameters. What if an alien communication has already reached us and we are simply unable to detect or understand it for what it is?

If they were really smart they would take into account all that you mentioned, and figure out a way to contact us so that we'd know it.
Aliens are out there, and they'd like to meet other aliens such as ourselves, but it may be impossible. On similar earth-like planets they'd be much like us. Some would still be more primitive primates, and others would be roughly at our stage, and still others might be more advanced if they survived nuclear problems and environmental/population problems.
I'm speculating on our isolation...

David wrote: "If they were really smart they would take into account all that you mentioned, and figure out a way to contact us so that we'd know it.
Aliens are out there, and they'd like to meet other aliens su..."

Hmmmm ... A couple of assumptions to unpack there. Firstly, I don't think that effective communication is necessarily a function of intelligence. Common knowledge frameworks are likely to be more significant.
Consider a hypothetical situation: two equally intelligent (human) scientists are walking through a forest. One is a geologist and the other a botanist. One notices the minute details of rock formations and relates them to geological upheavals spanning millions of years. The other wants to talk about the interactions of microorganisms and tree roots in the local ecosystem. Two sentient, intelligent beings of the same species and brought up within the same social structures, placed in exactly the same location, will see different things and draw different conclusions because they're applying different knowledge frameworks. They wouldn't even be able to communicate their knowledge effectively to each other without dumbing it down because different disciplines have different terminology and underpinning concepts.
Now imagine two civilisations of very different structures, arising from different biologies trying to reach out to other sentient beings across the stars by manipulating their environment in different ways. Despite a high level of their own type of intelligence, they simply might not realise that a particular phenomenon is actually a communication signal.
I also don't believe that evolution of vertebrates, primates, etc. would always follow the same path. Even small differences in the environment may affect the way life adapts and this, in turn, would influence the type of intelligence and knowledge elicitation that the species would engage in.

The environment governs adaptation, so similar environments will produce similar species. The cosmological principle suggests what goes on in one part of the cosmos will also go on in other parts since it assumes the cosmos is relatively uniform, physics-wise.
Aliens intelligent enough to get a signal of some kind to us will have figured out how to communicate with us. We communicate with other primates through hand signals, etc., so advanced aliens would be able to do something similar.
No, the real question is distance and time separation. Richard's speculative isolation is what we and all the other aliens are left with.

David wrote: "The environment governs adaptation, so similar environments will produce similar species. The cosmological principle suggests what goes on in one part of the cosmos will also go on in other parts s..."

Agreed, We can see convergent evolution on Earth. A cactus from SW United States looks remarkably like a plant from a similar area in Africa. They are not even close genetically but they have made nearly the same adaptations to their environment, i.e. water storage, thorns or other protection from those looking for water, flowers to spread pollen, etc.

We see it in all of the sci-fi movies and programs that many of these aliens will be bi-pedal and humanoid as designated by Star Trek. But will they be so similar? I have puzzled over the human form and what makes it so optimal for us. We have grasping hands for making and creating tools. We stand on two legs to free up our hands for this purpose. Yet, chimpanzees can grasp items with their feet as well.

I have speculated some on other forms in my books, but only briefly. One creature has a number of specialized tentacles rather than arms and hands. It makes primitive tools and fire. It cooks its food. It walks on front and rear uneven legs, like a baboon. It has eyes in the rear rather than a head that turns as much as ours.

Our bi-pedal form with two arms with two grasping hands seems like a very efficient, compact design but there might be others. I read that the human hand was also evolved for combat and the bones of the skull and face area have evolved to take the blows. But still, to me the head and brain, though encased in bone are quite vulnerable. Should not the brain be protected like the heart? or is it protected better or equally as the heart? Or is it that the brain was so evolved that these vulnerabilities became less important?

Any thoughts?

David wrote: "The environment governs adaptation, so similar environments will produce similar species. The cosmological principle suggests what goes on in one part of the cosmos will also go on in other parts s..."

I would agree with you to a point. Consider this, however. If we go way back to when most of Earth's life was in the oceans, we would not have recognized many of the forms present. Mollusks, yes. Crab/Lobster/shrimp like forms, yes. Worms, yes -- but they became quite monstrous in size. Even most of the fish would be familiar. Bi-lateral symmetry seems to be a must for efficient forward motion (for land or water). Radial symmetry is more adapted for water where animals drift with the current. The octopus and squid seem to have mastered both for their environment. Plus an octopus is highly intelligent and able to manipulate or adapt to its environment far ahead of others.

Evolution seems to be incremental only when less significant niches are decimated and refilled. For mass extinction events, the slate seems to be wiped clean. Mammals were barely prevalent when the dinosaurs were walking around. More and more dinosaurs appear to have been bird-like, but still quite alien.

The physics on our planet is nothing special. Our sun if pretty average, and about half-way through its life. And our earth is in the goldilocks zone, much like billions of other planets out there.
Once it has started in an environment, life is pretty robust.
I read that when conditions on earth evolved to the point where life was possible, it only took about 100,000 years for life to actually occur - very quick on a cosmic timescale. And sentience seems to be prevalent in many animals, which suggests something like us has to evolve.
My conclusion is 'we' are out there.