Why does life appear to be so rare and unique if it is a natural phenomenon?
Do you think human beings are alone in the universe or that we lack the mental capacity to figure out if we are alone or not?
Perhaps life is only viewed as something so special because we are a part of it. Maybe life is just another natural system on Earth, inherently no different from the weather.
We attribute value to life because we arn't edgelords.
>>903314
some possibilities
a) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rare_Earth_hypothesis
b) most stars did not produce enough CHON for life too develop yet, will be more later.
c) intelligent life always drives itself extinct
d) intelligent life does not wander from from it's planet in constant expansion
I personally believe that life forms that believe in constant explanation will drive themselves extinct, and those that don't will be regulated to a small amount of space
>>903314
Fermi parradox assumes radio transmissions. Since the internet human radio transmission have decreased.
>>903360
What is the minimum time between the BB and earth like planets?
Weve searched a tiny area for a miniscule amount of time
>>903314
>Why does life appear to be so rare and unique...
Because we're a bunch of ignorant fucks.
Life is neither "rare" or "unique", as it can be found practically everywhere on the fucking planet. Air, land, sea, below the land, below the sea, hell, there's fucking life that lives IN life, and people want to say it's "rare"?
Nonsense.
There's billions of stars in our galaxy, and until we develop the capability to actually explore them, we can't say life is "rare" OR "unique".
This is pretty interesting
>>903400
Also this
We aren't near as smart as we think we are OP
>>903314
We don't know that life is that unique, we aren't even sure if our own solar system hs other life in it or not. Sure there is unlikely to be intelligent life with a civilisation that we haven't noticed but there could well be less complex life forms.
I really can not begin to understand how so many people believe the Fermi Paradox is a paradox.
Even in the most fantastical sci-fi world's such Star Trek it's still completely believable that some alien lifeforms are uncontacted and don't even know they aren't the only ones in the universe.
You have to make so many absurd assumptions about how technology is "supposed" to grow for alien life that have no justification and if anything contradict what we currently know to be true. Like faster than life travel. Impossible supposedly without delving into the completely unsupported realm of make believe magic with warp drives or navigable portal like worm holes.
>In some 296,000 years, Voyager 2 (launched 1977) will pass 4.3 light-years (the same distance as earth from Alpha Centauri)
As I understand it we weren't even empirically sure planets existed at all outside of our solar system until recently because there was no way to see them until they started looking at dark splotches in front of far stars. The idea that you tune into any assumed alien radio from across the galaxy is a joke let alone spotting their space stations - and it's always assumed that alien life must be crazy more advanced than human life for some reason.
>>903614
The Fermi Paradox also assumes that intelligent life is an inevitable outcome of evolution. That is it's biggest flaw. As far as we know, there have been 10ish species (all hominids) which have existed on this planet, and were capable of becoming human technology equivalent. Out of the billions and billions of multicellular life forms, many of which existed for millions of years, only hominids have become us, because whatever weird set of evolutionary pressures existed drive us to become more intelligent. It could have very easily never happened. No asteroid kills the dinosaurs? No tool users. No drought in Africa which drives a specific set of chimp like creatures out of the trees and into the savannah? No hominids. We exist as a rarity, a fluke. Dolphins, smart as they are, will never build telescopes and radios, unless they come back to the land.
Life can exist on any number of planets, but intelligent life may not.
>>904131
Even assuming something like multicellular life, let alone animal like could be stretching it, really. Both of those categories are relatively late in the evolution of life and might be very uncommon in the uiverse.
>>903314
>Why does life appear to be so rare and unique if it is a natural phenomenon?
Because you are not omnipotent, maybe? Every thought about the fact that maybe all that you perceive is not all there is?
And also because you spent all your life in front of a computer instead of realizing that the earth is literally crawling with life where ever you look!
>>904883
I don't like xkcd but that's a good pic
>>906397
why don't you like xkcd?
>>903314
1) the first intelligent life show up on planet X.
2) they have their version of Fermi Paradox.
3) concluded that they were alone.
4) stop searching.
5) kill themselves.
6) another intelligent life show up on planet Y
goto 2)
Does the Fermi Paradox imply a creator?
Assume Fermi is right.
imply most of the universe is useless.
imply a creator don't know what it's doing.
People don't seem to understand just how vast space is and just how short the window of time is in which we've been able to properly search for exoplanets etc. , that we haven't found anything at this point seems perfectly logical to me, not weird let alone paradoxical
>>903314
>Why does life appear to be so rare and unique if it is a natural phenomenon?
Why would individual phenomena within nature not be rare or unique? Individual planets exist "naturally," but the majority of the space containing them is just "space". "Natural" just means "within nature," not "everywhere within nature". Life is natural, but an absence of life is natural as well.
>>909010
The Fermi paradox is based on "why haven't they visited us" rather than "why haven't we found them", but yeah, it's still bullshit.
>>903360
you know what i think is the most horrifying possibility? It's some variant of your point c)
c.2) intelligent life manages at some point to contact other intelligent life or to be discovered by other intelligent life. As soon as that happens the more advanced civilization will wipe out the other.
Maybe there's just one ancient highly advanced space age civilisation in this galaxy. Every other civilization it discovers is destroyed. Maybe we shouldn't be too eager to shout out into space "we're here"
>>909051
Yeah even then it would probably be unimaginably hard for aliens to find us, considering that any signal that indicates life on earth travels only at the speed of light and dissipates over time to the point that it's unrecognisable,
and considering the ludicrous number of exoplanets(there's also the possibility that an exoplanet to them is completely different than what it is to us) we're finding lately it would be like finding a needle in a heap of hay
>>909010
well >>909051 is right when he says that it's more about "why haven't they visited us" and that's why it's not soo bullshit as one would think. I agree it's silly too be surprised that humanity hasn't found extraterrestial life yet. We've just inveted airplanes a little more than 100 years ago.
But Fermis paradox talks about why older civilizations haven't just colonized every part of the galaxy yet.
Even if you don't have ftl travel you can travel the whole lenght of the milky way galaxy with even our modern rockets in a few million years. Just think about what humanity is capable of doing in 100, 200, a thousand years. It's not so far fetched that there might be a civilization a thousand years more advanced than us in this galaxy. So why haven't they conquered the galaxy yet?
>>903314
If there's one thing I've consistently noticed even among "experts", it's a woefully inadequate sense of scale.
Let's say that the odds of intelligent life evolving on a planet are 1 in a billion.
Huge, massive odds. We'd have to sift through millions of solar systems before we found one with a planet even remotely similar to ours.
That would still leave nearly 400 civilization bearing planets in the galaxy, so by cosmic standards the universe is teeming with life, but by macro standards if the nearest life bearing planet is 5,000 light years away and never evolved past stromatolites, we might never truly know what life like us might look like.
And I find all of the "aliens will conquer us!" memes to be a load of paranoid crap. Colonialism (in SPAAACE) implies that they're, at best, a few centuries or millennium more technologically advanced than us, and that they evolved along similar predatory-prey patterns as Earth life and that their psychologies lend themselves to building societies based on exploiting each other out of their labor, as humans do.
Any aliens actually out there are probably separated by hundreds of thousands, if not millions of years of development. We'd be far more likely to encounter ape-analogues or robot Gods. And if they are robot Gods, what conceivable reason would they have to come wipe out life on Earth when any conceivable mineral resource or power source that they could need could be found in places with much. much smaller gravity wells?
>>903360
>>909054
The most horrifying possibility, is that a civilization that has the technological ability for interstellar space travel, will also have the technological ability to create entertainment that dwarfs any kind of entertainment that we have.
Imagine for a second, that a civilization that has the ability to literally create the Matrix would do with their time? They would be in it, and play Gods, instead of running around in reality looking for us.
>>909100
sounds fun desu
>>909090
>and that they evolved along similar predatory-prey patterns as Earth life and that their psychologies lend themselves to building societies based on exploiting each other out of their labor, as humans do
do you think intelligent life can evolve without predatory-prey patterns. Also there can be motivations to build sozieties and colonize space other than "exploiting each other out of their labor"
>Any aliens actually out there are probably separated by hundreds of thousands, if not millions of years of development. We'd be far more likely to encounter ape-analogues or robot Gods
agreed
>And if they are robot Gods, what conceivable reason would they have to come wipe out life on Earth when any conceivable mineral resource or power source that they could need could be found in places with much. much smaller gravity wells?
those gods won't even notice us and whipe us out just by accident while trying to accomplish other goals. It doesn't even have to be about minerals or other resources. Robot gods work in mysterious ways.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jmOBm-Lcs70&feature=iv&src_vid=nQHBAdShgYI&annotation_id=annotation_694509337#t=1h9m30s
>>903531
awesome pic.
Also:
>the relativistic inverse to the golden rule: "Do unto the other fellow as he would do unto you and do it first."....
>israeli flag
figures he understands alien psychology
>>909127
LAST MAN
A
S
T
M
A
N
>>909100
>4chan may one day be on a galactic scale
Killing myself now desu
>>909318
and we will be destroyed by another civilization because of shitposting on a galactic scale
>fuck off space niggers, we're full
>>903360
The possibility I find most likely is that only recently, in a cosmological scale, as the universe began to be safe enough for life to have a wide enough window of opportunity to get very complex. Gamma ray bursts would've been much more frequent back when the galaxy was a bit younger. Just one can completely sterilize an entire planet.
If there were smart ayys, they wouldn't be too ahead anyway.
most handsome woman in the world.
>>903531
>>909189
I believe that the most technologically advanced species would be more inclined to observe, study, and trade information.
Also, will biological species be that important categories 1000 years from now?
I don't think the majority of our descendants will be too human-like. We're not apt for a micro-gravity environments so we ought to start look like jellyfishes if we want to cruise space. And there would be some benefits to not being biological entities at all.
Also, if there are very aggressive sapients out there, they'll be more targeted than us because they are more dangerous.
>>903314
Because something like this happened:
http://raikoth.net/Stuff/story1.html
>>904131
>The Fermi Paradox also assumes that intelligent life is an inevitable outcome of evolution. That is it's biggest flaw.
The Fermi paradox doesn't assume that intelligence is frequent nor that it is that advantageous. It assumes that the odds of us being the first intelligence in the galaxy is small and so you'd expect that there another intelligence, even just one, would've had enough time to develop it's technology (exponentially) then scatter.
The notion that intelligence is the best shit around is human arrogance, but the notion that we're special would be too.
>>903314
>Why does life appear to be so rare and unique if it is a natural phenomenon?
It's wrong to say "life is rare" in the context of possible universes. It's rare in THIS UNIVERSE. We can't know anything about the possibilities of creating universes except possibly some transcendental characteristics, but those tell you NOTHING about it's contents.
It's no surprise that us (life) would be aware of ourselves in any universe. Any universe with sentient life will have sentient things.
>Do you think human beings are alone in the universe or that we lack the mental capacity to figure out if we are alone or not?
Mental capacity no, we just have no way of actually experiencing alternate realities. The entire Chrisrian bullshit is based on one assumption: that all possible universes are as lifeless as ours, therefore ours is special. Which is a load of bullshit.
>>903360
Rare earth hypothesis assumes we know anything about all possible universes. We don't. We only have the patterns of this one universe.
I don't know how anyone could be so idiotic as to believe it's correct
>>903337
This
>>903314
It should lead you to realize that life did not happen at random here on earth. At the very least, that's what the Fermi Paradox implies.
>>903391
No more than six days.
>>906443
It's 9gag for people in community college who want to "get" smart people jokes.
>>909614
>I believe that the most technologically advanced species would be more inclined to observe, study, and trade information.
observe and study maybe, but trade? Some really highly advanced species might observe and study us, like we observe and study ants, but would you trade information with an ant. The cognitive cliff is too wide to breach. We couldn't possible understand their information and our information is worthless to them.
When they destroy us, we won't even understand why or even if they did in on purpose.
>Also, will biological species be that important categories 1000 years from now?
even if we are cyborgs, that's the difference in regard to the fermi paradox?
>I don't think the majority of our descendants will be too human-like. We're not apt for a micro-gravity environments so we ought to start look like jellyfishes if we want to cruise space. And there would be some benefits to not being biological entities at all.
Yeah, but how do you change to a non biological form and even then, again, what's the difference in regard to the fermi paradox if you're biological or not
>Also, if there are very aggressive sapients out there, they'll be more targeted than us because they are more dangerous.
in the pic of the post you replied to it's pretty well put:
"Their survival will be more important than our survival"
"no species makes it to the top by being passive. The species in charge of any given planet will be highly intelligent, alert, agressive and ruthless wen necessary."
"they will assume that the first two laws apply to us"
You can't see the intentions of the other civilization. If they are aggressive or not. It doesn't matter. Whoever's out there has to be exterminated no matter their intentions. The risk is too much
>>909171
>do you think intelligent life can evolve without...
There's really only one way to answer that question, and I don't really know how to phrase it any more clearer: Who the fuck knows? Whatever alien life we encounter is going to come from a completely different evolutionary tree. Scorpions would be more familiar to us than creatures from a different planet. There are yet even animals on this planet that make the professionals scratch their heads and go "what the heck is that thing?", aliens would be so radically different from us that they would defy classification. If the planet has a larger diameter than the Earth's that would radically the composition of their evolutionary patterns, as it would if it were a planet with low gravity or strong radiation. For all we know the nearest lifeforms to us are giant sentient Mollusk-analogues who would rather colonize Titan and Earth would be lethally too hot for them so they'd sooner ignore it.
>those gods won't even notice us and ...
I have yet to sit through that 2 hour video, but I also doubt the idea of Earth becoming roadkill
--Space is really fucking big. Not like "squirrel crossing a highway" big but like "tiny little desert islands separated by unfathomable gulfs of endless ocean" big.
--There does not appear to be a way to cheat around light speed (otherwise we'd see signs of it everywhere in the universe)
--We live in a relatively boring and sparsely populated galactic backwater and there are far more resource/energy rich places closer to the galactic core.
--Getting anywhere meaningful in space would require a staggering investment of resources and energy.
We probably don't detect them because they're too efficient for us to detect. Creatures which think on time-spans measuring thousands of years might not be in a particular rush to exhaust itself the way that the ancient Polynesians did expanding to all those desert islands.
>>909704
>The cognitive cliff is too wide to breach. We couldn't possible understand their information and our information is worthless to them.
We can use logic, and there's no way of knowing the cliff would be that great.
>even if we are cyborgs, that's the difference in regard to the fermi paradox?
>Yeah, but how do you change to a non biological form and even then, again, what's the difference in regard to the fermi paradox if you're biological or not
If we could have intelligent machines to replace us, I imagine these would have an easy time bonding with ayy machines. We could use some of our computing power to emulate them, and they could do the same for us. Sort of an exchange program. If one planet was swiped clean, they other would carry on it's legacy. So it would be a mutually beneficial fail-safe compromise.
>alert, aggressive and ruthless wen necessary
That doesn't describe humans any more than a sewer rat. I could just as well say that being cooperative and oftentimes putting knowledge and entertainment ahead of immediate practical application is what allowed us to form civilizations.
>>909704
>"Their survival will be more important than our survival"
>"no species makes it to the top by being passive. The species in charge of any given planet will be highly intelligent, alert, agressive and ruthless wen necessary."
>"they will assume that the first two laws apply to us"
We assume of others what we assume of us.
Death is inevitable, even full extinction is a certainty on a cosmological scale. Even saving humanity is something of a petty goal when you take in the statistical certainty, that sometime, no matter when, humanity will be gone.
I would like to send a bip a get a bip back, before I die. And I'm not special, I'm sure more of me will pop out of a puddle of mud somewhere.
>>903337
This. Only human hubris privilages life above other systems.
It's pure arrogance to think we are something super special in the universe and that because we are so special that necessitates the existence of a powerful being with vaguely human characteristics.
Is it fedora to consider religious claims like this to be incredibly arrogant? I think so.
My most convincing thought that we are alone currently is the lack of self replicating robots everywhere.
I can't believe that something relatively simple hasn't been created by some mad genocidal race or that a single individual hasn't created the grey goo, even by mistake.
I think the only possibility is that we are in a nature reserve of some sort. Protected from grey goo or relativistic pre-emptive attacks by paranoid civilisations. Either this or there are a handful of low-tech civilisations. If we were not in a nature reserve and the universe was filled with competing civilisations a la star trek we would be dead most likely.
There is no "paradox" since we have no idea how rare all the conditions for the emergence of spacefaring life are. Fermi/Drake just assume a bunch of totally random made up numbers. But the reality is we have no idea how to quantify the chances for any step of biological and social evolution.
>>913017
>. Fermi/Drake just assume a bunch of totally random made up numbers
This is true. One of the the main flaws in their formulas seems to be that the answer can be anywhere from "an overwhelming shitload of life bearing planets all over the cosmos" to "exactly one life-bearing planet in the universe".
So they don't really predict anything at all and their main purpose appears to be demonstrating the limits of human knowledge.
>>912995
>the lack of self replicating robots everywhere.
There could be numerous speculations about that
-previously unforeseen technical limitations makes building intelligent, self-perpetuating interstellar robots much more easily said than done.
It could very well be a question of efficiency. Maybe we don't detect them because when you're traveling the cosmos, you have to make every joule and every gram count, so they simply go unnoticed by us in the unfathomably huge vacuum because any emissions they might be making would be pointed solely in the direction of the mother planet. Think about the "Angel's Pen" ship from the opening chapter of Larry Niven's Man-Kzin wars: they used a massive photon emitter for both propulsion and communication with Earth, basically a giant pulsing laser. And when the evil Kzin tried to eat the humans, they simply pointed the Angel's Pen's photon emitter at them and used it to saw the Kzin warship into chunks. And this is basically how the humans end up curb-stomping the warlike Kzin; by re-purposing peaceful scientific/industrial equipment into weaponry for the rare occasion when they need them.
>the grey goo
again, we have to consider the possibility of hard technical limitations making grey goo a much less serious problem than we think it might be. I mean sure you would have to make sure that it doesn't rampage out of control, but you have to do that today with bulldozers, construction equipment, blasting caps, etc. We also know that any nanotechnology is going to be breathlessly delicate, and will probably find more use in medicine and rubbish disposal than anything, and certainly not like the "sci fi magic spells" that some authors make it out to be
>>912973
come to think of it.Should'nt it makenus more humble to think like it?
>>909653
>believe there are others universe
You are the only idiot here dude
>>903314
>Why does life appear to be so rare and unique
It doesn't.
We don't even know if there is life on other planets in this solar system, forget about our cluster.
As a biologist i think (wouldn't even call it a hypothesis) that there is life on every planet that can theoretically support it.
Even if the precise "origin of life" is pretty rare, you have a whole planet as a laboratory and millions of years to work it, so the chance of life originating approaches 1, if the conditions are met.
We don't know what those conditions are, but i would assume water + C,N,O,S,P,Mg,K,Zn + source of energy are pretty much sufficient.
The problem is detecting life. We now have pretty good evidence of multiple exoplanets in the habitable zone, but now way of detecting life on them.
Also, we might as well be part of the "first generation" of intelligent life, so even if interstellar travel is possible, it might not have been discovered yet.
Even then the chances of bumping into someone are really, really small.
>>914125
The point is they are searching for INTELLIGENT life, not just life. Still some more work could have been done to make the metaphor better.
>popsci is harmless guys believe me
Fucking hell.
