Outrageous solutions to the Fermi Paradox

December 15th, 2016 at 6:35:15 AM permalink
Nareed
Member since: Oct 24, 2012
Threads: 346
Posts: 12545
Fermi Paradox: if intelligent life is fairly common in the Galaxy, then why haven't we found evidence for any of it?

Or: where the hell is everybody?

There are a number of "solutions" or explanations, many involving filters. A filter is an event that stops the development of an intelligent civilization, or its expansion, before or after it arises. For example, one filter may be the transition from unicellular to multicellular life forms. Another is global nuclear war as a means for civilizations to destroy themselves. Many of these filters are sensible, though impossible to prove until we find some other intelligent life in the universe.

Here's my outrageous filter:

Intelligent beings eventually develop AI shortly after automation. They manage to keep it servile and subservient (no evil Skynet and no Terminators), but it takes over anyway. Only it's concerned with the well being and comfort of tis creators. So as a civilization matures, machines and AI run the world and turn it into a garden of Eden. They do all the work, provide all the goods people need, and this stultifies any drive or ambition for further exploration, never mind colonization.

This is not an original idea. Asimov had his beloved robots do the same to the Spacers in the Robot/Empire/Foundation series. A latter work by another author, delves into explanation as to how robots manage to do this. It all comes down to the First Law.

Asimov imagined robots with built-in safeguards, codified in the Three Laws of Robotics:

1) A robot may not harm a human being, nor through inaction allow a human being to come to harm
2) A robot must obey orders given it by a human being, except where such orders conflict with the first law
3) A robot must protect its own existence, as long as such protection does not conflict with the first or second laws.

This can be seen also as:

1) A machine must be safe
2) A machine must be useful
3) A machine must be economical.

It may even be possible there's a large number of civilizations, all coddled by their AI master servants. And that the AI do come in contact with each other, but arrange to leave each other alone., and perhaps also to conceal themselves from less advanced civilizations, ones without an AI to control their savage impulses, which may imperil their charges.
Donald Trump is a one-term LOSER
December 15th, 2016 at 6:53:52 AM permalink
Fleastiff
Member since: Oct 27, 2012
Threads: 62
Posts: 7831
Intelligent life may or may not be common in the Galaxy; it sems to me it is often absent on this planet.
December 15th, 2016 at 7:31:48 AM permalink
odiousgambit
Member since: Oct 28, 2012
Threads: 154
Posts: 5053
The theory that the universe is just too dangerous for complex life to survive very long makes the strongest case for me.

One not so long ago realization is the potential that Magnetars have [1979].



Trivia Q: How far away was the most powerful gamma ray blast ever detected, an "... extremely powerful blast of gamma radiation [constituting] the strongest wave of extra-solar gamma rays ever detected ... over 100 times more intense than any known previous extra-solar burst" sensed by Earth gamma ray detectors. Roughly? :

*6,000 light years
*60,000 light years
*160,000 light years

no fair looking it up,see below links after guessing.

the monumental 160,000 is closest, answer actually 165,000


Not clear how close a magnetar would have to be to destroy life on earth but the
8000 light year away
WR 104, with potential to become a magnetar, potentially could destroy life on Earth from that distance.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/WR_104#Supernova_explosions
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Magnetar
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SGR_0525-66
I'm Still Standing, Yeah, Yeah, Yeah [it's an old guy chant for me]
December 15th, 2016 at 9:06:14 AM permalink
Pacomartin
Member since: Oct 24, 2012
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Quote: odiousgambit
Not clear how close a magnetar would have to be to destroy life on earth but the 8000 light year away WR 104, with potential to become a magnetar, potentially could destroy life on Earth from that distance.


My initial thought is that if it does go supernova and produce a long duration gamma-ray burst, then we have 8000 years of travel time to get ready. On the other hand, maybe that already happened 7990 years ago, and we have no way of detecting it.
December 15th, 2016 at 9:35:12 AM permalink
odiousgambit
Member since: Oct 28, 2012
Threads: 154
Posts: 5053
Quote: Nareed
[robots] do all the work, provide all the goods people need, and this stultifies any drive or ambition for further exploration, never mind colonization.


I can't see intelligent beings deciding they are safe and secure enough to assume they don't need to colonize.

But perhaps what is galaxy-level rare is not intelligent life but the ability to escape a solar system. Assuming some do, it might just be that any given galaxy might never see true redevelopment elsewhere in another solar system happen. That gets back, too, to the idea that eventually some extinction event happens to any given planet. Ours has a history, not just a theory.
I'm Still Standing, Yeah, Yeah, Yeah [it's an old guy chant for me]
December 15th, 2016 at 10:06:40 AM permalink
Nareed
Member since: Oct 24, 2012
Threads: 346
Posts: 12545
Quote: Pacomartin
My initial thought is that if it does go supernova and produce a long duration gamma-ray burst, then we have 8000 years of travel time to get ready. On the other hand, maybe that already happened 7990 years ago, and we have no way of detecting it.


If the Sun were to have a massive coronal ejection aimed in our direction, half the world would be incinerated, and the other half wouldn't fare too well. If that happened, we'd have under 8 minutes of warning. If it happened 7:59 minutes ago, you won't finish reading this sentence :)
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December 15th, 2016 at 11:06:49 AM permalink
Dalex64
Member since: Mar 8, 2014
Threads: 3
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CME's don't travel at the speed of light.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Coronal_mass_ejection

Quote:
Coronal mass ejections reach velocities from 20 to 3,200 km/s (12 to 1,988 mi/s) with an average speed of 489 km/s (304 mi/s), based on SOHO/LASCO measurements between 1996 and 2003. These speeds correspond to transit times from the Sun out to the mean radius of Earth's orbit of about 13 hours to 86 days (extremes), with about 3.5 days as the average.
"Everyone is entitled to his own opinion, but not to his own facts." Daniel Patrick Moynihan
December 15th, 2016 at 11:33:36 AM permalink
Nareed
Member since: Oct 24, 2012
Threads: 346
Posts: 12545
Quote: Dalex64
CME's don't travel at the speed of light.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Coronal_mass_ejection


Thanks.

But, still, if it happened 7:59 minutes ago, three's precious little we can do.
Donald Trump is a one-term LOSER
December 15th, 2016 at 12:37:04 PM permalink
rxwine
Member since: Oct 24, 2012
Threads: 188
Posts: 18629
We are the ancient astronauts (theorizes) that yellow sun life is an oddity and because red suns last a thousand times longer than yellow sun, andthey will usher in more life (and intelligent life) later on. So, no one to talk to, or perhaps so few we can't find each other.
You believe in an invisible god, and dismiss people who say they are trans? Really?