The Fermi Paradox

LOOK!! Life is just a continuous chemical reaction that needs certain rectants and catalisks needed to form it. So if there is another planet with elements we have. i can guarentee that there would be life on it.

What would be the incentive of intelligent alien races who may be thousands of years (older) more advanced (tech/spiritual maturity)to come down in a space ship and risk getting attacked? Even Ronald Reagan was enamored with the idea of an interstellar war. At the very least, maybe we're not ready to listen to what they have to teach us?

Personally, I think they (1) do exist and (2) communicate with us. The friends of the aliens are generally labeled crackpots. Maybe the problem they see is the same problem I struggle with. It breaks my heart that I have enormous difficulty reconciling the consciousness of Albert Schwietzer, (others) with the cold amoral intellectual/

mathemtical analysis of facts, patterns and evidence.

I wrote and published a sci-fi adventure novel based on the concept that dark matter is actually just ordinary matter purposely hidden from our view - it simply consists of many more star systems in our galaxy heavily populated by highly advanced aliens who wish to remain unseen. Why they would do such a thing and how they do it are explained in the story. In essence, such a scenario would solve both the Fermi paradox and the mystery about the composition of dark matter. Details about the book can be found on my website at www.swahmed.com.

Sajjad,

That's a logical and interesting idea. Does anybody know if dark matter/dark energy distributes itself that way in the Milky Way or other galaxies?

Quantum Chess

I was wondering if anybody had ever compared chess strategy to quantum mechanics? When you're trying to win against the other opponent, and you're thinking strategically, you position your pieces in optimal places. But what is quantum-like in chess is that, for example, a chess piece can gaurd several spots simultaneously. Both opponents will measure (probabilities) of the best moves and subsequent consequences. This will govern the succession of chess pieces to be captured. In other words, the chess pieces of both sides will be removed from the border in some order based on the strategy and skill of the two players.

While computers can be taught to play chess in an automated way; and the laws of physics are automated. This might also be my sneaky attempt to derive "intelligence" from quantum mechanics.

Is there anything potentially useful in this idea? Is there anywhere in quantum physics where the particle-waves are collapsing/behaving strategically?

The Fermi paradox? How about this extraterrestrial, which I found in my hotel room?

Maybe there are extraterrestrial intelligent life forms, visiting us and even establishing close encounters with us. Then, the question is "why isn't this official enough to be clear for all of everybody?".

On the other hand, maybe it is so improbable for life to occur, that this makes our planet very rare, so rare that it is unique, at least in our part of the Universe. This possibility raises other questions, such as "if life is so improbable, then how come that we exist?". To this question, some choose a religious answer (stating that God created us, and only us, at least in our part of the Universe), forwarding the problem outside the realm of science.

Others use an anthropic reasoning. A good anthropic solution to the Fermi paradox should show that:

1. It is much probable for life to appear in very simple forms, then to evolve into intelligent and self-aware beings, than for disembodies Boltzmann brains to materialize out of nothing. This would explain why the intelligences we know are part of a planetary ecosystem.

2. The probability for the existence of a planet providing the necessary conditions for self-aware life is small enough, such that finding two such planets closed enough to establish contact is improbable.

"...and yet no observations to date have produced credible 'footprints' of any of them" Are you serious? There is a ton of evidence including close range sightings of craft, radar+visible sightings of objects making impossible manuevers, encounters with beings by reputable fully-awake individuals, and much more. Read a few books, starting with Stanford astrophysicist Peter Sturrock's dry and serious "The UFO Enigma: A New Review of the Physical Evidence", then any of Jacques Vallee's recently reissued books such as "Dimension".

The best evidence, while by no means conclusive, clearly suggests the answer to Fermi is "They ARE here" but we are mostly just too unimaginative to recognize them. The very real data are dismissed because they are simply too strange to believe. But science is about *all* the data, *especially* that which doesn't agree with our current theories and understanding. Unfortunately, mainstream science today, often fearing ridicule and lacking courage when confronted with strange and difficult data, has failed to fairly and seriously consider it in this case.

The complex physical systems we call LIFE have been studied through the eyes of evolution and comology now for a century or two with very little (i think) success at explaining the uniqueness of our planet. (yes as far as we know for sure we are unique, so let's proceed with that mindset until proven otherwise.) This historical research framework fails to see the big picture of the reasons for life on earth, which include the habitable zone, earth's spin rate, the speed of light around earth, the mass of the sun, and the geoenergy released from the sun. These macroscopic factors specific to our star-planet scenario are required for life around any star; or at least our kind of life since there may be others we cannot comprehend.

As for the topic of consciousness, simply begin to acknowledge that our star just may be influencial in how the mind works. As the holder of 99.9% of all the mass in the solar system, what else could be more influencial to any aspect of life? Life is a product of these macroscopic attributes and it is connected intimately to them. It's finally time we discovered how they work.

Until we are able to explain how life has conspired to exist on our little speck of matter not just once, but over and over again after many extinctions, every earth-bound life form is equally as quixotic as any alien that may approache us from another place. i cannot imagine a more mute question - pondering possiblities of life elsewhere - until we have pinned down life here way better than we have.

It's debatable.

How likely is it really to find intelligent lifeforms like humans in the universe?

A closer look at home should provide an answer. We know, given the correct conditions life can form and thrive. We need four basic elements to allow life to procreate - these are nitrogen, hydrogen, oxygen and carbon.

Now, some point in the earths history, a single celled life, a prokaryote gave life to all earth. Today, these conditions has given life a sucessful flux into the thriving world we see today... but humans are superbly unique.

On the scale of intelligence, we are actually very quite rare. There is nothing which shouldn't suggest the universe is teeming with life - it most probably is. Question is, is intelligent life something which is a rare phenomena, or something which is quite frequent? Studying this planet, it seems to be quite rare... and considering how quiet spacetime is, it's rare universally as well.

I meant to also state... there are intelligent lifeforms on the planet beside us, such as Dolphins, but even our intelligence scales far above theirs.

Space travel is too hazardous in a virtual reality, you may run out of space, literally

http://www.digitalcosmology.com/Articles/Harokopos1103t.pdf

I like the biocentric explanation: that our observed universe is specific to our particular biological lineage, and that any other causally unrelated lineage would necessarily observe and dwell in a different universe:

http://www.biocentricity.net

This view also solves the bizarre anomaly of CMB anisotropy, where the largest features of the universe seem to be correlated with the motion and orientation of the Earth around the Sun, in apparent violation of the Copernican principle:

http://cerncourier.com/cws/article/cern/29210

Ever watch Star Trek? Advanced civilizations might have some variation of the non-interference directive that prohibits contact with the inhabitants of planets. Considering the behavior of humans during the last century, other civilizations might prefer not to have contact with us in our current stage of development.

On the other hand there is evidence that can be interpreted as visits by other civilizations. The best evidence involves the stories of the Dogon people in Africa whose ancestors may have been visited by E.T's who gave them knowledge of the Sirius star system including knowledge of Sirius B and its relationship with Sirius A. http://www.crystalinks.com/sirius.html

Visits by E.T. might well be described as visits by gods considering the way the Aztecs initially viewed the Spanish conquistadores.

I'm doubtful about alien abductions, but recognize that an E.T. wanting to examine us scientifically might try to find subjects whose claims would be ignored.

I am reminded of an episode of "Cosmos" where Sagan talks about old theories about life on Venus: It's an obscure white blob, it must be covered with clouds, therefore it must be wet and steamy, wet and steamy means swamps, and if there are swamps there must be swamp creatures, like dinosaurs. "Observation: Can't see a thing. Conclusion: Dinosaurs!"

In this case, it's: Observation, can't see a thing. Conclusion: Intelligent complex beings watching us, hiding themselves from us, and only experimenting on individuals who won't blow their cover.

It's amazing how people's own minds and desires lead them so easily to bizarre conclusions.

Hi,

I am hoping to get commentary and criticism on my web site which defines the complexity of the universe.

It is really simple, and I hope someone can give me some pointers on how to explain it better.

The basic idea is that the complexity of the universe is equal to the information content of the universe. The information content of the universe is equivalent to the objective probability of a state.

A more complex state == more informed state == less probable state.

I am really looking for good questions which then I can respond to to help clarify the ideas.

Markov Chain Universe

Life is somewhat rare, but intelligent life that has managed to survive any local catastrophic events and build the means for space exploration is much rarer still.

I think we can safely assume that there is no time travel or faster than light space travel, since in that case we would be overrun by alien life forms and would not be wondering where they were. If that is true, then suppose that an intelligent alien civilization can travel for thousands of years to reach us, and that it would. The journey would need to be worthwhile for such a massive expenditure of resources. How would it decide to use its resources to visit Earth, specifically? It would have to have seen us with very powerful telescopes that could actually discern that our planet has life on it. It would need to observe that life doing something intelligent-looking, like building a civilization, etc., because it would be a waste of time to visit a planet of grazing herbivores, right? That is, unless it was just looking to colonize and/or take the resources.

If that all makes sense, then Earth creatures have only looked intelligent for a few thousand years, which makes the time in which we could have been discovered, an expedition to us mounted, and to have gotten here very short by interstellar travel standards. The alien civilization would have to be very close (within a few thousand light years, assuming near-light speeds are possible), would have to have been looking right at us at the dawn of "civilization," AND not be distracted by something more interesting or closer.

So, I think intelligent life just hasn't arrived yet, and it may be awhile. Hopefully, we'll still be here then.

How would you do on a hypothetical dolphin constructed intelligence test without any technological aid? Bearing in mind you don't have personal sonar and they do ( giving them "x ray like" vision as well as normal sight.) Unfair test you may cry.

As a species we have been able to construct ever more complex tools due to our hands with -opposable thumbs-! Our species has technology that most people do not understand and could not construct for themselves and can not control. Many have forgotten how to survive as mere human beings and have become like utterly dependent domestic pets. Our technology destroys our natural life support system, and lets us temporarily forget about the harsh realities of population dynamics, be comfortable and entertained. How intelligent is that really? Should we hope to meet creatures as "intelligent" as us?

I think that we are not detecting alien life only because we are using the wrong detectors. By using radio or other electromagnetic means, we are limiting the more-intelligent civilizations to our own pathetic media of communications; perhaps the electromagnetic era for them lasted only a short time until they found something better. We could be like aborigines saying that there were no intelligent colonies elsewhere on earth because they didn't see smoke from campfires.

In the Drake equation, Sagan assumed that the radio era lasted about 100 years and that the end of the radio era corresponded to destruction of the civilization. Perhaps the radio era simply terminates when a better means of communication comes along.

If you let your imagination wander away from the limitations of electromagnetism and the speed of light, perhaps they communicate using modulated coherent beams of neutrinos, quantum coupling, or some other technique we can't even begin to imagine.

has anyone considered the possibility that while intelligence may not be rare, The evolutionary necessity to build tools is very rare. example: Dolphins often show signs of very high intellects(syntax understanding, communication, learning) and have no evolutionary need to build tools.