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Why Haven't Aliens Contacted Us Yet? (Fermi Paradox)

One aspect of the "temporal disconnect" issue is that there's no reason to assume attainment of "civilization" or "technology" ensures its own continuation forever. For one technological civilization to detect another it's not sufficient to presume they've both arisen and obtained the means for detection. It depends on whether or not the older one(s) survived to the time the younger one(s) became capable of detecting them.

Given the huge distances and time delays involved, this can be rephrased in terms of whether any evidence or traces of the older one(s) detected with a lapse of years or centuries necessarily means they're still surviving as of the time of detection.
 
But isn't the point that an elder species should have left such a huge mark that we've should have been able to pick it up with our primitive tools?

Maybe so; maybe no ...

This presumes another "civilization" (the definition of which is a big issue in itself ... ) conducts itself so as to make the sort of "marks" we do.

Nonetheless, our species' SETI pros seem to be relying on this presumption, now that we're finally developing the means for scanning beyond our own star system ...
Advanced Alien Civilizations May Produce 'Technosignatures' That We Could Find, Experts Say

If life evolved on other planets as it did on Earth, aliens may be zooming around in vehicles that belch pollution into space. Or they might have had their very own Edison — and a planet blanketed in artificial light.

A group of astronomers is searching for these strange signals from distant exoplanets, or what are called "technosignatures," because they may point to the existence of intelligent civilizations elsewhere in the cosmos. The term "technosignature" is a relatively new one, first coined in 2007 by astronomer Jill Tarter, who at the time was the director of the Center for SETI Research.

But even before the birth of the term, astronomers have been searching for technosignatures, the most popular one being radio transmissions. Practically speaking, that often meant looking for something strange — an anomaly in the data that could indicate the presence of something unnatural — like a planet that's a bit too bright. Historically, that search wasn't taken seriously. Now, however, scientists say they may have a real shot at finding such signals — as long as they look for the right things in the right places. ...
FULL STORY: https://www.livescience.com/search-for-technosignatures.html
 
Maybe so; maybe no ...

This presumes another "civilization" (the definition of which is a big issue in itself ... ) conducts itself so as to make the sort of "marks" we do.

Nonetheless, our species' SETI pros seem to be relying on this presumption, now that we're finally developing the means for scanning beyond our own star system ...

FULL STORY: https://www.livescience.com/search-for-technosignatures.html

Discussion of the Ferma Paradox never seemed to include super-intelligent inert planet-bound lichen.
 
Discussion of the Ferma Paradox never seemed to include super-intelligent inert planet-bound lichen.

True ... Furthermore, in its original form the Fermi Paradox was focused on why "they" haven't contacted us yet - not when or how we might eventually discover them on our own.
 
Maybe so; maybe no ...

This presumes another "civilization" (the definition of which is a big issue in itself ... ) conducts itself so as to make the sort of "marks" we do.

Nonetheless, our species' SETI pros seem to be relying on this presumption, now that we're finally developing the means for scanning beyond our own star system ...

FULL STORY: https://www.livescience.com/search-for-technosignatures.html

Re; the "SETI pros", their detection scheme was characterized in the 1950s reliant on what they could 'see' as a probable technology future. Everything they did and do now is light speed constrained, however there are new technologies that point to other detection possibilities that are not speed of light constrained. Take for instance the Chinese Military's demonstration of their quantum RADAR system that not only can detect our best stealth aircraft, but can accurately range and present digital silhouette outline of the craft. This was reported in RF & Microwave Design Magazine, Military Electronics section, sometime around April 2019 as I recall. Unfortunately my wife chucked out all my ham and technology magazines, without asking, "the pile was too high!" In any case so much for the billions of Dollars expended developing RADAR stealth technology. Quantum RADAR photons only need to touch the target, not return. An acquaintance, back in the days before the SETI-L went private, posted on the open list his notion of an active-SETI experiment. Using one of his own custom designed quantum 'computers' (no digital logic or stored program processing hardware, yet employing Brian Josephson Field Effect Transfer-Resistor quantum devices), attached to a CCD camera staring at a photo of Earth. The racous birdie chirping of the SETI pros all went quiet, they always did that when something intelligent was posted. Something that required actual thinking. Dr. Ron Blue was 'transmitting' a quantum entangled photo of Earth to anyone out there with sufficient technology to receive. Bypassing the speed of light law, non-latency transmission. It is likely that all of the non-planet bound civilizations have solved two of the main practical problems of interplanetary transit, the Great-Distance-Communication and the Great-Distance-Travel problems. Quantum communication seemingly points to possibile engineering strategies that should resolve the first problem.

I am not impressed with the SETI guys, they might as well be sending / searching for smoke-signals their strategy is so primitively myopic.

Much has changed since the 1950s. They are using back water engineering. Heh heh, what a bunch of bozos ("Bozo" was the name of a 1970s children's TV clown in Los Angeles, Ca, USa). Incidentally, my brother and I saved Bozo's life a bunch of years ago. He lived in a trailer park where we lived. Just as my brother and I were driving past his trailer one evening, we heard a "pop, pop" sound. He came running out squirting blood all over his shirt. His wife had shot him as she found lipstick on his colar, where he had been smooching somebody at the TV station. My brother and I stopped the bleeding, told he & his wife to claim it was an accident to prevent Bozo's wife from being arrested! So, I have it on reasonable authority that Bozo the Clown was actually pretty stupid and so are the SETI Bozos in my opinion.

So what is the point? There are other strategies aside from listening with super-sensitive micro-wave receivers for technical signatures of a microwave capable distant civilization. All of the technically plausible strategies need be applied, the wider spectrum of strategies deployed the more likely we will detect somebody else out there. But to expend billions of Dollars on microwave gear alone is just plain stupid. Fortunately all the money isn't just being wasted on SETI, but is actually being used by radio astronomers as well, and they are doing authentic science.

Don't misunderstand me, searching for ET is in its own right an authentic science and need be treated as such. But lets move past the clown thinking and start looking using other more modern strategies.

plutronus
 
[...]

Don't misunderstand me, searching for ET is in its own right an authentic science and need be treated as such. But lets move past the clown thinking and start looking using other more modern strategies.
Cosidersble agreement...

Anything you would suggest as taking advantage of present technological capabilities?
 
I'm afraid that all 'faster-than-light' technologies are quite literally 'wishful thinking', in that we have used our great monkey brains to imagine what we want and created imaginary technologies to flesh out those fantasies. The truth is, the entire universe is set up so that nothing can travel faster than light. Those are the rules.

But let's imagine for a moment that faster-than-light travel and communication are possible (There is no practical difference between these two concepts; if you could send information, you could send enough data to build a sentient being, or an army of them). If the alien civilisations of our galaxy have faster-than-light capabilities (hint- they don't) then suddenly the Fermi Paradox gets a lot more problematic. Whereas before we only had to worry about explaining why no-one had arrived from nearby stars, within a few tens of light years (at speeds that would require journeys of decades at least), now we have to explain why the civilisations a hundred light years away can't get here, or a thousand light years away, or a million. If we accept that ultralight travel is possible, we have to account for the absence of spacecraft from the entire visible universe, not to mention the ones outside the Hubble Volume.

Worse than that, the concept of faster-than-light travel brings with it a much worse problem- time travel. Any method of faster-than-light travel enables the reversal of causality, so that messages (and even physical objects, such as spacecraft) can be transferred back into the past light-cones of any given observer. That would enable - no, require - any civilisation capable of travelling faster than light to go back into their own past and change events for good or bad. The whole universe would become a vast demonstration of the Butterfly Effect, where a little change in the past causes chaotic changes in the present.

And finally, most people get the central question of the Fermi Paradox wrong; it isn't 'Why can't we see them?' it is 'Why aren't they here?' Given faster-than-light travel and reversable causality, all the advanced alien civilisations for millions of light years around should have been here long ago. We would have been colonised, or conquered, as far back as the Precambrian. We would have been learning about the Great Galactic civilisiation in our schools for millions of years.

We haven't, and that suggests very strongly that FLT cannot happen.
 
I'm afraid that all 'faster-than-light' technologies are quite literally 'wishful thinking', in that we have used our great monkey brains to imagine what we want and created imaginary technologies to flesh out those fantasies. The truth is, the entire universe is set up so that nothing can travel faster than light. Those are the rules.
That's one mighty fine posting to accompany a morning coffee... :btime:

Some truly hard-hitting points therein. :bthumbup:
 
I'm afraid that all 'faster-than-light' technologies are quite literally 'wishful thinking', in that we have used our great monkey brains to imagine what we want and created imaginary technologies to flesh out those fantasies. The truth is, the entire universe is set up so that nothing can travel faster than light. Those are the rules.

But let's imagine for a moment that faster-than-light travel and communication are possible (There is no practical difference between these two concepts; if you could send information, you could send enough data to build a sentient being, or an army of them). If the alien civilisations of our galaxy have faster-than-light capabilities (hint- they don't) then suddenly the Fermi Paradox gets a lot more problematic. Whereas before we only had to worry about explaining why no-one had arrived from nearby stars, within a few tens of light years (at speeds that would require journeys of decades at least), now we have to explain why the civilisations a hundred light years away can't get here, or a thousand light years away, or a million. If we accept that ultralight travel is possible, we have to account for the absence of spacecraft from the entire visible universe, not to mention the ones outside the Hubble Volume.

Worse than that, the concept of faster-than-light travel brings with it a much worse problem- time travel. Any method of faster-than-light travel enables the reversal of causality, so that messages (and even physical objects, such as spacecraft) can be transferred back into the past light-cones of any given observer. That would enable - no, require - any civilisation capable of travelling faster than light to go back into their own past and change events for good or bad. The whole universe would become a vast demonstration of the Butterfly Effect, where a little change in the past causes chaotic changes in the present.

And finally, most people get the central question of the Fermi Paradox wrong; it isn't 'Why can't we see them?' it is 'Why aren't they here?' Given faster-than-light travel and reversable causality, all the advanced alien civilisations for millions of light years around should have been here long ago. We would have been colonised, or conquered, as far back as the Precambrian. We would have been learning about the Great Galactic civilisiation in our schools for millions of years.

We haven't, and that suggests very strongly that FLT cannot happen.

@eburacum, excellent reply.

Quantum entanglement isn't faster than light, it doesn't go anywhere, it exhibits no speed what so ever and doesn't convey information by transit and therefore does not violate the speed of light law. The Chinese Military are not the only World's Military that are developing instantaneous object detection systems. The subject is frequently discussed in virtually all of the US Military Engineering journals, one notable being the Air Force Research Laboratory magazine. Perhaps FT readers should take subscription to gain a glimpse of what is being revealed in the non-classified elements of the subject matter. In my opinion it is a fascinating subject. A few years ago I chatted with Cleve Backster (he coined both "psychotronic" and "psionic" phrases). At that time I was associated with a JPL engineer who was flight-converting Motorola radio modems for the Flight Unit Rover that is sitting on Mars. Backster, a proponent and developer of quantum entangled bio-communications, tried to convince JPL to allow him to place a QE experiment test vial on board the cruise stage so that he could demonstrate that there exists a super-luminal, non-latency, non-distal transference of information, out past the 186,000 mile marker, while the cruise stage of the ascent vehicle was enroute to Mars. Of course JPL had no interest in doing so and rightfully so, as every gram of weight had been engineered for the mission and any fuel headroom was allocated for flight-adjustment. But it just goes to illustrate that there are other possibilities.

Another, more obscure QE detection strategy involved a famous billionaire who ardently studies ET presence. I am under the instrument of NDA to keep my trap shut re; who. But, that gent paid for the engineering and deployment of a 16 x 16 plant/galvanometer-sensor array that was used in an attempt to detect the psi-field that is suspected to be emitted from passing ET discs. That system employed Cleve Backster's plant-parapsychology experiment electronics.

plutronus
 
Here's a new suggestion about Fermi's Paradox - the notion that the aggressive resource exploitation necessary to support an expansive interstellar civilization will override any discretion in dealing with others encountered along the way. Furthermore, humans are just as likely to wipe out others as any other so-called 'civilization' ...
FULL STORY: https://www.livescience.com/62715-first-in-last-out-fermi-paradox-answer.html

Here's an updated ScienceAlert article about Berezin's 2018 paper and his hypotheses ...

https://www.sciencealert.com/physic...ssing-explanation-for-why-we-never-see-aliens
 
I'm afraid that all 'faster-than-light' technologies are quite literally 'wishful thinking', in that we have used our great monkey brains to imagine what we want and created imaginary technologies to flesh out those fantasies. The truth is, the entire universe is set up so that nothing can travel faster than light. Those are the rules.

But let's imagine for a moment that faster-than-light travel and communication are possible (There is no practical difference between these two concepts; if you could send information, you could send enough data to build a sentient being, or an army of them). If the alien civilisations of our galaxy have faster-than-light capabilities (hint- they don't) then suddenly the Fermi Paradox gets a lot more problematic. Whereas before we only had to worry about explaining why no-one had arrived from nearby stars, within a few tens of light years (at speeds that would require journeys of decades at least), now we have to explain why the civilisations a hundred light years away can't get here, or a thousand light years away, or a million. If we accept that ultralight travel is possible, we have to account for the absence of spacecraft from the entire visible universe, not to mention the ones outside the Hubble Volume.

Worse than that, the concept of faster-than-light travel brings with it a much worse problem- time travel. Any method of faster-than-light travel enables the reversal of causality, so that messages (and even physical objects, such as spacecraft) can be transferred back into the past light-cones of any given observer. That would enable - no, require - any civilisation capable of travelling faster than light to go back into their own past and change events for good or bad. The whole universe would become a vast demonstration of the Butterfly Effect, where a little change in the past causes chaotic changes in the present.

And finally, most people get the central question of the Fermi Paradox wrong; it isn't 'Why can't we see them?' it is 'Why aren't they here?' Given faster-than-light travel and reversable causality, all the advanced alien civilisations for millions of light years around should have been here long ago. We would have been colonised, or conquered, as far back as the Precambrian. We would have been learning about the Great Galactic civilisiation in our schools for millions of years.

We haven't, and that suggests very strongly that FLT cannot happen.
Agreed a lot of theory's from astrophysicist. Yet to date the speed of light is a constant and cannot be exceeded in any consistence manner. The same limit is placed on the movement of electrons, however they can be slowed down. Under optimal conditions they can travel in at the speed of light so long as they're not slowed down by propagation delay. Interesting fact all waves from long wave RF to the upper end of the light spectrum all travel at the same speed only the frequency of the wave varies (shortens in a linear manner as one moves up the spectrum).
 
Possibly more interesting is that if you pass light through, say, a block of glass, it slows down when it's inside the glass but goes back to full speed when it exits.
 
Possibly more interesting is that if you pass light through, say, a block of glass, it slows down when it's inside the glass but goes back to full speed when it exits.
You'd think that would somehow attenuate it, but no.
 
Possibly more interesting is that if you pass light through, say, a block of glass, it slows down when it's inside the glass but goes back to full speed when it exits.
This is the basic property of propagation delay. The delay is determined by the permittivity of the material and it's dimensions. Losses are determined by the materials loss tangent (loss factor). If low enough it barely impedes the strength of the signal- wave, etc.
 
The interesting part is that it goes back to full speed after it has passed through the glass.
 
Maybe the light beams behind it give it a push through the glass, so it pops out at the previous speed like a cork from a champagne bottle?
 
Maybe.

I am told that photons don't have mass.

Question.

If no mass, why does the glass heat up ?
 
Maybe the light beams behind it give it a push through the glass, so it pops out at the previous speed like a cork from a champagne bottle?

Maybe; or the 'row of snooker balls' action.

I am told that photons don't have mass.
 
Maybe; or the 'row of snooker balls' action.

I am told that photons don't have mass.
Another thing that i find intriguing is light gets bent by gravity lenses, space itself getting curved. Makes my brain ache just thinking about it.:thought:
 
The interesting part is that it goes back to full speed after it has passed through the glass.
Because the permittivity of free space is = 1, after exiting the glass it again encounters the minimal permittivity of free space and proceeds w/o any further delay. Really just physics.
 
Because the permittivity of free space is = 1, after exiting the glass it again encounters the minimal permittivity of free space and proceeds w/o any further delay. Really just physics.
Any idea why the speed is usually quoted as in a vacuum..
 
I think the answer to this paradox was answered by John Keel

I paraphrase

We can look at bacteria in a blob of water with a microscope, we can poke it, move it, even kill it but we can't communicate with it, I guess it's aware that somethings out there , it will never know quite what

What ever it is out there, I am not sure it has the ability to communicate with us, it seems (or did) like to observe us and when you look at most of the data from sightings that's all it seemed to be doing
 
Consider if you will, that the idea that the Fermi Paradox may in fact be a piece of propaganda, given that thousands of people claim to have seen extraterrestrial craft, and a good few claim to have interacted with extraterrestrials in person. The Fermi Paradox is, after all, based on the assumption (quite possibly false) that extra-terrestrials haven't heard our signals and come and checked us out. I could also see how a paternalistic and old fashioned government might believe that people would panic if they admitted that they had been in contact with extraterrestrials, and lose faith in our religions and perhaps our government structure, but that is happening anyhow. One might even ask, has the Fermi Paradox been disproven by things such as the tictac footage?
 
Meh.
We probably have been contacted by aliens but there's a number of possible things have made us oblivious to it.
Maybe they look human. Came here. Had a look around. Maybe at a festival/rave so didn't look out of place.
Maybe they sent radio messages, at a time when we weren't listening, or heard it but didn't realise it was a message.
Maybe it was a long time ago and humans weren't sufficiently advanced to be of interest.
Maybe it was not so long ago but long enough that humans were getting advanced but still had strong beliefs about gods, monsters, witchcraft etc etc (There are drawings etc on cave walls and old manuscripts which don't look like humans)
Maybe aliens have contacted us but spoke to the wrong people. Some hick on a farm. Some remote villager in a 'third world' country. Or an animal of some sort not realising that they weren't trying to communicate with the dominant intelligent species on the planet?
Maybe aliens have contacted us but spoke to 'the wrong people'. Government or Military people. Owners of big businesses. People in charge of huge criminal enterprises. etc etc?
 
They have settled in Cromer, they fit in there, extra limbs/tentacles not unusual.
I think you have become confused by crabs...psssst .. Blue Unction used to be a solution for them.
 
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