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

Is it wrong to imagine another planet somewhere far across the Universe, roughly as technologically-advanced as we are, where the inhabitants sit and ponder, just as we do, whether or not there is alien life elsewhere... and come to the conclusion that there mustn't be anyone else otherwise they would have got in contact by now?


EDIT: what I mean is, there's something rather amusing about the thought of the inhabitants of two planets at opposite sides of the Universe, both wondering if there is life and thinking that maybe there isn't because they haven't been contacted yet.
 
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I imagine that they either don't want to, don't wish to, or don't need to?
 
Schrodinger's Zebra said:
Is it wrong to imagine another planet somewhere far across the Universe, roughly as technologically-advanced as we are, where the inhabitants sit and ponder, just as we do, whether or not there is alien life elsewhere... and come to the conclusion that there mustn't be anyone else otherwise they would have got in contact by now? ...
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Even among us monkey-folk of earth, we might well consider anyone waiting on someone else to proactively submit a communication or invitation as (a) generally delusional regarding his / her status and / or (b) a pretentiously arrogant twit.

How "intelligent" should one consider such a party to be, and how "intelligent" could one consider oneself to be in acceding to such a party's condescending passivity? :thought:
 
EnolaGaia said:
Even among us monkey-folk of earth, we might well consider anyone waiting on someone else to proactively submit a communication or invitation as (a) generally delusional regarding his / her status and / or (b) a pretentiously arrogant twit.

How "intelligent" should one consider such a party to be, and how "intelligent" could one consider oneself to be in acceding to such a party's condescending passivity? :thought:
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Apologies, but I'm not quite understanding your comment (it's very late here and I really should be asleep :) )

I was merely thinking of the absurdity/irony of the inhabitants of two vastly-distant planets, each searching for (and failing to find) life elsewhere and each proclaiming that they must be alone in the Universe, and all the while not realising...

But I agree that simply waiting/expecting to be contacted, if that's what you're saying, does smack a little bit of arrogance. (Perhaps the aliens out there have simply not chosen Earth as their holiday destination of choice ;) )
 
Schrodinger's Zebra said:
Apologies, but I'm not quite understanding your comment (it's very late here and I really should be asleep :) )

I was merely thinking of the absurdity/irony of the inhabitants of two vastly-distant planets, each searching for (and failing to find) life elsewhere and each proclaiming that they must be alone in the Universe, and all the while not realising...

But I agree that simply waiting/expecting to be contacted, if that's what you're saying, does smack a little bit of arrogance. (Perhaps the aliens out there have simply not chosen Earth as their holiday destination of choice ;) )
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He's basically saying aliens have better things to do with their time, like doing the hoovering.
 
This ScienceAlert article surveys the proposed Fermi Paradox solution focused on the simple fact that interstellar travel is simply too costly.
The Cost of Visiting Earth May Be Too Astronomical For Aliens

Since Fermi's time, there have been several proposed resolutions to his question, which includes the very real possibility that interstellar colonization follows the basic rule of Percolation Theory.

One of the key assumptions behind the Fermi Paradox is that given the abundance of planets and the age of the Universe, an advanced exo-civilization should have colonized a significant portion of our galaxy by now.

This is certainly not without merit, considering that within the Milky Way galaxy alone (which is over 13.5 billion years old), there are an estimated 100 to 400 billion stars.

Another key assumption is that intelligent species will be motivated to colonize other star systems as part of some natural drive to explore and extend the reach of their civilization. ...

Last, but certainly not least, it assumes that interstellar space travel would be feasible and even practical for an advanced exo-civilization.

But this, in turn, comes down to the assumption that technological advances will provide solutions to the single-greatest challenge of interstellar travel.

In short, the amount of energy it would take for a spacecraft to travel from one star to another is prohibitively large, especially where large, crewed spacecraft would be concerned. ...
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FULL STORY: https://www.sciencealert.com/it-may-just-be-too-expensive-for-aliens-to-visit-earth
 
Mythopoeika said:
Cost? They probably don't even use money.
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The argument isn't framed with regard to anything as ephemeral as money. Instead, it's contextualized with respect to basic time, effort and resources.
 
A planet’s heavy gravity would be a major stumbling block in primitive machines getting off the ground. And there again, if a civilisation invented a cannon before a wheel, transport may have taken second place to war and plunder. There are tons of variables which we, from our history, can see as Time’s Arrow of progression but if events were jumbled up, it’s not guaranteed the inhabitants would survive long enough to get into space. We take inoculation and vaccines for granted but those are the product of security, leisure, education, study, leaps of logic and large dollops of chance. What if a whole planet decided not to take a vaccine? What if an alien species ate their young before they had time to learn from history and apply it? I also refer again to my earlier comment about aquatic creatures needing fire and an environment for combustion to take place for their inventions to bear fruit in the first place.
 
The widespread cultivation of their primo Space-Weed became their early religion and they began to play video games and eat alien Cheetos; their spectacular spaceships lay unfinished in their hangars and then they got whacked by an asteroid..
 
Think about it. A culture that knows all and is so bored, they’re merely looking for inspiration for the show ‘Galaxy’s Got Talent’.
 
If, essentially:

"The Milky Way contains between 100 and 400 billion stars and at least that many planets".

"The Hubble Deep Field, an extremely long exposure of a relatively empty part of the sky, provided evidence that there are about 125 billion (1.25×1011) galaxies in the observable universe".

Surely it's inconceivable, 'we are alone'?

Is the simple answer to the question of any contact, it would effectively be impossible because of the inherent scale and you absolutely can not travel faster than light?

That's it, end of?
 
Maybe they just can't work out how to.


How much more technology do we have than fish? But then we still don't know how to communicate meaningfully with one.
 
Comfortably Numb said:
If, essentially:

"The Milky Way contains between 100 and 400 billion stars and at least that many planets".

"The Hubble Deep Field, an extremely long exposure of a relatively empty part of the sky, provided evidence that there are about 125 billion (1.25×1011) galaxies in the observable universe".

Surely it's inconceivable, 'we are alone'?

Is the simple answer to the question of any contact, it would effectively be impossible because of the inherent scale and you absolutely can not travel faster than light?

That's it, end of?
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We dont know aliens havent made contact with earth, for all we know the might be doing it all the time, we just dont see it for what it is.
 
There's a letter in the current FT that says visiting aliens can't be tiny or fish because they would need to make fire to advance to the stars. But I'm not sure that's true, there are more ways to propel yourself than fire, aren't there? Assuming they're not using their cosmic superminds to teleport here, that is.
 
GNC said:
There's a letter in the current FT that says visiting aliens can't be tiny or fish because they would need to make fire to advance to the stars. But I'm not sure that's true, there are more ways to propel yourself than fire, aren't there? Assuming they're not using their cosmic superminds to teleport here, that is.
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The aliens in the film 'Arrival' were squiddy/octopus type things i seem to recall.

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I only managed to get about 20 minutes into 'Arrival' before I got nearly terminally bored.

So did they they later on discover they were squiddy/octopus type things when they tried sautéing them with a little garlic butter then?
 
EnolaGaia said:
The argument isn't framed with regard to anything as ephemeral as money. Instead, it's contextualized with respect to basic time, effort and resources.
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and the will to do it.

The next decade or so will be interesting with the emergence of 3 new telescopes which should be able to pick up technosignatures.
 
Analogue Boy said:
A planet’s heavy gravity would be a major stumbling block in primitive machines getting off the ground. And there again, if a civilisation invented a cannon before a wheel, transport may have taken second place to war and plunder. There are tons of variables which we, from our history, can see as Time’s Arrow of progression but if events were jumbled up, it’s not guaranteed the inhabitants would survive long enough to get into space. We take inoculation and vaccines for granted but those are the product of security, leisure, education, study, leaps of logic and large dollops of chance. What if a whole planet decided not to take a vaccine? What if an alien species ate their young before they had time to learn from history and apply it? I also refer again to my earlier comment about aquatic creatures needing fire and an environment for combustion to take place for their inventions to bear fruit in the first place.
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The military drove the space program, without it we wouldn't have satellites, the Shuttle, computers, moon landings, etc. The military has driven a lot of technological and health innovations,

Also, cannons are only as good as their ability to be moved. Armies from the 15th century onwards could no longer rely on supplying themselves and the wheel would have to be invented to make supply lines feasible. That's why the wheel was invented in 4500 BC and the cannon in the 12th century.

The wheel if anything was more important than the cannon from a military standpoint as it allowed more men to be deployed over larger distances.
 
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I would not want to contact humans either.

Humans are not “warm and fuzzy “, and could be harmful to your health.

The U.S. had 45 mass shootings in the month of March.

This is worse than “ old Dodge City, Kansas “.
 
Naughty_Felid said:
The military drove the space program, without it we wouldn't have satellites, the Shuttle, computers, moon landings, etc. The military has driven a lot of technological and health innovations,

Also, cannons are only as good as their ability to be moved. Armies from the 15th century onwards could no longer rely on supplying themselves and the wheel would have to be invented to make supply lines feasible. That's why the wheel was invented in 4500 BC and the cannon in the 12th century.

The wheel if anything was more important than the cannon from a military standpoint as it allowed more men to be deployed over larger distances.
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Yes. That all applies in our history and our planet with our thinking and our logic. But life on other planets may not have evolved with the same technological progression. Also the topography of the planet could have rendered a wheel useless.
’Hey. I think I just created a cannon.’
’Great. Let’s strap two of them to the Juggernaut Worm over there and attack those bastards in the next settlement.’
 
They landed on the underside of the flat earth, so we couldn't see them.
 
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