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

Cochise said:
Well, consider we (humans) may not be normal but an aberration, a billions to one chance. After all the scientific explanation as to why oxygen breathing life itself exists relies on a tremendous amount of what I (as a non-scientist, although something of an engineer) would call an infeasible sequence of fortunate circumstance. To extrapolate that out to humans goes beyond to the realms of a one celled organism winning the National Lottery.
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With all respect, this is, in my opinion, a human-centric argument that places us as some magnificent creation of nature. Yes, homo sapiens may be unique in our galaxy but does that make us special or a freak of nature…? We discover the power source of the stars, turn it into a species-ending weapon and stand across the oceans brandishing our stockpiles at each other. We have never known peace as a species and commit the most appalling crimes against each other whilst also systemically causing the next great extinction event and poisoning our own planet.

Perhaps the universe is teeming with alternative intelligences who are aware of our presence (if only from our polluted biosphere) and are giving us a wide berth. Why waste vast resources and time to try and fix what can’t be fixed…?
 
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RaM said:
I believe there is intelligent life out there, but you have to wonder what any that were
capable of making the trip here would make of life here, our biggest industry's are
geared towards killing each other so what are we likely to try to do to outsiders.
I.am not even sure there is intelligent life here, and their idea of it may vary widely
from ours, if they have done a bit of re-con they will have every expectation of being
attacked, imprisoned, interrogated, dissected, killed not necessarily in that order,
and if we find they taste like chicken eaten.
No I don't blame them for not landing on the White House lawn.
:omr:
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Snap :)
 
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Paul_Exeter said:
With all respect, this is, in my opinion, a human-centric argument that places us as some magnificent creation of nature. Yes, Homo sapiens may be unique in our galaxy but does that make us special or a freak of nature…? We discover the power source of the stars, turn it into a species-ending weapon and stand across the oceans brandishing our stockpiles at each other. We have never known peace as a species and commit the most appalling crimes against each other whilst also systemically causing the next great extinction event and poisoning our own planet.

Perhaps the universe is teeming with alternative intelligences who are aware of our presence (if only from our polluted biospher) and are giving us a wide berth. Why waste vast resources and time to try and fix what can’t be fixed…?
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Perhaps more a mistake than a magnificent creation. Technological intelligence may evolve quite often ( But only once that we know of in hundreds of millions of years of life on Earth) and only last a few hundreds of years as it is a dead end - perhaps because the distances between stars are just too great and there is no "warp drive". Therefore the chances of two such civilisations arising near enough in time and space is vanishingly small. One part of the Drake equation - life of a technological civilisation - that always seems to be given an optimistic value.
The life span of individuals of a species may be a factor or the species' ability to hibernate, allowing longer journey times without the need for near light speeds or warp drives etc.
 
Tunn11 said:
Perhaps more a mistake than a magnificent creation. Technological intelligence may evolve quite often ( But only once that we know of in hundreds of millions of years of life on Earth) and only last a few hundreds of years as it is a dead end - perhaps because the distances between stars are just too great and there is no "warp drive". Therefore the chances of two such civilisations arising near enough in time and space is vanishingly small. One part of the Drake equation - life of a technological civilisation - that always seems to be given an optimistic value.
The life span of individuals of a species may be a factor or the species' ability to hibernate, allowing longer journey times without the need for near light speeds or warp drives etc.
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At the moment the nearest star is just over four light years away and I agree, it is a staggering distance even to our neighbour.

However, 70,000 years ago a pair of stars came within 0.8 lights years of our solar system:

https://www.sciencenews.org/article/closest-star-approach-sun

Still a vast distance, but perhaps within reach of us by some sort of advanced probe employing a solar sail?
 
kamalktk said:
Plus plastic is an oil product. And they could have had a weird thing about using themselves ;)
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Good point! Although doesn't some oil originate from earlier, carboniferous etc.? However them having any sort of advanced technology is a pretty remote possibility.
 
Interesting development here. Doesn't do much for the time dimension, but at least shows it may be technically possible.

Mathematical calculations show that quantum communication across interstellar space should be possible​

"A team of physicists at the University of Edinburgh's School of Physics and Astronomy has used mathematical calculations to show that quantum communications across interstellar space should be possible. In their paper published in the journal Physical Review D, the group describes their calculations and also the possibility of extraterrestrial beings attempting to communicate with us using such signaling."
Via Phys.org
 
Ascalon said:
Interesting development here. Doesn't do much for the time dimension, but at least shows it may be technically possible.

Mathematical calculations show that quantum communication across interstellar space should be possible​

"A team of physicists at the University of Edinburgh's School of Physics and Astronomy has used mathematical calculations to show that quantum communications across interstellar space should be possible. In their paper published in the journal Physical Review D, the group describes their calculations and also the possibility of extraterrestrial beings attempting to communicate with us using such signaling."
Via Phys.org
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I thought this was found to be possible ages ago?
I'd like to know when I can buy an Ansible.
 
Paul_Exeter said:
With all respect, this is, in my opinion, a human-centric argument that places us as some magnificent creation of nature. Yes, homo sapiens may be unique in our galaxy but does that make us special or a freak of nature…? We discover the power source of the stars, turn it into a species-ending weapon and stand across the oceans brandishing our stockpiles at each other. We have never known peace as a species and commit the most appalling crimes against each other whilst also systemically causing the next great extinction event and poisoning our own planet.

Perhaps the universe is teeming with alternative intelligences who are aware of our presence (if only from our polluted biosphere) and are giving us a wide berth. Why waste vast resources and time to try and fix what can’t be fixed…?
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One interpretation.

I was more thinking that the odds of arriving at something like us are so great as to be almost impossible. For a start the early universe simply didn't have available all the evolved elements we rely on, and the early Earth had insufficient oxygen for us to happen. If the universe is indeed finite (and only three dimensional) than it doesn't surprise me at all that we are the first beings to be capable of getting off our own planet. Give it another few billion years (by which time we will be long gone) and maybe something will evolve that is capable of interstellar travel - something I'm now sure we are not going to achieve.

Your argument kind of smacks of the opposite prejudice - the human race is so poisonous no other intelligence would have anything to do with us.
 
Simply some numbers on the "Material" kind of encounters and communication:
If there is no thechnological civilization in this galaxy in the same range of time that the human civilization exist, ( which is very possible, if we add all the constricctions to the needs of such civilization to develop.)
Then we will try to search on our sorrouding galaxies, keeping that search still on our closest neighborhood, we take for example Centaurus A. Quite close one. Well we would need a bare 28.000 MILLIONS of years to complete a communication and, in the more optimistic prospect a minimum of 280.000 MILLIONS of years to complete a travel of go and return. The ship would have to be very good build if we expect it to remain 280.000.000.000 years on good service working.
If we expect this kind of communication to be possible it have to be on a non material basis.

*A biological note to keep the proportions in mind, All the ages of existence of the dinosaurs in earth extend only 160 MILLION years
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C.O.T. said:
Simply some numbers on the "Material" kind of encounters and communication:
If there is no thechnological civilization in this galaxy in the same range of time that the human civilization exist, ( which is very possible, if we add all the constricctions to the needs of such civilization to develop.)
Then we will try to search on our sorrouding galaxies, keeping that search still on our closest neighborhood, we take for example Centaurus A. Quite close one. Well we would need a bare 28.000 MILLIONS of years to complete a communication and, in the more optimistic prospect a minimum of 280.000 MILLIONS of years to complete a travel of go and return. The ship would have to be very good build if we expect it to remain 280.000.000.000 years on good service working.
If we expect this kind of communication to be possible it have to be on a non material basis.

*A biological note to keep the proportions in mind, All the ages of existence of the dinosaurs in earth extend only 160 MILLION years
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Forget communication... the problem is we're not seeing any observable signs of any highly advanced civilization, some proposed megastructures, for example, should be observable, whether or not they are still inhabited or inhabitable. Self-replicating probes would have had time to have explored the whole galaxy by now, given the age of the galaxy, but we are seeing nothing...
 
Well if you only want to watch some sign of civilization in Centaurus A galaxy then is more easy, you only have to wait 14.000 MILLION years for the light of the images or the radio signals to arrive at earth. Repeat the biological numbers, all the ages of dinosaurs on earth are 160 million years.
Of course there is too the issue of the amount of energy needed to emit a non focalized beam of energy of 14.000.000.000 lightyears of radius. Probably it would be needed to install some kind of switch on a whole star that allow to turn it on and off at will, as a morse emitter. As the ship that remains 28.000.000.000 years on good working service seems me quite improbable.
In reality, realising on that facts makes that what would be a surprise would be to have any notice of such civilizations at all.
Contact with other civilizations is impossible on the material basis. But... Only on the material basis.
 
I've just had If the Universe Is Teeming with Aliens ... WHERE IS EVERYBODY?: Seventy-Five Solutions to the Fermi Paradox and the Problem of Extraterrestrial Life by Stephen Webb pop up as a suggestion on Kindle. Has anyone read it. Is it any good? I'm very tempted.
 
SimonBurchell said:
Forget communication... the problem is we're not seeing any observable signs of any highly advanced civilization, some proposed megastructures, for example, should be observable, whether or not they are still inhabited or inhabitable. Self-replicating probes would have had time to have explored the whole galaxy by now, given the age of the galaxy, but we are seeing nothing...
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True, but some UFO experiences have sounded very much like self-replicating probes. For example, perhaps the Dechmont Woods UFO experienced by Robert Taylor was a malfunctioning probe:

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-scotland-50262655

Probes may have visited but be programmed not to 'make contact' but rather to observe, learn and replicate
 
C.O.T. said:
Well if you only want to watch some sign of civilization in Centaurus A galaxy then is more easy, you only have to wait 14.000 MILLION years for the light of the images or the radio signals to arrive at earth.
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Normally you would write 14.000 million as 14 billion, although this may be confusing to the vanishingly small number of people who use the old 'English' billion (a million million).

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On the other hand this is irrelevant, since Centaurus A is only 14 million light years away. A radio signal would only take 14 million years to get here. This is still a fantastically long time, but not billions of years.

I wouldn't expect to get much contact from Centaurus A in any case; the closest star to our Sun is only four light years away, so journey times to the nearest civilisation may be much smaller, even at one tenth of the speed of light.
 
eburacum said:
Centaurus A is only 14 million light years away.
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Strictly speaking though, of course, Centaurus A was 14 million light years away when the light from it (which is what we are now observing) started it's journey.
It could be much further away than that by now.
Or not even in existence any longer having been obliterated by a supernova.
 
Trevp666 said:
Strictly speaking though, of course, Centaurus A was 14 million light years away when the light from it (which is what we are now observing) started it's journey.
It could be much further away than that by now.
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Well, the rate of expansion of the universe is well known for objects at that distance; Centaurus A is receding at 300 km per second, which turns out to be an extra 22,000 light years over the last 14 million years.
Barely significant.

The expansion of the universe only really starts making a significant difference at a distance of a gigalightyear or more.
 
But the essential about this data is that turns all the Ufology about physical encounters as something impossible in any way, and even less in the terms of the "watch and hide" encounters that Ufology has drawn this last decades.
Only to add some more argument to this, if you are good at physics try to do a very simple calculation: get the mass of a single atom ( choose a very common one on this universe) then multiply that very tiny mass for the velocity of the light. You would get as result the energy of the impact of that single wondering atom with the starship supposed to fly at velocities close to the light.
To get the data into human context, thing that in this kind of cosmological stuff is ever needed, compare that energy with some kind of firearm shots....i dont remember exactly the data but think that for a single atom of uranium the impact would be similar to a shot of a 150 howitzer.
Some people will tell that I'm too negationist of the UFO phenomenon. Well, not at all...I said that only the physical contact is a nonsense. But said too that non physical contacts are completely possible. Then Ufology would have to meet with extra sensory perception, magic or may be even mystic. Any discipline that allow to contact out of time and space.
 
C.O.T. said:
Any discipline that allow to contact out of time and space.
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What about wormholes or other space bending technologies? OK only a theory but possible?
 
C.O.T. said:
Only to add some more argument to this, if you are good at physics try to do a very simple calculation: get the mass of a single atom ( choose a very common one on this universe) then multiply that very tiny mass for the velocity of the light. You would get as result the energy of the impact of that single wondering atom with the starship supposed to fly at velocities close to the light.
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I'd agree with this. Any impact at a speed faster than 86.6% of the speed of light contains as much energy as a direct hit with a particle of antimatter with the same mass. This means essentially that you are converting the interstellar dust into pure energy at that speed. Luckily the interstellar medium is quite thin, but it is still equivalent to ploughing through light-years of antimatter.
 
I admit that latelly has been a small but growing amount of notices about UFO sights that recently include some data recorded from radars or from cameras from jets. Recognize that this evidences point to some kind of material interaction, but if we see the footage of this records we realize that the things that apear dont seem to have any physical relation with its environment at all. Never show any kind of aerodynamic interaction, nor any effect of his own inertial mass on the acceleration or deceleration. It seems more like that kind of childs game that were about to get a mirror and project some kind of bright spot over a dark surface moving the spot and simulating that was a moving object. Dont know how is called in English countries, in Spain we call that game to play the mouse, and boys play it with dogs or cats.
 
I'm reasonably confident that none of the film clips released by the US Navy in recent years show anything except mundane, Earthly objects. Already a selection of these clips have been explained by the military as terrestrial drones, although in some cases the guys at Metabunk have demonstrated that they are just stars.

Mick West is developing a tool which can analyse the flightpath of an unknown object when filmed from a terrestrial plane, and derive the most likely distance and flightpath from this data. In many cases the object can be shown to be most likely a terrestrial object, such as a distant jet or a nearby balloon, drone or bird. These objects often look like they are performing impossible manoeuvres, but this apparent motion is an artefact of the movement of the plane that the observer is filming it from.

I think that coupled with the extreme difficulty of getting here, and the sheer unlikely nature of the evolution of intelligent life, the fact that these clips can consistently be explained suggests that there is no alien life visiting us at the moment.
 
Paul_Exeter said:
True, but some UFO experiences have sounded very much like self-replicating probes. For example, perhaps the Dechmont Woods UFO experienced by Robert Taylor was a malfunctioning probe:

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-scotland-50262655

Probes may have visited but be programmed not to 'make contact' but rather to observe, learn and replicate
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I've often thought that if there are UFO's - I've always been open to the idea but never seen any compelling evidence - they are more likely from alternate dimensions or timelines than from elsewhere in our own physical universe.
 
Cochise said:
- they are more likely from alternate dimensions or timelines than from elsewhere in our own physical universe.
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...except, respectfully, there is even less evidence for either of those things, than there is for aliens visiting us.
 
Telepathy or remote vision are both human experiences that work out of space, maybe could be suitable to a search for extremely far distance extragalactic civilizations, or maybe to a kind of inverse alien encounter, in which the human telephats act as the aliens on that worlds.
Some time Ingo Swann, that was working on the EPS program of remote viewing told that only searching for things on earth was too boring and a limitation, he tried to remote view some planets on the solar system and got some data. Described rings around Jupiter, similar to the ones around Saturn. But this ones were thinner and not visible from earth. That remote vision sessions were recorded in 1973, 6 years after that, the Voyager space ship took closer pics of the planet, and the remote viewed rings were there.
If it worked for Jupiter why not for other very far galaxies?
 
Coal said:
...except, respectfully, there is even less evidence for either of those things, than there is for aliens visiting us.
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I agree. Just an opinion. A mathematical friend assures me there cannot be less than 9 dimensions, though, and he's not generally regarded as insane :)

My opinion is based on knowing how difficult (Read: Utterly impractical) travel between galaxies is known to be. There are no such prohibitions of physics on jumping timelines or dimensions. Not yet, anyway.
 
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