The Fermi Paradox.pdf

The FermiParadoxEveryone feels something when theyre ina really good starry place on a really goodstarry night and they look up and see this:

Some people stick with the traditional,feeling struck by the epic beauty or blownaway by the insane scale of the universe.Personally, I go for the old existentialmeltdown followed by acting weird for thenext half hour. But everyone feelssomething.

Physicist Enrico Fermi felt somethingtooWhere is everybody?

________________

A really starry sky seems vastbut allwere looking at is our very localneighborhood. On the very best nights,we can see up to about 2,500 stars(roughly one hundred-millionth of thestars in our galaxy), and almost all ofthem are less than 1,000 light years awayfrom us (or 1% of the diameter of theMilky Way). So what were really lookingat is this:

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When confronted with the topic of starsand galaxies, a question that tantalizesmost humans is, Is there other intelligentlife out there? Lets put some numbers toit (if you dont like numbers, just read thebold)

As many stars as there are in our galaxy(100 400 billion), there are roughly anequal number of galaxies in theobservable universeso for every star inthe colossal Milky Way, theres a wholegalaxy out there. All together, that comesout to the typically quoted range ofbetween 10 and 10 total stars inthe universe, which means that forevery grain of sand on Earth, there are10,000 stars out there.

The science world isnt in total agreementabout what percentage of those stars aresun-like (similar to our sun in size,temperature, and luminosity)opinionstypically range from 5% to 20%. Goingwith the most conservative side of that(5%), and the lower end for the numberof total stars (10 ), gives us 500quintillion, or 500 billion billion sun-like stars.

Theres also a debate over whatpercentage of those sun-like stars mightbe orbited by an Earth-like planet (onewith similar temperature conditions thatcould have liquid water and potentiallysupport life similar to that on Earth).Some say its as high as 50%, but lets gowith the more conservative 22% thatcame out of a recent PNAS study. Thatsuggests that theres a potentially-habitable Earth-like planet orbiting at least1% of the total stars in the universeatotal of 100 billion billion Earth-likeplanets.

22 24

22


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So there are 100 Earth-like planets forevery grain of sand in the world. Thinkabout that next time youre on the beach.

Moving forward, we have no choice but toget completely speculative. Lets imaginethat after billions of years in existence,1% of Earth-like planets develop life (ifthats true, every grain of sand wouldrepresent one planet with life on it). Andimagine that on 1% of those planets, thelife advances to an intelligent level like itdid here on Earth. That would mean therewere 10 quadrillion, or 10 millionbillion intelligent civilizations in theobservable universe.

Moving back to just our galaxy, and doingthe same math on the lowest estimate forstars in the Milky Way (100 billion), wedestimate that there are 1 billion Earth-like planets and 100,000 intelligentcivilizations in our galaxy.

SETI (Search for ExtraterrestrialIntelligence) is an organization dedicatedto listening for signals from otherintelligent life. If were right that there are100,000 or more intelligent civilizations inour galaxy, and even a fraction of themare sending out radio waves or laserbeams or other modes of attempting tocontact others, shouldnt SETIs satellitearray pick up all kinds of signals?

But it hasnt. Not one. Ever.

Where is everybody?

It gets stranger. Our sun is relativelyyoung in the lifespan of the universe.There are far older stars with far olderEarth-like planets, which should in theorymean far more advanced civilizations thanour own. As an example, lets compareour 4.54 billion-year-old Earth to ahypothetical 8 billion-year-old Planet X.

If Planet X has a similar story to Earth,lets look at where their civilization would

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be today (the orange is a reference toshow how long these timelines really are):

The technology and knowledge of acivilization only 1,000 years ahead of uscould be as shocking to us as our worldwould be to a medieval person. Acivilization 1 million years ahead of usmight be as incomprehensible to us ashuman culture is to chimpanzees. AndPlanet X is 3.4 billion years ahead of us

Theres something called The KardashevScale, which helps us group intelligentcivilizations into three broad categories bythe amount of energy they use:

A Type I Civilization has the ability touse all of the energy on their planet.Were not quite a Type I Civilization, butwere close (Carl Sagan created a formulafor this scale which puts us at a Type 0.7Civilization).

A Type II Civilization can harness allof the energy of their host star. Ourfeeble Type I brains can hardly imaginehow someone would do this, but wevetried our best, imagining things like aDyson Sphere.

A Type III Civilization blows theother two away, accessing powercomparable to that of the entire MilkyWay galaxy.


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Way galaxy.

If this level of advancement sounds hardto believe, remember Planet X above andtheir 3.4 billion years of furtherdevelopment (about half a million timesas long as the human race has beenaround). If a civilization on Planet X weresimilar to ours and were able to surviveall the way to Type III level, the naturalassumption is that theyd probably havemastered inter-stellar travel by now,possibly even colonizing the entire galaxy.

One hypothesis as to how galacticcolonization could happen is by creatingmachinery that can travel to other planets,spend 500 years or so self-replicatingusing the raw materials on their newplanet, and then send two replicas off todo the same thing. Even without travelinganywhere near the speed of light, thisprocess would colonize the whole galaxyin 3.75 million years, a relative blink of aneye when talking in the scale of billions ofyears:

Source: J. Schombert, U. Oregon

Continuing to speculate, if 1% ofintelligent life survives long enough tobecome a potentially galaxy-colonizingType III Civilization, our calculationsabove suggest that there should be at


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least 1,000 Type III Civilizations in ourgalaxy aloneand given the power ofsuch a civilization, their presence wouldlikely be pretty noticeable. And yet, wesee nothing, hear nothing, and werevisited by no one.

So where iseverybody?

_____________________

Welcome to the Fermi Paradox.

We have no answer to the Fermi Paradoxthe best we can do is possibleexplanations. And if you ask ten differentscientists what their hunch is about thecorrect one, youll get ten differentanswers. You know when you hear abouthumans of the past debating whether theEarth was round or if the sun revolvedaround the Earth or thinking that lightninghappened because of Zeus, and they seemso primitive and in the dark? Thats aboutwhere we are with this topic.

In taking a look at some of the most-discussed possible explanations for theFermi Paradox, lets divide them into twobroad categoriesthose explanationswhich assume that theres no sign of TypeII and Type III Civilizations because thereare none of them out there, and thosewhich assume theyre out there and werenot seeing or hearing anything for otherreasons:

Explanation Group 1:There are no signs ofhigher (Type II andIII) civilizationsbecause there are nohigher civilizations inexistence.Those who subscribe to Group 1explanations point to something called the


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non-exclusivity problem, which rebuffsany theory that says, There are highercivilizations, but none of them have madeany kind of contact with us because theyall _____. Group 1 people look at themath, which says there should be somany thousands (or millions) of highercivilizations, that at least one of themwould be an exception to the rule. Even ifa theory held for 99.99% of highercivilizations, the other .001% wouldbehave differently and wed becomeaware of their existence.

Therefore, say Group 1 explanations, itmust be that there are no super-advancedcivilizations. And since the math suggeststhat there are thousands of them just inour own galaxy, something else must begoing on.

This something else is called The GreatFilter.

The Great Filter theory says that at somepoint from pre-life to Type III intelligence,theres a wall that all or nearly all attemptsat life hit. Theres some stage in that longevolutionary process that is extremelyunlikely or impossible for life to getbeyond. That stage is The Great Filter.

If this theory is true, the big question is,Where in the timeline does the Great Filteroccur?

It turns out that when it comes to the fateof humankind, this question is veryimportant. Depending on where TheGreat Filter occurs, were left with threepossible realities: Were rare, werefirst, or were fucked.

1. Were Rare (The Great


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Filter is Behind Us)

One hope we have is that The Great Filteris behind uswe managed to surpass it,which would mean its extremely rare forlife to make it to our level of intelligence.The diagram below shows only twospecies making it past, and were one ofthem.

This scenario would explain why there areno Type III Civilizationsbut it would alsomean that we could be one of the fewexceptions now that weve made it this far.It would mean we have hope. On thesurface, this sounds a bit like people 500years ago suggesting that the Earth is thecenter of the universeit implies thatwere special. However, somethingscientists call observation selection effectsays that anyone who is pondering theirown rarity is inherently part of anintelligent life success storyandwhether theyre actually rare or quitecommon, the thoughts they ponder andconclusions they draw will be identical.This forces us to admit that being specialis at least a possibility.

And if we are special, when exactly did webecome speciali.e. which step did wesurpass that almost everyone else getsstuck on?

One possibility: The Great Filtercould be at the very beginningitmight be incredibly unusual for lifeto begin at all. This is a candidatebecause it took about a billion years ofEarths existence to finally happen, andbecause we have tried extensively toreplicate that event in labs and have neverbeen able to do it. If this is indeed TheGreat Filter, it would mean that not only isthere no intelligent life out there, theremay be no other life at all.

Another possibility: The Great Filtercould be the jump from the simpleprokaryote cell to the complexeukaryote cell. After prokaryotes came


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into being, they remained that way foralmost two billion years before makingthe evolutionary jump to being complexand having a nucleus. If this is The GreatFilter, it would mean the universe isteeming with simple prokaryote cells andalmost nothing beyond that.

There are a number of other possibilities

some even think the most recent leap

weve made to our current intelligence is a

Great Filter candidate. While the leap from

semi-intelligent life (chimps) to intelligent

life (humans) doesnt at first seem like a

miraculous step, Steven Pinker rejects the

idea of an inevitable climb upward of

evolution: Since evolution does not strive

for a goal but just happens, it uses the

adaptation most useful for a given

ecological niche, and the fact that, on

Earth, this led to technological intelligence

only once so far may suggest that this

outcome of natural selection is rare and

hence by no means a certain development

of the evolution of a tree of life.

Most leaps do not qualify as Great Filtercandidates. Any possible Great Filter must

be a one-in-a-billion type thing where one

or more total freak occurrences need to

happen to provide a crazy exceptionfor

that reason, something like the jump from

single-cell to multi-cellular life is ruled

out, because it has occurred as many as

46 times, in isolated incidents, just on this

planet alone. For the same reason, if we

were to find a fossilized eukaryote cell on

Mars, it would rule the above simple-to-

complex cell leap out as a possible Great

Filter (as well as anything before that

point on the evolutionary chain)because

if it happened on both Earth and Mars, itsclearly not a one-in-a-billion freak

occurrence.

If we are indeed rare, it could be becauseof a fluky biological event, but it alsocould be attributed to what is called theRare Earth Hypothesis, which suggeststhat though there may be many Earth-likeplanets, the particular conditions on Earthwhether related to the specifics of thissolar system, its relationship with themoon (a moon that large is unusual forsuch a small planet and contributes to ourparticular weather and ocean conditions),


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or something about the planet itselfareexceptionally friendly to life.

2. Were the First

For Group 1 Thinkers, if the Great Filter isnot behind us, the one hope we have isthat conditions in the universe are justrecently, for the first time since the BigBang, reaching a place that would allowintelligent life to develop. In that case, weand many other species may be on ourway to super-intelligence, and it simplyhasnt happened yet. We happen to behere at the right time to become one ofthe first super-intelligent civilizations.

One example of a phenomenon that couldmake this realistic is the prevalence ofgamma-ray bursts, insanely hugeexplosions that weve observed in distantgalaxies. In the same way that it took theearly Earth a few hundred million yearsbefore the asteroids and volcanoes dieddown and life became possible, it couldbe that the first chunk of the universesexistence was full of cataclysmic eventslike gamma-ray bursts that wouldincinerate everything nearby from time totime and prevent any life from developingpast a certain stage. Now, perhaps, werein the midst of an astrobiological phasetransition and this is the first time any lifehas been able to evolve for this long,uninterrupted.

3. Were Fucked (The GreatFilter is Ahead of Us)

If were neither rare nor early, Group 1thinkers conclude that The Great Filter


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must be in our future. This would applythat life regularly evolves to where weare, but that something prevents life fromgoing much further and reaching highintelligence in almost all casesand wereunlikely to be an exception.

One possible future Great Filter is aregularly-occurring cataclysmic naturalevent, like the above-mentioned gamma-ray bursts, except theyre unfortunatelynot done yet and its just a matter of timebefore all life on Earth is suddenly wipedout by one. Another candidate is thepossible inevitability that nearly allintelligent civilizations end up destroyingthemselves once a certain level oftechnology is reached.

This is why Oxford University philosopherNick Bostrom says that no news is goodnews. The discovery of even simple lifeon Mars would be devastating, because itwould cut out a number of potential GreatFilters behind us. And if we were to findfossilized complex life on Mars, Bostromsays it would be by far the worst newsever printed on a newspaper cover,because it would mean The Great Filter isalmost definitely ahead of usultimatelydooming the species. Bostrom believesthat when it comes to The Fermi Paradox,the silence of the night sky is golden.

Explanation Group 2:Type II and IIIintelligentcivilizations are outthereand there arelogical reasons whywe might not haveheard from them.Group 2 explanations get rid of anynotion that were rare or special or thefirst at anythingon the contrary, theybelieve in the Mediocrity Principle, whosestarting point is that there is nothingunusual or rare about our galaxy, solarsystem, planet, or level of intelligence,


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until evidence proves otherwise. Theyrealso much less quick to assume that thelack of evidence of higher intelligencebeings is evidence of their nonexistenceemphasizing the fact that our search forsignals stretches only about 100 lightyears away from us (0.1% across thegalaxy) and has only been going on forunder a century, a tiny amount of time.Group 2 thinkers have come up with alarge array of possible explanations forthe Fermi Paradox. Here are 10 of themost discussed:

Possibility 1) Super-intelligent lifecould very well have already visitedEarth, but before we were here. Inthe scheme of things, sentient humanshave only been around for about 50,000years, a little blip of time. If contacthappened before then, it might havemade some ducks flip out and run intothe water and thats it. Further, recordedhistory only goes back 5,500 yearsagroup of ancient hunter-gatherer tribesmay have experienced some crazy alienshit, but they had no good way to tellanyone in the future about it.

Possibility 2) The galaxy has beencolonized, but we just live in somedesolate rural area of the galaxy.The Americas may have been colonizedby Europeans long before anyone in asmall Inuit tribe in far northern Canadarealized it had happened. There could bean urbanization component to theinterstellar dwellings of higher species, inwhich all the neighboring solar systems ina certain area are colonized and incommunication, and it would beimpractical and purposeless for anyone todeal with coming all the way out to therandom part of the spiral where we live.

Possibility 3) The entire concept ofphysical colonization is a hilariouslybackward concept to a moreadvanced species. Remember thepicture of the Type II Civilization abovewith the sphere around their star? With allthat energy, they might have created aperfect environment for themselves thatsatisfies their every need. They mighthave hyper-advanced ways of reducingtheir need for resources and zero interestin leaving their happy utopia to explorethe cold, empty, undeveloped universe.



An even more advanced civilization mightview the entire physical world as ahorribly primitive place, having long agoconquered their own biology anduploaded their brains to a virtual reality,eternal-life paradise. Living in the physicalworld of biology, mortality, wants, andneeds might seem to them the way weview primitive ocean species living in thefrigid, dark sea. FYI, thinking aboutanother life form having bested mortalitymakes me incredibly jealous and upset.

Possibility 4) There are scarypredator civilizations out there, andmost intelligent life knows betterthan to broadcast any outgoingsignals and advertise their location.This is an unpleasant concept and wouldhelp explain the lack of any signals beingreceived by the SETI satellites. It alsomeans that we might be the super naivenewbies who are being unbelievablystupid and risky by ever broadcastingoutward signals. Theres a debate goingon currently about whether we shouldengage in METI (Messaging toExtraterrestrial Intelligencethe reverseof SETI, which only listens) or not, andmost people say we should not. StephenHawking warns, If aliens visit us, theoutcome would be much as whenColumbus landed in America, which didntturn out well for the Native Americans.Even Carl Sagan (a general believer thatany civilization advanced enough forinterstellar travel would be altruistic, nothostile) called the practice of METIdeeply unwise and immature, andrecommended that the newest children ina strange and uncertain cosmos shouldlisten quietly for a long time, patientlylearning about the universe andcomparing notes, before shouting into anunknown jungle that we do notunderstand. Scary.

Possibility 5) Theres one and onlyone instance of higher-intelligentlifea superpredator civilization(kind of like humans are here onEarth)who is far more advancedthan everyone else and keeps it thatway by exterminating anyintelligent civilization once they getpast a certain level. This would suck.The way it might work is that its an

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inefficient use of resources to exterminateall emerging intelligences, maybe becausemost die out on their own. But past acertain point, the super beings make theirmovebecause to them, an emergingintelligent species becomes like a virus asit starts to grow and spread. This theorysuggests that whoever was the first in thegalaxy to reach intelligence won, and nowno one else has a chance. This wouldexplain the lack of activity out therebecause it would keep the number ofsuper-intelligent civilizations to just one.

Possibility 6) Theres plenty ofactivity and noise out there, but ourtechnology is too primitive andwere listening for the wrong things.Like walking into a modern-day officebuilding, turning on a walkie-talkie, andwhen you hear no activity (which ofcourse you wouldnt hear becauseeveryones texting, not using walkie-talkies), determining that the buildingmust be empty. Or maybe, as Carl Saganhas pointed out, it could be that ourminds work exponentially faster or slowerthan another form of intelligence outtheree.g. it takes them 12 years to sayHello, and when we hear thatcommunication, it just sounds like whitenoise to us.

Possibility 7) We are receivingcontact from other intelligent life,but the government is hiding it. Thisis an idiotic theory, but I had to mention itbecause its talked about so much.

Possibility 8) Higher civilizations areaware of us and observing us butconcealing themselves from us (AKAthe Zoo Hypothesis). As far as weknow, super-intelligent civilizations exist

in a tightly-regulated galaxy, and our

Earth is treated like part of a vast and

protected national park, with a strict Look

but dont touch rule for planets like ours.

We wouldnt be aware of them, because if

a far smarter species wanted to observe

us, it would know how to easily do so

without us noticing. Maybe theres a rule

similar to the Star Treks Prime Directivewhich prohibits super-intelligent beings

from making any open contact with lesser

species like us or revealing themselves in

any way, until the lesser species has



reached a certain level of intelligence.

Possibility 9) Higher civilizations arehere, all around us, but were tooprimitive to perceive them. MichioKaku sums it up like this:

Lets say we have an ant hill in the middleof the forest. And right next to the anthill, theyre building a ten-lane super-highway. And the question is Would theants be able to understand what a ten-lane super-highway is? Would the ants beable to understand the technology and theintentions of the beings building thehighway next to them?

So its not that we cant pick up the signalsfrom Planet X using our technology, itsthat we cant even comprehend what thebeings from Planet X are or what theyretrying to do. Its so beyond us that even ifthey really wanted to enlighten us, itwould be like trying to teach ants aboutthe internet.

Along those lines, this may also be ananswer to Well if there are so many fancyType III Civilizations, why havent theycontacted us yet? To answer that, letsask ourselveswhen Pizarro made hisway into Peru, did he stop for a while atan anthill to try to communicate? Was hemagnanimous, trying to help the ants inthe anthill? Did he become hostile andslow his original mission down in order tosmash the anthill apart? Or was the anthillof complete and utter and eternalirrelevance to Pizarro? That might be oursituation here.

Possibility 10) Were completelywrong about our reality. There are alot of ways we could just be totally offwith everything we think. The universemight appear one way and be somethingelse entirely, like a hologram. Or maybewere the aliens and we were planted hereas an experiment or as a form of fertilizer.Theres even a chance that were all partof a computer simulation by someresearcher from another world, and otherforms of life simply werent programmedinto the simulation.

________________

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As we continue along with our possibly-futile search for extraterrestrialintelligence, Im not really sure what Imrooting for. Frankly, learning either thatwere officially alone in the universe orthat were officially joined by others wouldbe creepy, which is a theme with all of thesurreal storylines listed abovewhateverthe truth actually is, its mindblowing.

Beyond its shocking science fictioncomponent, The Fermi Paradox alsoleaves me with a deep humbling. Not just

the normal Oh yeah, Im microscopic and

my existence lasts for three seconds

humbling that thinking about the universe

always triggers. The Fermi Paradox brings

out a sharper, more personal humbling,

one that can only happen after spending

hours of research hearing your species

most renowned scientists present insanetheories, change their minds again and

again, and wildly contradict each other

reminding us that future generations

will look at us in the same way we see the

ancient people who were sure that thestars were the underside of the dome of

heaven, and theyll think Wow they really

had no idea what was going on.

Compounding all of this is the blow to ourspecies self-esteem that comes with all ofthis talk about Type II and IIICivilizations. Here on Earth, were the kingof our little castle, proud ruler of the hugegroup of imbeciles who share the planetwith us. And in this bubble with nocompetition and no one to judge us, itsrare that were ever confronted with theconcept of being a dramatically inferiorspecies to anyone. But after spending a lotof time with Type II and III Civilizationsover the past week, our power and prideare seeming a bit David Brent-esque.

That said, given that my normal outlookis that humanity is a lonely orphan on atiny rock in the middle of a desolateuniverse, the humbling fact that wereprobably not as smart as we think we are,and the possibility that a lot of what weresure about might be wrong, soundswonderful. It opens the door just a crackthat maybe, just maybe, there might bemore to the story than we realize.



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Sources:PNAS: Prevalence of Earth-size planetsorbiting Sun-like starsSETI: The Drake EquationNASA: Workshop Report on the Future ofIntelligence In The CosmosCornell University Library: The FermiParadox, Self-Replicating Probes, and theInterstellar Transportation BandwidthNCBI: Astrobiological phase transition:towards resolution of Fermis paradoxAndr Kukla: Extraterrestrials: APhilosophical PerspectiveNick Bostrom: Where Are They?Science Direct: Galactic gradients,postbiological evolution and the apparentfailure of SETINature: Simulations back up theory thatUniverse is a hologramRobin Hanson: The Great Filter Are WeAlmost Past It?John Dyson: Search for Artificial StellarSources of Infrared Radiation

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67 comments

J.r. Moody Works at Contract Technical Writer

This is the greatest blog I've ever seen. I mean the whole site in general, notjust this art icle. You are an incredible, eloquent writer. You had to have spentcountless hours digest ing this shitshow of knowledge just so you couldregurgitate it in a way that makes it magical as fuck even for someone whoknows like nothing about the subject. I read this this morning and I haven't beenable to get it out of my head all day. Thank you for what you do to Tuesdays.

Reply Like Yesterday at 1:23am32

Aleia Kim Student Financial Analyst at Auxiliaries and Act ivit ies Business Center

This is why I read this blog. This was inspirat ional and mind blow ing and I'mdelighted. :D Thank you for such a wonderful walk-through of the theoret icalunderpinnings of the universe! :)

Reply Like May 22 at 11:07am8

James Echols Top Commenter Business Consultant

I find it interest ing that none of those explanat ions bode well for humans.

I do think the author did miss one explanat ion. It 's related to this one:"Group 2, Possibility 5) Theres one and only one instance of higher-intelligent lifea superpredator civilizat ion (kind of like humans are here on Earth)who is farmore advanced than everyone else and keeps it that way by exterminat ing anyintelligent civilizat ion once they get past a certain level."

Call it Possibility 11) There is an instance of higher-intelligent life - a "superpolice"civilizat ion that keeps all other emerging intelligences in order, when the t imecomes.

Think about this, it seems that the init ial t ime to get from zero life to Type 1takes a few billion years. But, the t ime to get from Type 1 to Type 3 could be1000 years, or even less. That means that i


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1000 years, or even less. That means that i

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Andy's Chest Federal University of Rio de Janeiro

The concept of helping "when the t ime comes" seems a lit t le bitunreasonable to me, if there is indeed a higher-intelligent life form whointends to guide others to enlightenment and knows that we arehere, they should have done so by now. If they are wait ing for us toemerge by ourselves to a certain point as you put it they might as wellbe observers and let us go alone the whole way, as was the possibility8. Contact ing us when we are already developed enough is nothelping us to enlightenment, and could easily be encompassed onpossibility 8 too as the Prime Direct ive only prohibits super-intelligentbeings from making open contact w ith lesser species UNTIL the lesserspecies has reached a certain level of intelligence. Anyway I justwanted to point to you that what you wrote sounded like anotherway of describing the already not iced possibility 8) Higher civilizat ionsare aware of us and observing us but concealing themselves from us.


James Echols Top Commenter HENRYSTONEMUSIC

Good point, however, if you look at the relat ive technology levels, itseems that the likelihood that any post Type 3 civilizat ion does notknow about other emerging intelligences is fairly unlikely. Perhaps theyhave not mapped the ent ire universe, but their nearby galaxies seemreasonable. That means, if they are out there, they are watching us.

Reply Like 19 hours ago1

Andy's Chest Federal University of Rio de Janeiro

Yes, I do agree that if they are out there, they are watching us. Ourstate of the art must be laughable to them.


Charles Carmean Saint Paul, Minnesota

I have one to add. It is easier to travel between universes in a mult iverse than todo interstellar travel which is exceedingly slow. high level they discover how to open up a door to an infinate higher plane ofreality, so they check out of the boring universe here.

Reply Like May 22 at 3:19pm4

Maro Pisani subscribers

great idea, and above all, outside the box!!


Tom Ajdari Top Commenter

Maro Pisani act ly, highly cooled quantum copmuter AGIs would havewave-funct ions as large as clusters of galaxies, but the energyassot iated w ith them per 1m^3 would be almost zero and anyattempt to bring it up would harm the computers like nothing else


Jacob Levinson Davenport, Iowa

It might not necessarily be a filter, it may be a wall. impossibility for Type 3's to exist. It could be that there are billions of species all atType 1.6. Consider this, the hardest material we have ever discovered man madeor otherw ise is Diamond. This implies one of two things, 1. this is the hardestmaterial that is possible to exist, or 2. we haven't discovered the hardest possiblematerial. Either way, this implies that there is a hardest possible material. limits do exist in the universe. I am not saying we have found any of them, butwhat if harnessing all of the power of the sun is impossible? there are infinite ways to do things, but in reality there isn't . finite number of subatomic part icles in the observable universe, and as suchthere... See More


Ben Lee Web Developer at Vox Media, Inc

This is all tangential to your point, but regarding, "the hardestmaterial...is diamond". Actually that was only true unt il about 2004,when they synthesized "graphine", a material much harder thandiamond. Graphine is very promising and may completely replace siliconas the substrate for electric circuits, result ing in much smaller andmuch more powerful computers. It also has a number of physicalengineering applicat ions. But graphine is not even the hardest... A fewyears ago they managed to synthesize small chains of "carbyne", amaterial many t imes strong than graphine (which, remember, is manyt imes strong than diamond).


Doc Leroc



Ben Lee - As Jacob said, it 's not about whether or not diamond is thehardest material (and he admits that he didn't know whether it was ornot). His point was that even if we find harder and harder materials(such as graphine and carbyne and anything beyond that), one daywe might not be able to make something harder. there potent ially being physical limits which there is no possible way tosurpass. Perhaps, theoret ically, there was a way to harness the powerof a star, but you would need something harder than carbyne to do it .Then consider if carbyne was the physical limit . barrier, not a filter, as it would be impossible to get past it . it 's right, but it is a theory which, if correct, would answer thequest ion of why we haven't met anything else out there.

Reply Like about an hour ago

Ben Lee Web Developer at Vox Media, Inc

Doc Leroc Perhaps you missed the part where I said, "This is alltangent ial to your point"?

I understood his point perfect ly, and I wasn't disput ing it . I was justpoint ing out something tangential and interest ing.

Reply Like 16 minutes ago

Richard B. West Top Commenter

Good thing I am stocked up on magazines and ammo... lol

Reply Like May 22 at 9:08am3

Henrique Ferreira University of So Paulo

Great story!There's one player missing, though.

No, it 's not a divine being (especially because, let 's face it , a Type III intelligencewould be nothing short of divine for us ants....).

Where are Type II intelligent beings? If we assume Group 2 of explanat ions (orthat there are other beings, older and more advanced than us, past the GreatFilter that Group 1 postulates), there should be Type II guys around.As the jump from Type to Type is exponential, it is highly possible that Type IIIbeings are (almost) as divine to Type II beings as they would be to us. Whichmeans Type II beings are either left alone or ignored too.

So, where are those guys?

By the same arguments presented in Possibilit ies 1 to 10 in the art icle, they couldvery well be avoiding us (for any reason, including the 'ethical' one presentedabove and a less flattering one: fear of contagion), they could be as yet ignorantof our existence or they could already be here (either hidden or - do I hear'conspiracy'? - in direct contact w ith select governments).


Chendaddy Chen Top Commenter

I've always been a subscriber to an idea that 's a combinat ion of Group 2,Possibilit ies 3 & 9. That aliens might be all around us, but we can't perceive themnot necessarily because they're so utterly advanced but because they're just soutterly different than what we're looking for.

We're looking for lit t le green men w ith giant heads. What if they're digitalcreatures? What if they exist and move on radio frequencies and light waves?What if they resemble Google more than they do any animal?



for example alein AGIs based on super-cooled atoms would have wavefunct ions the size of galaxy clusters, yet the energy per 1m3 would befaar les than eV and any attepmt at going classical would harm theAGIs like a nuclear war....it might hurt to go classical


Yelena Keyzman Market ing Specialist at

This post fit nicely w ith my weekly addict ion to watching Cosmos! I take it you'rewatching it too...

You know Neil Degrasse Tyson is doing a live screening of the final episode here inDC at the NatGeo Museum next week and he's going to hang around and do alit t le talk and Q&A... could you find a way to be there? It 's sort of sold out but Iw ill drop my friend and give you the extra t icket if necessary. And even though itstechnically a free event, I would totally pay money to watch even a momentsworth of intellectual interact ion between you two!

And in case you can't make it , I'd like to thank you for inspiring me w ith somegreat quest ions to ask him in your place!

And as always, thanks for the mindblow ing words of w isdom! Keep it up!

Reply Like May 22 at 2:41pm1

Quentin Hardy Works at The New York T imes

In "Coming of Age in the Milky Way" there's another explanat ion: Humans



Maddy

Nathanael

72 comments -

May 22, 2014 at 1:43 pm - Reply

WOW! What a read! It'sshocking how much of what we considerscience fiction is actually real science too.

Please keep it up. I look foward to thisblog every week.

May 22, 2014 at 2:20 pm - Reply

And this, ladies & gentlemen,is called "science". Make no mistake,"science" IS the new religion.

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In "Coming of Age in the Milky Way" there's another explanat ion: Humansdiscovered space travel, nuclear weapons, and genet ic engineering at prettymuch the same t ime, in historic terms. If the technological capability to get offthe planet occurs at about the same t ime as the technological capability todestroy it , there may be a lot of intelligent life that w ipes itself out before it getsanywhere else.

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Unlikely, as nuclear war or a virus would be unable to kill of humanityright now. Cripple, but not kill. The only think that can do us rightnow is AGI ad it itself would produce colonizers. Also.....the state ofgun rights in NYC is horrible. You should go Czech Rep. or Austria.Everyone has the right to carry one.


Doc Leroc

Tom Ajdari perhaps Nuclear or Biological warfare couldn't w ipe us outright now, but Quentin referred to a future technology discovered atthe t ime we are able to effect ively leave the planet. a way to effect ively travel between stars we also find a way to scourthe planet of life at the same t ime, there's a good chance a warlikespecies such as ourselves would be w iped out before being able tocolonize. The greatest leaps in technology for humankind have comeduring t imes of war, which suggests that it is competit ion and conflictwhich breeds invent ion. In all likelihood the most advanced species inthe universe would be the most aggressive, and most likely to developa way to w ipe themselves out. Sounds like a great filter to me.

Reply Like about an hour ago


Doc Leroc Yes, of course. But the quest ion is/whether if thetechnology chooses to kill itself off. I think that the likelyhood ofsurvival for such technology is high. Obviously there are no bio- ortechnological civlizat ions colonizing the universe, because we wouldhave spotted them by now. In fact, it sounds as if those bio- andtechno- creatures are isolated by non-matter based AGIs last stages of evolut ion everoyne chooses to go the non-matter basedAGI route. If there are civilizat ions out there, they are most likely AGIs.I believe that AGIs fill every cubic cm of our universe and that theydon't become apparent because of energy/money problems..as I havedscribed eleswhere in this comment sect ion.

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Nic

May 22, 2014 at 9:33 pm - Reply

What? I dont get it What isyour point?

Alyssa

May 24, 2014 at 1:08 am -Reply


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Bradley

Toms Magalhes

CC

Adam

Bill

May 22, 2014 at 2:34 pm - Reply

Hands down the mostfascinating thing I've read all year.Beautifully done. I'm gonna need to walkthis one off for a while.

May 22, 2014 at 2:50 pm - Reply

Very interesting as usualnerds.

May 22, 2014 at 2:54 pm - Reply

Great, now my goosebumpsare permanent.

May 22, 2014 at 3:06 pm - Reply

Don't forget about the 'WowSignal'.

May 22, 2014 at 3:12 pm - Reply

One completely unprofessionaltheory I have has to do with both aliensand the feasibility of faster-than-lighttravel. If there were lots of aliencivilizations AND FTL travel was cheapenough to be affordable by the top 0.5%of a civilization, then we would beenvisited by dumb or crazy representitives ofan alien race by now. Perhaps theobnoxious kids of some alien billionairecome to do the equivolent of TPingEarth's lawn, or a crazed alien evangelistout to bring we lowly humans the word ofsome alien god.

no

May 24, 2014 at 2:25 am - Reply

Unlike religion, its explicitlyclear that all of these possibilities arejust conjecture, and nobody is sayingthat any of these options areempirically-based, definite, or thetruth. Religion comes up far morepreposterous conjectures *and*claims them to be absolute truths.Thats a huge difference.

Yeah, I cant tell if hes mockingthe whole article or what.

Anonymous

May 22, 2014 at 5:00 pm - Reply

your humanizing a possiblealien race so so hard.


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Jeroen

Mike

Janna

James

May 22, 2014 at 3:14 pm - Reply

Thanks very much for thisinteresting read, Tim. Well worth the wait,this post has truly boggled my mind. Iprobably have to reread it to grasp theimplications completely. You excel atputting facts in perspective.

May 22, 2014 at 3:27 pm - Reply

Great post, best so far I think!

May 22, 2014 at 5:11 pm - Reply

Ive been reading Wait ButWhy since September 2013 and this is myfavorite yet. I had maybe 30 interestingthoughts while I read this. You pick thebest post topics and present them soperfectly. LOVE.

May 22, 2014 at 5:37 pm - Reply

This is a planet where themost reprobate souls go for a final chance Youre not allowed to know anythingand no communication with the outside isallowed !

Wait But Why Author

May 22, 2014 at 8:10 pm - Reply

Thanks Jeroen and otherswho enjoyed this one. This isbasically my favorite topic and hasbeen since I was threeand now thatI know a non-comedic, 4,500 wordpost on science with almost nodrawings can apparently go over well,I may dig into this kind of thing a bitmore in the future. Howdelicious/upsetting is the universe.

cristeis

May 22, 2014 at 10:50 pm -Reply

The Bunny Manifesto also showshow delicious/ upsetting theuniverse is.cloud bunny is justas mind blowing as the idea ofsuper-intelligent life.

Jasmine

May 22, 2014 at 5:22 pm - Reply

I second this. Its trulymindblowing and Id never havelooked it up or understood it if not forthis post!


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Damon

Monika

jason marschner

Dennis

May 22, 2014 at 5:41 pm - Reply

Excellent recap!

May 22, 2014 at 5:41 pm - Reply

This post made me donate 50dollars to WBW. I have no words toexpress what I feel and think right now.Then again, finding the right words toexpress things is Tims specialty, not mine!Keep up the amazing amazing AMAZINGjob. Youre most definitely Type IIIcivilization.

May 22, 2014 at 5:49 pm - Reply

Read stephen baxters manifoldseries. It covers this topic very well. aliensexisting but not what we thought (notmalevolant but they dont really careabout humans), the universe has a resetbutton and a bunch of alien species knowthis and are trying to fix it (over a periodof billions of years and multiple resets)and another where there is life, but veryscattered and in small supply and theuniverse moves toward a slow heat death.isnt science cheery

May 22, 2014 at 5:50 pm - Reply

Im rooting for Group 2Possibility #8, where one alien who is incharge of reading all blogs in English ischuckling at this whole post untilhe/she/they/it gets to the Group 2Possibility #8 part of your post, and thensays Oh shit and has to push a big redalien button because weve caught on, butthen his manager comes in and berateshim for the false alarm because plenty ofhumans have postulated Group 2Possibility #8 but theres no real way forhumans to actually know. Wouldnt wanthim to get fired though, since it soundslike this is a new gig for him.

Wait But Why Author

May 22, 2014 at 8:11 pm - Reply

Hugely generous. Thank you!

Wait But Why Author

May 22, 2014 at 8:15 pm - Reply

I thought about that andeven added in a note to a potentialresearcher god in Possibility #10 justin case. But now writing this, Im


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Brandon

May 22, 2014 at 6:03 pm - Reply

This is amazing, not justbecause of your humbling perspective andthe content, but because of the massive

annoyed with myself because my notewas a joke, and if he/she/it actuallydoes read this, I just wasted a hugeopportunity to ask about thepossibility of brain upload (my newthing as of today, as well asapparently being a religious personfor the first time as of today too).

Dennis

May 22, 2014 at 9:31 pm -Reply

Actually, I spend a lot of timeworrying about brain uploadthese days, but mostly in thecontext of not understanding thetechnology my future kids will beusing. Sort of like how lookingback Im bewildered that I wasallowed to be on AOL 2.0 andchat with strangers, because myparents didnt understand all thehorrors the internet could bringto a child. Ill still be usingFacebook and my kids will be likeLOL DAD IS THE WORST butnot actually using words sincetheyll be uploading it to theThinkCloud, though Im sure theeven using the word cloud willbe as funny as someone buying aVHS tape today.

Then again Im probablyoverestimating the speed oftechnology, like most films andbooks do. What are they trying todo be accurate? Star Wars wasthe smart one, by placing itself inPossibility 1 or 2.

OK, now I am rooting forPossibility 1 or 2, combined withPossibility 8, combined with StarWars coincidentally being real,and the real Han Solo watchingStar Wars and being happy that atleast Harrison Ford played him inthe movie. If youre going to askabout brain upload please askHan what he thinks about theupcoming movies.


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amount of research youve done. Itsinsane. Did you do all of the research thisweek? And was it completely on yourown, or do you have scientist friends whopointed you in the right direction?

Wait But Why Author

May 22, 2014 at 8:35 pm - Reply

A few readers have askedabout various parts of a post-creationprocess, and this seems as good aplace as any to share. Heres a fullrundown of what goes into a post:

1) Topic selection. A stage when myInstant Gratification Monkey is in fullrebellion. Every topic that seemed sotantalizing when I first conceived itand wrote it down on my grand ideadocument suddenly seems disgustingand impossible, because Im not inThis is Future Tims problem! mode,Im in This is my current problemmode. For this week, I first wanted todo a post on putting size intoperspective, from the quark up to themultiverse (kind of like the sizeversion of the Putting Time inPerspectives post). Then I calledWBW co-founder (and kindergartenfriend) Andrew so I couldprocrastinate from doing anything bydiscussing post ideas with him. Hewasnt that enthused about the sizeidea and came up with the idea to diginto some funny NYC-relatedphenomenon, something weve beentalking about for awhile. This wasinteresting, so I brainstormed for afew minutes, but I was disappointedbecause I had gotten all excited aboutdoing something with astronomy, so Iwent back to that. I started thinkingup two other ideas tooone is a longcartoon with no text (about an aliendiscovering our tiny universe byshrinking himself), the other was theFermi Paradox, something thats beensitting in the doc for a bunch ofmonths. After much idioticdeliberation between those threeastronomy posts, I settled on Fermi.

2) Research. There was a ton toresearch because there are so manydifferent theories and principles andhypotheses to get a good handle on. Idid about 25 hours of reading, pulling


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quotes or terms or ideas into a Worddoc as I went. Since I only pick topicsIm excited to learn about, research isusually the most fun part of theprocess (unless Im behind scheduleand hurried). When I finished, theWord doc was 15 pages long.

3) Outlining/Structuring/Planning.This is always by far the hardest andickiest part of the process. This stageis where I take a billion scatteredthoughts and ideas and potentialstructures and have to figure out howto make them into a post. This iswhere the most important andcreative work happensby the timeIm done with this stage, most of thejokes/thoughts/drawings/etc areworked out in my head. This is thereally important part because often apost isnt working and its because thestructure is wrong (i.e. should it be a15 Things That.. post or a story-telling type post or a mostly visualpost or another 10 possibilities). Andwhen the structure is right, the wholething just works. Because I have aweird personality, I refuse to writeone word or draw one thing until theoutline is completely finished andevery corner of things is worked outin my headwhich sometimes leadsto me watching hours and even daysgo by as I stare at the screen, despisemy outline, and despise myself. If Imreally late with a post, its usuallybecause this stage took way longerthan I planned for it to. For this post,outlining was easier than normal,because all the theories didnt leaveme with too many options other thanlisting themalthough the Great Filterwas messing everything up by beingpart of a few different theories, sothis held me up for awhile. I finallycame to the two major groupingsstructure, which solved the problem,but that was about my 6th crack atcategorization before somethingfinally worked. The other part of thisstage was weeding out about 75% ofwhat I had researched. Even withonly 1/4 making the cut, it was aridiculously long post. Decisions herecenter around things like includingthe Type I/II/III Civilizations thing or



not. I could have left that out and puta whole other thing in and it wouldhave been a different post. This time,this stage only took about 5 hours,but its often the longest part(especially for any posts onlife/happiness where Im inventing alot of terms for it).

4) Writing. This is my second favoritepart after researching, because A) Iget to lie down while doing it, B)Since the outline stage already did allthe hard thinking, this is just mespitting it out. And I get to do funparts like intros and conclusionswhere I get to pretend Im a realwriter. This usually goes by fairlyquickly, although sometimes I spenda ton of time on one sectionin thispost, I just couldnt get the conclusionthe way I wanted it, and I still dontlike what I came up with. Because thiswas so long and I had to verify facts abunch of times, the writing tookabout 10 hours.

5) Drawing. Mercifully, there werevery few in this one. I have a blurrymemory of drawing squiggly greenlines, one by one, in the Great Filterdiagrams at 6am this morning,having not yet slept. I got extrabehind on this post because anunexpected thing took up half ofMonday and half of Tuesday, so Islept about 3 hours Tuesday nightand nothing Wed night to get thisdone before work starts on Thursday,which doesnt qualify forTuesday(ish). Anyway, drawings arenot mentally challenging the sameway outlining is, but theyre physicallygrueling. Im an extremely untalentedartist and need to draw things overand over again to get them right, andso much of the comedy of a stickfigure is in the tiniest part of the waya mouth curves or the exact shape ofan eye dot, so sometimes Ill draw aface 50 times before I get it right. Ihave to shake my hand out a lot sincefor some reason I clench my drawingpen like a mother desperately clingingto her babys wrist as it dangles overa cliff. And sometimes I decide todraw landscapes or backgrounds,



Tomas

wobster109

May 22, 2014 at 6:07 pm - Reply

Awesome, dude.

May 22, 2014 at 6:15 pm - Reply

An excellent post. You touched

which is weird because they take aton of time and add very little for thereader. A common experience islooking at a blank canvas and havingto draw something like a couch orgrass or a chair and just having noidea how to do that. Part of theproblem is that Im overly anal and Illdo things like spend an hour on aVenn diagram to make it pretty andperfect, when again, that doesnt domuch for the reader so its a weirduse of time. This post had almost nodrawings, so those only took about 3hours, part of which was spenthideously drawing hundreds of stardots, one by one, for the featurephoto for the front page. But on atypical post, drawings take 10-20hours.

So the total here was 40 hours.Typical post takes 35 60 hours.

Kimmo Rouvari

Jason

May 23, 2014 at 3:42 am -Reply

WOW! Im blown away! Totally!Your post was just perfect anddescribing your working methodwas a sweet dessert. I haventread this blog previously, butfrom now on, I am. Thanks!

May 24, 2014 at 12:40 am -Reply

I found that fascinating to readabout. Im shocked/impressedthat so much goes into each postand amazed that you can do oneof these every week. I hope itsyour only job

I love Wait But Why because mostsites/writers dont have thetime/resources/desire to do poststhat take 40-60 hours to do. If itdoesnt kill you, please keep it upfor a long time. Its a specialthing.



newton

daChipster

on a couple things Im very curious howa Wait But Why on immortality might turnout. Were actually getting really close as aspecies, like next 200 years close.

May 22, 2014 at 6:19 pm - Reply

Where are they?

Meanwhile on another highly intelligentalien planet:

Alien 1: Hey Tom, I visited earth againthe other day, just for shits and giggles.Alien 2: Oh yeah, whered you go thistime?A1: I think its where they call the UnitedStates. I hovered for about a minute inthe silver cruiser and I think at least a fewhumans saw me. They even put theirprimitive video footage on their so-calledinternet but still no one is believing ourexistence.A2: Haha those humans are so cute.A1: Hey you wanna head down thereand go scramble their fighter jetssometime?A2: Sure I should be free Sunday.

May 22, 2014 at 6:30 pm - Reply

Depending on who you areasking, theres a whole bunch moredimensions in spacetime than the four wegroup together as the here-and-now. Callit 10 all day, although I saw one theorywith as many as 26, in a brief survey ofstring theory. Anyway, where are theother people? Maybe theyve advanced towhere they only interact in the 6 we cantsee. Hey, look at that blob over there!Well, yes, to you in regular spacetime, helooks like a blob, but in the other 6dimensions, he looks like a really

Wait But Why Author

May 22, 2014 at 9:27 pm - Reply

A) Great post idea.B) No. I refuse to have 200,000 yearsof humanity go by and then I comearound JUST before they figure outimmortality. Imagine being the lastperson to die. So annoying.

Maro Pisani

May 23, 2014 at 10:32 pm - Reply

your story is really great Ihad such a laugh I think it is exactlyto the point!!!!



aliyakadyrova

daChipster

Amanda

Angela

Ben

intelligent, handsome blob. And hestotally hooking up with multiple SMOKINblobettes on the 1-800-hotblob party-line,which to us is known as dimension 9.

OR going with possibility 6 up above maybe they communicate and broadcastusing quantum entanglement, whichsolves the problem of instantaneouscommunication over large distances. Wehave no way of listening in, and theyprobably dont even have the equipmentto check radio communications anymore,except for some old stuff lying around inthe blob flea market the way 8-track andbetamax players pile up here on earth.

May 22, 2014 at 6:38 pm - Reply

Wow! Discovered this blogrecently and so glad I did. This post isbest so far.

May 22, 2014 at 6:45 pm - Reply

BTW, in case you all missed it,we left our heliosphere almost 2 yearsago. Last fall, Voyager 1 was confirmed tobe in interstellar space as of 8/25/12.How COOL Is That?

It is expected to reach the Oort cloud inanother 3 centuries.

May 22, 2014 at 6:54 pm - Reply

This was absolutely fantastic.Thank you so much for your hard workand your uncanny talent for putting thingsinto perspective and sharing things thatare not only cool and interesting, butmake your readers think intelligentlyabout what theyve read even after theyvefinished reading!

May 22, 2014 at 7:42 pm - Reply

BRILLIANT! Just freakingBRILLIANT! Ive just been watching there-make of Carl Sagans Cosmos: ASpaceTime Odyssey, and this has madethat a thousand time more real to me.And now I truly feel insignificant! But mymind is blown in so may ways. Thank youfor this! Best post EVER!!!!

May 22, 2014 at 7:47 pm - Reply

Lest we forget the Homer


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Bill L

Robert

Ted

Paradox.

http://www.boreme.com/posting.php?id=12282#.U35T3W9QHms

May 22, 2014 at 8:13 pm - Reply

My prevailing theory is thatEarth is a penal colony and the civilizedones who put our ancestors here wantnothing to do with us. How else can youexplain our behaviour? Tens of thousandsof generations of inbred criminals.

May 22, 2014 at 9:18 pm - Reply

Great post! I hope you do asimilar article on the multiverse idea.

While it is fun to discuss such things, Ithink there is one key point to alwayskeep in mind. Towards the beginning, thephrase Moving forward, we have nochoice but to get completelyspeculative.. was used because thereare so many moving variables that wehave no knowledge of and limitedcomprehension of.

In all honesty, I dont believe humanitywill ever answer the question,.just agreat mystery that will go on forever. But

still fun to discuss

May 22, 2014 at 9:30 pm - Reply

I tend to think we are alone. Ithink as our science has advanced, weoversimplify how utterly complex even asingle celled organism is and we have noidea how or what animates life to beginwith.

A large part of that is because we havesuccessfully mapped the human genome(and dozens of other animals and plant

daChipster

May 22, 2014 at 9:33 pm - Reply

Like Australia?

Bill L

May 22, 2014 at 9:48 pm -Reply

Yes, just like Australia.

Aussie

May 23, 2014 at 3:52 am

- Reply

Bull. crap.


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Mark

Colin

Baelnor

life). So we know the blueprints, theenvironment and the ingredientsnecessary for a living organism; or atleast an organic living organism onearth.but thats all.

Many people believe life was an accident.Billions of years of all the ingredients inone pot, stirred in the right environmenttrillions of time and presto.LIFE.

But having the right pieces andenvironment doesnt guarantee life.

Think about it this waysay you loadeda 747 with: lumber, concrete, glass,wiring, carpet, shingles, cabinets,plywood, fixtures, etc and pushed themall out of the plane simultaneously from50,000 feet. You could do it 100 billiontrillion times and never end up with a newhouse. And building a new house is childsplay compared to giving life to a singlecelled organism.

May 22, 2014 at 9:36 pm - Reply

Your presentation includes anunexamined assumption. You haveassumed that once a civilization achievesthe technological ability to listen forsignals from extra-terrestrial civilizations itwill not only persist, but continue todevelop. We have had that technologicalability for a mere 50 or so years. Anunpleasant possibility is that ourtechnological civilization will not persistfor more than another 50 years. We couldsuccumb to global warming, for instance,or warfare caused by shortage ofresources (water and oil are two obviouspossibilities). So a possible analogy isfireflies: technologically-capablecivilizations blink into an out of existence,at remote distances. The probability thatany two blink on at the same time andpersist long enough to communicate overvast distances might be impossibly small.

May 22, 2014 at 9:38 pm - Reply

I think, having read that, apost on summarising existentialphilosophy would be apt, considering thenumber of existential crises youll havetriggered today! Its bedtime where I am,off to stare at the ceiling for 8 hours!


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Bill L

Terry.

Derek

May 22, 2014 at 9:42 pm - Reply

Strangely enough, the amountof faith required here matches theamount of faith required to believe inGod and a Creator.

Thanks Mr Wait But Why, you are turningme religious.

May 22, 2014 at 10:19 pm - Reply

You touched on the concept ofdiffering timelines. I firmly believe thatdue to time infinity (rather than spaceinfinity) that species making contact isnearly impossible. The odds are just toogreat that they could rise to a levelcapable of all that is required to makesuch contact AND do so within the timeframe that both species exist. They simplynever overlap. Extinction is a bitch.

May 22, 2014 at 10:20 pm - Reply

Has anyone considered thatGod created all of this. The entireamazing whole thing. Why? To show ushow amazing He is and how small we areand yet how much he loved us. I know alot of you will doubt and choose tobelieve in a Big Bang. Great show.Horrible theory. Sounds silly to me to hearpeople that believe we were made byaccident not a Creator. Every look at agreat piece of art or a beautiful buildingand think hey look at that accident. Itsbeautiful! Then why look at the universethat way. God loves you. Enough to makethis world and all the galaxies around. Healso loves you enough to send His son todie for your sins. Next time you look atthe stars please dont make the mistake tothink what a beautiful accident.

May 22, 2014 at 11:22 pm - Reply

One of my favorite thoughtexperiments is imagining what a human3000 years from now would think of aCD. Its shiny, has artistic patterns on it,and is circular. Were humans from circa2000 AD using these as decorations?Some form of currency? Maybe they usedthem as jewelry. Would somebody, even3000 years from now, understand thatthere is data stored on there? And if not,what data from 3000 years ago are wemissing?



Roger Stevenson

Speechless

Rhybon

L

Eric McCarty

May 22, 2014 at 11:36 pm - Reply

An intelligent Creator is theonly answer that will disprove all of yourconjecture!He claims the Bible is the way and answerto this life we know and inspired hiscreation to explain it for anyone interestedin learning!God claims he put the stars in motion forhumans to be able to tell time andnavigate in this finite existence in a infiniteuniverse and we can tell where we areand when from this perfect clock butother life forms are much more likely in aCoocoo clock than our universe!

May 22, 2014 at 11:37 pm - Reply

Monkey time!! Oh dear I amzooming all over the place learning aboutall these things you have put in this post.Faith? of course religion? yep.Speechless? uh-ha.You stretch and manipulate our minds toplaces we wouldnt go to on our own.

Please continue I think How cool are we that we can dance, cryand learn? Far out!!!!!!!

May 23, 2014 at 1:52 am - Reply

Some say its as high as 50%,but lets go with the more conservative22% that came out of a recent PNASstudy.

Heh heh, you said PNAS.

May 23, 2014 at 2:12 am - Reply

Wonderful! Waiting for you to(seriously and careful/ humble as always)engage with the topic of religion and thewhat-if of God.

May 23, 2014 at 2:45 am - Reply

My favorite blogger writingabout my favorite topic. Just like you, Italk and ramble with anyone that willlisten about the Fermi Paradox, its beenmy favorite topic of discussion for years.While I usually have to point them toWikipedia if they want a summary, thispost has replaced it.


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Alex

Jarod

Tim Iredale

Anca

Rob

What I think is truly fascinating, is thatyou made me feel wildlyinsignificant.AND wildly significant inthe same post. Brilliant.

May 23, 2014 at 5:23 am - Reply

Great post! this remind me ofa (very) short story from Terry Bisson onthe exact same subject which give you aexplanation, its called Theyre made outof meat

http://www.terrybisson.com/page6/page6.html

May 23, 2014 at 9:27 am - Reply

Extraordinary great post!But please note that for a post of thatlength, a table of contents might beuseful.

Greetings from Munich!

May 23, 2014 at 2:25 pm - Reply

Just to add to the muchdeserved congratulatory hubbub: superexcellent post well done and thank you.

Pingback: The Fermi Paradox and theSaved By The Bell Conspiracy | ChestRockwell

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May 23, 2014 at 5:10 pm - Reply

This is a great post. When Ifirst saw it I was like ohhh to much toread but then I had a quick look, thoughtit looks interesting and now I`m sad thatit was so short. You are great writer.

Pingback: In Keeping With The Name OfThe Blog | Structures Capable Of Joy

May 23, 2014 at 6:27 pm - Reply

Type III Civilization Heaven.Principle Resident there God. He didvisit Earth about 2000 years ago Wasnttreated that well Seems to be waiting tosee how wretched we become before wehit the Big Filter

Anonymous

May 23, 2014 at 8:22 pm - Reply

Great post!


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Q

John Schepers

Benji

Jeroen S

May 23, 2014 at 6:34 pm - Reply

This is my favorite blog everand I look forward to reading it and beingeducated every week, so after seeing whatgoes into one of your posts all the timeand effort I went to the wait but whystore and ordered T-shirts from all myfavorite posts! You are brilliant. Thankyou for being the best teacher Ive everhad.

Pingback: Article: The Fermi Paradox Dystopia Earth

May 23, 2014 at 11:51 pm - Reply

This did not take into accountthat as our planet was being born a starexploded giving us the magnetic feild weneeded to ward off radiation. Or that ourmoon is the perfect size and orbit. Bothare needed to give us the life we need.With these odds the chance for lifediminishes to the possibility that we arethe only ones and that is because a forcenot yet recognized wanted it this way.Only when we figure out what forcecreates a black hole will we know themeaning of life. To me infinity isimpossible in time or space

May 24, 2014 at 12:20 am - Reply

What about the possibility thatwere last? The final Noahs Ark of thegalaxy?

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May 24, 2014 at 6:16 am - Reply

Truly fascinating, as always.This is the first article Ive ever read oncosmology that doesnt leave me behindwith the uneasy feeling that life is utterlypointless.

The great Dutch comedian Theo Maassenmakes it even simpler though (he mighthave been joking): there are only 2options: either theyre smarter than us, ortheyre more stupid than us. If theyresmarter, theyll find us first; if theyremore stupid, then I dont want to haveanything to do with them anyway!.


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