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Possible Fermi solution....

Goshin

Goshin

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More possible evidence we may be among the first ETCs in existence....


The activity-level of Quasars did not decline below 10% of peak maximum, until approximately redshift z~0.5 about 5.5 billion years ago.

If peak-level QSOs effectively “sterilize” their host galaxies, then the Universe has only been “fertile” and life-amenable for a billion years longer than the age of the Earth. And if so, then terrestrial life may be one of the first biospheres to emerge in the Cosmos. Such would have profound implications for, and perhaps largely explain, the “Great Silence” of Fermi’s Paradox.
-Erik Nelson M.S. Cosmology UCalif.
 
Goshin said:
More possible evidence we may be among the first ETCs in existence....


The activity-level of Quasars did not decline below 10% of peak maximum, until approximately redshift z~0.5 about 5.5 billion years ago.

If peak-level QSOs effectively “sterilize” their host galaxies, then the Universe has only been “fertile” and life-amenable for a billion years longer than the age of the Earth. And if so, then terrestrial life may be one of the first biospheres to emerge in the Cosmos. Such would have profound implications for, and perhaps largely explain, the “Great Silence” of Fermi’s Paradox.
-Erik Nelson M.S. Cosmology UCalif.
Click to expand...

More like Asimov's universe, empty and ready to populate!
 
Goshin said:
More possible evidence we may be among the first ETCs in existence....


The activity-level of Quasars did not decline below 10% of peak maximum, until approximately redshift z~0.5 about 5.5 billion years ago.

If peak-level QSOs effectively “sterilize” their host galaxies, then the Universe has only been “fertile” and life-amenable for a billion years longer than the age of the Earth. And if so, then terrestrial life may be one of the first biospheres to emerge in the Cosmos. Such would have profound implications for, and perhaps largely explain, the “Great Silence” of Fermi’s Paradox.
-Erik Nelson M.S. Cosmology UCalif.
Click to expand...

As Carl Sagan wrote in Cosmos, "someone has to be first. Why not us?"
 
Goshin said:
More possible evidence we may be among the first ETCs in existence....


The activity-level of Quasars did not decline below 10% of peak maximum, until approximately redshift z~0.5 about 5.5 billion years ago.

If peak-level QSOs effectively “sterilize” their host galaxies, then the Universe has only been “fertile” and life-amenable for a billion years longer than the age of the Earth. And if so, then terrestrial life may be one of the first biospheres to emerge in the Cosmos. Such would have profound implications for, and perhaps largely explain, the “Great Silence” of Fermi’s Paradox.
-Erik Nelson M.S. Cosmology UCalif.
Click to expand...

Even so a space fairing race that settles a new world every 1,000 years and those worlds then send out their own colonies each thousand years would have spread over the whole galaxy in a million years or maybe 2. Or maybe 20 million years.

In any case the place should be full already.
 
Tim the plumber said:
Even so a space fairing race that settles a new world every 1,000 years and those worlds then send out their own colonies each thousand years would have spread over the whole galaxy in a million years or maybe 2. Or maybe 20 million years.

In any case the place should be full already.
Click to expand...


That's assuming several things.

1. That there are aliens more advanced than us in our galaxy.

2. That they are expansionist.

3. That they have relatively rapid sub-light interstellar travel that isn't too horrendously expensive.

4. That most of their kind remain expansionist for a very, very long time... longer than most civilizations last, longer than most species survive.


If there were thousands of ETCs "ahead of us" in our galaxy, yeah odds are decent we'd have seen one by now. If that number is considerably smaller, like say between 0 and 100, the odds are greatly reduced. If we're the very first curious/exploring/expansionist ETC to reach our present level, it explains a lot.
 
Goshin said:
That's assuming several things.

1. That there are aliens more advanced than us in our galaxy.

2. That they are expansionist.

3. That they have relatively rapid sub-light interstellar travel that isn't too horrendously expensive.

4. That most of their kind remain expansionist for a very, very long time... longer than most civilizations last, longer than most species survive.


If there were thousands of ETCs "ahead of us" in our galaxy, yeah odds are decent we'd have seen one by now. If that number is considerably smaller, like say between 0 and 100, the odds are greatly reduced. If we're the very first curious/exploring/expansionist ETC to reach our present level, it explains a lot.
Click to expand...

And of course there are those civilizations that trapped themselves down their gravity wells by using all the cheap hydrocarbons on SUVs.

Which is what we're trying to do.

Hopefully other species are less stupid.

And of course there may be a bunch that came about around the same time we did and are just so far away we don't know it yet
 
Goshin said:
That's assuming several things.

1. That there are aliens more advanced than us in our galaxy.

2. That they are expansionist.

3. That they have relatively rapid sub-light interstellar travel that isn't too horrendously expensive.

4. That most of their kind remain expansionist for a very, very long time... longer than most civilizations last, longer than most species survive.


If there were thousands of ETCs "ahead of us" in our galaxy, yeah odds are decent we'd have seen one by now. If that number is considerably smaller, like say between 0 and 100, the odds are greatly reduced. If we're the very first curious/exploring/expansionist ETC to reach our present level, it explains a lot.
Click to expand...

Only a few would be required to remian expansionist and one colony going out per 1000 years is slow compared to what will hit the place when we do it.

Only one race/culture would be enough.

We may well be the first such, but isn't that very oddly lucky????
 
Tim the plumber said:
Even so a space fairing race that settles a new world every 1,000 years and those worlds then send out their own colonies each thousand years would have spread over the whole galaxy in a million years or maybe 2. Or maybe 20 million years.

In any case the place should be full already.
Click to expand...


Or in far less time via Bracewell/Von Neumann probes.
 
Tim the plumber said:
Only a few would be required to remian expansionist and one colony going out per 1000 years is slow compared to what will hit the place when we do it.

Only one race/culture would be enough.

We may well be the first such, but isn't that very oddly lucky????
Click to expand...


Anthropic principle... we're here so life is possible, but we don't know how common...we observe what we observe because we're here to observe it. We observe no aliens colonizing us or coming in decelerating at 0.1c or better to say hi... so for some reason it hasn't happened.

One possible reason is we're the first in our neighborhood to reach a level where interstellar contact may be almost within our reach. It makes more sense than most of the other explanations.
 
Goshin said:
Anthropic principle... we're here so life is possible, but we don't know how common...we observe what we observe because we're here to observe it. We observe no aliens colonizing us or coming in decelerating at 0.1c or better to say hi... so for some reason it hasn't happened.

One possible reason is we're the first in our neighborhood to reach a level where interstellar contact may be almost within our reach. It makes more sense than most of the other explanations.
Click to expand...

Yes......

The other thing is that the more you look at earth the more you see it a spectacular jackpot of luck.

The massive magnetic field, the massive moon, the ratio of land to water being just right as more water and the oxygen cycle would not balance and more land and the climate would be very unstabe.

The big gas giant which hoovers up most of the comets stopping the otherwise chaotic rain of asteroid impacts.

The second big gas giant which stops the first from coming into the inner solar system and hoovering up the planets.

The fact that it did this just in time to leave a vast amount of asteroids out there to exploit for more resources than we will ever need.

The unlikely chance of photosynthesis which did not evolve for the first 600 million years of life here.

The stable vulcanism which makes the oxygen and carbon cycles work.

The whole plate tectonics which make the land refresh and again makes the oxygen cycle work.

The very unlikely happening of multicellular life. Only happened in the last 600 million years or so.

The spectacularly unlikely happening of an aborial animal becoming a plains runner with no fur.

The spectacularly unlikely happening that this animal would have competitive intelligence as a breeding competition thing.

The unlikely happening that this animal would be highly equiped for tool use.

And even better equiped for large and complex social interactions.

All in all it's just too good to be chance surely???

I personally think that there is a strong argument that something is gardening earth and humanity......?
 
I always figured they were simply far too alien for us to understand or contact them at our current level of advancement.
 
Tim the plumber said:
Yes......

The other thing is that the more you look at earth the more you see it a spectacular jackpot of luck.

The massive magnetic field, the massive moon, the ratio of land to water being just right as more water and the oxygen cycle would not balance and more land and the climate would be very unstabe.

The big gas giant which hoovers up most of the comets stopping the otherwise chaotic rain of asteroid impacts.

The second big gas giant which stops the first from coming into the inner solar system and hoovering up the planets.

The fact that it did this just in time to leave a vast amount of asteroids out there to exploit for more resources than we will ever need.

The unlikely chance of photosynthesis which did not evolve for the first 600 million years of life here.

The stable vulcanism which makes the oxygen and carbon cycles work.

The whole plate tectonics which make the land refresh and again makes the oxygen cycle work.

The very unlikely happening of multicellular life. Only happened in the last 600 million years or so.

The spectacularly unlikely happening of an aborial animal becoming a plains runner with no fur.

The spectacularly unlikely happening that this animal would have competitive intelligence as a breeding competition thing.

The unlikely happening that this animal would be highly equiped for tool use.

And even better equiped for large and complex social interactions.

All in all it's just too good to be chance surely???

I personally think that there is a strong argument that something is gardening earth and humanity......?
Click to expand...



Rare Earth hypothesis.

A lot of those things are being found to be less rare than once supposed, or less necessary to the development of life than once believed.


Even so, yes, the odds of a technological intelligent civilization developing around any given star on a given planet in the LZ is small, and as noted in the OP may have been vastly less likely not long (in astrophysical time) before Earth is supposed to have had life.

As for the garden world having a gardener, I am inclined to think so, as a theist...
 
Goshin said:
Rare Earth hypothesis.

A lot of those things are being found to be less rare than once supposed, or less necessary to the development of life than once believed.


Even so, yes, the odds of a technological intelligent civilization developing around any given star on a given planet in the LZ is small, and as noted in the OP may have been vastly less likely not long (in astrophysical time) before Earth is supposed to have had life.

As for the garden world having a gardener, I am inclined to think so, as a theist...
Click to expand...

Thing is I don't see this gardener being nice or caring on any sort of individual basis.
 
Tim the plumber said:
Yes......

The other thing is that the more you look at earth the more you see it a spectacular jackpot of luck.

The massive magnetic field, the massive moon, the ratio of land to water being just right as more water and the oxygen cycle would not balance and more land and the climate would be very unstabe.

The big gas giant which hoovers up most of the comets stopping the otherwise chaotic rain of asteroid impacts.

The second big gas giant which stops the first from coming into the inner solar system and hoovering up the planets.

The fact that it did this just in time to leave a vast amount of asteroids out there to exploit for more resources than we will ever need.

The unlikely chance of photosynthesis which did not evolve for the first 600 million years of life here.

The stable vulcanism which makes the oxygen and carbon cycles work.

The whole plate tectonics which make the land refresh and again makes the oxygen cycle work.

The very unlikely happening of multicellular life. Only happened in the last 600 million years or so.

The spectacularly unlikely happening of an aborial animal becoming a plains runner with no fur.

The spectacularly unlikely happening that this animal would have competitive intelligence as a breeding competition thing.

The unlikely happening that this animal would be highly equiped for tool use.

And even better equiped for large and complex social interactions.

All in all it's just too good to be chance surely???

I personally think that there is a strong argument that something is gardening earth and humanity......?
Click to expand...


What basis could you possibly have of determining what is and is not "too good to be chance"? You don't even have the parameters. We'd have to know (how?) we have defined in a database the complete set of possible conditions for life to exist AND the complete set of conditions on all planets in space-time. Then we could at least start making some guestimations about the probability of life occurring. There probably is no way to quantify the other things you label unlikely (but are they? How do you know that they are so unlikely?).

Of course, even that wouldn't tell us anything. Something with only a 1 in 10^10000 chance of happening in a given span of 1 trillion years could, by definition, still happen in front of you this very second. Even if the probability was that absurdly small, it wouldn't be "too good to be chance." There is no such thing as "too good to be chance."




Frankly, "too good to be chance" sounds more like a religious argument that puts the cart before the horse in trying to offer proof of God's existence. It's most commonly found in intelligent design. And to those people, I pose a question related to the first one here: so how do you, a mortal that is less than the designer you claim exists, presume to know what is and is not designed? Wouldn't it take knowledge equal or greater to the presumed designer for an individual to be able to determine what is and is not designed?

Same sort of thing with "too good to be chance". You'd have to have knowledge equal or greater than all possible knowledge to be able to determine what can and cannot happen in the universe.
 
Tim the plumber said:
Yes......

The other thing is that the more you look at earth the more you see it a spectacular jackpot of luck.

The massive magnetic field, the massive moon, the ratio of land to water being just right as more water and the oxygen cycle would not balance and more land and the climate would be very unstabe.

The big gas giant which hoovers up most of the comets stopping the otherwise chaotic rain of asteroid impacts.

The second big gas giant which stops the first from coming into the inner solar system and hoovering up the planets.

The fact that it did this just in time to leave a vast amount of asteroids out there to exploit for more resources than we will ever need.

The unlikely chance of photosynthesis which did not evolve for the first 600 million years of life here.

The stable vulcanism which makes the oxygen and carbon cycles work.

The whole plate tectonics which make the land refresh and again makes the oxygen cycle work.

The very unlikely happening of multicellular life. Only happened in the last 600 million years or so.

The spectacularly unlikely happening of an aborial animal becoming a plains runner with no fur.

The spectacularly unlikely happening that this animal would have competitive intelligence as a breeding competition thing.

The unlikely happening that this animal would be highly equiped for tool use.

And even better equiped for large and complex social interactions.

All in all it's just too good to be chance surely???

I personally think that there is a strong argument that something is gardening earth and humanity......?
Click to expand...

So we're not the first, we're farm stock. Or an intergalactic school ant farm project!
 
Mr Person said:
What basis could you possibly have of determining what is and is not "too good to be chance"? You don't even have the parameters. We'd have to know (how?) we have defined in a database the complete set of possible conditions for life to exist AND the complete set of conditions on all planets in space-time. Then we could at least start making some guestimations about the probability of life occurring. There probably is no way to quantify the other things you label unlikely (but are they? How do you know that they are so unlikely?).

Of course, even that wouldn't tell us anything. Something with only a 1 in 10^10000 chance of happening in a given span of 1 trillion years could, by definition, still happen in front of you this very second. Even if the probability was that absurdly small, it wouldn't be "too good to be chance." There is no such thing as "too good to be chance."




Frankly, "too good to be chance" sounds more like a religious argument that puts the cart before the horse in trying to offer proof of God's existence. It's most commonly found in intelligent design. And to those people, I pose a question related to the first one here: so how do you, a mortal that is less than the designer you claim exists, presume to know what is and is not designed? Wouldn't it take knowledge equal or greater to the presumed designer for an individual to be able to determine what is and is not designed?

Same sort of thing with "too good to be chance". You'd have to have knowledge equal or greater than all possible knowledge to be able to determine what can and cannot happen in the universe.
Click to expand...

That's why there are all those question marks.

I know that nature could well of given us this super jackpot of a world.

But surely the very long list of very very fortunate chances just looks too good to be chance????
 
Manc Skipper said:
So we're not the first, we're farm stock. Or an intergalactic school ant farm project!
Click to expand...

Could be.

There is the unknowable chance (at our present knowledge level) of it being random good luck. There is the chance of it being some level of design or gardening of us.

One day we may get to know.
 
We're pretty smart, but not smart enough to artificially create life yet, and we've been trying for a long time. We know what life needs yet we can't even agree on what amounts and in what measurements do these biological components require to spark life. Not to mention that we keep folding proteins, and have an entire community focused solely on this, and are nowhere near what we need to know, or even how many possible combinations can be folded, yet we keep on trying. I suspect we'll get there one day, but then we're stuck with this whole e=mc2 thing.. Interstellar travel is not something we're going to do anytime soon.. The best way for us to travel the stars is to bunny-hop resource rich asteroids, and or planetoids, moons. But then we have to figure out how to live in extreme environments. You can't put 10 billion people on an asteroid.. :)

I guess you could say that we've at least one probe that is interstellar, but it's very slow and old. It may turn out that the Start Trek the Movie might be that it will be us that finds our own probe in the future because there's simply no one else out there to intercept it. I like to think that we're not alone, but it's becoming more and more likely that we are, and we better push forward with this as our working model.


Tim-
 
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