Posted on 02/24/2002 3:53:44 PM PST by LarryLied
Is there obvious proof that we could be alone in the Galaxy? Enrico Fermi thought so -- and he was a pretty smart guy. Might he have been right?It's been a hundred years since Fermi, an icon of physics, was born (and nearly a half-century since he died). He's best remembered for building a working atomic reactor in a squash court. But in 1950, Fermi made a seemingly innocuous lunchtime remark that has caught and held the attention of every SETI researcher since. (How many luncheon quips have you made with similar consequence?)
The remark came while Fermi was discussing with his mealtime mates the possibility that many sophisticated societies populate the Galaxy. They thought it reasonable to assume that we have a lot of cosmic company. But somewhere between one sentence and the next, Fermi's supple brain realized that if this was true, it implied something profound. If there are really a lot of alien societies, then some of them might have spread out.
Fermi realized that any civilization with a modest amount of rocket technology and an immodest amount of imperial incentive could rapidly colonize the entire Galaxy. Within ten million years, every star system could be brought under the wing of empire. Ten million years may sound long, but in fact it's quite short compared with the age of the Galaxy, which is roughly ten thousand million years.
Colonization of the Milky Way should be a quick exercise.
So what Fermi immediately realized was that the aliens have had more than enough time to pepper the Galaxy with their presence. But looking around, he didn't see any clear indication that they're out and about. This prompted Fermi to ask what was (to him) an obvious question: "where is everybody?"
This sounds a bit silly at first. The fact that aliens don't seem to be walking our planet apparently implies that there are no extraterrestrials anywhere among the vast tracts of the Galaxy. Many researchers consider this to be a radical conclusion to draw from such a simple observation. Surely there is a straightforward explanation for what has become known as the Fermi Paradox. There must be some way to account for our apparent loneliness in a galaxy that we assume is filled with other clever beings.
A lot of folks have given this thought. The first thing they note is that the Fermi Paradox is a remarkably strong argument. You can quibble about the speed of alien spacecraft, and whether they can move at 1 percent of the speed of light or 10 percent of the speed of light. It doesn't matter. You can argue about how long it would take for a new star colony to spawn colonies of its own. It still doesn't matter. Any halfway reasonable assumption about how fast colonization could take place still ends up with time scales that are profoundly shorter than the age of the Galaxy. It's like having a heated discussion about whether Spanish ships of the 16th century could heave along at two knots or twenty. Either way they could speedily colonize the Americas.
Consequently, scientists in and out of the SETI community have conjured up other arguments to deal with the conflict between the idea that aliens should be everywhere and our failure (so far) to find them. In the 1980s, dozens of papers were published to address the Fermi Paradox. They considered technical and sociological arguments for why the aliens weren't hanging out nearby. Some even insisted that there was no paradox at all: the reason we don't see evidence of extraterrestrials is because there aren't any.
Theoretical physicist Paul Davies claims that people are looking to extraterrestrials as "a conduit to the Ultimate." For many, the prospect of ETI has come to meet a need once met by religion. Even the SETI scientists say they are motivated by a nobler goal than the mere search for intelligence. Imagine, they say, the boost in knowledge, in morality, and maybe even in spirituality, to be gained from a billion-year-old civilization.Robert Jastrow imagines what it might do to our present religions. "When we make contact with them, it will be a transforming event," he says. "I do not know how the Judeo-Christian tradition will react to this development, because the concept that there exist beings superior to us in this universe, not only technically, but perhaps spiritually and morally, will take some rethinking, I think, of the classic doctrines of Western religion."
Any signals we detect, according to SETI astronomer Jill Tarter, will come from long-lived civilizations. This fact, combined with the fact that religions cause so many wars on this planet, means that our first detected signals will come from beings "who either never had, or have outgrown, organized religion," she said at a recent science/religion meeting sponsored by the Templeton Foundation and held in the Bahamas.
Other scientists and theologians at the Nassau meeting thought that pantheistic religions could survive an alien encounter, but most assumed that Western religion would certainly meet its fate when meeting extraterrestrials. Science historian Steven Dick called SETI "a religious quest" that might help to reconcile science and religion. But he assumed this would occur at the expense of Christianity, which could not accommodate the implications of ETI.
It strikes me that today’s scholars may be too quick to pronounce last rites over the faith that actually engendered most early ETI enthusiasts. Throughout the Middle Ages, well-read people believed that a "plurality of worlds" was impossible, following Aristotle’s arguments. In 1277, a council of bishops in France condemned this position, officially opening the way for many to take other worlds seriously.
Whether encouraged or discouraged by their churches, prominent Christians became the most prominent ETI promoters. These included Giordano Bruno and Nicholas of Cusa (fifteenth century), Johannes Kepler (sixteenth century), American Puritan divine Cotton Mather (seventeenth century), and Yale president/minister Timothy Dwight (eighteenth century).
Whether aliens will deliver a knockout blow to any particular religion depends, of course, upon exactly what aliens have to tell us about God. Materialists have traditionally assumed that Jews, Christians, and Muslims, believing in a transcendent God, will receive bad news. And the Christian belief in Jesus’ death for human sin seems particularly problematic to them. How could we reconcile Jesus’ death for all with the existence of other intelligent creatures in the universe?
Christian ETI enthusiasts, however, have a variety of responses to the skeptics:
- Jesus’ atoning sacrifice was a one-time event that covers aliens too. Oxford cosmologist E. A. Milne suggested that missionaries will eventually be preaching the good news to far-flung galaxies.
- Other civilizations may not have fallen into sin and so don’t require salvation. Oxford don C. S. Lewis wrote science fiction fantasies about such alien societies.
- God has become incarnate in the form of alien flesh in as many places where His creatures have fallen into sin. Scholars and rock singers have taken this position. And in the words of hymn writer Sydney Carter:
Who can tell what other cradle, High above the Milky Way, Still may rock the King of Heaven On another Christmas Day?
And I never saw a purple cow, either.
Gee, Hong Kong must be really poor...
I never hope to see one...
An awful place.
Better tell Mormons to cut down on all those kids. Utah is on the road to becoming another Somalia.
Where's GORT and Klatoo when you need them?
We are doing pretty amazing stuff already. :) 20 years from now will be incredible.
One of the means for measuring human longevity is to compare the amount of time it takes to add a month or year to the average human life expectancy.
For example, say over the course of one year people working on extending longevity are able to increase the average life expectancy by six months. Then in the following year they are able to extend longevity by seven months. The following year they extend it by eight months... and so on.
I forget the exact year but somewhere around 2010 to 2013 life extension technology is projected to add twelve months of life expectancy for one years R&D. At some point beyond that, probably around year 2020, for one years work on life extension developments they will add two years to longevity. Also, people working in the industry or field as a whole think in terms of maintaining/obtaining optimal health, not old age.
This presents a major dilemma for governments that exist via initiation of force--virtually all governments. It's great for their social security Ponzi scheme if people no longer retire and instead chose to remain productive. On the other hand, it will no longer be feasible to re-write history.
Nanotechnology which will also play an important role in achieving biologic immortality will wreak havoc on government protection rackets. Existing pollution will easily be scrubbed. New pollution will be almost unheard of because any nasty by-products will be broken down to harmless molecules or atoms at the time of manufacturing. Crime will plummet because the cost of manufacturing/replicating of basic necessities falls to a small fraction of personal income. The cost of manufacturing luxury items will plummet too. The illegal drug trade will dry up. Violent crime will consist almost entirely as crimes of passion.
Oil extraction costs will be plummet. Solar energy will be feasible due to extremely low cost of producing collection, conversion, storage and distribution systems. Gold could be inexpensively extracted from sea water, which while technically possible today is prohibitively expensive, costing several times more than the roughly $250 per ounce it cost to extract via mining. Nanotechnology will cut the cost of extraction by perhaps 90% of what it is today. From what I have read there hasn't been a reasonable explanation of what will be come of money.
You know how congress, the alphabet agencies and lamestream media are quick to point fingers at certain companies or entire industries claiming that they harm society. Doing that regardless of unsupported documentation -- similar to the junk science used to "support" global warming. Combine several of these puzzle pieces and the sheeple will wake up. The productive host (workers of the world that produce more than they consume increasing prosperity for self, others and society) will scorn/throw the parasitical elite (people whose livelihoods/jobs widely advance the initiation of force, fraud and coercion) of their backs and out of their wallets.
Other very cool nanotechnology developments may include Utility Fog, underground-tunnel travel at mach+ speeds, increased space tourism/business as well as several other incredible developments. Here's a few links from Nanotechnology Magazine...
That title sounded familiar, but a quick search turned up only one book by that title by Greg Bear (1987), so I'm going to say the odds are I haven't.
If there are 'other places' (with sentient beings and their civilizations) to compare ourselves and what we've built in the way of Earthly civilization to, it is virtually CERTAIN that some will be 'worse' and some will be 'better' places to be than Earth is.
It's inconceivable to me that we would be the absolute best, or worst, that there is. (if we are not alone)
The question (again, IF we aren’t alone) is WHERE on the scale are we?
And yes, I realize that such calls as 'best' and 'worst' must be conceded to be -by their nature- 'subjective' judgements.
But such calls are sometimes 'subjective' in a technical sense only. Only a man craving an argument, for instance, would claim that Beverly Hills is no better a place to be than Buchenwald.
I remain consistently willing to bet, on nothing more than a hunch, that the box next to 'Earth Duty' doesn't get checked in very many (if any) responses to the: "Give your top three preferences of station for your next rotation..."
I’ll bet even our (for the time being, clandestine) Provincial Governor is a re-tread of some sort.
They've been here. They just did not want to break The Prime Directive.
Fresno...
People never understand that they are controlled by their emotions....
Groups are organized around something. That something may be a state or a relgion--but those things only supply the mechanism and rationalization for war--not its motive....
Your chain of reasoning isn't supported by facts. Not all cultures go to war, even when motivated by scarcity or when attacked. Not all people are agressive by nature, and not all cultures are dominated by agressive people.
What religion does is provide a rationale for aggeression, even in good times. Western religions in particular are full of commands attributed to God, to conquer, dominate, even kill non-believers. The commands are not based on scarcity or need. They are pure aggression.
An idle thoght:
Say WTC911 was a wake-up call. A wake-up call on several levels. Assume it was a helpful attempt by bin Laden to awaken the West to inner values. This presents several conflicting problems.
First, it appears the West does not wish to be awakened to inner values. Some individual Westerners here and there were re-awakened to inner values, of course, perhaps in greater numbers than if the attack had not been perpetrated.
However, if the attack had that purpose by attacking outer values, it would have the same effect on the attackers. Some individual Alqaida may have been re-awakened to inner values by the attack, perhaps in some number.
Thus, looking at the attack this way, it was an attack on outer values of both the West and Islam, and an effort to re-awaken inner values of both.
Here's the problem: Alqaida has no right to attempt to re-awaken inner values of others, be they West or Islam. Awakening inner values is a personal activity or realization and cannot be imposed from outside.
Perhaps they saw in one of their famous dreams that their act would trigger a re-awakening to inner values. If so, they overestimate their effect on the world, and underestimate the sincerity with which the West and Islam both wish to remain asleep.
If Alqaida is an alarm clock going off at 6 AM, and the sleeper wishes to remain asleep, he might grab the alarm clock and fling it across the room. /idle thought
The problem with self replicating nannys, is what happens should ONE fail to stop reproducing when it's supposed to? The decendants could sequester all of some critical resource (nacent oxygen for example) before it could be stopped.
It's nanotechnology and replicators, not replicating nannys. It would be helpful if you used the correct terminology. I've read a fair amount about nanotechnology and have never seen the term "replicating nannys".
Anyways, "Assemblers will be most efficient when they work in a vat of special precursor chemicals. This will also constitute a built-in safety factor against runaway replication: after all, you don't worry about baking yeast taking over the whole world when you make homemade bread; when it runs out of dough, it stops." Utility Fog
The following quotes are from: Foresight Guidelines for MNT Development
"...MNT [molecular nanotechnology] will produce novel military, security and environmental issues that require examination now, if we are to avoid future catastrophe. We are therefore deeded new responsibilities with our new toys, responsibilities that are not optional. The Genie is out of the technological bottle."
"This is nanotechnology and things have changed: As the group points out, "While a 100% effective ban (impossible) could, in theory, avoid the potential risks of nanotechnology, a 99.99% effective ban would result in development and deployment by the 0.01% that evaded and ignored the ban." -- and that's enough technology for literal realization of a "Take over" or "Destroy the World" scenario. Also, see the results of the treaty outlawing biological warfare. At this early time, the Guideline participants (as a group) have issued no MNT treaty recommendations (a daunting task to find a workable solution, if there is one)."
Ah...yes indeed. The Dark Ages would have been sheer delight had not the Catholic Church been around to muck stuff up. Heck, the Roman Empire might even had made a come back and we could be enjoying shows in the colosseum today.
Oh those Western religions. So unlike the peaceful Gurkhas, other Himalayan Buddhists, devotees of Bon-Po, Japanese followers of Shinto and the Tamil Tigers. We'll get to African religions later. . .
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