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evlPanda said..

Ian K said..
Well with so many stars and planets in the galaxy either we're alone or we arise all over the place. If so there'd have to be a version of us that got a head start of 1 billion years. That's 1,000,000,050 years to invent hyper sleep and colonise the galaxy. Where are they? Or do they always self destruct before that?

They're in cyberspace.

No, seriously. That's a very possible future. Minimal resources and as much inner space to explore and "live in" as we need.

Why wouldn't that have happened to other civilisations? We've only had it a few decades and we already can't get off it.

This "solves" Fermi's Paradox quite nicely.

Could you go one logical step more and then argue that if 'civilization were to migrate to cyberspace', then what is the actual need to have anything at all? Did they all just get up and die and leave the universe clean again until the next civilization goes the same route? From beginning to end before the next one can even form?

It would be depressing.. if it mattered at all...

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FormulaNova said..

evlPanda said..

Ian K said..
Well with so many stars and planets in the galaxy either we're alone or we arise all over the place. If so there'd have to be a version of us that got a head start of 1 billion years. That's 1,000,000,050 years to invent hyper sleep and colonise the galaxy. Where are they? Or do they always self destruct before that?

They're in cyberspace.

No, seriously. That's a very possible future. Minimal resources and as much inner space to explore and "live in" as we need.

Why wouldn't that have happened to other civilisations? We've only had it a few decades and we already can't get off it.

This "solves" Fermi's Paradox quite nicely.

Could you go one logical step more and then argue that if 'civilization were to migrate to cyberspace', then what is the actual need to have anything at all? Did they all just get up and die and leave the universe clean again until the next civilization goes the same route? From beginning to end before the next one can even form?

It would be depressing.. if it mattered at all...

I totally agree it would be depressing , however it's here and now . Most people would rather play computer games than actually take some skin off . It's just one step away.

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GeoffD said..

but it's a great description of the Fermi Paradox and the Great Filter. (I've put it up before in another thread, so apologies if you've already seen it).

waitbutwhy.com/2014/05/fermi-paradox.html

Thanks. A good point made in that link was that if we do find life on Mars, and we should sort that out one way or the other fairly soon, it would not be a good sign for our long term future.

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GeoffD said..

Ian, don't know if you've seen this, but it's a great description of the Fermi Paradox and the Great Filter. (I've put it up before in another thread, so apologies if you've already seen it).

waitbutwhy.com/2014/05/fermi-paradox.html

Here's hoping that there is no predator species and that we are not on the list!

It would make more sense to just treat us as a reality tv program for a while and then destroy us when we got boring, AKA changing the channel.

It really does beg the question 'should we be calling out to the universe'?

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FormulaNova said..

It really does beg the question 'should we be calling out to the universe'?

Well, Stephen Hawking certainly didn't think it was a good idea - "if aliens visit us, the outcome would be much as when Columbus landed in America, which didn't turn out well for the Native Americans".

Silence is Golden. In so many ways.

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GeoffD said..

FormulaNova said..

It really does beg the question 'should we be calling out to the universe'?

Well, Stephen Hawking certainly didn't think it was a good idea - "if aliens visit us, the outcome would be much as when Columbus landed in America, which didn't turn out well for the Native Americans".

Silence is Golden. In so many ways.

Yes, you could imagine the response on the other end.... 'We have got responses back from a civilisation that calls itself 'Earth'. We are worried that they could be hostile to us, or they could be benign. We can't taken any chances, so lets just dispose of them before they can cause any problems...'

It does seem though that if you got to the point where your civilization got to the point where they could travel such distances, would you be bothered 'helping' out another civilization? What do you gain from it? Nothing. What do they gain from it? More confusion to their existence, possible disease and death.

...and then you think about what would be the case if every civilization came to the same realisation so that they stayed quiet in case the civilization trying to contact them wanted to set them up for invasion? Everyone would stay quiet and you could just about live next door to a multitude of other intelligent life forms.

Maybe they are watching reruns of our soap operas and are just too afraid to visit now.

Maybe they have come to the 'realisation' that their 'earth' is actually flat, they have burned all the books, imprisoned the scientists and are just quivering under their sheets at night hoping no one visits them?

I presume you've all read The Three-Body Problem trilogy.
Shhhhhhh....

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Cambodge said..
I presume you've all read The Three-Body Problem trilogy.
Shhhhhhh....

Or watched Avatar

Earth is the only planet not named after a god.

Yet was visited by many (depending on your preference)

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FormulaNova said..

GeoffD said..

FormulaNova said..

It really does beg the question 'should we be calling out to the universe'?

Well, Stephen Hawking certainly didn't think it was a good idea - "if aliens visit us, the outcome would be much as when Columbus landed in America, which didn't turn out well for the Native Americans".

Silence is Golden. In so many ways.

Yes, you could imagine the response on the other end.... 'We have got responses back from a civilisation that calls itself 'Earth'. We are worried that they could be hostile to us, or they could be benign. We can't taken any chances, so lets just dispose of them before they can cause any problems...'

It does seem though that if you got to the point where your civilization got to the point where they could travel such distances, would you be bothered 'helping' out another civilization? What do you gain from it? Nothing. What do they gain from it? More confusion to their existence, possible disease and death.

...and then you think about what would be the case if every civilization came to the same realisation so that they stayed quiet in case the civilization trying to contact them wanted to set them up for invasion? Everyone would stay quiet and you could just about live next door to a multitude of other intelligent life forms.

Maybe they are watching reruns of our soap operas and are just too afraid to visit now.

Maybe they have come to the 'realisation' that their 'earth' is actually flat, they have burned all the books, imprisoned the scientists and are just quivering under their sheets at night hoping no one visits them?

So they sent Trump

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hilly said..

So they sent Trump

Weren't we talking about intelligent life?

There are too many coincidences when it comes to Earth, life and eventually us for it to be random.

The galaxy we are in is incomprehensible huge. This galaxy is one of an incomprehensible number of galaxies. The matter that is detected by modern science is a small percentage of matter needed to keep cosmos going as we see it.

I've been reading the Skylark series. It's an old sci fi series. It's a bit crazy and a product of its time in that a new technology smashes the older generation. However it raises questions.

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Mobydisc said..
There are too many coincidences when it comes to Earth, life and eventually us for it to be random.

...

No, it may seem unlikely but unlikely things happen all the time. It just depends on how you look at them.

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NotWal said..

Mobydisc said..
There are too many coincidences when it comes to Earth, life and eventually us for it to be random.

...

No, it may seem unlikely but unlikely things happen all the time. It just depends on how you look at them.

No to what? The universe is not subjective depending how you look at things, the universe is very objective in that it does not care if you live or die, just like the ocean does not care if you live or die. The universe would not care if Jupiter continued its path into the inner solar system to consume all matter that otherwise became the rocky planets. However Jupiter did not do this. It was pulled outside and turned from a threat into a protector of the inner solar system.

Based on objective measures, the Earth is very strange. Humanity is unusual too. Even with the science and technology we have, fission energy, burning stuff or collecting photons, a civilisation a million years older than where we are now in the galaxy we are, should be observable to us or have made themselves known to us. As a million years is not much in the belief in the universe is about 14 billions year old, then it's fairly reasonable to believe there should be a space faring civilisation out there that is a million years old. We have had no proven sign or signal of such a civilisation. Thus at this point of time we must assume and we do, such extra terrestrial civilisations do not exist.

Thus at this point of time we must believe Earth and all on it is very unique and precious.

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Mobydisc said..
There are too many coincidences when it comes to Earth, life and eventually us for it to be random.

By definition, if these coincidences hadn't have happened, we wouldn't be able to (not) observe them. Therefore the logic suggests that it requires all these coincidences in order to be observable.

It doesn't make it any more likely just because we happen to be able to observe them. It could have happened just once. Just once is all it would take.