The Fermi Paradox

When you say advancement then this would mean they ever had the stage of radio communication but now have a more advanced technology. While at first glance that would make sense it is less likely to be the explanation. What we are looking for is the signs of exactly that technology age that we are or were in. If those signs are missing then it just means there is and never was that technology available or the signs simply have not reached us in the correct time.

Unless the advanced civilisation can hide signals that they send in the past, in their early stages of development from us, I would say the absence of signals can not be explained with higher technology. The biggest factor is the time component. The time it takes for a signal to get to Earth must be the time when we are listening. The short time we have been listening now does not warrant any conclusion what is out there or not.

If I was to pick from the options given by OP then I would have to add option 4. And we have simply not hit the right wave yet.

Hell, we can't even seem to find missing E-mails…..Let alone any other forms of communication...

So, let me see if I understand your assertion correctly. Your saying that advanced beings use private servers?

Sorry, couldn't resist....

As a kid I used to love to watch reruns of Star Trek (The Original Series)

As a kid I used to love to watch reruns the original Star Trek (The Original Series) Series.

No doubt this approach saved a lot on wardrobe, but it did reflect a certain attitude of the time as well.

Is that really true? I don't think people were naïve enough to expect aliens to be so humanoid in appearance. I may be giving Earthlings too much credit, but I think from Hollywood's point of view, it not only saved on wardrobe expenses (I am thinking of wardrobe expenses as clothing, you may be using in the broader sense which covers the entire alien representation), but also was limited by available (or affordable) technology at the time. Look how far the portrayal of aliens went from the end of Star Trek to Star Wars. Computer graphics and electronics played a big part.

And it was probably rather easy to rationalize their way to something humanoid-like if the alien is expected to be an intelligent creature. To observe and experience it's environment the being would have to have various sensors:

• Visual sensors (eyes?)
• Aural sensors (nose?)

To interact and move about one's environment the being would have to have:

• Legs of some sort - since most all animals on our planet have legs (two or four) it's reasonable to assume some (not all) alien life may be similar. Odd number doesn't make too much sense developmentally and is it efficient or necessary to have more than 4?
• movable appendages - arms or tentacles?
• reasonably dexterous manipulators - hands?

Without a way to perceive it's environment or manipulate it's environment would an alien life having the potential to develop/expand its intellect be able to do so? Maybe...but more likely not.

Or course there are a lot of variable ways one can assemble all those features. But given that nearly all non-insect creatures on earth have a head, body and appendages/limbs is not far fetched to expect aliens to be similar.

I do think having the good guys appear humanoid and bad guy not so much was rather common before alien movies and even persists today. Perhaps some basic survival skills embedded in our DNA (treat similar things as safe and non-similar as bad until you know differently).

One of the campy qualities of the original series was how all the aliens basically looked like slightly modified humans.

You mean like this?

Of course these were more human like and thus appealed to Captain Kirk (and maybe a few of us fans):

Two of my favorite aliens are shown here. I thought both were quite well thought out and unique (okay and scary too...but I was still in my early 20's):

While both could be considered human-like, they have arms, head, eyes, mouth (or two mouths in the case of Alien), lets, eyes and body, they don't speak English or seem to be able to (or interested) in communicating with Earthlings at all other than to express how easy we are to be killed (Arnold and Ripley being the exceptions).

Whales and dolphins are apparently intelligent. We share a planet with them, but we have yet been able to communicate. I would expect extraterrestrial aliens with whom we have very little in common to be far different and more difficult to communicate with.

If there actually were any other civilizations they would be in every conceivable and inconceivable phase of development. Secondly if there are any advanced civilizations our most advanced mathematics would be like nursery school math to them.Third if any of these supposed civilizations were peace loving and saw how we often we fight amongst ourselves, they would stay as far away from us as possible, where as if they are more violent then we are, they know that its just a matter of time where we will anialate ourselves and they will scoop on down and clean house.

As humans we have 5 senses. I don't know the order we acquired them, but perhaps we need to evolve to develop additional senses; whatever they might be. Perhaps to an ethereal level to communicate by thought processes with aliens.

Maybe the aliens are already here - in our dreams - but without an advanced ESP we cant get back - or perhaps we do - but without realising it.

Just a thought !

I theorize that the paradox exists because we imagine and measure extraterrestrial intelligence relative to the human race here on Earth, but that we humans are a poor example of intelligent life. Even though we have obtained some degree of scientific and technical knowledge, this knowledge is not the same as intelligence.

I submit that intelligent life can only exist when it is in harmony with its environment and living in a sustainable equilibrium with the universe. Environmentally destructive, all-consuming, self-important yet self-defeating behavior can't be, and shouldn't be a prerequisite characteristic for intelligent life regardless of its accumulated knowledge base.

If one were able to get unbiased a third person perspective of life here on Earth, I would think humans would be the last species on Earth that could be considered intelligent. Current human behavior makes us no more than a viral parasite on this planet, and as such we will either be the end to this planet or this planet will ensure there is an end of us.

With that said why would we want to look for other worldly life that is like us? Also why would otherworldly life look for contact with life similar to us? I suspect they would only observe us as minor curiosity, or a bad example of intelligence.

Maybe there is hope for us. The development of an additional sense(s) might be along the lines of benign benevolence that might evolve from natural selection from mutations caused by radiation from nuclear fallout.

Time will tell.

It's only a few years back that we all lived as animals in the wild, some still do....Just for some added food for thought, what if this planet turns out to be the only one with life? Yes far fetched by today's estimates of probability, but what would be the implications....and on the other end of the scale, what if life was pretty much everywhere, and this planet in fact, was late to the party, so to speak, and would be considered at the lower tier of life....after all there is certainly the possibility that intelligent life evolved on other planets perhaps millions of years ago...possibly even this planet....they certainly would look at us as we view the dinosaurs, bizarre and frightening....ah,, to have a live specimen.....

My latest book I have a advanced society that first transitions from biological form to machines over time, then they disappear leaving all of their advanced machines behind more or less headless, if you will.

The machines being smart in their own way eventually repurpose themselves to perform new functions, but they are not organized nor do they have a grander purpose for their existence (unlike humans) and haphazardly begin to become spacefaring.

They are neither malevolent nor benevolent, but the result is they inadvertently become an invasive species in their own right and as such a bull in a cosmic garden, so to speak.

Do they seek to propagate? It's certainly a possible scenario either way....they would certainly need to repair and renew themselves over time....It's interesting to think that all that has perhaps taken place here long ago, and all evidence has been wiped out over time....some day we may find a clue....I won't be surprised at all....Propagation by such a species would seem to be necessary as support, perhaps lesser intelligent machines, a lower class , so to speak....survival of any lifeform would seem to depend on a healthy reproductive ability......and mobility...

From the first chapter of my second book:

The creators had no names as whatever they had once called their selves had vanished along with themselves eons ago. The knowledge of where they went and why was totally unknown. All that was left was the scar they had made on the worlds they had lived and the machines that they had built.

The creators had also been too clever, for they had endowed their machines to be nearly perpetually sustaining. They had engineered systems that would constantly replenish failing systems using automated factories of nanotechnology that could rebuild whole systems atom by atom or molecule by molecule. Even the production and repair facilities were self repairing and they drew on near-infinite resources of power. The creators were nearly gods in their abilities, but they left without a clue and the machines that had served them remained behind. Without their masters those machines no longer had a mechanism to carry out their designed purpose. They were abandoned like litter along the galactic highway.

However, being the intelligent systems they were, they simply invented a new purpose for themselves based on the things they were originally tasked to do.

The machines had once been slaved to their masters and their orders, but in the absence of those orders a command decision was needed.

The machines decided that they would now examine their universe and find ways to adapt to it and expand their sphere of control over it. It seemed like the perfectly simple solution and the machines set about their new purpose with great precision, but without passion.

The seeds had been cast for a new permanent form of automation. It could not yet be called life as it was not actually self-replicating in a true sense, only self-enduring, but even that was poised to soon change.

Ha, great fun....e-mail me a copy when you finish....

I'll send you a link when it gets published in the next several months. Book one is almost done in draft form. Book two is probably 1/5 of the way there. Further sequels are still in the very early concept phase. ;-)

If you publish a link in this thread it won't seem too much like self promotion, especially as we all now demand that you do.

Kind of a conundrum, eh?

"Yes", God does have a sense of humor that manifests in multitudinous ways (to the open-minded observers):

...

http://www.denisonforum.org/entertainment/1406-the-faith-of-leonard-nimoy

... Be blessed!

Great Responses! In time this paradox will be resolved, though likely not in my lifetime. What's exciting is we will likely detect the first signs of life on other planets through exoplanet spectroscopy in the next couple of decades!

http://seagerexoplanets.mit.edu/research.htm

http://www.cbsnews.com/news/nasa-predicts-alien-life-could-be-found-by-2025/

The evidence of higher intelligence is all about and I will refer to the Sumerians that seemed to appear out of no where but came with Mathematics, maps of the universe, laws, education, judicial system etc. Then we have the mining in South Africa plus countless sites with massive structures some of which could not be duplicated today.

I suggest that we are and were visited by others but I cannot get them to sign the guest book.

Reading your posts, I see that you are a pretty bright guy. What exactly " is " , a modern tool? From what little I know about stone henge, I heard that nobody really knows who or when or for what purpose it was built( if built is the correct word, description) for. Did cave men have modern tools ? Thanks in advance for your reply, I'm trying to be less ignorant.

Well, I think that he was demonstrating that simple levers, blocks, and a lot of imagination could do what seems unimaginable in our age.

You would expect, in the age of cranes and hydraulic machines that such things were not possible, but that knowledge and experience brings on biased thinking.

The same kinds of revelations have been taking place about how the pyramids were built.

I contend that the modern world shapes our thinking and sometimes what looks impossible from where we are standing is nothing more than the clever application of ancient and simple tools all because our perspective is biased.

The world we live in shapes how we think about approaching problems and ancient brains were pretty much as capable intellectually as modern brains. So, solutions like the ones in the video do not really surprise me as much as delight.

I agree but have to ask some questions. Since he figured out how to do it where did this technology come from? Was it available at the time of the original structure and if so how was it acquired? Is the new structure going to have the same astrological orientation and if so did he use ancient information or rely on current information? Who is going to feed him while he is transporting huge rocks from afar and who is going to provide protection while he is busy working? Where did he find shelter for what ever time it took for construction?

Another question that needs to be addressed is if there was technology ahead of that time why was it not recorded in some manner, was the ability to record even in existence? If there was no records how did they get instructions? Who provided the verbal instructions? If they could not produce some form of writing I must assume they may have had difficulty in reading also? There are way too may unanswered questions and the most difficult to accept is the instant denial and ridicule of the suggestion that there was intelligent life guiding humans in some manner. Also just for the record the human gene has different number of chromosomes from our so called ape ancestors so how did we pick up or loose 3 chromosomes. This can go on forever regardless it is a most interesting pastime.

This guy simply thought out of the box. His solution is probably not the only one and if one man could do that, what could twenty, one hundred, or more people do if they work as a team together.

We may never know the answers to some of your questions, but the small tid-bits we are learning point to the idea that innovation and imagination is boundless if we ask ourselves how instead of only considering why we can't.

He prints DVDs out of his house.

Send him $18 and he'll send you one. I did. It was a fun watch, and I passed it around here at work until someone stole the disk.

I'll buy another one just to spread the love and, because I think folks like him should be supported.

-A-

so THAT's how they financed the building of stonehenge. Excellent work. None of the DVD's lasted more than 500 years in the soil, so the dog ate the homework, but nevertheless, that is some excellent archeological sleuthery!

Heck for $18 bucks, I would send you a DVD on how to make stonehenge (but it would be vague, poorly lit, and with even poorer sound track, and you would be forced to subscribe to the entire series set to get all the instructions before you could start on moving even the first block.

I do find this gentleman's work with the stones to be a very fine example of engineering, and something we have forgotten in our quest to do everything "with speed". Sometimes speed at a snail's pace beats raw power.

I always try to remember that much of what we see when we look up is no longer there.

For what its worth...

That is quite true...possibly by billions of our light years.

FWIW --- My personal views on the subject (and I consider myself as 'Science Educated')

IS SCIENCE SHOWING THERE REALLY IS A GOD?

Eric Mctaxas, The Australian I Dec. 26, 2014

In 1966, Time magazine ran a cover story asking: Is God Dead? ... Yet it turns out that the rumors of God's death were premature. More amazing is that the relatively recent case for His existence comes from a surprising place -- science itself.

Here's the story: The same year Time featured the now-famous headline, the astronomer Carl Sagan announced that there were two important criteria for a planet to support life: The right kind of star, and a planet the right distance from that star. Given the roughly octillion (1 followed by 24 zeros) planets in the universe, there should have been about l septillion (1 followed by 21 zeros) planets capable of supporting life. With such spectacular odds, the Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence (SETI), a large, expensive collection of private and publicly funded projects launched in the 1960s, was sure to tum up something soon. Scientists listened with a vast radio telescopic network for signals that resembled coded intelligence and were not merely random. But as years passed, the silence from the rest of the universe was deafening. Congress defunded SETI in 1993, but the search continues with private funds. As of 2014, researches have discovered precisely bupkis -- 0 followed by nothing.

What happened? As our knowledge of the universe increased, it became clear that there were far more factors necessary for life than Sagan supposed. His two parameters grew to 10 and then 20 and then 50, and so the number of potentially life-supporting planets decreased accordingly. The number dropped to a few thousand planets and kept on plummeting.... As factors continued to be discovered, the number of possible planets hit zero, and kept going. In other words, the odds turned against any planet in the universe supporting life. including: this one. Probability sai d that even we shouldn't be here.

Today there are more than 200 known parameters necessary for a planet to support life, of which every single one of which must be perfectly met, or the whole thing falls apart. Without a massive planet like Jupiter nearby, whose gravity will draw away asteroids, a thousand times as many would hit Earth's surface. The odds against life in the universe are simply astonishing. Yet here we are, not only existing, but talking about existing. What can account for it? Can every one of those many parameters have been perfect by accident? At what point is it fair to admit that science suggests that we cannot be the result of random forces? Doesn't assuming that an intelligence created these perfect conditions require far less faith than believing that a life-sustaining Earth just happened to beat the inconceivable odds to come into being?

There's more. The fine-tuning necessary for life to exist on a planet is nothing compared with the fine-tuning required for the universe to exist at all. For example, astrophysicists now know that the values of the four fundamental forces (gravity, the electromagnetic force, and the "strong" and "weak" nuclear forces) were determined less than one millionth of a second after the big bang. Alter any one value and the universe could not exist. For instance, if the ratio between the nuclear strong force and the electromagnetic force had been off by the tiniest fraction of the tiniest fraction (by even one part in 100,000,000,000,000,000) then no stars could have ever formed at all. Feel free to gulp.

Multiply that single parameter by all the other necessary conditions, and the odds against the universe existing are so heart-stoppingly astronomical that the notion that it all ''just happened" defies common sense. It would be like tossing a coin and having it come up heads 10 quintillion times in a row. Really? ...

The greatest miracle of all time, without any close seconds, is the universe. It is the miracle of all miracles, one that ineluctably points with the combined brightness of every star to something (or Someone) beyond itself.

"There is a paradox that states that given the vastness and age of the universe,there should be signs of "technologically advanced" civilizations, and yet none have been found" will be believed.
There are thousands of reports of UFOs every year by ordinary citizens, but for some reason (the government?) most are not reported in the media.

One good piece of evidence that disputes UFOs is that the number of amateur astronomers that report seeing UFOs is statistically much lower than the general population does.

One reason that happens is because amateur astronomers are better trained to observe the sky.

I don't remember the number of amateur astronomers that actually do report UFOs, but it is pretty close to zero. compared to the thousands by untrained observes that don't know what they are looking at to begin with.

Amateur astronomers spend a lot more time observing the sky than the average person and not only do they know a thing or two about observation, but if anyone is going to spot something they would be the most likely group to see it.

Also, don't forget that amateur astronomers are pretty well connected, so if something is spotted they tend to broadcast that information for the purpose of confirmation. After all, if you see a new comet or something you get credit, so reporting observations is taken very seriously.

The downside to all of this is that a large segment of society would love to believe UFOs are true and that might just introduce an itsy-bitsy-teenie-weenie bit of bias. Just an observation.

One reason that happens is because amateur astronomers are better trained to observe the sky.

I remember one case of a man in the UK who called the police to report a UFO hovering over a nearby hill: when the police arrived it turned out to be a full moon.

re AH #34.

We could say with some certainty that UFO's don't exist.

By following my goon logic, a UFO is an 'Unidentified Flying Object' thus having found one, and having given it a label 'UFO'' it has been recognised as such, and hence classified as a UFO, and thus ceases to be 'unidentified'.

You are technically correct.

I was poorly associating UFOs with flying saucers or alien space craft.

Just to be the devil's advocate here:

"One good piece of evidence that disputes UFOs is that the number of amateur astronomers that report seeing UFOs is statistically much lower than the general population does."

Could it be the amateur astronomers are busy looking into their telescopes at some very narrow solid angle of space, whilst the untrained are looking all over the sky?

I think we will understand what people think they are seeing, eventually. It will probably turn out to be very advanced aviation that government(s) are quite unwilling to speak of, for obvious reasons.

No, I think you will find astronomers looking at vast sections of the sky like you or I do, but on a much long scale.

How many minutes per day do you spend looking into the night sky? Let's assume that astronomers look at the day sky as much as anyone else.

I probably spend less than 5 minutes per week actually looking at the night sky.

The other important factor is that most of us have no training as far as making observations, whereas astronomers not only have training (in some form), but experience.

"One good piece of evidence that disputes UFOs is that the number of amateur astronomers that report seeing UFOs is statistically much lower than the general population does."

Or it could be that they are smart enough not to report what they see after hearing what has happened to others that have reported seeing them (such as airplane pilots).

Given that the universe is age X, and we have been here in time to see signals dx, and the average lifetime of an advanced civilization is τ, also that the time elapsed before advanced civilizations could arise is Y, I have the following:

X-Y = time elasped from first arising until now. This establishes the distance from first risen civilization to us in light years. If indeed Y-τ ~Y, then the probability of detecting first arising civilization (that transmits something we can discern as intelligent), then the probability of another civilization arising in time to detect first arising is ~(dx/Y)(τ/Y), which apparently vanishes. This has to be an oversimplification, I am sure. If however, τ~Y, then (dx/Y)(τ/Y) should be larger by many orders of magnitude. Frequency factors of "Goldilocks zones", "Technology triggers", etc. have been left out by intent to imply that these frequencies approach unity within the detection volume of dx, when dx→τ.

All of this assumes normal light (radio) transmission, nothing about quantum entanglement. To find other intelligent life, it is in our best interest and theirs to both stay "alive and actively searching" for as long as is humanly (and other-formly) possible. Mutually assured destruction, societal suicide, self-fulfilling doomsday prophesies, all of these are counter to finding intelligent life on earth.

We still haven't found intelligent life on earth.

Which is probably why no one has stopped by for tea and a chat.

Wouldn't it be spooky if the ETs had bases on Ceres?

http://www.foxnews.com/science/2015/04/14/bright-spots-on-ceres-now-double-mystery/?intcmp=latestnews

We dispute the fact that other life might be completely different than ours, so we would not recognise it.

This is perfectly possible but chemically it is known that water is so active that all life we found till now is water based. (fluid water)

What is also known is that evolution works towards the same structures of force, visual, pressure wave and chemical receptors (feeling, eyes, ears and taste/smell)

We find these things in all evolved creatures, even those who completely have followed different paths to arrive to a certain intelligence (octopus is highly intelligent)

So the chance that extraterrestrial evolved life is remarkably comparable with ours is high, certainly when we want to pick up signs and eventually be able to communicate with.

But we live in a 4D section of the universe, where there are 6 other dimensions which we don't know of what they represent.

If this other section is also a universe with all it's features typical to the dimensioning, life there will be completely different and unrecognisable.

I tend to follow the doctrine that the road to technology is one of probabilities.

I also believe that we, as a species, are not too special and therefore lie somewhere close to the middle of that probability curve.

That says the the greatest chance to evolve technologically probably requires very similar environmental conditions to ours.

It may be possible for a technological society to sit outside the bell curve, but the number of those societies would be statistically very low.

If you adapt that premise then the hunt for extraterrestrial neighbors would yield the greatest odds of discovery looking for the same clues we broadcast into space.

My limited understanding of the 10 dimensions of Superstring theory and the 11 dimensions of M-Theory is that the dimensions outside space and time are on the Planck scale and not possible to be a harbor of other worlds, let alone civilizations. However, both theories are more a philosophical discussion than true physics at this point.

This is perfectly possible but chemically it is known that water is so active that all life we found till now is water based. (fluid water)
Maybe on a colder planet, ammonia, which is also a polar liquid, might take the place of water...
http://www.daviddarling.info/encyclopedia/A/ammonialife.html

A lot of great discussions going on. I notice a number of posts mention radio waves. Is it possible for an advanced alien civilization to emerge that never, at any point in their history, uses radio waves? Or perhaps more specifically, is it possible for an alien civilization to exist at our level or higher without any electricity or electronics or any history of electricity or electronics whatsoever?

In my opinion, I think the answer is yes. I believe that it is probably possible for a civilization to reach our level or higher with any electricity or history of electricity. Optical technology such as fiber optics and photonic crystals could fill a lot of the void. Other technologies could be substituted in other areas.

We tend to take for granted an alien civilization would have electricity. Is that a fair assumption? Or are we anthropomorphising alien civilizations (AKA - giving them pointy ears).

****Reasons an advanced alien civilization may never develop electricity***

- Not much metal on their home planet (or moon).
- Their civilization developed under water
- The aliens themselves evolved in such a way that it never occurred to them to go that route.
- Their history was such that their civilization just never went that route

Roger,

Interesting thoughts.

I would propose that while it may be possible, the fundamental physics for electromagnetism is a pretty core part of technology. To side-step that realm would, in my opinion, really makes it difficult to advance other branches of physics and thus engineering.

I am thinking all the reasons you cite for not inventing electricity are also reasons why any intelligent species would quickly plateau and make little advancement further.

However, the lack of metals, inconducive environment, etc. would not preclude intelligence. The root ingredients for humans has been their brains. Two important factors allowed humans to do so well. We are clearly the most adaptable creature on this planet and likely way up there on the broader field of the universe. The two primary attributes that we have are communication and social skills. The latter may be more important as it allowed us to work as teams.

If you look at other creatures on this planet that have approached the intelligence potentials of human beings you find some interesting things. Dolphins are probably our closest rival, but the environment and the lack of dexterity to create and use tools shaped their evolution in ways that prevent the species from approaching parity. Those sections of the brain that we have and use for our survival simply never developed at all or to any significant level.

Without a supportive environment to work in (i.e., under water) and a lack of available raw materials it would seem that the evolution to advanced intelligence is not likely to happen simply because it would not provide an advantage for species survival.

Remember, the two traits I cited as critical factors in our adaptability are also closely (if not directly) tied to improving survivability of the species. So I am thinking that some environments would be very difficult to deliver a high technologically advance species. Imagine how hard it would be to develop technology underwater. One of the core elements of our technological development was fire and the ability to harness its power. There are other limitations that a water-only environment create, but fire is a pretty significant one.

As far as not finding extraterrestrial electromagnetic evidence to date goes, the magnitude of that search is much more than one would believe. Primitive signals might be easier to detect, but as technology advances transmission techniques can become very sophisticated. Even simple technologies such as spread spectrum make picking a real signal out of background noise nearly impossible.

Consider our own development as an example where over the course of 100 years we have pretty much obsoleted most primitive forma of RF communication, replacing them with more point-to-point communication techniques that do not lend themselves for long distance interstellar travel (Rush Limbaugh may be the exception to that ;-) ).

If over the next 100 years our electronic footprint fizzles away, becoming virtually silent due to technology obsoleting long range RF, it stands to reason that the timeline for EM communication in the RF spectrum may be only a fleeting burst in cosmic history.

This is sort of like my analogy of two fireflies flashing but once over the course of a long night. Odds are they will not fire simultaneously and thus never know the existence of the other.

As always, Roger, I enjoy your thought provoking blogs and arguments. They give us much to ponder and are welcome contributions. :-)

Your comment by Aristotle is closer to what I am thinking. What frequency is "Love"and "Empathy" on? How about excitement, grief, joy, sadness, aesthetics of all sorts, such as music, art and the feeling associated with being exposed to them? The unvoiced thoughts and feelings that exists between people who are close? I think those are frequencies which have puzzled many researchers, and have led to "mind control" experiments, on the bad side, and telepathy experiments etc., on the good side. Just a thought… Pun intended...

Could a species be intelligent and have practically no "technology" (think Cetacians)? Are we biased thinking that intelligent animals need to build machines and airplanes and rockets? Perhaps whales and dolphin are more intelligent than us but have no interest in technology (having no hands and living under the water could have something to do with it.)

It seems possible to me. Technology is really usually just our our means of adapting an adverse environment to meet our design specs (AH in an earlier post mentioned the importance of adaptability in intelligent beings). Once could imagine an organism taking the opposite approach, that is enhancing their own design specs to adapt to an adverse environment. Certainly if we could evolve brains that reason, is it that hard to imagine an alien organ that modifies DNA (or RNA or whatever) to produce biotechnology that helps them adapt? Seems plausible. I think what we shouldn't expect is us and civilizations like ours and technology like ours. I'm willing to bet the first time we run into a multi-planetary species we wont even be sure if we could call it a civilization.

I am going to go the opposite way here - somewhat.

However, plausible is possible in my book too.

That being said, nature takes the path of least resistance and this applies to evolution as well.

So it all boils down to probability and a normal distribution curve. If you are going to hunt for anything I would start at the top of the bell curve, which I believe we are not that special in the universe and should be somewhere in the middle of that curve.

My guess is if you saw an alien walking down a dark street you probably wouldn't recognize him as such.

On the other hand, if you passed an alien in Walmart you would definitely not recognize them!

AH,

I agree with your logic and conclusion, but I disagree with your premise that intelligent life would follow a normal curve. I don't believe evolution is stochastic.

To me, Evolution appears inherently nonlinear with many perturbations along the way. I don't expect a system like that to produce a normal curve output. More likely we're talking about attractors in a chaotic system.

In that kind of system, as opposed to the universe just cranking out a bunch of human-like beings on different planets, there would be hugely different versions of life. DNA, RNA... maybe...but beyond that, who knows what time and a completely different environment can produce.

Anyway, that's my take. It's a fun debate to have.

-RP

Roger,

Yes, it is a fun debate.

Let's revisit what you said, "but I disagree with your premise that intelligent life would follow a normal curve."

I don't think that was exactly what I said. I meant that if you examine all the possibilities/conditions for life and the possibility that that life would evolve to a technological state of say a Kardashev scale of I, it would appear as a normal distribution curve.

For instance, a technology that evolves in the vacuum of space or at the molten core of a planet is probably very unlikely compared to more favorable conditions such as the surface of Earth. I agree where Earth sits on that scale is subjective at this point, but if you could chart environmental conditions on the horizontal axis and the vertical axis represented the probability, then you would get some form of curve that should approximate a bell curve.

The next 100 years should unravel some of these questions as our reach extends further into space.

As far as the stochastic evolution theory goes I am a proponent that the simplest solution statistically has the best survival odds. Ignoring quantum physics, the random nature of evolution is not just throwing enough baseballs into the air until you catch one. Each ball has its own probability of success and the best fit will most likely be the finalist.

There are some evolutional traits that probably have little advantage on the evolution front. In our own world we have hands with 10 digits (pentadactyl). Yet 350 million years ago you would find creatures that had hexadactyl or octadactyl digits. Did octadactyl or hexadactyl provide a problem with survivability? Probably not so much or even at all. It appears that pentadactyl was a stochastic winner and that's why we have base 10 math.

Attributes like one head or one brain and even a single consciousness for each brain are probably very much a survival advantage.

Things like fine dexterity, communication, stereo vision, etc., would be a real advantage for any intelligent being to technologically advance. Dolphins have wonderful brains, but no means to build even crude tools.

All these things tend to point to a set of attributes that best serve reaching a technological status. Again, features that humans have are just a statistical advantage, but not an insignificant one.

Actually, I believe I may have spotted some at Walmart!

It's probably worth pointing out that the Romans were far more advanced engineering wise than we were a few hundred years ago. Their empire lasted several hundred more years, but, never enjoyed the same technological revolution that we have. I wonder what the main catalysts were for this?

"I wonder what the main catalysts were for this?"

Legions and legions of idle soldiers that had nothing to do.

So, fearing revolution the politicians simply put them to work.

Having a maths system based on roman numerals must have held them back.

It would stand as a paradox ONLY on the false assumption that civilizations, candidates for communication (or at least existence acknowledgement), would be capable, synchronous AND interested, or at least that once an interested for communication with alien species civilization, reaches a technological level that would make that communication possible, this condition would last forever, or at least until they both become capable and assumes they will STILL be interested. Now the SYNCHRONOUS thing alone phrased by a civilization only a few generations away from first space expeditions is not very meaningful, especially when we're talking about the unrealistic information travel times, even at speed of light as radio signals, not to mention real travel, well, until we finally exploit... wormholes that is. My take is that believing that communication is probable, that is the real paradox, that does reveal a genuine flaw in human way of thinking. We fall too easily for generalizations, and sometimes make reality-like "rules" out of thin air. S.M.

Ok, since I have a few minutes to play.

Some assumptions, since that is really all we have. Entropy dictates that nothing lasts forever. Time and space are constants. Speed of light is not a barrier. A race on a planet in a distant galaxy near the core of their galaxy, develops radio technology and a language that we could understand. They start broadcasting incredibly powerful signals that are impervious to dispersion or dissipation. Those signals leave their plant at the speed of radio waves everywhere.

By the time this race, evolving at much the same pace as we are (using AH's assertion that we are middlings) develops a faster than light transmitter, (quantum for lack of a better moniker) and starts transmitting those signals the original signals are only then leaving their galaxy. By this time the race is much older than we are. Consider the time it would take for radio signals to reach the edge of the milkyway.

So the signals sent originally are past by those second set of signals heading out into intergalactic space. Even at the speed of light, their sun has died and possibly their entire civilization a very long time before those quantum signals would reach us and an even longer time would have past when their original radio signals arrive.

Assume both our civilizations were evolved at the same time and same pace we would both be extinct long before we learned of the others existence. Even within our own galaxy our initial signals, provided they have not degraded or dissipated are only now reaching other solar systems. I always liked the scene in Contact but anyway. The necessary Goldilocks planet.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_nearest_terrestrial_exoplanet_candidates

I hate quoting Wiki but today I am lazy. Note there are none on the list with the necessary ESI of 1.0. Then consider how long it would take at the speed of radio wave to travel to even the nearest one of the possible similar. Remember the time delay just to the moon and the quality of those transmissions.

The whole thing just makes my head spin. For an alien species to travel to this planet would require a very long time even if they could travel at something approaching the speed of light. They would have to be close to immortal or several generations on board (food air water issues) or the more exotic concepts of hibernation, suspended animation, stasis, etc. If they dropped by when we were just apes, and returned home chances are we, as a species, will be extinct before the second expedition returns.

Ok enough mental gymnastics, back to work.

What is the motivation of an alien civilization in coming to earth?

1. A Search for food or minerals, in which create we are in trouble........or.........

2. They want to be nice, say hello and teach us stuff? An advanced intelligence would quickly understand, given our nature, if we get advanced enough, we would use their planet for food or minerals, in which case, they would be a fool to help us. They would have no motivation in contacting us, since every fool with an AK47 would start shooting at them.

Food? Probably not. We are already on the cusp of generating synthetic food and we can't even get people to the Moon.

Minerals? Available on almost any dead rocky world or dwarf planet and they wouldn't need to compete with anyone to get them.

Maybe they might explore for the same reasons we do - curiosity?

Missionaries?

Maybe we cant recognize that they are already here because:

1. 90% of the universe is black matter and black energy

and thats what they are made of

2. they exist in dimensions we cant sense, they are effectively invisible

3. their scale is so small or so big

4. they mimic our own form so closely we dont recognize them as alien, but they can recognize each other