Comments on: More ideas on the Fermi Paradox

By: Colum Paget

Colum Paget — Wed, 03 Mar 2010 03:25:36 +0000

I could not care less if every star in this galaxy has primordial life, or even highly evolved tool makers. This is only about intelligent, sentient, technologically advanced space-faring civilizations.

Of which we are not one. Your arguement, when applied to the human race, who have not built any galaxy scale structures, rules us out as a technologically advanced space-faring society.
We are ‘highly evolved tool makers’, nothing more. Your alien counterpart has no interest in the human race, they are not what he is looking for.

The interesting thing about this, from a science-fictional viewpoint, is that we humans tend to link rights to advancement. So, we do not consider animals to have the same rights as us, because they are not as ‘advanced’ as we are. Basically we lord it over them because they are dumb.

Well, imagine a situation where the requirement to be considered an intelligent, sentient species, more than just a ’smart animal’ was the building of galactic scale structures? We can’t do this. We tell ourselves that we could one day, but right now we can’t. Maybe we never could, maybe it requires something we don’t have. How would we get out of that fix if we had to argue for our rights in some court of alien law?

By: Colum Paget

Colum Paget — Wed, 03 Mar 2010 01:50:03 +0000

> The complete lack of evidence of aliens in
> our galaxy is overwhelming evidence that
> we are alone.

Until recently we had no direct evidence for the existance of extra-solar planets. No one claimed this was overwhelming evidence that they didnt’ exist though.

Indeed, this argument can easily be turned against itself. The lack of robotic probes is good evidence against aliens in the feasibility of galaxy-spanning robotic probes.
I do not see the existence of any such robotic probes, no one has produced one, therefore they are ‘cold fusion’. I do not see us planning to make self-replicating robots in the near future.
I do see the existence of one intelligent civilisation (well, pretty much) that *doesn’t* send out self-replicating galactic probes. Us. So far our impact on the galaxy has been pretty much zero, and for all we know, it will continue to be.

Colum

By: Darwinism and the Fermi Paradox | Space Time Stories

Darwinism and the Fermi Paradox | Space Time Stories — Tue, 23 Jun 2009 17:45:44 +0000

[...] May 2008 ← More ideas on the Fermi Paradox [...]

By: Sean

Sean — Mon, 22 Jun 2009 12:45:45 +0000

Perhaps you don’t understand how old the Milky Way really is. Why in your opinion did robotic exploration of the Milky Way take 10 billion years to begin, if as you believe, they just aren’t here yet? Statistics says this is highly improbable. Why did they wait the first 99% of the galactic lifetime? Of course there is always a chance that it’s impossible for sentient life to evolve for the first 99% of the lifetime of a galaxy. That’s not consistent with astronomical observations.

By: Aaron

Aaron — Mon, 22 Jun 2009 04:09:32 +0000

We may be alone, but your reasons for thinking so are bizarre. You have little understanding of the theory of evolution. Look here for some education: http://talkorigins.org/indexcc/CB/CB010.html
Also, why would you expect there to be evidence of alien life that we could detect on planets several light years away? They are too far away for use to see details such as spacecraft or buildings. We have artificial constructions on Earth, but you would not be able to see them from even the nearest star.
We have also only been building spacecraft and robots for a few decades. If we were to send out a robot that could find “every solar system in our galaxy in a matter of 100 million years” it would still take 100 million years. If some alien had done such a thing, it may still take 100 million years to find us. Maybe they are just not here yet.