New Take on the Fermi Paradox

It occurred to me last night that if the metaverse and/or fractal-universe theories are either or both true, and, then the reason for not seeing any evidence of anyone else "out there," a fundamental paradox of cosmology stated explicitly long ago by Enrico Fermi http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fermi_paradox, might be something along the lines of this:

A whole lot of sub-universes are generated, spontaneously, by plan, whatever. This is commonly held to be likely by a large number, probably the vast majority, of practicing physicists and cosmologists. There's no particular reason to think that our Big Bang was unique. However, a current theory now gaining some popularity holds that the Big Bang is naturally followed by a collapse back into a singularity - except that it isn't really a true singularity. It has attributes, and the possibility of passing information to a subsequent new Big Bang.

An absolutely fascinating intellectual adventure along this line, BTW, is the late Stanislaw Lem's http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/His_Master's_Voice_(novel). Just a wonderful read, with a new idea on every page.

Anyway, suppose that the Big Bang itself doesn't always happen? In the Metaverse within which sub-universes such as ours exists, there has to be some kind of law of conservation, I would think, else identity itself is called into question. So, perhaps there is leakage, and Big Bangs finally peter themselves out - unless there is some kind of intervention by intelligence.

If so, then imagine a universe in which a select few intelligences are able to transfer thru the collapse into the new sub-universe, engineering the collapes so as to ensure a next Big Bang. There are limits on how many can make it, so a universe evolves teaming intelligence might end up in a lifeboat war.

But a universe engineered from scratch to have only a tiny number of intelligences at the right stage would be optimum.

Post 1

Wednesday, December 24, 2008 - 3:44am

Read a variety stories playing on similar theories. You might try, for one, "Cosm" by Greg Benford

jt

Post 2

Wednesday, December 24, 2008 - 7:40am

What makes you think they have not, are not, did not and do not, will not continue to... even after even more of us join them...

I have had the distinct honor and pleasure of having for a professor of sociology, Dr. Ron Westrum. In real life, Ron is the author of Sidewinder: Creative Missile Development at China Lake. He has spoken at international medical conferences on operating room dynamics. In private, and once on-topic, an evening with Ron Westrum is like two hours of X-Files.

As a professor of sociology, he has delivered his "UFO lecture" several times over the decades, at the end of a semester, after the final exam, and then to the senior seminar rather than Intro to Soc 100. In that lecture, he calls ufology a "para-science" because those who are interested in it do not have a consistent statement of the problem. Everyone "knows" that there is "something out there" but no one can provide a testable or falsifiable statement of the problem. So, they all just gather facts, observations, reports. Within that context, some compelling evidence exists for continued study. Abductions tend to follow a pattern of experience, for instance. Reports most often come from unimaginative people -- police officers, for instance -- rather than new age enthusiasts who want to believe.

That's in the classroom.

In the backyard, with the Pacifica beer and a hot grill of bratwursts, he speculates more freely based on a much deeper engagement of study over the decades. The bottom line is still "we don't know." What we do not know is what "it" is, but that "it" exists is as unarguable as sunrise.

There may be several to many such entities visiting and/or living among us -- time travelers (us, from our future), space travelers (Arthur C. Clarke's "sentinel"), space-time travelers... who knows... some may be benevolent (whatever that might mean by whatever standard of morality "they" might have)... but no one has ever reported an enjoyable abduction. So, you have to deal with that fact.

Given our own experiences with cross-cultural first contacts -- conquistadors; imperialism -- anyone who applied any thought to this would probably prepare the way with science fiction stories, books, movies. The Day the Earth Stood Still ... X-Files... and,yes, "To Serve Man," Invaders from Mars and Independence Day... because the galaxy might just be only a much bigger Earth, after all... And that's just "space." No telling who -- or what -- is traveling through time, or space-time...

(Edited by Michael E. Marotta on 12/24, 7:50am)

Post 3

Wednesday, December 24, 2008 - 9:38am

Michael said:

No telling who -- or what -- is traveling through time, or space-time.

Actually, I'm traveling through space-time even as I type this. : )
I've always thought that ufology is very similar to theology. There is no hard evidence supporting either; only anecdotal evidence of sightings, abductions, "miracles", etc. If we take the attitude in theology that no evidence means no God, we should take the same attitude toward UFO's: no evidence, no little green men. The argument against agnosticism in theology also applies to ufology.
Thanks,
Glenn

Post 4

Wednesday, December 24, 2008 - 11:48am

I don�t know about �the same attitude.�

The justification, or the reasonableness, of looking for intelligent life beyond earth is that we know that the universe can produce intelligent life�here we are! We are simply looking for more instances. This is not so in the case of god.

Post 5

Wednesday, December 24, 2008 - 12:23pm

I agree, Jon. That's an acceptable justification for looking. But until there is evidence that there are beings from another part of the universe visiting the earth, walking among us, and/or abducting and probing rednecks, then we have to say that there aren't any.

Post 6

Wednesday, December 24, 2008 - 1:32pm

Agreed.

Wednesday, December 24, 2008 - 4:41pm

That assumption seems rather silly to me. If there is intelligent life within 50 light years then there has been time for them to pick up our primitive wideband broadcast signals and send a response that we could pick up today easilly. And, odds are, if they do exist, then they are more likely millions of years in advance of us than right at the cusp of being able to do sensitive radio pickups.

On the other hand, if they wanted to be more careful and make a major profit, then they might send a more economical package of nanoware at a high percentage of C, which would be getting here about now and would very possibly infiltrate via the internet once it unpackaged and replicated.

On that basis, even tho the odds are slim, I have publically volunteered to be the intermediary for our species, or at least offer to help them work out a deal by which they can pay off the huge energy expenditure of sending even a few ounces of cargo that quickly between the stars. New tech that would offer major life extension all by itself would be worth a LOT to us humans in general. The real question is what do we have to offer in exchange?

Available for negotiation, yours truly.

Post 8

Wednesday, December 24, 2008 - 5:07pm

Phil,

I don�t know what you think is silly, but to clarify, I agree that �until there is evidence that there are beings from another part of the universe visiting the earth, walking among us, and/or abducting and probing rednecks, then we have to say that there aren't any� AMONG us.

(However, it doesn�t follow that there aren�t any out there. For that conclusion, I would need to know what could prevent life arising elsewhere and why it didn�t prevent life arising here.)

Post 9

Wednesday, December 24, 2008 - 10:04pm

Theology and ufology may be the same study.

Just because the "universe" (so-called) could not possibly have had a creator, does not mean that Earth has not been messed with.

"X" is to Humans as Humans are to Ants.

Post 10

Wednesday, December 24, 2008 - 10:42pm

Imagine chocolate-covered humans.

Post 11

Thursday, December 25, 2008 - 10:00am

Funny, I was just about to post that same qualification "...among us."

I think the answer to the paradox is that we are among the first of civilizations. You need heavy elements to sustain life. The Sol system is particularly rich in carbon and other metals.

Post 12

Friday, December 26, 2008 - 8:01am

Jon stated (parenthetically):

However, it doesn�t follow that there aren�t any out there. For that conclusion, I would need to know what could prevent life arising elsewhere and why it didn�t prevent life arising here.

Jon, Aren't you trying to prove a negative here? I don't see why you have to show that something prevented life from arising elsewhere in order to be convinced that there is no intelligent life out there. Just because something is possible doesn't mean it happened.

So, I consider the statement "there is intelligent life in other parts of the universe" to be lacking in evidence, and therefore arbitrary. This is the analogy with the belief in God that I was trying to bring out. From OPAR:

If a person asserts that a certain entity exists (such as God, gremlins, a disembodied soul), he is required to adduce evidence supporting his claim. If he does so, one must either accept his conclusion, or disqualify his evidence by showing that he has misinterpreted certain data. But if he offers no supporting evidence, one must dismiss his claim without argumentation, because in this situation argument would be futile. It is impossible to "prove a negative," meaning by the term: prove the nonexistence of an entity for which there is no evidence. [Italics in the original.]

Thanks,
Glenn

Post 13

Friday, December 26, 2008 - 12:00pm

Glenn,

Absence of evidence is not evidence of absence. Unlike many theologies, the prospect of alien life does not contain inherent contradictions and hasn't been falsified. The prospect of alien life is more viable than those theologies.

But I'm not sure why Jon would accept the conclusion that aliens don't exist among us but not accept the conclusion that they don't exist "out there." We have the same dearth of evidence for both, don't we? Jon, why would you say the "out there" proposition is more tenable than the "among us" proposition?

Jordan

Post 14

Friday, December 26, 2008 - 12:23pm

Jordan,
Absence of evidence is evidence of arbitrariness. If you have no evidence to support a proposition, then that proposition is arbitrary. I don't have to prove that something is impossible in order to state that it doesn't exist; I only have to refute the evidence of its existence, which, in this case, doesn't exist.

You can't say that A is true just because there is no proof that not-A. That would commit the fallacy of the appeal to ignorance.
Thanks,
Glenn

Post 15

Friday, December 26, 2008 - 12:34pm

I am astonished that carbon, which is sometimes just a modest component of the wind on my face, can form up into a diamond. And who would have expected that H20 could freeze into such beautiful snowflakes? Biology has disclosed that life is nothing more than one of the things that carbon, oxygen, iron, etc. can do.

Peikoff is careful here: �It is impossible to "prove a negative," meaning by the term: prove the nonexistence of an entity for which there is no evidence.�

But there IS evidence FOR carbon, oxygen, etc. making life. There is no comparison to looking for fairies, as there is no evidence that the universe accommodates fairies, while there is rock solid evidence that it accommodates diamonds, snowflakes and life.

You write: �I don't see why you have to show that something prevented life from arising elsewhere in order to be convinced that there is no intelligent life out there. Just because something is possible doesn't mean it happened.�

You can be convinced there are no fairies, as there is NOTHING to indicate there even could be. But I find it hard to be convinced that there are no diamonds or snowflakes anywhere else in the universe. In fact, given the so far successful assumption that the laws of physics are the same everywhere and given the size of the universe and resulting large number of opportunities for carbon and H20 to do their things, I consider �There are no diamonds or snowflakes elsewhere� to be a positive assertion that needs to be proven.

�Just because something is possible doesn't mean it happened.�
That�s right; just because carbon can form into diamond�and has, here, over and over�doesn�t mean it has done so anywhere else. For that positive assertion, I have to see the not-from-earth diamonds, or snowflakes. That�s why I wouldn�t positively assert that life has arisen elsewhere.

Post 16

Friday, December 26, 2008 - 1:22pm

Among the elements of life (on Earth) are the mnemonic
C. Hopkins Cafe"
Carbon, hydrogen, oxygen, phosphorus, potassium, iodine, nitrogen, sulpher, calcium and iron.
Iron is the heaviest and something of a cut-off point in the distribution of elements in the (known) universe, at least in our galaxy.

Generally, that distribution (stress: distribution) is statistically about the same in the ocean, in your body, in the sun. Among my meteorites is a carbonaceous chrondrite. So, there is stuff out there.

That said, the existence of GOLD (three times heavier than iron and not needed for life) outside the solar system has been established only for one very old star in the "galactic halo." The processes for making elements are several and it is not my area even of interest so I have little more to offer. I got into this, coincidentally enough, because of a humor article at the close of the December 2008 Numismatist from the ANA, "Xenonumismatics." The author went on about the "money" of Narnia, Atlantis, etc., but I stopped to think about what could be valuable to another sentient being from another planet. So, I started with gold, of course, and learned what I did.

"Genesis of the Heaviest Elements in the Milky Way Galaxy" by Christopher Snedon and John J. Cowan.
(abstract)
http://www.sciencemag.org/cgi/content/abstract/299/5603/70

Elemental Composition of the Solar System at
http://imagine.gsfc.nasa.gov/docs/teachers/elements/imagine/08.html

Ancient Stars in the Milky Way Reveal Colorful Epoch of Heavy Element Formation
http://www/noao.edu/outreach/press/pr00/pr0004.html

The "iron epoch" of heavy element formation lasted from 1 to 3 billion years after the Galaxy formed.

But again, iron is the heaviest of the chemicals of life as we know it.

Of course, we are carbon-based and I accept that everyone reading this understands that as carbon and silicon are in the same period of the Table of Elements, life based on silicon is just as likely, theoretically.
Also, here on Earth are lifeforms that process via sulphur rather than transpiring oxygen as we do, again, sulphur and oxygen both being in the same period. All in all, life elsewhere seems very likely.

(Edited by Michael E. Marotta on 12/26, 1:28pm)

Post 17

Friday, December 26, 2008 - 1:30pm

The topic of this thread and its subsequent discussion reminds me of an article I read last spring. The article is titled "Where are They? Why I Hope the Search for Extraterrestrial Life Finds Nothing" by Nick Bostrom, the Director of the Future of Humanity Institute at the University of Oxford.

http://www.nickbostrom.com/extraterrestrial.pdf

Cheers,
Matt

Post 18

Friday, December 26, 2008 - 2:56pm

Of course, we are carbon-based and I accept that everyone reading this understands that as carbon and silicon are in the same period of the Table of Elements, life based on silicon is just as likely, theoretically.
...................
Actually not quite - it seems the carbon based has need of something called water - a unique formulation which falls into a narrow specific range, and which has no other analogous like for, say, silicon... and am speaking in terms of plentitude of elements for such to be present in abundance on a planet that would 'naturally' arise...

Post 19

Friday, December 26, 2008 - 3:11pm