PAUL WERBOS>” I highly recommend reading David Brin's concise novel, Existence, which reviews the vast literature on "the Fermi paradox". (Brin and I have had arguments even sharper than Roman and I, on other issues, but his work in this book is still important.) Fermi asked years ago: "If life is common in the universe (as common sense suggests), if intelligence evolves naturally and allows civilization, and if interstellar travel is ultimately possible (even if slow), WHY HAVEN'T WE SEEN THE ALIENS YET?" Hundreds of possible explanations have been discussed, but at the end of the day we do not really know.”
Paul, I commented on the Fermi paradox in my book, Transcending Scientism. I don’t believe that there is any Fermi paradox… or at least not in the context that Enrico Fermi framed it. Two particularly salient points relate to the physics of space travel, and return on investment (ROI). From Transcending Scientism (2016): I contend that there is NO Fermi paradox. The universe looks to us precisely as it should look even with advanced civilizations thriving throughout the universe as the given. Here are the reasons: · Thompson (2015) [1] takes a close look at the physics, to explain why space travel at even a fraction of light speed would be injurious to aliens’ health, in her NewStatesman article, Near-light speed travel increasingly impossible, according to maths; · Space travel AND interstellar communications are expensive. Unless alien societies can accomplish a realistic return on investment (ROI), there is no incentive for them to reach us. Curiosity is not enough of an incentive to justify the enormous expense, and societies too stupid to realize this will be prime candidates for the Darwin awards; · [Etc, etc, etc… as per my previous references to “dumb dirt” and the reconciliation of physics with entropy] [1] Thompson, T. (2015, April 13). Near-light speed travel increasingly impossible, according to maths. New Statesman. Retrieved May 1, 2016m from http://www.newstatesman.com/sci-tech/2015/04/near-light-speed-travel-increasingly-impossible-according-maths Us Earthlings seem to have trouble placing ourselves in the shoes of others, to imagine their motivations and reservations. The limitations of the physics (Thompson) are nontrivial. As far as radio communications are concerned, the Arecibo message in 1974 to globular star cluster M13 was expensive. And to what end? Earthbound investors are not going to enjoy a substantial ROI for a good 50,000 years (25,000 times 2). Governments formulating fiscal policy, and businesses making investment decisions, within this context, will have limited prospects for success and re-election… and rightly so. And regarding closer stars… I seem to recall that the maximum range for radio signals from our most powerful radio/television transmitters would be considerably less than 4 light-years. The nearest 25 stars to us are between 4-to-12 light-years away (for comparison, the Milky Way galaxy is 100,000 light-years across). Even if we were able to establish radio communications with any one of them… what might the practical returns be of such an investment? We should anticipate that aliens in advanced civilizations will, similar to our most astute Earthbound investors, have realistic concerns about ROI, before they would venture throwing money at projects to communicate with a remote, blue planet that they can’t even see, much less be able to mine or conquer. Of course our experiences and inferences might be very different, were our solar system part of a densely populated globular cluster of stars… but that’s not us, we’re not there, and further conjecture is therefore pointless. Let’s place this 25,000 years to M13 into a more realistic context. How many thousand years has European civilization existed? And closer stars within the 4-to-12 light-years from us? Governments get re-elected every four years or so, wars and social unrest take place every few decades or so. What realistic ROI can one hope to see within an 8-to-24 year return message cycle, before one can even hope to mine or to communicate anything meaningful? Investing in Hubble and space stations and satellites yields realistic returns on investment… but attempts to communicate with alien civilizations? Not so much. Even with bold and imaginative entrepreneurs like Elon Musk, I wouldn’t be holding my breath. Even bold and imaginative investors, like Elon Musk, hold genuine fears about the likely success or failure of their projects (Musk was genuinely relieved at the successful launch of Falcon Heavy). The reason that smart people don’t go throwing money at dumb projects, despite all the hype, is ROI. Bottom line… I really don’t think that there is any Fermi paradox, at least not as defined within the context of his established parameters. The universe looks to us pretty much as it should look, were life in any of the habitable zones throughout the universe the norm. The Fermi paradox is asking the wrong questions (of course it is… its null hypothesis is based in dumb-luck, sterile materialism). But of course there still remains that interesting question… where are they? I’d rather rephrase this question, because commonsense already tells us that they’re out there. Rather, WHY are they not visiting or trying to communicate with us? This approach reframes what we should be asking: 1. The constraints as per Thompson (2015) are nontrivial. Within the context of Newtonian physics and ROI, actual space travel, beyond the confines of any one star’s solar system, may not be an option. Evidence suggests that nobody has visited us, and nobody is ever likely to visit us. As we are not living within a densely populated globular cluster, we should get over it, and accept our isolation in a sparsely populated stretch of the Milky Way galaxy as a given; 2. Given 1, that interstellar space travel is pretty much not an option, are there alternative communication technologies that might enable alien civilizations to connect? This, I believe, is the only viable option that merits exploring. We can, however, fairly safely rule out radio communications, given that SETI has not yielded anything positive thus far. So… are there alternative communication technologies that we should be looking for? Perhaps a technology that implements the quantum mechanics of entanglement? 3. And what if even interstellar communications are beyond the scope of physics? There exists one final bridge across the vast expanses of space… reincarnation; 4. And this fourth conjecture I throw in at the last minute… maybe they are visiting/communicating with us… but not on our terms. Now before we depart from the depressing realization that there is no Fermi paradox, just one further word regarding the likely pervasiveness of life throughout the universe… out of curiosity, I’ve just googled the terms [mars soil analysis]. This lends further support to our thesis regarding the pervasiveness of life-critical dumb dirt. The following link is self-explanatory: https://www.space.com/16895-what-is-mars-made-of.html The chemistries and compounds contained in dumb dirt, whether Earthbound or Marsbound, are critical to life (for example, refer to Inner Life of the Cell <https://youtu.be/FzcTgrxMzZk> that I posted some time ago to this forum). And anyone who insists that mechanical dumb luck is sufficient to account for this rich complexity, with its predisposition to life, despite the reality of entropy, I have trouble taking seriously (I’m looking at you, Neo-Darwinians). Regards From: online_sadhu_sanga@googlegroups.com [mailto:online_sadhu_sanga@googlegroups.com] On Behalf Of Paul Werbos Sent: Friday, February 2, 2018 3:17 PM To: online_sadhu_sanga@googlegroups.com Cc: Rajendra Bajpai Subject: [Sadhu Sanga] from psi to life in the universe On Fri, Feb 2, 2018 at 5:43 AM, Stephen Jarosek <sjaro...@iinet.net.au> wrote: KASHYAP >”Earth is just a little tiny planet in a universe with billions of galaxies each with billions of stars and planets. We do not know if there is life elsewhere…” I’m not sure why the question of whether there is life elsewhere is such a mystery. I’m going to stick my neck out and suggest that it’s almost a certainty, and that it is scientific to accept this as the null hypothesis. I agree strongly with you, Stephen, as does Hawkings and many others. But let me not invoke authority here (not a good argument), but explain a bit more and provide some pointers to things I hope people would find interesting. Until a few years ago, we did not even have the technology to see whether earth-like planets existed much in the universe. Many people arguing against life in the universe argued that "we have no basis for believing suitable planets exist." A quick google search on exoplanets and SETI should clarify that aspect, and why thinking has changed. I highly recommend reading David Brin's concise novel, Existence, which reviews the vast literature on "the Fermi paradox". (Brin and I have had arguments even sharper than Roman and I, on other issues, but his work in this book is still important.) Fermi asked years ago: "If life is common in the universe (as common sense suggests), if intelligence evolves naturally and allows civilization, and if interstellar travel is ultimately possible (even if slow), WHY HAVEN'T WE SEEN THE ALIENS YET?" Hundreds of possible explanations have been discussed, but at the end of the day we do not really know. Myself, I am deeply impressed by new scientific results, even more recent than finding exoplanets. At http://drpauljohn.blogspot.com/2017/08/where-we-really-come-from.html , I posted two of the recent images of the distribution of dark matter in our universe. In my view, since I believe in evolution, I consider it highly unlikely that such a vast connected ocean of matter pulsing with energy, connected to the galaxies, would not evolve its own form of life. And that feeds into my own explanation to Fermi's question: namely, "WE are the aliens," more precisely that we are a symbiosis of the kind of life which has evolved in the ocean of dark matter and of the kind which has evolved locally (in the shadow of that other life). But of course, that does not rule out the existence AS WELL of other forms of life in the universe. The most popular book of science fiction in China ( a fifth Great Classic by now?) is The Three Body Problem trilogy. I enjoyed discussing what we make of THAT viewpoint, and the Fermi question, late last year in Beijing in the key lab which leads all their work on intelligent systems. Are we on earth a single lonely village surrounded by vast hungry tigers and death, as in that novel? Or are we more like a more mature China of 1400 AD, still a tiny village, but with connections to the larger world, which offers us a mixture of threats and possibilities -- to earth as a whole, and to us as individuals (if we study hard for national exams)? They too seemed to enjoy that discussion. Best regards, Paul -- ---------------------------- Fifth International Conference Science and Scientist - 2017 August 18—19, 2017 Nepal Pragya Pratisthan, Kathmandu, Nepal http://scsiscs.org/conference/scienceandscientist/2017 Send a Donation to Support Our Services: http://scienceandscientist.org/donate (All Indian residents are eligible for tax benefits for their contributions under section 80G of the Income Tax Act) Report Archives: http://bviscs.org/reports Why Biology is Beyond Physical Sciences?: http://dx.doi.org/10.5923/j.als.20160601.03 Life and consciousness – The Vedāntic view: http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/19420889.2015.1085138 Harmonizer: http://scienceandscientist.org/harmonizer Darwin Under Siege: http://scienceandscientist.org/Darwin Princeton Bhakti Vedanta Institute: http://bviscs.org Sri Chaitanya Saraswat Institute: http://scsiscs.org Sadhu-Sanga Blog: http://mahaprabhu.net/satsanga Contact Us: http://scsiscs.org/contact --- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "Sadhu-Sanga Under the holy association of Spd. 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