)rStrangelove]
DracoSuave said:
Fermi's Paradox is... ugh.
Let's take the attempt we've made to communicate to outerspace that's travelled the farthest, the Arecibo message. We broadcasted that in 1974. Now assuming that an alien culture could detect it AND decode it AND send us back a message, that would leave almost 38 years for the back and forth travel. That means that their world would have to be a maximum of 19 light years away. There's less than 100 stars in the universe close enough for such a message to be relayed back to us. Of those 100, few of them are the right type to support life--this ignoring the possibility of actually having said planet.
It's not impossible to communicate with other systems, by no means. But so long as we're relying on methods that involve the speed of light, it's not in the slightest bit rational to make any conclusion involving the lack of results over the very SHORT amount of time we've been searching and broadcasting.
The paradox involves an irrational premise, and thus... ugh.
You're still only make a guess because of the scale of the universe and the nearest number of inhabitable systems. Isnt that shortsighted a bit?
What? No. Electromagnetic waves can only travel at a certain speed, no more, no less. There's no shortsightedness, a beam travelling at one light-year per year can only have reached 38 light-years away! That's a direct calculation!
If one has the tech to travel far distances dont you think one could also construct large generation-ships or carriers or whatever you call it, and therefore they might not be dependant on any habitable systems at all? Travelling space stations like the Deathstar dont need Earthlike planets to survive.
That doesn't change the fact that said platform still has to be, at maximum, 19 light-years away for them to even have a chance of receiving the message and returning it by now. A 19 light-year radius sphere around the earth is a
very small sphere taken in astronomical terms.
Fermi's paradox is like when
a guy who lives alone wakes up and after going about his day decides it's odd he hasn't encountered anyone, and ponders that there's a paradox in that he hasn't met anyone lately but the world is so large there's got to be people out there. Meanwhile, he hasn't left his apartment yet.
Is it a paradox that the universe is large enough to have multiple alien civilizations and yet we haven't encountered them in our own back yard? No. That's not... that's actually what you should actually expect.
All in all, i just wanted to say, the matter is far more complicated than just taking the sheer scale into account.
The paradox lists these reasons/points:
Code:
5.1 Few, if any, other civilizations currently exist
5.1.1 No other civilizations have arisen
5.1.2 It is the nature of intelligent life to destroy itself
5.1.3 It is the nature of intelligent life to destroy others
5.1.4 Life is periodically destroyed by naturally occurring events
5.1.5 Human beings were created alone
5.1.6 Inflation theory and the Youngness Argument
5.2 They do exist, but we see no evidence
[b]5.2.1 Communication is impossible due to problems of scale
5.2.1.1 Intelligent civilizations are too far apart in space or time
5.2.1.2 It is too expensive to spread physically throughout the galaxy
5.2.1.3 Human beings have not been searching long enough[/b]
5.2.2 Communication is impossible for technical reasons
5.2.2.1 Humans are not listening properly
5.2.2.2 Civilizations only broadcast detectable radio signals for a brief period of time
5.2.2.3 They tend to experience a technological singularity
5.2.2.4 They are too alien
5.2.2.5 They are non-technological
5.2.2.6 The evidence is being suppressed
5.2.3 They choose not to interact with us
5.2.3.1 They don't agree among themselves
5.2.3.2 Earth is purposely isolated (The zoo hypothesis)
5.2.3.3 It is dangerous to communicate
5.2.3.4 The Fermi paradox itself is what prevents communication
5.2.4 They are here unobserved
As one can see
arguments related to SCALE are only a fraction of the whole problem/paradox.
But the paradox itself is fundamentally flawed, based on ill conceived premises. If a paradox is itself ill conceived, that means it's not a paradox, but simply a misunderstanding.
Also, listing 20 reasons why the paradox doesn't actually make sense as a paradox means it's a bad paradox, not a complicated paradox.
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