NationStates Jolt Archive

http://www.seedmagazine.com/news/2006/05/why_we_havent_met_any_aliens.php

Now...in many ways, it makes sense. It seems logical and thought out. But there's a logical fallacy in there, a mistake or two. I just can't spot them myself, though I suspect it might have to do with the fact that he assumes video gamers and the like don't give a shit about other things too, that we only care about our entertainment.

Hmm, interesting article. I'm not sure I agree totally (the family values of the Religious Right are highly overrated if you ask me), but the article does bring up a good point. Modern society has indeed lead to the rise of contentless entertainment, such as pop music, reality TV, and silly video games, all of which offer the superficial benefit of immediate pleasure with little effort, but distract us from reality. I wouldn't dismiss the possibility that we are slowly weakening ourselves by indulging in this hollow kitsch.

I sure hope this is what happens to us. Screw the universe, let's use our resources to have a blast!

I think one of the assumptions is that most stars have rocky planets. As I remember most star systems only have gassy planets which don't have the apropriate conditions for life... but then rocky planets are hard to detect as they're closer to the star, smaller and less reflective. I think the way they are currently detected is via watching how the star orbits in respect to it's visible planets and then determinining if another planet must be present. So if could be that we haven't found very many rocky planets yet.

They also seem to think that 1 example is a reliable statistic. There's no consideration that it could be fluke that life developed so quickly on Earth.

Oh, and always beware of someone who uses words like 'they' to describe humanity rather than 'we'.

Hmm, interesting article. I'm not sure I agree totally (the family values of the Religious Right are highly overrated if you ask me), but the article does bring up a good point. Modern society has indeed lead to the rise of contentless entertainment, such as pop music, reality TV, and silly video games, all of which offer the superficial benefit of immediate pleasure with little effort, but distract us from reality. I wouldn't dismiss the possibility that we are slowly weakening ourselves by indulging in this hollow kitsch.Oh please, there's been contentless entertainment throughout the history of humanity. Just look at the compositition Baroque music for one. There is always a section of society, which when not imediately preoccupied with day to day living spend their time activities that considered useless. What's that ancient Greek fable that ridicules philosophers for being too focused on the abstract, and forgeting about the reality?

I mean, it's a reasonable theory, but it wouldn't work with humankind for several physiological reasons. It's proven that when we get older, we get bad at games. Right around the time we hit thirty, our liquid memory begins to "freeze" up, and liquid memory (short term and very, very responsive) is vitally important to being able to play any video game worth a damn.

What I don't like about things concerning Extra-terrestials is the assumption that somewhere, life evolved faster than it did here. Maybe we haven't found ETs because they haven't evolved to the point of making contact. Likewise, we assume that our technologies will be compatible.

I mean, it's a reasonable theory, but it wouldn't work with humankind for several physiological reasons. It's proven that when we get older, we get bad at games. Right around the time we hit thirty, our liquid memory begins to "freeze" up, and liquid memory (short term and very, very responsive) is vitally important to being able to play any video game worth a damn.
So why is it that my friend's grandfather--a man of approximately 70--is able to beat both of us at just about any racing or fighting game? Though it could just be a fluke.

And, looking at the responses of people here, I see I should never take a psychologist's opinion about extraterrestrial life at face value. Hell, looking at it again it makes me wonder if this isn't just someone who hates all that stuff and is railing against it using false arguments.

I think it is perfectly reasonable to suppose that alien intelligences will not be interested in colonizing the galaxy, at least not in a form we would recognize. If they developed advanced nanotech then perhaps they could download their entire population into a computer the size of a shoe box. Obviously this species would need very little in the way of resources and so would feel no need to either colonize earth. And they wouldn't feel the need to contact us because they are trillions of times smarter than us. We rarely try to communicate with insects.

I don't see why the future this author describes would really be so bad. Why do we have to expand? Why do we need to colonize the universe? In The Matrix, the Oracle tells Neo that "everything that has a beginning has an end". Why do we think that the human race can/will/should last forever?

http://www.seedmagazine.com/news/2006/05/why_we_havent_met_any_aliens.php

Now...in many ways, it makes sense. It seems logical and thought out. But there's a logical fallacy in there, a mistake or two. I just can't spot them myself, though I suspect it might have to do with the fact that he assumes video gamers and the like don't give a shit about other things too, that we only care about our entertainment.

I wouldn't say there's a logical fallacy in there, but he does assume some very specious things, like the plentifulness of life-supporting planets, the similarity of human and alien psychologies, and the similarity of adaptive strategies in different kinds of intelligences.

Honestly, I would say that one of the biggest reasons why we haven't heard from LGM's out there is because they don't know we're here. We've only been generating our own EM signatures and beaming them out into space with any power since the mid-1930's, which means that anyone outside the 70 light-year radius would look here and figure our star for a lifeless chunk of hydrogen and helium. We've been listening for other EM signatures for less than 30. Moreover, he forgets that fairly few stars are the G and F-type stars so conducive to life, as well as the fact that most systems are binary systems that would rip apart planets in their early stellar evolution. So in reality, there are fairly few stars out there that could support life, most of them are in star clusters which might pose additional hazards for early stellar development, and almost none of them are within the 140 light-year diameter sphere that our signals could have been heard from.

I wouldn't say there's a logical fallacy in there, but he does assume some very specious things, like the plentifulness of life-supporting planets, the similarity of human and alien psychologies, and the similarity of adaptive strategies in different kinds of intelligences.

Honestly, I would say that one of the biggest reasons why we haven't heard from LGM's out there is because they don't know we're here. We've only been generating our own EM signatures and beaming them out into space with any power since the mid-1930's, which means that anyone outside the 70 light-year radius would look here and figure our star for a lifeless chunk of hydrogen and helium. We've been listening for other EM signatures for less than 30. Moreover, he forgets that fairly few stars are the G and F-type stars so conducive to life, as well as the fact that most systems are binary systems that would rip apart planets in their early stellar evolution. So in reality, there are fairly few stars out there that could support life, most of them are in star clusters which might pose additional hazards for early stellar development, and almost none of them are within the 140 light-year diameter sphere that our signals could have been heard from.
Aye, that's what I meant, essentially. My apologies for the poor phrasing.

Honestly, I would say that one of the biggest reasons why we haven't heard from LGM's out there is because they don't know we're here...

I'm afraid that the article doesn't explain Fermi's paradox very well. The idea is if one alien species set out to colonise the galaxy it should only take a few million years. If one planet sent out two colony ships and each colony sent out two colony ships and so on it wouldn't take that long for the entire galaxy to be colonized, but we see no evidence that this has happened.

Personally I think technologically advanced life may be rare but also not interested in forming galactic empires. In our science fiction we imagine humans in the future colonising planets and using space and energy similar to the way we do now. But alien uses of space and energy may be beyond our understanding. As an example of how expectations can change, seventy years ago you wouldn't have had any trouble finding people who believed that the "white race" would replace all other races on the planet. Now only a few nutcases believe that. Our views on colonizing space may have changed just as much by the end of this century. The idea of colonizing a planet may seem crazy to us in the future when we might be able to easily construct habitats from asteroids or download ourselves into hyperspace linked computers or exist as fluctuations in zero point energy in the vacuum of space.

That article makes me madder than an angry zoo chimp armed with a piece of poo.

While certainly entertaining, I think that the reason we haven't had any signs of intelligent life elsewhere in the universe is simply because of the vast distances involved. We're talking about places that would take even light thousands and millions of years to reach. This would mean, for us to get any signals, they would have had to have been transmitted at least that long ago, and it will take the signals we've broadcasted thousands and millions of years to reach anybody who's listening.

It could also be that the time it took for life to evolve on Earth is the average time it takes for intelligent life to evolve. In which case we should start getting signals millenia from now.

Honestly, I would say that one of the biggest reasons why we haven't heard from LGM's out there is because they don't know we're here. We've only been generating our own EM signatures and beaming them out into space with any power since the mid-1930's, which means that anyone outside the 70 light-year radius would look here and figure our star for a lifeless chunk of hydrogen and helium...

Also, I believe that once you get a dozen or so light years from earth our radio signals become lost in the background radio noise of space. We are only likely to spot intentional signals or perhaps detect immense engineering structures such as Dyson spheres.

What made me laugh in the article is where it says (paraphrasing) "why haven't we found anyone after more than 40 years of looking?"

C'mon! Considering the size and age of the Universe 40 years is nothing! It's like going to the beach and asking "why haven't we seen any whales?" before you even turn the engine off in the parking lot.

Oh please, there's been contentless entertainment throughout the history of humanity. Just look at the compositition Baroque music for one. There is always a section of society, which when not imediately preoccupied with day to day living spend their time activities that considered useless. What's that ancient Greek fable that ridicules philosophers for being too focused on the abstract, and forgeting about the reality?

You mean like Plato's Allegory of the Cave?