Ants and Aliens

[leroy]

Most ants have never seen a human in there whole life

Imagine a society of ants, that have never seen a human in the whole life, (perhaps they live in an isolated island, or in the hart of a jungle)

these ants might be wondering, if humans exist why haven't they visit us, and some clever ants might also do some reasoning an conclude that if there a are 6,000,000,000 humans and each of them explores 1km² all the planet would be explored and therefore at least 1 human would have contact us.

ants would say "surely a single human (if he exist) con easily explore hundreds of km² during his life time" so the fact that we haven't seen a single human proves that humans don't exist or there are extremely rare in this planet.


......................................


For us humans the answer is very simple, we simply don't care even though we have enough technology to explore every single bit of land where ants might exist, we are simply not interested in discovering more anthills, after discovering a few thousand anthills it becomes simply boring and meaningless to search for more anthills


so perhaps these is why Aliens have not visited us. perhaps they simply don't care, perhaps a civilization of intelligent aliens has already explored a few hundreds planets with life, and they are simply bored and unwilling to waste time in exploring more planets.

just like ants that live in isolated islands are unlikely to be discovered by humans, perhaps we live in a remote ara of the galaxy, and aliens are not likely to find us.


.........................................


and a quick note for reflection.

even if we grant that intelligent aliens exist, and even if we grant that they are mucho more advanced than humans, there is no warranty that they would also be curious creatures.


perhaps they are very intelligent, perhaps they can solve their communication, health, transportation, etc. problems with high technology, but that doesn't necessarily mean that they would also be curios creatures, perhaps they don't care if other life forms exist in the universe, perhaps they have not even asked themselves this question.

so perhaps the mayority of intelligent life forms, have the technology and the resources to explore the space in search of intelligent life, but perhaps they are not interested in doing it. after all what kind of stupid society would waste resources in the search of intelligent life, when those resources could be used to solve real life problems,

perhaps the interest in searching for intelligent life is just a "human thing" perhaps where are no the only intelligent creatures, but perhaps we are the only creatures that care about finding other intelligent beings.

 

[Sparhafoc]

Initially, I thought this was going to be the ancient theist equivocation between humans as ants, and gods as being so far above their perception. But it's not. Refreshing. It's not science though!

Regardless, there is a small flaw in the reasoning.

Even if it were true that all humans were uninterested in finding other ant nests (I kind of think this isn't true of most Myrmecologists), the analogy breaks down when compared to independently evolved organisms on planets across the galaxy.

The only reason we would ever be disinterested in finding new ant nests is if we assume that the examples we have are statistically sufficient to extrapolate out, and we don't need to see each to get a comprehensive picture.

This is not, and cannot be true of life across the galaxy. The contingencies of history, the chemical composition of the planet, the ordeals it faces, all the multi-layered elements of predation, survival, and climate will produce such a vast variety of forms with each world being essentially unique. That's not even bothering to conceive of the molecular unit of inheritance, or of the potential benefits such species might provide.

My answer to the Fermi Paradox is simply that the galaxy is big. Any sensible, technological civilization would send out cheap automated probes to check each system and planet for resources and life. But thanks to the size and scale of the galaxy, they'd have to keep on doing it.

Had they sent one here just a few thousand years ago, they might not have seen anything particularly interesting to them. Had they sent a probe 100,000 years ago, then there would have been nothing to see in terms of civilization.

 

[MarsCydonia]

English is not my first language either (german isn't second and japanese isn't my third) so I am not unsympathetic to how some people may have some difficulties writing in a second, third or fourth language.

But English is one of the the most practiced language in the world and certainly the language of commerce so the ressources to correct orthography and syntax are not only available, they are plentiful.

So I don't know why Leroy avoids them and keeps giving us comments that make Donald Trump look like a brilliant speaker.

 

[Nesslig20]

Reasons I suspect that aliens haven't contacted us yet are:

One: Life may not be rare, but intelligent life would probably be compared to all life as a whole.

Two: Due to the huge separation in terms of space and time. Our closest intelligent neighbor might be living too far away and too long ago for them to ever reach us. Any aliens living in another galaxy would have some serious problems if they want to travel to ours.

 

[leroy]

Reasons I suspect that aliens haven't contacted us yet are:

One: Life may not be rare, but intelligent life would probably be compared to all life as a whole.

Two: Due to the huge separation in terms of space and time. Our closest intelligent neighbor might be living too far away and too long ago for them to ever reach us. Any aliens living in another galaxy would have some serious problems if they want to travel to ours.

even though the galaxy is very big, it is also very old.


any civilization that lived 1, billion years ago, and that is just a little bit more advanced than humans, could have send space probes that travel at 1% de speed of light to every star in our galaxy. by this time space probes would have reached us.


also
any civilization that travels at relativistic speeds, (say 99.99999 the speed of light) could travel from galaxy to galaxy in just a few days. (according to their clocks)


these 2 pints would solve (at least partially) the distant star problem



my own personal view is that we are alone, there is no life in other planets.

 

[Sparhafoc]

even though the galaxy is very big, it is also very old.

any civilization that lived 1, billion years ago, and that is just a little bit more advanced than humans, could have send space probes that travel at 1% de speed of light to every star in our galaxy. by this time space probes would have reached us.

And would still need to arrive at a planet or system at a relevant time as I already outlined.

A civilization that did this 1 billion years ago is likely to have long since disappeared, either by going extinct, or by becoming something quite different.

also
any civilization that travels at relativistic speeds, (say 99.99999 the speed of light) could travel from galaxy to galaxy in just a few days. (according to their clocks)

Only with respect to those inside the ship traveling at relativistic speeds, back home everyone they ever knew has died.

This is another reason why automated probes would be used by any intelligent species.

these 2 pints would solve (at least partially) the distant star problem

Space is comprised both of space and time. So it solves nothing because they'd still need to intersect in a given volume in a specific time. If an automated probe arrived here 15,000 years ago, it wouldn't have found much in the way of civilization here at all. Probably wouldn't have recorded anything special about this place.

my own personal view is that we are alone, there is no life in other planets.

I expect that will be trivial to overcome just within our own system. Europa's long been my prediction, and there's serious talk now about digging through the ice crust into that ocean!

 

[leroy]

even though the galaxy is very big, it is also very old.

any civilization that lived 1, billion years ago, and that is just a little bit more advanced than humans, could have send space probes that travel at 1% de speed of light to every star in our galaxy. by this time space probes would have reached us.

And would still need to arrive at a planet or system at a relevant time as I already outlined.

A civilization that did this 1 billion years ago is likely to have long since disappeared, either by going extinct, or by becoming something quite different.

also
any civilization that travels at relativistic speeds, (say 99.99999 the speed of light) could travel from galaxy to galaxy in just a few days. (according to their clocks)

Only with respect to those inside the ship traveling at relativistic speeds, back home everyone they ever knew has died.

This is another reason why automated probes would be used by any intelligent species.

these 2 pints would solve (at least partially) the distant star problem

Space is comprised both of space and time. So it solves nothing because they'd still need to intersect in a given volume in a specific time. If an automated probe arrived here 15,000 years ago, it wouldn't have found much in the way of civilization here at all. Probably wouldn't have recorded anything special about this place.

my own personal view is that we are alone, there is no life in other planets.

I expect that will be trivial to overcome just within our own system. Europa's long been my prediction, and there's serious talk now about digging through the ice crust into that ocean!

the probe could have reached us millions of years ago, but it would still be orbiting the solar system (I am talking about probes without astronauts) this probe would be detectable

 

[Dragan Glas]

Greetings,

Why would it stay?

Assuming, of course, that it came here in the first place.

Kindest regards,

James

 

[leroy]

Greetings,

Why would it stay?

Assuming, of course, that it came here in the first place.

Kindest regards,

James

I don't know, it seems to me that it is something that humans would do.


within a few hundred years sending probes will be so easy and so cheap, that even teenagers will do it.

it seems fun to simply send probes to different stars and let them orbit other stars. for other observers to see.

 

[Dragan Glas]

Greetings,

There's no reason for it to stay for millions of years if it doesn't detect intelligent life.

There's no reason for anyone to send a probe to one star system when there are a hundred billion other star systems to visit where intelligent life might be found.

If we send probes to other star systems, they'll be ones that are likely to have Earth-like planets with intelligent life.

Kindest regards,

James

 

[Sparhafoc]

the probe could have reached us millions of years ago, but it would still be orbiting the solar system....

Why would it still be orbiting the solar system if it reached us millions of years ago?

Incidentally, what does 'orbiting the Solar System' mean?

(I am talking about probes without astronauts)....

Yes, you can see I've given you the appropriate terminology above: automated, meaning without further user input

this probe would be detectable

So would a needle in a haystack be detectable. Now imagine the needle was about 100 times the size, and the haystack was about 1,000,000,000,000,000,000 times the size. Detect away!

 

[Sparhafoc]

I don't know, it seems to me that it is something that humans would do.

Ok, we're all humans here, I suppose. So let's pretend we're sending out automated probes.

LEROY - you've suggested that we have a probe stay in a system essentially forever, correct?

Well, I propose that this causes excessive cost to us as there are at least 200 billion systems in this galaxy. What benefit would there be to sending out 200 billion probes as opposed to sending out say, 1 billion probes, and have them multi-task? We're a highly advanced technological civilization, remember?

within a few hundred years sending probes will be so easy and so cheap, that even teenagers will do it.

I.. uh.. wh.. um... how are these probes going to be fueled?

You were just talking about approaching relativistic speeds, and now teenagers can buy the fuel that would achieve this? :shock:

Rather worrying for my part.

Currently, the only way we could do it is by constant slow acceleration, and it would take a long time. This would require a nuclear fuel. Not sure how that and teenagers go hand in hand.

it seems fun to simply send probes to different stars and let them orbit other stars. for other observers to see.

200 billion of them? Seems a waste to me. With 200 billion probes, a significant number of them will never be looked at. Wouldn't it be cleverer to use our advanced technology to automate our probes so they can detect interesting things themselves?

If we're all on the Council for Probing the Universe, then my first proposal is that we don't send out dumb boxes full of fuel but with only a camera and transmitter. Rather, we want to send autonomous units with sufficient processing power and coded rules to actively seek and detect the kind of things that would interest us, thereby ensuring some worth from this project, and cutting the absurd number down to manageable levels.

So the first thing we should do is decide on what things interest us - got to be superior than employing a hundred billion individuals to spend their lives watching transmissions from their managed probes.

 

[Collecemall]

I expect that will be trivial to overcome just within our own system. Europa's long been my prediction, and there's serious talk now about digging through the ice crust into that ocean!

One of the things I hope to live long enough to see is an exploration of the several moons in our solar system that possibly (IMO even likely) harbor life. I saw plans for some probes in the 2020's but I don't think they will find much at a surface level. So I'll need to live a few more decades to have a chance to see something I imagine.

I wouldn't be shocked at all if life is as common as water.

 

[Visaki]

I expect that will be trivial to overcome just within our own system. Europa's long been my prediction, and there's serious talk now about digging through the ice crust into that ocean!

One of the things I hope to live long enough to see is an exploration of the several moons in our solar system that possibly (IMO even likely) harbor life. I saw plans for some probes in the 2020's but I don't think they will find much at a surface level. So I'll need to live a few more decades to have a chance to see something I imagine.

I wouldn't be shocked at all if life is as common as water.

Here on Earth we've had life starting from pretty much the moment Earth wasn't a boiling hell. From that 4 000 000 000 years (or so) of life we've had about 500 000 000 years (guestimating) of multi cellular life, 100 000 years (abouts) of human level intelligence, 5 000 years (roughly) of written history and 70 years (maybe) of any kind of space exploration. Taken from this sample size of 1 we can clearly see that even if life is common, intelligent life that can send stuff to other solar systems isn't. Heck, I'd bet that most places that have life will never evolve even human level intelligence, maybe not even multi cellularism.

And no, this doesn't give the creationist / ID "fine tuning" argument any more credence.

That being said I'd like to quote the physicist Leo Szilard as an answer for Fermis question where are all the intellectually advanced aliens: "They are among us, but they call themselves Hungarians."

 

[Sparhafoc]

One of the things I hope to live long enough to see is an exploration of the several moons in our solar system that possibly (IMO even likely) harbor life. I saw plans for some probes in the 2020's but I don't think they will find much at a surface level. So I'll need to live a few more decades to have a chance to see something I imagine.

I wouldn't be shocked at all if life is as common as water.

I think I may have been somewhat premature in ejaculating my prediction 15 or 20 years back that we'd find life on Europa by 2023, but from what I can see of the next suite of potential experiments, I might not be that far off!

I did an introductory course on astrobiology a few years back - what an incredible multidisciplinary topic it is! A next gen science class, so to speak.

For those interested, a great intro book is:

https://www.amazon.com/Astrobiology-Introduction-Kevin-W-Plaxco/dp/1421400960/

Astrobiology: A Brief Introduction (2nd ed), Plaxco and Gross

For those already in possession of a solid background in chemistry, physics, and biology, then this is the book for you:

https://www.amazon.com/Astrobiology-Multi-Disciplinary-Approach-Jonathan-Lunine/dp/0805380426

Astrobiology: a Multidisciplinary Approach, Lunine, M.

I found some of the intro book to be sufficiently challenging, but a good 60% of the latter book there was really hard work for me. A bit outdated now, but still gives a really solid platform for how we will be looking for life elsewhere in the universe.

 

[Sparhafoc]

That being said I'd like to quote the physicist Leo Szilard as an answer for Fermis question where are all the intellectually advanced aliens: "They are among us, but they call themselves Hungarians."

HA! I'd never heard that one! I always found his sense of humor to be brilliant!

 

[Dragan Glas]

Greetings,

I have the first book - fascinating subject indeed.

Kindest regards,

James

 

[Sparhafoc]

I have the first book - fascinating subject indeed.

Brilliant book. The course I was doing was far too easy, but this was the main coursebook and it more than made up for the omissions in the course. Really quite eye-openingly comprehensive. I don't have the background in physics, and even less in chemistry (particularly on the mathematical end of both) to engage in this level of study with ease, but it was worth every head-scratch and sigh of frustration.

I might even pull that out the shelf and tackle it again soon. I tend to read non-fiction in the day time and fiction at night. I am just about out of new books now, and I'm too far into the jungle to easily buy new ones these days.

 

[leroy]

I don't know, it seems to me that it is something that humans would do.

Ok, we're all humans here, I suppose. So let's pretend we're sending out automated probes.

LEROY - you've suggested that we have a probe stay in a system essentially forever, correct?

Well, I propose that this causes excessive cost to us as there are at least 200 billion systems in this galaxy. What benefit would there be to sending out 200 billion probes as opposed to sending out say, 1 billion probes, and have them multi-task? We're a highly advanced technological civilization, remember?
.

In Mexico there is a museum for children, in the museum there is box that will be opened someday in the future. children form the present are supuse to write a message, for the children in the future that will eventually open the box.

this has no practical purpose, it is simply fun, to do it.


I am talking about a futuristic society, where energy and fuel are abundant and easy to obtain, where sending probes would be as easy as any other science experiment that a teen ager can do.


any futuristic society with human like intelligence, would send millions of probes and stuff to the space. simply because it is fun. for the same reason millions of children would think that it is simply fun to send notes to people form the future.

 

[Sparhafoc]

In Mexico there is a museum for children, in the museum there is box that will be opened someday in the future. children form the present are supuse to write a message, for the children in the future that will eventually open the box.

this has no practical purpose, it is simply fun, to do it.

Are there 200 billion messages in there?

If not, then perhaps think about what makes this a bit different.

Imagine I propose that we put 200 billion messages in a box. What do you think most people would say?

I am talking about a futuristic society, where energy and fuel are abundant and easy to obtain, where sending probes would be as easy as any other science experiment that a teen ager can do.

Firstly, it's irrelevant because 'cost' is not just material, but also 'time' and 'effort' and 'opportunity'. One doesn't technologically evolve out of opportunity costs, and dropping a probe into every single system and leaving it there forever on the off-chance of something interesting occurring necessarily involves opportunity costs.

Instead, as I already argued, the rational way would be to send probes competent at many tasks that could run independently of any controller/observer (because messages would take a long fucking time to get home) and to give those probes a volume of space to operate in. The programming would allow them to identify sites of immediate interest and of potential interest. Once all sites have been checked over hundreds of thousands of years, the probes could then focus their energies on the potential sites.

This is vastly more efficient in every imaginable way than what you've proposed, and given that we're talking about highly advanced technological species, then I kind of think an assumption that they'd employ the concept of efficiency is justified, whereas an assumption they wouldn't is not.

Finally, you still repeated the same problem as before. Some teenagers might be capable of building nuclear powered craft, but that doesn't mean we give them access to radioactive material.

any futuristic society with human like intelligence, would send millions of probes and stuff to the space. simply because it is fun. for the same reason millions of children would think that it is simply fun to send notes to people form the future.

Millions? :lol:

Yeah, as I said, 200 billion systems, so 'millions' are still going to need to act as I've outlined above.

Also, bizarre assumptions. If this is how this species proceeds, then it's not like human intelligence at all. We need to centralize those probes, they need to operate under a standard mission setting, and communicate back to a coherent project which can compile their data. Your species appears to be a hive-mind.

This is always the problem with hypotheticals about hypotheticals about hypotheticals - it just becomes science fiction.