UFO stuff

[The Anti-Targ]

My working assumption is that any species capable of substantial interstellar travel has well and truly sorted its own shit out at home and has become a very civilised, peaceful society interested in endeavours of mutual benefit. So I completely reject the Dark Forest hypothesis as not even being worthy of consideration.

Also, as Kal posits as one possibility, advanced enough species that have solved the energy and resources problem have possibly lost interest colonising / conquering other star systems. The only counter point to that is assuming all such species are probably still interested in self preservation. Given all stars have a finite lifespan eventually a species will want to find another long term home. My suggestion would be to find habitable planets in red dwarf star systems, since red dwarfs apparently have lifespans numbering trillions of years. And apparently if you find a red dwarf <0.25 solar masses it will never become a red giant. This means the very first red dwarf stars to ever exist are basically still infants, and won't even be mature by the time our own sun winds up as a white dwarf.

Edited June 6, 2023 by The Anti-Targ

[Rippounet]

2 hours ago, Kalnestk Oblast said:

We don't have the means right this second but we have been doing stellar exploration for a fraction of a blink of an eye. Imagine what we could do in a million years given that we survive that long.

A million years from now (or far less), our species could (should?) have evolved in such a way as to make stellar exploration entirely pointless to it.
Our interest in stellar exploration may be linked to our current material and social conditions, because we are curious (a trait our species possesses and values for evolutionary reasons) and because exploration remains a prime avenue for our curiosity.

But beyond a certain level of advancement, a civilization might dedicate itself to very different pursuits, "move on" in a way.
Even humanity right now isn't exactly dedicating that much effort to material exploration. Our species has lots of other interests, any one of which could make material exploration pointless in the far future.
Among other things, we're obsessed with control and power. Assuming we ever develop the means to explore the universe, we're just as likely to use them to make ourselves gods, either of ourselves (by controling everything we perceive and feel) or of universes of our own creation (virtual, à-la-Matrix, or -who knows- actual mini-verses).
Why would anyone care about some distant aliens if they have multiple ways to transcend their own existence? Such an interest might barely be a minor hobby for eccentrics.

2 hours ago, Kalnestk Oblast said:

For all we know we could be the predators out there - that's possible.

Yes, that's kinda my point. That our biological frailty combined with the predator/prey logic of earthly evolution makes us constantly assess potential threats, and thus makes us view power itself as threatening.

The very concept of threats might seem odd to a super-advanced species for multiple reasons: they could have emerged out of a different form of evolution in the first place, they could have lost their initial evolutionary drives (/fear) through social progress (over millenia), or they could have developed near-immunity to attacks thanks to technological progress.
Would a species that hasn't known fear (ever, or for a long time) still dedicate any energy to assessing potential threats? Or would it not assume that any other species having reached the same level of advancement as them would have equal material and spiritual comforts, thus making aggressivity a distant memory?

2 hours ago, Kalnestk Oblast said:

But intelligent species must at least come to the conclusion that an intelligent species could be a threat in the same way that a supernova is - not because they are like us or not, but because intelligent species could have immense power.

You are not only assuming that a super-intelligent species would still be able to think of others as threats, you are in fact assuming that intelligence and aggressivity are not mutually exclusive to begin with.
Or, in the spirit of fairness, I am the one who assumes intelligence and aggressivity are mutually exclusive, based on my understanding of biology and anthropology. Nevertheless, questioning the link here also underlines the fact that evolution can potentially work in very different ways, and that even on Earth, things don't always obey any kind of game theory.

I am not at all certain that it is possible to hold "immense power" without having a modicum of discipline that precludes being a threat to equals, since you need to have that discipline not to be a threat to yourself. If humanity is not in fact incredibly unique it would seem logical that a given species must first learn how not to destroy itself with its technology before having the means to explore the universe - this is a variation of the "bottleneck" theory btw.

Of course, I'm making assumptions myself here, that lead me to believe it is almost impossible for any species to be able to explore the universe and still hold to a predator/prey mentality. Ultimately, either of us could be right I suppose, but the one point I have in my favor is that we exist: the logical flaw of the Dark Forest theory is that it supposes that the dominant species (plural?) in the universe would have the will to destroy any potential threats, and not the will or capacity to do it before potentially rival civilizations even emerge. That ends up being a very specific set of conditions according to which we ourselves must be facing imminent destruction, but have been somehow lucky so far to be undetected or temporarily spared. It's a theory that looks more like a reflection of our own fears and history than logic.

The fun scenario is if we're both right though, and the universe has both advanced species that obey predator/prey logic and "enlightened" ones that view such thought patterns as primitive. Which ones would dominate, and what kind of rules would they impose? Either way, I've always wondered whether the answer to the Fermi paradox isn't that there is some kind of universal prime directive according to which a species as under-developed as ours must be kept isolated and ignorant until it is ready to either "join the federation" or be annihilated.

28 minutes ago, Werthead said:

It now appears that a planet capable of sustaining intelligent life might not just be rare but incredibly rare, on the order of "one per galactic cluster" rare.

*intelligent life as we know it

It's a core problem of such discussions: we do not know whether the conditions we have here are the conditions for life, or simply the conditions for us. We're not sure what life, intelligence, or consciousness are, and thus don't know whether different conditions could lead to other forms of life, intelligence, or consciousness.

I have this funny idea that once you know the answer to life, the universe and everything, you care as much about alien species as most humans care about ants. By that I mean that unless they're invading your house, you're unlikely to think much about them, and very few people would ever attempt to communicate with them.

[ThinkerX]

I attempted more than once over the past couple of decades to run the numbers on just finding nearby human habitable planets - not aliens, just planets with breathable air, water, and an acceptable temperature range withing 50 parsecs or so. For my last effort, i used the GAIA catalog, literally the best there is, with a sort of 'expanded Drake equation' for the baseline stuff to that point (The Drake equation is seriously incomplete). The results were less than encouraging -

earthlike worlds in the single digit range in that area. Given evolutionary/biological issues, life on said worlds would likely be...simple, mostly of the single cell variety and little else. Yes, you do end up with tens of millions of such worlds when the calculation is expanded to encompass the galaxy, but the odds of there being more than just a couple other sapient races...not necessarily technological, just sapient, at any given time are not good. 

Of course, this does allow for the possibility of 'exotic life' on worlds unlike Earth that do not require oxygen or water or a human temperature range.

[Larry of the Lawn]

Aliens don't show up to colonize, or neutralize rivals or threats; they show up to see if the next world they target may be the one where they can save their own souls.  Where they an escape their damnation, where they can collapse subject and object and disrupt the cycle of souls and seal the world off from the gods.  Resumption.  

[Ser Scot A Ellison]

5 minutes ago, Larry of the Lake said:

Aliens don't show up to colonize, or neutralize rivals or threats; they show up to see if the next world they target may be the one where they can save their own souls.  Where they an escape their damnation, where they can collapse subject and object and disrupt the cycle of souls and seal the world off from the gods.  Resumption.  

Thank you Scott Bakker.

[IFR]

I think speculations of extra-terrestrial beings is fun, but like those in this thread, I don't think anything will come of it for now.

I imagine it's much like Greek philosophers- some of the speculation was in the ballpark of reality, such as with the atomists, but the tools used for observation and verification were wholly inadequate for the undertaking in any serious fashion.

I like the Dark Forest hypothesis. I also like the Matrix hypothesis. I would even posit the Matrix hypothesis resolves a lot of epistemological and ontological questions - though in a hand-wavey religious fiat way. It doesn't address the recursivity problem - that is, if we are the fruit of some prime reality, what created that prime reality? But then even that question relies on some sort of continuum of logic from this reality to that reality that allows for the axiom that logic must be inviolable and consistent, which I think is quite an assumption.

But even with my favored hypothesis, it's nothing more than fun speculation.

[drawkcabi]

6 hours ago, Ser Scot A Ellison said:

They gloss over it.  Starfleet officers should be again at rates different from the people back home.  That’s never addressed.

I bet changing from standard time to daylight savings time is a picnic compared to that!  

[drawkcabi]

One more thing...Some time ago I used to be bummed when the idea of extra-terrestrials came up in a serious way. Bummed because I felt a lot like the sentiments of the comments posted here about how unfeasible it was, not that they didn't or couldn't exist, only that we could never achieve contact in any way.

It left me with a feeling of loneliness. 

Then I thought of my dog, I thought of all the dogs I've had. I thought about as I grew up and had more experience the more I could not only train my dog to understand me, but the more I could understand what my dog was feeling (hunger, fear, excitememt, urge to relieve itself, etc.). The kind of simpatico we had that only seemed to improve with each dog I got to know. 

I thought "Here is a different species! We are humans and dogs are dogs and they give us friendship, love, companionship, they can work with us as police dogs, herding dogs, and more, and even take care of us as service dogs and emotional upport animals.. The relationship between humans and dogs has evolved over time only to make our connection closer. It's really something wonderful!"

And this world is teeming with other species we keep learning new amazing things about every day!

The other great apes and primates, other types of canines, cats, horses, elephants, rabbits, foxes. rodents...the things we keep learning about different kinds of birds are just incredible! Then there's the amazing creatures of the sea, dolphins, whales, fish, octopuses. Then there's the entire insect kingdom!

We have so many species to get to know better and understand better to last us until the end of time. Some we will never get too close too, but others...as years and years go by either their intelligence will evolve or we'll realize they were smarter than we thought all along and communication/understanding between us will only get better!

We have a tendency to think we're a species alone on this world. There's us...then there's the animals. We believe we're on a higher level and better than all the other animals on this world and our desire for contact with aliens is a desire to see if there is another species that can interact with us on our level.

I think we have overestimated ourselves and underestimated other animals and if we're not exactly on the same level we're closer than we always thought. And as we all evolve as time goes by...who knows? Maybe we'll have the kind of partnership optimists, at least, always wanted with aliens and it was waiting for us here on Earth all along.

Since that epiphany I've never felt that kind of loneliness again.

[IFR]

16 minutes ago, drawkcabi said:

One more thing...Some time ago I used to be bummed when the idea of extra-terrestrials came up in a serious way. Bummed because I felt a lot like the sentiments of the comments posted here about how unfeasible it was, not that they didn't or couldn't exist, only that we could never achieve contact in any way.

It left me with a feeling of loneliness. 

Then I thought of my dog, I thought of all the dogs I've had. I thought about as I grew up and had more experience the more I could not only train my dog to understand me, but the more I could understand what my dog was feeling (hunger, fear, excitememt, urge to relieve itself, etc.). The kind of simpatico we had that only seemed to improve with each dog I got to know. 

I thought "Here is a different species! We are humans and dogs are dogs and they give us friendship, love, companionship, they can work with us as police dogs, herding dogs, and more, and even take care of us as service dogs and emotional upport animals.. The relationship between humans and dogs has evolved over time only to make our connection closer. It's really something wonderful!"

And this world is teeming with other species we keep learning new amazing things about every day!

The other great apes and primates, other types of canines, cats, horses, elephants, rabbits, foxes. rodents...the things we keep learning about different kinds of birds are just incredible! Then there's the amazing creatures of the sea, dolphins, whales, fish, octopuses. Then there's the entire insect kingdom!

We have so many species to get to know better and understand better to last us until the end of time. Some we will never get too close too, but others...as years and years go by either their intelligence will evolve or we'll realize they were smarter than we thought all along and communication/understanding between us will only get better!

We have a tendency to think we're a species alone on this world. There's us...then there's the animals. We believe we're on a higher level and better than all the other animals on this world and our desire for contact with aliens is a desire to see if there is another species that can interact with us on our level.

I think we have overestimated ourselves and underestimated other animals and if we're not exactly on the same level we're closer than we always thought. And as we all evolve as time goes by...who knows? Maybe we'll have the kind of partnership optimists, at least, always wanted with aliens and it was waiting for us here on Earth all along.

Since that epiphany I've never felt that kind of loneliness again.

It's a cheerful thought. And true...for now. Until we annihilate all our neighboring species and we're left with a select few domesticated stock that allows us to work our will on them. And then I suppose that will remain true until we self-annihilate or become slaves to our fungi overlords.

[Week]

This thread has been a wonderful book club for Story of your life, The Three Body Problem, maybe a whiff of Blindsight, Contact, and late addition of the Culture series -- which is my personal favorite. It's so great.

Eta- Price of Nothing, too, of course 

Edited June 7, 2023 by Week

[Starkess]

6 hours ago, Werthead said:

It should be noted that the Drake Equation was created when certain things weren't known about the formation of the Solar system and the habitability of the Earth that we know now.

This is a great perspective, but I want to point out that these things are actually still not known now. Yes, we have better data, but the importance of Jupiter and Saturn in the evolution of the solar system and the Earth's habitability is not settled. We still do not actually know with much certainty how common the solar system really is. Yes, we see a lot of strange planetary systems, because those systems are easier to see. We know the solar system is somewhat rare in some aspects, but not in sum, and we really don't know how those aspects and how that sum interacts with habitability. It's a really young field still.

[Crixus]

18 hours ago, A wilding said:

It is not a new idea though. It goes back at least as far as Greg Bear's Forge of God/Anvil of Stars duology. (Incidentally, Forge of God also explores the idea that the personal weaknesses of a US president might be used to paralyse the US).

Thanks for that example, will check it out. I guess I meant new to me: as I've mentioned, it's different from the sort of thing I've generally read/watched . I'm more of a history and classics reader (fantasy being limited to the series this board is about). 

[Ser Scot A Ellison]

Something just occurred to me.  Isn’t the entire “Drake Equation” an exercise in teleological thinking?  

Evolution doesn’t have a “direction”.  It is just change over time.  Is there any reason to believe intelligence… sentience/sapiance is an inevitablity?  If not… maybe… we’re just this unusual and our emergent property “consciousness” really is unique?

[A wilding]

I don't think the Drake equation is implying that evolution has a direction or that sentience is inevitable. It simply has a term:

Quote

The fraction of planets with life that actually go on to develop intelligent life

So it does not regard the evolution of intelligent life as in any way inevitable, just as possible - and we know that it has happened once, here. (At least, after a fashion.)

[maarsen]

 The Drake equation has a major flaw in that it does not take into account the huge distances between us and any other life resembling us. Let's assume we are not special in how long we developed here on this planet. Another life supporting planet of the same level of tech would be just as far along as us and asking the same questions. As our galaxy is 100,000 light years across any signal from us to them will take that long to reach us assuming they are on the other side. Considering the hundreds of billions of other galaxies that we can now see, most of them being millions of light years away, there will never be any contact with any life no matter if those galaxies teem with life.

With relativity not being the final word in physics and quantum theory not being the final word either, and knowing that one of them is probably wrong as the two do not play well together, maybe there will be a way to visit other solar systems and actually ascertain if and how intelligence arises.

[horangi]

1 hour ago, Ser Scot A Ellison said:

Something just occurred to me.  Isn’t the entire “Drake Equation” an exercise in teleological thinking?  

Evolution doesn’t have a “direction”.  It is just change over time.  Is there any reason to believe intelligence… sentience/sapiance is an inevitablity?  If not… maybe… we’re just this unusual and our emergent property “consciousness” really is unique?

While evolution doesn't have a master plan, the assumption is that increasing levels of intelligence creates an advantage to the creature against its cohort of species leading to selection pressure and eventually a sort of evolutionary end-game.  It doesn't guarantee against extinction, but it provides a ticket to the final round of evolutionary competition where selection pressure is weighted ever increasingly towards enhanced intelligence until it largely stops (species reaches apex).   Or more simply, it like saying you keep rolling a billion sided die over and over again, but if you get a '1' you can stop rolling.  Note that this is only for examining the sapience aspect of the Drake equation, not the components that account for self-annihilation/ascension/peaceful retirement from the universe.

[Kalbear]

6 minutes ago, maarsen said:

 The Drake equation has a major flaw in that it does not take into account the huge distances between us and any other life resembling us. Let's assume we are not special in how long we developed here on this planet. Another life supporting planet of the same level of tech would be just as far along as us and asking the same questions.

This is a flaw in your thinking. There is no reason to believe that intelligent life has to evolve relatively simultaneously everywhere, and it is in fact far more likely that it does not. You're right that distance makes things hard for decades or even centuries with any detection but we are talking a timescale in the millions of years.

[maarsen]

1 hour ago, Kalnestk Oblast said:

This is a flaw in your thinking. There is no reason to believe that intelligent life has to evolve relatively simultaneously everywhere, and it is in fact far more likely that it does not. You're right that distance makes things hard for decades or even centuries with any detection but we are talking a timescale in the millions of years.

With a sample size of one, assuming that the sample is in the normal range has more traction than assuming it is an outlier. This is the Copernican principle. We are not special in the universe.

[Kalbear]

1 hour ago, maarsen said:

With a sample size of one, assuming that the sample is in the normal range has more traction than assuming it is an outlier. This is the Copernican principle. We are not special in the universe.

By that notion we should not expect that life evolved intelligence at the same rate or anywhere near the same time as us. Again, there is no reason that dinosaurs shouldn't have been going for intelligence except they got blown up 65 million years ago. Furthermore, assuming a normal distribution means also that there are going to be outliers in that range - and an outlier is something like 500 million years in each direction.

And as I said before, all it takes is one civ to spread out like dandelions. It should not be expected that we can see all life, but it is much more reasonable to expect we can see one civ.

[JGP]

5 hours ago, Ser Scot A Ellison said:

 

Evolution doesn’t have a “direction”.  It is just change over time.  Is there any reason to believe intelligence… sentience/sapiance is an inevitablity?  If not… maybe… we’re just this unusual and our emergent property “consciousness” really is unique?

Given formative material [if you will] and net positive circumstances over a long enough span of time, eventually it is inevitable I reckon.

It's a bit dated now [though no less relevant] Scot, I highly recommend you read Waldrop's book about complex adaptive systems, Complexity. 

Edited June 7, 2023 by JGP