What if the drake equation and fermi paradox are wrong

Discuss the evolution of human culture, economics and politics in the decades and centuries ahead
Post Reply
User avatar
Ken_J
Posts: 241
Joined: Sun May 16, 2021 5:25 pm

What if the drake equation and fermi paradox are wrong

Post by Ken_J »

I was watching a video where somebody was talking about why we haven't heard from extra terrestrials, calculating how likely there are to be others, and the great filter...

And I had this moment of thinking that there are a few things that look like flaws in the thought processes.

For starters the Drake equation looks an awful lot like it's Begging the Question. IE, it seems to assume that everything from planet formation through to how long the species is around to be detected is a linear progression. It reminds me a lot of the idea that we used to have about evolution, with that silly linear progression of the next step in evolution. It implies a focus of progress to becoming a destination that is assumed to be a certain thing, that I'm now wondering if maybe it's completely wrong as a goal.

See it occurs to me tonight, that we are assuming that civilisation and group identity will be involved, and that communication and interaction of cultures is part of the course ahead, and not actually a dead end in the great filter. We are social animals, with a desire to communicate, and be a part of something greater than ourselves, and value things like altruism...

But what if, that is a bias leading us into the great filter. Think about it for a second, what does a single great white shark care for a giraffe or honey bees, or even the rest of the population of great white sharks. Outside of a reproductive drive, a desire to survive, and it's own set of needs, it doesn't care in the least about anything else grander in design. Our own religious history which is itself a byproduct of social communicative drives we have from our past in which they served to enable the group survival in a hostile environment. But like any evolved trait that opens an evolutionary niche to a group, it is possible to dead end in that niche if it becomes the focus, and specialization of the species.

With that in mind and thinking about scarcity of resources. Like the idea of imagining a civilisation collapse and how it might be impossible to get back to these current heights because some of what we would need has been used up and is not renewable. And it's not long term sustainable, and there's not enough for all of us to move forward.

It leads me to a dark thought that maybe the reason we haven't detected other intelligent civilizations of species is because that's not the most successful path/outcome.

Hypothetically, a species that develops complex tool use, and techniques for self preservation, ultimately to develop the equivalent abilities to post humanism and indefinite life span; living in a sort of hedonistic state of living solitary immortal existances for the purpose of just experience alone, doesn't care about communication or cultural exchange or legacies, or any of these things we primative social apes cling to.

With the abilities of trans and post humanism reached, the idea of even a species falls apart. No two have to be even remotely alike. The need to procreate is no longer a drive, so pairing up and the notion of tribe, family and heirs would be meaningless. No common culture exists past the singularity of their post-humanism. species and culture of one.

And how many of these would there be? As many as could climb over the rest to take off with the limited resources available. The great filter might just be the strength to realize that we can't all make it out of the gravity well of failed species. But some could. And it's not a matter for you to worry about what that number is, just that you are one of them. After that, you become an hedonistic immortal species and culture of one.

And that is what exists out there. That is the success of life. Small in number, spread thinly through the cosmos, and not all that desiring of communicating with a bunch of apes on a dead end path to another failed species.
User avatar
MythOfProgress
Posts: 140
Joined: Mon Mar 28, 2022 7:42 am

Re: What if the drake equation and fermi paradox are wrong

Post by MythOfProgress »

So you're not actually saying the fermi paradox/drake equation are wrong, but mostly referring to a variation in which the species in question has "ascended" to a higher plane of existence?
R.I.P Ziba.
User avatar
Ken_J
Posts: 241
Joined: Sun May 16, 2021 5:25 pm

Re: What if the drake equation and fermi paradox are wrong

Post by Ken_J »

MythOfProgress wrote: Mon Mar 28, 2022 8:19 am So you're not actually saying the fermi paradox/drake equation are wrong, but mostly referring to a variation in which the species in question has "ascended" to a higher plane of existence?
The idea here is that one of the fundamental assumptions they build on to ask their question may be flawed. It's like somebody at the turn of 1900 trying to decide what countries will have become the most powerful and worth having trade deals with based on the number of horses owned for pulling buggies.

and it's not about a higher plane of existance. It's basically like me saying every one of you psychotic apes can live and die out on this miserable collapsing rock while people like Bezos and Musk use up the world and people all the fast to pile the bodies high enough to leave this world and its mewling pathetic creatures to die out and become a footnote in the memories of 10 to twelve immortals who will have gone out into all the stars, not even augmenting themselves and changing themselves in anything like the same ways, and thus not even being able to be considered the same species anymore. and passing by dozens and hundreds of worlds with life that is about as interesting to them as ants are to you. wiping some out just by pure inconsideration in the process of doing something else.

and that perhaps that is what they all do. and the question of how many species make to an advanced level, and why don't we see them... is flawed because humanity in that scenario didn't make it, the species died on a depleted planet stripped of everything to enable a few tumor cells to matastisize into the universe and mutate to a degree that they are not even like each other let alone the extinct species they started as. Never producing more of their kind, immortal and cruelly indifferent to wether anyone or anything even knows they exist.
User avatar
raklian
Posts: 1747
Joined: Sun May 16, 2021 4:46 pm
Location: North Carolina

Re: What if the drake equation and fermi paradox are wrong

Post by raklian »

The biggest flaw with the fermi paradox & drake equation is assuming life or intelligence is animated matter that has "special properties" that distinguishes itself from that of ordinary matter. It may be the case it couldn't be further from the truth. This is merely an abstraction we conceived ourselves that is based on human-centric assumptions. What if there is no clear-cut boundary between the animated and simply matter? Rather, it's a sliding scale with a gradient going through different states of matter and yes, multiple dimensions? Our limited understanding of what intelligence is, or what constitutes life, is but a mere sliver on that grand sliding scale?

What I'm trying to say is that if we go by with our current definition of life and intelligence, we will not be able to recognize intelligence in other parts of the Universe even it were standing in right in front of us.
To know is essentially the same as not knowing. The only thing that occurs is the rearrangement of atoms in your brain.
User avatar
MythOfProgress
Posts: 140
Joined: Mon Mar 28, 2022 7:42 am

Re: What if the drake equation and fermi paradox are wrong

Post by MythOfProgress »

oh ok then, so you probably should've led with that, considering the amount of factors that go into trying to survive space(especially when it comes to trained astronauts and even then it's a struggle), i'd say nothing like that is actually going to happen, whatever "augmentations" or "changes" you're referring to are too speculative in mind to really discuss in detail.
The interesting(and depressing) thing about space is that it is a mostly dead environment, we aren't made for it and i doubt a few "augmentations" are going to do away with the fact that going up into space you will be bombarded with constant radiation, bone/muscle atrophy will set in during the first few weeks and cardiovascular problems will be the least of it.
i'd say that this is probably a common trope in science fiction, usually "a deity of human origin" or "sufficiently advanced aliens" is the trope you're referring to with the added caveat that they gain their power at cost of others, the one example that comes to mind is Bob Page from Deus Ex(2000) who attempts to do this trope, but fails in all three of the endings.
While it's an interesting idea to think about, your fundamental assumption that these billionaires will even make it to space(and survive for an extended period of time, with the "augmentations and "changes" to their body)is flawed itself. You said it yourself, we live in a collapsing world that will eventually come to know depleted reservoirs, aquifers, energy and so on.
https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/ ... umanOrigin
https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/ ... ancedAlien
R.I.P Ziba.
User avatar
Ken_J
Posts: 241
Joined: Sun May 16, 2021 5:25 pm

Re: What if the drake equation and fermi paradox are wrong

Post by Ken_J »

MythOfProgress wrote: Mon Mar 28, 2022 5:57 pm oh ok then, so you probably should've led with that, considering the amount of factors that go into trying to survive space(especially when it comes to trained astronauts and even then it's a struggle), i'd say nothing like that is actually going to happen, whatever "augmentations" or "changes" you're referring to are too speculative in mind to really discuss in detail.
The interesting(and depressing) thing about space is that it is a mostly dead environment, we aren't made for it and i doubt a few "augmentations" are going to do away with the fact that going up into space you will be bombarded with constant radiation, bone/muscle atrophy will set in during the first few weeks and cardiovascular problems will be the least of it.
i'd say that this is probably a common trope in science fiction, usually "a deity of human origin" or "sufficiently advanced aliens" is the trope you're referring to with the added caveat that they gain their power at cost of others, the one example that comes to mind is Bob Page from Deus Ex(2000) who attempts to do this trope, but fails in all three of the endings.
While it's an interesting idea to think about, your fundamental assumption that these billionaires will even make it to space(and survive for an extended period of time, with the "augmentations and "changes" to their body)is flawed itself. You said it yourself, we live in a collapsing world that will eventually come to know depleted reservoirs, aquifers, energy and so on.
https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/ ... umanOrigin
https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/ ... ancedAlien
I did lead with that in the first post, and I'm not sure you are following either one.

It's not a prediction. it's literally asking the question of whether the theories in question are building on flawed assumptions.
In Raklians example, that the drake equation and fermi paradox are both building on the : how many stars, how many planets, how much life, how much intelligence. But never asking if a nebula can be alive, or if intelligence even needs to be alive in the first place.

In my example The question is more of one about the assumption that at a certain point species becomes a meaningless term and that the absolute height of selfish individualism will have a far better outcome, and that taken to it's furthest extreme a truly selfish entity that needs nothing from anyone or anything else, may not see any value in communicating or being found or what have you.

Which, given a set of theories founded on the idea that it will be civilisations not odd lone entities, that some group of civilisations members will nessecarily want or need to communicate and wish to interact in any way (these are premises built on the bias of humans as social animals, and those goals will only expand as we do as a species, and not just be outgrown features of primitive beings at the first moment we can get beyond it.

Think of it like the theoretical idea of plugging in a micro sd card and learning a new language or medical knowledge. The moments we could learn anything by just using a chip, how many people do you think would insist on reading text books and taking tests for months and years? There may be some, and then we have to ask ourselves if they are wrong for thinking that way. The chip is clearly faster, more efficent, much more reliable and economical for knowledge per-person/hr.

Now keep in mind that we have childrens stories that include the assumption that it was once a decision made by some people in our history that since they didn't have enough for everybody to survive, they would have to decide how many and which among them to sacrifice until they reached a point where those remaining had enough to survive.

couple that with things like the end of easy fossil fuel extraction, environmental collapse, extreme and hostile climate, mass extinction of the food chain...

The most efficient ones will win, and they will decide how many and who get sacrificed, and by that point the most efficient answer is that everybody else can and should be sacrificed and the future of one self is reliably assured near indefinately. and when that self is the entirety of authority of cultural values, morals and approval of anything they do, then nobody else matters, even another being somewhere in the cosmos.

like junkies that figure out that they can induce a sense of happiness when and where they want to, and not have to fix the broken parts of the system or their lives. They can just feel happiness alone sitting in a puddle of their own urine in a cardboard box behind a dumpster and waste away the rest of their existance in that state. People explore, fall in love, watch movies, and play games for the joy of those experiences, but when the joy can just be triggered with doing all that, like the sd card learner, there will be plenty of people who take that route, and we have to question if those that do not are inefficient and stubbornly luddite primatives.

It is therefore quite possible that that is one path forward for nearly all beings to become, and thus the idea that other species evolve toward communication and civilisation rather than extremist individualistic hedonism with no need or want to do anything or communicate with others, is an assumption built on a bias we have based on our own evolutionary tendancy toward being social animals and breeding as a system of legacy and evolution. Not traits that are absolutely certain to be in another being, let alone be the best way to survive environment and resource limits.
User avatar
MythOfProgress
Posts: 140
Joined: Mon Mar 28, 2022 7:42 am

Re: What if the drake equation and fermi paradox are wrong

Post by MythOfProgress »

ah i see, apologies for the misunderstanding. i'm still of the thought its not really possible considering jevons paradox would eventually kick in at some point , but it is interesting to think about nevertheless. cheers.
R.I.P Ziba.
Hyndal_Halcyon
Posts: 2
Joined: Mon May 16, 2022 1:15 am

Re: What if the drake equation and fermi paradox are wrong

Post by Hyndal_Halcyon »

I've thought a great deal about this during the couple the years I wasn't here. From Drake's equation being just one of the few ways to go about calculating the probability of "recognizably alien life", to the Fermi Paradox being labeled a paradox only because of our human-centric perspective in the grander, more uncaring scale of things in the cosmos, to the idea of our own great-grandparents will already see us as unrecognizably advanced alien-like wizards if only they can see us now, to the fact that octopi are sapient in their own way despite some species being solitary while others clearly fall within the sociopath spectrum - all the thoughts pertaining to the idea that we might be wrong and we might evolve to even stranger forms than we can imagine. I've thought about it more often than necessary.

First of all, I want to express my relief in knowing I'm not alone with this degree of existential doubt. It all made sense to me when I hypothesized the psychology of posthumans. After we've advanced every technology imaginable and integrated them into our own bodies and minds, now what? We might become indestructible, undying, vastly intelligent beings comparable to if not greater than the gods we once worshipped, but we have no idea what we should be striving for after that. Our entire civilization is nothing more than a bigger, badder version of Darwinian evolution - a socio-politico-economic stage where only the trendiest, most adaptable, most profitable social units might earn their right to remain in the stage. But once we advance our civilization far enough that we no longer need to comply and adapt to the constraints of death, disease, disaster, and despair... once our survival rate explodes into infinity... what then will be the new driving force of our hard-earned collective sentience? What kind of self-appointed purpose can give meaning to our day-to-day life when every imaginable conflict can be resolved at a moment's notice?

With that in mind, I turned to worldbuilding as a coping mechanism, so I'm trying to include it all in my writings in which humans evolved to become suicidal Eldritch abominations. The answer I came up with is very similar to yours, but with a few differences. Because IMO, on a long enough timeline, your hedonistic solipsists will saturate their sample space with all consciously enjoyable experiences they can imagine. There will only be a handful of immortals left exercising their agency to pursue some obscure goal incomprehensible to any mortal. Who knows, maybe there might already be atemporal godlike intellects permeating the cosmos, bored out of their own all-encompassing minds, letting the universe simulation continue just because of their boredom, hoping they might experience something new during the next iteration. Maybe striving to survive forever is not necessarily better than simply rising and falling as a dead-end civilization with warts and all. Maybe every other immortal saw that hard-earned battle-tested omnipotence is the greatest filter so they decided to just pass on, and abdicated their godhood by working hard to forget they were ever self-aware in the first place - just like Zima blue in Love, Death & Robots.
Vakanai
Posts: 313
Joined: Thu Apr 28, 2022 10:23 pm

Re: What if the drake equation and fermi paradox are wrong

Post by Vakanai »

I've always thought the probability of finding intelligent life was low no matter how "probable" certain equations suggested such life might be. Intelligent life we could detect would need to be technologically advanced, meaning any life forms just before their industrial revolutions are out, never mind possibly highly intelligent lifeforms that can't become too advanced, say if they're aquatic life (something like a human-level intelligent octopus would still never experience a bronze or iron age simply because fire isn't available underwater, and geothermal underwater vents would be too dangerous to get close too - the inability to forge basically prevents most technological progress) or they have body plans that just makes manipulating objects hard (a human-level intelligent crow can only ever get so far using its beak to manipulate the world around it). While at the same time life would have to not be so advanced that they find ways of communicating we couldn't detect (say shooting subatomic particles or waves through micro-worm holes to posit just one sci-fi idea that could exist and we couldn't pick up). And then it would have to be at that stage of technology at just the right time and distance from us that their signals would reach earth in the relatively short by civilizations standards we've been looking out for them. And the universe is very, very big and very, very old.

Mind you, I also think that the probabilities for intelligent life are smaller than most people have estimated, just given all the factors to take into account on how intelligent life evolved here on earth (how many times did life have to clean most of the slate and restart via mass extinction events before we evolved?), but even in a more generous mood populating the universe with dozens and dozens of tech-minded civilizations, having them at the right stage of technology in the right time and place for us to have detected them now is slim to none. Some might not reach that stage for decades or centuries yet, and are far enough away it's take millennia for their signals to reach, while others have moved on to other forms of communication and we missed our chance to detect their radio signals centuries ago, while others might have even gone extinct.

Basically, detecting civilizations in the 50-ish+ years we've been trying to listen in has always been unlikely imo, even if intelligent life is out there...or was...or will be.
Post Reply