TLDR: Life’s questions, still unanswered
Ok let’s just start with this:
Trillions of planets in the known universe that could have intelligent life.
So, there must be “something” out there somewhere, right?
Well, there are also millions of mutations required to evolve from simple organisms to something “intelligent”—each with their own lottery ticket’s chance of happening—and when combined into a singular probability, the result is an infinitesimally small number that dwarfs the “trillions of planets” theory.
So are we alone, or aren’t we?
That’s the question the Fermi Paradox explores.
Well, the actual question Enrico Fermi asked was more like “where is everybody?”
Not dissimilar from Stephen Hawking’s “If time travel is possible, where are the tourists from the future?”
In Fermi’s case, he and three other scientists began debating the conflict between scale and probability above, which seem to favor intelligent life existing, but are still confronted with a complete lack of evidence for it. But if scale prevailed, intelligent life did exist, and the rest of the universe has a 9 billion year head start on us, “where is everybody?”
Option 1: The Great Filter
This is the idea that catastrophic events—either manmade or natural—have extinguished intelligent life. An impermeable barrier to longevity and space colonization. The problem is either: A) we’re not yet to The Great Filter and we are doomed, or B) we’ve already passed it, and we’re the only ones out here.
Both equally terrifying?
Option 2: Estimations & The Drake Equation
Frank Drake’s equation estimates there’s life out there—between one thousand and one hundred million civilizations, just in our galaxy alone. Other scientists think his estimations suffer overconfidence theory and with the same equation and more pessimistic variables, that the chances of life are improbable at best.
So we’re either doomed, we’re first, or life is out there we just can’t prove it. Now what?
Here are the plausible explanations to the Fermi Paradox…
Intelligent life is rare or non-existent. Drake Equation pessimists are right. Biological complexity trumps probabilities & scale. It’s just us out here.
There is life, it’s just not “intelligent.” Lots of evolution and life going on out there, but perhaps only one has ever become space-faring colonizers. We’re the only ones able and willing to look.
Periodic extinction. The Great Filter, taken further. As if what happened to the dinosaurs happens to all intelligent life at one point or another. Meteorites, climate change, gamma-ray bursts, volcanic eruptions, and so on.
Intelligent life is out there, but they don’t have the tech. Perhaps everyone is primitive relative to space and time travel. Or, like the “Water World Hypothesis,” intelligent life is linked to planets with water, and are thus mainly home to dolphin and whale-like creatures that can’t build spaceships.
Intelligent life destroys itself. This explanation explores the nature of intelligent life and the destruction it does to itself—a paradox of chasing technological progression despite the inevitable surpassing of its own intellectual horsepower, leading to mental or biological degradation of the species before it can reach another extraterrestrial.
Intelligent life destroys others. Expansionist motives of intelligent life would lead to greed, paranoia, or aggression. If this is true, and a civilization has also passed The Great Filter, then it would reason that the species beyond the technological capabilities needed to find us would also have had to overcome its own self-destructive tendencies, rendering it uninterested in us. Or, we are the first, and need to overcome this ourselves.
Alien broadcasts are sparse. Perhaps alien “radio waves” are hard to spot, rarely available to hear, or signals dissipate and leak from detectability.
Alien life is too alien. Maybe “intelligent life” is so different from human beings that its just unfathomable or impossible to comprehend. Like changing a radio station, what if you could change the frequency of your senses? For example, if your vision cannot perceive what exists and there are other worlds right before our eyes? This explanation brings to life perception barriers, as well as other thresholds we cannot yet comprehend or cross.
Colonization is an “us-thing.” Maybe other species just don’t care to colonize?
We’re in the suburbs of the universe. Maybe we’re so far away that the rest of the settlers don’t even care. They’re in the Times Square of the universe, hanging out with each other, traveling between galaxies, while the humans will just have to figure it out if they want to join the party or keep developing the rural farmland that is the Milky Way Galaxy.
Planetary life not required. Maybe other species don’t inhabit planets, perhaps they settle amongst star systems in starships, moving with the expansion of the universe.
Isolation theory. Media and entertainment gets so advanced that intelligent life lives in their own metaverse, becoming disinterested in the physical world.
Lack of resources. The cost and materials required to achieve traveling faster than the speed of light are far too great for any species.
Information transfer over physical transfer. It’s more reasonable to transfer information across vast distances, so perhaps advanced life forms are uploading their cognitive abilities rather than traveling across spacetime.
We’re simply not listening correctly or long enough. Technologies differ, and what we’re able to hear versus what we need to hear are not the same. Or, since we’ve only been “listening” since the 1930’s, perhaps we haven’t made ourselves sufficiently detectable.
Intelligent life is too far away. Just what it sounds like—no civilization is close enough to make the journey even if they’re more advanced than us.
They’re listening, but unwilling. They know we’re here, but won’t tell us. They’re either not interested or not allowed to engage with us.
Communication is dangerous. Perhaps intelligent species fear meeting each other, assuming it would be disastrous. Maybe the Fermi Paradox—or alien equivalent—is the reason itself.
Protected species. We’re like an endangered animal, and aliens are not allowed to disrupt our natural habitat. Also known as the Zoo Hypothesis.
Planetarium hypothesis. Like a simulation, it’s possible the world only appears empty of other life to us.
Aliens are already here. Whether the government knows or not, they are already here. The UFO conspiracies are real.
There are more explanations to the question “where is everybody?,” but hopefully something in here bent your mind this morning.
See you Monday.