Solutions to the Fermi Paradox

[Alien826]

Come with me on a flight of fancy. What follows is pure speculation, but to the best of my knowledge does not require impossible things like warp drives.

Millions of years ago, a race of intelligent creatures developed somewhere in the universe. Either by nature or their own development they managed to get along with each other and thrived on their own planet. Then something happened that caused them to branch out into space. Maybe they detected some incipient catastrophe or maybe it was simple curiosity.

Given the limits of physics that have already been set out here, they decided to develop multi-generation spaceships. Gigantic spaceships that were totally self sufficient and contained a (relatively) large number of "people". They managed to build and send off a fair number of these and the inevitable glitches didn't destroy all of them.

Their nature enabled them to live together in these conditions without killing each other and they all agreed to limit the population, limit personal consumption and other necessary features of life in such an environment.

They didn't need to travel at very high speeds as they understood, and accepted, that their journeys would take very long stretches of time no matter what speed was involved. Over time they became totally adapted to life in their spaceships and even when some livable planets were discovered, they had no wish to live on a planet again. Over time they built more ships so their population could expand, and also to allow more exploration. Eventually huge areas of the galaxy contained at least some of these travelers.

Occasionally they would come across a planet like Earth that was populated by intelligent beings that they could potentially reveal themselves to. After much deliberation they decided that the risk of doing so was too great and they would simply observe for a while and move on. Their "observation drones" were occasionally seen by people on the planets and referred to as "UFOs".

 

[Mock Turtle]

All the speculation about life on other planets, and the total lack of hard evidence, suggests that this is a type of Atheist religion; faith, based on dice. Their mythology replaces the gods with tech giants but the rest will follow the same archetypes; human brain firmware.

The paradox is that conventional religions have science on its side, since they assume just life on earth, which has not been falsified with any alien life evidence. We may need to defund this Atheist religious practice in science, due to separation of church and state. Government cannot promote any religion, with tax payer money. Faith is the belief in things not seen, which is all the unseen evidence that this science religion, says is its holy grail.

What is promising is this faith based science is allowing science to use new parts of the brain for science. That is useful since we can learn from internal faith processing. It stretches the philosophy of science into the unknown.

The total lack of hard evidence? Like even a few decades ago we weren't even sure about the number of planets likely to exist around the average star. And our observations are still in the toddler stage, so 'hard evidence' will likely take some time - but better than anything coming from religions, where such is often a BOOK!

 

[Heyo]

We may need to defund this Atheist religious practice in science, due to separation of church and state. Government cannot promote any religion, with tax payer money.

No need to, SETI is not government funded - at least not actively. They are a non-profit research institute funded by donations. (Which are tax exempt, so it is indirectly government funded, but so are churches.)

 

[Heyo]

Their "observation drones" were occasionally seen by people on the planets and referred to as "UFOs".

... but their gigantic generation ships were not seen at all.

Other than that, a relatively plausible story. Maybe a science fiction story and those slow travellers are our great grandchildren. (If we don't kill ourselves or bomb us back into the stone age.)

 

[Heyo]

Machines have landed on exactly one other body: Mars.

... and Mercury, and Venus, and Titan, and ...
List of landings on extraterrestrial bodies - Wikipedia

 

[Subduction Zone]

Come with me on a flight of fancy. What follows is pure speculation, but to the best of my knowledge does not require impossible things like warp drives.

Millions of years ago, a race of intelligent creatures developed somewhere in the universe. Either by nature or their own development they managed to get along with each other and thrived on their own planet. Then something happened that caused them to branch out into space. Maybe they detected some incipient catastrophe or maybe it was simple curiosity.

Given the limits of physics that have already been set out here, they decided to develop multi-generation spaceships. Gigantic spaceships that were totally self sufficient and contained a (relatively) large number of "people". They managed to build and send off a fair number of these and the inevitable glitches didn't destroy all of them.

Their nature enabled them to live together in these conditions without killing each other and they all agreed to limit the population, limit personal consumption and other necessary features of life in such an environment.

They didn't need to travel at very high speeds as they understood, and accepted, that their journeys would take very long stretches of time no matter what speed was involved. Over time they became totally adapted to life in their spaceships and even when some livable planets were discovered, they had no wish to live on a planet again. Over time they built more ships so their population could expand, and also to allow more exploration. Eventually huge areas of the galaxy contained at least some of these travelers.

Occasionally they would come across a planet like Earth that was populated by intelligent beings that they could potentially reveal themselves to. After much deliberation they decided that the risk of doing so was too great and they would simply observe for a while and move on. Their "observation drones" were occasionally seen by people on the planets and referred to as "UFOs".

In other words they are very similar to a modern cruise ship.

 

[metis]

The chances of alien life visiting us is close to 0, imo. The problem is not that I believe such life doesn't exist but is the vast distances that would be involved even traveling at the speed of light.

 

[Alien826]

... but their gigantic generation ships were not seen at all.

Other than that, a relatively plausible story. Maybe a science fiction story and those slow travellers are our great grandchildren. (If we don't kill ourselves or bomb us back into the stone age.)

You think they haven't thought of that? They park the mother ship way way out past the orbit of Neptune, and send small scout ships nearer to Earth, and these launch the drones.

 

[Alien826]

In other words they are very similar to a modern cruise ship.

Apart from the ports and shore excursions. And they don't need to pick up supplies. And they don't get bored after a few days.

 

[Heyo]

Apart from the ports and shore excursions. And they don't need to pick up supplies. And they don't get bored after a few days.

They do need supplies, at least if they want to reproduce, i.e. build new ships. But the best sources for those supplies are comets, asteroids and small moons. No need to visit planets where it's expensive to extract supplies from the bottom of a gravity well.

 

[exchemist]

The chances of alien life visiting us is close to 0, imo. The problem is not that I believe such life doesn't exist but is the vast distances that would be involved even traveling at the speed of light.

Yes, cf. post 3: "In space travel, the numbers are awful". (Douglas Adams.)

 

[Alien826]

They do need supplies, at least if they want to reproduce, i.e. build new ships. But the best sources for those supplies are comets, asteroids and small moons. No need to visit planets where it's expensive to extract supplies from the bottom of a gravity well.

Yes. They don't need anything that can be recycled. Obviously if they want to build a new ship they will need structural materials, also for repairs, though they would carry enough for that to keep them going for a long time.

Communications would be a problem as they are so spread out. I would have them meet up somewhere every few thousand years to get updates.

 

[TagliatelliMonster]

All the speculation about life on other planets, and the total lack of hard evidence, suggests that this is a type of Atheist religion; faith, based on dice.

It isn't. And certainly not an "atheist" thing.
Educated theists ("educated" = some working knowledge of physics, chemistry, biology, the vastness of space, planetary formation, etc) also understand that it is highly plausible that life "out there" exists.

 

[TagliatelliMonster]

... and Mercury, and Venus, and Titan, and ...
List of landings on extraterrestrial bodies - Wikipedia

Yeah okay. I was more thinking about machines that land and then drive / move around and actively investigated the surface and surroundings for a reasonable amount of time afterwards - giving it at least a proper chance to discover life if it were to exist there.

 

[TagliatelliMonster]

Come with me on a flight of fancy. What follows is pure speculation, but to the best of my knowledge does not require impossible things like warp drives.

Millions of years ago, a race of intelligent creatures developed somewhere in the universe. Either by nature or their own development they managed to get along with each other and thrived on their own planet. Then something happened that caused them to branch out into space. Maybe they detected some incipient catastrophe or maybe it was simple curiosity.

Given the limits of physics that have already been set out here, they decided to develop multi-generation spaceships. Gigantic spaceships that were totally self sufficient and contained a (relatively) large number of "people". They managed to build and send off a fair number of these and the inevitable glitches didn't destroy all of them.

Their nature enabled them to live together in these conditions without killing each other and they all agreed to limit the population, limit personal consumption and other necessary features of life in such an environment.

They didn't need to travel at very high speeds as they understood, and accepted, that their journeys would take very long stretches of time no matter what speed was involved. Over time they became totally adapted to life in their spaceships and even when some livable planets were discovered, they had no wish to live on a planet again. Over time they built more ships so their population could expand, and also to allow more exploration. Eventually huge areas of the galaxy contained at least some of these travelers.

Occasionally they would come across a planet like Earth that was populated by intelligent beings that they could potentially reveal themselves to. After much deliberation they decided that the risk of doing so was too great and they would simply observe for a while and move on. Their "observation drones" were occasionally seen by people on the planets and referred to as "UFOs".

Reminds me of something Michio Kaku once said about how an advanced civilization might explore the universe in the most efficient way.
And it is through a self-replicating drone ship.

You create just one of them and send it to a rocky planet.
It lands and there it "settles" a base.

On board, it has a myriad of other drones, each with their own roles.
Some are meant to simply explore the planet they are on. These collect data and send it back to the base and the original home.
Through this data, the "mining" drones know where to go.
"Building" drones set up a new "drone making factory", where they build replica's of the "mother ship" (thus including all the exploring, mining and building drones).

Those new "mother ships" are then send to even more rocky planets, where they will do the same thing.

One drone-ship becomes a dozen more.
On those planet, each of them becomes a dozen more.
Etc.

So you make one ship, which exponentially turns into many many many more drones exploring the galaxy.
And this process would continue even loooong after the original civilization that made them has gone extinct.

Pretty "soon" (galactically speaking), there would be billions upon billions of drones, multiplying accross the galaxy.

It's a nice thought experiment.

 

[Alien826]

Reminds me of something Michio Kaku once said about how an advanced civilization might explore the universe in the most efficient way.
And it is through a self-replicating drone ship.

You create just one of them and send it to a rocky planet.
It lands and there it "settles" a base.

On board, it has a myriad of other drones, each with their own roles.
Some are meant to simply explore the planet they are on. These collect data and send it back to the base and the original home.
Through this data, the "mining" drones know where to go.
"Building" drones set up a new "drone making factory", where they build replica's of the "mother ship" (thus including all the exploring, mining and building drones).

Those new "mother ships" are then send to even more rocky planets, where they will do the same thing.

One drone-ship becomes a dozen more.
On those planet, each of them becomes a dozen more.
Etc.

So you make one ship, which exponentially turns into many many many more drones exploring the galaxy.
And this process would continue even loooong after the original civilization that made them has gone extinct.

Pretty "soon" (galactically speaking), there would be billions upon billions of drones, multiplying accross the galaxy.

It's a nice thought experiment.

Yes, that's doing it without living travelers. The problem might be the time involved in getting the data (if the objective is exploration) or materials back to the home planet. It would work well for one solar system, or maybe a few that are close. In my scenario, living beings are actually colonizing the galaxy, albeit slowly.

Did you read Niven's Ringworld?