The Fermi Paradox

 All Posts Tagged: Fermi Paradox 

The Fermi paradox remains interesting because of the thoughts and ideas that it is associated with. These ideas will continue to provoke, despite its paradox not fully persisting as much to today.

Of course as paradoxes go, they "want" to dissolve themselves . . . just as long as it is the relevant thoughts and/or discoveries that get applied.

As I personally had ever heard of it, the condition of the Fermi Paradox was never stated clearly enough, or inasmuch as it had been clearly stated, it seemed still lacking with regard to inspiring enough of a sense of mystery that it demanded to be called a paradox in the first place. This broad position has stayed the same over time for me, but the rationales and thoughts around my conception have changed and developed somewhat. 

The idea of alien interplanetary life close to Earth is proven to be deceitfully contrived, misunderstood to be true, and genuinely imagined. However the idea generally of alien interplanetary life is still quite possible (and actually probable) statistically, albeit outside of what we have observed to this day.

A Common Sense Dissection

Perhaps we can try to take a snapshot of the 1950 inspiration for the Fermi Paradox.

A common sense dissection of the paradox's context is that:

Given some idea of the . . .

• size and age of the Universe, or perhaps rather the known galaxy
• the number of habitable planets in that space
• some calculated likelihood of intelligent life evolving on these planets

. . . that we should have already found evidence of interplanetary life in the galaxy, and maybe even had encounters.

A Sentiment, A Notion

"If there are so many advanced forms of life around, where is everybody?" --Stephen Dole, 1963

If you read the Wikipedia article about a brief outburst and discussion in Los Alamos in 1950, you will see that the paradox is a little muddy to start, compared to the reputation that became probably something more than that.

The Fermi Paradox's conditions were initially loosely stated. And if it involved some specific numbers when it was conceived, then it is the case, that one, or a few of these numbers would had to have been presumed rather than scientifically derived. It is probably best seen that the concept started off as just a general notion of a calculation with these few presumed numbers, rather than a very serious scientifically detailed calculation in and of itself. Of course some of the numbers were scientifically derived.

In any case, this is OK. It was not intentionally spread around as a full fledged scientific theory.

Always Exciting

Yes, part of the magic of the paradox is that it is inspired by numbers and ideas that came from real scientific discoveries that flew in the face of former knowledge of the world and the Universe through history despite passionately opposing influences of power. This contributes to the ideas being exciting and new - even to this day. 

And because of truly legitimizing sci-fi like aliens. Seriously.

People still take positions against widely conceded, hard scientific knowledge like the age and size of the Universe, as well as the likelihood and purpose of there being any life on other planets [at all] - and well - physics at large.

This is exciting.

Transitions Through History

Earlier notions that bore a similar idea merely speculated that because there was a planetary moon - or because there were any other planets at all - then well - naturally there could be life on those planets as well. 

You can see a progression of assumptions that start very broad. Earlier on, there were no articulated stipulations on oxygen content in the atmosphere, or gravity, or length of days. It was just about planets.

In 1950, more of these stipulations were known to be factors that varied between planets. There are planets that facilitate life, and those that do not. So there's a trajectory from the past, to 1950, and that trajectory has continued since the 1950 conception of the Fermi Paradox to require more stipulations on the advent of alien interplanetary life.

The Drake equation was specified in 1961 to come closer to formalizing the discussion around the ideas of the Fermi Paradox - of the odds of alien interplanetary life, or perhaps more specifically interplanetary communication. Without any hidden mystery, it incorporates unknown coefficients.

With the Drake equation though, I think the trajectory will still hold through, and that it is already somewhat banal in consideration of today's knowledge.

Regardless of the Fermi Paradox

Even if/when the Fermi Paradox is perhaps overblown in its statement of a Paradox, its potential exaggeration is still far from constituting counter evidence for the under-girding physics. Such a dispute is merely about the nuanced differences in speculations that exist in lieu of the existing scientific data - not in contrast to it.

More and more scientific data that is pertinent to the Fermi Paradox has come out in the last seventy five years. One of the big ones is just how many potentially habitable planets there really are out there.

Of course, it is very worth noting that regardless of the Fermi Paradox

• There is most certainly a lot of single-celled life that exists other places in the galaxy
• perhaps even inside OUR solar system
• There is most certainly at least some multi-cellular life other places in the galaxy
• almost certainly NOT in our solar system
• There is most certainly at least some intelligent life other places in the galaxy
• There is most certainly life of superior intelligence (to human) other places in the galaxy

It is really just a question of quantity and distance. Are we close to aliens, or far away from aliens? It really thrills the imagination either way - even if the paradox was not as much of a paradox as imagined.