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After decades of searching, we still haven't discovered a single sign of extraterrestrial intelligence. Probability tells us life should be out there, so why haven't we found it yet?
The problem is often referred to as Fermi's paradox, after the Nobel Prize–winning physicist Enrico Fermi, who once asked his colleagues this question at lunch. Many theories have been proposed over the years. It could be that we are simply alone in the universe or that there is some great filter that prevents intelligent life progressing beyond a certain stage. Maybe alien life is out there, but we are too primitive to communicate with it, or we are placed inside some cosmic zoo, observed but left alone to develop without external interference. Now, three researchers think they think they[sic] may have another potential answer to Fermi's question: Aliens do exist; they're just all asleep.
According to a new research paper accepted for publication in the Journal of the British Interplanetary Society, extraterrestrials are sleeping while they wait. In the paper, authors from Oxford's Future of Humanity Institute and the Astronomical Observatory of Belgrade Anders Sandberg, Stuart Armstrong, and Milan Cirkovic argue that the universe is too hot right now for advanced, digital civilizations to make the most efficient use of their resources. The solution: Sleep and wait for the universe to cool down, a process known as aestivating (like hibernation but sleeping until it's colder).
Understanding the new hypothesis first requires wrapping your head around the idea that the universe's most sophisticated life may elect to leave biology behind and live digitally. Having essentially uploaded their minds onto powerful computers, the civilizations choosing to do this could enhance their intellectual capacities or inhabit some of the harshest environments in the universe with ease.
[Related]:
The idea that life might transition toward a post-biological form of existence
Sandberg and Cirkovic elaborate in a blog post
The Dominant Life Form in the Cosmos Is Probably Superintelligent Robots
Where even 3 degrees Kelvin is not cold enough, do you think that we would ever make contact with any alien ?
(Score: 2) by unauthorized on Tuesday July 18 2017, @06:40AM (6 children)
The speed of light does not prevent you from leaving your home system, a sufficiently advanced civilization could just do it the hard way.
With out grand total of 1 samples, we have absolutely no clue what is typical of advanced civilizations. For all we know, the standard could be aquatic trees or nebula-dwelling space cows.
(Score: 2) by maxwell demon on Tuesday July 18 2017, @07:18AM (5 children)
Well, I suspect you didn't want to write "without", but your typo is actually quite apt: We don't know even a single advanced civilization. There's certainly none on Earth: We barely manage to maintain a basic level of civilization.
The Tao of math: The numbers you can count are not the real numbers.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday July 18 2017, @07:24AM
No no, don't you see? The absence of any means we can go hog wild postulating whatever we want.
Ignore us, because we're earth-bound forever. Forever. Forever. End of story. Forever. But imagine all the other possibilities!
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday July 18 2017, @07:29AM (1 child)
True there are too many people starving to death at this very moment to call the Earth civilized.
(Score: 2) by Arik on Tuesday July 18 2017, @07:32AM
FTFY.
If laughter is the best medicine, who are the best doctors?
(Score: 3, Insightful) by Arik on Tuesday July 18 2017, @07:30AM (1 child)
Many of us don't have toilets. Others spend many lifetimes worth of labor casually to incenerate people they have never met. Most often ones that barely have toilets.
It was the best of times, it was the worst of times?
If laughter is the best medicine, who are the best doctors?
(Score: 2) by c0lo on Tuesday July 18 2017, @08:50PM
Many of us don't have toilets.
AIs don't need toilets - ergo AI are not civilized.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aoFiw2jMy-0 https://soylentnews.org/~MichaelDavidCrawford