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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: 5, Interesting) by quacking duck on Tuesday July 18 2017, @04:05PM (1 child)
That recalls what was for me one of the most profound exchanges I've heard in sci-fi, that closed a first season episode of Babylon 5. After years of Star Trek where humans and the Federation were top dogs and fantastical things were explained away by the end of an episode, this sent chills up my spine and I got goosebumps.
Catherine Sakai: While I was out there, I saw something. What was it?
G'Kar: [pointing to a nearby flower] What is this? [upon closer inspection, an insect is visible]
Catherine: An ant.
G'Kar: "Ant"!
Catherine: So much gets shipped up from Earth on commercial transports, it's hard to keep them out.
[As Catherine is talking, G'Kar carefully picks up the ant.]
G'Kar: I have just picked it up on the tip of my glove. If I put it down again [replacing the ant on the flower] and it asks another ant, "What was that?" …how would it explain? There are things in the universe billions of years older than either of our races. They are vast, timeless. And if they are aware of us at all, it is as little more than ants…and we have as much chance of communicating with them as an ant has with us. We know. We've tried. And we've learned we can either stay out from underfoot, or be stepped on.
Catherine: That's it? That's all you know?
G'Kar: Yes. They are a mystery. And I am both terrified and reassured to know that there are still wonders in the universe…that we have not yet explained everything. Whatever they are, Ms. Sakai, they walk near Sigma 957. And they must walk there... alone.
(Score: 2) by el_oscuro on Wednesday July 19 2017, @12:34AM
Then there is that bit in MiB where our entire galaxy is actually inside one of the marbles that an alien child is playing with.
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