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posted by martyb on Tuesday July 18 2017, @04:58AM   Printer-friendly
from the Pining-for-the-Fjords dept.

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.

http://www.slate.com/articles/technology/future_tense/2017/07/maybe_we_haven_t_found_alien_life_because_it_s_sleeping.html

[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 ?


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  • (Score: 1, Touché) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday July 18 2017, @05:51PM (1 child)

    by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday July 18 2017, @05:51PM (#541057)

    This explains so much about your stubborn refusal to even entertain different viewpoints. You really believe humanity has mastered the universe, and thus your own learning has convinced you that you have learned all the objectively true answers.

    This is laughable. Ha ha, I laugh at you sir, with your blind overconfidence. Just your last statement: "peculiar argument to make that an extremely intelligence species can't understand a dumber one" shows your basic level of intelligence. We still have humans trying to figure out the behavior of animals, so yes, it is entirely possible that an extremely intelligent species could have major problems understanding "dumb humans". Perhaps they have no cultural or biological context for some of our activities, or their method of communication is so different from ours that they can't just hook up their universal translator to understand our monkey noises.

    You really plumb the depths of stupid ignorance by testing the kiddie pool for an entry into the Marianna Trench.

    I've said this before, I welcome skepticism and critical analysis but self-assured faith rationale is not welcome no matter how well based in current physics.

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  • (Score: 1) by khallow on Tuesday July 18 2017, @08:08PM

    by khallow (3766) Subscriber Badge on Tuesday July 18 2017, @08:08PM (#541133) Journal
    Oh, look. A straw man.

    Let me introduce you to Isaac Asimov [tufts.edu]:

    My answer to him was, "John, when people thought the earth was flat, they were wrong. When people thought the earth was spherical, they were wrong. But if you think that thinking the earth is spherical is just as wrong as thinking the earth is flat, then your view is wronger than both of them put together."

    Our old knowledge of the universe doesn't evaporate just because we learn something new. The false certainty that we will eventually figure a way past the speed of light is based on a double error. First, that what we're learned so far will turn out as wrong as assuming that heavier than air flight is impossible (an analogy which was used in this very thread). This is equivalent to the above assertion by "John" that the Earth is flat and the Earth is round are equally wrong. Second, it ignores that we've searched extensively for faster than light phenomena in the past few decades. A few million more years of science won't reverse the science that has already been done. We have already discovered constraints on motion which don't go away just because you feel they should.

    so yes, it is entirely possible that an extremely intelligent species could have major problems understanding "dumb humans"

    Hard != impossible. Notice I said "can't" not "could have major problems".