Why the Fermi Paradox is BS (It's about aliens)
The Fermi Paradox asks why there is a contradiction between the high probability estimates for extraterrestrial life and the lack of evidence for such life.
Some qualifications. One, I like alien stories. I'll probably write an alien story at some point. Two, the physicists that came up with this were in a casual conversation where they were just discussing crazy stuff. We all do it. Then, it became this thing.
It's fun to think about too. There are a bunch of theories to explain this contradiction. Exploring the alien motif is as old as humans. It's the archetypal story of the stranger. It used to be that the stranger could come from across the ocean. We know what's over there now so the stranger has to come from farther away for the archetype to work in the story.
But, outside of this context it's complete BS. Here's one simple answer as to why. The probability equations are BS. Here's another one, we haven't explored very far. Here's another one, we haven't explored very long. And another, humans haven't even been around that long. All of these issues are rather obvious.
The Fermi Paradox is based on the Drake Equation. It's complete bollocks. To be fair, Drake just wanted to make it to stir up conversation. The equation just multiplies all of these things together.
You're just throwing out numbers and moving them around for fun here, which is fair, but it's nothing to be taken seriously.
Here are some silly analogies. There are a lot of squirrels. One's probably born blue somewhere. There are so many the odds are in our favor. Maybe we just haven't searched far enough yet. Maybe the squirrels keep the blue squirrels a secret. People have reported blue squirrels, they're probably sane, so they must just live among us in secret. Those elusive squirreliens.
That one is a bit ridiculous. Let's do a more serious one. The ocean is so big. There must be human-like intelligent life in the ocean. There have been sightings and reports of mermaids for centuries. It's obviously a coverup. They probably live among us. Beware the oceaniens that walk among us.
One more. The earth is so big and unexplored. There are probably intelligent beings living inside the earth. Since intelligent life developed on the surface of the earth I can figure out what the odds are that intelligent life would develop under the surface. My equation says the odds are high. Why haven't we found these earthiens yet?
Let's see if we can make a Jeff's Fermi Paradox Solution Equation. I'll write it out because I like words. Someone else can just fill in the symbolic logic if they want to make it look cool for me.
One incident of intelligent life divided by the number of explored planets equals the intelligent life incident number. The intelligent life incident number does not lead to: intelligent incident life number times the number of estimated planets in the universe equaling the expected intelligent life incident number in the rest of the universe.
There we have it, Jeff's Fermi Solution.
Some qualifications. One, I like alien stories. I'll probably write an alien story at some point. Two, the physicists that came up with this were in a casual conversation where they were just discussing crazy stuff. We all do it. Then, it became this thing.
It's fun to think about too. There are a bunch of theories to explain this contradiction. Exploring the alien motif is as old as humans. It's the archetypal story of the stranger. It used to be that the stranger could come from across the ocean. We know what's over there now so the stranger has to come from farther away for the archetype to work in the story.
But, outside of this context it's complete BS. Here's one simple answer as to why. The probability equations are BS. Here's another one, we haven't explored very far. Here's another one, we haven't explored very long. And another, humans haven't even been around that long. All of these issues are rather obvious.
The Fermi Paradox is based on the Drake Equation. It's complete bollocks. To be fair, Drake just wanted to make it to stir up conversation. The equation just multiplies all of these things together.
- - - - - - -
R∗ = the average rate of star formation in our galaxy
fp = the fraction of those stars that have planets
ne = the average number of planets that can potentially support life per star that has planets
fl = the fraction of planets that could support life that actually develop life at some point
fi = the fraction of planets with life that actually go on to develop intelligent life (civilizations)
fc = the fraction of civilizations that develop a technology that releases detectable signs of their existence into space
L = the length of time for which such civilizations release detectable signals into space
- - - - - - -
R∗ = the average rate of star formation in our galaxy
fp = the fraction of those stars that have planets
ne = the average number of planets that can potentially support life per star that has planets
fl = the fraction of planets that could support life that actually develop life at some point
fi = the fraction of planets with life that actually go on to develop intelligent life (civilizations)
fc = the fraction of civilizations that develop a technology that releases detectable signs of their existence into space
L = the length of time for which such civilizations release detectable signals into space
- - - - - - -
You're just throwing out numbers and moving them around for fun here, which is fair, but it's nothing to be taken seriously.
Here are some silly analogies. There are a lot of squirrels. One's probably born blue somewhere. There are so many the odds are in our favor. Maybe we just haven't searched far enough yet. Maybe the squirrels keep the blue squirrels a secret. People have reported blue squirrels, they're probably sane, so they must just live among us in secret. Those elusive squirreliens.
That one is a bit ridiculous. Let's do a more serious one. The ocean is so big. There must be human-like intelligent life in the ocean. There have been sightings and reports of mermaids for centuries. It's obviously a coverup. They probably live among us. Beware the oceaniens that walk among us.
One more. The earth is so big and unexplored. There are probably intelligent beings living inside the earth. Since intelligent life developed on the surface of the earth I can figure out what the odds are that intelligent life would develop under the surface. My equation says the odds are high. Why haven't we found these earthiens yet?
Let's see if we can make a Jeff's Fermi Paradox Solution Equation. I'll write it out because I like words. Someone else can just fill in the symbolic logic if they want to make it look cool for me.
One incident of intelligent life divided by the number of explored planets equals the intelligent life incident number. The intelligent life incident number does not lead to: intelligent incident life number times the number of estimated planets in the universe equaling the expected intelligent life incident number in the rest of the universe.
There we have it, Jeff's Fermi Solution.
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You can find more of what I'm doing at http://www.JeffreyAlexanderMartin.com
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