Aliens Likely Annihilated Themselves Through Progress
ibtimes.sg
ibtimes.sg
Its much more likely that our estimates are off or our calculations are incorrect than we can draw conclusions from these roundabout statistical inferences. Nothing I’ve read has convinced me otherwise. Its a great pop-sci discussion but I’m more interested in direct evidence rather than speculation for why no direct evidence exists.
Drake Equation fans please explain what makes these theories so compelling and I will be indebted to you.
"Our estimate for stage N in the drake equation is way too high" == "The great filter is stage N in the drake equation."
So the interpretation chart goes:
- No errors: There are tons and tons of aliens and they're prime-directive-ing us like the Federation from Star Trek.
- One error: Oh no! Great filter! (unless it's in our past)
- Many errors: Not as interesting.
As for why it's compelling at all, the original point of the Drake equation was to make you think about it, and also realize that it's very, very tough to get exactly one. Almost every set of numbers you pick results in either less than one (which we know isn't true because we exist), or more than one. So the argument is, who knows how alone we are, but we're not alone.
Of course that was 60 years ago or whatever, but you are on the same page as the guy that came up with it.
Imagine creation of intelligent life requires 36 uncorrelated parameters to line up in a planet, an each of those parameters have a 10% chance of occurring in any given planet. There would be only one such planet in the universe in all likelihood. Our loneliness in the universe doesn't seem so implausible now, does it?
Plugging in and modeling the statistics based on what we know has proven to be a very effective means of scientific discovery in other areas. It helps narrow down where one can find direct evidence.
Perhaps I remember it so vividly because it was the perfect setting: I was 3+ months into hiking the Pacific Crest Trail, North California, night hiking by myself, earphones on, the wildfire smoke started to clear up, the air was crisp and the night sky got sprinkled with countless bright stars for the first time in a while.
It is well known that the product of variables with an uniform distribution has a result that has not an uniform distribution, but some distribution that has more values closer to 0. So there is no surprise that multiplying almost 10 variables with uniform distribution you get something that almost 0 almost all the time.
But it is not realistic to use an uniform distribution. All the variables depend on a lot a subparts, so a realistic distribution must be something that looks like a log normal distribution with a peak near the current best guess https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Log-normal_distribution
> We also concluded that at the current time of the study, most intelligent life in the Galaxy is younger than 0.5 Gyr, with values of probability parameter for self-annihilation between 0-0.01; with a relatively higher value of the annihilation parameter (≥0.1), most intelligent life is younger than 0.01 Gyr.
> As we cannot assume a low probability of annihilation, it is possible that intelligent life elsewhere in the Galaxy is still too young to be observed by us. Therefore, our findings can imply that intelligent life may be common in the Galaxy but is still young, supporting the optimistic aspect for the practice of SETI.
> Additionally, we found the potential self-annihilation to be highly influential in the quantity of galactic intelligent life, suggesting another possible answer to the Fermi Paradox; if intelligent life is likely to destroy themselves, it is not surprising that there is little or no intelligent life elsewhere.
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Edit: Here is possibly the most immediately digestible result of their simulations. I cannot vouch for how reasonable their model assumptions are, but this is the table of maximum number of planets bearing intelligent life in the Milky Way according to three model parameters:
https://i.imgur.com/hpSfiqO.png
λA is the rate of abiogenesis (assuming a Poisson process) per Myr - the two chosen values are apparently minimum and maximum of literature estimates.
Tevo is the time from formation of life to it becoming intelligent.
Pann is the probability of self (!) annihilation per Myr. (They model annihilation due to nearby supernovae separately).
Their model also computes the spatial and temporal distribution of those planets, but for that you will have to read the paper.
I think you missed the contribution of the paper by condensing my summary to the closest related concept you are aware of. I too initially thought "well duh, great filter" after reading the headline/article. But then I read the paper to figure out what exactly the novel aspect was supposed to be, and the answer (more accurate spatial/temporal galactic model, exploring influence of different parameters) seems reasonably nontrivial.
Of course our knowledge hasn't made a fundamental step forward (no new data to inform our priors has been obtained), but it does provide a better understanding of our current model(s) and their parameters, as well as where to best look for obtaining more data. That's what scientific progress looks like. (Again, I cannot vouch for the results beyond "assumptions seem generally reasonable to a layman").
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Plant_cognition
Plant life makes up about 99% of the bio mass on this planet. If we can't decide whether the dominant life form on this planet is intelligent, I think that shows that whatever intelligence may exist on other planets or galaxies will probably be so strange that we could be looking right at it and not see it.
There are models that do this: Map out the room and then plan a route to efficiently clean it in future days.
After watching one of them fail to navigate to the charging dock 4 inches away for ten minutes straight, I have concluded to not attribute intelligence to this machine though.
They have a complex calculation for the formation of civilization, but I can't check it.
Then they make a model and for the calculatiosn they peak some values for the unknown parameters. They assume that self destruction rate per mega year is 0%, 50% or 99%. Unsurprisingly, after 1000 mega years most of the civilizations that appeared had collapsed.
Ignoring the 0% chance that is also unrealistic, with a 50% or 99% chance of dying, the civilizations would last at most a few mega years, so the surviving one are jut the one that appear just before the simulation ended.
The main problem is that nobody know if P_{ann} is 99% or 50% like they choose, or other number like 1% or 0.001%. In a simulation with a 0.001% most of the civilizations would have been alive at the end.
First, using all theses ads. I don’t like them so much but can understand that you want some cash back.
But the ads do appear and shift the content! And you loose the location you were reading (at least on mobile).
Thanks but no. Am not gonna finish reading this paper with this fucked up behavior.
Typo: Segan :)
Susan Blackmore. Dangerous Memes; or, What the Pandorans Let Loose
I wonder if it would be possible to simulate this in a simple system. Like in some extended version of the prisoners dilemma.
Edit: not talking about original publication, but rather the class of reasoning in the article.
While the underlying research may be interesting, this points out the value of taking two minutes to find a primary or at least better quality source.
People wake up each day and try to wipe humans off the planet, my favorite example is the: Nike missile project. Let's take hundreds of low range (non icbm) missiles point them into the air, arm with modern nuclear warheads and explode them into airplane formations. This would have turned the bay area into glass just to ensure the Russians didn't bomb us. But rest assured, these sites were spread around the country. How is it, during these design meetings someone doesn't speak up: "This isn't a great idea".
What is your basis for this claim? Are you aware that a great deal of atmospheric nuclear testing has been conducted, so the effects of nukes in the atmosphere are fairly well understood? That one of these tests was performed with men standing directly under the bomb, and they were unscathed? Also keep in mind 'modern bomb' is not synonymous with 'big bomb.'
However this summary is poorly written. Who’s this Segan guy? /s