"Tony Sivori" <TonySivori@yahoo.com> writes:

John Schilling wrote:

"Tony Sivori" <TonySivori@yahoo.com> writes:

I see the Fermi Paradox as based on an invalid assumption.

The size of the universe is such that it is inconceivable that we are the
only technological beings in existence. Yet that same immense size that
assures we are not the only ones also insures that it is improbable that
we will interact with, or even detect them.

That is a very common belief, but it ignores one critical parameter: the
immense *age* of the universe.

Not really. Timewise, it seems to me that there must be several steps in the
development of the universe before life as we know it can exist. Matter must
cool enough to condense past the subatomic particle phase. Stellar cycles
(star birth and novas) must happen before carbon can exist to develop into
molecules complex enough the reproduce. Even after life happens,
intelligence (especially technology bearing intelligence) probably does not
always evolve.

I submit that "technology-bearing intelligence probably does not always
evolve" is a gross understatement.  

As for the rest, there are Sunlike stars about which Earthlike planets
could have developed and evolved life, that are billions of years older
than Sol.  So, even accounting for the things that perhaps must happen
before technological life evolves, the claim that technological life is
not vanishingly rare implies the existence of technological life that
has had a billion-year head start on us.

I do not think you fully appreciate what that means.

Which insures that even the most lackadaisical technological beings will
get around to finishing their galactic colonization or megascale

You're talking "galaxy" and I'm talking "universe". Compared to the rest of
the universe, our Galaxy is very tiny.

engineering projects in a cosmic eyeblink.  They've had ten billion years
to stop by for a visit, to build structures we can see from halfway
across the galaxy, or whatever.  And yet, nothing.

Ah, you assume a lot. That kind of engineering may be impossible. It may be
that no one exceeds the speed of light, ever. It may be that no one makes
materials that work on that scale, ever. It may be that no one ever makes
significant interstellar (never mind intergalactic!) travel commonplace.
Whatever we, or any intelligent race accomplishes in the future, there will
always be failed dreams.

There will also always be fulfilled dreams.  Again, I do not think you
understand what a billion years means.  

A billion years is long enough for a technological civilization to grow,
fail to make significant interstellar travel commonplace, fall, rebuild
a new and different technological civilization, repeat a hundred times
until it becomes clear that some quirk of the species its civilizations
can never make significant interstellar travel commonplace, fall once
so completely the species goes the way of the dinosaurs, have an entirely
new intelligent species evolve from the rats or cockroaches left by the
first, have *that* species build a technological civilization, fail to
make significant interstellar travel commonplace, fall, rebuild a new
and different technological civilizatios, repeat until it becomes clear
that *this* species cannot build a civilization that will make interstellar
travel commonplace, go extinct, repeat the extinction/evolution cycle
half a dozen times, until the fiftieth civilization established by the
sixth intelligent species to inhabit that world finally gets around
to launching a starship.

And still have most of a billion years to spare.

As for "make interstellar travel commonplace", the bar on that is set
pretty low, and certainly does not require FTL drive.  Assume that the
fastest starships ever are generation ships or sleeper ships coasting
across the void at a pitiful 0.001c, with a maximum range of a dozen
light-years.  Assume they are so expensive that even the most active
of a hundred civilizations founded by each of a dozen races will only
build up a burst of enthusiasm sufficient to finance a launch once
every thousand years.  Assume that only one ship in ten manages to
plant a successful daughter colony, and that new colonies take ten
thousand years to grow to the point where they can build starships
of their own.

That absurdly pessimistic definition of "commonplace interstellar
travel", still has the entire galaxy filled with colonies from the
original world in a few hundred million years.  At that point, they
either figure out how to go intergalactic, or redirect their efforts
into building rather than finding new worlds.


The Solar System does not appear to host alien colonies, so there are
probably no technological aliens in our galaxy, nor technological
aliens of intergalactic capabity anywhere within a billion light-years
or so.  And there do not appear to be any Dysonized galaxies in sight
either, so there are probably no technological aliens who ran up against
a wall at the rim of their galaxy anywhere within a billion light-years
either.

Nor do I have much faith in the human race; I would give humanity no better
than 50 / 50 odds that we will be around in another 100,000 years. Even if
we learn to live together peacefully and tolerate our differences, our
technology may be our undoing.

That may be the usual pattern for technologically advanced intelligence: a
few thousand years of glory followed by self-inflicted extinction.

As mentioned above, that's a *good* thing for the colonization argument.
Either the glory extends to launching the starships, or it clears the
way for the evolution of a whole new species that will have another shot
at getting it right.  And the gigayear timescales are such that evolving
whole new intelligent species as needed, does not seriously slow down the
program.


-- 
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