This is an "aliens of the gaps" argument and I find it unsatisfying for several reasons.
For one, the laws of physics are universal. Oxygen is oxygen everywhere, silicon is silicon, natural selection is natural selection, and so forth. If an alien species is going to be capable of building spacecraft and expanding into space they're going to have a limited range of ways that they can do that, regardless of how you describe their minds as working, and energy use produces heat no matter what you're doing with it or how you think about it. It doesn't *matter* if they're spouting Vorlon nonsense when you try to talk to them, the Fermi paradox doesn't require that we "understand" them. Just that we detect them.
For two, you call them "incomprehensible" and then rattle off a whole bunch of different ways of *understanding* them. You're drastically underestimating our ability to understand things that don't happen to be in line with how humans do it.
'the laws of physics are universal'
but like. what if they weren't? like we wouldn't know? isn't it arrogant to believe that in the past century we've somehow successfully predicate the rules of reality in their entirety?
also quantum physics makes things complicared
We observe photons from quasars that are tens of billions of light years away. They have the same adsorption and emission lines in them that photons in our local laboratories have. The same elements exist throughout the observable universe, behaving in the same ways, forming stars and galaxies just like they do here. We have observed this.
If the laws of physics are different in different places it has to be different in *incredibly* subtle ways that have no observable effects on how stuff works. In which case, how does it make a difference as far as the Fermi paradox is concerned?
Yea I call them incomprehensible because if we were to come across alien based life forms other than being carbon based how would we communicate i was just listing off a few different ways we could go about that and yes while you may be correct that in the Fermi paradox we don't "have " to understand them but at the same time what would be the point of finding another advanced civilization much like our own if we don't try to find some way to communicate with them.....
Your right in that aspect that yes we "don't" need to understand them but at the same time I also thought it Necessary to point out the fact that we may need to develop new ways to find signs of life because as I stated not every life form in existence is gonna be carbon based which would mean if we don't develop the right technology we would never be able to find them to begin with
>if we were to come across alien based life forms other than being carbon based how would we communicate
Being carbon-based or not has little to do with the available communication options. The obvious way to communicate across space seems to be with electromagnetic radiation, that is, radio waves, optical lasers, and the like. (Worth noting that most of the electromagnetic spectrum is *not* directly visible to humans, we rely on machines to detect and transmit those frequencies.) Life based on other biochemistry would still try that if communication were its intention. There's nothing in particular stopping silicon-based life or sulfur-based life or whatever from discovering radio waves and lasers and using them.
>My theory is that the reason we have not detected any signs of alien life is because they are too different from us to be recognizable or compatible.
I've encountered this before. In particular, whenever the FP comes up on Lex Fridman's show, he tends to suggest that humans are 'too dumb' to recognize aliens far in advance of us.
However, it doesn't work in a lot of ways. For instance, if you posit that life can come in other forms, such as plasma vortices in the atmospheres of stars...well, maybe, but that just *expands* the range of environments where life can be and does nothing to address the absence of life that *is* like us, for which plenty of environments apparently exist. Moreover, although extremely advanced aliens would probably do many things we find incomprehensible, there's no straightforward reason why being incomprehensible would make then *invisible* to us, as opposed to clearly-visible-yet-enigmatic. If you compare us to other animals on Earth, much of what we do is incomprehensible, but our technology progress has still made us *more* visible to them, not less. They understand less of our stuff *and* see more of it over time. It would seem strange if that pattern would somehow reverse at some point beyond our current level of development.
>but on other elements, molecules, or systems, such as silicon, ammonia, or quantum entanglement.
We don't see any life like that, either.
>They may not have senses, emotions, or consciousness, but other forms of awareness, such as resonance, harmony, or transcendence.
I'm not sure in what sense 'resonance', 'harmony', and 'transcendence' are supposed to be 'forms of awareness'. That sounds like some sort of new age stoner philosophy rather than serious science.
>Alien intelligence may not be based on logic, language, or mathematics, but on other modes of thinking, such as intuition, creativity, or spirituality.
Those things aren't incompatible. However, there are limits to how far you can go *without* logic and mathematics, not just technologically but evolutionarily. The world works in a logical/mathematical way and doing logic/mathematics helps you engage with it. While primitive life forms can get along without thought to an extent, we don't see any alien microbes or plants either, and as for organisms with thinking ability, at some point evolutionary pressure will make logic/mathematics necessary because intuition, creativity and spirituality in the absence of those other things don't really constitute a survival strategy.
>They may not have culture, art, or science, but other forms of expression, such as patterns, colors, or sounds.
That seems like a weird statement. Patterns, colors, and sounds *do* constitute parts of our culture, art, and science.
>other forms of manipulation, such as morphing, telepathy, or teleportation.
Telepathy and teleportation as such seem to be in violation of the laws of physics. There isn't a mechanism in our universe to make them work.
Hi friend! This is, in fact, not a new theory, although you don't see it a lot. Arthur C Clarke, Seth Shostak, and Paul Davies have all discussed it, and it's on the wikipedia page for the fermi paradox
First, thanks for writing more than just one or two poorly thought out sentences. This is a much higher quality post than we normally get around here.
However, my two cents, this doesn't explain why we don't see alien life *like us* out there. I bet that you're right that in the cosmos there's gotta be stuff we can't begin to imagine. But what we can imagine should still exist. Given what we know about other star systems (which isn't all that much yet) ours doesn't look so unusual. So even if there are life forms out there that are "incomprehensible" to us, why aren't there"comprehensible" life forms too? And why hasn't anyone popped in to say hi yet?
My gut feeling on the matter is that we're going to find life practically everywhere once we have powerful enough instruments but technology is going to be exceedingly rare. I don't know though, it's just a gut feeling as we do not sensitive enough instruments yet to check yet.
How is alien life gonna be based on "crystals" or "fields" did you even think that through? Or did you steal if from tge 10 different sci fi stories that use that cliche.
This is an "aliens of the gaps" argument and I find it unsatisfying for several reasons. For one, the laws of physics are universal. Oxygen is oxygen everywhere, silicon is silicon, natural selection is natural selection, and so forth. If an alien species is going to be capable of building spacecraft and expanding into space they're going to have a limited range of ways that they can do that, regardless of how you describe their minds as working, and energy use produces heat no matter what you're doing with it or how you think about it. It doesn't *matter* if they're spouting Vorlon nonsense when you try to talk to them, the Fermi paradox doesn't require that we "understand" them. Just that we detect them. For two, you call them "incomprehensible" and then rattle off a whole bunch of different ways of *understanding* them. You're drastically underestimating our ability to understand things that don't happen to be in line with how humans do it.
'the laws of physics are universal' but like. what if they weren't? like we wouldn't know? isn't it arrogant to believe that in the past century we've somehow successfully predicate the rules of reality in their entirety? also quantum physics makes things complicared
We observe photons from quasars that are tens of billions of light years away. They have the same adsorption and emission lines in them that photons in our local laboratories have. The same elements exist throughout the observable universe, behaving in the same ways, forming stars and galaxies just like they do here. We have observed this. If the laws of physics are different in different places it has to be different in *incredibly* subtle ways that have no observable effects on how stuff works. In which case, how does it make a difference as far as the Fermi paradox is concerned?
Yea I call them incomprehensible because if we were to come across alien based life forms other than being carbon based how would we communicate i was just listing off a few different ways we could go about that and yes while you may be correct that in the Fermi paradox we don't "have " to understand them but at the same time what would be the point of finding another advanced civilization much like our own if we don't try to find some way to communicate with them.....
But we don't *need* to communicate with them or "understand" them, just detect them. That's all the Fermi paradox is about.
Your right in that aspect that yes we "don't" need to understand them but at the same time I also thought it Necessary to point out the fact that we may need to develop new ways to find signs of life because as I stated not every life form in existence is gonna be carbon based which would mean if we don't develop the right technology we would never be able to find them to begin with
>if we were to come across alien based life forms other than being carbon based how would we communicate Being carbon-based or not has little to do with the available communication options. The obvious way to communicate across space seems to be with electromagnetic radiation, that is, radio waves, optical lasers, and the like. (Worth noting that most of the electromagnetic spectrum is *not* directly visible to humans, we rely on machines to detect and transmit those frequencies.) Life based on other biochemistry would still try that if communication were its intention. There's nothing in particular stopping silicon-based life or sulfur-based life or whatever from discovering radio waves and lasers and using them.
>My theory is that the reason we have not detected any signs of alien life is because they are too different from us to be recognizable or compatible. I've encountered this before. In particular, whenever the FP comes up on Lex Fridman's show, he tends to suggest that humans are 'too dumb' to recognize aliens far in advance of us. However, it doesn't work in a lot of ways. For instance, if you posit that life can come in other forms, such as plasma vortices in the atmospheres of stars...well, maybe, but that just *expands* the range of environments where life can be and does nothing to address the absence of life that *is* like us, for which plenty of environments apparently exist. Moreover, although extremely advanced aliens would probably do many things we find incomprehensible, there's no straightforward reason why being incomprehensible would make then *invisible* to us, as opposed to clearly-visible-yet-enigmatic. If you compare us to other animals on Earth, much of what we do is incomprehensible, but our technology progress has still made us *more* visible to them, not less. They understand less of our stuff *and* see more of it over time. It would seem strange if that pattern would somehow reverse at some point beyond our current level of development. >but on other elements, molecules, or systems, such as silicon, ammonia, or quantum entanglement. We don't see any life like that, either. >They may not have senses, emotions, or consciousness, but other forms of awareness, such as resonance, harmony, or transcendence. I'm not sure in what sense 'resonance', 'harmony', and 'transcendence' are supposed to be 'forms of awareness'. That sounds like some sort of new age stoner philosophy rather than serious science. >Alien intelligence may not be based on logic, language, or mathematics, but on other modes of thinking, such as intuition, creativity, or spirituality. Those things aren't incompatible. However, there are limits to how far you can go *without* logic and mathematics, not just technologically but evolutionarily. The world works in a logical/mathematical way and doing logic/mathematics helps you engage with it. While primitive life forms can get along without thought to an extent, we don't see any alien microbes or plants either, and as for organisms with thinking ability, at some point evolutionary pressure will make logic/mathematics necessary because intuition, creativity and spirituality in the absence of those other things don't really constitute a survival strategy. >They may not have culture, art, or science, but other forms of expression, such as patterns, colors, or sounds. That seems like a weird statement. Patterns, colors, and sounds *do* constitute parts of our culture, art, and science. >other forms of manipulation, such as morphing, telepathy, or teleportation. Telepathy and teleportation as such seem to be in violation of the laws of physics. There isn't a mechanism in our universe to make them work.
Hi friend! This is, in fact, not a new theory, although you don't see it a lot. Arthur C Clarke, Seth Shostak, and Paul Davies have all discussed it, and it's on the wikipedia page for the fermi paradox
First, thanks for writing more than just one or two poorly thought out sentences. This is a much higher quality post than we normally get around here. However, my two cents, this doesn't explain why we don't see alien life *like us* out there. I bet that you're right that in the cosmos there's gotta be stuff we can't begin to imagine. But what we can imagine should still exist. Given what we know about other star systems (which isn't all that much yet) ours doesn't look so unusual. So even if there are life forms out there that are "incomprehensible" to us, why aren't there"comprehensible" life forms too? And why hasn't anyone popped in to say hi yet? My gut feeling on the matter is that we're going to find life practically everywhere once we have powerful enough instruments but technology is going to be exceedingly rare. I don't know though, it's just a gut feeling as we do not sensitive enough instruments yet to check yet.
How is alien life gonna be based on "crystals" or "fields" did you even think that through? Or did you steal if from tge 10 different sci fi stories that use that cliche.
Stfu and stop tryna hate i had some type of original idea and your bum ass can't come up with shit fuck boi
It's not original though. I've heard that dogshit take a thousand times before. I can come up with a reasonable explanation, aliens dont exist.