We only understand about 15% of the Universe, and we’re probably wrong about much of that. For instance, we know dark matter is pervasive throughout the Universe, and we don’t have the slightest idea of what it is.
Also, one of the leading theories of why we haven’t met other intelligent alien cultures is because there is one major ancient, highly advanced race that is so devoted to being the only race on the Universe, that every time they find any evidence of another intelligent race, they travel there and extinguish them entirely.
It is already too late to save us. We have been beaming all sorts of electronic signals into the universe in every direction for decades, and sooner or later, it will reach THEM.
Bit of a nitpick, we don’t know that the dark matter is pervasive throughout the universe. What we observe is that galaxies and galaxy clusters are held together too strongly to be explained by our current theory of gravity, and the motions of galaxies within clusters do not match the gravitational forces that are known to act on them from observed matter - The Milky Way for instance is spinning fast enough for the stars on the edges to be flung off into intergalactic space.
One solution to this contradictory observation is that there is bunch of extra mass we can’t see (dark matter) that is holding the galaxies and clusters together. Every experiment designed to detect dark matter has failed, and more serious work is going into adjusting theories of gravity as a result. However no adjusted theory has arisen that can explain every observation either, so physics is a bit lost at the moment.
I always sort of vaguely wonder if we actually are surrounded by evidence of intelligent life, we just don’t know how to interpret or even detect it. Sort of like one of those isolated Amazonian tribes surrounded by wifi signals.
I think it’s either something like that, or we haven’t found anything because the universe is just too big and there simply isn’t any way to get around it, no matter how advanced a species becomes. Like FTL travel/wormholes/whatever just isn’t possible. Which is not a fun explanation but Occam’s Razor and all that.
My son is taking an astronomy course with a highly regarded astronomer, and she believes there are many, many intelligent civilizations in our galaxy alone. They are just too far apart. A galaxy may look small in an photo with lots of galaxies, but in reality, a single galaxy is so huge as to be almost mind-boggling in itself, without even considering the wider Universe.
I’m not an astronomer, but IIRC, our electronic signals don’t make it particularly far out of the solar system until they merge with the background noise. So I guess we are safe for now.
They’ve been evolving and developing for a billion years, and eliminating entire civilizations is their religion. They long ago figured out how to filter the background noise for important electronic waves. The one that discovered it is now a highly regarded saint.
Also, one of the leading theories of why we haven’t met other intelligent alien cultures is because there is one major ancient, highly advanced race that is so devoted to being the only race on the Universe, that every time they find any evidence of another intelligent race, they travel there and extinguish them entirely.
I think it’s more likely that either life getting to the point of space travel is incredibly rare and the universe is just so vast they don’t run into each other or they destroy their planet before they get very far (like we’re doing).
It is not just vast in distance, it is also vast in time.
Imagine an advanced civilization; it rises and is space fairing for 30million years. Something (who knows what) happens and they either go extinct; or render themselves unable to travel in space/use technology.
30 million years; it seems so long from our point of view; but that 30 million years could have ended a million years ago and we would be none the wiser. Their signals faded to nothingness the machines all broken and cold. And still that is a blip on the scale of the universe.
This is the theory I like best. There have been plenty of civilizations throughout the Universe, it’s just that very few emerge at the same time, and we’ve never had another one emerge close enough for us to notice.
We only understand about 15% of the Universe, and we’re probably wrong about much of that. For instance, we know dark matter is pervasive throughout the Universe, and we don’t have the slightest idea of what it is.
Also, one of the leading theories of why we haven’t met other intelligent alien cultures is because there is one major ancient, highly advanced race that is so devoted to being the only race on the Universe, that every time they find any evidence of another intelligent race, they travel there and extinguish them entirely.
It is already too late to save us. We have been beaming all sorts of electronic signals into the universe in every direction for decades, and sooner or later, it will reach THEM.
Bit of a nitpick, we don’t know that the dark matter is pervasive throughout the universe. What we observe is that galaxies and galaxy clusters are held together too strongly to be explained by our current theory of gravity, and the motions of galaxies within clusters do not match the gravitational forces that are known to act on them from observed matter - The Milky Way for instance is spinning fast enough for the stars on the edges to be flung off into intergalactic space.
One solution to this contradictory observation is that there is bunch of extra mass we can’t see (dark matter) that is holding the galaxies and clusters together. Every experiment designed to detect dark matter has failed, and more serious work is going into adjusting theories of gravity as a result. However no adjusted theory has arisen that can explain every observation either, so physics is a bit lost at the moment.
Valid. Love the extra context. Thanks.
Another solution would be gravity being a push force instead of pull force - google " la sage edwards theory"
Isn’t gravity not a force at all according the to theory of relativity?
I always sort of vaguely wonder if we actually are surrounded by evidence of intelligent life, we just don’t know how to interpret or even detect it. Sort of like one of those isolated Amazonian tribes surrounded by wifi signals.
I think it’s either something like that, or we haven’t found anything because the universe is just too big and there simply isn’t any way to get around it, no matter how advanced a species becomes. Like FTL travel/wormholes/whatever just isn’t possible. Which is not a fun explanation but Occam’s Razor and all that.
Relevant xkcd to the first point.
https://xkcd.com/638/
My son is taking an astronomy course with a highly regarded astronomer, and she believes there are many, many intelligent civilizations in our galaxy alone. They are just too far apart. A galaxy may look small in an photo with lots of galaxies, but in reality, a single galaxy is so huge as to be almost mind-boggling in itself, without even considering the wider Universe.
I’m not an astronomer, but IIRC, our electronic signals don’t make it particularly far out of the solar system until they merge with the background noise. So I guess we are safe for now.
They’ve been evolving and developing for a billion years, and eliminating entire civilizations is their religion. They long ago figured out how to filter the background noise for important electronic waves. The one that discovered it is now a highly regarded saint.
Good thing we’ve been speedrunning killing ourselves off before they get here 🤪 TRUMP 2027
“Take me to your leader.”
“Gladly.”
What evidence is there to support this theory?
Absolutely none.
That is a variance on the dark forest theory. It has flaws just like any of the proposed solutions to the Fermi paradox.
I think it’s more likely that either life getting to the point of space travel is incredibly rare and the universe is just so vast they don’t run into each other or they destroy their planet before they get very far (like we’re doing).
It is not just vast in distance, it is also vast in time.
Imagine an advanced civilization; it rises and is space fairing for 30million years. Something (who knows what) happens and they either go extinct; or render themselves unable to travel in space/use technology.
30 million years; it seems so long from our point of view; but that 30 million years could have ended a million years ago and we would be none the wiser. Their signals faded to nothingness the machines all broken and cold. And still that is a blip on the scale of the universe.
This is the theory I like best. There have been plenty of civilizations throughout the Universe, it’s just that very few emerge at the same time, and we’ve never had another one emerge close enough for us to notice.
That theory says more about humans than anything else