Looks like a bullshit paper. This big question mark is: assuming life evolves on a suitable planet, what are the odds that something like an intelligent technological species would ever evolve? We only have one example: us. You can't extrapolate from that, so they just made up numbers.
This paper doesn't account the possibility of a civilization to spread itself and to fill eventually the whole galaxy. But in such case it's practically impossible for such civilization to extinct. Since we see no intelligent signatures everywhere, it's certain that no such civilization was formed in our galaxy.
What continues to vex me is the tedious inevitability with which hypothetical extraterrestrial civilisations are assessed through the narrow prism of human failings – namely, self-destruction and aggression. Intelligence, a term we are so fond of bandying about, encompasses a spectrum of attributes, yet it is fundamentally anchored in two core tenets: logic and reason. An entity truly in possession of such faculties would, by necessity, also cultivate the ability to prevent its own annihilation – or the obliteration of others – in the face of tension or conflict. This, naturally, is a lesson the species inhabiting this planet has yet to comprehend, let alone apply.
It is hardly inconceivable that another world might offer an abundance of energy and materials so vast that the primitive notion of competition becomes irrelevant – an absence that would, I imagine, deeply offend the instincts of Earth’s more belligerent inhabitants.
Unless humanity is prepared to extricate itself from its parochial assumptions and entertain the possibility of wildly divergent modes of existence, it is unlikely we shall ever encounter a species with whom a meaningful exchange is even possible. Worse still – though entirely within the realm of plausibility – we may one day confront a civilisation whose moral and ethical framework is so colossally alien to our own that the mere act of contact would not enlighten, but unsettle, fracture and shatter.
I read a paper a long while back that used purely numerical arguments to first show a common rate in the growth of complexity across biological and non-biological systems under similar conditions. It then plotted this exponential growth backwards in time, showing that life's origins were prior to the formation of earth by about 1.5 billion years. No guesswork, it was quite solid; the same math applied to human technology traces back to roughly its known start on earth. It was convincing that life is prolific in the universe but intellgent life took about 6-9 billion years to go from single cell to us.
"Can advanced beings evolve beyond the need for civilization?"
Future Star Trek episode:
The crew arrives at what appears to be a completely lifeless planet, and sees the empty buildings of a futuristic city...
Crew member: "These warlike people must have annihilated themselves... nuclear war with advanced energy devices that penetrate buildings with high energy radiation, that leave the buildings but destroy all life..."
Beings in light bodies (who suddenly appear out of nowhere!): "No, it's totally cool -- all of us are still alive! We simply evolved beyond the need for civilization!"
Dumbfounded crew member (whose sociologic theory about civilizational collapse is now proven utterly and completely wrong!): "Oh..."
~5% matter and energy. The stuff you and I, dollhouses, dogs, and sugarcubes are made up of. Of that about 99.9% of it is very hot stars.
~20% dark matter. This is currently under investigation, but really all we know about it is that it is incredibly sparse and falls down.
~75% dark energy. We know nearly nothing about it except that it falls up (?!)
Point is, if there are other civilizations out there, and they have been existing for even a few thousand years longer than our has, a cosmic eyeblink, they are probably not just using matter and energy anymore. Heck, their understanding of physics is so much more than ours, even comparing us to Plato and them to Devoret is an insult.
I figure the odds are there is other life out there but it's really hard to go visit or communicate. In sci fi you engage warp drive and zap there but real world spacecraft may take centuries.
The aliens are probably out there wasting time on social media and saying stuff like We wanted flying cars, instead we got 140 characters.
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[ 3.1 ms ] story [ 27.5 ms ] threadRadio waves take time to travel; there could be many civilisations out there whose signals haven't had time to reach us.
If that's the case, we're just the first intelligent civilisation to evolve in our immediate vicinity.
It is hardly inconceivable that another world might offer an abundance of energy and materials so vast that the primitive notion of competition becomes irrelevant – an absence that would, I imagine, deeply offend the instincts of Earth’s more belligerent inhabitants.
Unless humanity is prepared to extricate itself from its parochial assumptions and entertain the possibility of wildly divergent modes of existence, it is unlikely we shall ever encounter a species with whom a meaningful exchange is even possible. Worse still – though entirely within the realm of plausibility – we may one day confront a civilisation whose moral and ethical framework is so colossally alien to our own that the mere act of contact would not enlighten, but unsettle, fracture and shatter.
"Can advanced beings evolve beyond the need for civilization?"
Future Star Trek episode:
The crew arrives at what appears to be a completely lifeless planet, and sees the empty buildings of a futuristic city...
Crew member: "These warlike people must have annihilated themselves... nuclear war with advanced energy devices that penetrate buildings with high energy radiation, that leave the buildings but destroy all life..."
Beings in light bodies (who suddenly appear out of nowhere!): "No, it's totally cool -- all of us are still alive! We simply evolved beyond the need for civilization!"
Dumbfounded crew member (whose sociologic theory about civilizational collapse is now proven utterly and completely wrong!): "Oh..."
:-)
No reason to spend money on searching "aliens"
just look near Cuba.
~5% matter and energy. The stuff you and I, dollhouses, dogs, and sugarcubes are made up of. Of that about 99.9% of it is very hot stars.
~20% dark matter. This is currently under investigation, but really all we know about it is that it is incredibly sparse and falls down.
~75% dark energy. We know nearly nothing about it except that it falls up (?!)
Point is, if there are other civilizations out there, and they have been existing for even a few thousand years longer than our has, a cosmic eyeblink, they are probably not just using matter and energy anymore. Heck, their understanding of physics is so much more than ours, even comparing us to Plato and them to Devoret is an insult.
The aliens are probably out there wasting time on social media and saying stuff like We wanted flying cars, instead we got 140 characters.