Dissolving the Fermi Paradox
2018/06/06 by Anders Sandberg, Eric Drexler, Sandberg, Anders +4 · 21 voices · 6 citations
Physics and Astronomy · Social Sciences · #Space Science and Extraterrestrial Life #Evolutionary Game Theory and Cooperation #Origins and Evolution of Life
paper · pdf · doi:10.48550/arxiv.1806.02404
Abstract
The Fermi paradox is the conflict between an expectation of a high \em ex ante probability of intelligent life elsewhere in the universe and the apparently lifeless universe we in fact observe. The expectation that the universe should be teeming with intelligent life is linked to models like the Drake equation, which suggest that even if the probability of intelligent life developing at a given site is small, the sheer multitude of possible sites should nonetheless yield a large number of potentially observable civilizations. We show that this conflict arises from the use of Drake-like equations, which implicitly assume certainty regarding highly uncertain parameters. We examine these parameters, incorporating models of chemical and genetic transitions on paths to the origin of life, and show that extant scientific knowledge corresponds to uncertainties that span multiple orders of magnitude. This makes a stark difference. When the model is recast to represent realistic distributions of uncertainty, we find a substantial \em ex ante probability of there being no other intelligent life in our observable universe, and thus that there should be little surprise when we fail to detect any signs of it. This result dissolves the Fermi paradox, and in doing so removes any need to invoke speculative mechanisms by which civilizations would inevitably fail to have observable effects upon the universe.
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Discussions
- Dissolving the Fermi Paradox [hn, 113 points, 126 comments]
- Dissolving the Fermi Paradox [hn, 50 points, 71 comments]
- Everyone should read this paper by Ord, Drexler, and Sandberg arguing that if you use prob dists instead of point estimates for Drake equation parameters there's a lot more uncertainty about what to e [bsky, 32 points, 3 comments]
- Dissolving the Fermi Paradox (2018) [lobsters, 8 points, 1 comments]
- arxiv.org/abs/1806.02404 [bsky, 4 points, 0 comments]
- I am pleased to see we might have been so back since 2018. arxiv.org/abs/1806.024... [bsky, 4 points, 1 comments]
- Dissolving the Fermi Paradox [hn, 4 points, 0 comments]
- Dissolving the Fermi Paradox (2018) [hn, 3 points, 0 comments]
- Dissolving the Fermi Paradox (2018) [hn, 3 points, 0 comments]
- What got me interested is that this seems to be a combination of uncertain estimates churned through a Monte Carlo model very reminiscent of my own Fermi paradox paper arxiv.org/abs/1806.02404 - did w [bsky, 2 points, 1 comments]
- arxiv.org/pdf/1806.02404 A less pessimistic view is that the probability estimates for the various factors are highly uncertain and skewed and they shouldn't be combined by simply multiplying [bsky, 2 points, 1 comments]
- Dissolving the Fermi Paradox [hn, 2 points, 0 comments]
- Dissolving the Fermi Paradox (2018) [hn, 2 points, 0 comments]
- i think it's probably not a paradox arxiv.org/pdf/1806.02404 [bsky, 1 points, 1 comments]
- Dissolving the Fermi Paradox [hn, 1 points, 1 comments]
- Dissolving the Fermi Paradox (2018) [hn, 1 points, 0 comments]
- Dissolving the Fermi Paradox [hn, 1 points, 0 comments]
- Dissolving the Fermi Paradox (2018) [hn, 1 points, 1 comments]
- “This result dissolves the Fermi paradox, and in doing so removes any need to invoke speculative mechanisms by which civilizations would inevitably fail to have observable effects upon the universe.” [bsky, 0 points, 0 comments]
- Update: Apparently Sandberg et al already showed the Fermi Paradox is not necessarily a thing: https://arxiv.org/abs/1806.02404 This isn't to say that discovering multicellular life wouldn't be bad ne [bsky, 0 points, 0 comments]
- arxiv.org/abs/1806.02404 [bsky, 0 points, 0 comments]
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