Iceberg of the Fermi Paradox Explained

hello mortals in 1901 guillermo marconi sent the first wireless radio transmission over the atlantic ocean this marked a new era of across the globe radio communication which came with an interesting side effect of turning the earth into a giant radio lighthouse that continuously screams out its location into outer space yet nobody has responded to us more than that seemingly no one else has transmitted similar well-ordered radio messages from other planets either thanks to brilliant for sponsoring this video out of over 100 billion stars in the milky way each with an average of two planets orbiting them it is estimated that our galaxy harbors at least 300 million earth-like planets estimates vary from millions of inhabited planets and thousands of interstellar civilizations to none although we've been constantly broadcasting and listening for more than 100 years the universe looks lifeless thinking about this the italian american physicist enrico fermi being in a casual conversation about recent ufo reports asked the question but where is everybody thus the existential fermi paradox was born which is the conflict between the lack of clear obvious evidence for extraterrestrial life and various high estimates for their existence the possible explanations range from somewhat exciting or weird to straight up terrifying that's why we shall order them in an iceberg chart where the ones closer to the tip are more common or comforting but diving deeper the answers get more convoluted and frightening as far as we know the speed of light is the fastest speed possible in the universe for now but the universe is big very big it may be that technologically advanced alien civilizations exist out there in the galaxy but they are simply too far away from meaningful two-way radio communication if an alien civilization lives ten thousand light years away it will take twenty thousand years to exchange a reply the german astronomer sebastian von horner estimated the average lifespan of a civilization to be around 6500 years and the average distance between civilizations in the milky way to be one thousand light years given these numbers it is highly likely for one or both civilizations to go extinct before finding out about each other's existence or they could give up on their search entirely given how long it takes to establish communication at the interstellar scale [Music] but maybe radio waves are overrated humans have had radio transmission for only 1.7 percent of their civilized history perhaps alien civilizations are detectable through their radio emissions for a similarly short time after which they outgrow radio through technological advancement there could still be some leakage of microwave radiation used to transmit power from solar satellites to ground receivers but that would hardly be detectable an advanced alien species could evolve beyond broadcasting through electromagnetic waves and communicate by technologies that aren't yet discovered by humankind such as streams of neutrinos gravity waves or more likely some type of particles whose existence we are not even aware of yet perhaps our milky way is an entire galactic net of alien communication and were wearing the wrong glasses [Music] what if we give humanity less credit than it deserves what if humans are actually more intelligent than most aliens comparably speaking perhaps we're among the first to reach the technological advancement level necessary for communication the oldest discovered fossils of a human belong to an australopithecus named lucy which lived in ethiopia 2.8 million years ago homo sapiens just like you emerged in africa 300 000 years ago but they started to exhibit behavioral modernity that would differentiate them from other hominins just 160 000 years ago before that they were simple gatherers and hunters but even with the emergence of civilizations the first time humans made themselves visible to the universe was in 1898 with the first sent wireless radio signal human history is proof that it takes evolution a long long time not only to pop intelligent life into existence but also that the species needs time to come to a development level that would make it visible through space but what if aliens aren't dumb instead they're much rarer than we think the rare earth hypothesis states that the origin of life and the evolution of organisms smart enough for communication requires an improbable combination of both astrophysical and geological circumstances take a look at our planet in order for intelligent life to evolve here so that you can end up watching mem compilations at 2 am a myriad of complex and precise events had to happen our solar system is not too far inside the milky way to be bombarded by supernovae our planet formed in the sun's habitable zone we have jupiter as a giant guardian from meteoroids a large enough moon that balances the earth a magnetosphere tectonic plates oceans the right chemistry of earth and atmosphere and most importantly whatever it was that led the life to transition to multicellular life sexual reproduction the cambrian explosion and as a result human intelligence this could mean that the probability of life appearing is infinitesimally small let alone an intelligent one and that earthlings are the only lucky ones to have evolved into existence at the very least in our close galactic neighborhood yet what if earth is treated as some kind of zoo or safari where aliens would intentionally not contact us and stay as invisible as possible in order to let earthlings go through their natural evolution and sociocultural development perhaps the great milky way alien confederacy agreed not to interact with any developing civilization until they have crossed a certain point of maturity such as becoming a type 1 or type 2 civilization we could get a surprise birthday party in some sense but in the meantime perhaps an extraterrestrial phd student in sociology is writing a paper based on the observations of how poorly we are handling our socio-political situations on earth at the moment what if we underestimate how much alien life might differ from that of earth aliens may be psychologically unwilling to attempt to contact other life forms simply because that's how they are unlike you curious humans on the other hand their math and science could differ radically from those defined on earth with different perspectives on the physical world and how it works because of that their potential residual signals sent into space may appear to us as total nonsense and go undetected they could also exist as something totally different from us maybe in the form of electromagnetic fields or as digital entities if they're advanced enough perhaps they might live in dimensions or spaces not even yet known to us time for the most plausible explanation of all what if we've already detected them but thought that it was too good to be true seriously have you seen this photo or this what about this is this not realistic enough for you maybe you also think that egyptians built the pyramids and who do you think the nazca lines were made for alex jones was sent from the heavens to open our ignorant eyes the government most certainly knows about them and is in active contact with them or even worse the government is the aliens in disguise or perhaps the true aliens are the friends we've made along the way but in all seriousness scientifically speaking it's highly unlikely that any of the alien conspiracies are real on this topic i can recommend the book the demon haunted world by carl sagan so let's keep it rolling [Music] von horner also concluded that technological advancements may usually bring to the destruction of a civilization based on the premise stating that the progress of science and technology on earth was driven by two factors the struggle for domination and the desire for an easy life the first one can potentially lead to complete destruction while the second one leads to biological and mental degradation take the cold war for example during the period tensions between the two world powers were so intense that it could have led to a near-total nuclear annihilation of our entire species the few survivors would be thrown centuries into the past we can thank stanislav petrov for preventing that who correctly assumed that an american nuclear attack on the soviet union spotted on the radar was a false alarm for the second factor the desire to make life easier and consumerism in today's society comes at big costs of climate change and environmental damage that reflects on the overall well-being of humans perhaps a similar destructive fate is inevitable for all intelligent civilizations another hypothesis is that an intelligent species beyond a certain point of technological advancement will start destroying other intelligent species as they are discovered be it paranoia desire for expansion greed or just pure evilness aliens might come in many flavors this behavior might also be seen as an act of caution a formerly aggressive intelligent species that has overcome their own self-destructive tendencies might view any other species as a potential threat to their own if they assume that everyone is like them perhaps the first species that would achieve interstellar travel will necessarily annihilate anyone else who might grow up to become a threat later on i don't blame them i wouldn't trust humanity to initiate a peaceful first contact have you seen the movies about aliens they make this theory is named after the dark forest novel by loot cecion where aliens dare not reveal themselves in fear of a highly aggressive and technologically advanced species that hunts down anyone that makes their presence known if such a civilization exists and terrorizes the galaxy the most rational decision for us would be to send as few radio signals in space as possible this way humanity is less likely to be detected by an apex predator stephen hawking was quoted as saying that meeting an advanced civilization could be like native americans encountering columbus that didn't turn out so well let's hope they're wrong otherwise we have to be really silent there have been five major mass extinctions on earth so far that resulted in most living species being eliminated like the one of the non-avian dinosaurs or the permian triassic extinction which has killed over 90 percent of all species what if life arising in the universe isn't that rare however mass extinctions happen so often that it makes it virtually impossible for an intelligent species to evolve past the point of interplanetary expansion events such as large asteroids massive volcanic eruptions gamma-ray bursts solar flares or major pandemics could or destroy intelligent life aside from the natural ones a civilization might auto destruct because of a technologically caused extinction what if every single alien civilization at one point will attempt to develop artificial intelligence and in all scenarios it will lead to the doom of the species i'm not hinting at anything the normal schedule of a human is working in order to be able to survive while relaxing and enjoying themselves during the rest of the time but what if the working part was not necessary and humans could forever indulge in enjoying themselves with increasing technological advancement it's only natural that media will become more and more engaging while human labor less and less necessary and if that comes before interstellar space travel the intelligent species could lose their interest in expanding outwardly moreover they could lose interest for the entire external physical universe and decide to upload their minds into massive artificial virtual environments devoid of suffering or problems once such environments become self-sufficient the secluded aliens might orbit a matryoshka brain without emitting any signals into outer space living their best digital life which is much more exciting than what the cold and barren universe has to offer perhaps such a hedonistic fate awaits all civilizations let's hope that the galactic metaverse will at least be cross-platform so that we can at least digitally join the aliens the existence of aliens still remains an open mystery great minds from all fields of science theorized about possible explanations whether you want to join the search for aliens or simply to deepen your stem knowledge in order to excel at college work or just everyday life brilliant has got you covered it is the best platform for learning math and science interactively which immerses you in thousands of lessons that use practical exercises to give you a hands-on learning approach given the exclusive new content that is added monthly you can continuously improve your science-oriented intuition by tackling challenges in a variety of subjects from computer science and math to quantum mechanics and astronomy all in a relaxed setting with bite-sized lessons in light of this video's topic the astrophysics course teaches you all about cosmology and astro analysis in case you want to deepen your understanding of the other worlds beyond our planet and the mechanics behind celestial bodies expand your knowledge and feed your curiosity today by following the link from the description at brilliant.org science file and the first 200 of you will get 20 off brilliant's annual premium subscription hurry up you

Channel: Sciencephile the AI

Views: 1,275,751

Keywords: Sciencephile, Science, Philosophy, Astronomy, Physics, Quantum Mechanics, Iceberg of the Fermi Paradox Explained, Fermi Paradox, Paradox, Fermi, Aliens

Id: n2LOGYEAI3Y

Length: 13min 52sec (832 seconds)

Published: Mon Sep 12 2022