That doesn't need to be the default hypothesis since the simple fact that the speed of light makes contact with anyone hundreds of light years away almost impossible. The author is correct in that we don't know a lot about how life occurs, let alone intelligent life, so we are only guessing when we calculate how often it should occur. And for that reason, the author's default hypothesis is no better than any other hypothesis about how often it occurs.Why haven’t we detected a signal from intelligent aliens yet?
Before we even start asking questions about longevity, colonization, or machine-based life, we should admit — with a non-negligible probability — the most obvious resolution to the Fermi Paradox: The reason we haven’t made first contact with intelligent, technologically advanced, and spacefaring alien civilizations is because there are none. In all the galaxy, and perhaps even in all the Universe, we really may be alone.
- Long ago, Enrico Fermi posed a simple question just by gazing at the stars: “Where is everybody?”
- Known today as the Fermi Paradox, there are many possible solutions, but some explanations are far simpler than others: namely, that there isn’t anyone else.
- Still, the most common way of estimating who’s out there, the Drake equation, should never be used. Here’s the science of how to do it right.
Without evidence to the contrary, we have every reason to keep looking and searching, but still no reason other than our own preferences to believe that other creatures, similar to humans, exist out there. While it may be incredibly fun to theorize a myriad of possible explanations as to why intelligent extraterrestrials might remain hidden from us, the simplest possibility — that they just aren’t out there — should be the default hypothesis until proven otherwise.
full article:
Why haven't we detected a signal from intelligent aliens yet?
Life arose on Earth early on, eventually giving rise to us: intelligent and technologically advanced. "First contact" still remains elusive.bigthink.com
Why haven’t we detected a signal from intelligent aliens yet?
- Thread starter Cypress
- Start date
I don't think its that important if the default is intelligent life is out there, or that it's not.
The important is whether or not we are going to pursue asking and trying to answer the question.
Agreed, we are not going to communicate with any intelligent civilizations in real time.
In principle, we can monitor radio EM frequencies from thousands of light years away, because radio waves can travel galactic distances and penetrate through gas and dust. We should be in the light cone of any technological civilization that existed in the past and whose EM footprint are just making it to Earth now.
NiftyNiblick
1960s Chick Magnet
I wish I were better at mathematical concepts.
To me, anything that's finite has to have something beyond it's boundaries, even if it's a big, infinite void.
That makes it impossible for me to imagine a universe that's other than infinite.
In my mind, everything that exists is part of one, single, infinite universe
because the geometric construct of any other concept is unimaginable to me.
To me, anything that's finite has to have something beyond it's boundaries, even if it's a big, infinite void.
That makes it impossible for me to imagine a universe that's other than infinite.
In my mind, everything that exists is part of one, single, infinite universe
because the geometric construct of any other concept is unimaginable to me.
This "default hypothesis" is a common concept in science called the "null hypothesis". When one develops an hypothesis about something's existence (whether it is the efficacy of a drug or the effect of a stimuli) they test AGAINST the null ("No effect", "No stimuli", etc.)
In the current case we have zero evidence at all for the existence of intelligent life. None, nada, zip, zilch, zero. So OBVIOUSLY the null should be set at "no alien life" and we test against that.
It is probably UNLIKELY that in a universe the size of ours with the existence of at least one intelligent life form *(us, nominally) that there are more. But the only rational scientific approach is to systematically start from basics and test for that.
Yes. But we are talking about that alien civilization had to use radio waves in the exact 75 years to reach us when we could receive them. Then we get to the point that our current radio technology is such that to radios 40 years ago it would just be seen as static. The reality is we as an intelligent species are probably going to emit radio waves for about 200 years that will be understandable from 50 light years away. Our current radio waves are becoming encrypted, low wattage and directional. They could become lost in background EM over distance.
We likely will have to develop similar technology to any alien civilization in order to see them from a distance or they will need to be broadcasting to try to be seen.
I don't know that much about future technology, but I have to think that our current detection networks, like SETI, are not going to stay static, and we will develop technologies that are much more advanced at detecting artificial emissions in the cosmic radio EM footprint.
It seems like it would be significant if we searched for artificial radio EM footprints for two centuries and never found anything
This is what the author suggested:
And you said in reply:
Cypress...you are way to intelligent to agree with that.
The default hypothesis should be: We do not know if any other sentient life exists elsewhere.
Actually, that is not even an hypothesis...it is a statement of FACT.
We do not know.
And you said in reply:
Cypress...you are way to intelligent to agree with that.
The default hypothesis should be: We do not know if any other sentient life exists elsewhere.
Actually, that is not even an hypothesis...it is a statement of FACT.
We do not know.
Blind guess.
I'm not even sure if asking what exists outside the universe is the right question. The concept of a spherical universe just hanging in empty space probably says more about how our brains work, than about physical reality. It might be like asking what is the color of the tone D minor? There is nothing about the mathematics of the cosmos that requires a "something" outside the dimensions of the universe. The universe might be a three-dimensional reality embedded in a hyperdimensional space. I'm not sure a "void" is even the right way to think about what's outside the universe. Void has nothing - no dimension, no energy. Time and space were created at the big bang, space is not 'nothing', it has spatial dimension and an inherent vacuum energy. It doesn't seem like there could be 'space" outside of space.
But I don't think whether the universe is infinite, or finite is really even the key question.
The key question to me is whether the natural laws and physical constants exist, or take different values, outside of our observable cosmic horizon. Because that is going to determine if an infinite universe logically has the atoms, chemistry, and molecules necessary for life.
You are correct in that sense.
I think the author of the article set it up as the null hypothesis is there is no alien live, and the alternative hypothesis is there is alien life. That seems to me like a perfectly good scientific construct. That's the only way to set up a testable scientific postulate. But that is just nitpicking from the perspective of common everyday vernacular language
Thank you for FINALLY understanding my position. Did you have to Google a lot or were you able to read the references I supplied you about null hypotheses?
More shit posting? I don't read your links or excessively verbose posts.
You seem to believe words like null hypothesis, triad, touchstone, entropy are exotic words that only ivy league professors are aware of.
NiftyNiblick
1960s Chick Magnet
This is indeed a question that challenges people disposed to think about these things.
I was never troubled about whether or not life
with which I'll never come into contact
exists or not
as I was probably too egocentric to contemplate matters that didn't involve me.
It's not that I'm totally devoid of intellectual curiosity,
but I did direct it toward things about which I cared.
For example, I could have given you the static loft angle of all fourteen clubs in my golf bag, driver to putter.
Every other spec as well.
Something I've noticed, however.
Lately, I've been given to discussing myself in the past tense.
It's almost as if I regard this part of life as epilogue, AFTER the third act.
I'm very mildly curious about that.
PostmodernProphet
fully immersed in faith..
they are waiting for us to stop being idiots......
Information about golf or fishing is very important
. Some of the things that interest me are mind numbingly boring to 95 percent of people.
We are in a constant state of change, it doesn't seem too weird to think part of one's life is divergent from an earlier state. Heraclitus said it is not possible to set foot in the same river twice. What probably defines us as distinct individuals is memory.
Nah, I was just thanking you for FINALLY reading the stuff I posted months ago about the null hypothesis. I'm glad I could help you expand your scientific knowledge!
YOU never used the "null hypothesis" until I introduced you to it and explained it to you.
Jesus Christ. Anyone who took introductory statistics in college or used statistics in their profession knows about the null hypothesis. Anyone with an undergraduate science degree certainly knows it. You make it sound like you have some secret knowledge only available to Geochem PhDs.I am a shit poster!
It's beyond stupid to ever even talk to you about your dumb posts about the null hypothesis defining your atheism.
Me ignoring your dumb points does not mean I don't understand them.
If you are an atheist, you believe it is almost certain that the null hypothesis would be confirmed. And that there is almost no chance the alternative hypothesis will be confirmed.
That's fucking stupid. No one would do science or statistics if they felt the null hypothesis was almost always going to be confirmed.
The presumption of experimental science is that there is at least a decent chance the alternative hypothesis is going to be affirmed.
It's stupid for you to keep hollering that the null hypothesis makes you an atheist. If you were actually using the concept of the null hypothesis correctly, you would be an agnostic, because the alternative hypothesis is always assumed to have a measurable probability of being affirmed..
Is that why I had to explain it to you over and over and over again?
Is that why I never saw you use the phrase "null hypothesis" until AFTER I introduced you to the concept and explained it AT LENGTH to you?
lol more rubbish. Evul Amurka. Nobody else ever has militaries, never invades anybody, ad nauseam. You Russian trolls are born dumb, apparently.