Post by Calliope on Oct 21, 2019 7:50:32 GMT -6
Introduction
In October 2017, a strange object appeared in the skies. ‘Oumuamua, or “scout” in Hawaiian, was the first confirmed interstellar object to pass through our Solar System[1]. As Robin Hanson pointed out, it was “suspiciously extreme in many ways”: Highly elongated, with a very fast rotation speed, no outgassing as with comets, and a strongly red color typical of metallic asteroids [1]. Could it actually have been a “scout” in the most literal sense of the word? The suggestions that it might be an alien spaceship did not just come from hyperactive sci-fi aficionados [2].
The recent discovery of the more typical 2I/Borisov suggests that interstellar visitors are far more common than previously thought. Nonetheless, this doesn’t contradict the possibility that one fine day in the coming century, one such “scout” from outer space will do in our civilization and our species, “with no warning and for no apparent reason” (with due apologies to Neal Stephenson). As I will argue in this article, this reason may well be not only perfectly logical, but born out of existential necessity.
www.unz.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/10/cole-course-of-empire-desolation-150x93.jpg 150w, www.unz.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/10/cole-course-of-empire-desolation-300x187.jpg 300w, www.unz.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/10/cole-course-of-empire-desolation-768x478.jpg 768w, www.unz.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/10/cole-course-of-empire-desolation-1024x637.jpg 1024w, www.unz.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/10/cole-course-of-empire-desolation-380x236.jpg 380w, www.unz.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/10/cole-course-of-empire-desolation-600x373.jpg 600w" sizes="(max-width: 2000px) 100vw, 2000px" align="center" style="margin: 1px auto; display: block; width: 250px; height: 155px;">
Thomas Cole: The Course of Empire – Desolation (1836)
Filtering the Great Filter
The most merciful thing in the world, I think, is the inability of the human mind to correlate all its contents. We live on a placid island of ignorance in the midst of black seas of infinity, and it was not meant that we should voyage far. The sciences, each straining in its own direction, have hitherto harmed us little; but some day the piecing together of dissociated knowledge will open up such terrifying vistas of reality, and of our frightful position therein, that we shall either go mad from the revelation or flee from the deadly light into the peace and safety of a new dark age. – H. P. Lovecraft.
Robin Hanson’s answer to the Fermi Paradox – “where is everyone?” – is that the apparent rarity of advanced alien civilizations is due to some bottleneck event that all intelligent life has to go through[2]. One may view this concept as an extension of the Drake Equation, under the additional assumption that some of its values are so low that the average galaxy isn’t likely to host much more than one civilization that emits detectable signals into space at any particular point in time.
It is possible that the Great Filter lies in our past, meaning that we are safe, and a ball of hedonium may soon envelope our planet and suffuse our future lightcone. In a recent paper, a team of futurists recalculated the Drake Equation; instead of using point estimates, which typically yield an infinitesimal probability of our galaxy containing no alien civilizations, they calculated the distribution of expert probability estimates, ran a Monte Carlo simulation, and deduced that there is a one in three chance that we are alone in our galaxy, effectively “dissolving” the Fermi Paradox[3]. We should hope that they are correct, since the alternative possibility – that the Great Filter lies in our future – very likely dooms us to imminent extinction.
Shadows of the Past
If the Great Filter lies in our past, then it would imply that at least one of the former is very rare or improbable:
The evolution of lifeCertain evolutionary milestonesThe evolution of intelligenceAdvanced technological civilization
The evolution of life. Straddling the warm “Goldilocks zone” between the Sun and the cold emptiness of outer space, perhaps Earth was uniquely optimal for the emergence of life[4]. This “Rare Earth Hypothesis” has been challenged in recent years by the discovery of vast numbers of Earth-like planets. However, perhaps a “weak” version of REH might still hold – that Earth is optimal for the fastemergence of complex, intelligent life. For instance, at least two critical evolutionary leaps – the appearance of eukaryotes, and of large metazoans – may have depended on large, creative-destructive oxygenation events[5]. If the Earth’s oxygen-absorption capacity had been higher, complex life might not have had time to emerge by the time the Sun fried our planet in another billion years.
Evolutionary milestones. Life appeared – in geological terms – almost immediately after the formation of Earth[6]. So
More at link
In October 2017, a strange object appeared in the skies. ‘Oumuamua, or “scout” in Hawaiian, was the first confirmed interstellar object to pass through our Solar System[1]. As Robin Hanson pointed out, it was “suspiciously extreme in many ways”: Highly elongated, with a very fast rotation speed, no outgassing as with comets, and a strongly red color typical of metallic asteroids [1]. Could it actually have been a “scout” in the most literal sense of the word? The suggestions that it might be an alien spaceship did not just come from hyperactive sci-fi aficionados [2].
The recent discovery of the more typical 2I/Borisov suggests that interstellar visitors are far more common than previously thought. Nonetheless, this doesn’t contradict the possibility that one fine day in the coming century, one such “scout” from outer space will do in our civilization and our species, “with no warning and for no apparent reason” (with due apologies to Neal Stephenson). As I will argue in this article, this reason may well be not only perfectly logical, but born out of existential necessity.
www.unz.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/10/cole-course-of-empire-desolation-150x93.jpg 150w, www.unz.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/10/cole-course-of-empire-desolation-300x187.jpg 300w, www.unz.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/10/cole-course-of-empire-desolation-768x478.jpg 768w, www.unz.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/10/cole-course-of-empire-desolation-1024x637.jpg 1024w, www.unz.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/10/cole-course-of-empire-desolation-380x236.jpg 380w, www.unz.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/10/cole-course-of-empire-desolation-600x373.jpg 600w" sizes="(max-width: 2000px) 100vw, 2000px" align="center" style="margin: 1px auto; display: block; width: 250px; height: 155px;">
Thomas Cole: The Course of Empire – Desolation (1836)
Filtering the Great Filter
The most merciful thing in the world, I think, is the inability of the human mind to correlate all its contents. We live on a placid island of ignorance in the midst of black seas of infinity, and it was not meant that we should voyage far. The sciences, each straining in its own direction, have hitherto harmed us little; but some day the piecing together of dissociated knowledge will open up such terrifying vistas of reality, and of our frightful position therein, that we shall either go mad from the revelation or flee from the deadly light into the peace and safety of a new dark age. – H. P. Lovecraft.
Robin Hanson’s answer to the Fermi Paradox – “where is everyone?” – is that the apparent rarity of advanced alien civilizations is due to some bottleneck event that all intelligent life has to go through[2]. One may view this concept as an extension of the Drake Equation, under the additional assumption that some of its values are so low that the average galaxy isn’t likely to host much more than one civilization that emits detectable signals into space at any particular point in time.
It is possible that the Great Filter lies in our past, meaning that we are safe, and a ball of hedonium may soon envelope our planet and suffuse our future lightcone. In a recent paper, a team of futurists recalculated the Drake Equation; instead of using point estimates, which typically yield an infinitesimal probability of our galaxy containing no alien civilizations, they calculated the distribution of expert probability estimates, ran a Monte Carlo simulation, and deduced that there is a one in three chance that we are alone in our galaxy, effectively “dissolving” the Fermi Paradox[3]. We should hope that they are correct, since the alternative possibility – that the Great Filter lies in our future – very likely dooms us to imminent extinction.
Shadows of the Past
If the Great Filter lies in our past, then it would imply that at least one of the former is very rare or improbable:
The evolution of lifeCertain evolutionary milestonesThe evolution of intelligenceAdvanced technological civilization
The evolution of life. Straddling the warm “Goldilocks zone” between the Sun and the cold emptiness of outer space, perhaps Earth was uniquely optimal for the emergence of life[4]. This “Rare Earth Hypothesis” has been challenged in recent years by the discovery of vast numbers of Earth-like planets. However, perhaps a “weak” version of REH might still hold – that Earth is optimal for the fastemergence of complex, intelligent life. For instance, at least two critical evolutionary leaps – the appearance of eukaryotes, and of large metazoans – may have depended on large, creative-destructive oxygenation events[5]. If the Earth’s oxygen-absorption capacity had been higher, complex life might not have had time to emerge by the time the Sun fried our planet in another billion years.
Evolutionary milestones. Life appeared – in geological terms – almost immediately after the formation of Earth[6]. So
More at link