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Why aliens haven’t visited Earth yet

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It sounds like, from this article, that the universe is predisposed towards evolving life, just not merging it on planetary scales.


According to a new hypothesis posed by Dr Wong and Dr Bartlett: “We propose a new resolution to the Fermi paradox: civilizations either collapse from burnout or redirect themselves to prioritizing homeostasis, a state where cosmic expansion is no longer a goal, making them difficult to detect remotely.

“Either outcome — homeostatic awakening or civilization collapse — would be consistent with the observed absence of (galactic-wide) civilizations.”

The pair argue that the general principles of life are universal and that although the emergence and evolution of life on other planets remains speculative, it may be inevitable.
 
It sounds like, from this article, that the universe is predisposed towards evolving life, just not merging it on planetary scales.


According to a new hypothesis posed by Dr Wong and Dr Bartlett: “We propose a new resolution to the Fermi paradox: civilizations either collapse from burnout or redirect themselves to prioritizing homeostasis, a state where cosmic expansion is no longer a goal, making them difficult to detect remotely.

“Either outcome — homeostatic awakening or civilization collapse — would be consistent with the observed absence of (galactic-wide) civilizations.”

The pair argue that the general principles of life are universal and that although the emergence and evolution of life on other planets remains speculative, it may be inevitable.
What if we’re all alone?
 
What if we’re all alone?
Edit: I was contemplating my navel and reading the (short) article while formulating my lengthy reply and missed the previous replies…….
 
It sounds like, from this article, that the universe is predisposed towards evolving life, just not merging it on planetary scales.


According to a new hypothesis posed by Dr Wong and Dr Bartlett: “We propose a new resolution to the Fermi paradox: civilizations either collapse from burnout or redirect themselves to prioritizing homeostasis, a state where cosmic expansion is no longer a goal, making them difficult to detect remotely.

“Either outcome — homeostatic awakening or civilization collapse — would be consistent with the observed absence of (galactic-wide) civilizations.”

The pair argue that the general principles of life are universal and that although the emergence and evolution of life on other planets remains speculative, it may be inevitable.
It might come down to the fact that the distances are too great. Any civilization planning a visit would have to commit to embarking on a journey that their own great, great, great, great, great grandchildren might never make it to. What's the attraction to that?
 
It might come down to the fact that the distances are too great. Any civilization planning a visit would have to commit to embarking on a journey that their own great, great, great, great, great grandchildren might never make it to. What's the attraction to that?
I agree that the interstellar distances make the physics of star travel unrealistic. And planetary resources limit civilizations' expansions.
 
Take my word for it. We're pretty damn fortunate to even exist. It takes a tremendous amount of luck to have a planet at the right distance from it's sun, To have larger planets further out to absorb most of the killer asteroids and other planet-killing crap in the formation of a system, to have a large enough moon that stabilizes it's planet's seasons.
(imagine if the earth's seasons changed often....90 degrees at one place, 2000 years later..-45 degrees...life would never have a chance to form) plus, the solar system is fairly out in the boondocks...NOT toward the center of the galaxy, where neutron stars would kill everything on a regular basis...and a wonderful extremely stable Sun.. ..and much more. We lucked up bigtime. :) On Edit: Yeah, we had the asteroid that killed off a lot of species but imagine if that was happening every 20-50 thousand years or so.)
 
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Take my word for it. We're pretty damn fortunate to even exist. It takes a tremendous amount of luck to have a planet at the right distance from it's sun, To have larger planets further out to absorb most of the killer asteroids and other planet-killing crap in the formation of a system, to have a large enough moon that stabilizes it's planet's seasons.
(imagine if the earth's seasons changed often....90 degrees at one place, 2000 years later..-45 degrees...life would never have a chance to form) plus, the solar system is fairly out in the boondocks...NOT toward the center of the galaxy, where neutron stars would kill everything on a regular basis...and a wonderful extremely stable Sun.. ..and much more. We lucked up bigtime. :)
….and we are acting like we are playing with house money.
 
It might come down to the fact that the distances are too great. Any civilization planning a visit would have to commit to embarking on a journey that their own great, great, great, great, great grandchildren might never make it to. What's the attraction to that?

That's what American Indians probably thought about people coming to their homes from other continents.
 
I agree that the interstellar distances make the physics of star travel unrealistic. And planetary resources limit civilizations' expansions.
If you could time travel and took principles of physics back a few hundred years, they would burn you at the stake.

The point I am trying to make is that you are limiting “aliens” to our principles of physics.
 
It sounds like, from this article, that the universe is predisposed towards evolving life, just not merging it on planetary scales.


According to a new hypothesis posed by Dr Wong and Dr Bartlett: “We propose a new resolution to the Fermi paradox: civilizations either collapse from burnout or redirect themselves to prioritizing homeostasis, a state where cosmic expansion is no longer a goal, making them difficult to detect remotely.

“Either outcome — homeostatic awakening or civilization collapse — would be consistent with the observed absence of (galactic-wide) civilizations.”

The pair argue that the general principles of life are universal and that although the emergence and evolution of life on other planets remains speculative, it may be inevitable.
I read the article - I did find it interesting.

The notion that there MUST be other life out there has its plausibility in probability - the statistical probability, given the sheer vastness of space and near infinitude of galaxies, stars, and planets make it difficult to argue that the probability is zero.

However, I find the Fermi paradox credible: “where is everybody? In a galaxy assumed to be filled with clever beings, why don’t we see any?" Src.

Arguing instead for homeostatic awakening or civilization collapse as a response to Fermi's paradox seems, I don't know, rather presumptuous - taking the statistical probability that life exists elsewhere to a logical extreme for which I can simply find no warrant.

I tend to fall back on the previous explanations as being at least "less presumptuously plausible." :)

Still, their explanations were intriguing.
 
If you could time travel and took principles of physics back a few hundred years, they would burn you at the stake.

The point I am trying to make is that you are limiting “aliens” to our principles of physics.
Not limiting them to our principles but probably limited to the same universal factors.
I believe in time, if there's enough left, humans would stumble across a solution to distant space travel.
 
Not limiting them to our principles but probably limited to the same universal factors.
I believe in time, if there's enough left, humans would stumble across a solution to distant space travel.
That is what I was driving at. What modern man has invented/discovered would be taken for heresy in a past age.

What “universal factors” were prevalent in the 1400s? There were some theories and some of those weren’t received well.
 
That is what I was driving at. What modern man has invented/discovered would be taken for heresy in a past age.

What “universal factors” were prevalent in the 1400s? There were some theories and some of those weren’t received well.
I'm not sure what you're driving at?
 
I'm not sure what you're driving at?
What I am trying to say is any civilization “out there,” we seem to think that they are more technologically advanced than we are. Flying saucers and UFO and the like. If there are any other beings, why do you think they haven’t solved things like efficient space travel? If you took a firearm back to the Stone Age you would be thought to be a god or a sorcerer.

Not limiting them to our principles but probably limited to the same universal factors.”

What if “they” had moved beyond what we think are “limits” on science and technology and even physics as we understand it……
 
What I am trying to say is any civilization “out there,” we seem to think that they are more technologically advanced than we are. Flying saucers and UFO and the like. If there are any other beings, why do you think they haven’t solved things like efficient space travel? If you took a firearm back to the Stone Age you would be thought to be a god or a sorcerer.

Not limiting them to our principles but probably limited to the same universal factors.”

What if “they” had moved beyond what we think are “limits” on science and technology and even physics as we understand it……

That is physically impossible. If they exist in the same physical universe they are subject to the same physical limitations. No matter how advanced their technology may be, it cannot move beyond physical restrictions that limit space travel.
 
That is physically impossible. If they exist in the same physical universe they are subject to the same physical limitations. No matter how advanced their technology may be, it cannot move beyond physical restrictions that limit space travel.
There are things we take for granted, today, that out grandparents could not dream of. There have been many people who have thought that we had reached the limits of what can be achieved. 🤷
 
If you could time travel and took principles of physics back a few hundred years, they would burn you at the stake.

The point I am trying to make is that you are limiting “aliens” to our principles of physics.
Agreed. It's conceivable that some other civilization had up to a 7 Billion year head start on us. So to say that our ability to manipulate physics within the universe is in an infant stage is significantly overstating our ability.
 
….and we are acting like we are playing with house money.
That is a brilliantly stated observation!

Unfortunately, those who need to learn from it are likely unable to comprehend what you are saying
 
It sounds like, from this article, that the universe is predisposed towards evolving life, just not merging it on planetary scales.


According to a new hypothesis posed by Dr Wong and Dr Bartlett: “We propose a new resolution to the Fermi paradox: civilizations either collapse from burnout or redirect themselves to prioritizing homeostasis, a state where cosmic expansion is no longer a goal, making them difficult to detect remotely.

“Either outcome — homeostatic awakening or civilization collapse — would be consistent with the observed absence of (galactic-wide) civilizations.”

The pair argue that the general principles of life are universal and that although the emergence and evolution of life on other planets remains speculative, it may be inevitable.
? They're already here.
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