In a new post at the Huffington Post, SETI’s Seth Shostak asks the question that haunts his organization – “If advanced alien civilizations are common in the Universe, where are they?” (Fermi’s Paradox) – and then proceeds to offer possible answers:
Some folks have opined that no aliens have colonized the galaxy simply because they inevitably blow themselves up in massive, hi-tech wars before completing the project. Others say that it’s too expensive — you can better stay home, and improve lifestyles in your natal solar system. A personal favorite of mine is the idea that the galaxy might be urbanized, and we happen to live in a largely empty, rural district.
The onset of the digital age has spawned other suggestions: Maybe truly advanced societies don’t build big stuff — honking interstellar rockets for boldly going to someone else’s galactic quadrant. Rather, these sophisticated sentients start miniaturizing their technology, eventually uploading their minds into some sort of microelectronic computer, at which point colonizing star systems will seem as tempting as oxcart travel.
A more draconian explanation for why we don’t see the trappings of empire is the suggestion that there really is no galaxy and no us. Everything we experience is just a software simulation run by someone as an experiment (or as an amusement). Our daily lives are no more than computer code. And the rules of this giant matrix-like existence forbid contact — just because.
Fermi’s remark continues to pique our imagination, and explanations for his provocative question keep popping up like whack-a-moles. Last month, two researchers in the Ukraine, Igor Bezsudnov and Andrey Snarskii, reported on a computer simulation in which galactic civilizations randomly arise, spread out to a greater or lesser extent, and then — eventually — fail and fall. As a time-lapse movie, this would look something like raindrops hitting a pond. Splashes would occur here and there, generating brief waves of local colonization. But eventually each splash would dissipate and die. Well, there’s nothing new in this — the model is just saying that every culture has a finite lifetime. But the Ukrainian scientists added a twist: if two civilizations chanced to overlap in time and space, the resulting contact would give the merged society a longer lifespan. In other words, the researchers assumed that meeting the neighbors was ultimately good for you.
What, no “maybe they’re already here”? Not even as a bit of fun speculation? Feel free to share your ideas as to why aliens haven’t made contact with Earth in the comments – perhaps we’ll make a poll of it to see what our favourite answer is.
Previously on TDG: