Nick Bostrom on the Fermi Paradox

The Fermi Paradox is an idea that complements the Drake Equation. Enrico Fermi asked the question, if there are so many stars in our Galaxy, and therefore probably many Earth-like planets, then there should be lots of alien civilizations in the Milky Way, but why haven’t we found evidence of them? Why not?

Nick Bostrom talks about the Fermi paradox, and some possible solutions, in the video below. It’s not as smooth as the Carl Sagan clip I just posted, but he has some interesting ideas. Nick Bostrom is a philosopher from Oxford University, and has some interesting ideas on human enhancement, the survivability of advanced civilizations and the nature of reality by the way, his website is full of interesting stuff.

What do you think is the answer? Are we alone? Is there alien life in our Galaxy, but just simple life? Or are advanced alien civilizations doomed to wipe themselves out as they become more technologically advanced?

If you like to read more about the Fermi Paradox, I’ve written a short post here, and a couple of posts on possible solutions here and here.

Panspermia: did life on Earth come from space? – Part 2, intentional panspermia & cosmic amino acids

Panspermia is the idea that life could have emerged on an alien planet, and then could have travelled through space to Earth, where it flourished and evolved into all the life we see today. So you, your family and your cat could all be aliens.

In the first post I looked at the idea that this alien life could have been simple bacteria, and could have travelled to Earth early in its history either in spores or in asteroids or comets. This is very much the ‘traditional view’ of panspermia.

In this post I’ll look at some alternative forms of panspermia, such as the idea that intelligent aliens may have deliberately seeded Earth with life.

The Mayan Apocalypse of 2012: Part 1 – The Maya

I’m guessing you’ve heard the prediction that the world will end on December the 21^st 2012? You’ve probably seen the film too. But do you know where this prediction comes from, and how likely it is to come true?

There are lots of versions of the prophecy, with lots of different causes for the end of the world. In this post I’ll describe the prediction itself and look at who the Maya were. Then in following posts I’ll look at some of the predicted astronomical causes of destruction, like cosmic alignments and solar storms, some of the terrestrial causes of destruction, such as a polar-reversal and crustal displacement, and I’ll make a conclusion about how likely all of this is to happen.

Why am I writing about this on an astrobiology blog? Because the prediction deals with various disasters that could wipe-out life on Earth, and I’m interested in astronomy, geology and mass extinctions. Also, if such events could happen here, they maybe they could happen to alien civilisation too, and could help explain why we haven’t yet found conclusive proof for the existence of intelligent aliens (see the Fermi Paradox).

Lots of people have attacked and defended the 2012 prediction, some of them a little too zealously, I promise to look at all of this with a fair and open-mind, because a lot of people are seriously worried about the predictions and they deserve to read an accurate description and a fair analysis. I won’t make fun of anyone involved. I’ll give it to you straight, as they say…

Advanced alien civilizations, have we already found some?

Lots of scientists think our Galaxy should be full of advanced alien civilizations (see the Drake Equation and Fermi Paradox posts). But when they’ve looked the Galaxy appears to be quiet and lonely. Where are all the alien civilizations they ask?

Many insane people would of course argue with this, pointing out that aliens have visited us; that they created the pyramids, Atlantis and humankind itself. That they regularly abduct and probe drunk Americans, that the government knows and is covering it up, and that the government itself may even by aliens, alien communists, sent here to steal freedom from God-loving Americans. But then they’re insane. None of this is true.

In a previous post I argued that alien life might be common, but that simple life rarely evolves into intelligent life, and that even if it does, intelligent life may not exist for very long. However I may be wrong, I’m wrong about things all the time, especially as some astronomers may have discovered evidence for vast alien structures in space, I shit you not.

Why the Universe may be full of life, but not intelligent life

In three previous posts (part 1, part 2 & part 3) I summarized the key highlights of the history of life on Earth, beginning with the Earth’s creation (hint, not by God), and ending with humans’ inventing the radio. I described the most important events, but I didn’t spend any time looking at their implications, particularly what this means for the search for alien life.

What can the history of life on Earth can tell us life on other planets?

We’re in the Matrix… dude.

The Matrix, one good movie disgraced by two awful sequels. It’s an interesting idea, but what does it have to do with astrobiology?

Well actually quite a bit, or a little bit, it depends on how convinced you are. It also has implications for time travel n’ stuff. And besides, how do you know you aren’t living in a virtual world right now…

Review: Stephen Webb, Where is Everybody?

I’m doing a book review, the books by Stephen Webb; it’s called ‘If the Universe is Teeming with Aliens… Where is Everybody? Fifty Solutions to the Fermi Paradox and the Problem of Extraterrestrial Life’. People in the know just call it ‘Where is Everybody’ though. It’s great. But then I would say that, I’m a bit of a nerd.

I’ve mentioned the book before, in my Fermi Paradox solution post. Most of what I wrote in that post, and some others, was inspired by this book.

Some Fermi Paradox Answers: some cool, some lunatic, some faintly disturbing (part 2)

In a previous post (here) I talked about some of the boring and lunatic solutions to the Fermi Paradox, here are the rest, the cool and faintly disturbing solutions

Some Fermi Paradox Answers: some cool, some lunatic, some faintly disturbing (part 1)

Before I talked about the Fermi Paradox. But the real fun comes in trying to answer Fermi’s question; where is everybody?

Hundreds, if not thousands of people have tried to do this and there are countless written sources, mostly websites but some cool books too. One of the best I’ve come across is a book by Stephen Webb called ‘Where is Everybody’. In it he details 50 explanations for the paradox, and I’ll borrow lots of them here.

You can categorize the different answers in lots of different ways, I group them into the boring ones, the lunatic ones, the cool answers and the, well frankly, faintly disturbing solutions…