chris_gerrib (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
chris_gerrib) wrote2008-05-07 11:19 am
chris_gerrib) wrote2008-05-07 11:19 am
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Fermi's Paradox and Peak Oil
Yesterday, I was referred to this article on Fermi's Paradox, which hopes that no other life is found in the Solar System, by Tim O'Reilly. For the non-geek, Fermi's Paradox is a question asked by Enrico Fermi, the great physist, "if there are other intelligent lifeforms in the universe, why haven't we seen them?"
The first-cited article spends ten pages talking about the "Great Filter." This is the concept that some event is so improbable of occurrence or difficult to survive that we are the only intelligent species in the galaxy. For example, development of multicellular life may be so unlikely as to almost never occur. Another example may be that many civilizations arise, but they quickly succumb to some massive disaster. O'Reilly's contribution to the discussion is to suggest that Peak Oil is one such event. The idea here is that when we run out of oil, civilization will collapse. Even after or if civilization recovers, they will not be spacefaring because the cheap sources of energy have been used up.
This is by no means a new idea to science fiction fans, as a casual recollection of the literature will find examples of this concept at least back into the 1970s. At least some of those examples suggest inventive ways around the energy crunch. In truth, an energy- or resource-starved world would have even more incentive to go to space. In short, answering Fermi's Paradox with "peak oil" doesn't work for me.
Going back to the first-cited article, part of the problem of Fermi's Paradox is the assumption that we'd be able to observe and detect an alien civilization. This article suggests that detecting random ETA broadcast radio signals from a civilization won't work over even interplanetary distances. Other wild ideas, such as Dyson Spheres, would be difficult to detect at best.
The one "sure-fire" way of finding aliens is to assume that one race built a fleet of self-replicating Von Neumann machines, which would fill the galaxy in a few tens of millions of years. In my mind, this begs two questions.
1) Why build the machines? What benefit accrues to the builders?
2) Could we even detect the machines? There could be a battleship-sized ship or even a fleet of them in say, Saturn's orbit, and we'd not know about it. Nor could this fleet detect Earth's radio signature.
It's impossible to extrapolate from a sample size of one, so the answer to Fermi's Paradox will have to wait.
The first-cited article spends ten pages talking about the "Great Filter." This is the concept that some event is so improbable of occurrence or difficult to survive that we are the only intelligent species in the galaxy. For example, development of multicellular life may be so unlikely as to almost never occur. Another example may be that many civilizations arise, but they quickly succumb to some massive disaster. O'Reilly's contribution to the discussion is to suggest that Peak Oil is one such event. The idea here is that when we run out of oil, civilization will collapse. Even after or if civilization recovers, they will not be spacefaring because the cheap sources of energy have been used up.
This is by no means a new idea to science fiction fans, as a casual recollection of the literature will find examples of this concept at least back into the 1970s. At least some of those examples suggest inventive ways around the energy crunch. In truth, an energy- or resource-starved world would have even more incentive to go to space. In short, answering Fermi's Paradox with "peak oil" doesn't work for me.
Going back to the first-cited article, part of the problem of Fermi's Paradox is the assumption that we'd be able to observe and detect an alien civilization. This article suggests that detecting random ETA broadcast radio signals from a civilization won't work over even interplanetary distances. Other wild ideas, such as Dyson Spheres, would be difficult to detect at best.
The one "sure-fire" way of finding aliens is to assume that one race built a fleet of self-replicating Von Neumann machines, which would fill the galaxy in a few tens of millions of years. In my mind, this begs two questions.
1) Why build the machines? What benefit accrues to the builders?
2) Could we even detect the machines? There could be a battleship-sized ship or even a fleet of them in say, Saturn's orbit, and we'd not know about it. Nor could this fleet detect Earth's radio signature.
It's impossible to extrapolate from a sample size of one, so the answer to Fermi's Paradox will have to wait.
no subject
A peak oil crisis (or a bird flu crisis, or any number of other species of global crisis) might be just the ticket for goading the survivors into getting their lazy asses off the planet before the next crisis hits. The biggest single impediment to establishing space settlements anywhere in our system is our current culture. Peak oil does not mean no oil, and a humbled human civilization could work out ways to get a critical mass of people to Mars with the machinery to keep them alive and reshape the planet to our needs. It wouldn't happen overnight, but there's more to be done there than Kim Stanley Robinson's sleeping pill of a trilogy is willing to admit.
The obvious (and simplest) answer to the Fermi Paradox is that we really are alone, though why that should be is another very interesting and difficult question. I also think that many people underestimate the difficulty of crossing interstellar distances. Given advanced nanotech and an asteroid belt, it would be easier to create a whole new planet (or some sort of exotic habitat smaller than a planet) than go to even a nearby star system looking for a ready-made one.
I wrote an article about this fifteen years ago that may still be kicking around somewhere and could use revising.
no subject
Not sure we could find them.