complexitystudies

The Sentient Developments blog visits the deeply troubling Fermi Paradox once again. The Fermi Paradox is actually quite simple: if intelligent life exists in the universe, why aren’t they here yet?

If life could develop easily, it would certainly have done so millions of years ago in other parts of the galaxy. Enough time should have past for these civilzations to have colonized all the galaxy. But obviously, they have not.

Read here for more details and some further links:

Sentient Developments: The Fermi Paradox: Advanced civilizations do not…

There are some (speculative) solutions to this problem:

1) super-intelligent species do not want to colonize the galaxy but draw back into their own virtual worlds - all they need is raw computing power, not habitable worlds.

2) there is some kind of transition phase in the development of civilzations where everything goes awry: instead of reaching the singularity, nuclear war or a similar catastrophe ensues.

3) There is no intelligent life apart from that on earth in our galaxy (quite unconvincing, huh?)

(1) and (2) seem to me the most likely candidates - (2) being especially troubling for our civililatzion here on earth.

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