Can We Solve Fermi's Paradox? with Dr. Duncan Forgan

[@EventHorizonShow]

What do you think is the most likely solution to Fermi’s Paradox? You can see Dr. Duncan Forgan’s book ‘Solving Fermi’s Paradox’ here: amzn.to/2YbUjp2 We also have other episodes on the subject: Finding Solutions to the Fermi Paradox with Harvard’s Dr. Avi Loeb kzbin.info/www/bejne/ZqGYnqing6qhoJo

[@Titan-ll9kn]

Either we find that faint sign of life elsewhere or we figure out what exactly led to life blossoming on Earth. If not, than we'll probably end up hailing ourselves Universal Lords.

[@gestorpen]

I lean toward two solutions - not mutually exclusive. 1) The Super Predator. The first civilisation to rise will go hunting for potential competetion and whenever it finds it, it snuffs it out. We're just not on their radar right now, but then WILL off us first thing when they see us. It very sci-fi, but I find it highly rational. No-one will welcome competition and the whole empathy-thing is very much a bi-product of being flock animals. Even then most of the great civilisations on Earth was not particular concerned with empathy. The Romans, the Aztec, the Greeks, The Ottomans ... Intelligence did not make us less brutal. 2) It's very rare to have all the elements for a technological civilisation. You have to have the right bodytype with hands to manipulate objects, you have to have the right atmosphere to tame fire and if you are stuck in a waterworld you are not going anywhere. Too much gravity will ground you entire technology. So while there may be many civilisations out there of hunter-gatheres and storytellers, technology might be the rare part.

[@1701_FyldeFlyer]

I believe we are the only intelligent civilisation in this Galaxy and probably, the Local Group. We see no sign where we look. No one or thing, has set any beacon or created any sign that they exist either. Therefore, the solution to Fermi's Paradox is, we are alone.

[@holdenrobbins852]

Imagine you're a single celled organism, or even an ant, looking around for all the other "intelligent life". Do you think they even recognize (the rare case) when they are climbing around on another more intelligent life form? My guess is all the truly intelligent life is busy fighting over the computational power of black holes, not riding around in space ships trying to trade with ants like us.

[@holdenrobbins852]

Instead of having one vonoyman probe, why not make one probe that breaks off into millions of pieces delivering life to a million targets. This guy kind of makes the case for panspermia. That Earth has been seeded with micro-computer/organisms might be the explanation for the fermi paradox. The intelligent life already seeded this planet with their own computers as soon as it was possible for it to support it, along with millions of others.

[@CaneTopper]

i have developed a habit to hear these lying on the bed at night. its some sort of lullaby to me. really appreciate your work.

[@butHomeisNowhere___]

Omg same. I listen to cosmology and astrophysics audiobooks to fall asleep

[@ryandavis4448]

Me too, kinda strange😆

[@kajatanmusic5635]

same. i thought it was just me!

[@nickbusker725]

Pipefinder General add me to the list!

[@s1_sz]

@@butHomeisNowhere___ bro same

[@darkomilkov5536]

The real paradox is why you got only 57k subscribers?! I really appreciate your time and effort in helping educated us.

[@seanhaskell2248]

Darko Milkov My favorite comment I’ve seen this week

[@Demane69]

The reasons are well known. KZbin doesn't promote long form videos well and the bulk of the KZbin audience is interested in mindless entertainment and not education and serious debate (or capable of debate as, in my experience, most cannot provide anything more than subjective and concrete thinking sadly). The channel will grow slowly still.

[@adumbedgyname7158]

Not really a paradox. Sadly, KZbin wants to push independent content creators further and further toward the fringe until the site is filled with nothing but mainstream television.

[@Mr_Signint_Smithe]

I agree.

[@broken1965]

@@adumbedgyname7158 you mean the leftist channel's

[@deusexaethera]

If we are intelligent enough to predict ways in which we might destroy ourselves, then we are also intelligent enough to stop it or to mitigate its effects.

[@jeffreystroman2811]

Yeah, that's why it sucks just a little bit more

[@p.bamygdala2139]

Nah, remember that those doing the predictions aren't those who make the decisions.

[@deusexaethera]

@@p.bamygdala2139: The ones making the decisions have a vested interest in the continued existence of the nations they rule.

[@kylekissack4633]

Agreed

[@benpinder889]

Corruption impacts that

[@TheKaurK]

Event Horizon and the stuff on your other channel have very quickly become my favorite content to consume on this platform. It fills me with wonder and awe, and honestly makes my day. Thank you so much for putting your time and energy into making these!

[@JohnMichaelGodier]

Thanks! Much more content to come!

[@iamu2247]

Absolutely love the Event Horizon intro with the musical credit presentation.

[@GH-oi2jf]

Dr. Forgan seems to me to be more level headed than most who speak on this subject, including the host of this series. I believe he is on the right track in suggesting that intelligent life forms could be rare or short-lived. People who think life must be everywhere just because there are a lot of planets are led to say the silliest things, like the host’s idea of looking for signature flashes from atomic weapons.

[@JPee-x4you]

Excellent show. Food for thought for sure. I'm 58 now. Hope that many of our questions are answered by the time I go bye bye. 😀✌

[@TheGunmanChannel]

Or we get the technology to upload our minds into a supercomputer 😉🤙

[@keplerthe3399]

@@TheGunmanChannel Neuralink 😉 By the way, that would be an excellent topic to weigh in on. What it is, and where it could take us.

[@raidermaxx2324]

hell, i'd be satisfied with finding out whats under europa's ice shell.. well thats on my bucket llist at least.. 45 yrs. old here..

[@keplerthe3399]

@@raidermaxx2324 Even if it's just the brain, keep it in some kind of bio-fluid in a tank where it can be preserved and even healed. I would imagine though one would have out of body experiences if their brain was alive and in a tank for so long, even though theirs no body, people in surgery or coma's have experienced it. I'd imagine the computers could run simulations that'll keep our brain healthy. I think yeah, it could take about 500 years at least for us to become Type I and we have already started growing organs in labs now…just imagine what we can do in 500 years…a full blown human body I believe will be easy. Although I think rather then being in tubes, our consciousness, basically the entire mapping of our brain could be uploaded onto a computer until they can create brain matter from scratch to re upload our bain map onto it. This all sounds incredibly crazy…but I do believe it will be possible one day.

[@raidermaxx2324]

@@keplerthe3399 yep you are right.. I think the best case scenario would be to have a Brain scan which they have perfected to the level where it copies every synapse, however many gigabytes that takes lol, and then upload that to the cloud.. then if they preserve some of your DNA, and then they are able to clone you a new, un-aging 30 year old body of your old self, maybe with some added enhancements...:P, once the clone is ready, then scan your 3D printed scanner brain back onto the blank clone brain, and voila! When you wake up, you retain all your memories, so you are for the most part, you , and not just a copy of you, with the old you dying, and the new you, who is a different person all together, (if just a clone) has all the benefits of immortality . It's the whole adjusting to being uploaded into the cloud ... Anyways, keep taking them vitamins! We got a ways to go yet lol

[@tealc6218]

This channel is getting better and better, you found your niche/wheelhouse with these topical interviews. Although I do miss the frequency of uploads on your short vids covering specific things in your original channel, getting these interviews is a worthwhile trade-off.

[@sheenaalexis8710]

Ohhh Teal'c so nice to meet You! I'm a big fan...can we just borrow your Stargate?

[@joshwatson1576]

Hi I'm a new subscriber and I just wanted to say how blown away I am with your content and knowledge of the universe and I greatly appreciate your work you put into this. I literally can't stop watching all your prior videos it's just amazing.

[@JohnMichaelGodier]

Thanks!

[@Nomihc]

My hour long car ride home from work flew by listening to this. Thank you for the great interview John! Looking forward to next one.

[@slysynthetic]

I find many of the assumptions that Dr. Forgan makes troubling. To say a multi-million year old technological civilization hasn't figured out error correction in code or how to control their probes represents a decrease in ability from even humans. But when it comes to the lifetime of technological civilizations, he uses analogues similar to the British Empire. To me this looks like waffling between using biological & technological analogies only when they support his view on the Fermi Paradox. That being said, years ago I reached out to Dr. Forgan via email and he was nice enough to respond to my questions. Another example of greatly respecting someone I disagree with :)

[@b.griffin317]

see issac arthur's channel for a fuller working out of the fermi paradox. he pretty much answers everything IMO.

[@swirvinbirds1971]

@@bangyahead1 why are you even here if you don't believe this stuff? You do understand science is our current and best understanding right? Nothing is set in stone.

[@jeffvader811]

@@bangyahead1 Scientists do not preach their theories like gospel, far, far from that. Scientists are always the first to criticise their own work, and the first to throw away bad ideas in light of new evidence. Our current understanding of Cosmology changes by the decade, new things are being learned and old things are being disproved constantly. That's how the scientific method works. Additionally your description of the Big Bang was incorrect, so I don't think you should make such firm judgements on a theory that you don't understand. Study physics, then criticise the theories with mathematics and observational evidence. The scientific community would welcome such wisdom and if you were right you would achieve international praise and be regarded as the next Stephen Hawking by the public. I will look forward to reading your papers!

[@wyrdewyn]

You seem to be mixing up the time scales he was talking about (at least in this interview). Probes could be launched with current or near technology (in the next 50-ish years) which, over the span of 10 million years, could spread through the galaxy. So it's not a millions-year old civilization creating the probes, but a relatively current one. Then over millions of years, the hardware and software changes through the mentioned 'mechanical evolution'. A space-capable technology which can remain unchanged through billions of iterations under geological time spans may be possible, but doesn't seem very likely.

[@slysynthetic]

The question becomes if it's even a useful analogy. When humans are created there are typically around 50 mutations that happen. A virus, on the other hand, typically has a very high transcription error rate. These mean things in the biological world, but don't really hold up when compared to the creation of machines. That doesn't mean that machines can't have problems, but the question becomes whether a civilization can express their intentions through technology, something that we have successfully done as a species many times. Humanity has created a billion cell phones and I don't think any of them became sentient and tried to overthrow a government. Sometimes a cell phone is defective. It gets repaired, discarded, or recycled. You, and Dr. Forgan, would greatly need to expand upon what exactly you think is a possible scenario before it can even be evaluated.

[@chromabotia]

I don't know how I missed this great show at the time. This may be your best show ever, John. Love the long form - just great!

[@gregf9160]

An exceptionally interesting episode! Thanks to you and Dr. Duncan Forgan.

[@shanecreamer6889]

I would love to see a Sequence of shows exploring the latest Habitable Zone findings, perhaps even with interviews from the scientists who made the discoveries? *Known Current Habitable zones as of 2019* - Water habitable zone - Ultraviolet/Radiation habitable zone - Photosynthetic habitable zone - Ozone habitable zone - Planetary rotation rate habitable zone - Planetary obliquity habitable zone - Tidal habitable zone - Astrosphere habitable zone - Electric wind habitable zone - Milankovich cycle zone - Stellar magnetic wind zone - Carbon dioxide zone - Carbon monoxide zone For host stars with an effective temperature more than 7,100 K (7,100 °C above absolute zero) or less than 4,600 K, even for just microbes, a team of four Chinese astronomers showed that the liquid water and ultraviolet habitable zones will not overlap. This may seem like a fairly wide effective temperature range, but it is narrow enough to eliminate all but 3 percent of the Milky Way Galaxy’s stars. Japanese astronomers Midori Oishi and Hideyuki Kamaya established that the zone of overlap is even narrower including the metallicity requirements of the Host star, this leaves less than 1 percent of our galaxy stars as candidates for bacterial life. Advanced life has even more stringent requirements. Scientific Articles: - Jianpo Guo et al., “Probability Distribution of Terrestrial Planets in Habitable Zones Around Host Stars,” Astrophysics and Space Science 323 (October 2009): 367-73 - Rory Barnes et al., "Tidal Limits to Planetary Habitability," Astrophysical Journal Letters 700 (July 20, 2009): L30-L33 - David S. Smith and John M. Scalo, “Habitable Zones Exposed: Astrosphere Collapse Frequency as a Function of Stellar Mass,” Astrobiology 9 (September 2009): 673-81 - Jun Yang et al., “Strong Dependence of the Inner Edge of the Habitable Zone on Planetary Rotation Rate,” Astrophysical Journal Letters 787, no. 1 (May 20, 2014): id. L2, doi:10.1088/2041-8205/787/1/L2. - Yutong Shan and Gongjie Li, “Obliquity Variations of Habitable Zone Planets Kepler-62f and Kepler-186f,” Astronomical Journal 155, no. 6 (May 17, 2018): doi:10.3847/1538-3881/aabfd1; Gregory S. Jenkins, “Global Climate Model High-Obliquity Solutions to the Ancient Climate Puzzles of the Faint-Young Sun Paradox and Low-Altitude Proterozoic Glaciation,” Journal of Geophysical Research: Atmospheres 105, no. D6 (March 27, 2000): 7357-70, doi:10.1029/1999JD901125. - Midori Oishi and Hideyuki Kamaya, “A Simple Evolutionary Model of the UV Habitable Zone and the Possibility of Persistent Life Existence: The Effects of Mass and Metallicity,” Astrophysical Journal 833 (December 2016): id. 293, doi:10.3847/1538-4357/833/2/293 - Glyn Collinson et al., “The Electric Wind of Venus: A Global and Persistent ‘Polar Wind’-Like Ambipolar Electric Field Sufficient for the Direct Escape of Heavy Ionospheric Ions: Venus Has Potential,” Geophysical Research Letters (June 2016): doi:10.1002/2016GL068327 - Glyn Collinson et al., “Electric Mars: The First Direct Measurement of an Upper Limit for the Martian ‘Polar Wind’ Electric Potential,” Geophysical Research Letters 42 (November 2015): 9128-34, doi:10.1002/2015GL065084 - Russell Deitrick et al., “Exo-Milankovitch Cycles. I. Orbits and Rotation States,” Astronomical Journal 155, no. 2 (January 16, 2018): id. 60, doi:10.3847/1538-3881/aaa301; Russell Deitrick et al., “Exo-Milankovitch Cycles. II. Climates of G-Dwarf Planets in Dynamically Hot Systems,” Astronomical Journal 155, no. 6 (June 4, 2018): id. 266, doi:10.3847/1538-3881/aac214; - adsabs.harvard.edu/cgi-bin/nph-ref_query?bibcode=2003ARA%26A..41..429K&refs=CITATIONS&db_key=AST Hans O. Pörtner, Martina Langenbuch, and Anke Reipschläger, “Biological Impact of Elevated Ocean CO2Concentrations: Lessons from Animal Physiology and Earth History,” Journal of Oceanography 60, no. 4 (Aug

[@p.bamygdala2139]

Great research!

[@whoknowsu4679]

Uhhh yeah sure what he said! I think! Not to sure because I thought we all where playing checkers till dude broke out his Chess set here! All B.S. aside, I if the place you reference are legit (I'm to lazy to verify 😆) then you did some Hela good research!

[@stevewylie2401]

I'm glad to see your channel has gone up by 4k since last week. I'm pretty sure it was 53k? Either way you guys deserve far more subscriptions than this it's almost a paradox in itself. Absolutely love what you guys do in bringing together thought provoking concepts and ideas for us all to ponder. So Jon, Anna and the rest of the EH team we salute you for sharing your passion with us. And here's to reaching 100k before the end of the year!

[@EventHorizonShow]

Thank you!

[@michaelvandensteen7994]

Thanks for the fantastic content. Been following before the start of this channel and both channels never disappoint!!!!

[@EventHorizonShow]

Thank you for being with us on our journey!

[@michaelvandensteen7994]

Event Horizon thank you :)

[@IronWarrior4Ever]

You got the perfect radio voice, I love it every video you make about anything science, it really sparks the curiosity, wonder and excitement in me.

[@zoompt-lm5xw]

There's only two solutions to the Fermi Paradox: either we're not alone or we are alone in the universe. And both possibilities are terrifying. I don't know who said that but it is a good description of our predicament

[@nutyyyy]

@Jeffery Pullin Nonsense.

[@garethbaus5471]

@Jeffery Pullin an intelligent being outside of time and space would require a designer at least as much as a universe that seems to be function based on a few basic principles that seem somewhat arbitrary.

[@uthewallstreetbetsgod4714]

Thank you for the long format videos. :)

[@p0ma147]

"I look at Humanity as a bit of a teenager that doesn't know how to clean its room" Wholesomely agree, Dr. Duncan Forgan.

[@zoompt-lm5xw]

Me too 😁

[@frankschneider6156]

Do you really think that's so dumb what teenagers are doing ? TBH, I don't know anybody who stated on their death bed: If I had just spend more of my precious life time cleaning my room / my house /my garage / my backyard or whatever. The problem is, that our lifetime is the only resource that we can't somehow increase, so spending it wisely is one of the most important decisions we can make (far more important that e.g. buying a house or a car or selecting a wife or husband). Despite of that, most people just waste theirs, as if they would have an infinite amount of it. Oh, I HAVE to do this and that and that .... Do you really ?

[@Alexander_Kale]

@@frankschneider6156 You're confusing cause and effect. I recently heard a study mentioned in radio making a correlation between people who make their bed in the morning and people who live happy lifes. First thing I thought, what a dumb conclusion to draw. But of course, the "making the bed" is a symptom of a life that taught them discipline. And that leads to a good life demonstrably. They are not happy because they make their beds. They are happy and their mind set is such that they DO make their beds, and the two happen to coincide more often than not.

[@frankschneider6156]

​@@Alexander_Kale What a strange world view: discipline = happiness. You know what ? Discipline is highest in prisons, in the military and in concentration camps. So this means that the by far most happiest people must, according to your view, be those being enlisted in the army (no matter if voluntarily or draft), or those being somehow imprisoned. Doesn't this sound weird to you ? Of course does discipline not make people happy, but pretty unhappy, because they are not free but controlled by some other entity. If that makes you free, feel free to move to North Korea, which must obviuously be paradise for you, as the entire population is obviously continuously heavily disciplined. Stalin's USSR must also like the land of the free to you, at least a lot more than any western democracy. Whoever thinks that being controlled by someone else is making the person being controlled happy is, well let's say, that person has imho some serious mental problems. But maybe you just didn't know what you where talking about and meant self-discipline instead of discipline (although that's something completely different) ? Well, I agree that self-discipline can at least help avoiding situations that lead to serious problems and thus unhappiness, but this of course doesn't mean that self-discipline makes you happy human being, self-discipline can be helpful, if it allows you to achieve things, that YOU want to achieve, but if you just do things because you feel the NEED to do them (cleaning up your room, making the bed, mow the lawn, wash the car etc), despite there not being a rational reason for it, you either had a quite strict childhood and are still not mentally free from your parents or you put far, far too much emphasis on what others may think of you. In both cases you would rather be a mentally unhealthy person, who just tries to avoid feeling even worse, than being happy.

[@Alexander_Kale]

@@frankschneider6156 The way I see it, Discipline is actually very low in e.g. american prisons. German prisoners on the other hand live much bette lives. Learning discipline and dealing with your urges allows you to structure your life. I don't care whether or not you like it, that's the way it works.

[@joshuahunt8911]

Counting down the hours so I can get off work and watch this. How am I supposed to focus on work with a title like that!

[@EventHorizonShow]

Sorry there Joshua. Didn't mean to distract you. We'll be here when you get home!

[@planetoftheatheists6858]

I see "Fermi Paradox", I sit and watch.

[@joshuahunt8911]

@Vulcan Logix ______ Well ahead of you, my dear Vulcan.

[@coreyfro]

Get more interesting work.

[@Mrbfgray]

Your not getting paid to even scan KZbin options. GET TO WORK!

[@larssoholt1536]

I like and respect the research this gentleman has done. That said, I would caution that in the medieval times scientists would have said the same thing about the Earth being round. Later about electricity, again about flying, and again and again about every single time someone said something was that disagreed with "known" science. It must be taken into consideration that ANYTHING is possible in science (as shown in what we know of subatomic physics) and that what we know though science is barely scratching the surface of the top of the proverbial iceberg we still have to figure out how to recognize where the water line is on said iceberg of science.

[@alien8treker2]

The birds hatching is catastrophic for the egg. A civilization becoming interplanetary may be similarly devastating for it's planet of origin, but also similarly justified.

[@b.griffin317]

exactly. we're just overcrowding our cosmic egg. but the "stasis is bliss" crowd hates the biological imperative of "grow or die."

[@someguy3766]

Humans are extraordinary beings capable of incredible things. Earth is a rock. Space is full of rocks, and we have the power to shape any to our liking. I understand the sentimental value the Earth has, but in the grand scope of the future humanity could have, its significance is marginal. A type 3 or 4 human civilisation probably wouldn't even remember Earth ever existed in the first place.

[@alien8treker2]

@UCKG2Gblm4D5Jsbb8PE4E-zg I agree. Eventually, the existence of Earth may be deduced only from the common origin of genetic information available. It's existence evident only as the hypothetical source of complex life associated with our descendants.

[@stoneeh]

I do not see at all how Earth should suffer if we were to colonize other planets. The Europeans sure didn't destroy themselves when they started to colonize Africa and America.

[@nathanlewis42]

Your perspective is backwards. Space exploration is saving the environment! How do you think we know about global warming? It was from observations of Venus by the Mariner probe in 1962. How do we know about deforestation? It”s from satellites. Nothing could be further from the truth than the idea that space travel is destructive to Earth.

[@Vanotter]

Love that when a question is asked, there's no rush to interrupt and drive the discussion. Freaking rare in today's world. Love the content, keep up the good work.

[@will2see]

Don't forget two things: 1) Life is a process, not an entity. 2) Life is always (perfectly) adapted for the conditions where it evolves.

[@bimblinghill]

One of my favourite interviews so far. I could listen to Dr Forgan for hours.

[@DavidFMayerPhD]

Solution of "Fermi Paradox": Too Far Too Sparse Too Difficult Too Expensive We must understand the vast scale of the Universe, plus the rarity of intelligent (defined here as "possessing radio technology") life. Each and every such intelligent species does not make contacting us its top priority and therefore allocate colossal resources to do so. Unbeamed radio will be swamped by cosmic noise. Beamed radio will need to have a specific target to be effective. How is that target to be acquired? To give an analogy. Suppose that there were a half-dozen prospectors roaming around the vast Sahara (which is larger in area than the entire United States). What are the chances that they would EVER run into each other?

[@PrincipalSkinner3190]

Its not about contacting each other. If there was intelligent life we should see evidence of it, they should be consuming stars to fuel their galactic empire which would be visible to us, I suggest subscribing to Isaac Arthur for more on the topic. He debunks many solutions for the Fermi paradox, including this one.

[@lustxglory]

intelligent life destroys themselves way way too early...look at what we r doing to this planet

[@PrincipalSkinner3190]

@@lustxglory we definitely can't assume ALL intelligent life does this. We haven't even done it yet.

[@bozo5632]

What good is a galactic empire to the founders back home? You can't trade with it or exploit its resources. You can't dominate their politics. You can barely even communicate with the closest worlds. But, at great expense, you COULD create an unlimited number of near-peer neighbors, any one of which could easily destroy your home system. I bet everyone decides to do that.

[@ontoverse]

@24:30 I'm a machine learning researcher with a passion for evolutionary computing, and I'd like to suggest that any suitably advanced probe would already be a fully evolutionary program and already part of an ecology evolved in the home system. I would say it is impossible to create a static program that could survive 10 million years, just by material degradation in semi-conductors alone. The immediate way to do that is with a self-repairing, evolving and self-correcting hardware-- since the best such system we know of is biology it's highly likely it would be synthetic biology; ie artificial life. We already know genetic code can provide longevity and global (meta)stability on the order of billions of years-- I highly doubt we'll have done better by the time we build interstellar replicators.

[@Skelstoolbox]

We can "provide longevity and global (meta)stability on the order of billions of years"? How so? What does that mean exactly? Just curious.. :)

[@alexandermartins65]

I believe that any intelligent life form capable of such technological achievements would create a biological probe that has all of there knowledge encoded in a typeof single cell organisms and seeds life on other planets.

[@ontoverse]

@@Skelstoolbox Genes themselves are the same across species, by which we define "common ancestors", so the code itself is preserved even across speciations and extinctions. Much of the genes we have are the same code as in ancient life, with only a small fraction being unique to modern life. That makes genomes remarkably stable from a larger perspective, since they are also protected by unused code (introns) that reduce the harmfulness of random mutations. Species themselves can die out, but the their genes live on in other species -- and sometimes another species has split off before the extinction so even beneficial mutations unique to that species can outlive the species itself. There are several more gene-transfer mechanisms (bacteria, viruses and more), but the species themselves aren't stable -- thus meta-stability. It's only if you look at larger genomes as a whole that it's in some sense stable. So for our interstellar probes, it means that such a system can protect itself against harmful random mutations over long time scales -- even if individual probes (representing an entire species in our natural biology in this analogy) become corrupted they will be stable enough to not become so erratic from small mutations as to develop predatory behaviours and so forth, even after billions of years of random bit-flipping. Another way of looking at it is that the probe's own internal evolution overpowers the small evolutionary pressure from random background mutation.

[@slysynthetic]

I am surprised you've come to this conclusion. You don't think that even after a million more years of computer and materials science under our belts that we'll be able to create a probe that fulfills an objective outside of evolutionary methods? During your evolutionary programming experience have you ever had a phenotype change its code outside the boundaries of the mutations you programmed? ECC memory has been around at least since the early 90s.

[@ontoverse]

@@slysynthetic Why would I wait millions of years for some unknown future-tech? It's possible to do the exploration project way earlier than that. ECC memory wouldn't help one bit; the correction protocol will indeed make matters worse. The kind of time scales involved are beyond any microelectronics we can conceivably produce. Just the electricity flowing through the circuits will evaporate the conductive material on the early probes before the last reach their destination; most will fail during transit. A mean time to failure for any component in the order of millions of years is completely ridiculous; they would have to be generational anyhow. As for technology that can do all that and doesn't rely on new physics, biology is great at copying itself; the hardware is self-replicating and can even hot-swap components for newly manufactured replacements, all internal to the system itself. The "programming" you do when dealing with alife is more akin to growing bacteria in a lab. You don't write instructions as you would when writing a normal computer program, instead you design a fitness-map and let structures evolve randomly against that background. You prune, pick and chose the best results. As a trivial example, you might let a simple programming language change randomly or mix random components with other programs (for synthetic sexual reproduction) against a fitness-map representing the function f(x) = 2x + 1, and the system would produce code that calculates that function -- to some degree of accuracy that you decide as the designer when it is 'enough'. The time it takes to reach 'enough' might vary by several orders of magnitude between runs; some might not even give anything useful at all. I will see phenotypes for different kinds of functions in every run, some closer to the one I'm looking for than others -- but some will do completely wrong things, like calculating the inverse of a 1-bit register (ie flipping a true/false value). So in that sense, yes the phenotypes _always_ display behaviours outside the intended one (as defined by the fitness map). From a software perspective, that's the entire point of separating the genetic code from the phenotype in the first place, to allow the genes to be used in previously unknown contexts (eg. when I _want_ to flip a 'true' to 'false' in the previous example).

[@yoloswag6242]

Best science podcast on KZbin

[@JohnMichaelGodier]

Thanks!

[@rickquest6385]

Even though Duncan's voice could put you to sleep, what he has to say is eye-opening!

[@MrEddieLomax]

I can't believe he claimed extinctions take millions of years, yet the younger Dryas occurred within 100 years.

[@MrEddieLomax]

@Septic Whelk I have noticed this, it is disturbing

[@raukoring]

What do you mean by with 100 years? First of all the younger dryas are just a hypothesis and you refer to it as a fact, second, if it happened, it ended the Pleistocene after 2.5 million years so that's millions years no?

[@MrEddieLomax]

@@raukoring The younger Dryas was measured and is a fact, no one is disputing the temperature measurements that define its boundaries. The temperatures plunged 16C in a few years at the start and raised at the end in ~100 years. You can disagree with me but you should jump on a plane to Greenland and yell at ice core samples.

[@MrEddieLomax]

@@raukoring There is no doubt the "Younger Dryas" happened, it was a period 12000 years ago where earth temperatures abruptly changed from warming out of a ice age to the very depths of an ice age, 3/4's of our animals went extinct, then a 1000 years later temperatures abruptly shot up to todays - this is scientifically agreed. There is scientific arguments on why this happened though, some believe it was volcanism although no evidence has been found, the other hypothesis is an asteroid strike which has some strong evidence (layers of carbon spheres and nano-diamonds) but no impact point evidence - possibly due to a strike on 2 mile thick ice.

[@MMS661]

I get so excited when I get home and see there's another podcast from JMG Event Horizon... I've learned so much. Thank you.

[@JohnMichaelGodier]

You are most welcome! Many more to come.

[@stricknine6130]

Great episode I really enjoyed the interview. I will have to check out his book. I figure we aren't alone but I think that distance plays a huge role in why we have yet to find anyone. It's very possible that we're just too far apart from one another to notice each other's presence. Space is so incredibly vast and our planet though amazing is very small. Thanks for the great episode and all the hard work y'all do and Anna please don't electrocute John? 😁

[@stricknine6130]

@The Jim Reaper™ 😂🤣😂

[@runningman5871]

The book is very expensive. Kindle version is £75 which is about $100.

[@MrTwat144]

@Truthisstrangerthan Fiction Its impossible, i think we were not meant to comprehended the complexity of the universe let alone go out there and discover it. What about light speed ? 670,616,629 mph thats just under 5,000 years. Can you imagine a space mission taking 5,000 years lol

[@menty6633]

Fantastic episode. You really deserve to have 100's of thousands of subs at the minimum!

[@justinasv4342]

we are not alone but separated in space and time

[@b.griffin317]

that's about right. they're just too far away to ever detect or contact. might as well be alone.

[@owl6218]

that is what fred hoyle said. our optimism that the future will bring in science and technology that will allow us to span the interstellar distances may be misplaced. if what we have now is what we will ever have, in terms of propulsion, if there are no wonder technologies waiting to be dicovered, then we are all doomed to be in isolation forever, even if life is fairly common

[@richardmindemann6935]

@@Czeckie That's right. And alone is OK.

[@Markie-lc2es]

@41:40 There’s a reference to aliens picking up the after-effects of splitting the atom on Earth in the 2008 sci-fi novel “The Last Theorem”. This was the last book by Arthur C. Clarke. The novel began as Clarke's, but because of ill-health another Hugo and Nebula Award winner Frederik Pohl completed the novel. The weapons testing produced a flash “brighter than a 1000 suns” as quoted by Hans Thirring (on page xv). One by one these flashes continued swelling out into space in a hemispherical shell of photons. These caught the notice firstly of intelligent aliens on a nearby star system. Then, in time bringing our planet to the attention of a technically advanced civilizations much further away with far greater consequences.

[@dipak002]

Great video discussion! Bottom line is, looking at the size of the universe, life most probably exists, may not be intelligent BUT as of now, we DO NOT HAVE THE TECHNOLOGY to detect them.

[@deanturner9959]

Well done Sherlock

[@philliprobinson129]

Why might it not be intelligent? Why would it be likely in a universe with trillions of galaxies that we would be the only ones with intelligence. That seems even more unlikely

[@dipak002]

@@philliprobinson129 Yeah, I agree with you but considering the worst-case scenario where there are no intelligent lives except us in the entire cosmos, there definitely is life form spread across, just that we do not have the technology yet to detect them.

[@b.griffin317]

@@philliprobinson129 if I told you you could play a lottery once every day for 1:1,000,000 odds would you consider likely you'll win? If the odds of intelligence arising within the same time frame are lower than the chances at "playing the lottery" (stars or whatever in the universe) then no, it is not probable. One really big number is not the same as another really big number.

[@philliprobinson129]

@@b.griffin317 where are the statistics that prove that its lower? We dont even know for a fact how many stars there are in the universe...

[@HomeWatchViewer]

18:40 to keep a machine memory constant and non-corrupted for eons. Maybe using 3, 5 or 7 backup memory banks that mirror each other, and if one is not 100% equal the majority, it simply overwrites the faulty one could work ?

[@z.zshirer2507]

The ending of this conversation was so very uplifting. Thank you JMG for fantastic content.

[@barkasz6066]

As I understand it Schiaparelli's canals did not refer to artificial canals. The word "canali" could refer to large natural formations, not just the narrow, artificial meaning of the English word "canal". So it's more of a mistranslation by British and American astronomers of the 19th century.

[@b.griffin317]

yep

[@VanessaFlyhight]

I'm a firm believer we should be calling out to the void, even if just to let anyone else know they aren't alone. Instead of silently cowering in the dark from imagined monsters. All we want is to know we're not alone, we should at least be able to offer that to others.

[@swumimobile5843]

same,I want to try some alien weed haha 😉

[@EditioCastigata]

Don't mistake a need and longing all humans harbor for a good policy. A broadcast of presence might even scare and deter a listener.

[@WestOfEarth]

So I've recently gone down the rabbit hole in researching Bob Lazar and his accounts. In his earliest interviews, he describes the flight dynamics of the alien craft. Fast forward to 2019 - The U.A.P.s seen by the US Navy pilots exhibit this very same flight dynamic. I was a converted skeptic after analyzing the accounts of the Navy pilots. Seeing the congruity between Lazar's accounts and the pilots has solidified my 'conversion' so-to-speak. I'd really have to question the intellectual curiosity of any scientist who denies this moving forward. They're being willfully ignorant at this point. The so-called Fermi's Paradox is resolved.

[@jeschinstad]

It would be quite the coincidence if alien space craft just happened to look exactly the way Kenneth Arnold was mistakenly quoted to having said they looked like. They looked nothing like saucers, they just behaved like saucers skipping over water, which he thought was a descriptive metaphor for some reason. Bob Lazars story fits popular belief that is known to have been created by media headlines. When he told his story, people had very, very little access to information. Sure, if Lazar gets to just tell his story to people who are only vaguely familiar with the data and who wants to believe, I guess he sounds credible. He's probably a complete psychopath. Today, the flying saucer storyline is completely obvious, and no less fascinating, although the original Kenneth Arnold story is still unknown. Personally, I suspect what he saw was the first attempt at the slow-takeoff flying wing. They were very unstable, so they might look like saucers skipping over water. The problem is that they looked exactly the opposite of the way Arnold described them. That is, they would have to fly backwards in order to fit his description. But if they were flying much slower than he was, he might simply have misinterpreted what he saw. The timelines are still a little confusing, but it's still the best explanation. Anyway, Bob Lazar has absolutely no credibility. He is a known liar and personally, I have no tolerance for people who intentionally confuse and mislead, spreading paranoia and hate. They're not just talking about alien visitors, you know, they're talking about the evil Americans. And they do it just for fun and profit. I'm nearly positive that Kenneth Arnold was being honest, it's just too close to verifiable truth to be made up. I'm absolutely certain Bob Lazar is a liar. If you still want to talk about alien invaders, sure, that's fun and not impossible, but forget the flying saucers, Roswell and Lazar. And don't forget that there are other potential explanations for unidentified things than alien beings from another world.

[@amateurastronaut5006]

@@jeschinstad the US government freaking erased all his personal, education and work history. If it wasn't for an article in a news paper talking about him working in the advanced propulsion laboratory at Los Alamos labs I'd say he was lying. Body language experts also agree that he is not being deceitful.

[@jeschinstad]

@@amateurastronaut5006: Right. The government erased his history and the thousands of students and all of their photos and all letters and things like that. And nobody noticed. Because we all know that the government is a perfect entity that has never made a single mistake. Heh. A body language expert who's always able to tell when someone is performing an act, is someone I'd like to see. It is easy to lie when the story is made up in advance and rehearsed over such extremely long periods of time.

[@amateurastronaut5006]

@@jeschinstad that's just it. His former classmates and coworkers remembered him. But there was no official record of his work history at Los Alamos or his education in physics. Later Los Alamos labs was forced to admit he worked there after being confronted with their own article talking about the physicist that drove a rocket powered car into work every day.

[@jeschinstad]

@@amateurastronaut5006: Oh. That's new. Can you provide some of those names?

[@No_OneV]

I'm a pessimist but this guy takes it to a whole another level

[@deerejohn7209]

Amazingly good stuff, thank you. You gained a subscriber.

[@EventHorizonShow]

Glad you enjoyed it John.

[@editorrbr2107]

Thank you John & Dr. Forgan. This was one of the most thought-provoking, existentially-challenging hours I’ve ever spent.

[@sgtjbone1]

Perhaps all intelligent beings have evolved at the same time roughly as us. Perhaps the cosmic soup needed this amount of time to produce intelligent life. Now it’s just the space time that prevents us from knowing about each other.

[@medexamtoolscom]

You've been watching too much star trek if you think that. *Roughly* the same amount of time could mean plus or minus 20 percent as well, which would mean plus or minus 3 billion years. You're still not going to go out into space and meet a bunch of aliens that have all had civilization for thousands and not millions or billions of years. And if you do, the explanation will simply be that civilizations simply only last a short time before extinction, and that they DID exist billions of years ago, but those are all gone now.

[@sinisterone4673]

@@medexamtoolscom bruh.

[@williamblack4006]

That makes no sense whatsoever. All stars did not form at the same time -- which means not all planets formed at the same time. So the "soup" did not form all at the same time on different planets in different star systems.

[@AliHSyed]

The opening score of this video is so epic. The way she says that I have fallen into event Horizon and then the music starts *whistle*

[@Raycloud]

My offensive pet theory is that one of the great filters is a species avoiding dysgenic practices as they develop their technology and master their environment.

[@ironfortitude9817]

Wouldn't that be positive?

[@useodyseeorbitchute9450]

Make it nastier: - the specie is nice - dies through dysgenics - the specie is not nice - dies through nuclear war

[@cameronhowe1110]

Only a very small amount of people have/will contribute anything of significance to our world.We also don’t need to avoid “dysgenic” practices because we’ve already created programs that can reprogram/teach itself new things.

[@augustadawber4378]

The answer to the Fermi Paradox. There is a beautiful loving Universe many people claim they experience when they are undergoing an NDE. Long before any Advanced Civilization gains the technology necessary for Interstellar Travel - they find a way to escape to that Universe. In other words, it is technologically easier to get to that other very pleasant and safer place, than it is to develop the Type II Civilization Technology necessary for Interstellar Travel. This explains why we have found no sign of an Advanced Alien Civilization anywhere in the Universe.

[@omegaclass1696]

no, the probes would evolve to miner probes consuming ores from asteroids and then they get eaten by predator probes.

[@GrimeHouseBeatz]

Have this guy on more often please.

[@woopteedeewoopteedye]

Announcing our presence is insane. If I was to drop you on some huge unknown dense island, would you start screaming for help or keep a low profile and observe to see if you are predator or prey?

[@alanheadrick7997]

This was a super good episode. A lot of things to consider when looking at the stars. Now if we could stop wasting money on the military and do a little more exploration we might learn something important.

[@happyhammer1]

What if Aliens have developed senses that we can't even comprehend? Even if they do use senses we know, maybe they communicate with smells, vibrations, or pressures. I think sometimes what we imagine extraterrestrials is very narrow, because they are truly alien.

[@masamurkina4002]

What are sounds if not vibrarions and changes in airpressure? And smells, as in like pheromones? 8D

[@masamurkina4002]

Vibrations*

[@BrianRosborough]

This might have been one of the best intros for Event Horizon to date. Love ya JMG!

[@erikmoore7402]

This guy makes it sound like intelligent life is always a parasite. I think humans will eventually save this whole planet from a catastrophe that only our intelligence and technology can avert such as large cosmic impacts. I also believe that large cosmic impacts are lot more serious of a threat then man made global warming. I would love to hear you interview Randall Carlson

[@elduderino7767]

well i guess that depends how much we regress the evolution of our atmosphere, if we push it too far that it becomes hostile to human life we might find ourselves back into the stone age or worse in mere centuries we don't have much time.. but granted we really aren't that bright.. or perhaps our limited time on this planet dictates our actions regardless of the consequences

[@CrossoverManiac]

I was thinking the same thing. JMG's guest spent more time trashing humanity than talking about the Fermi Paradox. Also, many of his conjectures on possible solutions to the Fermi's Paradox is skewed by his misanthropy.

[@b.griffin317]

@@CrossoverManiac see issac arthur for a more intelligent analysis of the FP. @Erik Moore: he's just spouting spouting affluence guilt disease. it arises in every decadent civilization.

[@omegaclass1696]

i think most scientist and academics are anti human, granted many cultures make bad choices like overpopulate and these cultures are immigrating to the USA to continue the cycle, we really should allow the rules of darwin decide if an overpopulating culture will survive in their ancestral land and not allow them immigration status in the USA. if we fail to understand this darwin's rules will follow them here into the USA. our only problem is overpopulation and we must try to teach immigrants that this is not sustainable to over breed, these cultures must levelout to two children per family. if we can get population under control we will pass this fermi paradox filter with more test to come.

[@omegaclass1696]

@@b.griffin317 that in itself is a fermi paradox filter, once humans hate their own species and becomes the dominant thinking, it's game over.

[@MrBendybruce]

"Lifts me up and brings me down" Boy oh boy can I relate. I'm so torn between the wonderous joy of winning the cosmic lottery and the depths of despair at the way we squander this miracle with our pettiness, selfishness and hate.

[@arcstrider5728]

That intro music though

[@barkasz6066]

Call me a pessimist, but I think the most mundane combination of answers is the one we should run with: 1. Actually habitable planets are very rare. 2. Microbial life evolving into something complex is astronomically rare. 3. Complex microbial life evolving to become Animal life is even rarer than that, they don't often leave the ocean and they constantly get wiped out by natural disasters. 4. Intelligent life is prone to get stuck in the stone age like we were for about 270.000 years. 5. Stone age intelligent life is wiped out by natural disasters. 6. We are one of the first if not the first civilization in the Milky way to make it this far, OR at least we are the only one currently existing, as comparable civilizations reigned elsewhere millions, tens of millions, hundreds of millions years ago, or will rise on a similar timescale. 7. Technological advances follow a similar curve and civs are annihilated by war or climate change before they could make a breakthrough. OR 7a space technology is never cost effective enough and advanced civilizations are never organized enough to invest in galaxy colonizing gadgets AND/OR virtual reality and computer simulations about the nature of the universe win out over direct observation and civs retreat inwards. "But all it takes is one civ to break that." - Yes. Maybe someone did, or someone will, but perhaps they live or will live in a galaxy cluster at the opposite end of the observable universe.

[@b.griffin317]

most likely. but the truest answer is we don't know and may never with only a sample size of one.

[@solanumtinkr8280]

if 20 probes had to come together to make a single extra probe, and compare files and discard the errors/probes found on comparison. Then the chances of a rogue being made, is so long then none would be expected to be seen in the lifetime of the universe.

[@b.griffin317]

this assumes Von Neumann Probes are actually a thing. When you think about the manufacturing process of any complex machine this seems improbable, certainly in a form which is easily transportable over interstellar distances. the sheer number of steps and specialization required to turn raw materials into complex machines is staggeringly underestimated and basically requires the entire world economy as it now is.

[@zombiedude25]

Thanks!

[@Likexner]

"All the probes will be eaten" - what a sentence to take out of context!

[@jeremyboesmans]

I hope we (humans) will make a shift at some point, we need minds like Dr. Duncan Forgan, and John Michael Godier who do a brilliant job tackling these profound and fundamental questions. Thank you for sharing these magnificent insights and not doubting to think out of the box.

[@OdenKing]

I'm a dyslexic handyman and I can see all kinds of holes in what they're saying. Maybe we can stop and think a little more

[@msxciejhello]

Can you list any? I'd be interested to listen to counter arguments

[@avo616]

@@msxciejhello he probably didn't understand 3/4 of the talk and wanted to sound smart

[@nobiggeridiot]

To play a semantic game, I would consider 'not destroying own habitat' a fundamental condition of intelligence. It seems to me at least, far more relevant than the previous definition of being able to dabble in radio waves. Maybe not helpful in terms of looking outward, but poignantly; far more valuable when looking inward. Thanks for the vid !

[@oiocha5706]

Invasive species also destroy their own habitats

[@nobiggeridiot]

@@oiocha5706 Not saying it is unnatural. Just maybe not deserving of the label 'intelligent'.

[@TheGunmanChannel]

The truth is out there.

[@tront6897]

what

[@ThisNameWasTaken0]

@@tront6897 the truth is literally out there, amongst the cosmos. Life exists elsewhere for certain

[@tront6897]

@@ThisNameWasTaken0 I don't remember making that comment please forgive me

[@cullyx2913]

Thoroughly enjoyable,Dr Forgan is fascinating.

[@reallyryan_]

A video lasting over an hour!? Gotta get some snacks!

[@mikelfunderburk5912]

Ryan Jack I'm late. But, a drink and a snack it is.

[@jeffvader811]

Popcorn and cider for me.

[@reallyryan_]

@@jeffvader811 Nice choice I'm having a bit of everything, Doritos, chocolate, and some monster energy drinks so unhealthy 😂

[@laurengaskell2098]

Thank you and Dr. Forgan for the excellent show! Learned lots of new things.

[@skippipotamus]

13:15 "The media, when reporting on science, is not always 100% accurate or 100% ethical in some cases." I'm so glad I can trust the media when it doesn't involve science tho. [edit: To whomever liked and then retracted, this is sarcasm. Modern journalism is dead and always agenda driven.]

[@GodWorksOut]

I always hate when they mention we would see the infrared as a star disappeared beyond the veil of dyson spheres like they know that for sure. There is a great void where the universe has went dark and we aren’t connecting the dots. Maybe the great void is a totally mined out area by an advanced civilization.

[@Sattorin]

We already have inefficient designs that can convert infrared energy into electricity. Any civilization that's surrounding a star with energy collectors would probably have a much more advanced and capable method of converting heat into usable energy.

[@b.griffin317]

@@Sattorin another dyson swarm, yes, this one for the IR spectrum.

[@b.griffin317]

great voids are empty because we can see how much gravy they have from they're effect on surrounding galaxies. and there are many of them. galaxies form threads and sheets in the grand scale of the universe, which leaves voids in between like swiss cheese.

[@ellenmcgowen]

Cf. Planck's law.

[@ianclarke3627]

I'm convinced we will find extraterrestrial life in our own solar system, aquatic life forms

[@raidermaxx2324]

me too.. lets go europa!!!

[@No_OneV]

Jesus imagine digging into europa's ice To say i'm curious is a huge understatement

[@edvinboskovic9963]

Great episode I really enjoyed the interview. Our galaxy is so unimaginably huge, that even in 1000 years I would not dare to put on the table the option that we are the only technological civilization. Not to mention the neighboring galaxy, the local group and so on.

[@Alexis-hx3yd]

Personally I am leaning towards the we are among the earliest civilisations to arise.

[@erik-ic3tp]

Could be possible indeed. :)

[@happyhammer1]

If that's true my initial thought is bummer, but if alien nature is like our own maybe that is a blessing, in that we have a head start.

[@Mandrak789]

Either that, or other civs are so advanced they took forms so radically different that we cannot recognize them at all.

[@jeffvader811]

Something about that scares me. I've never really considered that we were the "Aliens" before. I think there was always some comfort in the possibility of an alien civilisation that could pull us out of the mud or squash us into oblivion, because ultimately we wouldn't be responsible. Being the _only_ ones in an entire galaxy puts a crazy expectation on our backs to not fuck it up. It makes you reconsider everything. Is it just me or do you want to scream sometimes?

[@someguy3766]

But even if that were true, it would only take an advanced alien civilisation with interstellar travel a few million years to totally colonise the galaxy. A few million years is nothing, the homo genus has been around for that long. Realistically we wouldn't be amount the earliest, we would be THE earliest, because any species even a blink of an eye ahead of us on cosmological scales would have left evidence of its existence all over the galaxy by now and we just don't see that at all.

[@mikeharrington5593]

Excellent vid. In the concluding minutes I agree with the "ships in the night" analogy.

[@deepvoid2871]

such a beautiful channel.

[@vahangood5999]

A really good conversation! Thank you!

[@walka112]

I think comparing humanity to a teenager who doesn't know how to clean his room is too kind. we're probably more akin to toddlers. we've learned to walk but we're still clattering around with all the grace and dexterity of ice skating giraffes.

[@erichaynes7502]

I agree, just think what it was like just 200 years ago. No electricity, no locomotion, just wagons, printing presses and very few other mechanical devices. Now our civilization is changing at an exponential rate..we'll probably got through a world-wide catastrophe fairly soon but after that I think civilization will survive and only get better. We're lucky to be around to see all this happen so enjoy the ride.

[@williamblack4006]

Not everyone hates their humanity as much as you apparently (based on your own words) do.

[@bmpropro3305]

I feel like Fermi's Paradox is becoming more and more important as time goes by. There's so many ideas about the power and possibilities of an intelligent advanced alien civilization that are really extraordinary that make us question: Where are they? Then another frighting thought comes out which is: we might be alone, or that this is all an illusion. All from Fermi's Paradox... I hope we find microbial life soon. Something like it could actually help us becoming better caretakers of this planet, of this civilization.

[@ankiesiii]

39:43 Oh Come on!

[@will2see]

Instead of assumptions about life in the Universe, let's make a good definition of what we mean by "life" in the Universe - what we are actually searching for. Is it the thermodynamic definition of life as a process that consumes negative entropy (free energy/energy gradients) and is efficient in energy dispersion (self-reproduction)? I like this definition.

[@stoneeh]

14:01 this dude needs to Google the USS Nimitz encounters.

[@johnhanek167]

He has to say he hasn't seen any evidence if he wants to have a job. All you can do is trust your intuition.

[@ICreatedU1]

We should keep in mind that the supernatural explanation should always be the last one considered, never the first. The same critical thinking we use when dealing with all other supernatural entities should be applied here. Is this lightning bolt/earthquake/birth the workings of a god or could it be, as unlikely as it sounds, that there's a naturalistic explanation for it? The same reasoning applies here; first go through all other possible explanations before entertaining the paranormal one. *I for one find it quite revealing that the overwhelming majority of UFO sightings worldwide take place in technophile sci-fi laden industrial countries* en.wikipedia.org/wiki/USS_Nimitz_UFO_incident#Skeptical_views

[@helio68]

It could be humans in those machines

[@helio68]

I think they may be inter dimensional bleed through

[@agator2660]

+1

[@UltimateOmbuStorm]

I was in 6th grade when it was announced that we found evidence for microbial life on Mars. My mind was completely blown and I knew it was a huge deal, but no one else seemed to care! I remember going to school and trying to get my classmates excited about it but to my surprise no one really cared!

[@EditioCastigata]

You're not alone in your interest in science. Finish school, go to university, and you'll find good company.

[@frankschneider6156]

That's very likely because we never found microbial life on Mars.

[@joshuarichardson6529]

@@frankschneider6156 Actually the Pioneer lander found evidence of life on mars, and then a second instrument found the exact opposite result. NASA chose to publish the second result, probably so they didn't have to say "Uh, yeah... We don't know for sure."

[@frankschneider6156]

Yes and no. a) it was Viking 2, not Pioneer that landed an Mars and performed these experiments in 1976. The Pioneers never landed on any planet b) If you pour perchlorates on organic substances and get CO2 as a result, this doesn't mean "we found life", but just that you poured an extremely strongly oxidizing substance on some basic organic molecules which generates CO2. (Perchlorates are an essential part of many toilet cleaners for exactly that purpose: getting rid of organic substances) That's a basic redox reaction. That's exactly as much of a living process and "we found life" as the rusting of elementary Fe on a junkyard is. Not at all. I'm not sure, but can you imagine why they performed several different test, and not just one test for different properties ? I'll give you an example. There are several characteristics that life has to exhibit without exception, to be considered "alive". I now just check for 2 of them: metabolism and cellular structure. Fire exhibits metabolism (as it oxidizes organic substances, thereby releasing energy), but it doesn't have a cellular structure. Does that mean we can't decide if fire is alive or not, but should say: "we don't know". Of course not. It passed test one, it failed to pass test two, meaning: it's not alive, not "we don't know".

[@wyrdewyn]

Intelligence isn't necessarily the goal of evolution. With intelligence's tendency (at least in the example we have so far) to create an extinction event, it may be something evolutionary pressure may try to correct for. (: So I think life is very common and wide spread, but intelligence is rare.

[@TidalDisruptionEvent]

Great show, John!

[@HD-em9ws]

Long chat, love it!

[@360ODYSY]

The Fermi Paradox is based on the flawed assumption of eternal expansion which only happens in capitalist systems. What if the ultimate form of progress isn't harnessing the power of stars but using as little power as possible?

[@Sattorin]

If an advanced civilization was trying to conserve power, they would be shutting down stars to prevent all the energy from being burned off or Dyson swarming them to soak up as much of the power as possible for later use. The fact that we can't identify either of these is called the Dyson Dilemma.

[@merc1f485]

Zzz

[@zlac]

Ahhh, that damn capitalists Julius Caesar and Alexander the Great... and USSR, of course! ... all jokes a side, the ones who "use as little power as possible" will be outpaced by the ones who expand indefinitely and "harness the power of stars" if universe is filled with life, but only 0.1% or even less aliens go for expansion, those who expand will pretty quickly outnumber the ones who don't.

[@zambani]

@@zlac While I don't subscribe to the capitalist system as the only reason for expansion. I will say that the idea that if only 0.1% aliens expanded they'd outnumbered the once that don't is flawed. Every time the civilization expands to a new region the dice will be rolled again as to if they are going to expand from there. Then you also have to consider the probability of a new civilization surviving at the destination. Especially since they most likely won't have contact with the parent civilization and they wouldn't be able to learn from each others discoveries. This will greatly slow down any expansion and maybe even stop it all together after a few iterations.

[@zlac]

@@zambani if the original civilization with expansionist tendencies only sends one ship every 10 years, there will be a million systems colonized in 10 million years. 10 million years is nothing on a galactic scale. If 0.1% of new systems roll the dice, there would be 1000 more expansionists in the galaxy, each sending their million colony ships every 10 million years... Fermi paradox stands even with re-rolling every time; galaxy would be full by now! Where are all the aliens?

[@timothywhite2666]

At 16:30 I don't think that it is true that small ships are more reasonable. In fact - interstellar travel would require large amounts of shielding which is bolstered by the square-cube law. The shielding would require *minimum* sizes for ships. Even including vastly more efficient fuels such as antimatter, fusion, or black holes, bigger is better. In order to power those ships, the fuel required would also require size minimums.

[@willyreeves319]

at the smallest level we could send bacteria (or something that size) out like scattering pollen with just the solar wind for acceleration and they would be much faster than the voyager probes. much above that and I agree fleets of ships we consider gigantic would be more likely to make the trip. essentially moving a planets worth of people and their stuff all in a single armada.

[@Spoolsy]

I like the video, but I don't like that this dude calls everyone stupid who doesn't believe in climate change... He's made up his mind on the subject and doesn't care about the other views on the subject. Not really a scientific mind in my opinion...

[@stevelalley6194]

That was really great. Thanks!

[@ourcommonancestry6025]

Brilliant intro

[@SuperPiccolo82]

The conditions that brought us about: -Saturn stopping Jupiter from drifting closer to the Sun and stabilizing its orbit, allowing the rocky planets to take shape -the rogue planet that slammed into earth in the early days becoming the moon that helped create our seasons and such -the asteroid that killed off the dinosaurs, allowing mammals to thrive and evolve All seem to be very rare events yet very possible to have occurred elsewhere in the cosmos. If life was brought to this planet from space perhaps, why couldn't it have happened elsewhere but with a different chemical make up. In the vast span of time that the universe is presumed to have existed, life, intelligent or otherwise, could have come and gone a thousand times all over the universe. We can't assume that intelligent life will occur at the same time. As for aliens, I believe they are evolved versions of us from the future traveling back in time to study us in various time periods, hence the similar descriptions of alien beings or visitors from the stars throughout time. Unless hyperdrive speed, 1000 times or so faster than the speed of light, can truly be achieved, there's no conceivable way that interstellar travel would make any sense for a physically fragile organism such as ourselves. Even at the speed of light it would take us 100,000 years to just get across our own galaxy, forget about andromeda. I'd to think we aren't alone but we very much may be. Great episode!

[@englishcoach7772]

Humanity is a teenager who cannot clean his/her room. Valid point.

[@englishcoach7772]

@OkayGotIt its more complex than that. There are conflicting datas. Some of which affects the climate in the short term, some on the long term and some that actually reverses climate change. Most of what we do on an industrial scale effects climate without a doubt. I wouldn't put my money on it benefitting the climate.

[@UnknownHumanoid]

It's simple. Our galaxy has 105.000ly diameter. Civilizations use radiowaves for maximum 500years, then they use a better technology to communicate. The probability for us to catch those radiowaves in our span time is incredibly low. Maybe some radio waves are on the way or just passed before we entered the tech era. Maybe with difference of thousands of years.

[@whtbobwntsbobget]

Yo Johnny boy, are you coming with us to raid area 51???

[@keplerthe3399]

He can distract the guards by giving a lecture on the fermi paradox

[@amateurastronaut5006]

There hasn't been anything at area 51 for years.

[@OscarWrightZenTANGO]

Forgan is the most fascinating of all commentators on the issue....the issue of Fermi's Paradox !!!!!!!!!!!!!

[@interloop]

nice new intro

[@maxnullifidian]

My working hypothesis, until further data comes in, is that we are completely alone in the observable universe. I could be wrong, and I'm looking forward to being proven to be.

[@RodrigoTechador]

You would probably love this video: kzbin.info/www/bejne/hqKonoyLbb6SqKs

[@raidermaxx2324]

you are a really competent interviewer of scientifically inclined, intelligent people.. you gotta be pretty on the ball to pull that off, so right on my man.. I tip my ethereal, quantumly generated fedora to ya