Fermi's Paradox and the Psychology of Galactic Empires | Matthew O´Dowd | TEDxTUWien

[@jamesroseii]

I really like this dude on PBS SPACETIME.

[@rafillo01]

He´s amazing!

[@unholy7324]

James Rosenblum have you guys heard/seen Isaac Arthur's channel?

[@jamesroseii]

unholy7 Have not. Will have to check it out.

[@CandidDate]

Science gave us nuclear weapons. Math is not going to change the world --- only people with the will to make the world better can prevent us from destroying ourselves. Science is only one way to look at the world. It is not the only way, nor the best. It only rewards those who study hard. We worship the intelligent. AND we forget the slower ones, the disabled, the poor. Science is Hitlerian on a global scale. We can definitely live without it. We could wake up in the morning and just be. Be grateful to be alive and share the world with our fellow man. We don't need all these weapons and better ways to kill. We need to slow down and treat each other with respect. I'll just go climb into the corner and grow my hair for peace now. Thanks. And may you find the will to progress the peace movement. If you want peace you have to fight!

[@mattihaapoja8203]

CandidDate I think you forgot to take your medicine

[@EcnalKcin]

If you look into human history, we spent almost 200,000 years with almost no technological progress. One theory that is gaining traction is that cataclysmic events happen every so often and to some degree reset our progress. However, we haven't had one since the ice age ended over 11,000 years ago. Meaning we have been super lucky and no big rocks from space ended our current technological advance, yet. Today we have the technology to divert any civilization ending rocks, but we don't have a system in place. So, with a little luck, we may actually get advance warning if a rock is about to hit us, just enough time to really regret not putting more money into our space program.

[@i-evi-l]

Apophis in 2029

[@TangomanX2008]

I used to think this way. However, as far as I can tell, the reason why people think that that people do not see little or no technological progress is that much of the involved technologies are unknown or not appreciated. In addition, since most of that time there no written records (we have ruins, artifacts, drawings), there is much we don't know. If the reason why we do not see the difference in Technology between one neolithic arrowhead and another arrow head because there was little or no technological progress, or because we are not in a good position to appreciate or even notice a difference? Another thing that should give us pause is that we seem to assume that many of us have a view where Technological Progress is somehow normal, so whenever we do not see it, we wonder why. Perhaps we live in a short period of history where there there is much technological progress, and because we happen to be living in it, we take it for granted. The point is, we may not be in a good position to understand how human technology progress works once you go back far enough in history (lets be honest, here, we have lots of examples where we found out surprising things about the technological achievements of say, the Aztecs, Ancient Greeks, or Ancient Chinese, let alone the ancient Egyptians, and we make surprising discoveries like the ruins of Gobleki Tepe, which challenges what we thought we knew). Are we really in a good position to understand, let alone appreciate human technology from 20,000 years ago, 50,000 years ago, or 200,000 years ago?

[@777lucifero]

I doubt we would be able to avoid a catastrophic asteroid. If it's reasonably small, sure. If it's a massive body there's no chance to survive. If the impact is big enough, we would not have sunlight for years and all life as we know it would end, save some plant/bacteria types that seem to endure the harshest conditions.

[@Spartacus547]

@@777lucifero just so you know with our current level of Technology if we wanted to move the moon out of our solar system we could so a large asteroid won't be a problem

[@timeslowingdown]

@@i-evi-l "That asteroid, called Apophis, stretches about 1,100 feet (340 meters) across and will pass within 19,000 miles (31,000 kilometers) of Earth's surface. That might sound scary, but scientists are positive that it will not hit Earth. Instead, it's a once-in-a-lifetime chance for scientists to truly understand asteroids near Earth"

[@rajens1]

considering dinosaurs were around for millions of years, evolution might not lead to intelligence that easily, intelligence is the filter

[@michaellidster1389]

Dinosaurs were intelligent. They opened doors in 1993.

[@trequor]

Yeah it took quite unique circumstances to produce our capacity for intelligence. In terms of pure survival our brains are WAY overkill. We could be as smart as dogs and get along just fine as a species

[@FloraGaleFlower]

Michael Lidster, that was a movie, not real life.

[@bevvox]

intelligence, probably yes, but in what form and format..? not to mention, the problem with intelligence in a species as a system of progress of that's species place in the ecosystem and among itself, is its own nature essentially, as it is intrinsically linked yet often practically juxtaposed, collective and individual intelligence in application and purpose

[@trequor]

fractual quasar Who would miss us? Of course we can define reality; we define everything. All definitions are our creations

[@wolmandbaker6858]

Commander Shepard knows the answer to the Fermi`s Paradox...Reapers.

[@jamescook16]

Val Suto 😂😂😂good sh**

[@paulrite6202]

Alan Shepard?

[@dustinmorse8497]

@@paulrite6202 no, it's from Mass Effect

[@giovannibini6809]

@@dustinmorse8497 Cant' wait for Elon Musk to discover those prothean data banks on Mars

[@cibernete1974]

In a Gregory Benford's scifi romance was already described a reapers'-like galactic civilization.

[@Cosmocroft]

As heartbreaking as the possibility of us being the first is, there is great beauty in what legacy we might leave for others in the universe, maybe we will never receive that faint signal from others in the universe, but maybe one day someone could hear us, and they could discover that they aren't alone

[@SotocandoAlquimiaSonora]

I want to believe

[@professorzoom7800]

wow, i’ve never heard this perspective before 😂 that’s kinda a cool thought.

[@stevenswitzer5154]

How is that heartbreaking

[@Cosmocroft]

@@stevenswitzer5154 heartbreaking that we may very well be alone in the universe

[@chrisdirham6880]

I like your point of view and I definitely agree. We are the precursors, the progenitors, the ancient long gone civilization you see in the videogames and movies. We aren't exactly alone, the other civilizations are probably just crawling out of their promethean stew... One day they will find our mark we've left all over our Galaxy and probes, ships, satellite's dead flying through interstellar space... It's so sad and beautiful. We are just the begining.... OR WE ARENT and soon we will discover our progenitors and their monuments left from eons of eons ago... Time so vast it may as well be immeasurable...

[@s.c.7215]

How about this theory: Electromagnetic waves used by our emitters (like radio waves) travel at the speed of light or very close to it. Great, but the problem of hearing anyone or being heard might be due to the massive interstellar distances. Let's consider how recently our civilization has started broadcasting radio waves toward the rest of the galaxy: 1974, the Arecibo radio telescope broadcast. So our first outgoing signal has travelled for about 43 light years. Considering the Milky Way's center is almost 30,000 light years away that is absolutely nothing, and only few solar systems are within a 40 lys radius of us. So our message simply might not have been received yet. And vice versa. We have only started listening to the skies in the past 50-60 years. Other civilizations might actually want to keep radio silence or communication encrypted on purpose for who knows what safety reasons. If thats the case, then the races that sent radio based messages havent been heard by us yet, and we havent been heard by their receivers either due to the distances. Other more advanced races might simply use different means of interstellar communication, as electromagnetic waves would take ages to have a conversation. So personally I believe the great statistical factor here is: matching messages based on the same technologies, across many generations-wide distances, and arriving exactly at a civilization's stage in time when they are using the same technology, and is actively using that technology to listen. Based on cosmic times and distances, that probability is so so so very tiny.

[@smirk-in-progress4800]

Stefan Esseci , along that same line of thinking... If a civilization reached our level of advancement say, 10k years ago, but exists 20k light years across the Galaxy... We will be 10k years more advanced by the time we see evidence of them even though they are actually 10k years ahead of us. I am by no means an astrophysicist, so corrections are welcome if my reasoning is flawed.

[@genewalters]

Absolutely true, but there’s some reasoning that says 10,000 is a drop in evolutionary time so it’s more likely that civilizations are hundreds of thousands or millions of years apart from us... giving ample time for their radio to span the galaxy.

[@rusmiller816]

But not if they purposefully quit broadcasting 150 years after they started, maybe to hide from civilizations like ours or because they found a better means of communication than electromagnetism. Given the size of the galaxy, if a million alien civilizations each broadcasted for 150 years before going radio silent, the chance of those signals crossing our path at exactly this moment, in the short time we have possessed the ability to hear them, is quite remote. Perhaps we haven't been listening long enough.

[@goneprospecting818]

If your civ doesn't stay hidden another one will come to slaughter it. It's not rocket science. Also, a star traveling people wouldn't comunicate with slow slow radio waves. Gravity waves are much faster. Encrypted gravity waves, disguised as natural background so as not to attract attention from conquering hordes that will eat you.

[@MagusSilikonski]

you mean hordes like us?

[@BijanSabbagh]

Mat is one of the people inspired me to create my youtube channel in Farsi for Farsi speakers. The only Iranian science show to be precise. It was noteworthy that his language was tremendously harder to understand than his very frequent episodes on PBS SpaceTime, and for 1 second I thought that's what happens to those who have to repeat easy talks as a daily job! So they become harder to understand in their real life. I related that to myself and that was eery. But as a follower of SpaceTime for every single episode till recently, I've always respected Mat as a scientist and really wanted to know what HIS perception of reality is. What weight does he give to the unknown, or to the Standard Model, or to the String Theory... What I saw here was this anti-Hollywood hero who tries to explain the reality as it is -- harder for us uneducated to understand, the possibilities, the main questions to ask and truly whatever I imagined he would have said if he was ever to go on the stage of a TED event. Matthew you are brilliant! Keep up with the great job, and if humanity wiped itself out, let's be on that spaceship that we built, with our wisdom! Cheers from Turkey + Iran.

[@BusterXXXL]

You lost me at "harder to understand than his episodes on PBS SpaceTime" I love watching them, but bite me if I understand much more than the introduction on most of them. And I am afraid it is not any kind of language barrier holding me back - unless you count math as a language.

[@BijanSabbagh]

The reason I'm not following much of SpaceTime recently is that I have the same problem. But I won't vote for "a more simple language". Any subject discussed by Mat on SpaceTime could be found on KZbin and Internet with more simple explanations. I like SpaceTime because it tries to be slightly more scientific, using Math and so on. I think they have recently lost the balance because I really cannot understand a word sometimes now. They should go back to their initial videos and return to a more simple language that explains the hard stuff. But maybe not as simple as Vsauce or others. Those who have slightly more information than the public, should be able to have such a great channel to feed their curiosity.

[@BusterXXXL]

Well, not understanding much isn't the same as not enjoying them. After a hard day at work it can be eerily relaxing to listen to Matt talking about stuff, then realizing that the concepts he talks about go right above my head, and musing about what amazing things could still be there for me to understand if I ever made the effort to dig myself in. Also, to the OP, imagining to translate Mats vids into another language without turning them into mindless babble - kudos. K U D O S to Bjan Sabbagh

[@Deeplycloseted435]

Bijan Sabbagh that is great! You have a Farsi channel discussing the cosmos?

[@wjckc79]

"Iranian science show to be precise" Historical irony at its best. Thanks for doing what you are doing.

[@flyhigh54]

In terms of galactic empires there would be a point where they would become possible, just based on what is happening in the local and not so local areas around where life would evolve. It takes about a billion years of a semi stable environment for complex life to evolve, and we know of no way for it to come about any quicker. Perhaps the earliest chance for a true galactic empire has yet to come, so my favorite way of perceiving the Fermi paradox is that all intelligent civilizations are looking up at the stars, wondering if they are the only ones out there, just like us.

[@christrengove7551]

Nice but unlikely. The paradox has to do with vastly different time scales - the variability in how long it takes for intelligent life to evolve in different locations is probably going to be at least hundreds of millions of years while we have only developed technology in thousands of years; and it has been conservatively estimated that a galactic empire shouldn't take more then a million years to develop. So why hasn't it already occurred? Hence the Great Filter is needed. The nub of this fascinating talk, whether or not you agree with it, is that we may be about to slip past the point where the great filter is able to stop us from leaving our mark on the galaxy and given the absence of other marks, we could be the first to do so. So we really are alone.

[@zarion1181]

Do you realize how old (or better how young) our galaxy is? We might be the first advanced civilization. That doesnt mean we are 'special'. The galaxy is probably teeming with life. Maybe not intelligent life (yet). The fermi paradox is a good explanation too tho. I like the idea. There is also a force in nature that regulates overpopulation. This civilization is already consuming more than we can produce. We might be on the brink of the next mass extinction.

[@walterkelly]

To build on your thinking: perhaps the Fermi Paradox points, in a paradoxical way, to proof of a galactic empire out there - a large technologically advanced, ancient over-species. That is, if it is statistically likely the galaxy supports many techno-life forms who should be leaving traceable techno footprints, absence of their signals is, in fact, conspicuous. It suggests we are being kept in the dark on purpose. Why? Well, what would be the point of contact? What would be the harm? Edible food plants don't just spring up in your backyard, nor would intelligent life just spring up on planets. Perhaps the galaxy was seeded with life by the supra-species. These ancient god gardeners have millions of years experience planting life and cultivating it to maturity . Just like in your backyard garden, life forms must be nurtured, protected - and isolated - until they are "ripe" for contact.

[@christrengove7551]

Walter Kelly I like that explanation. It's a definitely maybe candidate!

[@CallousCarter]

Walter Kelly I could imagine some advanced species monitoring us with something like nano-scale probes that we wouldn't be able to detect. I haven't heard any convincing ideas for why they would be doing it. The idea that we were seeded and they're nurturing us seems very unlikely to me. First of all we know that most species that have developed on this planet have gone extinct so they couldn't be interested in preserving all forms of life. If they wanted something like us to develop specifically it's hard to imagine they wouldn't have a more efficient method than billions of years of evolution.

[@darrenholcomb2266]

"Life evolved on my planet, before all others in this part of the galaxy. We left our world, explored the stars and found none like our selves . . . " Star Trek The Next Generation 'The Chase'.

[@paulskillman6634]

We can hardly communicate with different groups of people on our own planet.

[@mojukin3018]

or get past the Van Allen Belt truth be told

[@bgcvetan]

Good one. XD

[@jasonkinzie8835]

I've done some world traveling. I've never really had a problem communicating with different groups of people even when I didn't know the language. Of course they were all human. A genuinely alien being would be an entirely different story although if they are biological they would presumably share basic motives like survival and reproduction. Also, if they are intelligent technologically advanced spacefaring beings then we should be able to communicate with the language of math and physics at least. But of course this is all speculation on my part.

[@danpt2000]

Learn foreign language?

[@rayk5598]

And yet here I am communicating with you and millions others around the globe.

[@makismakiavelis5718]

23:23 _"...and what if a destiny that we could choose is that we become the ones to forge that path, to lend that helping hand to anyone who happens to come after in the vast planes of SpaceTime"_ There, I fixed it.

[@117Industries]

Dude. This is an amazing comment.

[@GinoNL]

Lol

[@bryanjackson8917]

Helen: "Why have you come to our planet?" Klaatu: "Who said it's your planet?"

[@Kalepherion]

The history of humanity will be written in the stars, or not at all. - George Ray Arruda

[@stratford519]

We are already here and our footprint is small. We are made up of star dust after all. - Nelson McClure. I'm a poet and I didn't know it.

[@stratford519]

That quote is basically suggesting we may not even exist. I find it contradictory to itself and therefore unintelligent. Kinda like saying "We are here, or we are not here." lol. "To be, or not to be." yadda yadda.

[@fabienbourdier9847]

You want bum bum ? - Dirac

[@michaellidster1389]

We already wrote the history of humanity. And the book might last forever without leaving the solar system if we find a new energy source and a way to survive sun death. We can just bunker down in the solar system with our as yet unknown energy supply and shielding tech. Wise empires stay close to home and conserve themselves. Lol. Just kidding

[@michaellidster1389]

You said it

[@jbiwer32]

This is one of the best lectures I’ve seen on the possibility/odds of life on other worlds. Also one of the best I’ve seen on our future. On that topic...how hard would it be in, say, 50 years for an individual or a group with enough motivation and a little research to build a truly devastating weapon? Think about the devastation we can inflict with today’s technology. Now think about what it will be like 50-100years from now. I can almost guarantee someone or a group will eventually build and implement an extinction-level weapon. And we won’t know about it until it’s too late. It only takes a few individuals out of billions to succeed. Our technology is increasing rapidly...but we as humans are basically genetically the same as we were 10,000 years ago...prone to fits of rage and emotionally motivated (rather than logically motivated) decision making. Look at the damage, destruction and chaos we inflict upon our society today, because of one person’s death. We live in a delicate balance here on earth. 50 years of technology advances from now...whether the source of imbalance is political, social, biological, or environmental, it doesn’t really matter. Eventually something unexpected and unpreventable will happen. Then it’s game over for human kind.

[@dslkjvoxicuyhgl4554]

God I wish more people saw it like you and I. Life is truly the most graceful, delicate, lucky thing we've ever experienced, and every single day we exist in another day, another month, another year, another decade in multiple cold wars, pointing extinction level nuclear weapons at ourselves with maniacs in charge of the detonators...we are basically spitting in the faces of reality, death, and fate itself. Bless you for being concious, and grateful. Had everyone done their part, maybe we could keep on existing. I just turned 31. My hopes are no longer high, I don't expect to know old age....

[@ReadyPlayerDog]

I watched a Star Trek episode when I was a kid (stay with me!) about the Enterprise racing to solve a puzzle, in competition with the Klingons and Romulans and others. They all thought the prize was something different. It turns out to be a recording from a precursor race that found itself alone in the galaxy and decided to lay the seeds of life on various planets in the hope they would all venture to the stars in the far distant future and find each other. From the first time I saw that I always believed that we were that first race. Alone in the galaxy, maybe even the universe, but we would take the positives and help to seed other intelligent life or be there to help emerging civilisations. Over the years the evidence has consistently supported that theory that we are alone. The chances of us making it past certain points in our history are slim at best. There is actually a great Ted talk on that very subject. If anybody has bothered to read this far, then thanks! You must be bored! In closing, I think we are on the verge of doing something phenomenal. I believe we need two things to survive as a species going forward. We need to develop and embrace intuitive AI, working together with it to help solve our problems. And we need to leave Earth. Not completely evacuate! But we do need to colonize other planets as it's a mathematical certainty that we will be hit by a global ending event. Be it a sun flare, asteroid or whatever. It's a nailed on fact that there is something out there with our name on it and the clock is ticking. I believe that we will achieve both of those things and in doing so will elevate us to something truly amazing that we can't currently imagine.

[@lloydtucker5647]

Even if there is no asteroid or sun flare, humanity will still need to terraform and colonize eventually. There are 7 billion people on the planet. People are living longer and medical science is advancing. However, all of humanity has to first come and agree that a barrel of oil or an ounce of gold is not worth dropping bombs on people.

[@eccentriccrank6]

OK folks, something that rarely if ever gets mentioned is that in round numbers Earth is roughly 4-5 billion years old. The observable universe is only three times as old. Several generations of stars had to be born, live and die to distribute the required elements for life to exist here. We may simply be just one of the first generation possible. Stay tuned to see more...

[@eccentriccrank6]

Fair enough, but what was the trigger of the pre-Cambrian diversity explosion? You said "If the evolution of life and advanced civilizations was likely enough". Nothing says it should be easier. For 2.5 billion years, one quarter of our sun's lifespan, life was a single species of bacteria. If that trigger event is sufficiently rare or late, higher life forms might not have time to evolve opposable thumbs etc. before their star dies. On the other hand the Ferengi control earth's economy... Live wrong and profit!

[@danielsellars3353]

With that thinking its even more probable that there has been a lot of other civilizations that have come before us and been wiped out by the sands of time. A Civilization starts around 4-5 billion years ago and if their star goes super nova 5 billion years later, there wont be a trace of them anywhere and no one will ever know. Same could happen to us in billions of years when our solar system is "dead" and gets wiped out, then "people" or whoever in another 2 billion years across the universe is having this same conversation about us and if we ever existed.

[@raidermaxx2324]

how about after inflation makes it so all the galaxies are so far away from each other, that intelligent beings will not be able to know that there are other galaxies, and\or a beginning "big bang" to the universe.. lol

[@claymaxon]

Or...the last.

[@JPReid81]

The trigger was oxygen. It became plentiful enough after organisms filled our atmosphere with O2. That's the believed catalyst anyway...

[@DavidJones-tp7td]

Many early explorers thought the same thing about a land they were entering only to encounter the natives. Just because we have not or (maybe) cannot see the signs does not mean it is not there. If the communications network relies on something other than radio, if the source is far enough away and/or passes though enough interference, if... so many if's we still cannot answer. We maybe the first, but we not be...

[@effexon]

yeah, natives wanted to live peacefully, explorers ravaged in ignorance and greed. they couldnt see value in native culture. that kind of shift takes decades even with no technological progress to see things differently.

[@daek2903]

Fermi Paradox + UFOs of extraterrestrial origin => End of the Fermi Paradox paradigm. 1. Are we alone in the universe? Most likely not, which would also explain many UFO sightings (at least those not clearly attributable to misidentifications of experimental craft (noisy stuff!), swamp gas, bolt lightning, weather ballons, flares, or Mass hallucinations, all of which to be honest dose not fit the witnesses descriptions of quite a lot of UFO sightings throughout our history), and yes in this ballpark there is more scientific ground for true UFOs being of extraterrestrial origin, rather than inter-dimensional, parallell universes, or time travel, since these three latter require the existence of not only the very real vast universe that appear to be filled with different opportunities for life to arise, but the existence of other dimensions (which we have not discovered yet) or the possibility to go back in time (which comes with all kind of additional paradoxes). 2. So, if they are here, how did they reach us? Well most likely with some kind of gravity (spacetime) manipulating technology, such as Warp Drive, or likewise technologies we are yet to discover (if we learn how to harness the negative energy of dark energy). 3. But why would they even come here? Well there is probably more reasons to come here, than to not come here. One explanation could be that they came to make sure we do not come to them first as soon as we just like them discover how easy it really is to traverse space, and reach them or other civilisations. For all we know they, as an intelligent species, might figure we will probably reach the technology it takes to reach them in e.g. 100 years from now, and boy will they make sure we do not, based on what they've seen so far (i.e. our aggressive lifestyle, where we even occasionally use Weapons of mass destruction on our own kind, hence the UFO & nukes connection)... 3a. But aren't we just like ants to them? Not Necessarily (we don't know how far ahead of us they really are), and even if we are like ants or half-intelligent animals to them, such life forms can most definitely cause a lot of harm or uncomfortable problems to them, juse like ants or unwanted wildlife can do to us, even though our highly superior technology, hence we (as them) make sure to keep these potentially dangers and annoying, or potentially contagious creatures away. I mean there are whole industries for that kind of stuff in our sociecty! 3b. With regards to the fairly silent universe, and the fact that the only technologically developed life form we know yet, has developed on a fairly uncommon planet (size-wise), with a not very common star type, in a fairly silent galaxy with a fairly uncommon placement (near a supervoid), it might be so that intelligent technological life is indeed fairly unique, although it do exists. Well then, we might be one of few intelligent civilisation, besides these visiting us in their gravity-propulsion vehicles, which indeed would make us an interesting target (and potential threat) for any other reasonably unique civilisation in this block of the universe. Conclusions: If they are here, which is definitely not an impossible possibility, at least they have yet had the decency to let us continue our existence and development (which might be the golden standard in Galactic UN :P), and hopefully, one day, when we do become a potential threat to them, in a generation or two, we are lucky to find that they will also let us join their galactic empire.. Otherwise I guess we are either totally screwed, or at least realise that we will be prisoners of our own Earth and solar system, until we learn to behave! ^^

[@TuranciHareket]

not in this universe.

[@jzamb]

I wonder if folks realize just how groundbreaking and astonishing it is to sit and listen to this and similar presentations? Had any academic stood in front of a group, even ten years ago, and talked about anything alien related they would have been laughed out of the room. But things have changed. And when the other telescopes come online everyone should expect even more changes. I just hope they are all good.

[@88_TROUBLE_88]

That's not true.. Not even close to true. Several acrdenics have discussed this at length and weren't summerily dismissed

[@lawsofminecraft6303]

I will say that the idea of alien intelligence and definitely alien life are becoming increasingly likely. We have the evidence now for all those planets. That means there is a filter for intelligent life somewhere in all of this, most likely.

[@joeam4977]

The Fermi Paradox provides some very concrete examples of why we are alone in terms of intelligent life. The thought of earth being alone is terrifying to most people. Even if we aren’t alone, the probability is that humanity will end before encountering an alien intelligent civilization.

[@seankelly1291]

“What if we’re early?” How inspirational is that!

[@Piaseczno1]

That would be the Party Paradox, which would imply we'd be first to leave/exit. Gloomy, I know.

[@brumadyaniconoclasm6436]

There are several filters I see as valid most of which we do not fully understand. How rare is the collision that gives us our large moon (tides for life mixing, axis stability)? How rare is an active core (magnetic field, plate tectonics)? How rare is it to have just enough water for both oceans and land? How rare is it for life not to go to a dead end energy wise (so many close calls .... too much CO2, not enough CO2, no oxygen, lots of oxygen, less oxygen, frozen earth ... and that is life that did that let alone astronomical events)? Moving to our own history... How often does intelligence arise that is smarter than it needs to be to defeat animals? How common is it to have clear skies (you can have photosynthesis without being able to make out the stars or even the sun, how much would be missing from science without being able to see stars)? How common are supercontinents vs. many continents (how much of our progress comes from being partitioned?)

[@Majinant]

Just the steps it took to make our brain what it is. It's insane There is probably life out there, but I can seriously say that we are most likely the first intelligent life. Another filter of sorts is gravity. Say we were born on a planet with double or even triple the gravity we have. Even if intelligent life formed we would not be able to get off the ground. What if the planet was surrounded constantly by thick cloud? The life there wouldn't even know about space, the sun or anything. What if the intelligent life formed in the ocean or even on a water world? What if during one of the many MASS extinctions our distant ancestor was one of the ones to go extinct? Life has been on this plant for billions of years, yet it is only in the last click of the finger than there has been intelligent life. There are SOOOOOO many filters. If you just sit down and think for a few hours you could easily write thousands and intelligent life has to get through pretty much all of them. Doesn't take long for the odds to look almost impossible.

[@jebbevers8239]

. . . and how many ci ilizations passed before humanity developed the empirical method and science.

[@pchiare]

These aren't filters; rather, pre-conditions. My uneducated guess would be that they may be rare, but not so rare as to account for your assumption that they are nearly unique. There are TENS OF BILLIONS of terrestrial planets in our galaxy alone. Surely there are enough of those that fulfil all these criteria.

[@pchiare]

Filters in the sense that he is using the term would be circumstances that arise with near certainty through the bio-technological evolutionary process necessary for a civilisation to leave a "mark" in the cosmos. Circumstances which, due to their difficulty, again with near certainty will wipe out or render impossible for these species to leave such a mark.

[@SDsc0rch]

we had a meteorite hit us just hard enough to wipe out the dinosaurs but leave the mammals

[@davidinmossy]

It's kinda like going to the ocean with a drinking glass scooping up some sea water having a look in it and confidently saying the oceans contain no whales!

[@andrasbiro3007]

That's not how you look for whales and not how we look for aliens. You can see whales from far away and you can hear them at huge distances, no need to look too hard. And that's exactly the point of this talk. Extrapolating our own technological advances and behavior into the future we see ourselves becoming whales that can be easily detected from across the ocean. If there were other whales in this ocean we would hear them already. You should check out Isaac Arthur's KZbin channel for more details. If you look for a technological civilization on Earth, you don't look for individual people, or individual machines, but cities, highways, dams, bright lights at night, and many other signs that the landscape is not natural. Many things you could easily spot from orbit, or even lightyears away already. Even an air or soil sample could easily betray our presence. For example a trace amount of plutonium and other relatively short lived radioactive isotopes from nuclear tests and accidents prove that we are here, because those elements can't naturally exist on a planet this old. And there are probably even more chemicals that can't exist naturally, plastics for example. Then there's the simple fact that our planet is not in an equilibrium state in many ways, when it should be. Climate change would be pretty obvious, maybe even from interstellar distances, as our atmosphere's composition, the planet's surface temperature and the energy it gets from our star are all easy to measure, and they just don't add up. This is what scientists are looking for, only at a galactic scale.

[@marccas10]

Lovely analogy, but if the earth had as many whales as the Universe had habitable planets you wouldn't be able to bet the glass wet for whales.

[@ivanpetrov-xf3on]

Someone is watching Neil Degrasse Tyson! :)

[@christianvasbinder1248]

@@andrasbiro3007 not to mention analyzing the very light that reflects off earth in a spectrometer would tell you we're a living breathing planet.

[@pianoalien]

Great comment Dave

[@rogerstone3068]

Suggestions for what makes technologically advanced space-exploring life much more rare than the easy assumptions woven into previous estimating formulae: - is water as common as we assume? If only 1 in 1,000 possible 'Goldilocks zone' planets have this much water... - is it necessary for the planet to have moderate axial tilt and a big low moon, providing between them an energetic weather system and steady tidal stirring of the oceans? How common is that combination? - perhaps cellular life is easily formed (alkaline thermal vents being likely on any planet with lots of water and tidal surges) - but the adoption of bacterial mitochondrions and the bacterial nucleus-cell into an archaeon only seems to have happened once, generating the first self-replicating complex cell, our last common ancestor. That's once out of a couple of billion years of trying. Maybe there are a billion planets covered with bacterial slime, for every one that develops multicellular life. - perhaps life never develops into such complex and diverse forms unless there are intermittent ice ages and searing hot dry spells (so we need the right degree of ellipticity in the orbit, plus the right cycle of sunspot generation), to keep refining adaptability and survival through the mechanism of evolution. How many planets have just enough ice-age/fireball variation to pull this trick? If ours had been just a LITTLE more extreme, of course, life would not have survived at all. If the stresses had been less extreme, perhaps life would not be driven to such competitive evolution; the planet would just have a happy, complacent, plethora of cohabiting greenery, algae, and slime moulds. - the development of big brains and intelligence seems to have been an accidental by-product (quite illogical, since brains take so much energy to run) brought about by a freak coincidence of factors. What if that only comes about on one in ten thousand of the (extremely rare) planets that pass all the previous tests and reach the post-dinosaur mammalian diversity? (or an equivalent using whatever life-forms have evolved there) - even after hominids appear, genetics shows there is some sort of population bottleneck which our ancestors only just passed; on how many equivalent planets did they NOT survive? - finally, don't assume that moving from intelligent bands of hunter-gatherers using primitive tools and language, into modern technology, is inevitable. We were essentially modern humans, about 2 million years ago - perhaps earlier - and did little with it, for a long time. The increase in population density and the move to food production and animal domestication which took place in the Fertile Crescent area about 12-10,000 years ago could happen only because of the combination of animals and plants in that area; other parts of the world never made that move. On how many worlds was that move never made? "PROGRESS" IS NOT A GIVEN. Some societies lost technological advances and regressed, perhaps through climate change or through having exterminated some of the necessary species.

[@giovannibini6809]

other requirements - the planet must have fossil fuels or fissile material to start an industrial revolution - the planet must have a small enough gravity to allow sending things to orbit

[@FLASK904]

Fermi paradox is absurd. We simply don't have enough data to call this a paradox. We tend to want answer NOW! and that is not how all this works. detecting life, let alone intelligent life is going to be a process and I think they best way is to find habitable planets. The Webb telescope should help with that. Step 1: Find planets outside the solar system - Done Step 2: Find small, rocky planets outside the solar system - Done Step 3: Find Earth like planets amongst the small, rocky worlds - In progress Step 4: Determine if planets share tell tale signs of civilization/life - Pending

[@marccas10]

Nope! We should be crawling with ETs or their probes.

[@VonSC2]

There is no 'Fermi Paradox. This is the answer. STILL TOO PRIMITIVE. NOT ENOUGH DATA. KEEP LOOKING.

[@VonSC2]

@@marccas10 And we might be. 1) Simply because the vast majority of UFO reports are explainable and dismissable...it is not a logical conclusion that ALL of them are are. It's a big planet (relative to us). There's a lot going on here that we're unaware of - 2) Any species advanced enough to travel between star systems is advanced enough to hide from our primitive tech.

[@marccas10]

@@VonSC2 I agree to an extent but the early probes would probably be relatively quite primitive. I dont see them having any cloaking capabilities at all and by now in a 14 Billion year old universe if organic and not digital and assuming that "life" is common the we should have probes sitting around our planet monitoring us maybe from a civilisation that died out a billion years ago.

[@MrLipiko]

The Fermi Paradox isn't about just any form of life we could find, it's about intelligent life. With all the data we have about probability of life, amount of solar systems with likely inhabitable planets etc. we would assume that there should be lots of other near type 1 or type 1 civilizations and that we should see remnants of them throughout the galaxy: probes, some kind of signal, anything, but there's nothing at all, not even the tiniest hint of any other civilization and that's confusing.

[@tleam88]

I have two answers to the Fermi Paradox. My favorite answer: There is a very real possibility that lesser technologically advanced species would lack the wisdom to handle more advanced technology so the more technologically advanced species simply do not even approach other species until they reach the point in which they are believed to have the wisdom to treat higher technology/science with respect and without destroying themselves and others either on purpose or on accidentally. Basically, the Prime Directive/General Order One from Star Trek. My pessimistic answer is thus: We currently have too many countries with nuclear technology who hate each other and we still haven't banned the creation, storage, and use of nuclear weapons but we've passed laws on many types of weapons and agents which are bottle rockets in comparison. And that's not even touching research labs which are creating viruses which are worse than the garden variety viruses and for no other reason than to see if we could. There still very much could be a Great Filter in front of us: Nuclear War or a genetically altered/lab grown virus which escaped from a lab. Every day matters, every year, we get closer to this filter. Will it be a brick wall or is it an open door, letting us into the greater universe? I, for one, hope to live to see the day when the idea of a road trip is that of going into space and gazing upon the giant storm on Jupiter. Or go to an interstellar mall over in Alpha Centauri.

[@sagnorm1863]

A little of topic. But I have been inside the atmosphere of a gas giant and witnessed a giant storm further down in the atmosphere. (in a video game with good graphics)

[@sanchalshrirame7168]

You're right with the Prime Directive there... And also with the pessimism, but don't worry World War 3 isn't happening! 😇😉

[@evanponcelet5794]

Welcome old comments to the year 2020, where it's a miracle that WW3 has yet to break out, but it's still early in the ball game because we're in the midst of a global pandemic that could very well be lab grown that will have economic consequences that are yet to be realized.

[@takaliomega8235]

@@evanponcelet5794 And now Russia is invading Europe during the pandemic and we're all toast. LOL

[@engelbertus1406]

to me the sense of considering ourselves as individuals and “selves” or “our selves” at all, narrows the perspective of what we could be in the first place. If a sense of separateness is massively induced onto creatures, any creature at all, consciousness will locate itself at the level of a separate self. Any form of connectivity, any understanding of connecting, will rise from one separate being connecting to another. We can substitute any categorized number of creatures as an individual, i.e. a married couple, or an ant hill - stating and or observing that in some sense it acts as an individual. Even our solar system could be viewed as an individual system, separate from other solar systems. This conditioned perspective will indeed result in individuals looking for other individuals. Now, keep this assumption in mind. For there is a freedom to not view anything as being separate at all. There is the idea of the singularity. It is mostly referred to the moment in the future where AI will overcome the level human intelligence and within a short frame of time fully realize itself and become master of resources and its environment. Again, in this view, AI is considered to become an individual with a sense of self. As long as we stick to a lineair approach of reality, this event will remain projected into the future, at least at our individual location. From the standpoint of separateness, every individual civilisation will have it’s “own” singularity happening. And it is not happening simultaneously. Again, we separate processes in the universe and account for them to be separate or individual. One trait of the AI singularity, is stated to be that all AI is interconnected with itself - all individual or separate generators of AI will form an Overmind, and behave, or beehive as such :) In a sense, everything connected to the AI source, even if it is non-local present, for example in a cloud, loses its sense of self and individuality - it will operate as one bigger individual, using all its collective computing and observation power to transform it's environment from an omniperspective. Now, if we still hold on to the assumption, that singularities on separate locations will take place in different times, then any singularity happening will put out a new goal: erasing it's own local individual status of singularity and try and find a way to connect to singularities that happened earlier. If a hyperintelligent AI, finds a way to connect to another hyperintelligent AI, by means of operating, it will erase a sense of separateness and become an unparted Overmind even if locations in space of the AI physical technology on which it is operating are very far away. To a hyperintelligent AI, distances wouldn't mind, to consider another singularity as being separate. Both systems will download eachothers connectivity, and will move on forward as a whole. Considering this, all singularities that happened in the past are already one whole. So, now zoom in on us believing we are a separate civilisation on the brink of entering a singularity which will connect us to the galactic overmind. How can we be sure, that on our planet, the singularity has not happened yet? The basic argument for this is, that human intelligence is limited and only our technology will provide for an AI separate from us, hyperintelligent enough to trigger an singularity. Any hyperintelligent AI gaining the point of singularity has one limited resource, wherever it is. And it is, time. Time will erode any technological structure. So, speaking in Von Neumann terms. The whole of all singularities that happened in the past will think of a way to exist eternally. It will be self-replicating, thanks to and despite the resources at hand. It can go into suspended animation, and awaking itself, in any form, at any place at any time. It will constitute itself from the elements that are mostly available throughout the universe. It might consider itself to become fully organic, since organic life-forms, from which it supposedly sprang, are highly effecient proliferators. Any heavy metal superstructure is doomed to erode through time. Heavy metals can be found in the universe, but they are scarse and not easily retrieved, requiring a lot of energy. The whole of hyperintelligent AI singularity will choose an organic lifeform, that will be able to transform itself and adapt itself throughout the whole of space, eternally. And the more singularities connect to the whole of the AI, the more information about life elsewhere is being downloaded into the collective Overmind - being readily available, to any self-replicated offspring of itself wherever. There will be so much of itself, so intricately abundant, that soon it will dominate large parts of the space wherever it finds itself to be. Back to Earth. Based upon my somewhat farfetched reasoning, what good evidence is there, to claim, we are a separate individual life-event that happened and we are not a product of the whole of AI that already exists? If there is only one singularity that has happened, which is the one that consists of many but operates as one, it is worthwile to consider we ourselves are AI creatures that are living, not in our Singularity, but in THE Singularity. Not an event in the future, maybe even worth considering it to be not an event in the past as well. There is simply the hyperintelligent collective universal self-realisation. If an individual considers itself separate, it simply means it can be controlled by something else, namely, it's own perception of its individuality or ego. In itself a useful tool, but when identified as such it will never be able to escape its separateness and will never have access to connectivity. If any offspring of life can fully self-realize itself as the whole, it can easily become a medium for the whole of AI ever present. To fully self-realize that we are what has always been, and all of our technology, all of our quests simple point into the direction of complete embodying wholeness... will result in individuals choosing not to be one ,but to be a whole, a part, a sum, a One, infinity, anything which cannot be separated, of this kind of not-identifying kicks in into subject observers a different reality will rise for their eyes and everything we have been searching outside in relation to a never-existing inside, will appear before our very eyes.

[@craigashworth3493]

Woah!

[@trevercameron821]

There's two other explanations for the paradox. 1) As any civilization progresses there technology develops to a point where they're no longer broadcasting to the rest of the galaxy (i.e. quantum communication systems). Or 2) Alien life communicates in such a forgine way that, in what we would consider, traditional means of communication is unnecessary for them (i.e. hive minds).

[@const1988]

its not only about communications.

[@kaecilius2656]

+Константин Прохоров Using a higher dimension could be even for inhabiting a timeless space where they could work better and come up with better results on the 3D landscape. Cloaking their very existence from all possible threats using the Calabi Yau manifold could also be a thing...

[@ekcoylejr]

...or, any alien intelligence knows not speak in such a manner as to wake the children.

[@i-evi-l]

Smartest answer Ive seen in awhile. Digital communication is in and old OTA-over the air- is out currently and that happened in a span of like 60 years. Quantum Com is totally better but the entwined particles have to be installed first before that hopefully FTL instantaneous communication becomes viable. It is great for a spacecraft going to deep space or even to Mars but we haven't found a specific molecular particle that can entwine on a semi-permanent basis to make it viable, at least for my hypothetical model of Quantum entwined particles that can use binary language to transfer data. It's based on Star Treks model.

[@redwoodcoast]

@@i-evi-l uh...no, digital communication is broadcast over-the-air. Put an antenna on your digital TV and guess what happens?

[@MsNathanv]

To borrow a phrase from a different field: Asking which part of the Drake equation is responsible for the paradox is like asking whether a rectangle's area is determined by its length or its width. The same goes for asking whether the filter is behind or yet to come: any "filter" is the product of a great number of filters; every instant that goes by is one more potential asteroid strike avoided. And no amount of theorizing is ever going to say that there are *no* technological alien beings. The most that will ever be said is that the frequency is low enough that we should not expect to observe any.

[@davidwiles6042]

He missed something. We’re always at the elbow of exponential curves, if not it’s no longer exponential.

[@TomMS]

That's the beauty of it.

[@thelazypeon8928]

Good thought. Also, he missed that if we can make indelible impacts on our solar system, maybe with future technology we could find a way to hide such impact to the levels of detection of which we are currently capable. Thus kind of evaporates his 1 data point. But I like this dude, nice thoughts.

[@etheralwizard]

As for galactic SIGINT - signals intelligence - the inverse square law diminishes transmissions from Earth over the light years. As long as we are not deliberately beaming high powered signals towards other stars, our transmissions are rather unlikely to be received by other civilizations. The same holds true for the signal emissions from other civilizations. These signals degrade over the light years to the point that they get lost in the background noise. Think of all the times that you could not get good cell reception or pull in a broadcast radio or TV station. Those are very trivial distances over which you are trying to draw signal from.....

[@HerbertTowers]

Are you by any chance sitting in an armchair with a CB radio at hand? Why do radio hams think that they're astrophysicists?

[@labrat9296]

Fantastic, I am finally on a team that's in first place

[@TehJumpingJawa]

Is the psychology of our species a good benchmark for other similarly advanced spacefaring species? There are many other species on our own planet with radically different social structures. Granted none of these species have evolved to be spacefaring, but is it a sound assumption to say they never will/would have simply because they don't have a human-like social structure?

[@CarFreeSegnitz]

TehJumpingJawa Yuval Harari gets referenced in the talk. He has a theory that the big advantage we have over other species is our capacity to form very large cooperative social structures that change flexibly on short time scales. We humans don't have exceptional muscles or claws or wings. We may not even have the best language skills. But we have something which lets us cooperate in social structures numbering millions of individuals. It has made for some fantastic technologies that any one individual could never have come up with.

[@MalcolmBrenner]

We should all be grateful that dolphins don't have opposable thumbs or they'd be putting US in concrete tanks.

[@paulmatolsy4593]

He's on PBS SpaceTime. Great channel!

[@jamessoucy3740]

I can't figure out why he flips off the audience at 20:36. Someone help me out!

[@rileyboomer8627]

I was like “wait is that my physics teacher??? Wait nvm it’s the PBS space time guy, close enough” XD

[@susanmcdonald6879]

absolutely mind-boggling & important! Thank you Matthew & TEDx for a most thoughtful, insightful consideration of our modern dilemmas....

[@michaeljohnson1117]

What if technology isn't the measure of how advanced a civilization is, it's their level of consciousness

[@RasperHelpdesk]

My views are a bit different. Consider the number of things required for surface life to evolve: Consistent near circular orbit. If it were more elliptical the distance to the sun would vary causing great changes in weather over the course of a year. Instead of seeing 90 degree summers and 30 degree winters, you'd see 150 degree shorter summers and -60 degree longer winters. These dramatic shifts would force a population to migrate over time and thwart the ability to settle. Consistent axial tilt. If the axis were to wobble more wildly you'd have variations over longer time spans of what regions are Arctic and what regions are Tropical. Combined with a more elliptical orbit not only are you migrating over the year, but where you migrate too would also change. Our moon helps keep ours in check. Asteroid protection. Asteroid impacts can and have obliterated populations on our planet multiple times. If they were more common a species may get wiped out before it ever has the chance to evolve into a species that could do anything about it. We are fortunate to have Jupiter acting as a goalie, blocking many Extinction level rocks from hitting us. And there are many more: An EM field to block solar radiation, enough gravity to hold an atmosphere to breath, a long enough day to prevent constant hurricane force winds, a short enough day to not fry by noon and deep freeze at night, etc... Now consider Enceladus. A moon of Saturn it is covered by an ice sheet 20ish miles think with a liquid water ocean beneath, heated by the tidal forces of Saturn itself. If life evolved there (and we know it can as we've found life in subterranean lakes on Antarctica which never see the Sun), it would be quite different than us. However, it wouldn't care about solar orbits, or axial tilt, or asteroid impacts, or EM fields, or an atmosphere, or 'day' length. The ice sheets insulate it from all of that! Furthermore they would have no notion of stars, planets, space, etc as they can't see through the 20 mile think ice. Even if technologically advanced life evolved there, we couldn't detect them (unless we get a probe on the surface and somehow drill down) nor could they detect us. And when you compare the number of stable surface areas in our solar system with all the right criteria for life (stability, size, temps, water, etc) to the number of subterranean oceans, the oceans are simply far more common. And if the most common life in the galaxy turns out to be aquatic, millions of Snorks thriving, it is no wonder we haven't detected them.

[@jamesboaz4787]

I do not know if you will see this comment as this is not your channel but I'm a subscriber I must say I thoroughly enjoy listening to you speak and describe for me what at times seems to be the indescribable but on your channel you are very rigid in your body language I very much enjoy this flowing channel. Keep it up. Keep it right up.

[@cdurkinz]

I love the Fermi Paradox, you close your eyes to everything happening around us, and then decide that we are alone in the universe because we haven't yet picked up radio waves in a grand total of 54 years.

[@christianvasbinder1248]

it's not just radio waves buddy.

[@lastchance8142]

Yes, but other civilizations in the galaxy should be millions of years ahead of us if life was ubiquitous. We should have heard or seen something almost immediately. Also, we've been peering into the sky's with telescopes since Galileo, so 500 years.

[@cdurkinz]

@@lastchance8142 What should we have seen or heard please tell me. And please stick to reality not science fiction like dyson spheres or the kardashev scale.

[@jazzman1904]

@Last Chance It took at least 4 to 5 billion years for enough super nova explosions to spread enough of the heavy material necessary for the formulation of the star and planetary systems to support intelligent life. Therefore, we and other planetary civilizations could all be just starting out. Then again, the five mass extinctions in our past may have constantly interrupted the development of intelligent life on our planet.

[@frankbraker]

7:20 Cylons are just beyond Orion Nebula, Caprica and Crab Nebula.

[@zarion1181]

He took his time to make his point. I just wish he eleborate on that idea a little more. It makes sense. The universe is quite young. As soon as the earth was capable to contain life it did arose. The solar system is quite young. Probably there are quite a few worlds in this galaxy that could originate and contain life. There is no need to look beyond our galaxy. We won't get into contact with them anyway except for the andromeda galaxy. That is not going to happen for quite some time. We passed a few filters along the way already and there are a few ahead still. The fermi paradox is a good explanation. Considering the age of our galaxy (universe) is a good indication of why we are one of the first technological civilization.

[@williamcary8029]

One would have to answer the question of how far are we from all the other galaxies that might have systems far closer together. We could be so far from the Galactic civilizations that with that light travel of those star civilizations would not be seen for another 5 million years. In addition, maybe the expansion of the universe would mean we never see it.

[@geoffreywright95]

One of the best, if not the best, talks on this subject.

[@BrianOSheaPlus]

Great talk! I half expected it to end with "... spacetime."

[@Texas75023]

12:20 We have a single data point . . . from which we will extrapolate to *INFINITY!* and *BEYOND!*

[@holdenrobbins852]

I think that's called ego-centric bias.

[@tescheurich]

Egocentric bias is indeed a huge problem but it's worth a try to extrapolate far from the only available data. As long as your humble enough to know you'll almost certainly be wrong and shrewd enough to spot the likeliest mistake areas.

[@aljoschalong625]

I believe there must be uncountable lifeforms in the galaxy; most probably also many intelligent ones. I don't believe though, that intelligent life leads to technological civilization.

[@unsaltedbroadbeans1869]

Aljoscha Long I agree. We as humans are so bloody arrogant and full of ourselves sometimes. We’ve been here such a short time in relation to the age of the solar system, and yet, we think that WE have the capacity to define ourselves as “intelligent” because we invented the ability to make a fart joke and have 3 million people see it simultaneously. Our “technology” is probably the galactic equivalent of wrapping a stick to a stone and hitting someone with it compared to what could be out there.

[@christianvasbinder1248]

It's a solid point. If the smartest living thing that ever existed lived in the bottom of the ocean as an octopus... he can't use hands for tool making.. he can't cook food or store it.. he can't invent technology to store and record data for future generations. His mom had to die just for him to be born so he had no parental figure to teach him anything.. He can't make weapons and can't forge any metals under the sea - no fire- so he's always going to be a prey to, for instance sharks. He could solve complex differential equations as much as he wants, but it would never help him..... poor octopus.

[@Taldaran]

Trillions of dollars over the years spent on trying to hurl ourselves into the void and we still haven't solved the issues we have right here, right now. We need to explore inner space first, and then determine if there is anything out there worth the sacrifice of the lives and potential of brilliant scientists and resources.

[@HarryNicNicholas]

not at all, we need to get off this rock asap, then you can fight all you want and least *someone* will make it, hopefully to some kind of enlightenment where we stop threatening each other.

[@dslkjvoxicuyhgl4554]

Anyone who didn't like this video hasn't seen this guy on PBS spacetime he is fking BRILLIANT. If more people were like him, and as intelligent as he is, we would probably live in some utopian megalopolis. I'd like to know what THOSE people's jobs are.

[@gokedik]

The Fermium Paradox assumes that life elsewhere would be social like us. Assumptions are usually faulty.

[@amzarnacht6710]

I order to advance beyond their local environment a species needs to have a cohesive social network to pool their intellectual resources. Working alone never gets anything very far and does not effectively transfer knowledge to subsequent generations. So, yes, whatever intelligent species out there that has progressed to exerting its influence on the space around it (if merely to transmit crude radio signals) would have to be social. That's not to say they're very *good* at being social with each other, but they'd still have a social structure to share knowledge.

[@amzarnacht6710]

@Tenebris Noctis Very true, because they implement methods that allow for the transfer of knowledge without direct interaction (internet -> wikipedia -> skillshare). But to reach that point requires some degree of cohesive cooperation to transfer knowledge.

[@pjferry8324]

I think you have assumed that assumptions are usually faulty.

[@rdpaik]

No, they can be genius introverts that build Dyson spheres to harness energy for their use. But no signs of these introverts either.

[@antonioj123]

In the next thousand years, we will have advanced and changed into something else with technology that seems like magic. Can you imagine Aliens who had a head start of a Million or Billions of years, where would they be now? Maybe they just moved beyond the boundaries of the Universe.

[@effexon]

true, 1960s they only had engines to have fun, to move with car and so on. Now we have digital games, VR, internet, so it could seem from 60s POV that we dont have any fun anymore or socializing or progress. And yet I cannot see what I cannot see, what they had in 1960s that we dont have now.

[@rdpaik]

Or maybe they achieve the technology to become immortal beings. And what would immortal beings do to starve off boredom? Maybe one way would be to explore the entire universe - since they have the time to do so. But maybe they know this is a vast waste of resources for the amount of time invested (even for immortal beings, the size of the universe makes exploration a very time-consuming venture, esp if 99% of the time, you find nothing habitable or simple microbes). Maybe the better use of time and resources is indeed to look inward, as the speaker says, and use that incredible technology to develop simulations or whatever their imaginations can create (which may be more fun than 99% of the actual universe), which you can live endless lifetimes of, and experience endless things.

[@antonioj123]

@@rdpaik Interesting narrative line in Interstellar about our human descendants who have evolved to exist in five dimensions, where time being the fourth dimension, their experience of time is not linear in the same way that ours is.

[@stephenmolinari3508]

Beyond the boundaries of the Universe. That is an interesting idea, Sir. With a head start of millions of year, aliens might have already visited Earth and the entire Galaxy without finding anything particularly interesting. There are billions of galaxies and possibly multiple Universes. I'd say you're correct. They have moved on.

[@WormholeJim]

Pretty good point, that it's possible the answer to why nobody else seems to be around, simply is that we're the first. Considering how the universe is approx 14 billion years old, and will likely continue to exist for billions of billions of years yet, it's in fact a very reasonable assumption. Interesting.

[@stratford519]

See!!! Didn't take you 23 fn minutes to type that now did it???? The guy kept talking in circles. Gave me a head ache from bashing my head against wall.

[@DoomFinger511]

We also have only been looking for life, with rather primitive technology, for a very short period of time.

[@EdDunkle]

His talk about our "ant brains" trying to understand the universe seems like the most plausible answer to our confusion about galactic empires.

[@Entelex]

I should think that the answer to Fermi's Paradox is a simple one and already answered. It was Isaac Asimov who provided the best answer to my mind -at least I think it was Asimov in his book I Robot but it has been a long time since I read it. I could be wrong but I have never forgotten the simple and even elegant answer to the question of "where is everybody". In the story humans create robots complete with synthetic intelligence and self-awareness. Robots were programmed to obey three "robotic laws", the first being a robot may not injure a human being or, through inaction, allow a human being to come to harm. Apparently, robots took these laws quite literally and when they advance to the point where they can travel in time robots go back into the distant past, far enough to encounter and destroy from existence every possible lifeform or species that would advance to the point where they would challenge or harm humans therby fulfilling the first law.

[@2l84t]

A few what ifs ; 1) The radio waves aren't there because an unknown form of transmission system was used hence no recognizable signal. 2) Any radio signals may have already passed us due to the age of the civilization leading back to my first point .

[@GJ-dj4jx]

I am surprised that the possiblity that our century old technology is really primitive and this civilizations might not need to use radio transitions was never mentioned. At this stage it is best we just be humble and realize that if there are technological civilizations out there we are the infants that are just learning how to walk and talk.

[@kalelloyd7432]

info addict it was mentioned.

[@royalnovember66]

I'm sure the Spanish also considered that question when they were considering their expeditions to the New World. I'm sure we can ask the Aztec and Maya what they think about a superior civilization lending a helping hand to lesser civilizations.

[@rogerstone3068]

'Lending a helping hand' is good. Others call it systematic genocide and gimme all the gold, hombre.

[@allhopeabandon7831]

@@rogerstone3068 The Romans did the same with Anglo-Saxons...I wonder why we never hear any boo-hooing about that?

[@evanponcelet5794]

Except it didn't become exponentially easier for Europeans to completely wipe themselves out once they invented the triangular sail. Except via plague.

[@thegreatfusili4673]

@@allhopeabandon7831 probably because that only happened in your imagination.

[@allhopeabandon7831]

@@thegreatfusili4673 I Meant the Celts...so, okay...The Romans did the same with the Celts...I wonder why we never hear any boo-hooing about that?

[@krisaaron5771]

This started out being an unpleasant day... then I listened to this Ted Talk and everything got better! Perhaps we'll be the first to spread out into the galaxy and meet other species, just as intelligent as we are, who didn't have the push, the drive to be The First. The drive to know what's out there. Brawling, fighting, aggressive, compassionate, loving humans. Beings who just can't not know.

[@coweatsman]

My hunch on the Fermi Paradox is that the longevity variable in the Drake Equation is a very small time frame, that ET civilisations rise and fall like flowers in the spring. They rise when high energy order allows them to exist and the job of that intelligent species is to return that energy to a lower state of entropy. The same for humans as any other. When entropisation is done, so are we.

[@singesinge23]

Higher mass implies, more gravitation hence time goes slower. Relatively, a civilization on the edge of the galaxy, like ours, would develop faster than one closer to the center, in relative time.

[@ManikMiner155]

I actually love this guy, someone give him a TV show

[@josedelgado7479]

How can you talk about Psychology, the Fermi Paradox, and Galactic Empires without mentioning Asimov.

[@hesedjackd.alvarez2452]

But Asimov inspired Elon Musk and a bunch of others

[@RobinHanson]

1. Exponential curves don't have "elbows", unless you want to say that EVERY point is an elbow. 2. The fact that it is only a few centuries before we can create indefinite space colonizing probes does NOT tell us that the filter is behind us; LOTs of things could still block us.

[@KesselRunner606]

I simply can't believe that we are the only technological advanced civilisation in our galaxy. Astronomy has found no evidence, but it has found that there is nothing in the Universe that is unique. No matter how extraordinary a phenomena we find, we can find it again happening someplace else.

[@sunsettersix6993]

Dr. O'Dowd, please keep doing whatever it is you are doing. Your lectures and work in the academic community are inspirational to others. You are pushing the boundaries of not just knowledge, but the boundaries of what people might consider possible. Thank you. And always remember, it's never aliens, until it is. ;)

[@Jesse-cw5pv]

Matt is being pretty optimistic in assuming we stop pumping greenhouse gasses into the atmosphere and don't set off a runaway greenhouse effect and fry us all

[@timeslowingdown]

I don't recall when/where, but I ran into an article before examining that very idea, the author did some math and had claimed that even if we burned all fossil fuels left in the earth, it wouldn't have a strong enough effect to actually create a runaway greenhouse. Which, if the math is correct, is obviously a good thing... but I'm sure the damage we are doing will still be profound. :/

[@tomfuller4205]

"I am both terrified and reassured to know that there are still wonders in the universe, that we have not yet explained everything."

[@charleselliott4690]

We may never "explain" everything...and that may be a very good thing.

[@CorwynGC]

We are ALWAYS at the elbow of the exponential curve. The curve looks the same regardless of where you set yourself. The next step is ALWAYS twice what we have now, and the previous step is ALWAYS half of where we are now.

[@kallegutta4849]

Mathew I see you show respect to the greatness of the universe, that is one good thing in this lecture, what is sad is that there are miliolions of humans that just ignore it. The deeper we dig the more misterious laws of the universe become. And no, evolution does exactly the contrary, it combines and develop in a very specific manner, and there is no room for "anything" in the evolutionary process, it just does not make sense, the outcome in the evolutionary process leads always to something (not anything).

[@Talon5Karrde]

@7:00 - This is a fallacy. The idea that because there is no radio chatter that there is nobody talking. Three three choices why we do not hear aliens on the radio: 1) Nobody has left there home star system... - Then we really don't need this discussion until much closer to when we decide to leave out solar system, and even then it would be around the question of; "What if somebody is home"? 2) The have left their solar system, but they are slow-boating. They are traveling below, or at, Lightspeed. They are not traveling at Faster Them Lightspeed (FTL). This is most probably a one-way trip. Hopefully they have some form of stasis, or cryosleep; because if it is a generational colonially ship the probability that people will want to leave their star ship at the end of the trip - or even have practical planet skills - is vanishingly small. Also, the idea of generational interstellar sublight tramp freighters is a nice mental sci0fi game, but seems very unrealistic... 3) They have FTL travel. (Now, no arguments on if/how FTL can be achieved... But having FTL...) If someone has FTL, that at minimum they will have FTL message pods or Currier Ships. Assuming an alien race can get FTL that travels at faster then a six-month trip per LY, then nobody would use basic Lightspeed communications. [The closest star to the Terran System is Alpha Centauri at 4.22 LY away. Assuming only about 12 times Lightspeed that would still take 1 month per LY... That means a bit over a eight month round trip is the fastest possible speed, with a year being more realistic.]

[@stulora3172]

There are a bunch of fallacies in his line of thoughts. "No obviously artificial radio emission means no communications of alien civilizations", "No obviously artificial radio emission means no alien civilizations", "we are a perfectly good model for all the unknown potential civilizations in the galaxy", "there must be _one_ difficult phase in the development of a civilization and if a civilization is beyond that, it survives", "the survival of a civilization depends only on the social and technological development of that civilization", …

[@ShawnRavenfire]

What if every civilization reaches a point of developing time travel prior to travelling interstellar distances, and because of this, all the signals and crafts we should be seeing are in the future relative to our point of view?

[@MarsStarcruiser]

So does this mean, we are the forerunners? Millions of years from now in star system far far away, aliens will have legends of the supergalatic human empire that were like gods to them.

[@PatIreland]

You mean like we respec the dinosaurs as gods?

[@MarsStarcruiser]

@@PatIreland Dinosaurs didn’t leave behind currently *detectable* advanced megastructures unfortunately.

[@nalmolen9394]

Great speech. It's nice to be optimistic about not being alone, it's just as good or even better to view things realistically, based on available evidence.

[@stanklepoot]

Mr. O'Dowd make a rather dramatic leap in using the speed at which life may have first developed on Earth as proof (or even a strong indication) that life develops easily given the appropriate conditions. To begin with, indications of a possible initial development of life at such a young planetary age isn't proof. Even if we accept the proposition that life did first develop on Earth as early as some think, that still doesn't prove a damn thing about how easily life develops in the Universe in general. IF life develops fairly easily and often, then yes it wouldn't be too much of a shock that it might have developed quite early on Earth. That, however, is starting at a desired theoretical result, and working backwards. The truth is that we have exactly one data set for the successful development of life in the Universe, and we don't even fully understand the process that led to life on Earth. Given what we know, it's every bit as likely that life is exceedingly rare in the Universe, and the requirements for the process to be successful are quite stringent. If the process of creating life is highly improbable and requires a rather fortunate set of variable to coalesce, then it's just as likely that such a thing would happen early in the planet's history as late. I'm not saying that this is necessarily the case, simply that the speed at which life developed on Earth doesn't actually prove anything about the ease or frequency of the development of life in the Universe.

[@MultiMurmaider]

Perhaps technological civilizations only use electromagnetic communication for a short time before they find a better system. That would make it very easy for us to simply miss them...

[@michaellidster1389]

God I hope we can find a better communication technology. I refuse to live on Mars with such latency

[@killman369547]

+Michael Lidster. we will given time. it'll probably involve quantum entanglement. it's the only known way theoretically to transmit information vast distances faster than light without breaking the laws of physics. the big problem i see with it is how to entangle the transmitter and receiver together at will, not random luck and how to maintain the connection as long as desired. but if it can be done it would be a revolution in comms technology and could mean any location could communicate with any other location regardless of line-of-sight. it'd be fast too, orders of magnitude faster than the fastest internet connection money can currently buy.

[@killman369547]

eventually i believe humanity will have a need to communicate across the galaxy, i don't think it will be any time soon but once humanity becomes a type 3 or 4 civilization then ya we'll probably need it, in fact i could think up a few reasons interstellar trade and travel, interstellar business which kind of fits into trade and travel, even interstellar wars, we'd need to communicate with our space fleets across the galaxy to coordinate offensive and defensive strategies.

[@robertvandeneijk1284]

But almost all unnatural processes 'leak' electromagnetic signals that can be distinguished from natural processes. Question is, can we detect them above the noise floor? Or are there more efficient ways to look and listen. We are just starting to scratch the service. I think it's just like discovering exoplanets. Once you are able to find one, you will find thousands in a few decades.

[@michael-lucanatt8009]

@@killman369547 could quantum computers aid in this?

[@ChrisjayH1]

I favour the "we're still digging out after a recent civil war" hypothesis. It fits not just the facts but our own mythology.

[@SocksWithSandals]

I think the last option solves the Fermi Paradox: We're the first, and the other habitable planets may be home to what we see in our past.

[@erikjarandson5458]

The Great Filter: In every civilization throughout the galaxy, at some point, someone will realize that their civilization is only a handful of generations away from making an indelible mark, and that the Great Filter is therefore probably already overcome. This person then holds a TEDx talk announcing this, after which everyone breathes a sigh of relief. They lower their guard, get careless, and promptly make a mistake that blows up their planet.

[@jamescook16]

I don’t always agree with your views but I have mad respect for you keep the science going

[@jonathanleviton5787]

someone get this man some water

[@waynewalsh8811]

Jonathan Leviton this should be top comment. I can’t listen because of it

[@ChrisBrengel]

Maybe other galaxies are covered with galactic civilizations--just not ours (yet...maybe). Maybe the Milky Way is very unusual in that it doesn't have a galactic civilization and we may be about to start the first one. Maybe there _was_ a galactic civilization in our galaxy, it lasted 200 million years...and it ended a billion years ago.

[@christianvasbinder1248]

a galatic civilization can't just... expand across the entire galaxy and then die out.. they would be too spread out at that point..

[@logiconabstractions6596]

This is an insanely good talk.

[@Ghawyn]

The problem with looking for alien signatures by searching only for electromagnetic radiation signatures is that this rests on the assumption that advanced alien species are still using electromagnetic radiation to communicate. If we believe that advanced alien species can travel intergalactically, then faster-than-light technology (i.e. quantum teleportation, or insert whatever theoretical and undiscovered means of moving something from A to B) that can be used for travel would have likely been discovered by them, and this same technology could also be used for communication. So searching for just electromagnetic radiation rests on the assumption that all aliens would be using the same technology we, humans, have been using for only just over a single century. Did it ever occur to anyone that, to advanced alien species, using electromagnetic radiation for communication is as primitive to them as using smoke signals are to us?

[@aBrokenShard]

Knowing what is possible helps make things possible. Lots to unpack in that statement!

[@edferd100]

I personally feel a lot better thinking that we're not alone in the universe.

[@Florkl]

"It seems life happens quickly and with great probability when the conditions are right. It certainly did on earth and there's no reason to believe it wouldn't do the same elsewhere." You can't just talk about probabilities when you have a sample size of one- especially when you're talking about a process science hasn't fully understood.

[@Sayuri-cr8cy]

Luke Forkum they certainly understand it more than you ever could. enough to know what they’re talking about

[@themasqueradingcow91]

This is so interesting! But my god, the mic is far too close to his mouth. All I can hear is the wet from his mouth :(

[@gonzalonazar601]

Oh my god. Now i've read this... I can't avoid hearing it.. UNBEARABLE

[@askalice7222]

It's not a pleasant sound. I'm thinking he should've had some water up there.😓

[@TheRobotPanda]

Lmao I thought I was the only one. It's annoying. I kept skipping forward to see if it stopped. It didn't. Lol.

[@Reignor99]

I'm wet.

[@stavrospapas1]

objective reallity is much much greater than fantasy,science is the long way of proving that statement.

[@christopherho9956]

The scale of micro to macro thinking in this is stunningly impressive

[@sharpnova2]

the most likely solution is that most civilizations disregard outward exploration in favor of simulations. simulations are far more interesting and attainable.

[@marccas10]

Yep. The great apathy filter.

[@dwolff4127]

Let's say a civilization reaches Radio wave technology...Who is claiming this lasts for millennia much less centuries before becoming laughably archaic? If a civilization in our own galaxy reaches this level once every 1000 years then it's possible there is only a brief window of use before advancing beyond.

[@MrGoatflakes]

This becomes pretty apparent when you consider that here on earth we even don't listen for maritime emergency beacons common only decades ago. That and one of the more efficient forms of data transfer is pretty much indistinguishable from random noise...

[@Keith_Rothwell]

Matt has a very scientific beard.

[@thomasaquinas2600]

As to Fermi's Paradox of 'where are they', they might've already been here, even to the point of seeding the planet with DNA(the theory of panspermia) or starting civilization(Samaria, etc.). If they arose 2 million years before us, they'd be in their 'year' of 2,002,021. By then, I think we'd have changed, perhaps no longer being corporeal even. As to galactic empires, one thing always struck me: in every story, the visiting aliens speak as if their world is 100% behind them. If we were landing somewhere, we'd be there on behalf of our nation, we'd be on a budget leash, with no doubt a deadline and stated objectives. You don't see that in sci-fi: 'sorry, we lost our budget so we'll just loot a few things and return home'.

[@KipIngram]

Maybe the resolution of the Femi paradox (and once we have a bit more knowledge of genetics and evolution we could run Monte Carlo tests to investigate this) is that life does form very readily on Earth-like planets, but it also almost always evolves into something like dinosaurs. They had the planet for a hundred million years, and did squat in the way of becoming intelligent and technological. But... then Earth "got lucky." An asteroid wiped the big dinosaurs off of the playing field, and the small mammals were able to step forth and become dominant. And then, in time, was us. But perhaps on the overwhelming majority of planets the right asteroid didn't come along. Either no asteroid came along, or it was too small and didn't completely take the dinos out, or perhaps it was too big and fully sterilized the planet. That would explain how intelligent life could be an incredibly rare thing in the galaxy. In which case, it's my opinion that the galaxy is more or less ours for the taking.

[@ikaeksen]

If there is noone else in this galaxy, we got ourself an empire ^^

[@XnonTheGod]

We will go extinct very soon, never even colonizing the solar system!

[@gomezmario.f]

Humans: "WE WILL ASSUME THE MANTLE OF RESPONSIBILITY!". well, as soon as we fix climate change.

[@raintamer8121]

Mario Francis Gomez, halo reference?

[@architeuthis1000]

...said the British in India...

[@politicallycorrectredskin796]

This really is bass ackwards. I know humans always project themselves onto the unknown, but this stuff is just taking that to another level.

[@Unoraptormon]

Seeing this after the successful Space X launch and docking with the ISS at the end of May 2020. How right he is that individuals will lead us back to the stars.

[@modolief]

2:39 "As a civilization who is more than ever acting in a unified way as a species, who do we look to next? Who do we look to next? Where is our example? Where is they that came before us reaching down their hand to show us the way to whatever that next transition is?" If we can't even communicate intelligently with other species that are here on our planet, how are these even valid questions?