Fermi Paradox: The Impossible Earth hypothesis

[@tayzonday]

Our only exit into an interstellar future with known physics is to master timescales beyond a human lifespan. We either need to genetically engineer our sentience to last for millions of years, or build sentient machines that can last that long.

[@JohnMichaelGodier]

I'm going to cover that in a video soon. The galaxy shrinks when you live for thousands of years or more.

[@carlosprieto2231]

Or generational ships

[@alexxx4434]

We already have this covered with passage of knowledge between generations. How did you think the humanity progressed so far?

[@isenhertor]

that's kinda what i believe. we are just a stepping stone for real sentient "life" to develop. maybe the machines and ai that we build are the ones behind the simulation as a scientific experiment to learn how they came to be. i don't personally believe this, but its a possibility. one of infinite others.

[@TheAmericanAmerican]

Based Leftist Tay is also a sci-fi nerd!? Man, it would be awesome to chat with you about politics and space over beers! 😄

[@TheSCPStudio]

I wholeheartedly believe that the rarity of life is entirely relative. Meaning it may seem rare to us but in the grand scale of things, there could be a universe teeming with advanced life. For example, if two ant hills are 100 miles apart, it would seemingly be impossible for an ant to travel to or experience the other anthill in any way. But if you hop in an airplane, the 100 mile distance between the anthills would seem almost inconsequential from that perspective. I think it’s the same for the universe as a whole. Earth is an anthill and there may be another anthill out there, so far we can’t even imagine seeing it. But if we could ‘zoom out’ our perspective, we would see our two species closer together than they are in their own perspective.

[@RJay121]

Example assumption is flawed. One anthill somewhere is likely more advanced and becomes noticeable or conqueres less advanced ants

[@TheUnstopableJoe]

I’m very tangled between this theory and religion. I strongly believe that space is only an illusion and God has placed us on this plane and we are the only life in the “universe”. And although the universe is real and observable, it’s only true meaning is for beauty and to provoke thoughts and questions. HOWEVER, if there IS other life out there, it should be accepted as fact that if WE are here there is a 99.99% chance there is SOMEONE else out there. I can’t decide between the two. It’s tough.

[@AaronPierceStaton]

The universe may very well be teeming with life, but if that life is beyond our observable universe, what difference does it make? We will never know of their existence, and they us. And using your example, if it requires us to travel (insert grand number) of light years to see the other ants, then I both don’t see the point in spending such resources, nor do I think it changes the assumption that life is rare; even if only relatively so.

[@azmanabdula]

That assumes life exists apart from that one ant hill That Analogy assumes the same chemistry and everything What if we are the first Would that leave you with more existential dread than if we found another species who are almost space faring, or are a billion years ahead? What would make you worry more?

[@dinoflame9696]

The problem is that if an ant was to do cartography, or explore, the distance between two ant hills is still within the realm of possibility. Just like how we were geographically bound before we had air planes and ships, but once we did -- we actually could traverse the seemingly infinite ocean. Space is not like this at all. It's not two neighboring ant-hills, or something we can fly over and get an overview of. In fact, the ant hill isn't even a metaphor, because an ant hill is pretty much equivalent to a planet when you're dealing with cosmic scales. So it's more like if these ant-hills were 2 billion light years apart, at that point it doesn't matter if you're a human, ant or the size of earth.

[@NoPulseForRussians]

To be alive and experience consciousness for any amount of time here on this planet is a true gift. We get to observe this wonder that made us. We get to stare right back at the very matter that created everything we know and see. That bends the mind to think about too deeply but every second of life is a true gift here in this universe.

[@periurban]

Well said! So many go looking for a miracle, when they are standing right in it!

[@leeturton9254]

Its a gift and a curse

[@whipsmartchris]

What, if through some unimaginable condition, the experience of life and consciousness is not a gift but a nightmare (which, for lack of context, we cannot yet fathom)?

[@londonspade5896]

Cheers to that!

[@deedubya286]

" I , a universe of atoms, an atom in the universe." - Richard Feynman

[@colinp2238]

The Fermi Paradox could be a misconception. Our search for life in the Universe seems to be more our search for life like us, so maybe aliens are doing the same, searching for life similar to their own. This would be like arranging a meeting between two people living thousands of miles apart and stating a time but not being specific to which time zone is being referenced. Both parties are right but both are also wrong, and never meet up.

[@Chris.Davies]

Extinction events are not only helpful, but compulsory. A non-changing environment is a dead-end for evolution. So these events have nothing at all to do with Fermi unless all life-bearing planets suffer the same fate due to the Great Filter.

[@distantraveller9876]

@Chris Davies No, it's not a misconception. The Fermi Paradox is a mathematical and logical problem. The Great Filter has to be real, it's the only plausible explanation for why we don't see any signs of Kardashev type II or type III civilizations. Either that or we live in a simulation.

[@LibertyDino]

It happens so much on a psychological Level concerning human interaction. We can be able to not fathom a certain person might be interested in spending time with us because we have not reached a new level in our development yet.

[@smileyp4535]

Unfortunately the only life we'd really be able to detect is life that is more advanced than us based on their mega-structures, but yeah while there's been PLENTY of time for that to happen life might be do rare and intelligent life so so so rare that we just can't detect it because there's nothing we can detect

[@Ohmyadeline]

That's not an "unfortunate" situation. It's much much simple than life being threatening because they have "megastructures".

[@trickvro]

The point about life possibly spawning on Mars and then spreading to Earth raises a really interesting question-if we find life on, say, Europa, how would we determine whether it's distantly related to us or just happened to arise independently? That would be a really cool video topic!

[@sidpheasant7585]

Fortunately, relatedness would be quite easily testable, but of course that would be vastly dangerous, since something related to us might also infect us...

[@ClarkBK67]

I imagine by examining the dna of Europa life we could at least have a fair idea if there is a common ancestry. Or what if it doesn’t even have dna? Then we definitely know it developed independently of our branch of life.

[@rickyeverett1016]

@@ClarkBK67 Both outcomes are wild too. If we did have a common ancestor, then panspermia is real and perhaps life is extra solar! If we are not, then life should be very common and we are most likely in a zoo, or to add to the odds, one of the first to arise. I would say we would be grabby alien's too. But then add in about 900k years ago we went from 24 and me to 23 and me, perhaps we are a long running biology experiment.

[@brianbrandt25]

If it is reversed chirally, then it arose spontaneously, of not, then maybe

[@BortSamsung]

@@Clefus-o6b Just FYI when they talk about possible life on Europa it is more like single-cell organisms they are thinking of. Like extremophiles on hydrothermal vents or algae under the ocean surface, definitely not humanoids.

[@stevenbecker5571]

"Rare Earth" doesn't necessarily mean that we're utterly alone in the entire universe, just that intelligence may be rare enough that there's essentially no hope of ever contacting - or even detecting - another advanced civilization. Across the vastness of the universe with it's sextillions of star systems, I'd personally be surprised if Earth were the only place that intelligence or even life itself arose. But unless other life is within a few hundred light years of us, we'll probably never know it (unless of course it comes to us). And intelligent life (and perhaps life itself) is probably rarer than that. I'd love for that to be wrong, but there's no evidence to the contrary at present. Of course if the universe is actually infinite, as some cosmologists think, it's a near certainty that there's other life out there, and lots of it. But it would still be too far away for us to know it.

[@RJay121]

Why does exoplanet life always come up given distance between stuff as still probable, why not the opposite is true just the same

[@blueredbrick]

Well said.

[@robslockstock]

Sextillions really puts things in perspective.

[@glenecollins]

I sort of agree even a Kardashev 2 civilisation using all of the energy from it’s star would be pretty hard to spot from another spiral arm of our own galaxy with the tech we have (the James web could come online and show up a heap of nearby infrared light sources) We could probably have spotted a Kardashev 3 civilisation forming within our galactic cluster by now. The greatest distance we could observe a civilisation from is about 8 billion light years (and they would have to be doing something pretty spectacular) because stars older than about 10 billion would not form with enough heavier elements to allow life and unless the intelligent life can form using very different chemistry there is no way it could develop in less than 2 billion years: the planet has to cool down and stop getting bombarded then the atmosphere has to get oxygenated to a high enough degree. Anywhere with the elements required for life as we know it would have a lot of iron etc in the oceans which would suck up a colossal amount of oxygen before the atmosphere could become oxidising.

[@periurban]

All of this speculation depends upon the mechanism of life. Is it fundamental to the universe? Does it arise anywhere it can, and if so how? Until we have an answer to that very basic question everything else is philosophy.

[@bipolarminddroppings]

Would just like to say that in Star Trek, at least, replicated food and drink doesn't come for free. When the ship is low on anti-matter reserves, like Voyager was at points, replicators were rationed and they had to eat mostly real food and drinks. I always liked that touch, no matter how implausible replicators are.

[@Deridus]

Ever since the concept of 3d printers came to my attention, I always figured that replicators were just hyper-refined printers and/or teleporters.

[@periurban]

Yes, and they had to switch the Doctor off when things got really bad!

[@papwithanhatchet902]

I don’t think replicators are implausible at all. Seriously.

[@spaceanarchist1107]

That means they must have gotten part of their food from hydroponics or -- Soylent Green.

[@toddlerj102]

Entrance neelix

[@happyhammer1]

Being alone is the most terrifying prospect to me. That means we, as the only technological species there is are the vanguard of life. I'm not misanthropic or a self loathing human like a lot of people. I do think we have made great strides in being better stewards of the land, but if we are the only ones, if this planet is that special, we have the ultimate responsibility.

[@Deridus]

I have believed since I was a child that our destiny lies amongst the stars. Rarely in sci-fi have I encountered offshoots of humans, let alone our evolved offspring. Thinking about this makes me think of Clan of the Cave Bear, where the child basically invents multiplication and the shaman is afraid of this new thing. Just two hundred years ago, we were barely even beginning to understand the nature of our planet. Hardly a century had gone by and we had mastered the concept of heavier than air flight. We just because we may not know of a thing does not mean it does not exist. Personally, the thought that we might not be alone scares me witless sometimes.

[@periurban]

Conversely, if we are alone, then the idea that we are special, and that there is a higher mechanism (simulation or God) might become more likely. If life is everywhere, then we were not "put" here. If we are the only life, then maybe God or The Software is watching.

[@austinhathaway182]

I stand with you and the little puppy.

[@VincentGonzalezVeg]

Should we spread out and use earth to harvest more life to do the same thing As in elevate another life form to sentience be advanced as we were at leaving So like if Earth is the only place we're sentience is then progressively spreading out from it while more sentience develops may be a way to farm species that are able to work together with different thinking Like making new people by evolution When I'm leaving out is kind of the part where that means there could be someone that is ahead of us and it's just like watching and waiting for us to join The sentient species coalition Like people talk about aliens looking for stuff Maybe they're literally just waiting for us to reach that Planetary exodus stage Also if there is some sentient life just on some planet like we are and an extraterrestrial went to their planet Resources aren't the value, it's the nonsentient life and parasites For biotechnology! There's the science fiction show where they have this big white maggot looking thing and you put it in your mouth instead of brushing your teeth Like those toe cleaning fish We have face mites that organically evolved in a way that they utilize our excess resources, if we modify them they're biotechnology So instead of all war of the worlds it'd be more like cotton swabbing Also anal probing there's a bunch of bacteria in the gut that makes contact with neurons and it's a whole ecosystem that you cannot get to unless you get inside of a person Also we have proven evidence that humans have three minds the gut the heart and the Brain There's neurons that do things that we can associate with being a mind If you want to change the world then do it there's nothing to it

[@andyf4292]

plus it means its our responsibility to seed life as far as we can... we would be the Great Old Ones

[@Psychoactive010]

I think there are two factors which may explain the Fermi paradox. 1. The odds of a rocky world forming at exactly the right distance around the right kind of star are much slimmer then we realize. 2. The odds of environmental factors allowing for more complex stages of life to emerge are even slimmer. And the odds decrease the more complex you go. So if you were to find life on other planets, the odds are it would be of the most basic kind like Bacteria. In contrast, sentient technology producing lifeforms like ourselves are the rarest kind.

1 so many stars it is likely they formed 2 ill give you that possibility

[@hdufort]

I'm glad that the question of available phosphorus is brought up more often. Without phosphorus it is difficult to build a DNA or RNA equivalent, although there could of course be completely different chemistries out there.

[@leecowell8165]

You're also assuming that seeds must have begun from inorganics. But what happens if WE were seeded from elsewhere? Sure. this system has been around about 4.5B years. but the observable universe has been around at least 3 times as long. LIFE as we know it could very well have existed eons before we ever came to pass... when this (or another) universe was much younger. Remember that we're only able to observe photons as well.

[@MYNAMACHEF]

@@leecowell8165 just wtf are we? The more you break down the parts we're made of, and what those parts are made of, the more abstract the idea of a human is

[@ianmcmullen1979]

​@@MYNAMACHEFTo be fair, the further you break down anything, the more abstract it is. For example, what is a chair? For a human it is the assemblance of legs and a seat, but then what is the legs and seat? Well the legs are made of wood and arranged in a certain formation and the seat is made of cloth and stuffing to make it comfy. Well then what is wood, and what is cloth? Etc.

[@mrEofPlanetEarth]

I don't like how when people talk about there being infinite copies of earths and even us, they usually neglect to mention the "close copies". So refreshing to hear John mention these.

[@FordesBreakingNews]

How close could it be? Could the difference be so small it was unrecognisable?

[@barbarianillust]

And the less close and less close to us copies, until there are vastly different versions xD Also, they say it's "copies of us", but actually what if we're the copies of others? But in reality no one would be a copy of one another, they're just similar by chance... or are they? * Insert spooky Space BGM here *

[@vatofat]

That theory only exists as a way out of the statistical miracle we represent in the universe. We're such an extremely unlikely occurrence that God becomes the only statistically likely answer, and people seem to not like that. So, they imagine an existence that eliminates low probabilities.

[@mycount64]

limited number of configurations of atoms in the observable universe ... there are 3 parallel earth theories

[@LcdDrmr]

Yes, and in an infinite universe your chances of finding an Earth exactly like this one would be infinitely small, even though the exact copies would be infinite. Likewise, your chances of finding a close copy would be similar, as would your finding a not-so-close one. In fact, every possible world you could find would be as infinitely unlikely as the next, and you'd be right back to where you started: the chance of finding an exact copy of Earth in a finite universe.

[@LAMPROS311]

"Perfectly tuned" for me is that you uploaded your video about an hour before I woke up in the morning to have my coffee and prepare myself for school (where I work as a teacher for children with autism-some of them obsessed with space, actually.). Greetings from Greece, John, and thank you.

[@sadderwhiskeymann]

Τα συγχαρητήρια μου 👍

[@LAMPROS311]

@@sadderwhiskeymann Ευχαριστώ!

[@marcocraine4201]

"There is no free cup of coffee." Of all the existential fears induced by discussions on the Fermi paradox, this one somehow hit hardest.

[@mikejones-vd3fg]

But it wrong, energy is here, and it didnt cost us anything. According to science's cause and efffect logic this is impossible, yet it happened, it can happen again, free coffee for all!

[@stab74]

The rare coffee hypothesis .

[@depth386]

It feels free if you have enough robotics and automation to do the planting, harvesting, transport, grinding and brewing. That’s the optimistic point of view.

[@spaceanarchist1107]

What if you had a food synthesizer like the ones in Star Trek, hooked up to a vacuum energy power source? Then you would have free coffee anytime you wanted it. I hope someone invents it soon.

[@Nobody-11B]

Yeah that hit a bit close home.

[@ZER0--]

Arthur C Clarke said something like "We are either alone in the universe or we're not. Either possibility is quite frightening." Loving your videos.

[@stephenkalatucka6213]

Every other planet we've studied is a toxic waste dump from Hell.

[@DankyDankenstein]

That was James T. Kirk.

[@badouplus1304]

@@DankyDankenstein No, it wasn't, because human race had already made contact with Vulcans and other life forms before he was born.

[@BigFatCock0]

Equally frightening*

[@smoothlyrough512]

Dudes a moto. master of the obvious🤦

[@remygallardo7364]

Something I enjoy thinking about when considering the possibility that we are either alone or exceedingly rare is whether it is morally good for us to colonize and seed life in hospitable zones or morally bad because it would prevent the potential for abiogenesis to occur. Regardless of the answer our desire to not be alone is sufficiently strong enough that I feel inevitably we would create other intelligent life if only to have a companion or opponent and give ourselves further purpose.

[@smileyp4535]

I don't think it's a moral question whatsoever, obviously if there is intelligent life on a planet we should help them, but if they are anything other than intelligent we can just take samples and create large artificial space habitats that hold entire ecosystems and then deconstruct the planet for resources (if we want, we wouldn't really have to since there would be so many other non-inhabited planets and bodies in space that have all the resources we could ever need)

[@Mangoboi699]

@@smileyp4535yeah thays immoral. You litterally described the Plot to the movie Home dude. “Hey guys this planet is nice so we are going to make zoos for you to live in so we can destroy your planet for selfish purposes” Imagine we were put in zoos for an alien race to tear apart earth. you wouldnt like it. What you just said was just fucking stupid Done with my rant. I would see zero purpose for doing that. It would cost alot to make zoos For every living thing on a planet. Not only do we not know much about their ecosystem we have no clue about what the fuck is going on. We dont even know how to take care of our bodies even our own planet. We arent ready for any of that. Before we actually do anything to live planets we are going to r*** the shit out of planets until they are Floating Balls of swiss cheese

[@smoothlyrough512]

You think humans have morals? That's rich. 🤦 It's obvious the people in charge have no morals. And sorry to say, they'd be the ones to send/not send people out to colonize. Not people like us, the plebs.

[@barneyrubble4293]

I think it is our destiny as part of the life on Earth for us to spread that life to every possible corner of the universe because that’s what life does on our planet, it adapts and spreads as far as it can. As far as we can tell there’s no one else around to get mad about it.

[@isaacbruner65]

To me the simplest explanation to the Fermi Paradox is that extraterrestrial civilizations are common, but the universe is so big that communication, let alone travel, between civilizations is impossible on the timescales that these civilizations exist.

[@NondescriptMammal]

I would add the hypothesis that every civilization that become advanced enough to industrialize, destroys their own planetary habitat before they ever get a chance to advance to interstellar travel.

[@puirYorick]

Exactly. Thank you.

[@freedapeeple4049]

Which is precisely why I say it is not a paradox at all.

[@5izzy557]

I agree with you on this. Although never say never devils advocate side.

[@jhill4874]

Define common. Given the timescale of the universe, and the age of our civilization (10,000 years at most, 200 of higher technology) synchronizing similar aged civilizations would be extremely rare. The idea of a Star Trek type of star government would be nearly impossible.

[@glennscott8622]

This one needs to be listened to twice. Thank you, John

[@Notlegallyaduck]

Cool Words did a video explaining his thoughts on the likelihood of intelligent life. He basically said that life is probably common, but intelligence is rare

[@04stiger]

How true. Intelligence is rare even here on earth :)

[@maggierose5658]

@@04stiger this was the best thing I’ve read all day lol

[@mr.bunnywabbit2048]

I agree with that. Based off the fact that life on Earth appeared basically as soon as it could, I like to imagine that microbial life might be everywhere. However, complex life did not evolve for a very long time after that, so it makes sense to think it's much rarer.

[@philipford6183]

Very good - and very accessibly explained. It amazes me that humanity somehow coexists with the magnificent, terrifying unanswered mystery of the vast, unknowable universe all around it.

[@beij0]

Thank you so much for dedication you put into your craft. You’re a fantastic educator, entertainer and creator. I truly enjoy learning from you. Also, your voice is such a peaceful lullaby, it’s comforting for sleep! 💕😊

[@dougm9157]

I remember some years ago there was a study that turned the Drake Equation on its side so that instead of calculating the number of detectable civilizations in the galaxy it calculated the probability that no other civilization besides ours developed. I believe the odds of that turned out to be exceedingly low. Personally, I like the line from Contact -- If we are alone, it seems an awful waste of space.

[@silentwilly2983]

Yeah, a while back after seeing too many 'great filter' videos I started thinking about it more. Apply occams razor and a great filter is silly as exactly the same thing can be explained by a number of small filters. If you then think about it, you need only a few dozen halving factors to reduce the number of technological life forms in the galaxy to less then one. A few dozen doesn't sound outrageous to me. To come up with the small filters we fall victim to anthropocentric bias, so hard to definitely define them, but there certainly are a lot of steps between inorganic chemistry and us being here that could have gone wrong and can function as (very) small filters.

[@doncarlodivargas5497]

'waste of space' is a typical thinking for white heterosexual male west european protestants, and I am a white heterosexual male west european protestant, the space are as it is independent on how you think resources should be exploited, if the universe are empty from (intelligent) life it tell us something about the universe, and something about us

[@-Amiya-]

Aw I love that quote 😍

[@someguy999]

The Drake equation is misunderstood by many people. It can only tell us which factors come into play when considering the possibility of life elsewhere. It can't be used to calculate the probability because we simply don't know which values to plug in for some variables.

[@masstv9052]

I think there a big difference between life existing in the galaxy, and intelligent life with civilization existing in the galaxy. It took 4.5 billion years and many unique circumstances for our intelligent and civilization life to evolve.

[@rga1605]

I think one thing that makes these dialogues so interesting is that, as scary as these possibilities could be, is that, in the end, they're still mental experiments. As much as they're elaborated using observation from authorative scholars, they're still limited by our imagination. What if we are missing something that we simply don't have the right angle to think about? And, in hindsight, something that took years, decades, even centuries to be thought, might even look trivial.

[@benjaminshropshire2900]

I don't remember where, but I heard someone ask the question: if we were to encounter extra terrestrial life, would we even recognize it as life?

[@truejim]

@@benjaminshropshire2900 Along those same lines, here's a fun thing to ponder: being intelligent isn't necessarily the same thing as being self-aware. Like when you leave work at the end of the day and suddenly find yourself pulling into your home's driveway, not remembering the trip home because you were daydreaming -- during that drive you were intelligent, but not self-aware. It's possible we could encounter extraterrestrial life that is even intelligent, and yet still has no consciousness! There's a theory that the only reason humans have consciousness is because our senses ingest data faster than our brains can process the data, so we need a "filter" to decide what to pay attention to. It's that "filter" that leads to "self awareness". Now imagine an alien species whose brains could can process data just as fast as its senses: it might be perfectly intelligent, yet still have no sense of "self".

[@Chris.Davies]

Indeed. A meatsack evolved to propel you safely through the canopy of your arboreal existence is not properly equipped (or made) to understand things outside of our planet. And that is why the future of humanity is as machine-based life, and not biology. The instant you ditch the shitty biology stuff, you unleash human potential for self-guided evolution, and intelligence goes straight to exponential.

[@davifiks421]

I can imagine a alien civilization observing Earth and saying that the planet is probably unsuitable for complex life because is too small and would have almost none atmosphere and tectonism, and because of the moon being so big, it would suffer tidal effects that would not make possible to terrestrial life to exist, and that is a funny scenario. (ps: sorry for my english)

[@Tuvok_Shakur]

I can only see 2 tiny mistakes and one of them is common for native speakers to make so your english is pretty good here (the word "a" if put before a word starting with a vowel it becomes "an" as in "a boat" or "an elephant". Many native speakers don't even bother with this rule. also instead of none atmosphere the correct word would be "no atmosphere" but I cant tell you the rule to that one, I just know it lol")

[@Julius_Hardware]

The Martian Chronicles: Martian scientists had determined that life on Earth was impossible, as there was too much oxygen.

[@wozimobile8208]

Wow what an answer, I'll save this comment, we could be doing the same with the exoplanets we've seen so far, and yet they could be full of life. That'd be funny because I'd mean we've got the discover of the century right in front of us but discarded it because our limited technology.

[@sentientflower7891]

You can imagine but that isn't how astronomy works either here or anywhere else.

[@MsTyrie]

Thanks!

[@sam_s_]

I really wanted his coffee analogy to turn into a slick sponsored ad.

[@leroybrown5726]

You wanted to see an ad?

[@BlackPilledWhite]

You could say that it is nearly impossible but at the same time you have to think about the fact that the earth has endured 5 major extinction events and all five times earth has been repopulated with flora and fauna. I believe that is not figured in as a variable in the Fermi Paradox.

[@bradleypoe6846]

Yep. It's as if the "great filter" concept works differently if you're talking about microbial life, simple plant life, or just non-technological life in general.

[@PraveenSrJ01]

It was divine intervention and intelligent design

[@bobbywise2313]

Abiogenesis is only known to have occured once though. Those major extinction events shaped evolution though. Intelligent bipedal apes probably would not exist today if not for the extinction event 65 million years ago. The number of things that had to occur in geological history for us to be here using technology is astronomical. Abiogenesis is obviously extremely rare. The evolution of eukaryotes took billions of years. Most of life's history on earth was prokaryotic organisms. Eukaryotes became multicellular rather quickly. But the rise of animals took longer. Intelligence would seem to be a driver in animal evolution because of the prey/predator competition. But had all life used photosynthesis then intelligence would not be necessary. The jump from apes that could use stones as tools to a species that put man on the moon is great one. Homo habilis and later Homo erectus found themselves in a changing environment in which being upright had an advantage. They depended on social groups and intelligence to survive against predators on the ground in Africa. But this only happened because the conditions of the time forced it. Being bipedal and having opposing thumbs meant intelligence would also be a huge advantage. It was the use of fire and a large meat based diet that lead to erectus developing a larger brain. But erectus was only known to use a couple of basic stone tools. What follows erectus is likely our direct ancestor. We emerged in one lineage and Homo neanthertal in a parallel branch. Anatomically Homo sapiens emerged around 250,000 years ago ( give or take ). But 50,000 years ago sapiens developed a sudden increase in intelligence. The reason is not understood. Around 70,000 years ago sapiens almost went extinct. This was possibly due to the Toba eruption. Erectus did finally go but he had been around over 2 million years. Erectus is the longest lived human species. Neanthertal and a couple of other members of the genus homo stook around for a while with us. Perhaps climate change was the biggest factor in neanthertals extinction. But Homo sapiens may have contributed intentionally or unintentionally to their passing. But even with all that technology as we know it today was not a given. A lot of factors contributed. Most people don't ever think about the location of a star in its galaxy as important. But stars close to the galactic center would be hostile to life. Having a natural satellite the size of our moon stabilized the earths tilt and climate. Without Jupiter as a body guard life would likely have never happened or it would be just prokaryotic. The number of things that lead to these upright apes with cell phones is countless. The big question is this. Is the universe infinite? We simply do not know what is beyond the observable universe. The observable universe is 90 billion light years across. That is large and most scientists think it is actually much larger. Some think it may be infinite. The next question is this. Is it one infinite continuous universe in which the composition and laws of physics are the same for infinity? If our universe is one continuous infinite universe then I can guarantee life exist elsewhere. In fact in a very distant place there is a world like this one and I exist but I a married to Margot Robbie. In an infinite universe everything that can exist will. The difference in size between a universe that spans 100 trillion light years across and an infinite universe is literally infinite. It is really an impossible concept to grasp. Of course our universe may be finite. But even at 90 billion light years across there is a good chance abiogenesis has occured a few million times. And I suppose a species that uses cell phones is probably out there as well. But we are likely separated by millions or billions of light years.

[@Lostinthelandofsmiles]

@@bobbywise2313 wow your comment was deep. Enjoyed reading that on my day off. May I ask how you learnt all this stuff? Any videos that may be of interest to me perhaps you could link? I’m just trying to learn more about this. Thanks

[@WizzRacing]

You assume life existed on earth from the very start. I hate to step on your neck.. But life sudden appearance is around 600 million years ago..As earth was still recovering the first 3 Billion years when Theia hitting it..Hell earth didn't even have a moon till 2 Billion years ago..Much less water in all three states.

[@madhamish9045]

Wow…the freakiest thing happened when watching this one! At 6:30 when JMG says “and time stops” my video froze…I thought it was part of the video for about 5 seconds until the “No connection” warning popped up! 🤣 Seems the internet gremlins have a sense of dramatic timing…

[@alanheadrick7997]

Sounds like you have AT&T for internet?

[@aaron179]

You know, I started watching lost the TV series yesterday and was just watching an episode prior to coming to KZbin to stumble upon this video to watch and John mentioned the island from the show. That surprised me!

[@ZEROmg13]

maybe you died and are now existing in one of the other uncountable multi-verses.

[@AlienIntervention1137]

What if I told you everything you knew was a lie ....... sounds like the matrix stopped for a few seconds for you

[@weaksause6878]

How's that working out for you? Being clever.

[@Deridus]

On the subject of sci-fi skirting the line, something that always struck me was the concept of the "Goldilocks zone." In Star Wars, if I remember correctly, the number of stars that have habitable plants shrinks the closer you get to the galactic core. In BattleTech, they basically imply that you can only go so far coreward before you just get fried by cosmic radiation, say, three or four thousand light years coreward of Terra. This leads me to believe that there must be a real-life galactic Goldilocks zone that varies from galaxy to galaxy, just as it is implied that it varies star to star. Here is where I think it gets interesting. What if the larger the galaxy, the smaller the zone; the smaller the galaxy, the less overall physical material capable of creating life-sustaining planets...

[@MrScrofulous]

I think that has been clearly demonstrated, yet SETI looked coreward as there are more stars there. I think that was a mistake, as too much radiation, both cosmic rays and gamma rays.

[@steverempel8584]

Generally, when talking about the Fermi Paradox, I'm only interested in figuring out if there is other Intelligent life in the Galaxy. The Fermi Paradox is based on the Idea that with current technology, it would take about 250 Million Years for us to fully colonize the Galaxy. With the Earth being 4.5 Billion years old, if there were other advanced civilizations in our Galaxy, they likely would have been around a lot longer than that, so our Galaxy should be fully populated by now. Instead we see no hint of any civilization whatsoever. Once you start talking about Alien life in other Galaxies, it becomes much less strange that we can't see them. They likely wouldn't expand past the Galaxy, or at least that's another Giant hurdle, past leaving the star system. And if they are staying in their Galaxy, it become very hard for us to detect them, unless they just build Dyson spheres around all their stars or something. Anything outside of the Observable Universe may as well not exist, as we will never be able to interact with it, so the Fermi Paradox doesn't apply to life there at all.

[@cassianosobrinho]

Just want to say this comment section is filled with amazing comments and interesting people. Do to covid and science deniers I'm slowly losing faith in Mankind, but reading you guys lifts my spirit. Thank you and JMG so so much. I wish you all the best.

[@vlad3060]

Happy Wednesday. Always good to have a new JMG episode to wind down to.

[@darkbrightnorth]

Good timing, I’ve had 7 hours of uni and needed something enjoyable and fun to listen to. Thank you again for these amazing videos

[@blaster-zy7xx]

This overall concept was addressed in the opening words of Star Wars; "a long time ago, in a galaxy far far away." Saying that civilizations are not only separated by vast space, but vast time. I my humble opinion with little data to go on, there is a lot of simple life out there, but intelligent life is astronomically rare. There were and will be other civilizations, but none may ever encounter each other in the vastness of both time and space.

[@DonaldGerbino]

And what if we are among the simpler and less intelligent of the intelligent beings who do inhabit the universe, what is we are considered less intelligent than a slug is to us ,just reacts to outside stimuli, but our conscience thoughts to these beings could be utter nonsense and gibberish compared to thier level of intelligence what we think as cutting edge they would look at it like it wasn't even stone tools or more than someone drooling on themselves

[@TimoRutanen]

We don't even know if it's rare or not. We just haven't seen that much yet to make a determination about even just this one galaxy.

[@puirYorick]

⭐ & 🍪

[@outlander234]

You completely missed the point of that line... Sure the galaxy that the events took place in is far away and was in different time but in that galaxy there were numerous species that knew each other and were in constant trade and communication, sort of like we are on our planet. There is no reason to believe yet that the same thing cant happen in our galaxy in some future time. Maybe we are on the precipice, as are other species, as we are about to venture into space... In thousand years our galaxy could be just like Star Wars one.

[@Matthew_007]

So what are UFOs then? Given enough time, faster than light travel is possible. What if an alien civilisation is 500,000 yrs ahead of us technologically.... Distance wouldn't really be a barrier....

[@cheyzus7554]

I went down a rabbit hole and found you and your videos. Thank you so much for living and breathing at the same time as me. Loved this video so much.

[@AndrewBlucher]

Two things. It's not a rabbit hole. JMG is not alive. It's an AI.

[@daneitel6937]

It's so rare, fragile, delicate, and precise with such perfect balance. It's a shame about hatred, war, and destructive violence, against fellow man

[@randallpetersen9164]

This is one of your best ones, John. I read hard SF voraciously, but the field couldn't even exist without all the tropes used to get around the inconvenient realities. And the more we've learned of the cosmos, the more and more preposterous those tropes have become, until at this point we just accept them to get on with the story.

[@Grandremone]

Do you know some good hard SF?

[@floseatyard8063]

​@@GrandremoneThe Expanse

[@robbabcock_]

Good stuff! Almost anything is possible and we as a species really are at the very beginning of science. Anatomically modern humans have existed for maybe 250,000 years and of that time we're only had astronomy with telescopes for maybe 0.1% of that time. We've only used radio for a little over 100 years. We've been able to leave our own atmosphere for only about 50 years. We know more than we did 1,000 years ago but only a small fraction of what there is to know. And as one scientist said, the Universe may not only be stranger than we know, it might be stranger than we can know. Modern people take it almost as an article of faith that we'll figure it all out someday but it's possible that humans will never have a "theory of everything" or understand the way the Universe works. At this point we don't know enough to even know the odds of there being life beyond Earth. Still, my unprovable hunch is that the Copernican Principle is true and that there's nothing unique about Earth. No matter how uncommon intelligence is the Universe is still so vast that it probably teems with intelligence. That doesnt' mean, however, that we'll ever contact it.

[@RJay121]

Maybe. But we should see in telescopes like Webb soon artifacts of intelligence if it exists

[@periurban]

A very good point. I'd argue that we are almost incapable of asking the questions that might lead to our transcending the limitations of cosmology. We've observed the quantum world for a hundred years and we are no closer to explaining it. I think our observations of cosmology are in even worse shape. At least we have a good working description of the quantum world, but our cosmology is held together with gaffer tape and wishes. The James Webb telescope may help settle some arguments! [But will probably just lead to more.]

[@sentientflower7891]

No. As a species we are at 98% to the end of science. In some of the sciences we are 99.9% to the end. That applies equally well to any imaginary intelligent alien species as the boundary for science for fantasy is the same as it is for humankind.

[@mpetersen6]

The vast majority of intelligent species in the universe may be stuck in their version of the paleolithic. Or be incapable of tool use completely if they live in an environment that does not allow it. Either water based or in the atmosphere of a gas giant.

[@allangibson2408]

The other assumption is that the discovery of nuclear explosives is not followed by the technical extinction of a civilisation a high percentage of time.

[@gustavbabic5004]

Maybe one of our mistakes is assuming that intelligent life always develops high technology. There could be races of intelligent beings out there who are stuck in the agricultural revolution, and for whatever reason, they do not achieve advanced technology.

[@embracedoubt2709]

It might be that most intelligent beings are physically unable to farm. Farming is really hard work. Humans were endurance predators, and we still top most animals in endurance. That endurance could be a necessary feature for a race of beings to even feasibly transition to agriculture. Just a random thought.

[@MNewton]

Technology develops through adversity, so perhaps because it seems we have evolved in a place that is less than perfect for life, a more perfect place would not produce technology either. Why develop agriculture if food is abundant everywhere? Why develop medicine if you're made of stern stuff that's hard to damage or has a very effective immune system? For instance, presumably an intelligent photo synthesizer wouldn't wouldn't need to develop farming. Without farming maybe they don't invent the wheel. It's pretty tough to make stuff without wheels of some kind be they roiling wheels or gears. Maybe a species who are innately great with math don't develop computers as there is no need. It's interesting to speculate anyway. Maybe being weak, soft skinned dumb monkeys is an advantage.

[@passantNL]

Imagine how a race of Amish might develop. They would be stuck in time for eternity, unwilling to accept any technological change.

[@gorbachevdhali4952]

We should invade their world and take their resources ... jk...

[@42ZaphodB42]

An intelligent aquatic species might never leave an ocean for example. I mean whales and dolphins are very close to being as intelligent as apes and humans.

[@fishgodchof]

"and when i wake up in the morning..well, im a youtuber so afternoon really" lol! awesome.

[@brianarbenz1329]

As recently as the 1930s, the best minds believed it plausible that advanced life could exist on Mars. Even thinking of that as a small possibility would make advanced life within our observable universe almost a certainty. Today, our searches of far deeper space have found a conspicuous silence that has changed out thinking. We're beginning to face what Arthur C. Clarke called the other terrifying possibility -- that we are indeed alone.

[@pvacaesar2942]

Never been convinced by that infinite implies infinite versions of everything. Lots of limits behave in unexpected and even quite constrained ways. Even for simple systems. For example, Random walks in 3 dimensions or more only return to the origin a finite number of times when ran forever. Whereas a naive view of it would expect it, incorrectly, to return infinitely many times. Just seems that infinities and limits often act in unexpected ways, and not just if anything could happen then anything will.

[@dkennedy1]

Yeah I also notice this absurd theory cropping up when even intelligent people discuss an infinite universe. Just because the universe has infinite matter and infinite space, doesn’t mean naturally that there would be exact copies of human beings on exact copies of Earth. There would just a be infinite variations of carbon-based intelligent life very similar to us.

[@kylelieb2977]

This sound interesting. Where is the KZbin video on this ?

[@LookToWindward]

That's true even for 2D random walks with drift. However - and it's a biiig however- a random walk has an infinite state-space, whereas each observable universe at a given point of time has a finite state-space. So a "near-copy" of Earth is a lot more likely in an infinite-universe scenario than a (non-stationary) random walk returning to its starting point.

[@deanwalker5367]

I think your comment is both right and wrong at the same time. Wrong possibly because our limited human brains lack the capability to truly comprehend infinity, hence you're inability to be convinced. But correct in what you may be alluding to with probabilities. I agree with you in this way: there are some things which are "Totally Improbable", or if you like impossible, even given infinity exists one example is "absolute nothing". Nothing is totally improbable given infinity, for the simple fact that we observe something. Even if it is an illusion it is still not nothing. There are other examples. At the other end is the Total 100% probable. Something exists, observation exists and other examples. All other possibilities/probabilities fall in between these axioms. We are just more likely to observe what is more probable in the end. In my humble limited human opinion lol.

[@StreakyBaconMan]

This seems wrong. Not all infinities are equal, that doesn't mean they aren't infinite. If you were to list numbers from 1 to infinity, it'd be a greater infinity than listing all the odd numbers from 1 to infinity, but both lists of numbers would still never end and be infinite. 50% of infinity is still infinity. A never endling list that has been cut in half still never ends. With the universe there is a finite number of combinations of particles, and one of those possible combinations is our observable universe. If our observable universe is possible, and exists in a larger infinite universe then that infinite universe would eventually have to repeat the same combination we have in our observable universe over and over again into infinity. The only way something wouldn't occur infinite times in an infinite universe is because it's physically impossible and can't happen even once. If there is a non-zero chance for something to happen, it'd happen an infinite number of times.

[@flibber123]

I think the likeliest explanation is that there is a lot of intelligent life in the universe. The problem is that all this life evolved on different planets and/or other bodies and therefore the lifeforms are very different. I think it's likely that lifeforms are so different that they are not even recognizable to each other. If you put a polar bear in an enclosure with penguin, the bear wouldn't know what the penguin is but it would still recognize it as possible food. That's because both animals evolved on the same planet, so there is some commonality there between the creatures. Things like possible sizes, diets, levels of aggression, development of instincts, and bone and muscle development are going to be similar influences on both of them. Change variables like planetary gravity, atmosphere, solar light and heat, rotation speed, and surface water and who knows how radically different the creatures might turn out to be. There could be large amounts of civilizations out there that aren't even visible in the way that we see things. A surface could be contaminated with millions of germs yet I could stare at that surface all day long and not see so much as one germ.

[@richschmitt100]

That is all well and good, but what difference does all that make. The distance and the vastness of the universe makes your point irrelevant.

[@External2737]

The question is, how much life evolved on water worlds (no meaningful land mass)? They won't develop fire, metallurgy, roads, or many of the enabling technologies for a technological civilization. As you allude, perhaps life evolves on a super earth with high gravity slows technology advance.

[@ETBrooD]

As someone who constantly experiences the reality of chance in my field of work, I'd argue that the chance is much greater that life is abundant in the universe than that it isn't. Not only that, but even intelligent life is likely abundant, and so are civilizations. However, abundance becomes meaningless in the context of the vastness of the universe. We'll most likely never encounter alien life because the distance between each of the habitable planets is far too great. We can however create alien life, and that's where things get really interesting.

[@RJay121]

If it exists we would see it

[@district_13]

Yes, to get to Orion’s Belt at light speed is around 736 Year’s. If the Pyramid builders are Aliens and have Light Speed space ships. Even if we have Light Speed Pay-phones it’s going to be ridiculous trying to talk to them yet trying to figure out their Language. If they don’t even shoot us first🤣

[@Crackhonos]

Whats your field of work? Just curious

[@periurban]

In that case, it's quite likely that we are aliens.

[@sentientflower7891]

You are expressing hope & faith.

[@jrgreatwhite]

Could it not be possible that other life forms are at the same stage as us? If they were then it would be very hard for us to detect them and we would not be able to detect us.

[@deusexaethera]

I don't believe there is a limit to technology, but I do believe there's a limit to physics. Once we have learned all of the laws of physics, technological advancement will become ever-more-byzantine (and expensive) in an attempt to accomplish things which are extremely inconvenient within the laws of physics.

[@BostonCycling_]

Yesss!!! Love your Fermi Paradox series.

[@jamesduncan6729]

Yes! Love the channel, John. You're the man 👍🏻❤️

[@taurianferguson]

Maybe the solution to the fermi paradox is that we are an elder race or perhaps the first. No one would accept the idea(aliens as an idea were invented to be wonderous and more advanced than us) but someone has to be first. Why not us? If we're not special than what disqualifies us from being randomly early in the queue?

[@greenrocket23]

Being first in the early universe sounds more terrifying then being surrounded by advanced aliens or being alone, the sheer weight of it all, we would be really bad precursors if we had to fill that role.

[@TimoRutanen]

While it's just as possible as anything else, thinking we're the best breeds the wrong kind of thinking which makes it more difficult in the future. We should not think ourselves too special for no reason.

[@BrentWalker999]

That's my personal theory.

[@LookToWindward]

If the "grabby aliens" argument is correct, and we manage to get the whole self-replicating machines thing down, we are almost certainly the first within a very large radius.

[@nwj03a]

The very first problem we run in to is thinking that we understand the question at all. Who says physics work the way we think? Who says time works the way we think? Or even the scale of life? What if death really isn’t an end at all? We are so ridiculously young on any scale of time (as we understand it), we could be cosmic bacteria in terms of intelligence and we’d have no clue. The fact that we ask questions is what we generally use to define ourselves as intelligent, because no other life we’ve found seems to do that in any meaningful way. Maybe the answer is simple, but there’s a an extremely high chance we are ants trying to understand nuclear energy. We have no idea how complicated the question is, no ability to answer it, and we are a long way from being close. But hey… we are asking.

[@adlockhungry304]

John! I can’t wait to read the sequel to your first Salvagers book! It’s so good! Thanks for all your fantastic content!

[@rebeccarebunny2026]

Terrific video! I am always struck by the following paradox: If abiogenesis is so "easy" that life appeared here on Earth during the late heavy bombardment, why have we been incapable of creating more than the building blocks of life in our labs?

[@richschmitt100]

They say it's because the initial "ingredients" are present anymore.

[@talltroll7092]

Mostly because we don't have labs the size of a planet or funding to run the experiment for millions of years. If we did, we'd find it extremely easy

[@roberttbrockway]

Easy is relative. The Earth may have taken millions of years to bring forth life. We've been trying to recreate abiogenesis for maybe 70 years, and on a very small scale.

[@MaxWindshear]

Probably because scientists have been working on this for such a short period of time compared to the number of accidental experiments nature performed over millions of years.

[@wickedhenderson4497]

@@MaxWindshear you’re example actually works against the point you are trying to make.

[@samgamgee7384]

Civilization on Earth!? Great idea, someone ought to try it.

[@TheNguyenGiap]

The collision explanation is one of the most fantastical stories about the moon i´ve ever heard, given the near perfect size of the moon relative to the earth/sun making perfect eclipses possible...

[@Infrared01]

Its a simple case of the Moon's orbit receding. Nothing fantastical about it. We just got lucky that this is the time our civilization developed.

[@robertedgemon8096]

Eclipses are only "perfect" seeming, if your in that zone of darkness when it passes by. It looks like a black dot moving across the surface of something much bigger....

[@jahovahgogg5064]

I always have wondered about how of the universe is actually observable with own eyes and how much of it is hidden because of our eyes also.

[@jimc.goodfellas]

Questionable? I'd say you're living the good life my good sir. It shows in the content. I especially liked the thought provoking philosophical questions raised here. It does become hard to say we occupy no special place in the Universe if we continue to not find any other life out there...

[@samizdatbroadcasts7654]

In my experience, this conversation almost always veers into the direction of theology. Personally, I don't find "God did it" to be a very satisfying explanation. Because this simply transposes questions we would ask of an eternal Universe on to an eternal God. But if the odds of intelligent life arising anywhere are so astronomically low, then questions of either simulation or intelligent design almost naturally present themselves.

[@periurban]

But those leave the same questions lying around, don't they? One of my favourite scientists is Fred Hoyle, and I think his instinct about the universe being infinite is the most likely explanation, even though he did withdraw his steady state model in the face of the evidence for expansion. An infinite universe, even one as strange as recently described by Roger Penrose's Conformal Cyclic Cosmology, seems like a much more likely scenario. But my simple human brain may well not be sufficient to the task of understanding what's really going on.

[@sentientflower7891]

Abiogenesis didn't do it.

[@benjaminshropshire2900]

One theological interpretation when asked the question "what is an eternal God?" answers with "a contradiction in terms because eternal is too 'small'" . It accepts God as the "author" of the universe analogous to how Tolkien is the author of middle earth. The world, the timeline, the past and future, things before and things after; all of it exist because the author chose to create it. As such, something in the "story" calling the "author" eternal is meaningless at best. Comparing the timeline of the author and the timeline within the story is about as meaningful as trying to order orthogonal vectors or measure of mass and measure of distance relative to each other. There are ways to construct an answer, but they are simply arbitrary. (How old is Aunt Polly in the world of the book Tom Sawyer? Is she older now than when the book was written? How old was she when Mark Twain was born?)

[@flexa41]

Thanks! Goodnight!

[@MrBassbump]

I am a relatively new subscriber and enjoy every video you’ve made so far. Thank you sir. 🙏🤘

[@JohnMichaelGodier]

Welcome aboard. Don't forget, this channel is only the half of it. I also have a talk show on the same subjects: kzbin.info

[@MrBassbump]

@@JohnMichaelGodier I wasn’t aware of your second channel. I’ll take a look 👀

[@PraveenSrJ01]

I also subscribed to the channel after watching this video

[@dontusemyusername3208]

His voice makes me sleepy but the subject makes me awake

[@Scroll_Lock]

It actually sounds like an AI voice to me.

[@mpetersen6]

One thing I like to point out to people on astronomy and space videos. Earth is at the center of the Universe. The observable Universe.

[@An_Economist_Plays]

Deepening the hypothesis is Stanislav Lem's "The World as Cataclysm", which outlines yet more events and conditions necessary for our life to work. Our position in the galaxy relative to spiral arms is important, as are the supernovas that gave early Earth its elements. These are all things that we can calculate frequencies and distributions of, but we don't really know how often they interact in such a way as to produce life, except in the one special case of Earth itself. And, even then, which life gets to last long enough to be intelligent and dominant? Extinction events pepper the planet's past - we may very well be here because other species are not. So not only may life be rare and intelligent life rarer still, but intelligent dominant life has even more luck behind it in the timing of events that wipe out the competition.

[@lancethrustworthy]

No, John Michael, someone isn't going to have to grow the seeds dry and roast them. We will have all the numbers describing the coffee bean. We will take little units of energy and shape them into the finest coffee beverages imaginable. You'll be able to dial in the bean age pre-roasting, roasting time, etc, etc. those molecules will come into being from jiggled power, easy peasy. :)

[@dreamlord8507]

I've also read somewhere that in earlier history, the land on Earth was just... rock. But there was giant mushrooms that will dissolve that rocky terrain to fertile dirt allowing plants ( that only existed right next to rivers, lakes etc.) to "move" and create forests and jungles! Now imagine if those mushrooms never existed, we wouldn't be here now! So we got lucky with the life created itself! Personally i believe single cell organism are very common on the universe, it looks like its very easy to get started but surviving is the key. And multicellar organism are more rare, then animals are even more rare and intellegent life is even more rare. And don't get me started on intelligent life that doesn't kill itself!

[@bryanguzik]

My instinct is also that we are not alone (though likely unique). Yet I still say that the "simplest" explanation is that we Are alone. Even assuming for lots of intelligence, we're effectively Actually alone. Unless & until we're not.

[@spekopz]

Here's a concept to consider: Some fundamental breakthrough in future physics enables sentient species to inhabit some new dimension or pocket of time / space. One which is not measureable to any of our instruments. For whatever reason this alternative way of existing is far preferable (maybe more energy efficient?). We can't see any advanced civilizations out there because they've essentially left our way of living in the universe to something more preferable.

[@NDHFilms]

I remember asking my middle-school science teacher what life might be like on other planets. She asked me in turn, "What's the most common form of life on earth?" I replied "Single-cell organisms." She gave me a look that told me I'd answered my own question.

[@chuco915C]

Damn that was your reply? Mine would of been like caca or something worse to make my friends laugh lol

[@sternamc919sterna3]

Could viruses be the "seeds" of life?

[@Globovoyeur]

Your science teacher seems to have missed the point. It's probably true that single-celled life is the most common in the universe. But that doesn't rule out multicellular types, complex animals and plants, or even intelligence. The universe is not bound by the limits of our imaginations.

[@ChrisM541]

@ISCARI0T LOL...!!!

[@kitsouk1]

Another terrifying yet educational video that makes me remember this quote, “Two possibilities exist: either we are alone in the Universe or we are not. Both are equally terrifying.” ― Arthur C. Clarke

[@theboombody]

I think we probably are. I don't expect to hear the news of intelligent life being found elsewhere at any point during my lifetime anyway. Maybe 3,000 years from now. But I don't think even then.

[@robertedgemon8096]

I would say , indisputable evidence we are alone, is scarier than believing we are not.

[@m00kism]

I always find that 'the speed of causality' has the most crushing finality.

[@asdfdfggfd]

I am still open to the idea that humans are alone and that the universe is weirder and more unexpected than we can imagine.

[@arkay238]

Infinite universe does not imply the existence of every possible variation of things. It could be infinite, but just a constant sequence of, say, rosebushes forever in all directions after a certain point.

[@bipolarminddroppings]

"A probable impossibility is preferable to an improbable possibility" One of my favourite quotes from Aristotle, despite the fact I think he had it ass backwards. No matter how improbable intelligent life is, the universe is simply too large for us to be alone. Hell, with 100 billion stars in our galaxy, it's the height of hubris to think we're the only ones. We are here. Therefore, they are too.

[@theonlylolking]

Cope

[@RoldanRR00]

I've always liked the idea that abiogenesis is happening all around us in the most mundane ways, we just have no way to observe or measure it with our current level of technology.

[@someguy999]

If it's happening all around us, I still think we would see signs. For example, is weird stuff showing up under the microscope that shows properties of life? Even the tiniest microbes leave signs of life that we can detect.

[@masstv9052]

Thats been hypothesized, but the only issue with that is that investigation and experiments have shown (similar to adding simpler life to areas with more complex life) is that the more established life that has evolved to be predators in an environment (including microbial life) that will immediately consume any new simpler forms of life that try to arise. We see this with, as an example, the thousands of new born hatched turtles that must scramble from beaches to reach the sea, the predators pick nearly most of them off, only leaving a fraction to survive. also, our genetic testing has shown that all life is interconnected In the early part of the earth formation, we probably had several abiogenesis spawns of life, but eventually one strain of life one out, and consumed all others that tried to arrive and gains foothold.

[@sentientflower7891]

If Abiogenesis happens anywhere at all in the Universe it would happen in a laboratory.

[@GFMkidsComedy]

What do you think of the idea of a ‘shadow biosphere’?

[@theFLCLguy]

I think there flow of time is an illusion like a still image that appears to move because a change in perspective. And that the universe doesn't operate on finite units. It's only when you apply limited perspectives that it appears finite.

[@district_13]

Can you elaborate? It sounds like Quantum mechanics. Like Scrodinger’s cat?

[@STR82DVD]

We have a sample size of one. Obviously that's not a large sample size and extrapolation just isn't possible with our current instrumentation.

[@DemetriusSorvo]

The Simulation Theory often starts to sound like High-Tech God.

[@dj-kq4fz]

It seems that at every stage of human advancement we make proclamations or assumptions (innocently generally, though with hubris in some cases) based on insufficient information. I hope we are not alone, and just falling into a temporary knowledge hole that we will someday crawl out of. Thanks! Dave J

[@dirremoire]

A few generations from now, our descendants will be laughing at how little we knew about the universe.

[@periurban]

Philosophy exists between the gaps in science. As we fill in the gaps, our philosophies narrow.

[@sentientflower7891]

It may seem that is the case but that isn't the case.

[@TimoRutanen]

Right now it's all about how impossible it is to do anything in space because of the speed of light restricting everything. 1500 years ago everybody knew the Earth was the center of the universe. 500 years ago everybody knew the earth was flat, and 15 minutes ago you knew that people were alone on this planet. Imagine what you'll Know tomorrow --Agent K

[@darkmatter6714]

I think the issue is our inability to visualise the true scale of the universe because it sits outside our human field of experience. Imagine this: If the entire observable universe is scaled down to the size of a spec of dust, the amount of unobservable universe lying outside the spec of dust could be as large as the actual full scale observable universe is relative to that spec of dust, or even much much more. Now let’s suppose intelligent life exists at a rate of say every 100 miles outside of our spec of dust. To keep the scale in mind imagine how many specs of dust you can fit in a distance of 100 miles and how many 100 miles you can fit inside the full scale observable universe. On this scale, even if the universe is teeming with billions of intelligent life forms they would never ever be able to get in contact with each other. In other words the distances could be so unimaginably vast that no matter how much time goes by, it is more likely that entropy will see the universe fizzle out of existence before the billions of civilisations out there are able to propagate far enough, even travelling at the speed of light, to even become aware of each other. I wonder…if Enrico Fermi had this level of scale in mind, would he have even bothered asking, “where is everybody?”…. because with scales like these, we may never know if life exists elsewhere, thus making the question itself redundant.

[@c0nc3ntr8d6]

We know very little about the visible universe. We know nothing about life potentially taking non-physical forms. Very closed minded thinking only what we physically see is everything.

[@r.c.1881]

All bets are off if we manage to break past the speed of light though. This is why I think that we really should invest in research to get past this immense hurdle, and see if we can possibly attain past our present limits. Else entropy will truly have the last word on us.

[@kevinbeazy]

@@c0nc3ntr8d6 you don’t have to “see” something to know it’s there. Measurements and observations don’t have to rely on human eyesight. He’s being as close minded as you’re being uniformed about observing.

[@joeyhoser]

9:30 I don't think "we" won any lottery. We are are a result of the way the universe is, not a pre-existing blueprint that "got lucky" to have a universe made to match. If I open a deck of cards and throw it into the air, and it scrambles and lands on the ground, then the odds of every card settling at each position and orientation, all the way down to the plank length, are similarly astronomical. But there is nothing special, lucky, or fine tuned about.

[@Napoleonwilson1973]

Idiot statement

[@teptime]

I think it's entirely conceivable that there are planets which host intelligent life, but are lacking in natural resources needed to explore/communicate universally. Too, they possibly have tried, but we simply do not recognize the call. Maybe they observe certain religious tenets that inhibit exploration, or, possibly, they've contacted other civilizations, and the results were unfavorable.

[@Zuringa]

Everyone seems to omit the fact that in the 4 billion years since life started on this planet, which is a sizeable chunk of the age of the universe, to the best of our knowledge, it has never started a second time. That greatly reduces the odds of life occurring anywhere, surely?

[@JohnMichaelGodier]

It's usually not considered a show stopper because of the likelihood of any second abiogenesis very quickly being suppressed by the first. In short, it may simply be that as a second occurrence of life tries to arise here, it immediately gets eaten.

[@KravKernow]

I've always thought it would be fun if the universe only extended about 300 yards beyond the observed horizon. But presumably there's a lower bound? Stuff like this is well beyond my comprehension; and maths. But might it be that we could calculate how many galaxies pass over the horizon in any given period and then extrapolate that for 13.whatever billion years. That would be a rough approximation, and it might be that the first stuff to 'leave' the observer universe would just be gas or whatever came before galaxies. But is it the case we could at least figure out what the minimum amount of matter has left the visible universe and how 'far' it could have got in that time?

[@stoobydootoo4098]

It does, on foggy days. Even less!

[@periurban]

James Webb telescope will help us answer that. It may be that we see more complexity in the far past than we should, leading us perhaps to re-evaluate our thinking on the scale of the universe.

[@logiconabstractions6596]

Good question, got me thinking. I realized I had glossed over some of that stuff way too fast. I don't claim to be 100% on all of this, but I do have a few tidbits of info that might help to clarify some of this. So, the observable universe is really about space-time, not just space. So the light that James Webb will soon start to gather was emitted 13.whatever billions ly ago. But if you could go back in time, go back say 7 billions years ago, THEN your observable universe would be.... 6.whatever light-years. That's because back then, light only had 6.whatever years to travel. And in the minutes after the big-bang (assuming the model to be correct), then your observable universe would only be a few minutes accross, because back then light only had a few minutes to travel.* Similarly, there's no way to know RIGHT NOW if Andromeda (closest galaxy) is still there. It's like 2.5 millions light-years away (I think). So the earliest we can know if it's still there NOW is in 2.5 millions years. The other thing is that.... the light that James Webb will soon gather was emitted 13.whatever billions years ago. But in the meantime, the galaxy that emitted it moved away (expansion and all). So that galaxy is now much farther away - it could be RIGHT NOW, say, 30 billions light years away. Meaning the light it currently emits will be observable, very redshifted in.... 30 billion years from now. * Actually minutes after the Big, there probably wasn't really any photons yet, but for argument's sake....

[@Faint366]

Most of the stuff we include in the “observable universe” has already passed beyond our horizon. That’s why the observable universe is 48 billion light years in radius when the universe is only 13 billion years old. We’re including how far away the stuff we can see has already traveled. The reason we can still see it is because the light from when it was very young, before it left our horizon, was so far away that it’s still traveling to us. The observable universe is a term that includes everything that will ever affect us in the future, or has ever affected us in the past.

[@ucantSQ]

Beyond the observable universe? I believe it's the refreshments, then the bathrooms. Enjoy the show.

[@cougar2013]

“Once you hit the speed of light, time stops” this is an easy mistake to make. No matter how fast you’re moving, you will always see your watch ticking normally. Also, we can’t really assume what the universe would look like when traveling at the speed of light, since the special relativity equations aren’t defined for v=c

[@huemann7637]

Imagine hitting a speck of dust while going 95% of the speed of light. You would definitely need a new windshield.

[@GlutenEruption]

But at C, space itself shrinks to zero - for a photon, the concept of time ceases to exist, and therefore does indeed essentially stop.

[@TheSCPStudio]

‘Easy mistake to make’. You say that as if you’re an undeniable professional in the topic and as if humans in general have ever even been able to test/prove anything regarding the speed of light and how time is effected at those speeds…

[@manofcultura]

Time certainly slows down for anything WU mass approaching it, but do massless particles experience time the same way? In one regard we know mass curves space time, but photons do not. So one can assume the photon is simply in a static state, that is why all massless particles move only at the speed of light in a vacuum automatically. It’s not the photon moving, it’s the rest of matter which have mass simply observing the photon from a mass related relative framework. So in conclusion, it’s actually not inconceivable that time “stops” or rather does not even exist for massless particles, because they do not seem to interact with it because any cause of time dilation(mass) seems to travel in a time axis of causality. Its probably why a photon remains basically the same from its point of origin to the point of its observation, only affected by the inertia of its source through red/blue shift.

[@zrebbesh]

Who cares if you see your watch ticking normally, if you're going so fast that the universe will end before the next tick?

[@kidchiko9435]

I think life on a planet is an inevitability as long as the chemistry on that planet allows for a form of life. So the most common life would be the most simple life with more advanced forms of life becoming more and more rare the more advanced it is.

[@sentientflower7891]

Chemistry disagrees.

[@ucantSQ]

Inevitability. A planet with similar temperatures, chemistries, *magnetic field?*. Inevitable.

[@hdufort]

A wraparound universe is easier to accept for our minds, although we have no way of checking if it is the case. In a wraparound universe (the surface of a higher dimension sphere or torus), if you could go in the same direction for a very long time and faster than the expansion, you could end up where you started.

[@johnstrawb3521]

@John Michael Godier - You're the best, my friend. Many thanks.

[@scottjarvis123]

I conjecture that Earth and the life on it are likely unique in the universe. Applying Occam's razor to the Great Silence tells me that we are alone. There is zero evidence for the existence of life outside of Earth and absence of evidence is evidence of absence in those scenarios where we'd expect to or should find it.

[@bonysminiatures3123]

I better keep you up to date nobody has ever traveled to survey another star system , therefore nobody has any evidence anyway , evidence is time , time is life's friend

[@FordesBreakingNews]

I love fermi paradox. Isaac Arthur is great for this aswell. I think, one feasible solution to the problem of ‘where are all the aliens?’ is that we live in a simulation. The more you think about it, the more it fits with certain other anomolies.

[@sharksareneat8723]

The simulation hypothesis is an interesting theory, but honestly it just seems like doing a loop back to creationism, but this time it has a nihilistic twist. I'm not sure at that point why when physicists seriously propose the simulation hypothesis it's seen as acceptable but entertaining that there may be some kind of higher power isn't. To be clear I'm not arguing that there IS some kind of higher power, or that physicists should make the argument there is or is not one, I just think it's interesting that they rebranded that idea in a way that doesn't seem to ruffle as many feathers. Both theories fall into a deity of the gaps scenario where anything can be explained with "because God made it that way" or "because the simulation was designed that way." Food for thought, I guess.

[@physetermacrocephalus2209]

Terry is right. So is the Paperclip Maximizer 🖇➕

[@randallpetersen9164]

The ancestor simulation concept becomes even more interesting when you realize that it might not even be a human or posthuman simulation. We could simply be something that arose de novo in a simulation created by and for some other beings.

[@sunspot42]

I think a more-likely explanation for the Fermi Paradox is that they just don’t travel. Nobody does. Takes to long and costs too much money. Why travel the universe when you can send out microscopic probes and relativistic velocities, gather all the data you could ever want, and simulate any place in the universe from the comfort of your own living room?

[@a51raider]

nah

[@waris4thewealthy549]

The interesting thing is the human being possesses “creative consciousness” and personally without understanding what exactly that means, for me, it’s impossible to believe that we are the only “creative conscious” beings in the universes massive majestic beauty. If there is a Primary expansive consciousness or universal consciousness then we have the question…what does the branches or leaves know of the seed? All things considered why would the universe create a species that is hell bent on destroying itself and the supporting life environment in which it was created with and in? I’m going to say that other life definitely exist and the more research that is done on the past, the more you get the feeling that on a 4 billion year old rock, the chances of older civilizations with much longer life spans have already been here…🤔

[@FatterHomer]

The best 23 minutes i spent watching a video. Thank you for actually addressing hypotheses and drawing logical conslusions. Most videos out there do not actually do this. You have a subscriber !

[@sandal_thong8631]

I've been watching/listening to videos (except music) at 1.5 speed, so it wouldn't be that long for me.

[@MeganVictoriaKearns]

​@@sandal_thong8631I do that too.

[@bruceneeley1724]

One issue I see is that most, when thinking about the universe, generally lack the imagination to think beyond our own bubble. It's just not necessary for our individual survival. I realize science needs evidence. However I'm sure early humans made assumptions about motion & trajectory with no evidence other than experience. One way or another there is infinity, even if only in our minds. "Life finds a way". I think once we're beyond the discovery of life existing elsewhere, no matter how simple, there will be a revolution in thinking about these subjects. I hope it's soon. Thank you for thought provoking subjects. Great video.

[@wadeguidry6675]

The broad expanse of universal distance is unfathomable. There are other intelligent beings out there, but we will NEVER ever detect them.

[@bonysminiatures3123]

we will in time , james webb will show the tell tales signs of life in their atmospheres

[@Nobody-11B]

And if we do they'll have been extinct for billions of years.

[@ChrisM541]

We - or they - would need to travel at almost unimaginable magnitudes greater than the speed of light to answer that question. The Milky Way is about 100,000 light years across --> it would take a ship travelling at 100,000x FASTER than the speed of light just to travel from one edge to the other...in ONE year...!!! Not saying FTL is impossible, of course!

[@lasarousi]

People seem to forget that, even if the universe is infinite, if it had a start, there's a good probability that we either are the FIRST or THE LAST intelligent life in the universe, effectively making us alone. Doesn't matter if intelligent life existed before or after us, in our pov we are truly alone.

[@shieldsluck1969]

Universe is not infinite. But I'm not bothered by your believe in its infinity, because it seems to be religious thing. If it would be infinite it obviously must have expand faster than light to grow into infinity in its early "days" ...

[@Matthew_007]

Nah..... Why is it a good probability? That doesn't make any sense at all and the chances in your idea would be 2. First or last. If there were a trillion instances of life starting.... The most likely truth is we are somewhere in the middle or at least in between the first and last.....

[@maxstr]

If I ever read your books I'm afraid I'd be reading in your vooooooice

[@bmaxse]

You mean in this amazing universe in which we liiiiiiiiivve ? 🤓🕺

[@sis1296]

I believe there exists life in this universe and that it is rare. I believe that we are also alone because of the great distances involved. Also, because of the way electromagnetic waves (light) travel, we see (and measure through our instruments) the past. I believe this is why we preceive to be alone. With these distances involved and the 'slowness' of the speed of light (the locality of time), we might be besides one another, but not even be aware of it, because, when we look up, we see and measure the past.

[@fatboyskinniefromdabronx8405]

A lot of assumptions involved. We the present (naturally aggressive/irresponsible) inhabitants of this speck in the universe that we call Earth will likely not exist within the next 200 years at best due to our destructive ways. I’m with the intelligent being creation belief!

[@uthmanibn-jafar1159]

With approximately 2,000,000,000,000 galaxies in the observable universe, I find it impossible to believe that we're alone in the entire universe. But I'm definitely starting to get a sinking feeling that we might be alone in the galaxy... Which is very possible, and if that's the case then we might as well be alone in the universe. If JW hasn't detected any waste heat (indicative of a techno-signature) around any observable stars in our galaxy five years from now, it will probably be time to start seriously worrying.

[@RJay121]

Yup, Webb of wonder alas unfolds

[@filonin2]

You mean breathing a huge sigh of relief. Any advanced civilization would be a threat.

[@laynedoe3455]

Exactly~ cuz like, is the universe THAT inhabitable, that only we were able to evolve ((and for such a blip in time???)) It's terrifying for so many reasons. Also, what happened to any other kindof intelligent life, that left us as the only ones left?? That's another Video that Michael goes into, its such a scary thought lol.

[@jackburton8352]

" approximately 2,000,000,000,000 galaxies " Did you count them?

[@silentwilly2983]

You may be right about us being alone in the galaxy, I certainly have moved into that direction too, but giving up if JW doesn't detect anything is too early. JW will only look at a tiny fraction of the stars in our galaxy, not a sample size that allows to draw firm conclusions.

[@MarkyCannoli]

When I was young, there were millions of intelligent civilizations in our galaxy alone. Heck, maybe even on Mars!! All you needed was a rocky planet in the habitable zone with some water right? How things have changed……..

[@RJay121]

Wait. How old r u

[@frankieg612]

My argument against ufos has always been that the interstellar distance needed to be traveled was too great (light-years). If the creatures had a life span it would expire before they reached Earth. Also this video was great presentation of opposing ideas. I still believe God created it all in His wisdom. We are very special.

[@RJay121]

God is becoming the resurgent extreme possibility

[@district_13]

Yeah, it would take 736 days to reach Orion’s Belt going at the speed of light if the people that built the pyramids are aliens. That’s crazy long.

[@bonysminiatures3123]

True , but today current understanding of physics will change tomorrow , physics is not frozen we are looking for exotic particles as we speak , we are children of physics ...

[@andrewpohronezny2584]

You're special because you must have been dropped on your head as a kid.

[@ClarkBK67]

Thank you. This has been my belief on the Fermi paradox. It’s really only a paradox if you believe faster than light travel is possible by some means. But if aliens are not able to achieve interstellar speeds much faster than us, then it makes perfect sense that we haven’t crossed paths.

[@FINSuomenPoika]

22:10 same, existential crisis feels so weird and scary but also kinda amazing when you think about it. Awesome video, very intresting stuff, thank you for this! Please keep making more videos for a long time! I'm honored to exist at the same time as you so I can enjoy your intresting videos!

[@loveglas3580]

No karelia? 😰