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The great silence or why haven’t we found any aliens yet? (www.theguardian.com)

submitted 1 day ago by neutronbumblebee@mander.xyz to c/science@mander.xyz

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A long read introduction to the topic - from We Want to Believe: How Aliens Went Mainstream and Why It Matters

"The search for exoplanets is radically expanding our understanding of the cosmos. “We have learned that the universe is teeming with a fascinating variety of planets, more types than we could have imagined,” writes the astrobiologist Lisa Kaltenegger. But so far, it has found exactly as many extraterrestrials as radio astronomy has: zero. The more we learn about the universe, the more acute the Fermi paradox becomes."

Photo - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Enrico_Fermi

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[+] Nouvellalia@lemmy.world -6 points 18 hours ago* (last edited 18 hours ago) (1 children)

The answer is obvious, it's just not anthropocentric, so no one bothers to think of it.

When you look out at the sky, you see the results of a universe engineered by an intelligent species. You can't tell, for the same reason a hippo looking out at a nature preserve can't tell they are in a curated environment that has been made to appear to them as natural as possible, set aside for preservation.

We are ants, farting into the cosmos, wondering why no one else farts back. To think that radio waves and visible light are the height of understanding and interacting with the universe, is on its face nonsense.

We can't even maintain homeostasis on a single tiny planet that started with the most perfect conditions a universe could ever have for us. Why oh why do the "brightest minds" think that we have the tools to communicate with or even observe those who traverse solar systems, much less galaxies or the universe itself?

Pure ego. Look at all the "great filter possibilities" people propose. They're all "what if monkey forest, but bigger". Sure Ken, the unfathomable universe is just "big monkey forest".

[–] neutronbumblebee@mander.xyz 1 points 10 hours ago (1 children)

But how does this differ from some God preserving humans for their own reasons or fairies doing it magically for that matter. Unknowable superhuman forces isnt a useful starting hypothesis for this question. After all how can it be tested? There doesn't seem to be anything it proves or disproves.

[–] Nouvellalia@lemmy.world 1 points 9 hours ago

Which theories for "the great silence" are currently testable? Which ones currently prove or disprove anything?

This theory is at least evidence based. If you'd like to know how it specifically differs from a specific theory, I'm happy to explain just like below.

The way it differs from some god or faeries preserving humans is that;

it doesn't require the entity to know or care about us specifically. It does not revolve around our existence
it fits the observable evidence instead of dismissing it or excusing it or coming up with fantastical, unfounded, "magics"
it is a logical conclusion for any thinking matter that can consistently improve but is still computationally constrained to our universe, to preserve novelty for the sake of "unknown unknowns" that cannot be computationally discovered
it follows a proven pattern of increasing information density that can be traced back to the beginning of the existence of any thinking matter. It is the logical conclusion of the physics of that process as we have observed it in the historical record, playing out over several billion years, anywhere in the universe