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Physicist answers the Fermi Paradox: the Mediocrity Principle is premature humility

#1
C C Offline
https://cosmosmagazine.com/physics/omg-e...o-kill-you

EXCERPT: . . . some of the intelligent lifeforms must have developed interstellar travel – because humans are working on it, and humans, in this set-up, can’t be anything special. Ergo, even at a slow pace, some of these civilisations should have completely crossed the Milky Way by now. Ergo, where is everybody? [Probability estimates (should be ET) + no empirical sign of ET = Fermi Paradox]

There has been no shortage of attempts to resolve the problem. Alexander Berezin, however, dismisses these arguments because they “invoke multiple rather controversial assumptions”.

[...] “What if,” Berezin proposes, “the first life that reaches interstellar travel capability necessarily eradicates all competition to fuel its own expansion?” This is not, he quickly adds, to imply that ET is warlike or cruel. “I am not suggesting that a highly developed civilisation would consciously wipe out other lifeforms,’ he writes. "Most likely, they simply won’t notice, the same way a construction crew demolishes an anthill to build real estate because they lack incentive to protect it.”

[...example...] "One rogue AI can potentially populate the entire supercluster with copies of itself, turning every solar system into a supercomputer, and there is no use asking why it would do that," observes theoretical physicist [...] from the National Research University of Electronic Technology (MIET) in Russia.[...]

To draw this conclusion, the physicist deploys one of the more troubling, but central, tenets of cosmology, known as the anthropic principle. This idea, first formulated in 1974 by theoretical physicist Brandon Carter from the UK’s Cambridge University, holds that conditions within the universe “must be restricted by the conditions necessary for our presence as observers”.

It’s a powerful concept – albeit one that challenges the equally important Copernican principle that holds Earth and humanity to be nowhere and nothing special – that even Stephen Hawking entertained.

Applied to the Fermi Paradox by Berezin, however, it becomes an instrument of cosmic damnation. There is, he concludes, only one reason why ET, in all the stellar multitude, has not so far been seen. “We are the first to arrive at the stage,” he says. “And, most likely, will be the last to leave.”

In other words, we are the paradox resolution made manifest. It is us, our species, who will spread through the universe, demolishing anthills along the way. Avoiding this fate, suggests Berezin is impossible, because it will “require the existence of forces far stronger than the free will of individuals”....

MORE: https://cosmosmagazine.com/physics/omg-e...o-kill-you
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#2
Syne Offline
I've never been convinced that the Fermi paradox is a legit problem. It requires far too many presumptions to come up with the high estimates for extraterrestrial civilizations.
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