Great Filter Theory explain Fermi's Paradox?

[Midyin]

Here's an interesting article. What do you all think?

http://io9.com/have-humans-already-conquered-the-threat-of-extinction-1629240669?utm_campaign=socialflow_io9_facebook&utm_source=io9_facebook&utm_medium=socialflow

[Growl]

The paradox would be valid if the universe were local life and a random imprints.

If you like bhom says the universe is non-local and the space and time do not exist you could go in any place and at any time, because space and time do not exist.

Just make like you do with a radio station is tuned in on the wave function of a defined point in space and time it appears in that particular place.

Perhaps this is the way to travel used by the aliens.

Evidence about it? None of concrete, but an alternative interpretation.

[+Hammerclaw]

We haven't been an extraplanetary species for much more than a century, and thus not noticed. To advanced civilizations, radio communication may be primitive and hopelessly backward, and our signals--to them--like the sound of crickets, chirping in the dark. We judge the universe on the basis of the human lifespan, but to creatures who have achieve virtual immortality, we are as ephemeral as grass. We need to learn not to be so high on ourselves.

[Harte]

Intelligence evolves for a reason, just like ears.

Things don't evolve beyond their needs, and no creature has evolved an ear beyond it's requirement for survival and thus procreation.

That said, I say that intelligence doesn't evolve to any "super" level. The intelligence humans have is approximately the limit for intelligent life. That limit is set by the usual evolutionary parameters - success at survival and procreation.

Knowledge may expand, obviously. But the intelligence that is discovering the knowledge is stuck.

That's the real "great filter."

Harte

[StarMountainKid]

As Harte has said in the above post, human intelligence won't evolve by itself to any super level. However, an intelligent species may develop artificial aids to their natural intelligence. Also, they may develop AI that is superior to their own biological intelligence, and use this tool to develop advanced technologies.

Personally, I think the Great Filter is that there are few earth-like planets in the galaxy on which intelligent life has evolved. I think the evolution of primitive life to human beings is the result of a series of random events that are unlikely to be repeated on many other earth-like planets.

Change any accidental event in the chain of evilutionary incidents that have led to us, and we would not be here.

I also think the laws of physics can not be circumvented by any technology. There is an argument for von Neumann probes and self-replicating robotic spacecraft, but of what use would these technologies be for a civilization of intelligent, biological creatures bound to their own planetary neighborhood?

[Midyin]

That's a good point too. I mean, if Faster than light travel is impossible, then even if there is intelligent life out there, what are the odds we'll ever see them?

[DONTEATUS]

Faster than Who`s Light? TH eOne we precieve,the one that`s not even in a spectrum we know about yet? Light ,Filters,gives me an Idea !

THe more we continue to evolve,the closer we may come to understanding the Universe in all its Glory !

Dont ever give up on mankind ! We will find a way to Travel into the space between our Imaginations. And Possible the points of Light beyond ! To Infinity & Beyond !

[+Hammerclaw]

Intelligence evolves for a reason, just like ears.

Things don't evolve beyond their needs, and no creature has evolved an ear beyond it's requirement for survival and thus procreation.

That said, I say that intelligence doesn't evolve to any "super" level. The intelligence humans have is approximately the limit for intelligent life. That limit is set by the usual evolutionary parameters - success at survival and procreation.

Knowledge may expand, obviously. But the intelligence that is discovering the knowledge is stuck.

That's the real "great filter."

Harte

I have to disagree with you on that. The late Loren Eiseley remarked that human intelligence has evolved far beyond the needs of simple survival.

[+Hammerclaw]

As Harte has said in the above post, human intelligence won't evolve by itself to any super level. However, an intelligent species may develop artificial aids to their natural intelligence. Also, they may develop AI that is superior to their own biological intelligence, and use this tool to develop advanced technologies.

Personally, I think the Great Filter is that there are few earth-like planets in the galaxy on which intelligent life has evolved. I think the evolution of primitive life to human beings is the result of a series of random events that are unlikely to be repeated on many other earth-like planets.

Change any accidental event in the chain of evilutionary incidents that have led to us, and we would not be here.

I also think the laws of physics can not be circumvented by any technology. There is an argument for von Neumann probes and self-replicating robotic spacecraft, but of what use would these technologies be for a civilization of intelligent, biological creatures bound to their own planetary neighborhood?

There is no natural law that says that the level of intelligence of all creatures in the universe may not exceed that of human beings. That's just wishful thinking.

[taniwha]

...intelligence has evolved far beyond the needs of simple survival.

But why it has evolved beyond the needs of simple survival is the paradox explained. Dolphins and whales are intelligent beyond our years and show no evolutionary desire to colonise space and what other creatures war with each other? To be at one with Earth has always been the key. To abandon it is cosmic suicide and not at all intelligent. I think you are right. We need to be humble.

[Harte]

I have to disagree with you on that. The late Loren Eiseley remarked that human intelligence has evolved far beyond the needs of simple survival.

I disagree with this.

Intelligence evolved for survival and procreation. It continued to evolve in response to changes such as the need to build shelter, which was a requirement for survival and procreation.

There is no difference between the IQ of H. Sapiens and H. Sapiens Sapiens. Simple consideration of the intricacies of creating decent stone points and tools shows this to be the case.

Harte

[+Hammerclaw]

But why it has evolved beyond the needs of simple survival is the paradox explained. Dolphins and whales are intelligent beyond our years and show no evolutionary desire to colonise space and what other creatures war with each other? To be at one with Earth has always been the key. To abandon it is cosmic suicide and not at all intelligent. I think you are right. We need to be humble.

We are a product of a planetary biome. We are the only species the Earth has evolved that can engineer itself offplanet. It is the nature of life to spred and colonize. The human body is the vehicle for that colonization. It has been estimated that 50 million individual bacteria live on the average square centimeter of human skin. The microorganisms that inhabit the body of a healthy human are known as the normal microbial fauna. they come two types, 1. The permanent residents and 2. transients which can include a multitude of parasites that can join the community and make our bodies their home. While the numbers appear staggering, all that live on the outer surface would fit in a small pea. Those that live on the inside of the human body, on the other hand, would fill a vessel of about 300 milliliters--about the size of a small coffee cup. At least 200 species comprise this community, and wherever we travel and settle in the cosmos we take this representative population of earth organisms with us. Some may be fruitful and multiply and recreate a facimile of the parent biome, thus giving it the continuance which all life seeks. Edited September 3, 2014 by John Wesley Boyd

[+Hammerclaw]

I disagree with this.

Intelligence evolved for survival and procreation. It continued to evolve in response to changes such as the need to build shelter, which was a requirement for survival and procreation.

There is no difference between the IQ of H. Sapiens and H. Sapiens Sapiens. Simple consideration of the intricacies of creating decent stone points and tools shows this to be the case.

Harte

That's ego and hubris. "What a piece of work is a man. How noble in reason. How infinite in Faculty! In form, in moving how express and admirable. In action, how like an angel, in aprehension how like a God! The beauty of the world! The paragon of animals!" There is no survival imperative beyond the basic needs of survival, and every other species on the planet done quite well without superfluous intelligence to create art music, science, sophisticated architecture, excetera. Human intelligence is quite the exception, not the rule.

[Harte]

That's ego and hubris. "What a piece of work is a man. How noble in reason. How infinite in Faculty! In form, in moving how express and admirable. In action, how like an angel, in aprehension how like a God! The beauty of the world! The paragon of animals!"

I would agree that the above is hubris.

But that's not what I said, so i don't know whay you attribute it to me.

Harte

[+Hammerclaw]

I would agree that the above is hubris.

But that's not what I said, so i don't know whay you attribute it to me.

Harte

Sorry my mind was on another post and miskeyed. Human intelligence has evolved far beyond the dictates of simple survival. As to why, I can only speculate. Any disagreement with your opinion on the subject is with all respect. Edited September 3, 2014 by John Wesley Boyd

[Harte]

Sorry my mind was on another post and miskeyed. Human intelligence has evolved far beyond the dictates of simple survival. As to why, I can only speculate. Any disagreement with your opinion on the subject is with all respect.

IMO, you're confusing intelligence with knowledge here.

Harte

[+Hammerclaw]

IMO, you're confusing intelligence with knowledge here.

Harte

Knowledge is accrued through experience. No amount of experience would have given us The Blue Danube. That sort of creativity is a product of artistic intelligence, superfluous to mere survival.

[Harte]

Knowledge is accrued through experience. No amount of experience would have given us The Blue Danube. That sort of creativity is a product of artistic intelligence, superfluous to mere survival.

I disagree again.

The Blue Danube did not appear out of a mind untrained in the knowledge accrued through experience.

Neanderthals played flutes, drums and string instruments. How do we know how good they were?

It was at the point that spare time was first relatively abundant, caused by our intellect (thus efficiency in collecting food and protecting ourselves,) that such whimsy came about.

The vast advantages that accompany civilization account for every advanced thing we do today - including space travel and symphonies. Lifestyle innovation, not increased native intelligence, accounts for our advance over our more primitive precursors, IMO.

Harte

[aquatus1]

The reason behind human intelligence being so unreasonably beyond that of any other animal is simply due to evolutionary pressure. The only real difference was that humans achieved...a sort of "singularity", for lack of a better word, earlier than other animals.

Evolutionary development isn't a consciously directed action. A mutation happens, and if it is beneficial, it stabilizes in the gene pool. However, a mutation isn't necessarily programmed to reach a certain point just beyond the necessity, and then stop. We have examples all over the living kingdoms of animals, plants, insects, and everything else, with poisons that are enough to kill dozens, if not hundreds, of possible predators. That's clearly an overkill, however no one told the mutation that it didn't need to be so potent. When the first creature developed an eyespot capable of detecting dim light, it held such an extraordinary advantage over the others that the eye went on to become the most extraordinary evolutionary adaptation in biological history. Check out the eyes of the Mantis shrimp: It has compound eyes, meaning it can focus on different distances simultaneously (and has depth perception with a single eye), it can see the entire range from infrared to ultraviolet, and it can move and control each one independently. Basically, it is capable of monitoring 360 degrees around itself, in 3D, and in super-color spectrum. That's just the eyes, never mind the punching ability that can (and has) break an unwary diver's fingers. The Mantis shrimp is definitely over-evolved for it's environment. Plenty of shrimp survive just fine with much more generic abilities.

Shoot out of time. I'll come back later.

[+Hammerclaw]

I disagree again.

The Blue Danube did not appear out of a mind untrained in the knowledge accrued through experience.

Neanderthals played flutes, drums and string instruments. How do we know how good they were?

It was at the point that spare time was first relatively abundant, caused by our intellect (thus efficiency in collecting food and protecting ourselves,) that such whimsy came about.

The vast advantages that accompany civilization account for every advanced thing we do today - including space travel and symphonies. Lifestyle innovation, not increased native intelligence, accounts for our advance over our more primitive precursors, IMO.

Harte

It's not the product of the human mind to which I refer, but it's unique qualities. "It is here that we come upon what I choose to call the "unnatural" aspect of man; unnatural, that is, in the sense that there is nothing else like it on the planet. Even Darwin confessed that his principle of limited perfection -- that is, the conception that life would evolve only sufficiently to maintain itself in competition with other life or to adjust to changes in its environment -- had been upset in the case of man. A part, such as a tooth or an eye, could reach perfection only for a given purpose in a particular environment. With man, however, Darwin professed to observe no foreseeable limit to the development of the mental faculties." Loren Eiseley Edited September 4, 2014 by John Wesley Boyd

[Harte]

I will posit that, should some biological intelligent species wish to increase their collective intelligence, they could do so through genetic manipulation, eugenics, selective breeding, or some other similar means.

I have to say that humans waxing poetic about how human intelligence is somehow exceptional is actually the same hubris you mentioned the other day.

Harte

[+Hammerclaw]

I will posit that, should some biological intelligent species wish to increase their collective intelligence, they could do so through genetic manipulation, eugenics, selective breeding, or some other similar means.

I have to say that humans waxing poetic about how human intelligence is somehow exceptional is actually the same hubris you mentioned the other day.

Harte

Merely an observation. Of the billions of species that exist or have existed on this planet, ours is the only one to achieve it. The luck of the draw. We were and are one asteroid impact away from never having been or ceasing to be. We are far from being an inevitable consequence of terrestrial evolution.

[F3SS]

Last night I came across Fermi and the Great Filter for the first time. Very interesting. I'll paste the article I read. It's lengthy but well written and enjoyable. The Great Filter is pretty wild. To touch on earlier comments, this author made a point that stood out: Evolution has no goal and only does what it does out of neccessity. Aquatus made some good counterpoints to that albeit arguable, possibly. I'm no marine biologist so I couldn't say one way or another about that mantis shrimp. It's worth a read if anyone cares to visit this dead thread....

http://waitbutwhy.com/2014/05/fermi-paradox.html?doing_wp_cron=1415779486.0291941165924072265625

[CheyenneT91]

When I think of the Fermi Paradox I instantly think of how crudely unimportant the human race has actually been. There has only been about two thousand years of recorded history and under a hundred of that has been spent off our own planet. Because time and space is so vast, ETI's have probably come and gone a hundred times over and just haven't come by in this extremely brief time we have been here.

Imagine if humans have been on earth and looking into the sky for hundreds of millions of years rather than just a hundred years. We are far more likely to have seen ETIs if that were the case.

We've simply not been here long enough, is my theory.

Also, the rare earth theory is important, because of what we have been able to see, nothing gets it quite as right as we do.

[Merc14]

When I think of the Fermi Paradox I instantly think of how crudely unimportant the human race has actually been. There has only been about two thousand years of recorded history and under a hundred of that has been spent off our own planet. Because time and space is so vast, ETI's have probably come and gone a hundred times over and just haven't come by in this extremely brief time we have been here.

Imagine if humans have been on earth and looking into the sky for hundreds of millions of years rather than just a hundred years. We are far more likely to have seen ETIs if that were the case.

We've simply not been here long enough, is my theory.

Also, the rare earth theory is important, because of what we have been able to see, nothing gets it quite as right as we do.

I'm intrigued. What makes you think humans are crudely unimportant? How do you know all these civilizations have existed and disappeared?