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Week 4 [05-11.11.18] Fermi Paradox — Where Are All The Aliens?


What is the fermi Paradox? Why if it is so presumably, to develop life in the enormous number planet, we don’t see any alien life form?
Watch the video and discuss.



  1. Do you think we are alone in the universe?
  2. Will we be capable to colonize another planet in the future?
  3. Do you think we past the great filter or it’s still ahead of us?

Comments

Do you think we are alone in the universe?
No, I think somewhere there are other forms of life.

Will we be capable to colonize another planet in the future?
I think so - we have Elon Musk and his ambitious plans of colonizing Mars.

Do you think we past the great filter or it’s still ahead of us?
I think it is still ahead of us.
I love Fermi Paradox. It's just such a powerful idea - are we alone in the known universe or maybe we just can't detect anyone. But if we can't find them, then why? So many ideas. Maybe we are the first civilization to be able to observe or communicate with the universe. Or maybe we are just too far out. Or maybe the dreaded great filter?
There are some technologies of the future and problems that clearly could wipe us out. I think at each stage of our human race history there was such a threat to us. When people could barely talk, we could've been wiped by a plague. Or by a major natural catastrophe. Now we are facing the destruction of our ecosphere caused by pollution. In the future, it might be an invention of a true AGI (Artificial General Intelligence) or nanotechnology out of our control. There always was and always be some existential threat. But I believe we can get through this thanks to our ingenuity, adaptability and perseverance.
I actually don't believe we are alone. And if I was in charge of an advanced race who would discover our planet, I definitely would try not to interfere - we have so much more to learn and even just by facing those "filters" alone, we can prove we deserve to be the part of the universe.
We also have to colonize other planets. Our planet is too fragile a place for us to survive for long - one unfortunate gamma ray and we are all gone. So if what we achieved has to have any meaning in future, we have to go out there. Not to mention how many resources are waiting there for us, how many new things we can build, create.
Piotr Ciesla said…
About Elon, there are quite a lot people who believe that he is an alien. One of the theories is that he had lost a bet and was sent on earth to help humans make significant progress in science. Another is that he is trying to get back home ;p
Piotr Ciesla said…
Not only our planet is fragile, we as human species are fragile. We have soft skin that can easily be ripped or cut. By colonizing another planet we would create something like a backup. Our chance of survival would be twice as big, but no one can predict what will happen, maybe gamma ray will target earth and our backup plan.
Yeah, I've heard about that, there is a great conversation between Elon Musk and Joe Rogan available on youtube, I highly recommend that :)
Unknown said…
I think that the universe is so big that 95% that we are not alone. Even quietly I believe in the Multi-Universe (too many DC series :P). I think that if our grandchildren will live to find another planet, allowing for colonization or discover technologies that will allow colonization on the planet, I will consider it a great success. Also I think that nothing is ever lost and everything is to be achieved
This week on this course has exceeded my existential and philosophical resources. My favourite theory -- early birds. Humans are the first humanoid race in the Universe. I said humanoid, because I leave a room for some sort of gods or any other outer power to exist. The closest galaxy to the Milky way -- the Andromeda galaxy is 2.52 billions light years away. Which means, that it takes two billions and fifty two hundred millions years for a radio signal to reach it from the Earth. The whole Milky way it thirteen billion years, and Earth is about for billions years old. If there are aliens around there, they do not see us. As the light, reflected from our modern Earth has not reached them yet. It will. In some billions years. As well as we will see others. But, for now, we are alone.
Artem Lipovatyi said…
1. I think we are not alone. There are other forms of life, it is not only aliens. And I think that somewhere in the universe there are definitely living organisms, except for us.

2. Yes, in the future everything is possible. A program is being developed for the colonization of Mars, which means there is a chance for that.

3. In my opinion, we have not reached it yet and it is still ahead of us.
Unknown said…
I think that there may be another life in the universe, but it may be a form of life that we do not understand, which goes beyond our knowledge of how to obtain energy and form, life is based on a more advanced and different physics.

Certainly one day we will be able to colonize another planet.

I think that this filter is still ahead of us. Although we were looking at the history of the world several times near the end of life on our planet.
Unknown said…
I don’t think that we are alone in universe but another forms of intelligent life’s is not like we used to think. It can be some smart bacteria’s, electron cloud that had “brain” etc.
Yes, I think that in the nearest future humanity will colonize another planet. Todays we have many company that interested in space exploration and possibilities of colonizing another planet. The problem is to create living conditions, but I believe that scientists can create such conditions because technologies grow pretty fast.
In my opinion we already passed some filters(e.g. the meteorite that killed the dinosaurs), but no one knows is it was final filter or not. I hope that Earth already passed them all.
Iman Masjedi said…
No space organization has yet announced that we are alone in the world. In order not to be alone, it means that there may be any living creatures (even bacteria) elsewhere in the world.
In my opinion, given the advancements in technology we have and the space exploration that mankind has done to date, it will soon be a place for colonize human life.
1.I think the galaxy is too big for us to be the only ones who inhabited it. So it seems to me that we are not alone in space

2.Colonization of Mars is a matter of time, at the moment we were able to send a rover to the planet, 225 million kilometers away.

3.I think not yet
Unknown said…
Taking in consideration the size of the universe I would rather say that we are not alone but on the other hand why we haven’t seen any other civilization yet or why haven’t any other civilization sent us any message. This Fermi Paradox is really impressive. There are so many questions and so few answers.

I hope we will be able to colonize. As was mentioned enumerous time before, Elon Musk has a goal to colonize Mars. I am not so interested in this topic but I keep constantly hearing that other people discuss it. Why is it becoming so popular? Do so many people really want to live on Mars? Are they so tired of the Earth?

I would like to believe that we have already passed this great filter but lets be a little bit more realistic it’s ahead.
Unknown said…

Do you think we are alone in the universe?

No. But I think that we might be alone in our part of the galaxy. Also, we tend to think that other civilisations have the same ambitions as us. What if we are the one of few interested in exploring the universe? For example, why super advanced race who could digitalize their consciousness and live the perfect lives in eternity in super computer simulation where they are gods, be interested in space exploration?

Will we be capable to colonize another planet in the future?

Probably till the end of this century we will have first colony on Mars. Probably also Moon and moons of Jupiter till the end of next century. I just hope that I will live long enough to see the footage of first people on Mars.

Do you think we past the great filter or it’s still ahead of us?

We have survived some of them but the new ones can still happen. We can't know what future might bring. But I have a feeling that after we colonise other planet there might be nothing being able to wipe us out of existence.
Piotr Ciesla said…
I think multi-universe is also interesting in mcu (marvel cinematic universe). Maybe some day we will see who was closer to the truth
Piotr Ciesla said…
I don’t know if you have heard but there is quite interesting physics conundrum. What would happen if we send a giant mirror that could reflect light from earth. The mirror would be soo far away that wee could see our past. In theory it is possible
Piotr Ciesla said…
there are a few companies but it’s one of the most successful one is SpaceX. With Elon in charge they have chance for going to mars sooner than we expected
Unknown said…
Are we alone in the universe? Certainly not, statistically there is no option, there are millions of universes in which there are millions of such worlds as ours. There is definitely life on some planet. May it not only be more technologically advanced than ours. I think that the second question is not a question if we can do it only when. I can bet that in our time we will be watching people who live on other planets. Is the great filter still far ahead of us? I'm sure about this.
Piotr Ciesla said…
Interesting point. If this another form of life would be different from our understanding maby it should be called differently
Piotr Ciesla said…
Problem you’ve mentioned with creating conditions/environment for humans to live involve terraforming. Scientists work every day to solve it. I believe Elon said something about terraforming mars during one of his spaceX conferences.
Patryk Górski said…
Do you think we are alone in the universe?

Of course not. Why do we have to be special and the only living beings in the universe? I think that there is someone, somewhere else but we can't reach them yet. Maybe we just need some time and new technology.

Will we be capable to colonize another planet in the future?

I think yes, especially when I'm watching what is Elon Musk doing. This guy tries to achieve it as fast as it could be, so I believe that one day he will do this.

Do you think we past the great filter or it’s still ahead of us?

I think it's still ahead of us, and I'm looking forward to see it!
Piotr Ciesla said…
Maby human on mars is sci-fi I believe sooner than later Elon will figure out how to put human there.
Piotr Ciesla said…
I wouldn’t be so eager to see great filter. It might be deadly for all of us. But I believe we will take it as a challenge and overcome it.
1. Do you think we are alone in the universe?

No

2. Will we be capable to colonize another planet in the future?

Maybe in the far, far future - currently, even if we would be able to build such spaceship , it would take really, really long time

3. Do you think we past the great filter or it’s still ahead of us?

I'm afraid it's still ahead of us - nuclear conflict might be such filter.
Nataliya Tkach said…
Do you think we are alone in the universe?
I think there is no such people who do not believe that there is life somewhere.

Will we be capable to colonize another planet in the future?
So far, people haven't invented a method that will make it possible to travel between galaxies, because a lot of planets adapted to life and very beautiful. One hope for Mars.

Do you think we past the great filter or it’s still ahead of us?
The great filter happens every few million years, it's good that we won't see him.
Marta Kowalczyk said…
It would be too selfish to assume that we are alone in the Universe.

The idea of colonizing other planets seems to be more and more possible and I believe it will happen sooner than we may think. Along with new possibilities there will surely also arise new problems that we will have to solve and it is our job not to allow it to divide  us, the society into the ones that are more and less privileged.
Unknown said…
1. Recently I've watched Stanley Kubrick's "2001: A Space Odyssey". Arthur C. Clarke - author of the book with the same title, once said "Two possibilities exist: either we are alone in the Universe or we are not. Both are equally terrifying." I choose to believe that we are not alone in the Universe and even if we are, we won't stay alone for long. My theory is that our civilization may be one of the first. The Universe is still young and if you think about it there has to be the first civilization since the Big Bang (if we assume that there are or there will be multiple civilizations in the Universe). In that case, might as well be us.

2. Yes, I think we will be capable to colonize another planet in the future. There are those, who already work toward this very goal. I believe that this goal may be even achieved during my lifetime.

3. I think there is still more ahead of us. According to the Great Filter hypothesis at least one of the steps in an evolutionary path must be improbable. If it is not a step that occurred in our past, then the improbable step must lie in our future.
s18716 said…
Do you think we are alone in the universe?
Perhaps we are the only representatives of developed civilizations in the Universe, but I think on other exoplanets it is possible at least some form of life that a person is not yet familiar with, but in the near future we will learn about this pace of development (even if they are microorganisms or bacteria of extraterrestrial origin). But I want to believe that there are civilizations in the Universe besides us (of course it sounds so fabulous), from which there will be something to learn.

Will we be capable to colonize another planet in the future?
Today, fortunately, this question does not already sound as phantasmagoric as in the last century. Because, as mentioned above in the comments, the topic of collonization of other planets at the level of real was touched upon. There is hope, think about it once and wireless communication and computers seemed fantastic, but today they are familiar things to us. So let's hope for the best.

Do you think we past the great filter or it’s still ahead of us?
I think we still have to go through several filters. Perhaps, indeed, some of them, our planet has passed and who knows, maybe humanity has withstood them. But since this filter does not depend on human activity, I suggest that all energy be directed to solving problems on our planet that depend on us.
Marcin Zając said…
1. I think we are not alone in the universe, but this is just speculations.
An equally interesting subject to consider is, do we want to meet them ?

2. I think that in the future we will be capable to colonize another planet.
Actually there are some companies which try to do that for example SpaceX trying to colonize Mars, but in my opinion it will take a lot of time.

3. I guess that great filter is still ahead of us
Unknown said…
The universe is too big for us to be alone - I think so. Unfortunately, we haven't even discovered a small part - and even if we have discovered a lot of planets, we don't know what exactly is on them - maybe life.

That's for sure - technology is growing and in a few hundred years such things will be nothing like that. I think that during our lives we will still discover many things, but I think that I won't live to colonize the new planet.
Are we alone? I don't think so. We still don't have any proves and answers that there is another civilization, but I believe that it's true. Maybe they have better technology? They can control us, that we can't find them? There are a lot of questions we can't answer right now.
Our technology is developing so fast, that I'm sure we will be able to colonize planets in the future. Looking at the tempo of changes and people who want them, we are very close to start colonizing.
We can make a theory that we are alone in the space because we are the only civilization that doesn't pass the great filter yet. Personally, I'm not sure I believe in it, but it can be possible.
1. No. I think we are not alone. I think we aren't witnessing any other alien civilizations because of how hard it is to travel in space. Those distances are just too huge. Maybe it won't be ever possible for humans to travel out of our Solar System. Despite that I think we should keep trying because you never know what can you achieve if you won't try.

2. I am almost certain of it. I am talking about planets in our Solar System of course.

3. Probably there are some filters ahead of us. With technology and civilization development come many risks to our planet and ourselves. A.I. that rebels against it's creator, environmental issues, nuclear war. Hopefully we will be able to avoid them but these scenarios are possible.
Illia Lukisha said…
Do you think we are alone in the universe?
No I think, there are other forms of life.

Will we be capable to colonize another planet in the future?
It hardly depends but I hope that we would be capable to colonize other planets.

Do you think we past the great filter or it’s still ahead of us?
I think that both thesis's are right, that we already passed some filters, but there would be new in future as well.
1. I think not. We are the best example that life in space exists. And considering number of planets and galaxies that we are able to observe, there must be some place where conditions for life are also friendly.
2. Yes, but we need to find something that can be useful for us there. But without flying there and doing research we will probably never know.
3. I think it’s still ahead of us. We were able to achieve great progress in last few thousands of years, but we haven’t met worldwide problems yet. We still have a lot of fossil fuels which we are really depended upon and environment is not completely polluted. But both of these things can change in next hundreds of years
Personally , I think , we are definitely not alone in the universe , we want to believe that we are not alone. But, there is possibility that we are alone , and we are scary to admit it.
We need to wait till our technologies will allow us to easily surf the cosmos. And, I hope, if there was a contact with other life forms it would pass with peaceful consequences for us.
I think, we have quite high chances to colonize another planet in the future. But, at the same time, we do not need to deplete our home planet.
I believe ,it's still ahead of us. But, everything may change in 50 years.
Has anyone ever thought, that maybe we cant see aliens because light only travels so fast? The galaxy is about 100 thousand light years big (don't know for sure). And how we see is what light reflects into our eyes. So what we see happening on the sun, happened 8 minutes ago. What we see happening in Proxima Centauri happened 4 years ago. What we see happening across the galaxy, happened almost 100 thousand years ago. We can't see any life because maybe by the time the light of their ships or their planetary structures hits our eyes, we would already be exploring the galaxy. Maybe we don't see any life because the planets we see appear a lot younger than we think, and life hasn't started on it yet. Just a thought....
Marcin Krupa said…

"Do you think we are alone in the universe?"
In my opinion, with that incredible amount of planets out universe, we really can’t be the only intelligent beings in the galaxy

"Will we be capable to colonize another planet in the future?"
If we will still continue our actions in Earth... that would be only way out to save our humanity.

"Do you think we past the great filter or it’s still ahead of us?"
I'm not sure I have an opinion on this subject.
Unknown said…
1. I don’t think so. We can’t even measure how big the universe is. There must be something. Maybe „they” haven’t found out yet how to explore the universe?
2. I’m pretty sure we will. Technology and peoples knowledge are growing rapidly. And of course - we have Elon Musk ;).
3. It’s still ahead of us, for sure.
Unknown said…
It’s hard to anwser this question because everybody is wondering about it for a long time. The universe is so big that it is almost impossible that we are alone but on the other hand we have no evidence that there is any life besides us.
In my opinion our kind is so intellegent and it is only a matter of time to start colonizing other planets. Also I believe in humans and I am almost sure that we will survive longer than earth will allow it. If we understand the climat change under the name of the great filter I think it is still ahead. Everything indicates that out climate is changing for worse and it can have tragic consequences.
Unknown said…
It's kind of scary if we could be alone in whole universe.. But on the other side what if we are not? Are we the most developed civilisation or there are more advanced ones? If they exist why don't they try to comunicate with us? Or maybe they reach some level of development and extinct? I dont know the answear to this question, I can only speculate but in my opinion we are not alone.
I think that we're able to colognize another planet, we have time and possibilities to do that. We have so much more to learn.
I think that the great filter is still ahead of us and we have not reached it yet.
> Do you think we are alone in the universe?
Definitely not, if we are exist, not possible that we was alone. Maybe smarter civilization simple hiding themselves or just waiting a right moment.

> Will we be capable to colonize another planet in the future?
Yes, I support ideas of Elon Musk about colonization and how important it is for humans future.

> *Do you think we past the great filter or it’s still ahead of us?*
I think we've just started :)
Unknown said…
We definitely not alone in whole universe. This opinion is so egoistic and arrogantly. In modern life it's so obvious that there are another civilizations and life forms somewhere in the universe. And I hope that one day, maybe in the winter time, I would see small bright spot in the sky that every second would be closer and closer to me. And this spot every second would be bigger and bigger. Finally I would see a big spaceship with aliens on the board. And these aliens will come to me and say: "Igor, we are galgonians from alpha X8791 and we are glad to inform you that professor Zabrodzki finally retired and now you can pass Computer Graphics exam".

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