Another Solution of the Fermi Paradox

In the September/October hardcopy issue of Mercury Magazine, published
by the Astronomical Society of the Pacific there is an article by Robert
Jackson: "Another Solution of the Fermi Paradox". "The colonization of
other worlds by a space-faring species may be unlikely for psychological
and economic reasons".

Finally scientists are starting to think of other factors besides
mathematics and physics why interstellar travel and the colonization of
other worlds my not work so well. Jackson indicates that the high tech
colonists will at first do well but then revert to more primitive
societies trying to survive on a new world as the high tech equipment
wears out and stops functioning. There may be too few technical people
available with the knowledge to re-invent and remanufacture highly
technical machinery. Resources (metals and processing required) may be
extremely difficult to find and even mine. Some things may never be
re-invented as the generations pass ... The species will probably not
spread very far from their home star ...

Interesting article and accurate I think. RIP Fermi Paradox, and you too
Enrico, rest in peace ... :-)

Alfred A. Aburto Jr. wrote:
[...]
societies trying to survive on a new world as the high tech equipment
wears out and stops functioning. There may be too few technical people
available with the knowledge to re-invent and remanufacture highly
technical machinery. Resources (metals and processing required) may be
extremely difficult to find and even mine. Some things may never be
re-invented as the generations pass ... The species will probably not
spread very far from their home star ...

That story is a well told popular SF idea.

For that to be the case, it suggests that the genetics and culture of
the colonists are in some way greatly different from that of their
parent planet.

My thoughts are that their intelligence and adaptability should survive
to enable later generations to make progress and climb out of any
initial technology regression.


To take an example here on earth: There were the Natives of America that
had developed a long standing stability. Colonists invaded with 'high
tech', developed that high tech further, and the rest is recent history.


Regards,
Martin

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Martin 53N 1W wrote:
Alfred A. Aburto Jr. wrote:
[...]

societies trying to survive on a new world as the high tech equipment
wears out and stops functioning. There may be too few technical people
available with the knowledge to re-invent and remanufacture highly
technical machinery. Resources (metals and processing required) may be
extremely difficult to find and even mine. Some things may never be
re-invented as the generations pass ... The species will probably not
spread very far from their home star ...


That story is a well told popular SF idea.

For that to be the case, it suggests that the genetics and culture of
the colonists are in some way greatly different from that of their
parent planet.

My thoughts are that their intelligence and adaptability should survive
to enable later generations to make progress and climb out of any
initial technology regression.

But not likely if the delay of information and supplies from the home
planet is very long or, more likely, not there (cut off because of the
huge economics involved in suppling a small colony of people light years
away).

Imagine yourself on some Earth like planet with contact lost from your
home world. Could you rebuild your computer from scratch? Would you
know how to make itegrated circuits? Would you know the physics and
mathematics and technology behind so many things we now use and take for
granted? As the generations passed they would probably learn to survive
on the planet (get food, build shelter, ..., many things) but the high
level of technology would be lost completely I suspect. Centuries later
your future generations may be sitting around a campfire telling tales
of how life came to be on Planet X. It is not a given that high level of
technology will resurface again. I just don't think so. I think of so
many societies on Earth that just never achieved high levels of
technology on their own. I'm still amazed that the Mayan peoples for
example, as much as they accomplished, never took advantage of the wheel.

I think Jackson's article paints a more realistic view of what would
happen.



To take an example here on earth: There were the Natives of America that
had developed a long standing stability. Colonists invaded with 'high
tech', developed that high tech further, and the rest is recent history.


Regards,
Martin

Alfred A. Aburto Jr. wrote:
Martin 53N 1W wrote:
Alfred A. Aburto Jr. wrote:
[...]

My thoughts are that their intelligence and adaptability should
survive to enable later generations to make progress and climb out of
any initial technology regression.


But not likely if the delay of information and supplies from the home
planet is very long or, more likely, not there (cut off because of the
[...]
technology will resurface again. I just don't think so. I think of so
many societies on Earth that just never achieved high levels of
technology on their own. I'm still amazed that the Mayan peoples for
example, as much as they accomplished, never took advantage of the wheel.

I think Jackson's article paints a more realistic view of what would
happen.

I would expect a mix of possibilities just as we have seen here on
Earth. Some societies stay static for hundreds of years. Others expand
and develop to conquer the world until they are stopped by a competing
society.

A colonising group could develop into anything between those extremes.

With what probabilities?

Regards,
Martin

--
---------- OS? What's that?! (Martin_285 on Mandriva)
- Martin - To most people, "Operating System" is unknown & strange.
- 53N 1W - Mandriva 10LE GNU Linux - An OS for Supercomputers & PCs
---------- http://www1.mandrivalinux.com/en/concept.php3

In message , Martin 53N 1W
writes
Alfred A. Aburto Jr. wrote:
[...]
societies trying to survive on a new world as the high tech equipment
wears out and stops functioning. There may be too few technical people
available with the knowledge to re-invent and remanufacture highly
technical machinery. Resources (metals and processing required) may be
extremely difficult to find and even mine. Some things may never be
re-invented as the generations pass ... The species will probably not
spread very far from their home star ...

That story is a well told popular SF idea.


Case in point - Larry Niven's "Destiny's Road" (Larry has written
several stories in which colonists lose their tech - I think he's
getting pessimistic)

For that to be the case, it suggests that the genetics and culture of
the colonists are in some way greatly different from that of their
parent planet.

My thoughts are that their intelligence and adaptability should survive
to enable later generations to make progress and climb out of any
initial technology regression.

Exactly.
My favourite counterexample to the pessimistic view - Edmund Cooper's
"Seahorse in the Sky" in which ETs who look a bit like seahorses put a
group of Earthmen on an alien planet without much to support them.
Several generations later the new civilisation is launching its first
space rocket, with a seahorse painted on the nose.
An alien planet is _not_ Easter Island, a small dot colonised by a group
of primitives in canoes. It's a whole world, a whole solar system,
reached by people who can command the lightning.
Sorry, I'm feeling poetic :-)

An SF theme in which failure might, probably would, occur, is the
"lifeboat", in which the colonists are escaping some more-than-global
disaster. Perhaps with as little as in Vernor Vinge's "Long Shot".
--
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Remove spam and invalid from address to reply.

Martin 53N 1W wrote:
Alfred A. Aburto Jr. wrote:

Martin 53N 1W wrote:

Alfred A. Aburto Jr. wrote:
[...]

My thoughts are that their intelligence and adaptability should
survive to enable later generations to make progress and climb out of
any initial technology regression.



But not likely if the delay of information and supplies from the home
planet is very long or, more likely, not there (cut off because of the

[...]

technology will resurface again. I just don't think so. I think of so
many societies on Earth that just never achieved high levels of
technology on their own. I'm still amazed that the Mayan peoples for
example, as much as they accomplished, never took advantage of the wheel.

I think Jackson's article paints a more realistic view of what would
happen.


I would expect a mix of possibilities just as we have seen here on
Earth. Some societies stay static for hundreds of years. Others expand
and develop to conquer the world until they are stopped by a competing
society.

A colonising group could develop into anything between those extremes.

With what probabilities?

Of course, no one knows, and if we were to guess, it would have a huge
error.

However, in view of the current negative results regarding Fermi's
question I'd say the negative scenarios would be most likely at this
time in our understanding of science (physics, mathematics,
economics,..., etc.)... at least we should pay attention to the current
indications. That is, perhaps the scenarios where the galaxy is seeded
in a million years with technically advanced civilizations is probably
not correct (that is, the Fermi question is really not a paradox)... as
I get older, I'm leaning in this direction more and more ...


Regards,
Martin

Alfred A. Aburto Jr. wrote:
In the September/October hardcopy issue of Mercury Magazine, published
by the Astronomical Society of the Pacific there is an article by Robert
Jackson: "Another Solution of the Fermi Paradox". "The colonization of
other worlds by a space-faring species may be unlikely for psychological
and economic reasons".

ALL alien psychologies? It is not clear anyone who actually thought about it would write such a
thing. Sounds more like the editor was short of decent material for the issue.

Finally scientists are starting to think of other factors besides
mathematics and physics why interstellar travel and the colonization of
other worlds my not work so well. Jackson indicates that the high tech
colonists will at first do well but then revert to more primitive
societies trying to survive on a new world as the high tech equipment
wears out and stops functioning. There may be too few technical people
available with the knowledge to re-invent and remanufacture highly
technical machinery. Resources (metals and processing required) may be
extremely difficult to find and even mine. Some things may never be
re-invented as the generations pass ... The species will probably not
spread very far from their home star ...

This is the oldest of ideas on planetary colonization, everyone arrives to start from scratch. It
is oldest as it was easy to copy the American colonies and the expansion west being why SF can be
described as westerns in space.

Its failing is time. If humans (as I have no pretensions of knowing alien psychologies) were to do
this they are in the 21st century in 6-10 thousand years. Or maybe an extra thousand or three years
to get enough population to spread around the planet.

As to never inventing some things, the level of technology that can send a colony like that they
certainly have hundreds of solar powered devices built like the proverbial brick ****house
containing all of human knowledge including all construction methods for everything at every level
of technology.

Interesting article and accurate I think. RIP Fermi Paradox, and you too
Enrico, rest in peace ... :-)

Not hardly.

A more practical society particularly of the level to do such a thing has already observed the
planet from their homeworld. The first thing that arrives on a suitable planet or robots that build
all the infrastructure needed before the first people arrive to check out the construction and
reprogram the robots to fix the screwups. Last the colonists arrive and ruin real estate values.

I know it ruins the entire frontier spirit but now people are making plans to have a living habitat
on Mars before the first people arrive and having oxygen and some sort of return fuel produced and
stored. Add a thousand years to that technolgy and my suggestion is hopelessly primitive to what
they will be able to do.

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Alfred A. Aburto Jr. wrote:

In the September/October hardcopy issue of Mercury Magazine, published
by the Astronomical Society of the Pacific there is an article by Robert
Jackson: "Another Solution of the Fermi Paradox". "The colonization of
other worlds by a space-faring species may be unlikely for psychological
and economic reasons".

Finally scientists are starting to think of other factors besides
mathematics and physics why interstellar travel and the colonization of
other worlds my not work so well.

Maybe we're too primitive to interest them.

"Alfred A. Aburto Jr." wrote in
message . ..
In the September/October hardcopy issue of Mercury
Magazine, published
by the Astronomical Society of the Pacific there is an
article by Robert
Jackson: "Another Solution of the Fermi Paradox". "The
colonization of
other worlds by a space-faring species may be unlikely for
psychological
and economic reasons".

Finally scientists are starting to think of other factors
besides
mathematics and physics why interstellar travel and the
colonization of
other worlds my not work so well. Jackson indicates that
the high tech
colonists will at first do well but then revert to more
primitive
societies trying to survive on a new world as the high
tech equipment
wears out and stops functioning. There may be too few
technical people
available with the knowledge to re-invent and
remanufacture highly
technical machinery. Resources (metals and processing
required) may be
extremely difficult to find and even mine. Some things may
never be
re-invented as the generations pass ... The species will
probably not
spread very far from their home star ...

Interesting article and accurate I think. RIP Fermi
Paradox, and you too
Enrico, rest in peace ... :-)

Hi Al. There's lotsa people starting to take my view I
guess. Although I think there are myriad scenarios along
these lines, i.e., socio-economic arguments, and to make the
survivability issue even broader, I'd include, separately,
the very important issue of resource/energy sustainability
during travels and in colonization.

Also important is acceptance of the fact that the universal
physical laws we presently know about will not be easily (or
ever) be overcome for space travel, e.g., primarily, the
lightspeed limit to velocity! Included here are the dangers
of space itself, e.g., radiation, lack of air, etc. While
the idea of "Generation ships," though feasible in theory,
clearly is incredibly infeasible in practice, both from a
physics and a resource POV. Even a race evolved to god-like
technological status after millions of years might never be
able to surmount such obstacles, and would be doomed to
never expand beyond their local interstellar environment.

So, I've also finally come to the inescapable conclusion
that the Fermi Paradox is in fact not a paradox at all.
Which, of course, was Fermi's original intent in broaching
it. ...tonyC

Anthony Cerrato wrote:




Also important is acceptance of the fact that the universal
physical laws we presently know about will not be easily (or
ever) be overcome for space travel, e.g., primarily, the
lightspeed limit to velocity!

There is no reason to overcome the lightspeed limit.
It you travel fast enough, that is, close to the lightspeed,
the clock in the spaceship slows down, compared to a clock
at rest. So in theory you could travel across our galaxy
without getting much older.

There is a problem of getting such high speeds, it costs
a lot of energy, but there's no physical law forbidding it.

Even a race evolved to god-like
technological status after millions of years might never be
able to surmount such obstacles, and would be doomed to
never expand beyond their local interstellar environment.

In my view, highly unlikely that godlike creatures would
not expand into the Universe. This is also the view of the
english astronomer Martin Rees, author of the book "our
cosmic habitat".

So, I've also finally come to the inescapable conclusion
that the Fermi Paradox is in fact not a paradox at all.
Which, of course, was Fermi's original intent in broaching
it. ...tonyC

Aliens would probably send A.I. probes first to investigate the
Galaxy, instead of travelling themselves. As Jill Tarter
points out, there could be probes in our solar system even
today, and we would have no chance of detecting them.

Martin.