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Friday, May 14, 2021

The Complete Explanation Of The Fermi Paradox

The Complete Explanation Of The Fermi Paradox
The Complete Explanation Of The Fermi Paradox

The Complete Explanation Of The Fermi Paradox. The sky is very wide, the stars are very much, but why is it so quiet. Where did everyone go? why hasn't anyone come here yet?

That's probably a question that many people have been asking for 200 years when we first learned that there are many other planets out there.

And if we stick to the Drake Equation (a calculation about the comparison of the existence of other civilizations besides Earth), we should get about 1000 to 100,000,000 civilizations in the Milky Way galaxy alone.

This is because our galaxy alone contains nearly 400 billion sun-like stars, and there may be about 100 billion planets. So if the probability of the emergence of intelligent creatures like humans is only 0.001%, then if you divide it by 100 billion planets it is clear that there will be about 100 million other civilizations in this galaxy alone.

Could it be that of the many alien civilizations, no one got lost here? And in fact, we saw nothing, heard nothing, and were not visited by anyone.

This is what the famous scientist Enrico Fermi asked in the past, who later called it the Fermi paradox (Fermi's paradox). And it is from this Fermi paradox that many other scientists have tried to answer and explain it.

The Complete Explanation Of The Fermi Paradox

Starting in 1964 Nikolai Kardashev, who came from the Soviet Union (now Russia), proposed the kind of civilization that existed in this universe. In total there are three types of civilization, namely:

First Type Civilization

First Type Civilization is a civilization that uses the planet as a source of energy, even tends to consume the planet's own resources (we may be here, although not completely, Carl Sagan has said that human civilization is still in the 0.7 scale range not yet type 1 again).

Second Type Civilization

A Second Type Civilization is a civilization that draws energy from its parent star. How does it work? It may still be dark for humans, but someone named Freeman Dyson dares to theorize, if civilization makes a Sharivan-sized dome that covers a star, then the heat radiation from the star will be converted into energy, this dome is called the Dyson Sphere.

Third Type Civilization

A Third Type Civilization, much more advanced than the two civilizations I mentioned earlier, this type of civilization has reaped energy from their entire galaxy. The nature of the third type of civilization is expansive. where they will colonize planets and stars in their galaxy.

And from Kardashev's explanation of Third Type Civilization it turns out that it produces a new paradox, namely: If we consider the time span of a civilization to jump from one planetary system to another is 500 years, then in approximately 3.5 billion years they should have already been. master it. the whole galaxy.

If only 1% of all intellectual civilizations survived long enough to enter a Third category civilization, the count would be that there are about 1000 Third-type civilizations in our galaxy alone. However, in a moment, we will definitely detect or at least feel their presence. But why not?

Then from the formulation of Civilization in Nikolai Kardashev's Theory, many modern scientists have developed and tried to improve Kardashev's theory as well as answer the Fermi Paradox. And these scientists are further divided into three groups, namely:

The First Group's Answer

The answer of the first group is that there is no such thing as civilizations of the second and third types, so there is no sign of them. This group states that there is a possibility that the first type of civilization will not reach the second to the third type because there is something that causes it to be called The Great Filter.

At some point in time, all species compete to evolve from type 0 to type above, until one day they hit a wall that screens most species, allowing only a handful of species to continue evolving to the next stage. Meanwhile, species that fail to pass this filter will become extinct.

If we consider this theory to be correct, the question is, when did The Great Filter occur? If we reflect on the civilization of our own species, then we ask when that Great Filter appeared, then the answer is three possibilities.

1. We're the only anomaly that made it through The Great Filter

This theorem is supported by Peter Ward in his book Rare Earth. Here we assume a great filter has occurred, not knowing if it was when we jumped out of the primordial pool of organic protein to single-celled living things (abiogenesis), or when there were 5 major extinctions on earth that were devastating. nearly 95% of the species of living things on earth.

But mammals that are the ancestors of all mammal species (including humans) could survive, or when Hominidae began to learn to beat with bones to fight all natural predators of the same size, because dinosaurs became extinct due to meteor impacts or even when the australopithecines were the ancestors of the species humans, humans start walking on two legs and stop living in the trees just like man's distant relative, the monkey.

So all this shows that we are a victorious evolutionary species and we are the rarest species in the universe. Because we have the intelligence to make the necessary technology ourselves. And with the advancement of our technology from the caveman era to the era of cyberspace humans today, arguably nothing can hold us back from developing.

2. We're the first to go through The Great Filter

Just like point 1 that I wrote earlier, the only difference is that currently there are several other civilizations that have managed to jump over large filters on other planets, or even other species on earth such as chimpanzees, but unfortunately they are trailing behind us.

We still win. breaking the filter is not just an anomaly (oddity), but only a probability (luck). and although the odds are slim, we did!

3. We haven't gone past The Great Filters

The worst possibility is that The Great Filter has not reached humans yet. It could be that the great filter is, we have to be able to survive first from war between humans just for ridiculous and unclear reasons, we also have to be able to survive if there is an asteroid of very large size that misdirects to earth and we will become extinct like the dinosaurs.

We must also be able to survive gamma-ray bursts from stars near our solar system that can occur at any time, or most radically we must try to survive if all life is designed to self-destruct within a certain time or at a predetermined time, because of that. is the balance of nature.

Where if that is the case, there used to be many other civilizations on other planets but they have become extinct because they failed to pass The Great Filter. And our species is on its way, which is why we are alone in this universe because others went extinct first.

The Second Group's Answer

The second group's answer is the opposite of the first group's answer, which states that a second and third Type Civilization exists, but there is a logical reason why we don't hear anything from them.

This second group sets aside the great filter, and claims that evolution is commonplace. any civilization can be of the first, second and third type. This group proposes several possibilities why humans have not found other civilizations apart from on earth, including:

1. The super-intellectual entity may have been to earth, but in ancient times

So the logic is like this, how long would it take for intelligent humans to be like today, at most 100,000 years, which when compared to the age scale of the universe, is thousands of years compared to billions of years. And if it is true that other life evolved billions of years ago

It could be that they have been to Earth before. And unfortunately when they came here, the planet was still full of ancient dinosaur-eating animals like the t-rex, so they left again, because they thought this planet was still primitive.

2. Earth is in an underdeveloped area

The analogy is if there are many people like in New York, the earth is like in a remote area where there are still few people and underdeveloped.

In fact, this is the same as the basic theory of urbanization which states that the distribution of the population is agglomerated to the city center. If in a galaxy we think of the center of the city as the center of the galaxy.

3. The third type of civilization does not want to disturb primitive civilizations

Try to imagine, these three types of civilization are very advanced, they are able to meet all their needs without having to go anywhere. Why else want to bother humans and the earth that are not important.

The Complete Explanation Of The Fermi Paradox
The Complete Explanation Of The Fermi Paradox

Or maybe they have leveled up to become elevated (a kind of ultimate goal for all living beings), they are no longer living in the physical dimension, they have lost their physical attributes and are just pure consciousness, a kind of otherworldly life, and are immortal. So why pay a visit to primitive civilizations.

4. Galaxies in star wars

Why don't we hear any signals from out there, because everyone is hiding their own planet, there is only one idiot named human who is continuously sending signals to the sky.

Some Hollywood movies take this theme, such as Battleship and Avenger. Even Stephen Hawking himself has warned that humans do not make contact with aliens at all, this is tantamount to inviting death.

This is similar to ancient American civilizations such as the Aztecs, Incas, Maya which were destroyed by European explorers like Spain, the Netherlands, and England which had advanced technology such as guns and cannons, we will look like that later.

Our technology is nothing compared to them, if it is really under invasion, we will be finished, because it will be the same story as Aztec arrows and spears against Spanish guns and cannons.

5. There is one super civilization that is dominant in the galaxy

This is a kind of highland movie "There can be only one", so this civilization will destroy all civilizations that are considered to threaten their existence as the rulers of the universe. The principle is like destroying all potential future threats before they grow.

Or even, all living things in the galaxy deliberately mated with them, because one day they will be used as raw materials for food or harvest, such as the movie Jupiter Ascending.

6. Humans are too primitive

Okay, who can guarantee that the aliens still use the ancient technology called radio? Even at 200 years of age, we ourselves consider radio technology out of date. It has been replaced by lasers, fiber optics, microwaves, etc. SETI (an agency that looks for aliens in outer space) still uses ancient radio wave techniques to this day.

It could be that aliens have used subspace, gravity, interdimensional, or quantum network technology to communicate, but we don't know how to hear them.

Prof. Michio Kaku once gave an analogy like this "humans are like ants circling in their nest, completely unaware that there is a 10-lane flyover next to the nest."

7. We have made contact, but the government is hiding this fact

This one is sure to be a favorite of conspiracy theory fans (freemasons, illuminati, lizardman, UFO, planet aliens, etc.), stories like this can be seen in the movie Men in Black.

8. The prime directive

Among all the eccentric theories above, this is the most plausible. Even star trek films seem to adopt this mindset.

In essence, all the intelligent beings in the galaxy have collaborated with each other, and formed a federation. Then to protect the diversity of ecosystems, they apply the rule not to come into contact with civilizations under the second type.

The reasons are many, yes, apart from the diversity of ecosystems and civilizations themselves, it is because of the unpreparedness of these primitive civilizations when dealing with advanced civilizations.

Imagine, if there is no prime directive with the ease of high civilization colonizing and destroying low civilization (such as the Navy Seal with automatic assault rifles against amazon isolated tribes who still use wooden spears), then the civilization in this galaxy will be finished. So that is what the federation wants to protect.

The Third Group's Answer

The third group's answer is the most bizarre answer where according to the supporters of this group there is no such thing as reality, humans live in super sophisticated computer simulations, which may be driven by aliens (logically our nature is a game world for super intelligent aliens).

The Complete Explanation Of The Fermi Paradox
The Complete Explanation Of The Fermi Paradox

It's like flying in dreams and fantasies, but make no mistake, this is actually a scientific work created by a man who graduated from Oxford (one of the most prestigious colleges in the world) named Nick Bostrom.


It is said that there are super intelligent entities in the universe that simulate the universe, namely the universe we currently live in. Unfortunately there are only programmed humans, no other aliens yet.

Even though the vastness of the universe is only a hologram, in fact the simulated universe is limited but it is imaged as if it were very large, like Truman Show and The Matrix movie.

My conclusion

All of the above theories that may be one of them can answer the Fermi Paradox. Where we are still confused today because we do not find intelligent living things other than on earth.

The Complete Explanation Of The Fermi Paradox
The Complete Explanation Of The Fermi Paradox

But with the vastness of the universe and our rapid technological advancement, we may one day come across it, and it will answer many of our questions today. But maybe it will raise more recent questions, because surely in the future we will feel very advanced or even very primitive. By: Ochie.

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