E110 FA19 Class Blog

The Fermi Paradox is a theory questioning life outside of our Earth. As we all know, the universe is a big, never ending void. There’s constellations upon constellations, galaxies upon galaxies. With its giant size, it voids the question of: are we really alone in this giant equation?

The Fermi Paradox, named after physicist Enrico Fermi, is the theory questioning are we the only intelligent life forms in our giant universe? Taking “scale and probability” into consideration, logically, there’s no reason there aren’t other intelligent life forms out there. But when we are faced with the lack of evidence to prove this to be true, we are stuck with the Fermi Paradox.

There are the few who full heartedly believe there are alien life forms and who dedicated their lives to theorizing and research to simply gain proof of these bad boys being real. But one thing that’s brought up in the paradox is that the lack of proof is astounding. By now, we would presumably have found something that has been related to other life forms such as colonization or old tools they had used, but we have no evidence of this. 

There are 200-400 billion stars in the Milky Way alone which can only lead you to believe that there are other life forms amongst the stars and constellations. It can be left up to someone to “believe” in alien life forms but the Fermi Paradox and Drake equation are just pieces of statistical science that are trying to use proven facts and math to prove the likelihood of other forms of life in our galaxy. So in reality, believing in aliens is one thing, but having evidence to prove that aliens are real is a completely different thing.

“Are aliens real” is much the same as “are ghosts real” except one of them you can actually use science and evidence to back up and one is up to hear-say. But they both fall under the branch of “if there’s actual proof, then I can say it’s real”. For example, the proof that alien obsessed people use is the Egyptian Pyramids and how it was almost humanly impossible to build those all alone with the technology of that time period. There are hieroglyphics on walls in Egypt that could outline possible other life forms assisting the Egyptians on the pyramids but in all, wall art isn’t the strongest form of evidence and there were no artifacts dug up to help prove this to be true (also, they were using slaves so they obviously were treating them inhumanly to do these very hard tasks that an average person wouldn’t want to do). 

Overall, the Paradox just helped to raise questions but didn’t do much to prove. But, it was putting aliens into science and giving us an upper hand in finding an answer to the looming question of “are we alone?” and has given us an outlet to maybe look for more evidence of intelligent life forms so that we can put our questions to rest.

In simple terms, the Fermi Paradox tackles the debate of whether or not intelligent life exists elsewhere in the universe. This theory takes the stance that we humans are not the only intelligent life-form to have existed, but takes into question our idea of extraterrestrial civilizations. In our world, we perceive aliens to be of higher intellect, technologically advanced, imperialistic beings. The Fermi Paradox asks to see the evidence proving that another species is more advanced than humans. ETs, if they do indeed exist, may very well be in their own Paleolithic and are just beginning to understand how to use tools to make their lives easier. 

A part of this paradox that stood out was the “zoo hypothesis.” If cosmic life is more advanced than humans, we could assume that they are capable of technology, space travel for example. The zoo hypothesis says that humans are not yet worthy to be in contact with the other species that exist in our universe. People like to believe that aliens would be the ones to contact us first, whether it be some message or a visit to Earth. To me, this belief is lazy. It’s almost like saying ‘We can’t navigate through space, we should hope that aliens will come and do it for us.’ Intelligent species could be observing our planet waiting for us to be able to provide something beneficial to them before making contact. I mean, would you try to teach an ant about its own self-existence? There would be no purpose, even if you happened to succeed.

Seeing that we humans live on a dying planet and are constantly at each other’s throats for the smallest of reasons probably isn’t that appealing. But hey, that’s just human nature, as it’s been for hundreds of years. 

Technology has become one of the forefronts of change in our society. From the way we communicate with people, build and create things, create medicine, and so many other everyday doings. However, how far is technology willing to go until a boundary is crossed? Transhumanism involves science and technology involving humanistic ideas, which can take a wrong turn if the idea is put into the wrong hands. 

One example of a technology that can be categorized under transhumanistic ideas is CRISPR. CRISPR is a genome technology that has the ability to edit one’s genes. This technology has the capability to be useful and save people’s lives who may have a detrimental genetic mutation. However, CRISPR can become dangerous if used poorly. One scary tactic that can be pushed by CRISPR is this idea of designer babies. According to the MIT technology review, Chinese scientists have “been recruiting couples in an effort to create the first gene-edited babies.” They have been working on genes that may cause certain diseases, however, they have also been working on the idea of adding characteristics that the parents may want, specific hair color and eye color, into the babies genes. This is where the line is drawn. Everyone has their own different and special characteristics that should be embraced by them, and everybody around them. Having this ideology, a transhumanistic idea, that we need technology to alter what a human looks like, takes away the special differences of everyone. Eventually, everyone would have similar characteristics and there would be no differences amongst the general population. If this process of picking and choosing what genes to edit continues for years to come, at what point are the human outcomes even human? This is where the transhumanist technologies become scary and cross a line.  For more about what Chinese scientists have been working on involving CRISPR, visit the following site: https://www.technologyreview.com/s/612458/exclusive-chinese-scientists-are-creating-crispr-babies/

Furthermore, another significant topic pertaining to transhumanistic ideas would be artificial intelligence. To what extent can programmers program and enhance computers to the point where the computers control us? Technology and code have to start somewhere. That is in the programmers hands. Once the technology gains an understanding of the code being presented, it will keep learning. When this happens, it creates possibilities of robots learning more than we, as humans, can possibly understand at the rate that it is learning and then it is out of our hands. We see this happen when computers are coded to crack or hack into a system. The computer begins distributing numbers and algorithms at a speed inhumanly possible. This is where the artificial intelligence becomes questionable. The computer is doing things at a speed that we cannot control. How do we know that it will listen and stop when we tell it too? We don’t. This comes into the idea of robots. How do we know the robots we are creating to act like humans will listen to what we are programming them to do? We don’t. 

Technology is all around us, and is it beneficial with how we use it. These transhumanistic ideas like CRISPR can be beneficial until used poorly and dangerously.

When I read about trans-humanism, the movement to use technology to enhance human abilities, the first thing I thought of was the show The Twilight Zone and the more modern version in my eyes, Black Mirror. I love watching these shows and to a certain extent I think the ideas within it are somewhat practical and could even be useful. However, if taken too far, trans-humanism could endanger our society and cause mass chaos.

The picture above shows an example of an invention that could be considered trans-humanism within Black Mirror. In this episode, people’s memories are recorded through a device they get implanted called “The Grain” and can be rewatched, even on a TV. An idea like this sounds somewhat realistic for the future with the increasing amount of technology and AI being created. Something like this could be useful but would have its drawbacks, including the health danger of implanting a device and the mental effect it could have on people. The character in the show ends up dangerously cutting the device out from under his skin. Chances are, if something like “The Grain” was actually created, people would likely end up acting similarly and risking danger just for the sake of their sanity.

While trans-humanism could be useful, if it went too far there is a risk of people becoming less human and our species essentially turning into robots. The increased use of artificial intelligence and technology are inevitable but there is a certain, unclear point where it becomes too much. It is an extremely complicated topic and trans-humanism would need to be heavily tested and experimented with before being put out to the public.

The Fermi Paradox is the idea that extraterrestrial life exists in our universe, despite the lack of evidence. Italian- American physicist Enrico Fermi claims this lack of evidence is because our universe is so vast and there are many stars in the milky-way like our sun that there are many places far away where aliens can leave signs of life. In short, the paradox  argues scale and probability for finding extraterrestrial intelligence. There are many questions that come along with finding this phenomenon. One being, “why can’t we find artifacts or any proof here on Earth?” the answer is our access to space travel. The kind we currently have is surprisingly, very slow for our galaxy. It would take 5 million to 500 million years to fully colonize the galaxy and explore every star meteor and planet we have. The second question is “Why do we see no signs in other places of the universe?” We can tie this question into our lack of speed in space travel as well,  but a new point that is brought up is that these advanced civilizations of extraterrestrial beings are out of our range to detect them using satellites. So this paradox as a whole is centered around our Earth being too far away from any signs of life forms other than ourselves. The universe is too vast to be fully explored and colonized, so how are we so sure we are not the only life forms here? Fermi was not the only researcher who had this question. The topic of extraterrestrial life forms have been a hot button topic for generations and finding a UFO is on many people’s bucket list. There are also equations to back up this theory, one being the Drake equation. Created by scientist Frank Drake in 1961, the equation is used to find systematic meanings in probability involved in the existence of alien life.

Many people believe that the way to living a fulfilling life is by developing yourself and enhancing your mind to its fullest potential. Humanists believe that human nature is a universally state in which a human being is capable of existence. Transhumanists take this theory to a whole new level. Transhumanism is a way of thinking about the future, based on the belief that the human form that we are now, is not the end, and that existing is not enough. Transhumanists believe that the stage that humans are at is just an early phase of what they can develop into. Their focus is more on the modification of human through science. Something that caught my eye during my Wikipedia dive was posthumanism. It has the same beliefs of transhumanism, just to a farther point. A posthuman is a being, that seeks to reconceive the human form. It is not a single individual but rather one that can embody multiple identities and understand multiple perspectives. The most important factor to the posthuman is having the ability to manifest through different identities. A posthuman is basically the same as a cyborg, which after reading and trying to understand this concept for the last hour makes it even more confusing. Confusing because the relationship with technology is different between the two. Cyborgs are directly involved with robots and technology, while posthumans focus on cybernetics and the relationship to technology. Meanwhile, transhumanism doesn’t focus on any kind of technology. They focus on the modification of any kind of humanistic concept.  I think the craziest thing about all these beliefs, is that all of them think that the others are hypothetical. Not that the ideas are hypothetical, for example, a transhumanistic thinker would believe that a posthuman is just a made-up idea of the future.  This might be because their ideas of the future are so different. In a posthuman future, other beings could exist while the posthuman lives on earth, but eventually the posthumans will develop a new society that the humans won’t be able to keep up with, because they lack the same abilities. All of these beliefs have little to no signs of becoming a reality, however the idea of evolving into an entire new life form is pretty crazy to think about.

Transhumanism is a class of philosophies of life that seek the continuation and acceleration of the evolution of intelligent life beyond its currently human form and human limitations by means of science and technology, guided by life-promoting principles and values. 

– Max More (1990) 

The idea that we, as humans, are not the only form of intelligent life in the universe, is a question that may never be truly answered. Scientists have agonized over a theory that may never be applicable in the lifetime of the human race. The Fermi paradox is the belief that extra terrestrial beings are real, yet question where they are, and why the human race has failed in finding any type of evidence to their existence. It puts any and all facts into perspective, comparing the probability of the truth behind more life and if so, where they are. I believe that we will never figure out if “aliens” exist or not, and to put any resources into their existence is foolish. We should approach the situation with the idea that aliens have the technology we may never obtain. To believe that we are the only intelligent life forms in a galaxy, let alone a universe, as vast and intricate as ours is blatant ignorance. With the notion of the billions and trillions of different planets that are the typical model to ours, Earth, should alone prove the reality of aliens. The zoo hypothesis believes that the human race is not ready to be contacted by other intelligent life, and I agree. Our unstable society is not ready to be met with another big change. A good amount of people hate the “aliens” that exist in the United States of America today. Can you imagine the violent reactions that would be approached to real extraterrestrial life? Humans naturally fear the unknown, and fear is usually paired with anger. The first things that come to mind with potential contact to other life forms would be conflict: war, fear, miscommunication, and most importantly, a form of racist bias towards a new species with the same, or more advanced, intelligence to ours. Peace would likely be unreachable. Even if we wanted to, I hope aliens have understood how to outsmart us for the human race’s own good, and the potential other civilizations in the universe.

As overpopulation continues to come up as a threat to earth, the question of living on other planets is ever growing. There are arguments in favor of and against space colonization. Arguments for colonization include the survival of human civilization and the biosphere in the event of a planetary-scale disaster. Plus, the availability of additional resources in space could lead to the expansion of human society. The most common objections to colonization include concerns that the commodification of the cosmos may be likely to enhance the interests of the already powerful, including major economic and military institutions, and to exacerbate pre-existing detrimental processes such as wars, economic inequality, and environmental degradation. No space colonies have been built so far. Currently, the building of a space colony would present a set of huge technological and economic challenges. Elon Musk, Tesla CEO and founder of SpaceX, wants to send people to Mars within the next 10 years. The logistics of getting them back to earth safe and sound still presents a problem. What if there are not as many resources on these planets as we think? Is there really other life on other planets? Your own thoughts about space colonization may depend on your stance towards environmental issues and climate change. This issue will certainly continue to produce discussion and debate in the years to come.

What if the world was going up in flames, water levels rising and wiping out cities, species and civilizations completely eradicated, how can humanity escape impending doom? Well for scientists like Stephen Hawking and J. Richard Gott,  as well as state officials like Louis Hale formerly of the U.S. state department, the answer to preventing the total collapse of humanity lies in looking to the stars. Space colonization is the only way to prevent the end of human life as we know it in the case of earth’s extinction.  

In1945, two nuclear bombs were dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki, leaving the world in shock, ending the war to end all wars. This devastation was only the beginning though, prepositioning a 45 year long nuclear arms race between America and the Soviet Union, and in the twenty first century, the North Korean nuclear testing threat that lasted over a year. Nuclear warfare to many may seem an issue of the past, or one now that will never result in anything, but it could be the destruction of the world’s future. Nuclear warfare may not even be necessary to cause the apocalypse if the world continues to heat up due to the ongoing climate crisis that has not found a unanimous agreement on how to confront it. As well as with an increasing overpopulation problem, and a decline of resources as the world ages, and slowly burns, there are too many combinations of destruction, and so few answers. With the threat of doomsday right around the corner, what hope does humanity have, if not going beyond our known world and discovering a new hope on a new planet, or moon, or even an asteroid according to NASA specialists. 

Conquistadors, Columbus, Colonial settlers, and now Elon Musk? Colonization has destroyed societies, ravaged groups of people, eradicated cultures, and in its wake new civilizations rose, all in the name of growth and discovery. Many curse colonization as it left so many displaced, forcefully assimilated, and/ or brutally attacked and left for dead, but what if colonization was necessary for humanity’s survival, and there was a form of it with no known possible victims of it? Space Colonization could be the most ethical and necessary form of colonization in the world’s history. Besides survival, space colonization could be a unifying experience for the world, as exploring uncharted territory, looking into the impossible, brings out the curiosity in us all, and finding new spaces to explore allows for societies to thrive, similar to the space race, and the Lewis and Clark expedition. 

Although scientists differ when it is exactly, it is sure that the earth has an expiration date,  and if we want to ensure not only a possible future, but a positive one, space colonization must become a priority. The longer humans exist on this planet, the more resources deplete and the earth suffers. It has been proven that the amount of resources space can offer, especially asteroids that would be mined for water and building supplies, can supply humanity thousands of times more than what our one planet has to offer now (1).

The answer to all of the world’s problems has not been right under our noses this entire time, it’s been above our heads, beyond as far as the eye can see. The question can no longer be “Is there anything to do to save the earth”, it is “Are you ready to suit up?” 

1. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Space_colonization