Since ancient times, there has been much speculation regarding if we are truly alone in the universe. And even at present there are thousands of people who swear up and down about their extraterrestrial life-form interactions, whether it be catching a glimpse of a vaguely saucer-shaped object in the sky or their uninhibited conviction that they have been abducted and experimented on by little green creatures (why they’re always thought to be green is beyond me. What if they’re sparkly and multi-colored?). Furthermore, life outside of our planet also play a sizable role in modern casual entertainment; the Marvel franchise, Star Wars for example. So how plausible of an idea is their presence in our universe?
A few main concepts that help us in understanding this are The Fermi Paradox and the intertwined Great Filter concepts;
The Fermi Paradox
To put it in a nutshell, the Fermi Paradox is the seeming contradiction between the high likeness of alien civilization due to the sheer enormousness of our galaxy; the Milky Way, and an abundant number of habitable planets and the disappointingly null scientific evidence to support it.
The Great Filter
Shockingly enough The Great Filter actually is quite similar to a filter (not that common in sciency stuff folks). This is a probability threshold applying to the creation of intelligent life in the universe. If said process was very straightforward, the universe would be teeming with life, but it is not. The observable universe around us is vastly and unimpressively dead. Ergo, at least one stage of the mechanism that leads to the birth of an intelligent species (such as humans or, if they exist, scheming and conniving aliens) must be so improbable that the very creation of them is naturally controlled. Imagine an obstacle course with a number of challenges that allows you to pass or get ‘filtered’ through to the next one, but one or more of the challenges are frankly so impossible that no one survives the last of them. This stage is similar to the Great Filter; causing mass extinction of any species that attempts to pass it. There are two main possibilities; one is if the so-called Filter was in the past and the other is if it is in the future. If the filter is behind us, that would mean that we are incredibly lucky and that at a certain point since the 4.5 billion years of the origin of earth, we’ve already passed one or more stages in the process of evolution that were so unlikely to happen that it could only happen exactly once in our galaxy. One example is the development of the human brain, which utilizes a very high amount of energy and finesse that it might not happen ever again in the Milky Way. After all, there are close to 9 million living species on earth and none of them have been able to develop higher thinking abilities except for humans, thus making us the first intelligent living species in our planet, where no other intelligent life-forms before us made it through. If the Filter is in our future that might prove to be altogether far more catastrophic and self-destructive because we are yet to face a threat so massive that it will obliterate our planet.
Possibilities are the discovery of nuclear power; even though it might solve some significant energy requirements, it also has the capacity to wipe us out. Another example is climate change caused by exploitation of resources to further our progress so intensively that it has adversely affected the earth. So, countless other alien planets also existed and still do but did or will indiscriminately get destroyed upon meeting this Great Filter, as will we in the future.
But we need to bear in mind that a lack of evidence does not necessarily guarantee that extra-terrestrial beings do not exist. Perhaps aliens are so advanced that they are simply undetectable by our earthly primitive technology. Perhaps they are aware of our existence through the Arecibo message, an interstellar radio message sent into space conveying the nature of humanity, but have no interest in alerting us to their presence or colonizing our planet because they have understood the dangers of attempting such intergalactic invasions (a possible Great Filter leading to mass extinction). The apparent random alien sightings by regular people might be when they drop by to scout our planet and assess our progress and decide that it would be fun to let humans vaguely catch a glimpse and wonder if they’re going cuckoo.
Don’t let this rant stop you from signing out from the Area 51 raid though because hey, maybe we ain’t seeing no aliens cuz they’re all being held over there. September 20th will certainly make history, but whether it’s as the largest ever gathering of Naruto-runners, the largest military massacre or as the day we catch ourselves some aliens is yet to be seen 🙂
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Rtr. Lakshan Banneheke
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