Habitable exoplanets are bad news for humanity

[Jlaw]

Last week, scientists announced the discovery of Kepler-186f, a planet 492 light years away in the Cygnus constellation. Kepler-186f is special because it marks the first planet almost exactly the same size as Earth orbiting in the “habitable zone,” the distance from a star in which we might expect liquid water—and perhaps life.

What did not make the news, however, is that this discovery also slightly increases how much credence we give to the possibility of our own near-term extinction. This is because of a concept known as the Great Filter.

The Great Filter is an argument that attempts to resolve the Fermi Paradox: why have we not found aliens (or why have they not found us), despite the existence of hundreds of billions of exosolar systems in our galactic neighborhood in which life might evolve? As the namesake physicist Enrico Fermi noted, it seems rather extraordinary that not a single extraterrestrial signal or engineering project has been detected (UFO conspiracy theorists notwithstanding).

This apparent absence of thriving extraterrestrial civilizations suggests that at least one of the steps from humble planet to interstellar civilization is exceedingly unlikely. The absence could be because intelligent life is extremely rare, or because intelligent life has a tendency to go extinct. This bottleneck for the emergence of alien civilizations from any one of those billions of planets is referred to as the Great Filter.

Are we alone?
What exactly is causing this bottleneck has been the subject of debate for more than 50 years. Explanations could include a paucity of Earth-like planets or self-replicating molecules. Other possibilities could be an improbable jump from simple prokaryotic life (cells without specialized parts) to more complex eukaryotic life—after all, this transition took well over a billion years on Earth.

Proponents of this “Rare Earth” hypothesis also argue that the evolution of complex life requires an exceedingly large number of perfect conditions. In addition to Earth being in the habitable zone of the Sun, our star must be far enough away from the galactic center to avoid destructive radiation, our gas giants must be massive enough to sweep asteroids from Earth’s trajectory, and our unusually large Moon stabilizes the axial tilt that gives us different seasons.

These are just a few prerequisites for complex life. The emergence of symbolic language, tools and intelligence could require other such “perfect conditions” as well.

Or is the filter ahead of us?
While the emergence of intelligent life could be rare, the silence could also be the result of intelligent life emerging frequently but subsequently failing to survive for long. Might every sufficiently advanced civilization stumble across a suicidal technology or settle into an unsustainable trajectory? We know that a Great Filter prevents the emergence of prosperous interstellar civilizations, but we don’t know whether or not we already cleared it in humanity’s past or if it awaits us in the future.

For 200,000 years, humanity has survived supervolcanoes, asteroid impacts, and naturally occurring pandemics. But our track record of survival is limited to just a few decades in the presence of nuclear weaponry. And we have no track record at all of surviving many of the radically novel technologies that are likely to arrive this century.

Esteemed scientists such as Astronomer Royal Martin Rees at the Cambridge Centre for the Study of Existential Risk point to advances in biotechnology as being potentially catastrophic. Others, such as Stephen Hawking, Max Tegmark, and Stuart Russell, also with the Cambridge Centre, have expressed serious concern about the exotic but understudied possibility of machine superintelligence.

Let’s hope Kepler-186f is barren
When the Fermi Paradox was initially proposed, it was thought that planets themselves were rare. Since then, however, the tools of astronomy have revealed the existence of hundreds of exoplanets. That seems to be just the tip of the iceberg.

But each new discovery of an Earth-like planet in the habitable zone, such as Kepler-186f, makes it less plausible that there are simply no planets aside from Earth that might support life. The Great Filter is thus more likely to be lurking in the path between habitable planet and flourishing civilization.

If Kepler-186f is teeming with intelligent life, then that would be really bad news for humanity because it would push back the Great Filter’s position further into the technological stages of a civilization’s development. This would imply that catastrophe awaits both us and our extraterrestrial companions.

In the case of Kepler-186f, we still have many reasons to think intelligent life might not emerge. The atmosphere might be too thin to prevent freezing or the planet might be tidally locked, causing a relatively static environment. Discovery of these hostile conditions should be cause for celebration.

@Chinese-Dragon @SpArK @jarves @gambit @Marshmallow @levina @DRAY @BDforever @Jaanbaz @janon @scorpionx @chak de INDIA @Talon @Sidak @Skull and Bones @Developereo @Indischer @Peter C @sandy_3126 @Srinivas and others

Is this supposed to be a scientific artilce turned political? It's another one of those "nuclear weapons" will destroy humanity article. Very opinionated.

 

[Mythal]

If there is any life on other planet than they surely are dumb, as we haven't sent anything on Earth mission.

But on second thought what if the have already found us without our knowledge and planning to colonize us?



Jelly fish survived for millions of years despite without brain, same is the case with morons

Plays a role =/= essential

 

[Mythal]

There are two components to Evolution
a) Environmental ( also known as Selection pressure)- This is when the environment suddenly/gradually becomes harsh against the species, and it becomes difficult to survive.
b) Genetic ( known as Survival of the fittest) - Now due to reproduction and copying/ propagation of genes , random mutations leave some members a little more different than others , some of these survive the Environmental pressure because of this mutation.
Now coming to your objection
intelligence will play a role only if it increases survival. Humans became intelligent because the selection pressure ( Bigger and almost always faster predators like Lions, tigers etc) required them to be organized in social units , which required ever increasing intelligence, Due to lack of fur and weaker body the early human turned to tool making and wielding, increasing their chances of survival and putting a selection pressure on the brain(complex ability to make tools from stone/sticks and their proper use and body co-ordination.)
So, humans always experienced selection pressures that promoted intelligence, both social and then progressively scientific(tools-> fire-> wheel->agriculture). Hence if a species does not experience the correct selection pressures, they will not evolve intelligence. The time must translate into the appropriate selection pressures.


I like your approach to the problem.

I agree partially. Environment pressure is not always necessary for evolution. There is also sexual selection. An individual with more chances of getting a mate is more likely to produce offsprings like himself.

Back to the topic of intelligence.. The debate actually depends a lot on how you define intelligence. Basic intelligence is almost necessary. More advanced like ability to communicate is helpful to survive in a group (a lot of animals do it). Intelligence more advanced like creating tools and work with them requires a lot more time and probably some luck.

 

[DesiGuy]

all right...lets not be alienaphopic! I say lets visit aliens before they have the chance to visit us. That way...tables are turned...we are the "Europeans" and they are "natives"..!

 

[MilSpec]

Exactly, with the advancement of a society, comes a factor of better understanding of the fragility of one's existence and hence higher consciousness. In the past, many rituals with were a norm for the society, is being considered immoral or barbaric in present times.

Though, i'm speaking from human standpoint.

Our logic is our logic, may not be universal

 

[Kloitra]

Without higher moral standards, the existence of their civilization will be at stake beyond a certain limit. I think that factor is embedded in Drake's equation, not sure though.

For an example, human civilization came close to extinction during the height of Cold war.

Moral standards like ours are made up. May be not all genetic structures require removing lesser specimens. What moral standards do the tree have?

 

[Skull and Bones]

Moral standards like ours are made up. May be not all genetic structures require removing lesser specimens. What moral standards do the tree have?

So you mean animals don't have moral standards or consciousness?

 

[Kloitra]

So you mean animals don't have moral standards or consciousness?

Not the same as us. No good and bad, natural compulsions.

 

[Developereo]

The entire article is based on an assumption that aliens would use electromagnetic (radio) waves for communication.

The conclusion is that, since we haven't detected any artificial radio signals, therefore aliens don't exist.

Now, we have only had radio communication for a little over a hundred years and we think it's the coolest thing going. However, to an advanced civilization with superior technology, radio communication might seem just as primitive as smoke signals. After all, radio suffers from some of the same limitations: it's mostly line-of-sight, is vulnerable to atmospheric conditions, loses strength rapidly with distance, etc.

Even on Earth, imagine an isolated, primitive tribe without radios. Despite all our global transmissions all over the place, they would be completely unaware that any communication was going on.

Similarly, alien civilizations could be chatting away like crazy all around us and we wouldn't have a clue because we don't have the right receiver.

 

[liall]

nets or self-replicating molecules. Other possibilities could be an improbable jump from simple prokaryotic life (cells without specialized parts) to more complex eukaryotic life—after all,

If aliens visit us, the outcome would be much as when Columbus landed in America, which didn't turn out well for the Native Americans.

Stephen Hawking

The Europeans have changed? They killed people every where but now they talk of human rights. I think just because you advance in technology and prosperity you stop being savages. Aliens would have no reason to kill us unless they wanted to live on our planet. But if Aliens were that advanced they could just terraform another planet and let us be.

 

[Kloitra]

The entire article is based on an assumption that aliens would use electromagnetic (radio) waves for communication.

The conclusion is that, since we haven't detected any artificial radio signals, therefore aliens don't exist.

For all the known science, it is the only medium for distant communication. In itself not a new discovery - we have used it since forever only discovered new usage recently. Only that if a new field of physics is discovered.

 

[Marshmallow]

Last week, scientists announced the discovery of Kepler-186f, a planet 492 light years away in the Cygnus constellation. Kepler-186f is special because it marks the first planet almost exactly the same size as Earth orbiting in the “habitable zone,” the distance from a star in which we might expect liquid water—and perhaps life.

What did not make the news, however, is that this discovery also slightly increases how much credence we give to the possibility of our own near-term extinction. This is because of a concept known as the Great Filter.

The Great Filter is an argument that attempts to resolve the Fermi Paradox: why have we not found aliens (or why have they not found us), despite the existence of hundreds of billions of exosolar systems in our galactic neighborhood in which life might evolve? As the namesake physicist Enrico Fermi noted, it seems rather extraordinary that not a single extraterrestrial signal or engineering project has been detected (UFO conspiracy theorists notwithstanding).

This apparent absence of thriving extraterrestrial civilizations suggests that at least one of the steps from humble planet to interstellar civilization is exceedingly unlikely. The absence could be because intelligent life is extremely rare, or because intelligent life has a tendency to go extinct. This bottleneck for the emergence of alien civilizations from any one of those billions of planets is referred to as the Great Filter.

Are we alone?
What exactly is causing this bottleneck has been the subject of debate for more than 50 years. Explanations could include a paucity of Earth-like planets or self-replicating molecules. Other possibilities could be an improbable jump from simple prokaryotic life (cells without specialized parts) to more complex eukaryotic life—after all, this transition took well over a billion years on Earth.

Proponents of this “Rare Earth” hypothesis also argue that the evolution of complex life requires an exceedingly large number of perfect conditions. In addition to Earth being in the habitable zone of the Sun, our star must be far enough away from the galactic center to avoid destructive radiation, our gas giants must be massive enough to sweep asteroids from Earth’s trajectory, and our unusually large Moon stabilizes the axial tilt that gives us different seasons.

These are just a few prerequisites for complex life. The emergence of symbolic language, tools and intelligence could require other such “perfect conditions” as well.

Or is the filter ahead of us?
While the emergence of intelligent life could be rare, the silence could also be the result of intelligent life emerging frequently but subsequently failing to survive for long. Might every sufficiently advanced civilization stumble across a suicidal technology or settle into an unsustainable trajectory? We know that a Great Filter prevents the emergence of prosperous interstellar civilizations, but we don’t know whether or not we already cleared it in humanity’s past or if it awaits us in the future.

For 200,000 years, humanity has survived supervolcanoes, asteroid impacts, and naturally occurring pandemics. But our track record of survival is limited to just a few decades in the presence of nuclear weaponry. And we have no track record at all of surviving many of the radically novel technologies that are likely to arrive this century.

Esteemed scientists such as Astronomer Royal Martin Rees at the Cambridge Centre for the Study of Existential Risk point to advances in biotechnology as being potentially catastrophic. Others, such as Stephen Hawking, Max Tegmark, and Stuart Russell, also with the Cambridge Centre, have expressed serious concern about the exotic but understudied possibility of machine superintelligence.

Let’s hope Kepler-186f is barren
When the Fermi Paradox was initially proposed, it was thought that planets themselves were rare. Since then, however, the tools of astronomy have revealed the existence of hundreds of exoplanets. That seems to be just the tip of the iceberg.

But each new discovery of an Earth-like planet in the habitable zone, such as Kepler-186f, makes it less plausible that there are simply no planets aside from Earth that might support life. The Great Filter is thus more likely to be lurking in the path between habitable planet and flourishing civilization.

If Kepler-186f is teeming with intelligent life, then that would be really bad news for humanity because it would push back the Great Filter’s position further into the technological stages of a civilization’s development. This would imply that catastrophe awaits both us and our extraterrestrial companions.

In the case of Kepler-186f, we still have many reasons to think intelligent life might not emerge. The atmosphere might be too thin to prevent freezing or the planet might be tidally locked, causing a relatively static environment. Discovery of these hostile conditions should be cause for celebration.

@Chinese-Dragon @SpArK @jarves @gambit @Marshmallow @levina @DRAY @BDforever @Jaanbaz @janon @scorpionx @chak de INDIA @Talon @Sidak @Skull and Bones @Developereo @Indischer @Peter C @sandy_3126 @Srinivas and others

interesting,i will read this later for sure...thanks for quoting me here!

 

[Levina]

Last week, scientists announced the discovery of Kepler-186f, a planet 492 light years away in the Cygnus constellation. Kepler-186f is special because it marks the first planet almost exactly the same size as Earth orbiting in the “habitable zone,” the distance from a star in which we might expect liquid water—and perhaps life.

What did not make the news, however, is that this discovery also slightly increases how much credence we give to the possibility of our own near-term extinction. This is because of a concept known as the Great Filter.

The Great Filter is an argument that attempts to resolve the Fermi Paradox: why have we not found aliens (or why have they not found us), despite the existence of hundreds of billions of exosolar systems in our galactic neighborhood in which life might evolve? As the namesake physicist Enrico Fermi noted, it seems rather extraordinary that not a single extraterrestrial signal or engineering project has been detected (UFO conspiracy theorists notwithstanding).

This apparent absence of thriving extraterrestrial civilizations suggests that at least one of the steps from humble planet to interstellar civilization is exceedingly unlikely. The absence could be because intelligent life is extremely rare, or because intelligent life has a tendency to go extinct. This bottleneck for the emergence of alien civilizations from any one of those billions of planets is referred to as the Great Filter.

Are we alone?
What exactly is causing this bottleneck has been the subject of debate for more than 50 years. Explanations could include a paucity of Earth-like planets or self-replicating molecules. Other possibilities could be an improbable jump from simple prokaryotic life (cells without specialized parts) to more complex eukaryotic life—after all, this transition took well over a billion years on Earth.

Proponents of this “Rare Earth” hypothesis also argue that the evolution of complex life requires an exceedingly large number of perfect conditions. In addition to Earth being in the habitable zone of the Sun, our star must be far enough away from the galactic center to avoid destructive radiation, our gas giants must be massive enough to sweep asteroids from Earth’s trajectory, and our unusually large Moon stabilizes the axial tilt that gives us different seasons.

These are just a few prerequisites for complex life. The emergence of symbolic language, tools and intelligence could require other such “perfect conditions” as well.

Or is the filter ahead of us?
While the emergence of intelligent life could be rare, the silence could also be the result of intelligent life emerging frequently but subsequently failing to survive for long. Might every sufficiently advanced civilization stumble across a suicidal technology or settle into an unsustainable trajectory? We know that a Great Filter prevents the emergence of prosperous interstellar civilizations, but we don’t know whether or not we already cleared it in humanity’s past or if it awaits us in the future.

For 200,000 years, humanity has survived supervolcanoes, asteroid impacts, and naturally occurring pandemics. But our track record of survival is limited to just a few decades in the presence of nuclear weaponry. And we have no track record at all of surviving many of the radically novel technologies that are likely to arrive this century.

Esteemed scientists such as Astronomer Royal Martin Rees at the Cambridge Centre for the Study of Existential Risk point to advances in biotechnology as being potentially catastrophic. Others, such as Stephen Hawking, Max Tegmark, and Stuart Russell, also with the Cambridge Centre, have expressed serious concern about the exotic but understudied possibility of machine superintelligence.

Let’s hope Kepler-186f is barren
When the Fermi Paradox was initially proposed, it was thought that planets themselves were rare. Since then, however, the tools of astronomy have revealed the existence of hundreds of exoplanets. That seems to be just the tip of the iceberg.

But each new discovery of an Earth-like planet in the habitable zone, such as Kepler-186f, makes it less plausible that there are simply no planets aside from Earth that might support life. The Great Filter is thus more likely to be lurking in the path between habitable planet and flourishing civilization.

If Kepler-186f is teeming with intelligent life, then that would be really bad news for humanity because it would push back the Great Filter’s position further into the technological stages of a civilization’s development. This would imply that catastrophe awaits both us and our extraterrestrial companions.

In the case of Kepler-186f, we still have many reasons to think intelligent life might not emerge. The atmosphere might be too thin to prevent freezing or the planet might be tidally locked, causing a relatively static environment. Discovery of these hostile conditions should be cause for celebration.

@Chinese-Dragon @SpArK @jarves @gambit @Marshmallow @levina @DRAY @BDforever @Jaanbaz @janon @scorpionx @chak de INDIA @Talon @Sidak @Skull and Bones @Developereo @Indischer @Peter C @sandy_3126 @Srinivas and others

I believe that "somebody is indeed watching us but they do so very casually".

 

[Marshmallow]

I believe that "somebody is indeed watching us but they do so very casually".

The Trueman Show? its been on HBO like hundreds of time!

 

[Informant]

I believe that "somebody is indeed watching us but they do so very casually".

You need to lock your windows.