Could a 1.8 Gigayear Technology Gap Exist? (The Weekend Feature/A Galaxy Classic)

Are we the lone sentient life in the universe? So far, we have no evidence to the contrary, and yet the odds that not one single other planet has evolved intelligent life would appear, from a statistical standpoint, to be quite small. There are an estimated 250 billion (2.5 x 10¹¹ ) stars in the Milky Way alone, and over 70 sextillion (7 x 10²² ) in the visible universe, and many of them are surrounded by multiple planets. 

Meanwhile, our 4.5 billion-year old Solar System exits in a universe that is estimated to be between 13.5 and 14 billion years old. Experts believe that there could be advanced civilizations out there that have existed for 1.8 gigayears (one gigayear = one billion years). 

The odds of there being only one single planet that evolved life among all that unfathomable vastness seems so incredible that it is all but completely irrational to believe. But then "where are they?" asked physicist Enrico Fermi while having lunch with his colleagues in 1950.

Fermi reasoned, if there are other advanced extraterrestrial civilizations, then why is there no evidence of such, like spacecraft or probes floating around the Milky Way. His question became famously known as the Fermi Paradox. The paradox is the contradiction between the high estimates of the probability of the existence of extraterrestrial civilizations and yet the lack of evidence for, or contact with, any such civilizations.

Given the extreme age of the universe, and its vast number of stars, if planets like Earth are at all typical, then there should be many advanced extraterrestrial civilizations out there, and at least a few in our own Milky Way. Another closely related question is the Great Silence, which poses the question: Even if space travel is too difficult, if life is out there, why don't we at least detect some sign of civilization like radio transmissions?

Milan Cirkovic of the Astronomical Observatory in Belgrade, points out that the median age of terrestrial planets in the Milky Way is about 1.8 gigayears greater than the age of the Earth and the Solar System, which means that the median age of technological civilizations should be greater than the age of human civilization by the same amount. The vastness of this interval indicates that one or more processes must suppress observability of extraterrestrial communities.

Since at this point, there is no direct and/or widely apparent evidence that extraterrestrial life exists, it likely means one of the following:

We are (A) the first intelligent beings ever to become capable of making our presence known, and leaving our planet. At this point, there are no other life forms out there as advanced as us. Or perhaps extraterrestrial life does exists, but for some reason extraterrestrial life is so very rare and so very far away we’ll never make contact anyway—making extraterrestrial life nonexistent in a practical sense at least.

Or is it (B) that many advanced civilizations have existed before us, but without exception, they have for some unknown reason, existed and/or expanded in such a way that they are completely undetectable by our instruments.

Or is it (C) There have been others, but they have all run into some sort of “cosmic roadblock” that eventually destroys them, or at least prevents their expansion beyond a small area.

Then ancients once believed that Earth was the center of the universe. We now know that Earth isn’t even at the center of the Solar System. The Solar System is not at the center of our galaxy, and our galaxy is not in any special position in contrast to the rest of the known universe. From a scientific viewpoint, there is no apparent reason to believe that Earth enjoys some privileged status.

Since Earth’s placement in space and time appears to be unremarkably random, proposition “A” seems fairly unlikely. Assuming humans evolved like other forms of life into our present state due to natural selection, then there's really nothing all that mystical, special or remarkable about our development as a species either. Due to the shear numbers, there are almost certainly other planets capable of supporting at least some form of life. If that is so, then for Earthlings to be the very first species ever to make a noticeable mark on the universe, from a statistical perspective, is incredibly unlikely.

For proposition “B” to be correct would defy all logic. If potentially thousands, or even millions of advanced extraterrestrial civilizations exist in the known universe, then why would all of them, without exception, choose to expand or exist in such a way that they are completely undetectable? It’s conceivable that some might, or perhaps even the majority, but for all of them to be completely undetectable civilizations does not seem likely either.

Proposition C in some ways, appears to be more likely than A or B. If “survival of the fittest” follows similar pathways on other worlds, then our own “civilized” nature could be somewhat typical of extraterrestrial civilizations that have, or do, exist. Somehow, we all get to the point where we end up killing ourselves in a natural course of technological development and thereby self-inflict our own “cosmic roadblock”.

“Perhaps the most disturbing aspect of the Fermi Paradox is what it suggests for the future of our human civilization. Namely, that we have no future beyond earthly confinement and, quite possibly, extinction. Could advanced nanotechnology play a role in preventing that extinction? Or, more darkly, is it destined to be instrumental in carrying out humanity's unavoidable death sentence?” wonders Mike Treder, executive director of the Center for Responsible Nanotechnology (CRN).

Treder believes that some of the little understood new technologies now being developed such as nanotech, and others, could well be either our salvation or just as likely end up causing our ultimate destruction.

“Whatever civilizations have come before us have been unable to surpass the cosmic roadblock. They are either destroyed or limited in such a way that absolutely precludes their expansion into the visible universe. If that is indeed the case—and it would seem to be the most logical explanation for Fermi's Paradox—then there is some immutable law that we too must expect to encounter at some point. We are, effectively, sentenced to death or, at best, life in the prison of a near-space bubble,” suggests Treder. “Atomically-precise exponential manufacturing could enable such concentrations of unprecedented power as to result in either terminal warfare or permanent enslavement of the human race. Of course, that sounds terribly apocalyptic, but it is worth considering that the warnings we heard at the start of the nuclear arms race, and the very real risks we faced in the height of the Cold War, were but precursors to a much greater threat posed by an arms race involving nano-built weaponry and its accompanying tools of surveillance and control.”

When we consider the chronological history of life on Earth, humans have only existed for a small fragment of time and our existence has always been precarious. The entire time we’ve existed, we been banding into various groups and attempting to kill each other—or at least are constantly in the process of developing more effective ways of killing each other—just in case. The US government, for example, spends on “Defense” (including “preemptive” warfare) and Homeland Security, 8 times what it spends on educating the next generation. There is enough nuclear weaponry in storage around the world to kill every living creature on the planet several times over. Clearly, we’re a species with poor odds of surviving indefinitely.

Our self-destructive natures aside, curiosity may end up killing more than the cats. The faster technology is advancing, the more our “leap now, look later” nature appears to grow as well. If evolution on Earth serves as a somewhat typical template for evolution of other life forms, then becoming a truly advanced civilization must be a very daunting task indeed and a very rare, if not impossible, achievement.

In fact, Sir Martin Rees, Great Britain's Astronomer Royal and respected professor of astrophysics at Cambridge University has estimated that humans have only a 50-50 shot of making it through the 21st century. If Rees is right, and our standing on the planet is as precarious as he and others believe it is, then we may be alone due to a built-in evolutionary self-destruct button. Others have come before and others will exist after, but the cosmic roadblock may be an innate, finite nature, which only allows sentient life forms to exist for a very small window of time—windows of life which may be too small for our civilization to match up with the small windows of other civilizations that have been before or will come after.

In a contrary point of view, Milan Cirkovic believes that highly efficient city-state type of advanced technological civilizations could easily pass unnoticed even by much more advanced SETI equipment, especially if located near the Milky Way rim or other remote locations.

Posted by Rebecca Sato with Casey Kazan.

NASA Hubble Image is the Helix Nebula, also known as The Helix or NGC 7293, a large planetary nebula located in the constellation of Aquarius

Recommended Galaxy post:

Stephen Hawking: Why Isn't the Milky Way "Crawling With Self-Designing Mechanical or Biological Life?"

Links:
http://www.dailygalaxy.com/my_weblog/2007/07/sir-martin-rees.html
http://www.nanotech-now.com/columns/?article=149
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fermi_paradox

Comments

[jim]

Why does B defy all logic? They should be very hard to detect. They're very far away, and we're still learning how to look. Think of it the other way around - them finding us. Tiny probes and scrambled radiation are not a trivial find.

Also they could be undetectable if someone smarter wants them to be undetectable, and our observations are screened for some reason? To protect them from us. That is, super intelligent beings keep lesser beings like us from finding each other. Or maybe we've been captured? Maybe we're in their zoo. How might we know if that's the case?

[Eadwacer]

Here's a slightly different calculation. The galaxy is ~13GY old. The Sun about 4.5 GY and it looks like life appeared as soon as the water stopped boiling, Assuming we are typical, we could say it takes ~4 or 5 GY from the formation of a suitable star to the creation of a STL star-faring civilization. That means that such civilizations could have existed in our galaxy as early as 8 or 9 GY ago (depending on when 'suitable' stars started appearing). It has been estimated (I don't have the link) that once a civilization achieves STL interstellar travel, it would take only a million years for them to colonize the entire galaxy, well within the rounding error of our earlier numbers. We can take that to mean there have been 8 or so billion opportunities for a civilization to appear and colonize the galaxy.

I'd argue that that argues for option (A). Someone has to be first, and if we weren't first we'd be colonized by now.

[Dennis Nilsson]

Why should they try to communicate with us?
It's like we should try to communicate with the Ants.

[Tim Preece]

The chance of life getting started could be incredibly small.
The chance of intelligent life evolving could be small as well.

We might well be alone in the Galaxy. It's not irrational to think we are alone.

[Thunder Pig]

If there are other civilizations out there, the laws of physics are enough to keep them (and us) sufficiently quarantined.

The speed of light, and the energy required to achieve a respectable fraction of it is (by itself) a barrier that will serve to keep all but the most single-minded civilizations in their home solar system.

Get used to the solar system. It is all you and your progeny will likely ever know.

[Nate Davis]

Speculations like this give empirical science a bad name. In Peter Ward's book "Rare Earth", he argues that there are a whole range of factors that give our Solar System the ability to foster intelligent life. Most of the universe, as we know of it, is a dead zone. There could, of course, be simple organisms in these harsh environments like: archea or bacteria but nothing like a rational, cognitive being.

Secondly, this form of argumentation, along with SETI, is word for word intelligent design. We assume that there are other intelligent organisms not because of cold hard data but because of speculation and faith. I don't necessarily think it's inappropriate to believe in intelligent, extraterrestrial life just as long as we all understand its not science that brought us to that belief.

[Dredd]

We can only receive signals sent a long time ago, because of the vast distances. The center of the galaxy is about 50,000 years away at the speed of light, which is the speed at which signals are most likely to travel.

According to stellar theory the fundamental "cosmic roadblock" applies to all species living on habitable planets orbiting central stars, and that roadblock is the death of the star.

Some prominent scientists see a morph from biotic human form into sentient machine form as the way to survive.

[fred palme]

how and why should we percept higher evolved beeings? we are
living only in the shadow of reality! advanced conciousness would not need such low hardware-technics, to detect for us, for their communication or travelling from a to b. in the multiverse there
are existences percepting with their cognition of deeper sense of cosmic beeing with an unimaginable overview of the river, we call time...

[claudio]

Enrico Fermi , an italian professor of particles Physics, generated the so called 'Fermi Paradox' , that in fact it is a paradox.
That reasoning was done I would think about 1950 AD and the science of looking at and 'exploring' the universe was quite primitive'.

For our lack (survival) we are at the exterior of the Sagittarius Arm of the Galaxy and we are not affected by the heavy internal radiations of the galaxy.

This does NOT allow us however to look deep inside and be looked-received (our very naive radio links and listening receivers)by the interior areas of the Galaxy....and the 'time-space web' would suggest that any signals sent or received takes from 4.5Years to hundreds of years before reaching the nearest group of stars, IF our Radio-trasmission will reach the nearby stars at all (which is really doubtful if you think about the problem of establishing radio links with the 2 Voyagers).

Then we have sent couple of small space crafts (the Voyagers) out our solar system BUT almost near our Star (actually about the Heliopause) and another couple older spacecrafts (GOD only knows where they are now) out of control....but again very nearby in terms of stellar distances.

WHO HELL should notice us ????????

Hey guys we are NOT in a fiction moovie.

NO signals (radio) from us really detectable by nearby stars.
NO mass of space crafts in the interstellar medium.
NOTHING.

WHO should honestly detect us ????

Why You guys keep dreaming ????

This subject is good for Dreamers and book writers-readers in addition to the usual Hollywood guys.

Keep your feet and brains on the ground : it is better

Regards

[Michel]

I always find this kind of talk interesting.

It's highly improbable that we are the highest form of intelligence in the universe, but it's a possibility, one civilization has to be and the recipe for intelligent life might well be extremely difficult to achieve.

I like proposition (C), that civilizations eventually come to a road-block. Assuming intelligent life exterminates itself (just like we are exterminating ourselves now), wouldn't there be a chance that we are not the first intelligent life on Earth since the Earth is perfect for life? In fact, there would be a greater probability that we are not in the first cycle of intelligent life (just like A). Since there are no traces of an ancient civilization on Earth, then it's likely that intelligent life doesn't exterminate itself.

[are-you-serious]

Are you even serious?
This is by far the most retarted article i've ever read on such matters.
Grow up.
Stop talking on behalf of the whole universe and realize we're not (or ever will be) capable of describing much more than what our few 6 senses allow us to.
Grow up.

[bob mills]

i've been reading similar articles for 40 years, and i'm always struck by the combination of myopia and incredible hubris that this perspective embodies. on one hand, you marvel at other civilizations being perhaps 1.5 GY older than us, and on the other, you ignore that 150 years ago we didn't even have radio, and it's Extremely likely that 150 years from now we'll consider our current forms of communication hopelessly archaic. it's difficult for us to even read our Own data formats from the moon landings!

by Far the most likely situation is that any other civilization that progresses rapidly no longer uses anything remotely like radio frequency communications, and what they Do use is as beyond our comprehension as the internet would be to a turtle.

why, Why, WHY are scientists so stupid about this?!?!?

[Hp]

I have been reading similar articles for over 50 years .I've always thought of a cliche " if one views the world from the point of a hammer , then every thing becomes a nail " We see with eyes our viewers are modeled on our eyes and ears . So the fastest is light and radio waves . I am always glad that we can not directly see or hear gravity only it effect . I believe the laws of physics are still being written ... we shall see or hear .

[Ray Rand]

Discussions and commenting such as this is the reason I look forward to sites like DG. It really brings out my inner nerd. I think it's definitely A or B, not C, but even possibly A AND B.

I've often considered that as sad and lonely as it would seem, there had to be a first and we may not know, can only guess how long it might actually take for someone like a human being to evolve into existense.

It may also be that "we" travelled the universe in primitive form (early, single-celled life) on comets and asteroids and slammed into this planet among many others and, like Goldilocks, this planet was just right for life to survive, thrive, and evolve. This, of course, I'm sure most of you know, is known as the theory of Panspermia.

I agree with a previous poster that just because we haven't detected anything doesn't mean much, as any advanced civilization will be way beyond any technology we're still currently using.

I also agree with one of the first commentors that for all we know, we may be in some sort of galactic quarantine or zoo, perhaps even having communications that we can detect blocked from us. If we were being observed, I don't think our behavior thus far on our own home planet would assuage any fears an advanced civilization might have that we could spread out like deadly spores from a poisonous mushroom and infect the entire galaxy. Yikes! Maybe once we are observed as getting our act together will it be revealed who our neighbors our and possibly be initiated into any galactic civilization that may already exist.

I swear I need to start writing science fiction, this stuff is so awesome to contemplate, though I know most of these plot lines have been explored to death by now. What is the reality of things? Will we ever know? I'm glad we're at least asking questions.

[JMF]

A fascinating topic, to be sure. I'm betting on option D...the "odds-on" favorite as far as I can tell. We do live in a privileged spot in the universe. That is, God started this whole thing some time in the past, and it will end on His timetable. Life is too complex to have come into being through random chance. Random chance has never been seen to produce complex coding (like our DNA)...but higher order beings have done so. Studies of the interior of the cell show an amazing ability to self-repair, to replicate, etc. All of this doesn't preclude the possibility that other created life exists (or has existed) elsewhere in our universe. The senses we have, and the scientific methods we've constructed may eventually uncover it if so. (If you're resistant to this view, I strongly encourage you to examine some reasoned arguments for it. A couple places to start...reading some theist views on this topic, "The Privileged Planet" and "Signature in the Cell".)

[Johnlela]

If we are alone - and it seems we are, though a very intimidating thought - then we couldn't have existed through the blind chance of evolution, the odds of that being the case would be infinite and clearly unmathematical. If we are not alone, there is a great cause to be afraid, to be very afraid for that matter, because it humiliates everything we believe and base our systems of belief upon. If we are alone, then we are steeped in a frightening ignorance. I am certain we dont even know the first thing about ourselves. That sort of thing is too astonishing, for all we know and have worked so hard to know. And not only dont we know, it is evident we will never know, we are not equipped to know. Its the Zero Factor and its a shame!

[Mike]

There is another scenario and that is that we as a species are being observed from afar. I mean if there are civilizations billions of years ahead of us, for them to observe us without being detected must be easy.

Why are there no other radio signals apart from earths’? Well maybe these very far ahead civilizations have a way of neutralizing these signals or make them undetectable. If mobile phone signals can be blocked, why not radio signals in space by a very advanced civilization.

I just cannot believe the auto destruct gene scenario, that all civilizations self destruct is as impossible as are all the other scenarios.

For me the most plausible one is that they want to remain undetected. Until when? Who knows.

[paulbrazen7]

Our knowledge of the universe is infantile. We have been around about the time of a blink of an eye, and we don't live very long either. Our exploration of the universe is rudimentary, we are not in a favored position or status. We actually know next to nothing, we are frail and weak, these things are obvious.

We are human, and the mystery of the universe, the mystery of what is within us, and the mystery of what what we will become all lie before us.

Science will answer most of these questions, but certainly not all. There are deep and, at present, unfathomable needs and desires within us that go far, far beyond personal needs and desires. We have a deep and overwhelming need to discover, to know all. Science is the tool, but not the goal.

The destiny of humanity lies in the stars, but the truth is we can't go there without simple belief. We must believe we have a destiny because we do have a destiny. Life is a struggle because it is meant to be a struggle. The end of our knowledge, our hope, and our dreams is fullfillment. Our destiny is to become God.

[Abra]

Complex structures with complex behavior can exist even on the surface of the stars. Our feeling of complexity, randomness, time, speed and distance are relative, subjective terms.

[Marc]

The author does not consider the possibility that they are out there, but they are not aware of us, as we are not aware of them. Or that they are aware, but uninterested. Of what interest is yet another primitive civilization, that has just discovered rockets and radio?

[Alexander Zaitsev]

The naive faith in boundless potential of Intelligence is no more than a naive faith. Reason's potential is not boundless - the solution of Fermi's paradox consists in it.

[krs]

You should really talk to a radio scientist to understand why we havent picked up and transmissions if there is any. basically a signal will be lost in the jitter after about 1LY iirc.

[Jojo]

"Then ancients once believed that Earth was the center of the universe. We now know that Earth isn’t even at the center of the Solar System. The Solar System is not at the center of our galaxy, and our galaxy is not in any special position in contrast to the rest of the known universe."

Au contraire - in an infinite universe, you are always at the center :)

As to whether we are alone, perhaps the development of enough intelligence to build machines and contemplate the extent of the universe really is just VERY RARE. What if we really are the first such race in this galaxy? Someone has to be first!

After all, there hasn't been any alien race that has tried to bring us into an existing alliance of worlds, nor tried to colonize, enslave or destroy us.

OTOH, SF author Alastair Reynolds in his Revelation Space series posits that their may be a race of super machines created by a race in the far past whose job it is to kill off life when it gets too intelligent and begins star travel.

[dave]

This is all assuming that they have never made contact. If we are throwing out these theory's, then why is it hard to believe that maybe they have made contact with us? If they are so advanced, they would easily be able to tell the leaders and go to them. Humans are in general destructive and stupid. So possibly the goverment keeps it in hiding to keep everyones mind at peace. Or maybe the idea that they think we are stupid and not ready and just avoid us?

[Rob]

I really do get sick of these kinds of articles - especially when they evoke Fermi. So called scientists can't explain where are all these advanced civilizations are - as if they have already looked under every rock in the universe. Come on already, hello, the City of Troy? Myth, legend, until someone who wasn't afraid to go outside of mainstream thought, did the myth become reality.

You want evidence? How about a serious scientific expedition into the thousands of anomalous sighting, and strange myths in our own backyard. How about explaining how ALL crop circles are being made, how about leaving your mind open for a change and thinking outside a small confining box?

Perhaps if you used the same vigor when you poorly debunk anything that is not wiithin your rigid mindset, you could actually discover something significant. There is something going on, right here, that needs to be investigated and honestly communicated to the general public.

Another useless article, like a daft child, wondering where or where could they be.....