Difference between revisions of "Talk:1377: Fish"

Explain xkcd: It's 'cause you're dumb.
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(Compare life with {{w|Cantor Dust}}.)
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This is very similar to a *lot* of SF out there. Pellegrino's "The Killing Star" is one good example (with R-bombing and the problems associated with it), but it's certainly not the only one. Listing some of these might be good. Listing the "Central Park at night" example from "The Killing Star" might be a reasonable addition. [[User:Brdavis|Brdavis]] ([[User talk:Brdavis|talk]]) 16:23, 4 June 2014 (UTC)
 
This is very similar to a *lot* of SF out there. Pellegrino's "The Killing Star" is one good example (with R-bombing and the problems associated with it), but it's certainly not the only one. Listing some of these might be good. Listing the "Central Park at night" example from "The Killing Star" might be a reasonable addition. [[User:Brdavis|Brdavis]] ([[User talk:Brdavis|talk]]) 16:23, 4 June 2014 (UTC)
  
The real reason seems clear to me: existence of other life forms in the universe is probabilistically certain, but universe is so huge (in space and time) that we have no hope of reaching it.  Regarding "huge in time", for example Mars might have been like nowadays's earth one billion years ago with elaborate civilisations and yet we now struggle to find a trace of life{{Citation needed}}.  Regarding "huge in space", no hope of reaching it or even have definite proof of discovery.  Or, err.  Well, I have not said "never", right ?  But the point remains: universe is so huge that a lot of life can be "statistically everywhere" and we just can't see it because its density is too small.  Which is another way to say: life most certainly exists on many planets (and other types of systems) yet the fact that we don't detect it easily means that the kind of life we are looking for never had a chance to propagate quickly enough to be easily noticed. [[User:MGitsfullofsheep|MGitsfullofsheep]] ([[User talk:MGitsfullofsheep|talk]]) 10:11, 6 June 2014 (UTC)
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The real reason seems clear to me: existence of other life forms in the universe is probabilistically certain, but universe is so huge (in space and time) that we have no hope of reaching it.  Regarding "huge in time", for example Mars might have been like nowadays's earth one billion years ago with elaborate civilisations and yet we now struggle to find a trace of life{{Citation needed}}.  Regarding "huge in space", no hope of reaching it or even have definite proof of discovery.  Or, err.  Well, I have not said "never", right ?  But the point remains: universe is so huge that a lot of life can be "statistically everywhere" and we just can't see it because its density is too small.  Which is another way to say: life most certainly exists on many planets (and other types of systems) yet the fact that we don't detect it easily means that the kind of life we are looking for never had a chance to propagate quickly enough gain enough statistical density to be easily noticed.  Compare life with {{w|Cantor Dust}}. [[User:MGitsfullofsheep|MGitsfullofsheep]] ([[User talk:MGitsfullofsheep|talk]]) 10:11, 6 June 2014 (UTC)

Revision as of 10:17, 6 June 2014

I took it to mean that we are the camouflaged fish and the extraterrestrials are the shark. We have been naturally selected to be hard to find through some means, probably by distance from a predator life form or just being tiny, and have thus not encountered any of them. -- Irino (talk) 06:57, 4 June 2014 (UTC)

So, Fermi's paradox is a good defense for why you caught no fish, even though "there's plenty of fish in the sea." 103.22.201.239 09:06, 4 June 2014 (UTC)

Not the Fermi paradox itself, that just questions why we could not find an evidence of extraterrestrial life out there, but this possible explanation of it. There are also other possible explanations, see Wikipedia for them. STEN (talk) 15:50, 4 June 2014 (UTC)
No, but it could explain why I can't find a girlfriend...

108.162.216.72 22:41, 4 June 2014 (UTC)

Maybe you just are actually sexually oriented towards guys and don't consciously know it. Wait, is that a possible new explanation for the paradox itself? 103.22.201.239 04:11, 5 June 2014 (UTC)

The most probable predator to civilizations is another civilization. There may be civilization out there which is so scary everyone is quiet so they don't find him. Wait ... WE may be that civilization. Half of civilization in our galaxy fears the battleships from our sci-fi shows because they thinks they are real and the other half fears that civilization with that kind of shows is going to build real battleships soon. Ok, seriously, I already commented elsewhere ... we don't have anything so valuable it would be worth the resources needed for sending attack fleet here. We would need to REALLY piss someone off to be attacked. At least ... physically. Hey, those telescopes searching for signals from other civilization ... how good antivirus protection they have? -- Hkmaly (talk) 10:22, 4 June 2014 (UTC)

We don't have anything valuable so long as another civilization doesn't need and earth sized supply of calcium, potassium, sodium, nickle, and iron.--Bmmarti3 (talk) 12:34, 4 June 2014 (UTC)
We do have pet ferrets. They are cute, It is unlikely that there is another source of pet ferrets in the galaxy. 108.162.219.77 13:32, 4 June 2014 (UTC)
I've always found this to be terrible logic. In addition to sci-fi, we also broadcast news and documentaries. In addition to fictional triumphs, we also have real-life failures. We've broadcast that funding to NASA has been cut, and how he haven't been farther than the moon in what, 50 years? We have Mythbusters which is constantly debunking stupid stuff that humans believe, and also showing off the limits of our technology in a practical manner. We broadcast war, so they would be able to see just how deadly we actually are. Worst of all, we broadcast Fox News. I don't see aliens fearing us (if they're technologically advanced enough to spy on us without us seeing them), I see them wondering just what the Hell is going on here. 108.162.237.218 18:57, 4 June 2014 (UTC)
This all assumes that they didn't go through their own cultural phases similar to our own. 108.162.237.218 18:59, 4 June 2014 (UTC)

I think the problem is that traditional SETI methods are of dubious effectiveness at actually detecting radio transmissions from other civilizations due to the low initial power of said transmissions which then only get weaker as they propagate. Switch to our new optical methods of planet detection which have detected scores of planets in just a few years and the "paradox" might need to be reevaluated. Optical detection also makes it doubtful that any civilization would be able to effectively hide. Sturmovik (talk) 12:45, 4 June 2014 (UTC)

By the way, the Chinese sci-fi writer Liu Cixin has published a trilogy called "Three Body", focusing on this idea (he called it "dark forest"): what if all the visible civilizations have been destroyed? What if revealing your neighbor's location to the universe is similar to the MAD (Mutual assured destruction) situation? The English version should hit the market this year. --Ent (talk) 15:51, 4 June 2014 (UTC)

This is very similar to a *lot* of SF out there. Pellegrino's "The Killing Star" is one good example (with R-bombing and the problems associated with it), but it's certainly not the only one. Listing some of these might be good. Listing the "Central Park at night" example from "The Killing Star" might be a reasonable addition. Brdavis (talk) 16:23, 4 June 2014 (UTC)

The real reason seems clear to me: existence of other life forms in the universe is probabilistically certain, but universe is so huge (in space and time) that we have no hope of reaching it. Regarding "huge in time", for example Mars might have been like nowadays's earth one billion years ago with elaborate civilisations and yet we now struggle to find a trace of life[citation needed]. Regarding "huge in space", no hope of reaching it or even have definite proof of discovery. Or, err. Well, I have not said "never", right ? But the point remains: universe is so huge that a lot of life can be "statistically everywhere" and we just can't see it because its density is too small. Which is another way to say: life most certainly exists on many planets (and other types of systems) yet the fact that we don't detect it easily means that the kind of life we are looking for never had a chance to propagate quickly enough gain enough statistical density to be easily noticed. Compare life with Cantor Dust. MGitsfullofsheep (talk) 10:11, 6 June 2014 (UTC)