Age of the Galaxy in MM

Well, i definitely believe that there is life out there, but i'm just not sure where or how many different types of life forms. The thing is, i believe colonization is possible. Many people underestimate peoples will and perserverence. I can think of many people that would LOVE to go out and help further the advancement of the human race. The thing is, we have to take small steps at first, then work our way up to the big stuff. For instance, we wouldn't just go out and colonize mars right away, there would be vigerous testing on earth in mars like conditions first, then we would just visit mars, then we would probably colonize a closer place, i.e. the moon first... Of course we aren't just going to go out there today and say, "welp, i think i'm gonna live on pluto for the rest of my life." Also, we wouldn't just colonize planets for the sake of colonizing them. There would be a reason for going there before we wasted our available resources on it. colonization on the moon, or even mars, is very feasable in today's day and age, especially with the new publicity that space exploration is recieving. The thing is, odds are we are 'average' when it comes to an entire race. Another words, if there were other races, we would be somewhere in the middle, not the smartest, but not the dumbest either. Not the least fit, but not the most athletic. not the most agressive, but not the most passive. I'm sure there are races that are above us in technology that maybe have started colonization on other planets, if only a small colony to fit at max 10 people. You know, we have people that basically live in space stations? That is almost the same thing as colonization. That in and of itself is a big step towards colonization as well. Now, will the colonies require support from a more advanced colony, even the mother planet? of course, i'm not denying that. I'm saying that colonization is VERY possible with the way the future is shaping up.

<blockquote id="quote"><font size="2" face="Verdana, Arial, Helvetica" id="quote">quote:<hr height="1" noshade id="quote">This glibly treats "getting there" as the equivalent of creating a self-sufficient colony able to continue the process. Few people can be persuaded to permanently abandon their country of residence, let alone their home planet. <hr height="1" noshade id="quote"></blockquote id="quote"></font id="quote">
Getting there "is" equivalent to creating self-sufficiancy. If you are advanced enough to go, you are advanced enough to stay ... permanently. And yes, any certain colony could fail. But not millions of them. What's the percentage here? What if 20% fail? So what? The outcome is the same ... total colonization.

As far as getting people to go and not come back, if the option were available today, you'd have to beat the takers off with teargas. You could get millions upon millions of volunteers.
<blockquote id="quote"><font size="2" face="Verdana, Arial, Helvetica" id="quote">quote:<hr height="1" noshade id="quote">No civilization is ever able to send enough individuals to their colonies to create a colony that is technologically self-sufficient and capable of generating further technologically self-sufficient colonies. <hr height="1" noshade id="quote"></blockquote id="quote"></font id="quote">
This is starkly irrational if you mean exactly what you seem to be saying. Do you mean that if a colony is established, even if it is maintained and supplied and remanned and upgraded for 100,000 years, that will not be sufficient time for it to become independent? How about a million years? Would that be enough? If it took a million years to become independent, the total colonization time for the entire galaxy would not exceed about 50 million years (small change compared to 2-3 billion years) ... and that's just for one initial colonization point rather than the projected several thousands.

Your position is overwhelmed by numbers. There can be no equilibrium between planets developing and disappearing. Only total colonization is realistic on such time scales with thousands of planets with indigenous populations and given the rate at which planets can be "killed off" by catastrophes.

Hence, as I see it ... if interstellar travel is possible and there are several thousands of alien worlds to start colonizing ... there is only one statistically viable alternative ...

They're heeeerrrre ...

EBTX,

The Fermi paradox depends on many variables of which we still know nothing about, the primary one being the likelihood of intelligent life. We know now that planets seem to be in relative abundance but we do not know whether Earthlike planets are common or not. We do not know how often life develops or how sensitive it is in its initial creation. Life may require that a planet have just the right temperature and be stable for a long time. Further, life intelligent enough to develop technology may be very rare or it may take a form like whales that do not have the physical ability to develop technology. It could very well be the case that intelligent life may develop in only one out of a 1000 galaxies in which case the Fermi argument doesn't hold much water.

How is a civilization like ours to spread throughout the galaxy if we cannot act prudently on dangers that are real and that we know about? We know for a fact that a meteorite strike is a very real possibility and yet we are not galvanized into marshaling the resources of civilization to tackle the problem. A major earthquake in New York City could break both main water lines and force 8 million people into a massive migration to other states. If we are not preparing for such eventualities now what makes you think we will in the future? By the time you know something bad is happening it will often be too late to do anything about it. Previous civilizations often stored food for bad years or insect pestilence where we march merrily along assuming nothing bad is going to happen. To spread indefinitely around the universe involves making a series of crucial life preserving decisions at the right moments to avoid calamity, what do you think are the odds of making all those decisions correctly and with due diligence?

What is the pressure to spread througout the galaxy? If the Sun starts flaring up suddenly it is already too late to start colonizing. After you have examined 10,000 grains of sand on a beach are you going to methodically examine 10 million more or are you going to assume you've learned pretty much all one needs to know about beach sand? The same is true for going to other star systems. It takes far less money to build a giant telescope than it does to travel out to where you are looking.

History has shown that civilizations are limited in their coherency by how far they can effectively communicate. The Roman empire found this out. How far can FTL commuication go and how much power does it take? We don't know. Colonizing other worlds doesn't advance the knowledge of the race unless there is communication and coherence amongst the colonized worlds, otherwise you will just have a colony that cannot advance much further than the parent colony.

Even if FTL travel is possible there may yet be a speed limit imposed by how much abrasion the surface of the spacecraft can take from dust grains impacting at colossal speeds. We may never be able to go fast enough to go to another galaxy and thus insure our eventual doom when our home galaxy dies out.

I agree with you that it may well be technically possible to advance and spread throughout the universe indefinitely but I also agree with Tom in that this involves a civilization making an infinite series of prudent decisions and wise acts at the appropriate moment to continue the game. The odds of doing this indefinitely are pretty slim.

<blockquote id="quote"><font size="2" face="Verdana, Arial, Helvetica" id="quote">quote:<hr height="1" noshade id="quote">What is the pressure to spread througout the galaxy?<hr height="1" noshade id="quote"></blockquote id="quote"></font id="quote">
The "identity" of sentient beings.

Your point of view seems to be that given that it is possible to travel to another solar system, a "normal" planet will just sit on its hands and never go, i.e. if you check in on them every million years or so they'll still be there in their own solar system.

Can we extend your reasoning to this solar system? It means that we can never colonize Mars ... ever ... because it's just too far away. And ... even if we did, they would be forever dependent on Mother Earth because they can't in principle develop far enough to cut the ties that bind ... that is ... if the earth people refused to ever have anything to do with them, they would all just dry up and die.

Let's extend that just to this planet. No one can ever colonize North America because the earth is obviously flat and there's nothing over that way but water anyway ... hence European colonization of America is impossible. Hell, colonization of North Africa by the Romans is impossible because no colony could ever become independent of Rome and would shrivel up without its assistance. Wait a minute! Marriage is impossible too because you can never be independent of yo' mamma. Wait !! Better stay in that womb permanently because you can never develop enough to be physically independent.

You see why Fermi said "Where are they?" now? He clearly understood that there are only three rational possibilities involved. 1) Travel to other solar systems is technically impossible 2) There is nobody else out there 3) The galaxy is already colonized.

Any other position becomes laughable (on inspection) from a statistical standpoint, i.e. if you choose other than one of the above three or a slight variant of the same.

people

are we not making the assumption that an advanced being would find it necessary or desirable to colonize in the first place. sure close to home world at first, this gains experience and knowledge needed for further and farther exploration. but i also see that mental and a physical evolution would also take place with these beings,as have we. machines,computers would also continue to improve as well as other technologies. and i'm sure they could avoid most threats to themselves that are obvious, planet related and space related(supernova's etc. i would think that their sciences are advanced enough to avoid such obvious threats, if not then i find no reason to think that they would or could be called "ADVANCED BEINGS" do you!?) i would find it hard to think that they would be that foolish. possible i suppose but i find extremely unlikely.

perhaps they are looking around or simply find no desire to colonize or there are not as many favorable planets to colonize as one may think and/or the effort to do so is to great and to them not worth trying to. or they may have tried and thought better of it for what ever reason. they also could go around to favorable planets and just plant the seed and see what happens,perhaps this gives them more satisfaction, just watch the seed grow, what will it become?

have they visited here? many leaders on this earth seem to think so ( there is a web site that i went to, that went into this,but i'll be darned if i can remember where it is, although it was from a discussion page on this site,maybe someone will recall.)

for now perhaps just exploring this and perhaps other galaxies is just simply more appealing than worring about colonization,why not, i would certainly find this more appealing, travelling around perhaps landing occssionally on some world,studying various galatic phenomena learning more than they ever could from sitting at home behind a telescope,they could go right up close. i would sure like that!!

i'm also sure that their ships are quite capable of giving them the healthy enviroment they need to survive, as well i'm sure that they could and do improve their ships as they go, over time.

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Your point of view seems to be that given that it is possible to travel to another solar system, a "normal" planet will just sit on its hands and never go, i.e. if you check in on them every million years or so they'll still be there in their own solar system.
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That is not what I said at all. What I said is that expansion needs an incentive because it is expensive and difficult. I also said that the knowledge gained is limited by the communication distance that is practical, problems you seem to dismiss with the wave of a hand.

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Can we extend your reasoning to this solar system? It means that we can never colonize Mars ... ever ... because it's just too far away. And ... even if we did, they would be forever dependent on Mother Earth because they can't in principle develop far enough to cut the ties that bind ... that is ... if the earth people refused to ever have anything to do with them, they would all just dry up and die.
Let's extend that just to this planet. No one can ever colonize North America because the earth is obviously flat and there's nothing over that way but water anyway ... hence European colonization of America is impossible. Hell, colonization of North Africa by the Romans is impossible because no colony could ever become independent of Rome and would shrivel up without its assistance. Wait a minute! Marriage is impossible too because you can never be independent of yo' mamma. Wait !! Better stay in that womb permanently because you can never develop enough to be physically independent.
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Wow! I didn't realize I said all that. Don't you think you are being a little too knee-jerk here? But seriously, did the Roman colonization result in an improved civilization with more knowledge and higher technology? Did the european colonization do the same? Expansion is driven by these forces:

1. Search for wealth. It's very difficult to get wealthy if you can't bring sell your riches for more than what it cost to get them. Unless you develop space warps, transporting your gold from 500 light years distance is going to be problematic.

2. Political freedom. After a couple thousand of stellar systems have been populated almost every kind of government you can imagine will already exist somewhere. The incentive to go farther will depend on other issues.

3. Conquest. This drove Rome but was limited by the communication distance, something you don't seem to think presents a problem.

4. Knowledge. Esoteric and unlikely to drive sufficient numbers of people to create true self-sufficiency, even though you and I value knowledge for its own sake.

5. Survival. Imminent doom or severe natural disaster can drive people elsewhere but it often seems to do so with only the tattered shirt on their back. Historically humans have not shown a great propensity to act soon enough. Survivors may make it to another planet but more likely than not will have lost some or most of their technological base.

Historically 2 and 3 have been the primary drivers of independant colonies

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You see why Fermi said "Where are they?" now? He clearly understood that there are only three rational possibilities involved. 1) Travel to other solar systems is technically impossible 2) There is nobody else out there 3) The galaxy is already colonized.
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I think Fermi ignored about a 100 other problems just are you are doing. You can't tell me the likelihood of intelligent life, if we are the only ones in this particular galaxy then the question is simply answered by saying that we are just beginning, Fermi has to wait a few million years. Or perhaps other intelligent races are developing at about the same time we are and we just haven't expanded into each other.

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Any other position becomes laughable (on inspection) from a statistical standpoint, i.e. if you choose other than one of the above three or a slight variant of the same.
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I think that assuming the likelihood of intelligent life without knowing its true statistical amount and a dozen other yet unproven things is laughable. Science is based on facts, not on speculation. When we've traveled to a hundred other stellar systems and found life in them then we can start speaking with authority about life in the universe. Until then it is just wishful thinking to ASSUME that life is everywhere like in a Star Trek episode. And even if we find life we must find INTELLIGENT life to get the statistic we really need.