The unimaginable size of the Universe has long made scientists to believe in an almost endless profusion of habitable worlds in it. If so, where is actually everybody? In General, this is the whole point of the so-called Fermi paradox – the puzzling scientific anomaly, indicating the absence of visible traces of alien civilizations, which would spread throughout the Universe over billions of years of development. Only one in our galaxy, the milky Way has according to various estimates, several billion stars, but we still not found any evidence of the existence of aliens. Actually, why not?
Formulated several decades ago, the paradox has puzzled many generations of scientists and thinkers. Hypotheses have been put forward that the aliens are just “asleep”, thus not showing any signs of its activities. Others have suggested that technological development of alien civilizations is hampered due to some unknown factors. Or maybe they just don’t want to communicate with us and hiding its presence?
However, theoretical physics Alexander Berezin from the National research University “Moscow Institute of electronic technology” has an opinion about why we are still alone in the Universe. In the work entitled “First in, last out” (“First in – last out”), present which is on the website arXiv.org and evaluation by other scientists, Berezin has the solution to the Fermi paradox. Berezin himself calls it “trivial, not with some controversial assumptions”, but at the same time “difficult to accept, because it predicts the future that awaits our own civilization. And this future will be a terrible extinction.”
In their work, Berezin notes that the main problem of the previously proposed solutions to the Fermi paradox stems from the fact that they’re all too narrow a range of possible types of extraterrestrial life.
“Any particular nature of civilizations, reaching the interstellar level, generally should be ignored, as it plays no role,” says Berezin.
“They can be biological organisms like us, for example, or artificial intelligences who rebelled against their creators, or even the quintessence of collective intelligence on a planetary level, as the one that was described by Stanislaw LEM in “Solaris””.
But even with such diversity we still see no signs of the existence of other civilizations in the vastness of space. However, according to the Berezina, the only parameter that must be considered to resolve the paradox, from the point of view of the definition of extraterrestrial life – are our capabilities in the detection of the existence of this life.
“The only variable that we are able to objectively measure it is possible, at what distance we are able to determine the existence of life in space from Earth,” says Berezin.
“For simplicity, let’s call it “parameter As””.
If intelligent extraterrestrial civilization for some reason are unable to achieve the desired “parameter And the” not developed ways of interstellar travel, communication, or other ways to show the rest of the cosmos its existence, it will continue to exist, but will not help us in solving the paradox.
The real solution to the Fermi paradox, proposed by Berezin, follows a rather bleak scenario.
“Actually, why are we so sure that the first live view that has achieved the ability of interstellar travel, not be in favor of its further expansion to destroy all discovered on his way “competing” civilization?”, — asks Berezin.
Readers familiar with the novel by Douglas Adams “Hitchhiker’s guide to the Galaxy” might remember the incident, which laid the Foundation for the entire plot. There is one kind of very advanced aliens decided to build an intergalactic highway straight through the place where is our Land, not caring about life, which can it to exist.
Berezin explains that this is just a guess. The scientist notes that advanced civilization can destroy other life forms not consciously. Literally do not even knowing it.
“They can do it by accident and not even notice it. We also did not notice how destructible the same anthill when the construction of the road? We don’t even think about it.”
No, Berezin says that we are the ants and the reason we haven’t found extraterrestrial civilizations, is that they have not yet decided to build through us a new road. On the contrary, the scientist believes that in the future we ourselves become destroyers of worlds that are looking for all this time.
“If we assume that the hypothesis is true, then what kind of future awaits us?”
“The only solution is to turn to the anthropic principle. We will become the first who will come out on an interstellar level. And probably the last one to complete my existence.”
Again, such potential destruction of all life on the path of expansion does not have to be pre-designed and organized – this may be the result of a larger system — something that defies any attempt to control the process.
As an example, Berezin leads the capitalism of free competition, and as the other artificial intelligence that is not restricted to granted him power.
“Just one evil AI will potentially be able to settle the whole supercluster copies of himself, turning every solar system into a kind of collective supercomputer. And here it makes no sense to ask about why he has to do,” says Berezin.
“The answer is obvious: because he can.”
According to the Berezina, we can become winners in a deadly competition, the participation in which does not even suspect. Moreover, we are the answer to the paradox. We, our species is to those who inhabit the entire Universe, destroying anything that gets in the way. To exclude this possibility it is impossible, says Berezin, because to stop this process “would require the existence of forces much greater than simple freedom.”
Berezin himself admits that he hopes that is mistaken in his assumption.
“The only way to find out the truth, to continue to explore the Universe hoping to find another life,” the scientist said.
Although from all the above, some will surely conclude that this might not be the wisest way forward.
Russian scientist offered a grim explanation of the Fermi paradox
Nikolai Khizhnyak