From: Giu1i0 Pri5c0 (g2002@prisco.info)
Date: Thu Jun 27 2002 - 12:30:27 MDT
If our best conceptual models of the Universe predicts that it is full with intelligent life, where are they and why we have not seen them yet? This is the Fermi paradox and the paper by John Smart in the Practical Cosmology Symposium of the Journal of evolution and Technology) (http://www.transhumanist.com/) proposes an interesting solution: short after a civilization develops the technology to contact other civilizations and/or expand outwards, it also develops the technology to Transcend: leaving space-time and moving to a more attractive environment, and does so. This scenario has been outlined for example by Greg Egan in Diaspora (the Transmuters).
We can think of a variant (or another formulation) of the same idea: it is more and more frequent to hear suggestions that perhaps our physical universe is a simulation run from "outside". Maybe at some point a civilization develops te technology to escape from the simulation into a more interesting environment.
Despite the interest of this argument I still prefer two other explanations of the Fermi paradox: that we are not able to tune on the galactic communication network because it is based on physics not yet understood, and that superaliens may already be here unseen, maybe encoded in nanomachines. And, of course, there are other possible explanations: that nobody is out there, or that we are the first to develop our current technology level.
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