Several explanations for the Fermi paradox

Since ancient times, the distant starry sky has always fascinated people, and in that unknown realm, all strangers' things make people curious. Mankind's exploration of the Earth has been on the way, and the exploration of space is also endless. How to better explain various astronomical phenomena must be the meaning that everyone keeps pursuing.

We are staring at space, and space is staring at us. Where do I come from? Where am I going? This is a philosophical question and a question to be explored deeply. Three conjectures about Fermi's paradox, about the test of the filter, could it prove that humans are alone.

Fermi's Paradox

Both aliens and unidentified flying objects are invariably curious to mankind. When the astronomical telescope was invented and mankind got closer to space, new worlds were observed as if they were pioneering.

The planets of the solar system orbit around the sun instead of the earth, and there is a galaxy beyond the solar system and a wider universe beyond the galaxy. The more we think about it, the more we feel the smallness of the Earth and the insignificance of human beings.

In the 1950s, the scientist Fermi asked the question, "Where are we?" As a great physicist and the most famous Italian scientist after Galileo, Fermi's question was undoubtedly a reflection on life.

Fermi proposed three conjectures, one is that aliens do not exist; the second is that aliens exist, but there is no way to get in touch with them, and the third is that aliens exist and have found humans, only that humans are not yet aware of them. The brainy conjecture, although there is no way to corroborate it now, has been endorsed by many people.

The Great Filter

Robin believes that mankind has studied the universe for many years, but has never found any signs of biological survival outside the Earth, so look, it is as if mankind is the loneliest member of the universe. On the contrary, if one day evidence of extraterrestrial life is found, it will be a historical breakthrough.

Robin, an economics professor who has been working on the future of humanity, proposed an explanation for the Fermi paradox in the 1990s, known as the "Great Filter".

According to Robin, there is something unknown that prevents life from developing, and the probability of getting through it is so low that many civilizations fail to get through and suffer destruction. If intelligent life is intelligent, it must have undergone various key developments, and in the process must have experienced obstacles, which represent the end of life and civilization and regression.

When the great filter may appear

The filter argument holds that to become advanced intelligent life there must be a home planet that can provide a place to reproduce and spread. Life evolved from single-celled organisms to multicellular organisms, and on top of that evolved again and again before slowly forming a civilization of our own.

Sophisticated creatures invented and used various tools, and then in this way increased their level of survival and achieved industrial civilization.

The invention of tools and technological advances, as well as the spirit of exploration, in turn, gave rise to the technology of space travel, on top of which came the opportunity to leave their planet and learn about other planets. Finally, launching wars against other planets and conquering them, which was done only to avoid self-destruction, eventually led to mass colonization.

Today, mankind is still stuck at the step of achieving space travel. Although over the years substantial breakthroughs have been made in the development of space technology and human exploration has covered more and more places, today there is no response to the signals sent by radio telescopes and the like.

Faced with such a fact, we have reason to believe that the possibility of the existence of extraterrestrial intelligent life is slim.

Before that, some people compared the Great Filter to a barrier and thought that it might appear at some future stage. If the filter appears at an earlier stage, then the existence of humans is a successful outcome because it breaks through the filter.

If the filter appears at a later stage, it means that there may be intelligent beings that are more advanced than humans, who are far more developed than us but did not go farther because they were eventually filtered out by the filter.

In other words, extinction could be at some point in the future. No one is an exception in the evolution of civilization, and we too may be filtered out.

Do extraterrestrials exist?

Regarding the claim that extraterrestrial life exists, some scientists believe that the lack of discovery is good news. If life is found on any planet, this is not necessarily good news for humanity, but rather changes the possibility of the existence of the Great Filter.

If the test of the Great Filter is in our future, it may have filtered out some other civilizations, so we have not found alien life so far. Conversely, if the Great Filter is still in place, it means that humans are probably the most intelligent life and that another life that has emerged is only in its early stages.

After the Big Bang, we developed faster than other planets, so, understandably, no other civilizations have been found.

The Great Filter, if in the future we pass through it, would mean the triumph of human life. Faced with such a dilemma, only success is allowed, not failure or humanity will face the abyss. Only by cracking the Great Filter will we have a chance to become the most advanced civilization.

There may be only two results: one, humans may be alone and unique; the other, humans are not unique and there are other beings. No matter which outcome it is, it is quite scary to think about.

We have been trying to find the possibility of the existence of extraterrestrial life trying to prove that we are not alone. Unbeknownst to us, we may be a tiny one in the vast universe, living quietly in an unknown corner.