Aliens

I believe alien life is quite common in the universe, although intelligent life is less so. ~Stephen Hawking

 

The Fermi Paradox

The Fermi Paradox is the idea that if advanced extraterrestrial life exists, we would have seen it by now.

FIrst of all, who says we havent? Photographs, sightings, and videos have existed for decades, including recent official releases of evidence from the US government itself.

But more to the point, the argument that we have to see it for it to exist is infantile at best, especially when one considers the number of things humans couldn't see (or measure) until recently, and yet fully existed anyway (germs, radio waves, etc). 

A century ago, the overwhelming majority of scientists and scholars agreed that Pandas were only folklore, so I guess that settled that. 

Folklore:

 

Secondly, we have no reason to believe that we would be able to see/detect/recognize technology advanced to the point of intergalactic travel. We have yet to see everything that lives in our own oceans, but somehow we're capable of recognizing super-advanced lifeforms?

A century ago, the overwhelming majority of scientists and scholars agreed that the Coelacanth went extinct 66 million years ago. Case closed.

Definitely Not A Real, Living Thing:

So for every PhD who says alien life doesn't exist because they don't park on the Whitehouse lawn, there is at least one large, fluffy raccoon and a stubby-limbed fish that needs to just stop existing already, because academia has had enough of that sort of tomfoolery. Oh for the Ptolemaic Model of it all!

In short, the Fermi Paradox is at best a middle-school thought experiment, and at worst, something to laugh about at lunch with your friends. In either case, its flawed reasoning should have been laughed out of serious discourse a long time ago. It is a cudgel used by elitist intelligentsia to bludgeon average people into accepting their opinions without question.

But don't take my word for it. Ask the overwhelming majority of scientists and scholars who said the komodo dragon wasn't real.

Conspiracy Theorist:

Any scientist worth their labcoat should be capable of setting aside their ego for just long enough to admit that we are most certainly not at the pinnacle of All Knowing. We understand a very great deal - but so did our predecessors. They, like us, were limited by the age in which they lived.

Any difference perceived between us and them is vanity.

The Drake Equation

There may be aliens in our Milky Way galaxy, and there are billions of other galaxies. The probability is almost certain that there is life somewhere in space. ~ Buzz Aldrin

 

The Drake equation is a probabilistic argument used to estimate the number of active, communicative extraterrestrial civilizations in the Milky Way Galaxy. -- Wikipedia

The equation was formulated in 1961 by Frank Drake, not for purposes of quantifying the number of civilizations, but as a way to stimulate scientific dialogue at the first scientific meeting on the search for extraterrestrial intelligence (SETI). The equation summarizes the main concepts which scientists must contemplate when considering the question of other radio-communicative life^. It is more properly thought of as an approximation than as a serious attempt to determine a precise number.

In essence, the Drake Equation is a real-world, hands-on method of actually looking at how many advanced civilizations might be out there.

If you're interested in giving it a try, you can find an online Drake Equation computer right here.

The really fascinating thing about the Drake Equation, and the reason we've mentioned it, is that it presents a tangible number of alien civilizations through the lens of pure, unopinionated mathematics.

Are they out there? Certainly.

You don't have to want to believe; we are not alone. The math backs it up.

 

 

What Now and Who Cares?

My folks came to the U.S. as aliens and became citizens. I was born in Boston, a citizen, went to Hollywood, and became an alien.  ~Leonard Nimoy

 

The concept of advanced civilizations and alien life really only affects Simulation Theory from the standpoint of speculation over who (or what) made us.

That we may share a virtual reality with other programmed entities doesn't really have anything to do with us one way or another - any more so than the other millions of forms of life that we already know of. If we are in a training scenario, it seems pointless to have super ETs engage us in battle or try to annihilate us - that would only bog down the simulation and keep it from producing viable AI, so it seems safe to assume that though we may see them, and perhaps one day even communicate, we are not going to be destroyed by monsters from space.

As to why they exist in the simulation at all is anyone's guess. Maybe they are AIs just like us, only further along in the training scenario. Maybe they're here to keep us on our toes, as in The Monsters Are Due On Maple Street. Who knows. But for our part, Thea Apo Mesa recognizes the existence of advanced, non-human civilizations, both on and off world, and welcomes them to join us in the Discussion Group lol.