Why Life On Mars May Foretell Our Doom

Hugh Pickens writes "Nick Bostrom has an interesting interpretation on why the failure of the Search for Extra-Terrestrial Intelligence (SETI) for the past half-century is good news and why the discovery of life on Mars could foretell our doom. Bostrom postulates a 'Great Filter,' which can be thought of as a probability barrier and consists of one or more evolutionary transitions or steps that must be traversed at great odds in order for an Earth-like planet to produce a civilization capable of exploring distant solar systems."

Ignores possibility of the Singularity

[jmorris42]

The guy dismisses the possibility that most civilizations evolve in some direction other than midlessly colonizing every star they can reach.

After all our own civilization has pretty much lost interest in anything beyond putting up more geostationary TV transmitters.

What if most evolve beyond physical forms? What if most lose themselves in virtual realities. What if many simply don't bother leaving their own solar system because the speed of light proves to be unbreakable and they aren't interested in planting colonies that will have little or no contact or impact on their own civilization?

Or what if we just got lucky and got a galaxy to ourselves?

Re:R'd T F A

[defile39]

But he doesn't really address the possibility that there will be sufficient advanced life to "deal with" the advanced life trying to bring havoc to innocent blue-green balls. If you do expand the Drake equation thusly, you must also account for advanced civilizations interacting with advanced civilizations. What is the probability of an intergalactic ethic forming versus an intergalactic ethic not forming? Frankly, based on the fact that developing technology to the point of intergalactic travel requires social stability on your home world, I would think the balance favors HAVING an intergalactic ethic.

Re:Or...

[RatBastard]

There aren't that many ways to perceive the world around you. There are a limited number of information vectors out there.

And SETI is searching a narrow range because the frequencies outside that range get garbled in the interstellar noise.

Re:Or...

[ChronoReverse]

That would imply a entire universe subset that isn't available to our senses nor even hinted on the possibility of how we could even potentially sense.

If true, then they wouldn't matter since we wouldn't be able to interact anyway.

Time.

[Anonymous Coward]

Maybe the so-called "great filter" is just time? We're viewing the universe as it was millions of years ago, for the most part, and maybe the rest of the universe is just like us in terms of the scale of time required to achieve complex space travel.

He ignores DISTANCE.

[khasim]

So if we find trilobites on Mars ... Mankind is doomed.

Because the trilobites couldn't find a way to get to the sweet Earth oceans before Mars dried up on them. And, therefore, there is a "Great Filter" that prevents us from colonizing the galaxy.

WTF ?!?

The "Great Filter" is DISTANCE. It takes a LONG TIME and a LOT OF ENERGY to travel from one solar system to the next. Extrapolating our demise from the failure of a bunch of imaginary trilobites' space program is ... beyond stupid.

The galaxy is HUGE. Even if there are 100 billion stars in it, we'd have to cross HALF A GALAXY to get to 50 billion of them.

Re:Ignores possibility of the Singularity

[Jordan ez]

Those are all 'bad filters' as Bostrom would say. Some civilizations may opt to stay in their home system, but it only takes a single civilization to colonize the galaxy, and really, it only takes a single person from a single civilization. I'll be the first to say, if we are all alone in the galaxy and mankind colonizes the solar system but is too lazy too go forward: screw you all, the galaxy is mine.

I can explain the flaw easier.

[khasim]

Suppose we find trilobite skeletons on Mars ... and the next day an alien ship enters our system. In his work, those two are contradictory events. They cannot happen in the same universe. But there are all kinds of ways they COULD happen.

So his theory is flawed.

Now, whether a million years is significant or not ...

It is not in the entire history of Life.

It is VERY significant in the history of any single species.

You assume that such civilization would instantly launch a ship to each and every star and that none of those ships would have problems in the million year long flight. Although many ships would have to cross our galactic core.

Rather, a civilization would colonize the area around it ... develop that area ... and then move out from that fringe in X years. So you would have a new fringe area every X years. And X would (given human life spans) be a few thousand years. Just long enough to get the colony's population up to where it could build a space program of its own.

Re:R'd T F A

[CrimsonAvenger]

I would think the balance favors HAVING an intergalactic ethic.

No doubt. Of course, there's nothing about the concept of "ethic" that implies "We'll let you live out your pathetic lives peacefully on your planet, instead of building an Interstellar Bypass through it."

Remember, the Azteca had Ethics too.

"ethic" != "nice"

Any life on Mars in also on Earth

[mbone]

Mars is too close to us to say much about exobiology IMHO. The Earth and Mars have been exchanging tons of biologically active material for their entire existence (large meteor strikes cause material to be ejected to escape velocity, and some small fraction of that will be treated gently enough not to kill any bacteria).

So, there is is likely to be life on Mars, and it is likely to be pretty similar to some life on Earth, proving nothing on the big question of where is everybody.

Re:Ignores possibility of the Singularity

[OldSoldier]

If the civilization lives, say, 200 million light years away, it could have been making a beeline for us since the beginning of mankind and still not be anywhere near reaching us.

Most of TFA surrounded life in our galaxy. 200 million light years away is VASTLY bigger than our galaxy. It is a region of space that contains perhaps 1000 galaxies. Our galaxy, in contrast is about 100,000 light years wide.

On the other hand I do disagree with TFA that intergalactic colonization will ever be possible, essentially for the argument you may have inadvertently expressed above. Intergalactically the distances are too vast. But galactically not so much on the time scales he's talking about.

Re:Fermi Paradox

[element-o.p.]

It kind of seems to me like we're the folks on the wrong side of town. If you were an advanced race of creatures, would you really want to drop in and say "hi" to the species that has nuclear capability, but just barely the restraint not to exercise it, and that thinks that pumping noxious chemicals into the environment is a good thing?

I'd wait until the human race grows up a little before I came knocking on the door...that is, if I didn't already live here myself.

Re:Ignores possibility of the Singularity

[LurkerXXX]

You are still making a lot of assumptions in your theory.

1) What if they already mapped our solar system a billion years ago, and it just wasn't to their taste. You assume there is something great about our solar system that they'd want to hang around. What if they like 7G's of gravity with a methane atmosphere and liquid water surface? We don't might not have any planets that are to their particular taste, so they moved on from this wasteland of a solar system.

2) What if they mapped it out, but it wasn't quite right then? Maybe they dropped off seeds to kick off life on earth. Maybe they started some 'terraforming' on some planet, say Mars, that has changed it's atmosphere, but they just haven't come back yet to move in to the changed digs?

3) Maybe it takes a hell of a lot of resources to make a generation ship needed for travel, and they take much longer to produce than you think, or aren't made at a lot of the 'destination' planets because it would use too much resources. In any case, exploration may take a lot longer than you think it should for them.

4) We've likely only been 'advanced' enough to be interesting to talk to (if we actually are yet) for maybe a few thousand years. That's a tiny, tiny, tiny amount of time on the galactic scale. If their nearest inhabited planet is a few hundred light years away, why would they waste resources sending a ship to say hi to some funny looking monkeys?

You're still thinking on the planetary scale.

[khasim]

Consider the US, the European colonies didn't have to start over again and build up from the stone age.

That is correct. But when you're talking inter-stellar distances, it is meaningless.

Our previous colonies could look forward to resupplies within a couple of years (at the most). A colony in another solar system ... your great-great-grandkids MIGHT see the resupply ship. You are on your own.

And THAT is even considering that you're on an Earth-clone planet. If you're on a space station (the way I believe it would work) then you're in even greater danger of dying out before help gets there.

The problem with our being alone in our galaxy is that it is improbable, without some limiting factor on space faring civilizations (read: a Great Filter).

No, it is very easy to understand when you understand the DISTANCES involved.

Even if we assume that it takes them 10,000 years to push 1 light year closer to us, and they happen to be at the exact opposite side of the galaxy from us, they should have been here 2 billion years ago.

Why? You are stating their starting time as if it were a fact.

IF species X started at location Y, Z years ago.

And IF species X traveled A lightyears every B years.

THEN species X would be at location C by date D.

Assuming no problems were encountered.

That species X is NOT at location C ... that must mean ... anything. It can mean ANYTHING. From us being the only ones to inter-stellar battles to species X stopping before they got here to ... anything. And if you actually look at the only case we have available (us), you can see that we haven't died, yet we HAVE stopped seeking to expand.

And his theory is SO flawed that if we don't expand, that means that there IS a "Great Filter".

And if we die out and are replaced by intelligent dolphins, they they won't expand because of the "Great Filter" except that THEIR "Great Filter" will be completely different than ours. And so on and so forth.

Which kind of negates the "Great" aspect of the "Great Filter". Because there is not a SINGLE "filter" that would apply to both cases.

What if interstellar travel IS the great filter?

[The Famous Druid]

The author doesn't consider the possibility that interstellar travel is prohibitively difficult.

It may be, for example, that a minimal interstellar expedition costs 20 years production of the entire civilization.
That's a lot of effort to put into finding out that the neighboring star system consists of dead rocks, and even if we're lucky and find a habitable planet, it's our great-to-the-nth grandchildren who will reap the benefit.

Can you really see any human civilization taking such an enormous gamble? What politician is going to tell the people "You'll have to pay 20% more tax for the next 100 years, because I want to send a probe to Alpha Centauri, which is probably a dead rock, but our great-great-great-great grandchildren will be very interested in the result" ?

If a lunatic dictator did embark on such a folly, would his successor, and his successor, share his monomania?
It only takes one politician in a century tp see some advantage in offering the people a huge tax cut, and the project would lapse.

Re:Ignores possibility of the Singularity

[Anonymous Coward]

Who designed the designer?