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Category: alien life – Page 19

How optimistic.

First, a little background. With 200 billion trillion (ish) stars in the universe and 13.7 billion years that have elapsed since it all began, you might be wondering where all the alien civilizations are at. This is the basic question behind the Fermi paradox, the tension between our suspicions of the potential for life in the universe (given planets found in habitable zones, etc) and the fact that we have only found one planet with an intelligent (ish) species inhabiting it.

One solution, or at least a way of thinking about the problem, is known as the Great Filter. Proposed by Robin Hanson of the Future of Humanity Institute at Oxford University, the argument goes that given the lack of observed technologically advanced alien civilizations, there must be a great barrier to the development of life or civilization that prevents them from getting to a stage where they are making big, detectable impacts on their environment that we can witness from Earth.

There could be other reasons why we haven’t heard from aliens yet, ranging from us simply not listening for long enough (or not searching for the right signals from aliens, due to our technological immaturity) to aliens deliberately keeping us in a galactic zoo. But if the Great Filter idea is correct, we don’t know what point we are at along it.

Continue reading “New Solution To The Fermi Paradox Suggests The Great Filter Is Nearly Upon Us” | >

If the deep laws of the universe had been ever so slightly different human beings wouldn’t, and couldn’t, exist. All explanations of this exquisite fine-tuning, obvious and not-so-obvious, have problems or complexities. Natural or supernatural, that is the question.

Free access to Closer to Truth’s library of 5,000 videos: http://bit.ly/376lkKN

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Lee Smolin is an American theoretical physicist, a researcher at the Perimeter Institute for Theoretical Physics, and an adjunct professor of physics at the University of Waterloo. He is best known for his work in loop quantum gravity.

Continue reading “Lee Smolin — Is the Universe Fine-Tuned for Life and Mind?” | >

Could life be found in frozen sea spray from moons orbiting Saturn or Jupiter? New research finds that life can be detected in a single ice grain containing one bacterial cell or portions of a cell. The results suggest that if life similar to that on Earth exists on these planetary bodies, that this life should be detectable by instruments launching in the fall.

The ice-encrusted oceans of some of the moons orbiting Saturn and Jupiter are leading candidates in the search for extraterrestrial life. A new lab-based study led by the University of Washington in Seattle and the Freie Universität Berlin shows that individual ice grains ejected from these planetary bodies may contain enough material for instruments headed there in the fall to detect signs of life, if such life exists.

“For the first time we have shown that even a tiny fraction of cellular material could be identified by a mass spectrometer onboard a spacecraft,” said lead author Fabian Klenner, a UW postdoctoral researcher in Earth and space sciences. “Our results give us more confidence that using upcoming instruments, we will be able to detect lifeforms similar to those on Earth, which we increasingly believe could be present on ocean-bearing moons.”

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Artificial Intelligence is making its presence felt in thousands of different ways. It helps scientists make sense of vast troves of data; it helps detect financial fraud; it drives our cars; it feeds us music suggestions; its chatbots drive us crazy. And it’s only getting started.

Are we capable of understanding how quickly AI will continue to develop? And if the answer is no, does that constitute the Great Filter?

The Fermi Paradox is the discrepancy between the apparent high likelihood of advanced civilizations existing and the total lack of evidence that they do exist. Many solutions have been proposed for why the discrepancy exists. One of the ideas is the ‘Great Filter.’

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If there is life in the solar system beyond Earth, it might be found in the clouds of Venus. In contrast to the planet’s blisteringly inhospitable surface, Venus’ cloud layer, which extends from 30 to 40 miles above the surface, hosts milder temperatures that could support some extreme forms of life.

If it’s out there, scientists have assumed that any Venusian cloud inhabitant would look very different from life forms on Earth. That’s because the clouds themselves are made from highly toxic droplets of sulfuric acid—an intensely corrosive chemical that is known to dissolve metals and destroy most biological molecules on Earth.

But a new study by MIT researchers may challenge that assumption. Published today in the journal Astrobiology, the study reports that, in fact, some key building blocks of life can persist in solutions of concentrated sulfuric acid.

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The advanced civilization in my story have harnessed the power of many of the stars in their galaxy and using them for different purposes, one being Matrioska brains. Some of these super computers will be to run the AI in the real world as well as for other calculations, Others will be to run detailed virtual worlds. The earliest Simulations will be Computer simulated worlds with artifical life within but later the advanced species will try to create simulations to the subatomic level.

It has been stated that a Matrioshka brain with the full output of the sun can simulate 1 trillion to a quadrillion minds, how this translates to how much world/simulation space can exist and to what detail i am not sure. I believe our sun’s output per second is $3.86 \cdot 10^{26}$ W and our galaxies is $4\cdot 10^{58} \ W/s$, although with 400 billions stars in our galaxy I am not sure how of that energy is from other sources than the stars.

If we look past the uncertainty of subatomic partcles we have $10^{80}$ particles in a space of $10^{185}$ plank volumes in our observable universe, if we use time frames of $10^{-13}$ seconds this gives $10^{13}$ time frames per real second. With $10^{80}$ particles we can have $10^{160}$ interactions for a full simulation but a simulation where only the observed/ observable details needs to be simulated can run off much less computing.

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The Sun emitted a strong solar flare, peaking at 4:56 p.m. ET on March 28, 2024. NASA

Established in 1958, the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) is an independent agency of the United States Federal Government that succeeded the National Advisory Committee for Aeronautics (NACA). It is responsible for the civilian space program, as well as aeronautics and aerospace research. Its vision is “To discover and expand knowledge for the benefit of humanity.” Its core values are “safety, integrity, teamwork, excellence, and inclusion.” NASA conducts research, develops technology and launches missions to explore and study Earth, the solar system, and the universe beyond. It also works to advance the state of knowledge in a wide range of scientific fields, including Earth and space science, planetary science, astrophysics, and heliophysics, and it collaborates with private companies and international partners to achieve its goals.

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