Posted by Bob on 7/31/2007, 7:29 am, in reply to "Re: Fermi's Paradox, Cosmology, and, Are We Alone?" As he called it, he did not solve the problem, he merely "organized our ignorance." Basically, Fermi's assumption is that life on earth is not a unique event, and that it should occur elsewhere. And if life on earth is headed toward an interstellar capable technology, then much more ancient life elsewhere should already have done so. And if all that is true, then we should find evidence of such advanced civilizations. The fact that we find no such evidence is a problem demanding an explanation. There are a great many possible explanations, but they branch into two divergent main roads: (a) we are alone, and (b) we are not alone. If we are not alone, then we should ask, why can't we detect the advanced interstellar societies? Because there is yet no hard evidence of such societies, there is plenty of room for speculation. But some of those speculations are more plausible than others. Discussion on the topic is an attempt to rank the various suggestions into some order of descending plausibility. Among the least plausible is that we exist only in a computer simulation, and the simulation is designed to model an emerging technological civilization as it would behave in an otherwise sterile universe, thus explaining the lack of evidence for what plausibly should be an already-colonized galaxy. So as you see, one can get quite imaginative, while still attracting serious attention from theorists. As to the question of transmutation of elements, hydrogen is extremely abundant in the universe. However, there is no theoretical barrier to a highly advanced technology transmuting almost any element into a heavier (or even lighter) element. Searching for natural resources would be unneeded by an interstellar society. However, the intellectual resource would be of enormous value. Consider, for example, that the invention of the transistor was almost serendipitous, and the invention of calculus by Newton was a feat that might otherwise even now have eluded mathematicians. We still cannot solve the three body problem, although some other civilization might have formulated it easily. One cannot imagine what questions we might not even have asked, questions which could dramatically alter our capabilities.
72.243.26.154
Of course it's all speculation. Fermi's contribution is that he applied plausible premisses and mathematical discipline to what would other wise be a senseless discussion.
