Posted by James on 7/31/2007, 7:51 am, in reply to "Re: Fermi's Paradox, Cosmology, and, Are We Alone?" The problem with Fermi's hypothesis is that we do not know whether or not there is any much more ancient life elsewhere in the universe, nor what sorts of hardships they may have faced. There is too much uncertainty involved to make that assumption. "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." Any society advanced enough to transmute elements would still have need to colonize for resources, because even with transmutation, there is still not a limitless supply of elements for usage. Assuming a society has reached that level of technology, we can safely assume that medical technology will have also increased exponentially, thereby vastly increasing the average lifespan of individuals within that society. Assuming that reproduction would not stop altogether, which is highly unlikely as that could eventually lead to extermination, we can then assume an exponential population expansion similar to what we have seen on earth with advances in medical technology. This would add another restraint to their resources, that even transmutation technology could not fully provide without expansion and colonization into areas with more resources due to the simple fact that resources in any given area are nowhere near limitless, plus the already established uses for many elements would add another constraint to the amount of resources available to transmute. Put rather simply, the existence of transmutation technology would not fulfill the raw resource needs of any civilization advanced enough to transmute elements for more than a relatively short period of their existence. Thus, colonization would still be a necessity. Granting everything thus far in this discussion, I still find your boiling down of the possibilities to two that are most probable as overly simplistic given the incredible amount of uncertainty in this particular field. Before making statements anywhere near the certainty level you gave in the opening posts, I will need a lot more observational evidence.
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"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."
