Barney & Clyde by Gene Weingarten; Dan Weingarten & David Clark for December 14, 2023

Is that a pair of “doctors”?

No, it’s a pair o’ docs.

If they’re psychiatrists, they’ve come to just the right place!

we haven’t made contact, because they’re looking for intelligent life too

I don’t know. If we haven’t been able to reach other planets with intelligent life — because they’re so far away — why should they be able to reach us any faster?

We say that human life on Earth is intelligent. But, what if there are other inhabited planets with beings so intelligent that they make us look like babbling morons.

Then they may very well enslave us… or keep us as amusing pets.

Am I artificial intelligence, or are I intelligence? Maybe we should consider that we are the explorers of the Universe and have been. Making sense of it all isn’t as difficult as it seems.Being mad as a hatter is helpful of course.

As the saying goes, that they haven’t made contact with us proves they’re intelligent.

I didn’t immediately get the joke, “Pair-a-docs”. I thought she was saying that the Research guys were aliens, and I was going to post something like “Naw, they were made in a Lab… Well, one of them was…” ☺

“Intelligence” is difficult to define. But, even with our specie’s particularly convoluted journey to this moment in time, we have only been able to “communicate” off the planet for the smallest sliver of existence.

The probability of intelligent life elsewhere may be greater than I imagine.* But “the vast expanse of this seemingly endless universe” may be more vastly expansive than Duane imagines.

“[G]iven that the volume of the universe is infinite there must be an infinite number of worlds. But not all of them are populated; therefore only a finite number are. Any finite number divided by infinity is zero, therefore the average population of the universe is zero, and so the total population must be zero.” — The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy

Of course, I disagree with Adams on a number of points when it comes to infinity; an infinite number of worlds may contain an infinite number of populated worlds as well as an infinite number of unpopulated worlds; besides which, infinity minus a finite number is still infinity. Also, any finite number divided by infinity is not zero, but an infinitesim; that’s no more finite than infinity, but it’s a non-zero value.

*Actually, I imagine the probability is quite high.

The earth has hosted life for hundreds of millions of years, yet life capable of recognizing a signal from an extraterrestrial source has only existed about 10,000 years, and has only had that ability for about 100 years. So consider all of the planets with life, what percent will have the capacity to probe space? What percent with that capacity will have developed to that point in time to have sent a signal that would reach us by now? Finally, what direction should they send their signal? How strong must it be to reach us? The universe could be rife with human-level intelligences and it is unlikely that we would ever meet.

The Fermi Paradox is not by Fermi, nor is it a paradox which is defined as a logical contradiction.

From Scientific American: “Enrico Fermi, a Nobel prizewinner who built the first nuclear reactor, never published a word on the subject of extraterrestrials.”

As for the paradox, there is none…. There is no logical contradiction between the statement “E.T. might exist elsewhere” and the statement “E.T. is not here”

The article: https://blogs.scientificamerican.Com/guest-blog/the-fermi-paradox-is-not-fermi-s-and-it-is-not-a-paradox/

It amazes me that individual countries all seem to have distinct languages, of which… I only speak and understand one!!

We haven’t even achieved interplanetary travel yet. By some measure, we are fairly primitive. It’s entirely possible that any advanced civilization wouldn’t consider us advanced enough to make contact with, yet.

It’s also possible that some advanced civilization HAS attempted to contact us, but we are too technologically primitive to have recognized it and responded.

And some scientists have suggested that, despite our wishful literature and media, it is possible that there in fact is no technological solution to the problem of the vast distances of interstellar space. Despite our visions of “warp drive” or “hyperdrive” or whatever, it may be that the dream of faster-than-light travel, or even near-light-speed travel, may be impossible for even the most advanced worlds. So even if they wanted to visit us, only multi-generational space missions would have any chance of success.

Actually it is not a paradox. Distances in the cosmos are so vast that it would be nearly impossible for anything consisting of matter or energy ever to travel here. Einstein’s “E” is a genuinely effective speed limit, and “Warp Drive” is a concept that exists only in science fiction, not the real world. Even our radio waves that are able to penetrate the ionosphere have only gotten about 90 light years away since we first started to emit them and they are so chaotic that it is unlikely that they would be recognizable as a sign of life, so they aren’t much of a draw.

It is almost certain that there are nearly infinite numbers of planets that can and do support life, and much of that life is undoubtedly more advanced than ours. But none of them have ever come here and we are never going to get there.

The so-called Fermi paradox is nothing of the kind,

With lots of refutations crossing many people’s minds.

Enrico Fermi never meant or published it that way.

Three people just reported what he happened once to say:

He figured that the reason that we haven’t met ETs

Is interstellar travel can’t be done, at least with ease.

That isn’t claiming aliens with smarts must not exist.

The notion he concluded such a thing should be dismissed.

One Michael Hart, astronomer, first put the thought in print

Some 25 years later, saying we should take a hint

And not spend time and money on a search for brainy life.

The Drake equation did suggest the galaxy was rife,

But physicist Frank Tipler would elaborate on Hart:

If no one else has visited, then no one else is smart.

I find this far from cogent; while we may yet be alone,

With space so vast and vacant, even radio and drones

Might never reach humanity, assuming they would try.

(Our SETI does more listening than signals saying hi.)

Perhaps the other species aren’t colonial like us.

Our history’s destructive, so they may not want the fuss.

They might be so unlike us that we hardly could connect.

They might have come already, merely tricky to detect.

There is no contradiction in the premises involved,

And thus it’s not a paradox; consider it resolved.

—me

Nobody knows if intelligent life is likely.