So you know the Great Filter, right?

It’s what happens when you look up at the stars and ask “Where the fuck is everyone”.

There are so many planets out there, yet it’s radio silent. The intelligent life to planet ratio is really, bad. So far we’re the only ones.

You gotta ask, why?

Enter, the Great Filter. Something, at some point in the pipeline, prevents planets from developing and maintaining intelligent life capable of electromagnetic communication.

We don’t know what it is. Maybe it’s a quirk of chemistry that makes the chance of multicellular life forming ridiculously low. Maybe it’s a quirk of biology that makes sapience incredibly rare. Maybe it’s a hyper intelligent space worm that eats any civilisation that makes too much noise. Maybe it’s runaway climate change.

The thing is, we really don’t want to be on the wrong side of that filter, because that suggests that an imminent demise is in our civilisation’s future. And with every discovery of non-intelligent life on other planets, it becomes increasingly likely that we’re on the wrong side of that filter.

Enter, the recent discovery of life on Venus. It means that we’re much more likely to be on the wrong side.

But, watching that debate tonight, I began to feel a sense of relief. At least if we’re on the wrong side of the filter, it’s not as though we’re wasting a once-in-a-galaxy chance. We’re just yet another civilisation that failed to get past that filter. I can live with being unexceptionally mediocre.

  • poster [none/use name]
    ·
    4 years ago

    Do you think there could be life for millions of years without evolution?

    Or did you mean that life doesn't necessarily progress to building complicated machines? What other progression would it take?

      • poster [none/use name]
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        4 years ago

        I'm not confused about the details of evolution, nor am I elevating humanity in particular as better than other life. I'm trying to figure out what happens after evolution.

        The universe is a big sandbox where anything that doesn't violate the laws of physics is possible. Life is probably abundant, and evolution is just how life changes where it exists (allow me the liberty of this definition). The more interesting thing to me, what I'm trying to talk about, is what happens to break out of evolution being the driving force of change on a planet to something else being a greater factor. It took 3.5 billion years for life to get to where we are now, and in the last 100k years we have changed from evolution being the driving force behind human development to technological progress taking over that role.

        If evolution doesn't produce a technology-developing organism, that is the boring case. How are you going to send radio signals/explore the galaxy with biological evolution only? Of course the life can still be there, but it's trapped on the planet.

        I don't know that I have a point, just getting some thoughts down. Thanks for your critique, I don't know where to take this discussion but I'll check out your reference and next time I'll try to be more convincing that I understand evolution.