Do You Need to Explain the Fermi Paradox?

[J Riff]

Mars wasn't teeming? Sure 'twas. Much bigger lifeforms than here, fabulous incredible place, what? 5 million years back... the Martian Dinos make T Rex look like Barney.

 

[Sapheron]

5 million years is practically yesterday in geological time. If you want it to be believable, I'd at least say it was a few hundred million...

Anywho. Vertigo, you speak as though you know for sure that the solar isn't isn't teeming with life. Don't you think you're jumping the gun a little? We haven't found any yet, and admittedly the chances decrease the longer that trend continues, but how much of the solar system have we actually searched? I don't think the odd little camera on Luna, Mars and Venus counts as a full search, nor does a satellite making a distant flyby of one of the outer planets and their many moons.

The first men to go into the deep ocean did not find life (at least, not much of it), nor did the first people to dig deep into the Earth's crust, yet years later (decades on the crust side of things), life was indeed found in places and ways that had not been previously imagined. For example, my arsenic tolerant microbe was one of these late finds, and a new form of life with characteristics that had, before that, been thought impossible.

In the same way, could we predict the forms of life that would live on Mars? What might be there, hidden under the ground, floating in the sky, buried within the icecaps? What wonders swim around in the groundwater, far from any human disturbance?

That's only Mars; I'm sure anything living even further from Earth (except maybe one or two moons) would have to be even weirder and wackier.

So who knows? Some postulate that even up to 60% of the Earth's biomass is more than a hundred metres below my feet. Perhaps they are right (though I doubt it). In the same way, perhaps in a hundred years time it will be proposed that 60% of the solar systems biomass is actually not on Earth, and the chances of the crazy theory of one nut actually turning out to be true could be quite similiar.

In case the lot of that was too difficult to read (I definately struggle to re-read most of it, but that may simply be the effects of exams), I am essentially saying; we don't have a bloody clue.

 

[Vertigo]

Mars wasn't teeming? Sure 'twas. Much bigger lifeforms than here, fabulous incredible place, what? 5 million years back... the Martian Dinos make T Rex look like Barney.

Well that might actually be true seeing as how Mars' gravity is significantly lower then Earth's!

However the point still stands that it is not teeming throughout the solar system now. Which suggests life is not as robust at surviving anywhere as you suggest.

 

[Vertigo]

5 million years is practically yesterday in geological time. If you want it to be believable, I'd at least say it was a few hundred million...

Anywho. Vertigo, you speak as though you know for sure that the solar isn't isn't teeming with life. Don't you think you're jumping the gun a little? We haven't found any yet, and admittedly the chances decrease the longer that trend continues, but how much of the solar system have we actually searched? I don't think the odd little camera on Luna, Mars and Venus counts as a full search, nor does a satellite making a distant flyby of one of the outer planets and their many moons.

The first men to go into the deep ocean did not find life (at least, not much of it), nor did the first people to dig deep into the Earth's crust, yet years later (decades on the crust side of things), life was indeed found in places and ways that had not been previously imagined. For example, my arsenic tolerant microbe was one of these late finds, and a new form of life with characteristics that had, before that, been thought impossible.

In the same way, could we predict the forms of life that would live on Mars? What might be there, hidden under the ground, floating in the sky, buried within the icecaps? What wonders swim around in the groundwater, far from any human disturbance?

That's only Mars; I'm sure anything living even further from Earth (except maybe one or two moons) would have to be even weirder and wackier.

So who knows? Some postulate that even up to 60% of the Earth's biomass is more than a hundred metres below my feet. Perhaps they are right (though I doubt it). In the same way, perhaps in a hundred years time it will be proposed that 60% of the solar systems biomass is actually not on Earth, and the chances of the crazy theory of one nut actually turning out to be true could be quite similiar.

In case the lot of that was too difficult to read (I definately struggle to re-read most of it, but that may simply be the effects of exams), I am essentially saying; we don't have a bloody clue.

Sapheron, I did make the point that we have by no means done anything like explore the whole solar system. However what little we have done so far has turned up nothing except a few cryptic traces that may or may not indicate life or long extinct life. This suggests that whilst there may be life out there, the solar system is not teeming with it. This in turn suggests that life needs moderately amenable conditions like those we have here on Earth to be successful. After all we have a fair range of conditions here in the solar system, most of which are far more amenable than anything you would be likely to find in the galactic centre and yet nothing so far except here on Earth which is teeming with life. Now as I say, there may be some life tucked away in another corner of our solar system, but it is looking increasingly less likely and if it does it is looking more and more likely that it will be marginal rather complex life.

You mention the possibility of life in the Martian atmosphere but if so it must either be very very small (ie. not complex) or it is somehow transparent to all the frequencies that we have examined the planet with from orbit, which is suspect includes everything from x-ray through infra-red to ultraviolet. Which again seems rather unlikely.

Also everyone always cites the extreme places we have found life on Earth but these places are never really teeming with life and it is always very basic life.

Remember, and I have stressed this several times on this thread, I am talking about probabilities here not absolutes and I would have to say the probabilities do not look good.

 

[Sapheron]

And that's just what science comes down to really, isn't it? You look at the facts, calculate your probabilities and say unlikely. Given the exact same facts, I'd say it doesn't seem too improbable.

I guess time shall tell, eh?

 

[Vertigo]

Yeah you're right there S! I have to say it is probably the most interesting question that I would love to be around to see answered. Sadly that doesn't seem likely. I think it is possibly the most interesting unanswered question that I know of. More so than "is FTL possible?", or "what created the universe?" etc.etc. It has always seemed to me the answer to this question has bigger implications for us than almost anything else, except possibly "does God exist?" and I'm certainly not about to start debating that one!