What is the Fermi paradox or why humanity has not yet come into contact with other civilizations

If intelligent life does exist in the Universe, then why does it still not send any signals into outer space and in no way manifest itself about itself?

The search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence SETI was first discussed in 1961 at a conference held at the Green Bank radio observatory (West Virginia, USA).

Extraterrestrial civilizations and ongoing searches

It was then that scientists started talking about the fact that having received sufficiently powerful radio telescopes at their disposal, one can proceed to tracking signals that are sent towards the Earth by other intelligent Civilizations from outside our Solar systems. Of course, provided that such civilizations do exist, and they want to establish contact with us.

In those already distant days, the SETI adherents put forward the assumption that our Universe is literally "teeming" other civilizations, which, of course, communicate with each other and even unite in some alliances and conglomerates. And humanity, too, is literally on the verge of joining this "interstellar club of communication."

But not everyone shared such rosy optimism. And back in 1950, during a dinner in Los Alamos, during a conversation, Italian-American Enrico Fermi (Nobel laureate), his colleagues expressed their arguments in favor of the presence in our galaxy of a large number of other sufficiently developed technological civilizations, after a pause he asked the question: “Well, where are they in such case? "

Since then, this argument has been used in various interpretations as a criticism of the SETI community.

Here is one of the options for an expanded version of Fermi's law:

Since the laws of Nature are identical in all corners of the Universe, it means that absolutely any technologically advanced civilization has in its arsenal almost identical scientific, technical and technological capabilities as modern humanity.

Already at the moment we have with you quite realizable technology projects that will allow spacecraft to develop a speed equal to 0.1 of the speed of light. And such ships in the near future are quite capable of delivering crews to the nearest star systems.

Any civilization with similar ships could easily settle across the galaxy and occupy all habitable planets in just a couple of million years.

By cosmic standards, a couple of million years is just a moment, and if in our Galaxy there really there were a huge number of Civilizations, then they would have visited and mastered the Earth many millions of years ago back.

Also in 1975, Michael Hart formulated the following argument that the direct absence of aliens on Earth is already a convincing proof of the fact that highly developed extraterrestrial civilizations simply do not exists. So some experts also call this paradox the Fermi-Hart paradox.

So where are the aliens?

SETI proponents create many theories to defend their side. For example, there is a theory that all extraterrestrial civilizations are not inclined to travel and simply develop on their planets. This theory is also called garden bed theory.

There is another version that supposedly our planet is something like a big zoo, and humanity is protected from any external contacts as a particularly rare species.

And in fact, there are a lot of theories explaining the absence of aliens on Earth, but they have one common, but at the same time, a serious drawback.

In these reflections, for some reason, the assertion is taken as an axiom that absolutely all extraterrestrial civilizations have some single quality. Why should all civilizations be incorrigible couch potatoes or all strictly and strictly follow the rule of non-interference in other worlds?

But if we assume that there is really a huge number of civilizations in the Galaxy, then what is the chance that all of them will observe the same principle or behave in the same way? According to the theory of probability, such a chance inevitably tends to zero.

It is enough to see how the prohibitions and restrictions are observed on Earth, and if there is a similar terrestrial civilization in space, then compliance with the ban, for example, on visiting Earth is unlikely.

Are we alone in the universe?

Well, since 1961, the search for radio signals from other civilizations either stopped or resumed with renewed vigor. But the result was always negative. So far, there is no discovered evidence of the existence of other highly developed technogenic civilizations.

In principle, observational histories can even be used to outline a circle beyond which the existence of other intelligent beings is still probable. So at the moment it is known that within a radius of 1000 light years from the solar system there is not a single Civilization that would produce signals by any method known to us.

SETI advocates have created a special classification of civilizations according to their ability to generate energy.

So a civilization of the first type produces energy comparable to the energy received by the planet from a local star. So our humanity is classified as "type 0.7", since on Earth so far only 70% of the required level is being produced to get into the first category.

And today it can be argued that there are no such civilizations within a radius of 1000 light years around the Earth.

So the Civilization of the second level generates energy comparable to the energy emitted by the Star. And there is no such civilization not only in our galaxy, but even in neighboring clusters.

Whether we will discover extraterrestrial civilizations in the future or not is an open question. But in one thing I am one hundred percent convinced, their search should in no case be stopped. Since this is perhaps the only study that will turn out to be a sensation in any event.

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