I went to see The Day the Earth Stood Still expecting to be very disappointed but feeling like I had to see it as a good SF nerd. [some spoilers ahead] I'm happy to report that I was only moderately dissapointed. Although Keanu was wooden as expected and the film relied on a lot of CGI to boost a weak story - at least it asked some big questions like - do aliens care about us? (movie's answer, not much).
It got me thinking about the central conceit of this and most alien films - that aliens would care even the slightest bit about the layer of green scum that has developed on the crust of this rocky ball.
The Fermi Parodox says that given the rapid rate of biological evolution on earth and the age of the universe - our galaxy should be teaming with type III civilisations. So where the fuck is everyone? (Fermi's words - not mine)
Humanity's conceit that we are important and the universe should care about us is undieing and shows itself in works like the bible and pre-gallilean astronomy.
[ spoiler ahead ] in the movie - Keanu was so impressed with a mother's sacrifice for the larval state of its own young that he decided to spare the Earth. Good mammals that we are - we find this trait to be noble and redeeming, an alien probably wouldn't. Worker bees will sacrifice for the queen too - but I don't mind squashing them.
So for me, the answer to Fermi's parodox is that our galaxy probably is teeming with life - but the aliens just aren't that in to us. If our cultural artefacts like Bach and American Idol are really worth savouring, a cheap radio antennae in the Oort cloud is a lot less trouble than initiating full inter-species contact.
It got me thinking about the central conceit of this and most alien films - that aliens would care even the slightest bit about the layer of green scum that has developed on the crust of this rocky ball.
The Fermi Parodox says that given the rapid rate of biological evolution on earth and the age of the universe - our galaxy should be teaming with type III civilisations. So where the fuck is everyone? (Fermi's words - not mine)
Humanity's conceit that we are important and the universe should care about us is undieing and shows itself in works like the bible and pre-gallilean astronomy.
[ spoiler ahead ] in the movie - Keanu was so impressed with a mother's sacrifice for the larval state of its own young that he decided to spare the Earth. Good mammals that we are - we find this trait to be noble and redeeming, an alien probably wouldn't. Worker bees will sacrifice for the queen too - but I don't mind squashing them.
So for me, the answer to Fermi's parodox is that our galaxy probably is teeming with life - but the aliens just aren't that in to us. If our cultural artefacts like Bach and American Idol are really worth savouring, a cheap radio antennae in the Oort cloud is a lot less trouble than initiating full inter-species contact.
Stumble This
Human beings need to be the boot loader for a much, much larger intelligence. We're barely sentient.
Not to douse the hopes any foil-heads, just sayin':)
DFT, they really threw out most of the trappings of the 1950s original - I didn't hear any Theremin music at all.
Enzo, the Fermi paradox accounts for the probability of no faster than light travel. The milky way is at least 13 billion years old. That's more than enough time for thousands of civilisations to arise and colonise other stars using space ships that only reach a small fraction of the speed of light.
Yea but that's also so much time that many intelligent life could have lived then died. The key to finding life isn't just being in the right place, it's being there during the right time as well. It's important to realize we may be alone...right now. Or if there is life out there it may be in very primitive stages and not yet intelligent (we're still waiting for intelligence here on Earth). Our time here on earth is nothing more than kleenex skeet compared to the age of our galaxy.
Civilisations might reach a stage where they become hermitic. If you can create or simulate entire universes virtually - why bother exploring other planets. Vernor Vinge had the idea that at some point civilisations "ascend" to an unknowable god-like state that is so far advanced from life as we know as to be indescribable to us.
It does pose a question that if we can make realities that are as real or more real that what we experience now, why should we want to explore this reality? Maybe we shouldn't. Until then, it's a good place to start.
For that matter, we may be living in one now. To simulate a galaxy at the atomic level- we're talking about Dyson spheres of computronium.
Unless - of course - the aliens made us in the first place, and have already moved on to more advanced projects.
It reminds me of that story about Columbus visiting native Americans for the first time. The natives were unable to really see the ships and people for what they were because they didn't have anything in their visual vocabulary to relate them to. They thought the sails were a kind of white cloud and the men some thorny creature with a metal carapace (armour).
I sometimes think that we're one of their experiments.
My argument with the "source" was if the alien technology was so advanced, why dissect cows? Can't they download all that information? The answer was that aliens are devoid of and do not understand human emotions.
Supposedly the main alien groups are the "grays" (the generic Area 51 midgets) and the "reptoids". What they want is either too complex or ridiculous to imagine, and as there is no solid proof for any of it, the skeptics must rule.
After hearing all this, I was madder that the ET retards have anti-gravity tech and dimensional warp drives while we with our "love" can only make lame hoverboards with leaf blower engines.
Oh yeah. He had the worst potty mouth. Called Drake the C word at a party.
Copernican?
http://www.technologyreview.com/Infotech/20569/?a=f
I don't share his hope that we are the only intelligent life in the galaxy.
Most of all aliens, selfishly, are portrayed alike to humans. This personification is a manifestation of our ego centric evolution.
Bluntly, there may be a universe where the possibility that a human like extraterrestrial being made contact. There may be a universe where the being made contact, and that contact was unbeknown to main stream consensus.
There is even a possibility, of impossibility.
When human kind attains this knowledge, then they will have attained a very high level of existence, where things really don't matter much.
Anecdote:
I had a chat with some one about morals, meaning and purpose. It was something like this:
me: "Nothing really matters, there is nothing to die for. Nothing to fear, nothing to live for. But to just live."
Them:"If there is nothing to live for or believe in then you should just shoot yourself now, and get it over with."
me: "That is petty, and very admirable human emotion. What does it take just to exist? Nothing, there is nothing to worry about."
People freak out at the notion that some one next to them does not give a care about any thing. That's not the case, because being human means you are as fallible as the rest of the lot. I still worry about shit.