“Yo, where is everybody? There’s a lot of space, time, and stuff. Seems like somebody else should be here.” - Enrico Fermi
I’m with you, Enrico. Where is everybody?
When we look out at the stars it seems as though no one looks back. When we call out with signals, no one calls back.
Why? What gives?
What gives
The logical conclusion is there’s no one out there. The universe is an apparently very lonely place. It’s difficult to argue otherwise.
When we ask our scientists to make sense of this connundrum for us they oblige to affirm what we already expect.
With statistics:
The Drake equation, and its many more precise descendants, ballpark “life” as being rather common and “intelligent life” (capable of building radio transmitters) as being quite rare. But the observable universe is large, and thus, even a single successful civilization should have left a very large footprint. We need not even consider interdimensional or time travel, which only exponentiates these odds in the favor of life.
It should be there.
With information theory and physics:
Various theories describe the universe itself as a system that is ever evolving in terms of complexity. Life itself is a part of this general trend toward more and more complexity. Possibly as an emergent law of nature, or possibly as a way to increase entropy. If it’s supposed to be getting more and more complex, life is the way.
It should be there.
With astronomy and exobiology:
The building blocks of life have been largely recreated in the lab under conditions that are plausible to occur in nature. Almost the entire chain from base elements to more complicated compounds, up to amino acids. Even pathways for natural RNA synthesis from its components has been demonstrated in the lab. Given the huge amount and variety of planets and time…
It should be there!!
With sociology, evolution by natural selection, and behavioral economics:
Social creatures are pretty obviously favorites for evolving to a point of building a radio transmitter — only moreso for spaceships and space megastructures. That means we can infer a lot about how they must behave, how they could possibly relate to each other and to us. We can be relatively certain they are curious, risk-tolerant, exploratory creatures who are also incentivized to seek out nacent civilizations and disincentivized to destroy them or ignore them.
They should BE THERE (and they’re nice. Or at the very least, willing to negotiate and communicate).
There are a thousand pieces of evidence we could derive from those theories, and more besides, that we should see when we look out at the stars.
But we don’t see any of them. And so, everyone hangs their hats, hangs their heads, and begrudgingly admits “It should be there… but it’s not.”
Let’s unpack the mainstream resolution to the fermi paradox:
1 Even though it should be there
2 We don’t see what we’re expecting
3 Therefore it doesn’t exist.
In all fairness, any properly curious person (scientist or not) is aware of other rational arguments that satisfy the fermi paradox in favor of life. There’s no shortage of theories to explain #2. This is my blog, so I can tell you this in complete confidence:
They all suck.
Seriously, don’t waste your time. The mainstream is generally right on this one, which is why the paradox still stands. No, they don’t all blow themselves up (quietly, somehow). No, they’re not living in virtual worlds secluded from us. No, they’re not cowering in silence from some evil space predator (also quiet, somehow).
The more imaginative science communicators will handwave some of these for the crowd, but we all know they don’t believe it either.
Zoo hypothesis though. Put a pin in that one.
Listen, I’m totally onboard for #1 and #2. But what if… we just leave it at that?
Why draw a dismal (and in some ways illogical) conclusion simply because the universe doesn’t appear to behave the way we expected?
Every major scientific model arose from the bones of its predecessor. The anomalies and inconsistencies always point the way to the next, better model.
But these anomolies are stupid! They’re super cringey. Only crackpots have investigated them. They don’t fit my understanding of the world and I do not like them. - Anonymous
If only for the sake of thought experiment. For the purposes of turning a period into a question mark. Let’s humor an alternative to #3 and dare to ask ourselves…
Perhaps we are wrong and not reality?
I asked my 8 year old son “If somebody told you: we don’t see any evidence of life out there, so it must not exist. What would you say?”.
His reply?
“I don’t know.”
I believe that is the correct answer.
Never bet against reality
Something something black swans - Nassim Nicholas Taleb
POP QUIZ!!
Question 1: Which is weirder?
Newtonian physics or general relativity?
Question 2: Which is weirder?
General relativity or quantum physics?
Question 3: Which is weirder?
Quantum physics or <insert the next explanatory model here>?
Now ask yourself, which of these is a better explanatory model for reality as it really is and not as we expected it to be?
Same answers!
Hmmm.
Hmmmmmm.
So we should expect things to get weirder as our models get more accurate.
And of course this is the case. It was true for germ theory, plate tectonics, heliocentrism, evolution by natural selection, and so on.
Why do we keep expecting the future to be expectable? To be less weird?
When has that ever been true? That things become more orderly, predictable, and less surprising?
Better question: Why in the world would we vet new ideas by asking the very people who developed the models which cannot explain the anomalies?
This is like asking your saddle manufacturer what they think of motor carriages. Or like asking your Catholic priest what they think of atheisim.
From all this we can deduce:
- The next explanatory models for reality, in part or in whole, will be weirder than expected
- Established thinkers and experts are more likely to be hindrance than inspiration
- The anomalies point the way
We’ve gone from a terminal and dismal statement (“Welp. There’s no life.”) to a bounded and promising search space of ideas.
How to find aliens
History is littered with smart people who ended up looking dumb.
This means we can actually use them as a sort of compass. The right(er) answer will most likely be found by applying what I call the degrasse inverse theorum.
The Degrasse Inverse Theorum
Basically, just do the opposite of what he says.
“Astrology has no predictive power” → Maybe astrology can predict things
“Science isn’t just another opinion. It converges on truth over time” → Reality could be malleable. Exactly like opinion. It’s impossible to converge on truth because it’s a product of conscious will.
“UFOs are not evidence of alien life” → Ah shit.
The Degrasse Inverse Theorum (Cont.)
Kinda falls apart on flat earth, creationism, etc. MAYBE. Don’t take my word for it! Heck, apply the Steven Inverse Theorum to correct for my bias!
We’re looking for candidates to start our search. Degrasse champions our current best models, and we’ve come a long way! We should expect Degresse to correctly filter out most of the riffraff.
But don’t be too quick to flinch at what the degrasse inverse shows you. Otherwise you’re making the same mistake.
It seems silly on the surface, but it’s actually a pretty good indicator for two reasons:
- Degrasse is extremely loud and devoted to mainstream thinking, so he’s an excellent choice
- Prominent science educators are often more interested in policing dangerous ideas than promoting sound ones
He’s practically a magnet for dumb ideas that just won’t go away.
Back to the theorum.
What does Degrasse think about bigfoot? Spirits? Fairies? Angels? I haven’t checked his interviews lately, but I feel secure in supposing he doesn’t think they exist.
If we contain our results to just kinds of life, we’re left with a number of creatures from modern and ancient folklore. Paranormal stuff.
Pretty cringey stuff. Exactly what we’re looking for.
Taking a step back, remember that we should expect a better model to:
- Explain where/what the life is (duh)
- Be weirder than expected
- Be dismissed by established thinkers and experts
- Account for anomalies that existing models cannot. Furthermore, this explanatory model will be found where the anomalies occur
These are all great leads because they’ve been consistently reported for hundreds, sometimes thousands of years. I want to take just one of them and run with it.
UFOs (and their occupants) are pretty damn anomalous.
Let’s take that seriously for the time being and see where it takes us.
Strengthening the premise
If you’re with me this far, we’ve been operating on these assumptions:
- Life should be out there
- But our observations don’t show us what we expect
- It’s our models that are wrong and not observed reality
- There may be a better (and weirder) model that explains how #1 and #2 can both be true, and we may find it by sifting through Niel Degrasse Tyson’s dumpster
By strengthening our stance we might clarify where to look. So here’s the stronger premise:
- Life is definitely out there
- But our observations don’t show us signs of life as we expect it
- Our models were really wrong
- A more correct model must explain how #1 and #2 can both be true, and will be found by investigating, and be predictive of, persistent anomalies like UFOs, bigfoot, spirits, etc.
Remember: it’s only stupid if it’s wrong! Since we’re in no danger just exploring ideas, the worst we will discover is that Niel was right. I’m perfectly comfortable with that.
We can’t know if something is wrong before we’ve taken it seriously.
Deriving theories from patterns
UFOs, and close encounters with their occupants, have some pretty consistent patterns from which we could derive an explanatory model. There are thousands and thousands of documented cases. Researcher Jacques Vallée cites these hallmark qualities:
- Absurdity: events, craft, occupants often seem deliberately illogical or dreamlike. So strange as to be conspiciously impossible
- Adjacency to other paranomal events: other, seemingly unrelated effects happen before, during, and after the encounter. Spirits, telepathy, poltergeists, miraculous healing or injury, even bigfoot.
- Altered states: Induces trance-like states, paralysis, dissociation, and even susceptibility to direct command (like “go back to sleep. This was a dream.”)
- Time, space, matter anomalies: Missing time (in minutes, hours, days), travel through solid matter, acceleration at speeds defying known physics, unexplainable physical effect on humans, plants, and matter they pass near or through
- Psychological effects: instigate obsessive curiosity, may cause memory loss or major changes in identity, beliefs, and motivations
These patterns are not unique to UFO encounters, but reported to overlap with the other persistent, but conventionally difficult anomalies on our list.
So what model of reality could possibly account for all that? And still mesh well with our perceived physical reality and its tidy little formulas?
It’s pretty simple really.
It’s all true.
Use the classic improv acting adage: “Yes, and…”
Now apply it to all of reality.
Think of reality, not as time and space, but as idea space. Our reality, with all its fiddly equations for gravity, magnetism, and so on, is but a local neighborhood in idea space. It has a set of rules. These rules are not hard rules, but soft rules layered over more fundamental structures.
(I won’t posit what those fundamental structures might be because it’s not important to the theory, but if I had to guess I’d say consciousness, and maybe mathematics.)
“Anything is possible somewhere in idea space. Rules we thought were fixed are actually flexible.”
Our material world isn’t made unreal in that model. Reality is just bigger and more permissive than the apparent material world.
Let’s battle test that nascent theory to see how it holds up…
❔ Explain where/what the life is (duh) We’ll get back to this
✅ Be weirder than expected
✅ Be dismissed by established thinkers and experts
✅ Account for anomalies that existing models cannot. Furthermore, this explanatory model will be found where the anomalies occur
Looks promising!
So where is everybody!?
“Anything is possible somewhere in idea space. Rules we thought were fixed are actually flexible.”
That’s pretty non-specific, but it says enough that we can see how — if it were true — it would present in reality. If those predicted effects are what we actually see, that’s a very good sign our new model is viable.
It certainly explains the persistent anomalies we listed. How and why these interlopers appear in our part of idea space is a topic for another time. Perhaps they bring some of their rules with them? Have they learned how to alter the rules of reality itself to permit travel and cause the effects Dr. Valeé cites from thousands of UFO encounter testimonies? I dunno man.
If this were true, how would it affect the biological, technological, and societal development of a peer species in a nearby star system?
Social species are certainly still preferred. We clearly haven’t learned how to manipulate the rules of our reality directly, so it’s at least fairly high up the tech tree. We don’t expect to see many lone wolves nor asocial-murder-you-on-sight types.
This has few direct implications on the emergence and evolutionary pathways of biological life. We know a lot about the rules in our neighborhood of idea space. Anything that happens before a species can conceivably start manipulating idea space is still best described by the rules of our reality as we understand them. That doesn’t mean we’re correct about those, nor does it account for what nosy neighbors might do to influence the development of life here
tl;dr: it still looks pretty much like this. At least until… right about now in terms of species development
Technologically speaking, assuming you have begun to learn how to manipulate the rules of your local reality directly, which of these is easier?
a) Surround your host star with solar panels to capture all the star’s output energy to fuel your massive civilization
or
b) Infinite energy hack
Let’s try this one:
a) Build a colony ship and travel for thousands of years through hazardous conditions to settle new planets
or
b) Teleport wherever you want
How about this one. Which is easier?
a) Stick around in the material world as we know it all the time, slowly building up a civilizational footprint so large it is observable even from Earth
or
b) Peace out. Leave to go somewhere rad where you don’t have to argue with the pre-existing rules at all, only returning here when you feel like it
That would explain why we don’t see them — even the more conventional “space alien” life, siblings really, that we’d expect to pop up then grow in our more familiar material universe. The technological window of time between “radio transmitter” and “Oh, I can just do whatever I want” may be very small, cosmologically speaking.
More depressingly, it may actually be more common to discover the latter long before ever building a radio transmitter. That would make us, humanity, late bloomers.
But why don’t they talk to us?
First of all, how the hell should I know? We’re just playing with ideas. But since you asked…
Remember how I put a little asterisk on “The Zoo Hypothesis” solution to the Fermi Paradox? Yeah. I think it’s that.
A version of that anyway. Not in a sinister way (as far as I can tell). Think of it more like… an incubator than a zoo, or a prison. Or perhaps a nature reserve.
If this model of reality, and the life it contains, is roughly predictive, then we would expect some very old players. “Why don’t they talk to us?” is a super valid question.
There’s two answers, and — surprise! — they’re both uncomfortable and predictive of observed reality.
- They do talk to us, but it’s subtle
- But there’s good reasons not to be overt
That’s so damn annoying
It’s incredibly unsatisying. There’s aliens, but they’re intentionally difficult to find, understand, and take pictures of. Bigfoot doesn’t want to meet you. There’s probably spirits, but good luck getting an interview.
“Why?”
Why? You ask.
To make you work for it, damn it! Duh.
None of this makes any sense if your prior is that the universe is a big, unfeeling, impersonal, inherently meaningless set of randomized rules that happened to result in some ephemeral life that just barely, through pure luck, manages to scrape by on a lonely rock that spins dangerously through space.
If your prior is that the universe (all of idea space) is actually a big, feeling, personal, inherently meaningful, living and interconnected singular, consciousness based organism — which you are one inseparable piece of — then, and only then, could a theory like this find fertile ground.
Pair these ideas with “Everything matters. Nothing is an accident” and it makes a ton of sense.
“Nothing matters and everything is chance” has left us bereft of new models to explain why, when we look out at the stars, it seems that no one looks back.
That couldn’t be farther from the truth.
We’re not alone. We’ve just been left alone. The difference between those two statements is profoundly hopeful. Life is out there. It’s just subtle.
It’s subtle for a reason. Maybe you should find out why.
My reading?
“Go this way.”