My problem with the filter timeline is that it would seem that LONG BEFORE a society could annihilate itself by tech means it would already have passed the BROADCAST era. Even if we blow ourselves up or build a deadly virus that wipes us out, our I LOVE LUCY reruns are bouncing all over eternity at the speed of light. There would remain some evidence of our existence, and in the form most easily discernible at these types of distances. Same with a plethora of other radio and microwave communication signals. Perhaps the distances are so great that it is impossible to pick up said signals from alien transmissions if they do exist? In geologic terms signals traveling at the speed of light propagate pretty dam far. If there are, or were a lot of highly developed alien societies that got past the broadcast era only to die in nuclear wars, the evidence seems to have eluded us. Enjoy.
You are forgetting your inverse-square. The strength of these signals is negligible at the distances we're talking about. While it is nice to believe that listeners in the galactic neighborhood will pick up a clear transmission, it is much more likely that our transmissions cannot be distinguished from the background noise or "echo" from the Big Bang. Unless we focus an intense signal at a specific point in space - and even then, the signal degrades quickly - it is unlikely we will be encountering a "Contact" scenario.
Long is a relative term. The civilizations might be able to send signals for an average of 5.000 years after the development of transmitters and that wouldn't be a long time in a cosmic perspective, just a blip. In fact, if you really want to humor me you should look at todays robot technology which may seem modest to someone who watches a lot of sci-fi, but which in reality is moving by leaps and bound.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W1czBcnX1Ww
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Zi5Mj3t4MIE
It is progressing in at a comparatively much faster rate than evolution did. I don't have much doubt that in a couple of centuries, a millenia or two the machines will have surpassed us if development continues undisturbed by quantphysical doomsday technologies.
Actually the great silence could even be indicative of such a phenomenon, because if earth can be expected to take a great leap in complexity in a matter of millenias, then perhaps no one is trying to contact us with simple messages because they aren't interested in simple communication. Humanity then, however much credit we give ourselves, would be like any other step in the evolution of a greater organism, this step being such that we had a partial understanding of what we were doing.
Why should decision makers in very advanced civilisations embark on "expansion" schemes that would bear fruit only after such a long time lag (millions of years) that not only their own lives but even the time allotted to their species (in light of ongoing evolution) would likely be past? Shouldn't it be vastly more likely that seriously advanced civilisations would recognize their physical limitations?
Agreed. While it is in many ways positive that our imagination guides us to accomplish things we may not have otherwise accomplished, it is also likely that many things we imagine cannot really happen because we are too intellectually immature to recognize it. For example, popular culture (Star Trek, etc.) says we can travel at speeds exceeding the speed of light, but there is no guarantee that this can actually happen.
One species' filter is another's opportunity. The larger question -- and perhaps the ultimate great filter -- is whether any technological species can survive the most dangerous paradox of human existence, namely, that our chronology has us developing weapons of mass destruction (and equally or more terrifying nonbelligerent technologies) before the majority of the species has evolved enough to shed the religious superstitions on which we base our moral decisions and our perception of our place in the universe.
It may be only a matter of time before some well-armed zealot or other ideologue decides it is some god's will to end life on this planet and bring on the apocalypse or the rapture or some other such nonsense.
But even if our immediate future holds no such cataclysm, the widespread notion that we are somehow the chosen species of one or another gods has motivated us not to be responsible stewards of this planet but instead to consume at such an ever-accelerating rate that our species has become a de facto planetary infestation. At our current rates of consumption and exploitation of finite planetary resources, I see no way we could buy enough survival time to move our "intelligent" life form out into the galactic neighborhood.
The "great filter" might simply be that we will continue managing the behavior and attitudes of our species through fear and superstition -- while using religion to justify our insatiable appetites -- rather than through reason.
In order to survive, it seems to me that a technological species would have to have almost universal agreement that "god" is a quest of reason, not an immutable absolute of faith.
Kudos on the comment. I've looked at the human race as a doomed species over the course of an undetermined time for a while. But, that doesn't mean we can't use reason to extend life on THIS planet. I've also not looked at the issue they way you've described though. I completely agree w. your sentiments. Thanks for the post.
The problematic character of humanity and the troublesome global situation certainly have a religious component but they also have a secular and even scientific component. We wouldn't have these nuclear weapons without Science and Technology. Nor would we have had Marxism and what is worse Nazism without an inhumane, yet human- entered view of the world. In other words the universally wise and good Humanity we may need to survive does not presently exist because of our activity in many different realms. And in fact it may never come to exist because of inherent ' conflict values' not only between groups and between individuals but within individuals, also.
Yet there are many situations I can see this being done. for example if a civilization's sun is dieing, or something of the sort, where life as they know it there will end. I can see them investing in and sending out those probes, to continue their legacy in some way.
I may just be an optimist, but I believe that it is in fact something that a society would do, even if they don't expect results in the extended future.
Any civilization sufficiently advanced to expand throughout the galaxy would likely be immortal and far more capable than their original biology anyway, so why wouldn't they travel throughout the galaxy? Who would want to stay biological if copying one's mind to a superior machine architecture is possible?
Within 2-3 decades we humans should be able to do just that: replace our weak, flimsy, error-prone, mortal bodies with something better on pretty much every level. Why wouldn't we expand throughout the galaxy, given the means and all the time in the world?
When we replace our present 'biological platform' with another, what effect will this have on our relationships with others? Will we be able to care for and love them? As far our as I can tell our biological being is essential to our humanity- and cancelling it means cancelling all we love.
Massachusetts Institute of Technology
boustrephon
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Life on Mars