Not really a book but rather a short essay on the search for ET life. I found it fascinating read and would recommend it to anyone interested in the topic of life on other planets. Where Are They? Why I Hope the Search for Extraterrestrial Life Finds Nothing Basically the argument is that if one finds signs of life on Mars (a planet very close to earth) then the chances of life existing on other planet would be greater, since it shows that it evolutionary process is in fact not very improbable. Yet the writer concludes that this is very bad news. It shows that there are what he calls Great Filters (basically catastrophes) that could easily wipe out intelligent (or what could go on to become intelligent) life in its infancy. The more advanced the stages of these dead life forms are, the greater the danger to our own existence, since if it happened out there then what is there to tell us that it won't happen here?
The writer whoever hopes that these great filters are all behind us. Meaning that he hopes we find no life outside earth. He believe if we actually do find signs of life on Mars or any other planet then it is not a cause for celebration, and most people fail to realize this. If these great filters are behind us it means that evolutionary process is indeed a very improbable thing to happen (which he believes it is and he disagrees with Carl Sagan who believed it's inevitable) and since it has already happened to us then we have a better chance of survival.
So it's something like this. It was interesting. Where Are They? Why I Hope the Search for Extraterrestrial Life Finds Nothing I want to read everything that this man ever writes Where Are They? Why I Hope the Search for Extraterrestrial Life Finds Nothing Bostrom argues that hoping to discover life on Mars is actually bad for humanity because it would imply that the Great Filter is ahead of us. Where Are They? Why I Hope the Search for Extraterrestrial Life Finds Nothing Very short prelude to some of the ideas he explores in titles like Superintelligence. I can't remember where I read this idea but I think it's fitting: If we find that we are alone in the universe, that would be incredible; If we find that we are not alone in the universe, that would be incredible. Where Are They? Why I Hope the Search for Extraterrestrial Life Finds Nothing
The Great Filter can be thought of as a probability barrier. It consists of the existance of one or more highly improbable evolutionary transitions or steps whose occurrence is required in order for an Earth‐like planet to produce an intelligent civilization of a type that would be visible to us with our current observation technology. You start with billions and billions of potential germination points for life, and you end up with a sum total of zero extraterrestrial civilizations that we can observe. The Great Filter must therefore be powerful enough — which is to say, the critical steps must be improbable enough— that even with many billions rolls of the dice, one ends up with nothing: no aliens, no spacecraft, no signals, at least none that we can detect in our neck of the woods. Where Are They? Why I Hope the Search for Extraterrestrial Life Finds Nothing
interessante ma davvero troppo breve. Where Are They? Why I Hope the Search for Extraterrestrial Life Finds Nothing Well written, even though I dont agree with it. At all. Where Are They? Why I Hope the Search for Extraterrestrial Life Finds Nothing One idea explained well in a short essay. Where Are They? Why I Hope the Search for Extraterrestrial Life Finds Nothing Fascinating article - however, its raison d'être (never thought I'd unironically use that term) rests on the assumption that the universe is finite, a caveat Bostrom should have stated earlier in the article.
As an aside, I thought this passage was powerful: ...cosmological theory implies that, due to the expansion of the universe, any life outside the observable universe is and will forever remain causally disconnected from us: it can never visit us, communicate with us, or be seen by us or our descendants. Where Are They? Why I Hope the Search for Extraterrestrial Life Finds Nothing * Figuras recurrentes: Extraterrestre. Where Are They? Why I Hope the Search for Extraterrestrial Life Finds Nothing
Characters Where Are They? Why I Hope the Search for Extraterrestrial Life Finds Nothing
