Weighing in on the Fermi - Hart Paradox

Years before we began to confirm the existance of exo-planets we began looking for evidence of extraterrestrial life. Assuming that an advanced life form would be following advances similar to our own and would be using similar technology, we began to listen to the nearby stars hoping to intercept their version of Saturday Night Live. We have been listening for a long time, but the rest of the universe remains mute. During this early period we convinced ourselves that it was unreasonable that among the 200 billion stars in our galaxy our sun would be the only star with a planet supporting life and that humans would be the only technologically advanced life form. For most humans the question was as moot as the universe was mute and were satisfied with science fiction stories and entertaining monster movies to answer the question. Our top scientists, however, took the paradox seriously and, like scientists always do, began developing formulae based on probability and statistics to find answers. But without evidence their efforts only expanded the paradox. As Fermi shouted out in frustration while having dinner with Teller and other scientists; "Where are they"? Now we have discovered that most stars have planets, that the sun is a large star, not an ordinary star, and that we have been missing the most common stars, red dwarfs, which often have multiple planets. We have also discovered that some of the three hundred moons in our solar system have conditions suitable for the development of life, and the statistical guesses made by Fermi, Teller and Hart were far short of the hundreds of millions of possibilities projected by or recent discoveries. "Where are they"? The paradox, now deepened, has prompted many speculative answers. Tecnologically advanced life forms destroy themselves on a regular basis before they have much to say to their neighbors in nearby solar systems or, that living forms rarely evolve to a level where tecnology emerges or, that advanced life forms choose to keep quiet for safety, out of paranoia, or because they are stealthy hunters or, they use communication methods we can't monitor or they have been monitoring us and finding us unsuitable for contact are avoiding us and on and on.... I choose to respond only to the proposition that we are not hearing the echoes of other advanced civilizations because very few life forms advance to an aware state allowing an investigative approach to their surroundings using tools to enhance their senses. Our observations and comparisons of lines of development of hundreds of extant and extinct phyla and species makes it clear that fragile chemical messages formed from ordinary matter optimize the possibility, the continuance, and the adaptable progressive compexity of the energy concentrations we call life. Form and function emerge better suited to fit new environments and to persevere, not because the better are chosen, but because the less suitable are eliminated. The process only works if there is a large number of living options to be measured against the totality of the conditions in which they exist, and if the testing is subtle and only small differences, directed by randomly produced chemical directives, are eliminated or continue. The form and function of living forms are not adjusted directly, only the chemical language that directs their emergance is adjusted as the form or function directed by these chmical directives succeeds or fails. The living form struggles to survive and reproduce in the short term, The gene struggles to survive and reproduce in the long term, and both are prompted by solely natural causes similar to sea foam forming on the sand of an ocean beach. The process, following natural paths is similar to the patterns of atoms and moecules and minerals combining to form succesive states of increasing complexity. We observe and agree that matter follows the same formative patterns throughout the universe and can reasonbly assume that life also follows natural formative patterns in developing adaptive forms and functions. But what of the reasoning abilities needed to transform basic minerals and chemicals into tools and the technology needed to allow cooperative advanced civilizations to develop? Beyond regulating the simplest of living processes genes are inefective in producing further complex developments until early ways to interface with the environment emerge. These random changes are genetic accidents that improve sensitivities to temperature/ chemical conditions or internal conditions and each random adjustment that improves survivability is passed on and over time these advances in microbial awareness become cumulative, lead to parallel developments in form and function and create a partnership between the development of compexity in form with advances in awareness that leads to advanced sensory and cognitive abilities. This parallel progression is evident in all life and is so interdependent that one can assume a reasonable number of exo-planets would follow the same patterns and continued to a maximum optimization of awareness until, like humans, it assumes control of adaptive evolution and overrides natural selection by random genetic abberations. This is a state of development requiering advanced technology and advanced communicative skills, but not necessarily a pace of awareness similar to ours. The many planets that orbit red dwarf stars circle closer in and have a year lasting less than a month, and days of random lenghts. We may be attempting to communicate with an advanced life form with a pace of awareness faster than a humming bird or slower than a snail. Time may not be the only thing that is relative in our strange universe, but the extreeme numbers of planets and moons in our galaxy hints at similar numbers in hundreds of billions of other galaxies and we need to look for other reasons for not finding electromagnetic evidence for advanced life and we need other methods for finding it. The numbers are too large to ignore and the elements needed for life too common. We are alone but where are they?

A Flatul Beginning

As a child I played with rockets and cars powered by small Co2 cartridges. The cartridge was placed in the toy and a spring loaded needle was used to puncture a plug in the end of the cartridge. When I pulled the plunger back and released it, the needle opened a small hole in the cartridge and the compressed Co2 was released with a loud hiss, and a cloud of condensate was created, as the potential energy stored in the compressed gas was released. According to current scientific theory our universe started in a very similar way and, (in spite of having been poorly named "The Big Bang"), it, like the energy that propelled my toys, was held in a small compressed state, (not big), and was released as a great hiss, (not a Bang). We can still detect the hiss as microwave background radiation. My toys were powered by the release of potential energy. So is the universe. When the energy that powered my toys was released it created movement and a condensate,(dry Ice). When the energy that is now the universe was released it created movement and condensates consisting of new forms of energy, one of these is matter. As Einstein has pointed out, matter is a form of energy. E=MC2. The energy release that powered my toys was converted from the potential energy created when the Co2 was compressed and was converted into inertial energy upon its release. The universe began as a compressed singularity and when its stored energy was released, both movement,(time), and other forms of energy were created. Initially, as the compressed energy was being released, there was a great rush called the inflationary period, after that momentum took over. The last term, "T", in Einstein's basic field equation for general relativity is a stress energy momentum tensor describing this momentum. All of the energy released from the singularity at the birth of the universe and all of the energy released from my Co2 cartridges is still with us, it has only been transformed and occupies a greater space. We have now identified some of the basic condensate energies resulting from the creative release, (I think of it as a three dimensional fart), including; electromagnetism, the strong force, the week forces and a special energy condensate called matter. We have yet to identify the most prevalent energy causing the universe to expand at an accelerated rate but, (the acceleration theory is based on the assumption that the speed of light, (our measure of time), has been constant as the universe expanded and may be leading us to a false conclusion). When the Co2 escaped from my toy cartridges it created a temporary energy deficit and a dry ice condensate that existed until the heat energy dissipated when the Co2 was compressed was recaptured. As the deficit was resolved by drawing in heat to overcome the cold period deficit sublimation occurred, the dry ice was converted from a solid state to a gaseous state and the deficit was resolved by converting the re-gathered heat energy into the inertial energy of molecular motion in the re-formed gaseous Co2. A similar energy deficit seems to have occurred as the universe was released that created the primal condensates including particles of matter, electrons, photons, quarks and gluons but, unlike my toy cartridges, it has not been resolved because of an entanglement between quarks and gluons in color glass condensates that make up protons and neutrons. This energy deficit may help explain the tendency of these entanglements to warp the space between them in an attempt to clump together. Mass then becomes warped space as Einstein described without the need for time as a part of the equation, and gravity becomes a topological feature of space. My interpretation of the creative event may stink as a well developed theory but fits well with those that are.