• NEW! LOWEST RATES EVER -- SUPPORT THE SHOW AND ENJOY THE VERY BEST PREMIUM PARACAST EXPERIENCE! Welcome to The Paracast+, eight years young! For a low subscription fee, you can download the ad-free version of The Paracast and the exclusive, member-only, After The Paracast bonus podcast, featuring color commentary, exclusive interviews, the continuation of interviews that began on the main episode of The Paracast. We also offer lifetime memberships! Flash! Take advantage of our lowest rates ever! Act now! It's easier than ever to susbcribe! You can sign up right here!

    Subscribe to The Paracast Newsletter!

The third term in the Drake Equation


PCarr

Paranormal Adept
I recently spoke to famed planet hunter Geoff Marcy, and he confirmed that we now have a very good estimate for the third term in the Drake Equation, to join the first two. The Drake Equation is a tool for approximating the number of other choice for SETI theorists. The DE is seven factors, and the last four are still guesses, but so far the news is good for more civilizations.

However, it all depends on what you estimate for the last term, L. If you assume a pessimistic L, then it's not very many other civilizations:

My estimate of the best numbers so far:
Dream of the Open Channel: Where I am on the Drake Equation at the end of 2013

My discussion of L:

Dream of the Open Channel: The Jaws of Darkness

What do you think?
 
Beatriz Gato-Rivera is a Physicist at the Instituto de Matematicas y Fisica in Madrid, Spain.

Beatriz Gato-Rivera - The Full Wiki

She published and spoke about a paper she wrote in December, 2005 at the World Mystery Forum 2005, Interlaken (Switzerland) in November 2005. The title is "A Solution To The Fermi Paradox: The Solar System, Part Of A Galactic Hypercivilization?" It is a rather long read but one that I believe address many of these questions about "where are they"? One question that is rarely ever broached is one that addresses the possibility of aggressive or hostile species. This is one possible reason we have not yet detected any other civilizations. I will upload it as I think you may find it of interest. I do not buy into all her ideas but I do think much of it may have merit.

Decker

1 Introduction

This talk is about the possibility that the Solar System belongs
to the territory of a hypercivilization spanning our galaxy or a
large region of it. I will start introducing the Fermi Paradox
(why we do not see aliens around?) and some of its solutions.
Then I will present my own solution which includes two proposals
called the Subanthropic Principle and the Undetectability
Conjecture. This solution states that, at present, all typical
galaxies like ours are already colonized by very advanced
technological civilizations spread through large regions or the
whole galaxies, many of them containing primitive
subcivilizations like ours. After discussing some consequences
of this solution for our planet and our civilization I will make
some comments on recent, very popular theories in the scientific
community of Particle Physics and Cosmology. These theories,
known as 'brane worlds', assume that our visible Universe with
three space dimensions is embedded in a much larger Cosmos with
more space dimensions. Therefore it would be most natural if
other universes would also exist located along the extra space
dimensions. As a result, these theories open up enormous
possibilities regarding the visitation or colonization of the
Solar System by alien civilizations, strengthening the Fermi
Paradox. Finally, in the appendix I have included some questions
and answers that came up during this Forum.

2 The Fermi Paradox

In the summer 1950, in Los Alamos, the nuclear physicists Enrico
Fermi, Edward Teller and other colleagues brought up the subject
of unidentified flying objects (UFO's) while having lunch. This
topic was very popular at that time. After a while, when they
had changed subjects Fermi suddenly asked: Where is everybody?
Performing fast mental computations, Fermi had reached the
conclusion that alien civilizations should have been around
visiting Earth for many thousands or millions of years.
Therefore, why we do not see them? This is the Fermi Paradox.

Although Fermi never explained how he made his computations, nor
gave an estimate of the number of civilizations which should
have visited Earth, he had to rely on arguments like these: In
our galaxy there are thousands of millions of stars much older
than the Sun, many of them thousands of millions of years older
(in the 'habitable zone' of the galaxy they are on average one
thousand million years older [1]). Therefore many civilizations
must have arisen in our galaxy before ours and a fraction of
them must have expanded through vast regions or even through the
whole galaxy.

Some other arguments pointing in the same direction involve
estimates about the lifetime of the second generation stars,
inside of which the chemical elements of organic matter are
made, and also involve estimates of the total time necessary for
a technological civilization to colonize, or visit, the whole
galaxy. Regarding the second generation stars, they are formed
only two million years after the supermassive first generation
stars (these burn out exploding as supernovae in one million
years only and it takes another million years for the debris to
form new stars). Therefore the appearance of organic matter in
our galaxy could have happened several thousands of millions of
years before the Sun came into existence. As to the total time
necessary to colonize, or visit, the whole galaxy by a
technological civilization, conservative computations of
diffusion modeling give estimates from 5 to 50 million years
[2], which is a cosmologically short timescale1. Besides these
considerations, the fact that life on Earth started very early
supports the views, held by many scientists, that life should be
abundant in the Universe.

3 Solutions to the Fermi Paradox

Many solutions have been proposed to the Fermi Paradox. I
classify them as expansionist and non-expansionist. The non-
expansionist solutions are based on the assumption that
technological civilizations do not expand beyond a small
neighborhood of the galaxy. The most popular of these solutions
are the following ones:

- Interstellar travel is not possible no matter the scientific
and technological level reached by a civilization.

- Generically, advanced civilizations have little or no
interest in expanding through large regions of the galaxy.

- Technological civilizations annihilate themselves, or
disappear by natural catastrophes, before having the chance to
expand through large regions of the galaxy.

On the other hand, the most popular expansionist solutions to
the Fermi Paradox, based on the assumption that generically
technological civilizations do expand through large regions of
the galaxy, make use of one or more of the following arguments:

- Alien civilizations do visit Earth at present times, for
different purposes, and/or have visited Earth in the past. In
this respect it is remarkable the fact that Francis Crick, one
of the discoverers of the DNA structure, proposed in the mid-
seventies1

During this Forum Claudio Maccone, member of the International
Academy of Astronautics, has presented a mathematical model that
predicts around 150 million years, which is still a short time.
that life on Earth could have been inseminated on purpose by
alien intelligences2.

Besides, some scientists as well as countless authors of popular
books, have speculated that some UFO's could be true alien
spacecrafts whereas some 'gods descending from the sky',
abundant in many ancient traditions, could have been just alien
astronauts (see for example [3] [4]).

- Advanced alien civilizations might have strong ethical codes
against interfering with primitive life-forms [5].

- Advanced aliens ignore us because of lack of interest due to
our low primitive level. For example Robert Jastrow, ex-director
of Mt. Wilson Observatory, claims [6] that, on average, advanced
civilizations should consider us as larvae due to the fact that
they should be thousands of millions of years ahead of us....
and who would be interested in communicating with larvae?

- Alien civilizations have not reached us yet because
intelligent life is extremely diffi- cult to emerge. Otherwise
alien civilizations would necessarily be here. As a result we
could find ourselves among the most evolved technological
civilizations in our galaxy or we could even be the only one.

Besides these simple solutions there are many more exotic
proposals. For example, a rather drastic expansionist solution
is given by the theoretical physicist Cumrun Vafa, at Harvard
University, who thinks that the fact that we do not see aliens
around could be the first proof of the existence of brane
worlds: all advanced aliens would have emigrated
to better parallel universes [7].

cont.
 
cont.

4 My Solution to the Fermi Paradox
Two years ago I made a proposal for solving the Fermi Paradox
[8]. It states that, at present, all the typical galaxies of the
Universe are already colonized (or large regions of them) by
advanced civilizations. In the vast territory of these
hypercivilizations a small proportion of their individuals would
belong to primitive subcivilizations, like ours. That is, I put
forward the possibility that our small terrestrial civilization
is embedded in a large hypercivilization unknowingly and this
situation should be common in all typical galaxies.

2It is less known that several years before Crick, in 1960, the
astronomer Thomas Gold suggested, during a congress in Los
Angeles, that space travellers could have brought life to Earth
some thousands of millions of years ago. Curiously, this claim
was also made, with a detailed description of 'the facts', by
the 'popular metaphysics' writer T. Lobsang Rampa in the book
The Hermit (1971).

The primitive subcivilizations would know or ignore their low
status depending, most likely, on the ethical standards of the
advanced civilization in which they are immersed. If the
standards are low, the individuals of the primitive
subcivilizations will be surely abused in many ways and
therefore will be painfully aware of their low status. If the
ethical standards of the advanced individuals are high instead,
then they will respect the natural evolution (social, cultural)
of the primitive subcivilizations, treating them 'ecologically'
as some kind of protected species. In this case, which could
well describe the situation of the terrestrial civilization,
most primitive individuals would be completely unaware of the
existence of the large hypercivilization.

Now some remarks follow:

- Needless to say, the primitive individuals would not be
considered as citizens of the hypercivilization and direct open
contact would completely destroy the primitive subcivilization.

- The 'alien visitors', from the viewpoint of the primitive
individuals, would not be so from the viewpoint of the advanced
individuals from the hypercivilization because they rather would
be visiting, or working in, their own territory. (The advanced
civilizations would surely have underground and/or submarine
bases in their primitive planets for military and scientific
purposes.)

- I distinguish between aggressive and non-aggresive advanced
civilizations. I do not believe that advanced civilizations must
have ethical codes concerning primitive life-forms.

- The fact that our civilization has never been attacked by
aggressive aliens, as far as history knows, could well be a clue
that we belong to a non-aggressive advanced civilization which
protects planet Earth, as part of its territory.

If this scenario is true for our civilization, then the
Subanthropic Principle [8] would also hold. It states that we
are not typical among the intelligent observers from the
Universe. Typical civilizations of typical galaxies would be
hundreds of thousands, or millions, of years more evolved than
ours and, consequently, typical intelligent observers would be
orders of magnitude more intelligent than us3.

One may argue against this principle saying that a much higher
level of science and technology does not necessarily imply a
much higher intelligence or brain capacities. My answer to this
objection is that there are two main reasons to think in this
way. The

3This means that, if we 'score' 10, then they would score 100 or
1.000 or 10.000, etc. first is simply natural biological
evolution as we see it in our planet. The individuals of our
species (homo sapiens sapiens) are more intelligent than our
ancestors and these were more intelligent than their own
ancestors, etc. Since there is no reason why this process should
stop with us, it is fully realistic to expect that individuals
of much older civilizations must be genetically more intelligent
than us. But there is an even stronger argument supporting the
views that the older the civilization, the more intelligent the
individuals: As the civilizations would reach some mastery in
the field of genetic engineering, the general tendency would be
to 'improve' themselves, that is their own species (among many
others species) giving rise to an acceleration of biological
evolution at unimaginable rates.

Now there is a crucial question. If the Solar System is part of
a large hypercivilization, why we do not detect any signs of
civilization from outer space at all? My answer is related to my
views that aggressive advanced civilizations must exist:
Generically, all advanced enough civilizations camouflage their
planets for security reasons, because of the existence of
aggressive advanced civilizations, so that no sign of
civilization (or any other form of life) can be detected by
external observers, who would only obtain distorted data for
disuasion purposes. This hypothesis I call the Undetectability
Conjecture [8]. Observe that this conjecture predicts a rather
low probability of success for the SETI (search for
extraterrestrial intelligence) project. The reason is that only
primitive civilizations able to produce electromagnetic
emissions would be susceptible to being detected by the SETI
antennas. But after reaching the level of producing
electromagnetic emissions it would take only a few hundred years
for a civilization to learn to hide themselves from external
observers, becoming undetectable. As a result, the period of
detectability of an average civilization could be very short and
the probability that a primitive civilization, like ours,
detects another primitive civilization would be negligible. For
example, it could have happened that planet Earth received the
last TV or radio programs from another planet 200.000 years ago,
for a period of about 500 years.

Observe also that, if the Undetectability Conjecture turns out
to be true, then we cannot be sure whether the terrestrial
civilization is the unique civilization inhabitating the Solar
System, as we firmly believe. The reason is that in the
astronomical observations of planets and satellites we
scientists assume that there are no intelligent beings there
manipulating the data that we receive, and then we conclude that
there is no signal of intelligent life, as the data prove. But
this assumption could turn out to be wrong because advanced
civilizations would be technologically able to fool our
telescopes, detectors and space probes, and would not allow
themselves to be detected.

The relevance of this solution to the Fermi Paradox for our
planet and, especially, for our civilization, depends strongly
on when, how long ago, the Solar System was taken over by
extraterrestrial hypercivilizations (this could have happened
more than once since our galaxy is very old).

- If the Solar System was visited already thousands of millions
of years ago: Planet Earth could have undergone insemination
procedures, together with many other 'promising' planets, as
suggested by Thomas Gold and Francis Crick. As a result, all
terrestrial living beings would have common building blocks of
DNA with the living beings of thousands of other planets which
would have undergone similar insemination procedures with the
same bacteria. Consequently, many plants and animals, including
our own species, could have been brought to Earth (at any time
in history or prehistory) and their extraterrestrial origin
would be impossible to detect by any biologist or geneticist.
Moreover, at present, we probably would have countless
'relatives' in many planets, what has advantages (possibility of
positive, closer relationships) but also disadvantages
(predators). Not to mention the high probability that many past
and present species, including ourselves, could have resulted
from genetic manipulation simply as a rutine procedure for the
improvement of the planet. (I am convinced that advanced and
not-so-advanced civilizations widely make use of genetic
engineering to improve all the species around, including
themselves, as I mentioned before.)

- If the Solar System was first encountered only when life on
Earth was well developed (for example, a few million years ago):
It is still very probable that many present species would have
resulted from genetic manipulation by the 'owners' of the Solar
System for the general improvement of the planet; that is, among
many other improvements like getting rid of unwanted species or
ameliorations of geological type. (Observe that the sudden
appearance of the homo sapiens sapiens species some 40.000 years
ago is still a complete mystery for science.)

- If the Solar System was first encountered only after homo
sapiens sapiens had appeared: This hypercivilization must have
found our species 'good enough' so that they did not try any
genetic improvements on us. This does not mean, however, that
they would have adopted a complete non-interference policy with
respect to human affairs.

In fact, if my scenario is correct and the Solar System belongs
to the territory of a non-aggressive hypercivilization, I
strongly suspect that this civilization treats us as a protected
species and cares about us. As a result, they could well have
decided to help us, discretely, many times in history and
prehistory regarding our social, cultural, scientific, etc.
evolution, apart from protecting us and the planet from several
dangers of various types: large meteorites, predators from outer
space, nuclear accidents, extremely devastating earthquakes,
etc.

Therefore my solution to the Fermi Paradox is compatible with
the speculations that some UFO's could be true alien
spacecrafts, whereas some 'gods descending from the sky', for
the benefit of mankind, could have been alien astronauts.
However, I would not call them alien astronauts but
extraterrestrial scientists and extraterrestrial military
personnel instead, since working in their own territory, they
would not be truly astronauts nor aliens.

My solution is also compatible with the possibility of more
general close contacts between individuals of the
hypercivilizations and primitive individuals like us, besides
the 'gods descending from the sky' issue. I have identified
three major causes or reasons which could motivate individuals
of advanced civilizations to seek interactions or relationships
with primitive individuals: scientific purposes,
entertainment/affection purposes and criminal purposes (for the
details see [8]). The 'gods descending from the sky' could
simply correspond to various scientific teams, assisted by
military personnel, sent by the government in order to help
develop the terrestrial primitive civilization.

cont.
 
cont.

5 Brane World Cosmologies

To finish I would like to make some comments about brane world
cosmologies. In the last seven years brane world models have
been of increasing interest for both Particle Physics and
Cosmology [9] [10]. They put forward the possibility that our
Universe with three space dimensions is located in a subspace
(brane) of a higher dimensional Cosmos. These models allow
large, and even infinite, extra dimensions4 and they offer the
possibility to solve, or view from a newly different
perspective, many longstanding problems in Particle Physics and
Cosmology (see [11] for brane world reviews).

Brane world cosmologies have the potential to dramatically
strengthen the Fermi Paradox. Namely, if our observable Universe
is embedded in a much larger Cosmos there may exist other
universes along the extra spatial dimensions which could be
parallel to our own, or intersecting it somewhere. Then it would
be natural to expect that some of these universes would have the
same laws of Physics as ours and many of the corresponding
advanced civilizations could master techniques to travel or
'jump' through the extra dimensions for visitation or
colonization purposes. Moreover, one has to take into account
that many of these universes could be very close to ours, even
at only one millimeter distance along an extra dimension.

4Previously, in theories and models of Particle Physics extra
dimensions were only allowed if they were compactified with a
very tiny radius.

This opens up enormous possibilities regarding the expansion of
advanced civilizations simultaneously through several universes
with the same laws of Physics, resulting in multidimensional
empires. It could even happen that the expansion to other
'parallel' galaxies through extra dimensions could be easier,
with lower cost, than the expansion inside one's own galaxy. In
particular, the 'owners' of the Solar System (if they exist)
could have come from another universe and could have created a
huge empire with large pieces of territory in several 'parallel'
galaxies.

At present we physicists are still in a premature phase in the
study of brane worlds and we do not know whether these ideas are
in fact realistic. Nevertheless, the idea of large extra
dimensions and parallel universes is acquiring greater and
greater importance in the scientific community, among both
theoreticians and experimentalists. As a matter of fact, the
experimental signatures expected from large extra dimensions, at
present and future colliders, are well understood by now [12]
and an intense experimental search is currently under way. For
example, experiments starting in 2007 at the LHC (Large Hadron
Collider) at CERN will be looking, among other things, for
signatures of large extra dimensions.

6 Final Remarks One final remark. I am convinced that the main
feature of the scenario that I propose: the existence of
primitive subcivilizations embedded in large hypercivilizations
spanning vast regions of the galaxies, is true at present and/or
has been true in the past and/or will be true in the future in
most or all galaxies in our universe and in any other possible
universes with the same laws of Physics as ours. Whether our
terrestrial civilization is actually a subcivilization
completely unaware of the existence of the large
hypercivilization is something to be discovered in the future.
This will happen either due to some advanced technology that
would allow us to discard this possibility some hundreds of
years from now (if we do not annihilate ourselves first), or
through the decision of our hosts, provided they exist, of
showing their faces openly, which could happen long before.

Acknowledgements I would like to thank the organizers of the
World Mystery Forum 2005 for inviting me to this beautiful and
interesting place. Finally, I am indebted to my friends Linda
Champion and Maite Fern=B4andez for many interesting conversations
and also to Linda for the English corrections to this text.


Appendix: Questions and Answers

- Why do you say that the open contact with the
hypercivilization would destroy our civilization?

This is very easy to understand. Imagine how we would feel if
the citizens of the hypercivilization happen to live 1.000 years
and, in addition, always looking young. We would feel
devastated, right? I can imagine pathetic demonstrations all
over the world demanding 'our right' to live 1.000 years as
well. What about if they explain to us that we are allowed to
live on planet Earth because of their kindness and hospitality?
Also, we need to believe in ourselves, in our capabilities to
make progress, to build the future. This psychological need
would crash in contact with a far superior civilization and far
superior intelligent beings and we would only feel worthless and
stupid, especially scientists, but everybody else as well (for
example, the gap between them and us, regarding brain
capabilities, could be bigger than the corresponding gap between
us and the gorillas). Not to mention the shock we would receive
if they had created our species by genetic engineering and they
would tell us. It is difficult to predict who would feel more
offended under such circumstances: the fundamentalist
creationists, the intelligent design advocates, the plain hard-
core darwinists or the ecologists.

As for myself, I find this last issue quite harmless in fact
because, as I said, I am completely convinced that advanced
civilizations widely use genetic manipulation on all species
around, including themselves. Thus, if an advanced civilization
has created the homo sapiens sapiens, then I am pretty sure that
the individuals of this civilization have also resulted from
genetic manipulations of their own ancestors who in turn have a
high chance to have resulted from genetic manipulation by a much
older alien civilization, who in turn were manipulated by their
own ancestors, etc. It could even happen that at present there
is not a single species that remains 'virgin', free of genetic
manipulation, in our whole galaxy nor in most typical galaxies5.
So, regarding the possibility that we have been created by
scientists of an advanced civilization I feel like in that joke
where somebody is on the phone: 'This is a recording. Doesn't
bother me, I'm a hologram'.

- Do you think could it be possible that some of the parallel
universes that you mentioned could be inhabitated by angels and
other spiritual beings?

I must say that I have been asked this question many times
already. At the present stage, our scientific knowledge can
neither prove nor disprove the existence of angels and other
spiritual beings described in our traditions. My opinion is
that, if these

5This scenario would constitute the ultimate nightmare for
ecologists! beings happen to exist, I would expect to find them
inhabitating parallel universes with different laws of Physics
than ours. The crucial point is the laws of Physics that hold in
a particular universe. Unfortunately we only know one universe
and one set of laws of Physics, which renders our knowledge very
limited and 'provincial'. Nevertheless, we particle physicists
assume that if something would enter our universe from another
universe with different laws of Physics then the matter of this
something and the matter of our universe would almost not
interact (perhaps only gravitationally). As a consequence this
something would be invisible for most of us and would go through
our 'solid' matter (walls, ceilings) effortlessly, as the angels
and other spiritual beings are supposed to do, right? I say
'most of us' instead of 'all of us' because the existence of
special psychic capabilities, such as telepathy, has not been
discarded yet and therefore it could happen that specially-
gifted people could see and/or communicate telepathically with
beings coming from such universes with different laws of Physics
than ours. These beings would include, in particular, plain
extraterrestrials (not especially spiritual) coming from other
universes just for scientific or other mundane purposes.

As a matter of fact, a good question for a psychically-gifted
person (or for a cat!)6 would be how he/she/it can distinguish
'who is who' among the entities he/she/it is supposed to see. I
already asked this question to a reader of my article who told
me that other dimensions and parallel universes truly exist
because he can see, and sometimes communicate with, intelligent
beings coming from them. So I asked him what these beings look
like and how he can distinguish among them. He said: 'I see
different types of entities, including angels, although most of
them are human beings in their 'astral bodies' (either alive or
dead). I have rarely seen extraterrestrials, but I don't know if
they were in their physical bodies from another universe, as you
suggest. I have the impression that they were in their astral
bodies, in the same way that astral travellers among us visit
other planets as well.7 One distinguishes these entities by
their general appearance: body, face, clothing and also the
aura. In addition, alive beings in their astral bodies have some
sort of 'silvery cord' that connects them with their physical
bodies, although it can be 6Cats have the reputation of having
great psychic powers and of being able to see all kinds of
entities invisible to the human eye. The aforementioned T.
Lobsang Rampa even claimed that his book 'Living with the Lama'
had been written by one of his cats who dictated the contents to
him telepathically, the introduction being written by another
cat.

7The astral body is supposed to be able to travel many orders of
magnitude faster than light. This would not contradict any known
laws of Physics, though, because the astral body would not be
made out of matter/energy of this universe, but out of
matter/energy of the 'astral universes', which would have very
different laws of Physics. The high speed and low cost of astral
travel would not be the only advantages with respect to
exploration of outer space: astral astronauts could also
approach stars and black holes as much as they wanted, and even
jump inside, returning back safely without suffering any damage
(the astral body is supposed not to feel gravity, having the
tendency to float instead). very faint and difficult to spot'.
Then I asked him whether it would be possible to confuse an
angel or any other 'spiritual being' with an extraterrestrial
visiting us from another universe. He said: 'Yes, it could be
possible because angels and all spiritual beings create their
appearance at will with their minds (face, body, clothing, wings
on and off, etc.). Angels like to look like handsome human-like
beings (whether terrestrial or extraterrestrial). For this
reason angels watching over ugly extraterrestrial humanoids also
look very ugly, according to our taste, although very beautiful
for them. So, it would be possible to confuse 'ugly' angels with
equally ugly aliens, and the other way around, very handsome
extraterrestrials may look like beautiful angels for us'.

- There are many reports of 'extraterrestrials' who look like
pure-energy beings of light without bodies. Do you think that
all the extraterrestrials could be in fact disembodied beings?
Also, do you think that in the future we could become like these
beings of light, too?

These questions are related to the previous one. First of all,
there are also many reports about extraterrestrials with
physical, solid bodies. For example, today Ed Mitchell, lunar
module pilot of Apollo 14, reported that the Roswell incident
was true and one of the aliens on board was still alive when the
spacecraft was found by the USA military8. So I don't see any
reason to think that all possible extraterrestrials around (if
any!) must lack a physical body. On the other hand, I do not
believe in the existence of disembodied beings at all, although
perhaps there are entities which are visiting our universe and
have a body from another universe with different laws of
Physics. This is why we could not see their bodies and they
could go through walls and ceilings! And the other way around,
these beings would not be capable of seeing our bodies either
unless they had that psychic capability, provided this
capability exists at all. So, to me this is very simple: all
intelligent beings who happen to exist (be human-like, or
animal-like or angel-like, etc.) have a body (at least one!)9,
no matter from which universe they come, and these bodies are
solid and well visible to the inhabitants of their own
universes, or another universes with the same laws of Physics as
their own.

About the second question, if you ask if our biological species
could evolve towards 'pure-energy beings of light' in this
physical universe, the answer is no. I do not 8In July 1947 the
military base near Roswell (New Mexico, USA) issued a press
release announcing that they had captured an alien spacecraft
that had crashed nearby. Three days later they retracted their
statement: the alien spacecraft was only an atmospheric baloon.

9The metaphysical 'standard model' says that human beings
(terrestrial and extraterrestrial) have seven bodies: physical,
etheric, astral, mental and the three superior bodies, each
belonging to a different universe or 'plane of existence'.
Animals have the four inferior bodies whereas angels and all
other 'spiritually advanced' beings have only the three superior
bodies.

believe that the laws of Physics of this, or any other, universe
will ever allow the emergence of disembodied intelligent beings.

As a matter of fact, your question fits better in metaphysics
than in ordinary science. In the metaphysical 'standard model'
all conscious beings (human beings, animals, angels, etc.) are
just visitors of the universes they inhabitate. The reason would
be that consciousness cannot be created in any universe, no
matter the laws of Physics. For example, this implies that
nobody in any universe could ever construct a robot or computer
that could become conscious. Individual consciousness would have
been separated, not created, from an enormous ocean of
consciousness that has always existed, without beginning and
without end, and is the ultimate cause for the existence of
everything else. So, following these views, since our
consciousness cannot emerge from any complex system (such as our
brain), it turns out that we are all aliens in the universes we
inhabit and our bodies are nothing but the astronaut suits
necessary to live in these universes. Coming back to your
question, in the metaphysical standard model, we human beings
are supposed to live many lives in 'physical universes', where
the mind has very little power over matter, working very hard,
and resting in between in 'astral universes', where it is always
vacation time because the mind can create all the basic needs:
housing, furniture, clothing... Now, after many incarnations in
the physical and astral universes we can be promoted to better,
more spiritual universes where the power of the mind over matter
is much stronger than in the astral universes. This way, we
would become spiritual 'beings of light' without any physical,
etheric and astral bodies, although we would still have the more
superior bodies made out of the matter/energy of the more
spiritual universes we would inhabit. These bodies would be
invisible for most inhabitants of the physical universes and
also for most inhabitants of the astral universes.

- Did you have any unusual experiences yourself that motivated
the writ- ing of your article?

Not directly; I have never seen a UFO, nor have I tried to see
one or to get in contact with aliens, as some people do.
Indirectly, I had a most unusual experience more than twenty
years ago that has been a source of inspiration indeed, although
the true motivation to write the article was simply to reply to
the ideas of the cosmologist Ken Olum, as I explain in detail in
the article.

- What kind of experience did you have? Could you say something
about it?

This is a rather long story. In May 1984 a cousin of mine
invited me for coffe at her place and she also invited an old
friend of hers. She warned me about the possibility of hearing
strange statements because her friend was in contact with
extraterrestrials for several years already. At her place the
conversation was revolving around normal matters. He was a
completely normal-looking guy with a normal job. After one hour
or so we brought up the subject of summer vacations. At his turn
he said, with a completely normal voice and straight face: 'I
will go with my friends in July, we have already arranged
things. We will be a couple of days in the bases of the Moon and
then they will bring me three weeks to Ganymede10 again. Last
summer I spent some days in Confraternity City, where there is a
terrestrial colony of about 12.000 people. They have a very
interesting museum of History of Earth, where you can see the
bodies of the prophet Elijah and the patriarch Enoch. They were
living in Ganymede for hundreds of years until they died'.

Although I didn't believe a word and I really thought he was
crazy, I tried to show some interest, mainly out of politeness
(he was very polite himself), and so I started asking some
questions. I asked how the view of Jupiter was from Ganymede,
how long it takes to travel to the Moon and to Ganymede, how
many people inhabit the satellite and what his friends look
like. His answers were: 'Jupiter is enormous, it covers almost
the whole sky', 'The trip to the Moon takes only two or three
minutes, to Ganymede it depends on the spacecraft. In standard
ones the trip takes a bit more than three days whereas in
cylinder-shaped motherships the trip takes only three hours'.
'There are about two and a half million people in Ganymede, that
they call Morlen, distributed mainly in five cities. In Crystal
City is the government of Morlen as well as the government of
the Confederation to which Morlen belongs. It is a Confederation
of the 24 more advanced worlds in our galaxy and the government
is called the Council of the 24 Elderly'. 'My friends from the
bases on Earth are mainly from Ganymede, although you can meet
people from the other 23 worlds as well. Most of them look
similar, although taller or shorter depending on which world
they come from. In general they are very handsome (angel-looking
faces) with long blond hair, white skin and light-colored big
eyes (a bit oblique), and most of them look like 40 years old,
although they can be 300, 600, 800 years old since they can live
until 1.200 (terrestrial) years and they master anti-aging
technology. The most impressive-looking ones are the giants from
planet Apu, in Alpha Centauri, who are about three meters tall
and in addition wear very long, almost white hair.

My friends from Ganymede are also quite tall: more than two
meters'.

At that moment I replied back: 'So, they are quite similar to
us, although taller and more handsome, and in addition they are
the most evolved people in our galaxy. What a coincidence! How
lucky we are that we have such wonderful neighbors!' Then he
said with a serious expression: 'This is not a coincidence, I am
affraid, but 10Ganymede, one of the moons of Jupiter is also the
largest satellite in the Solar System, larger than the planets
Mercury and Pluto.

I prefer not to give you the details. You are still too young
and you wouldn't be able to handle the facts. Just let me tell
you that they arrived at this part of the galaxy: Alpha
Centauri, the Solar System, the Pleyades, etc. almost three
million years ago. They established themselves in artificial
colonies without any natural life, so they constructed their
worlds completely from scratch. They didn't bring animals along
and therefore they only have plants and are vegetarian'.

Then I asked him how he got in contact with his friends and how
they could understand each other. He said: 'They contacted me; I
had never been interested in UFO's and extraterrestrials'. 'They
have three glands inside the brain that we don't have. One of
them produces very strong telepathic capabilities, so they do
not speak with the mouth, only by telepathy. It is very easy to
understand them because they speak a 'universal language' that
is converted inside the receptor's brain into his/her mother
tongue. For this reason they don't use technological devices for
communications either, like phones or radios, they communicate
exclusively by telepathy, even from one planet to another'.

Then he gave us the advice that we should never try to get in
touch with aliens: 'There are some very dangerous humanoids, who
come from another universe, that do horrible things to us.
Although some groups of people have been lucky and have entered
into telepathic communication with people from the
Confederation, including some of my friends, the risk of getting
the wrong extraterrestrials is high'. Then I asked: 'What do you
mean by another universe, do you mean that they come from
another galaxy? No, I mean another universe. There are 22
dimensions, not just the three that we know in our universe. For
this reason there are lots of universes. These guys live in a
universe nearby. The entrance to our universe is very close to
the Solar System and once they enter they only have to travel
for three days to reach Earth. They are not allowed to come
here, of course, but they do it anyway. So, these guys are a
real nightmare for my friends who do their best to chase them
away. In fact, they have crashed more than once during the
persecutions because their technology is far below the
technology of the Confederation. Otherwise they would have taken
over the planet and made us their slaves'. Finally I asked him
whether he knew if all the universes are like ours. He said that
the universe of the intruders is like ours, unfortunately, but
as far as he had heard, many universes are different than ours.

I never saw him again (nor did I want to!). I had no doubts that
he had a deep psychiatric illness whereas my cousin defended him
saying that she had known him very well for many years and he
was neither a liar nor crazy, therefore the story had to be
true, no matter what.

For the following fourteen years or so I did not think at all
about the subject of extraterrestrial civilizations.
Unexpectedly, one day around 1998 the subject came up somehow
when talking to my friend Maite at her place. Then she showed me
a couple of curious books about alleged contacts. One of the
books, 'Los Manuscritos de Geenom (II)' (The Manuscripts of
Geenom (II)) was written by a group based in Madrid, the Aztl=B4an
group, which claimed to be in telepathic communication, once per
week and for about twenty years already, with some citizens of
planet Apu (the communications were supposed to be transmitted
from planet to planet). The other book had for its title 'Yo
visit=B4e Gan=B4=FDmedes' (I visited Ganymede), by Yosip Ibrahim. So,
suddenly I got 'teletransported' back to the coffee session
fourteen years earlier.

I read these two books and, for the first time, I realized that
I had never spent a single minute in my life thinking seriously
about the subject of extraterrestrial civilizations, even though
I had always been open-minded regarding the possibility of alien
visitors. I became aware that this issue could be much more
important and have much more far-reaching consequences than I,
and most open-minded people, naively could have imagined.

After spending some time thinking about this issue I reached the
conclusion that it was not possible to discard the scenario
described by the friend of my cousin, no matter how strange it
seemed to me. There were only two crucial questions to be
answered: Would a civilization, millions of years ahead of us,
be able to colonize places like the large satellites of Jupiter?
and, would such a civilization be able to completely conceal
itself from external observers? My answer to these two questions
was undoubtedly positive.

In the following two years Maite and I read a few more books
[13] about the Confederation-Apu-Ganymede affair, for our own
records, and that was all. It never crossed my mind to write an
article about primitive versus advanced civilizations, and even
less to try to find the 'truth' about the whole issue. However,
in March 2003 the article by Ken Olum [14] appeared in the
scientific archives and triggered my attention again to the
subject. He was saying that our small terrestrial civilization
should be part of a galactic civilization spanning a large
region of the galaxy, as followed from his computations, but
however we are not part of such a civilization, as observation
confirms. Needless to say, this article provoked deep feelings
in me, even though I didn't agree with Olum's arguments. So I
started thinking seriously again about the issue and shortly
after I had the ideas of the Subanthropic Principle and the
Undetectability Conjecture. Then I decided to write an article
discussing the possibility that our terrestrial civilization
could be embedded in a large advanced civilization without being
aware of it.

cont.
 
cont.

References
[1] C.H. Lineweaver, Y. Fenner, and B.K. Gibson, 'The galactic
habitable zone and the age distribution of complex life in the
Milky Way', Science 303, 59, 2004.

[2] I. Crawford, 'Where are they?', Scientific American, July
2000

[3] L. Pauwels and J. Bergier, Le Matin des Magiciens (Morning
of the Magicians), 1960. E. von Daniken, Erinnerungen an die
Zukunft (Chariots of the Gods), 1967.

[4] J.W. Deardorff, 'Possible extraterrestrial strategy for
Earth', Q. J. R. Astron. Soc., 27, 94, 1986.

[5] W.I. Newman and C. Sagan, 'Galactic civilizations:
Population dynamics and interstellar
diffusion', Icarus 46, 293, 1981.

[6] R. Jastrow in videos of the series 'The Universe of Stephen
Hawking', 1996.

[7] C. Vafa, private communication.

[8] B. Gato-Rivera, 'Brane Worlds, the Subanthropic Principle
and the Undetectability Conjecture', physics/0308078, 2003.

[9] N. Arkani-Hamed, S. Dimopoulos and G.R. Dvali, Phys. Lett.
B429, 263, 1998; Phys. Rev. D 59, 86004, 1999; Phys. Today 55N2,
35, 2002.

[10] L. Randall and R. Sundrum, Phys. Rev. Lett. 83, 4690, 1999.

[11] R. Maartens, Living Rev. Rel. 7, 1, 2004.
I. Antoniadis, Eur. Phys. J. C 33, S914, 2004.
C. Csaki, 'TASI lectures on extra dimensions and branes', hep-ph/0404096.
V. Rubakov, Phys. Ups. 44, 871, 2001.
D. Langlois, Prog. Theor. Phys. Suppl. 148, 181, 2003.

[12] G.F. Giudice, R. Rattazzi and J.D. Wells, Nucl. Phys. B 544, 3, 1999.
E. A. Mirabelli, M. Perelstein and M.E. Peskin, Phys. Rev. Lett.
82, 2236, 1999.
K. M. Cheung and W.Y. Keung, Phys. Rev. D 60, 112003, 1999.

[13] Y. Ibrahim, Mi preparaci=B4on para Gan=B4=FDmedes, 1975.
J.J. Benitez, OVNIS: SOS a la Humanidad, 1975.
Grupo Aztl=B4an, Los Manuscritos de Geenom (I), 1993.
J.A. Campoy, Entrevista a un Extraterrestre: Geenom, 1997.
S. Paz Wells, Mensajeros del Cosmos. Una Puerta hacia las Estrellas, 1999.

[14] K. Olum, 'Conflict between anthropic reasoning and
observation', gr-qc/0303070 version V1.
 
We know it's not zero.

I disagree. A thing can only be "known" if you have observational evidence for it. We currently have none.

The whole Drake Equation is currently a W.A.G. We can refine the possible values of each term, but never properly define any of the terms until we detect life of some sort.

The universe may be teaming with algae, but environmental conditions which allow life to evolve high enough to engage in inter-stellar communication may be so narrow as to approach zero possibility.
 
I disagree. A thing can only be "known" if you have observational evidence for it. We currently have none.

The whole Drake Equation is currently a W.A.G.

Not so, we know the first three terms pretty well from astronomical work, and have some intriguing hints at the fourth. We might know the fourth in 30 years. The 5th, 6th and 7th terms are much harder.

Also, we know we exist, so NONE of the terms in the Drake Equation are zero. I think I would call that observational evidence.
 
theres a top 10 scientific break-through of 2013 vid been posted here recently charlie.

they can now more accurately than ever before put the number of stars in out local neighbourhood the milkyway at 200 billion.
and 100billion planets orbiting them, 20% of which are in the goldie lox zone, 20 billion.

now consider the milkyway as the equivalent of a grain of sand on a beach on this planet, a grain of sand amongst all the grains of sand on this planet, then multiply those 200 billion stars that, that grain of sand represents by the total number of grains of sand on this planet, and you will still not be anywhere near the true number, a human couldnt write enough naughts in a life-time, to complete the number, so i think its fair to assume that in billions of years of existance, that there is extraterrestrial technology in space.
 
Truly, a mind blowing revelation that may multiply the Drake Equation to practical certainty.

Astronomers Find First Evidence of Other Universes | MIT Technology Review
Well, it wouldn't perturb the Drake equation any time soon, since it's galacto-centric. Even if we can find evidence of another universe (and I am optimistic that we can), it's not at all clear whether we could communicate with it. I think most theorists would tell you right now to forget about it.
 
Well, it wouldn't perturb the Drake equation any time soon, since it's galacto-centric. Even if we can find evidence of another universe (and I am optimistic that we can), it's not at all clear whether we could communicate with it. I think most theorists would tell you right now to forget about it.

Paul,
As someone who's efforts I am honestly thankful for, I have to share something with you that's been rolling around in my head today. BTW, I gained most all that respect in the last day or so after perusing your terrific blog yesterday. It was in this thread that I first linked to it, and I must state that whoever does is in for some fairly impressive and substantial reading. I was previously not familiar enough with your name to recognize the significance of your contributions here. So, I am simply letting you know.

This is my flight of curious imagination: What if we were to simply look at the state of technology in the world that we live in 2000 years ago, would there be any way to determine where we would be at now technologically?

I know that we have to retain knowledge or reality of what science presently understands. A rational outlook and stance upon which to build productively if you will. However, looking back to a time just 500 years ago, I cannot believe that almost anything that we presently consider technologically mundane would be viewed as anything short of utterly impossible.

Does this seem fair to you?

I sometimes wonder about the many fantastic and utterly nonsensical humanoid encounter reports and how they may relate to this same context of perceptual difficulty. Could there actually be a point in our distant future wherein the universe is teaming with various hyper civilizations due to what might be a common technology, nonexistent even in concept to us now, 5-10 thousand years from now?

Analogously, with respect to the previous "flight of imagination" scenario, it's difficult for me to dismiss such possibilities.
 
Well, I simply don't know the answers to your questions, but given all the supernatural and magical beliefs people held in ancient times, the might see our times through that lens. I'm quite sure that they could not PREDICT where technology was going - hell, you only have to go back 50 or so years to find some pretty bad predictions about where it was headed, and we are probably still wildly wrong about the future. My father's generation - arguably the best raw engineers the world has ever seen or WILL see - was far too pessimistic about how good we would get at handling information and far too optimistic about our mastery of energy.

I think we are in transition now, and will eventually get on top of all this information technology we have, and optimistically, turn it in useful directions like space travel. We can already do that to some extent.

As for other civilizations in the universe possibly becoming so advanced that to us they seem like magicians, well that's waht we are trying to understand. It's easy to speculate, but what would we expect to OBSERVE? Where would that lead us? In other words, let's emphasize the questions over the answers, which in our case we have not got.

One thing that impresses me about UFOs is that they make no sense, and that is kind of what I would expect. Think about it - a good magician leaves you with that impression - that what you just experienced makes no sense.
 
One thing that impresses me about UFOs is that they make no sense, and that is kind of what I would expect. Think about it - a good magician leaves you with that impression - that what you just experienced makes no sense.

If the length of a species' survival can move past the self-destruction marker that seems to be inherent in a species founded upon belief systems mostly concerned with power as opposed to giving, or asking questions, or looking outwards; then, perhaps there may be that odd species out there that's been alive for a million or billion years. If that's the case then we will always be just an audience for magicians.

Given that we're not interacting with others, though we can receive signals, the great distances in time and space may just leave us as lonely, potential galactic colonists, with only one 'wow' signal and nothing more. If our resolution into deep space lets us see and hear better & more effciently; then, what will be more likely - that we initiate contact or that we become galactic archeologists at a distance. Either way we seem to stand clearly outside the whole situation, scratching at dark matter.
 
I recently spoke to famed planet hunter Geoff Marcy, and he confirmed that we now have a very good estimate for the third term in the Drake Equation, to join the first two. The Drake Equation is a tool for approximating the number of other choice for SETI theorists. The DE is seven factors, and the last four are still guesses, but so far the news is good for more civilizations.

However, it all depends on what you estimate for the last term, L. If you assume a pessimistic L, then it's not very many other civilizations:

My estimate of the best numbers so far:
Dream of the Open Channel: Where I am on the Drake Equation at the end of 2013

My discussion of L:

Dream of the Open Channel: The Jaws of Darkness

What do you think?

Damn nice post and thanks for putting it up here.
 
If the length of a species' survival can move past the self-destruction marker that seems to be inherent in a species founded upon belief systems mostly concerned with power as opposed to giving, or asking questions, or looking outwards; then, perhaps there may be that odd species out there that's been alive for a million or billion years. If that's the case then we will always be just an audience for magicians.

Given that we're not interacting with others, though we can receive signals, the great distances in time and space may just leave us as lonely, potential galactic colonists, with only one 'wow' signal and nothing more. If our resolution into deep space lets us see and hear better & more effciently; then, what will be more likely - that we initiate contact or that we become galactic archeologists at a distance. Either way we seem to stand clearly outside the whole situation, scratching at dark matter.


or just maybe we get heard.










and eaten, there maybe good reason for staying quiet.
 
Back
Top