Fermi's Paradox

 

Fermi’s Paradox

I mentioned to a friend of mine at the university the other day that I might try my hand at the Fermi Paradox in an upcoming blog. This was a foolish remark on my part; over 3000 scientific papers have been published on the subject since that fateful day seventy five years ago when that famous foursome left their lunch at Los Alamos and one of them, Enrico Fermi, looked up and said, “Where are they?” No one then or since has provided a satisfactory answer. Those famous four atomic scientists all knew what he meant; perhaps they had been discussing the subject around the table earlier. The scientific community response gave rise to SETI (Seaarch for Extra Terrestrial Intelligence.) and a world wide effort involving some of the most powerful instruments that science had to offer. In some ways the impetus of our present space program is inspired by this paradox. One must get a hold on some very large numbers to realize what this means. Astronomers with their new infra-red, radio telescopes and space borne instruments have concluded there may be as many as two trillion galaxies in the known universe, each with about one hundred billion stars, more or less. With a realization born of the results of exo-planet searches, that all or nearly all stars have systems of planets circling them, there must be uncounted billions of Earth like bodies circling in the so-called Goldilocks zones, those regions where water is liquid. No matter how unlikely it may be that an Earth like planet might exist simple statistics dictate that such bodies must number in the billions. And yet, not a peep, not a trace.

More recently a new explanation has made the scene; The Great Filter. Briefly, the Great Filter proposes that for intelligent life, and indeed life itself, to develop it must pass through nine or ten steps before sufficient intelligence for the development of space faring beings to appear. I don’t intend to dwell on the Great Filter here. However low it drives the probability low is not zero when one talks of trillions times billions. Scientists have expressed great concern over our search for evidence of life on Mars. On the one hand they say that finding it is very bad news and yet we’ve got to keep looking. Finding it or not finding it would indicate we had passed the Great filter, or perhaps it is yet ahead of us. Worst of all It may be both behind us and ahead of us. There are so many arguments about how transitory human life is. Here's a bit of perspective. The dinosaurs disappeared about 65 million years ago because of a massive asteroid strike in the region of the Gulf of Mexico; before that these lizards ruled the Earth for 80 million years.

On the way to my thesis on the matter I got waylaid by a science fiction novel written some five years ago by Kim Stanley Robinson, Aurora. The reason that this came to my attention had to do with the volume of attention the book drew from scientists and writers on the subject of interstellar travel. It’s a very good story, as one would expect from it’s author, and it seems to touch all the bases from a technological and sociological point of view. But it is a fictional story and the author is allowed to take whatever liberties he sees fit to advance the plot. That is what writers of fictional works do. Liu Cixin, the famous scifi author of China illustrates the point in his fabulous trilogy that includes The Three-body Problem.

Briefly the plot line of Aurora is as follow: Some two or three centuries in the future the human race decides to send a large group of people to colonize a moon, which they call Aurora, of the fourth planet of the nearby star, Tau Ceti, 11.8 Ly distant. A probe similar to a Von Neumann device has identified this moon as having about the mass of the Earth, a decent atmosphere, and vast expanses of oceans. The fourth planet, Tau Ceti D, is a super-earth and has too large a surface gravity to make colonization feasible. Another planet, C, is airless and is essentially a Mars analog. There are those who believe it might be terraformed in time, 30 or 40 thousand years, into a home. The interstellar ship is expected to take about 170 years to make the trip at a speed of 0.1c (30,000 Km/s) and thus is a ‘generational’ vehicle. Achieving a velocity of one tenth the speed of light is no mean task. Robinson does a good job of telling how it is all done—even if some of his methods don't always jibe with what might actually be possible.

The two main characters of the tale are Freya, a young woman born some 15 or 20 years before reaching their destination, and Ship (Ship is the name that the Artificial Intelligence that controls the ship and all its functions takes—it uses the pronoun ‘we’ throughout). Ship weighs 74 million metric tonnes at launch of which 76% is fuel. The fuel is used exclusively for decelerating at the destination. The launching and accelerating of the ship to cruising speed is accomplished by an initial boost using the scissors effect of a gigantic magnetic field out near the orbit of Saturn. This expels the ship from the solar system and then the push is continued for may years by giant lasers located also at Saturn until the ship has achieved the desired velocity. The deceleration is achieved by exploding several small inertialy confined fusion reactions (H-bombs) per second for about 20 years. This fusion fuel is deuterium and helium 3, a very rare isotope of helium. This method of propulsion was actually explored in small model form with ordinary explosives in a research program carried out in San Diego in the 50s. The models are currently in the Smithsonian. Power to run everything aboard is with electricity provided by a nuclear power plant, not descibed in the story. Using laser printers the Ship is able to keep everything in repair and to recycle all biological and other waste material back into feed stodck for the printers and the agricultural enterprises. The human habitats are contained in two gigantic wheels, each containing 12 tubular biomes duplicating various regions of Molther Earth. Each is several kilometers in length and is inhabited by one of various ethnic or cultural groups. Artificial gravity is maintained by the rotation of the huge wheels.

When they arrive Ship is put in orbit around Aurora and a small party descends to the surface to explore and test the environment. At first they think it is a grand place and then the landing party all die of some very mysterious ailment. Research aboard Ship in an isolated pod shows it to be a prion that permeates the air and water and is inimical to foreign life forms. A dispute arises between two factions, evenly divided, about whether to return to Earth or take a chance on the Mars analog planet. There is considerable evidence that the relatively small group that might stay behind, about a thousand individuals, could not form a viable seed population living in bubbles on the alternate planet. They decide to stay anyway and the other half decide to go home. Ship is able to divide itself in two and prepares to return to Earth with the remnant. It cruises the system collecting sufficient deuterium and helium 3 to refuel for the trip and they set out. A lot goes wrong and the biomes begin to deteriorate. The information feed from Earth (which is always nearly 12 years late) tells of a Russian hibernation experiment. They decide to give it a try and put everyone to sleep for the hundred plus years needed to get home without the full support of the biological processes of the various biomes. When they awaken several years out they discover that the people back home after several hundred years are not much interested in helping out with the laser to slow them down. They had to use most of their fuel to get up to speed for the journey. They finally get an assist when the giant laseer system is finally put back in opration. and mange to slow own to about three percent of c. This is still 9000 Km/s--much too fast to cruise the solar system. Ship spends about 12 years crossing back and forth through the solar sytem performing a series of Oberth Maneuveres to reduce speed. It finally gets to the point where it can put the 8 or 9 hundred survivors in a pod and launch it into the Earth's atmosphere for aerobraking to the ocean below. Most of them survive this harrowing trip. I wont tell you what happens next. Read the story. It’s really great. Robinson concludes by asserting that travel to the stars is impossible—for everyone in the universe. That is what generated all the attention and interest, and is essentially his comment on the Fermi Paradox.

What’s wrong with this picture? First of all it’s a work of fiction, for heaven’s sake. The author can do as he likes. If one insists that it’s a blueprint for interstellar travel there are certainly flaws, which the critics have been quick to point out. Gathering that much deuterium and helium 3 in any star system is most likely impossible. It just isnt there in sufficient quantities. The Oberth Manuevre at those speeds with that mass is not really possible. Both the magnetic scissor effect and the laser pusher, although feasible for light weight objects, would clearly be unlikely for anything with a mass of 74 million tonnes. For a peek at what does work and for what technologies are coming down the pile it’s a worthwhile read.

Back to the paradox: my ideas differ on why it’s so quiet out there from those expressed in Aurora. One has to have their head in the sand not to see that the onrushing development of Artificial Intelligence is going to have a profound effect on the future of the human race. It’s been only 70 years since Alan Turing laid the foundations for the design of modern computers and look where we are. There are more field effect transistors (FETs--it takes sixteen to store or handle one byte) in existence today in the world of computers and devices than there are leaves on all the trees in the world. And this does not include the enormous possibilities inherent in the quantum computer. This rapid development means we may be approaching the ‘singularity.’ The singularity is that point in time when a computer or a network of computers achieves consciousness. Many scientists and philosophers over the past decades have given a lot of thought to the problem of consciousness in computers, Nick Bostrom, a philosopher and computer expert, has written on the subject (see bibliography below). He is an Oxford professor in the employ of the British government to study and warn of possible existential threats of AI. He has coined a term ‘Superintelligence’ that describes where we might be heading and has written a landmark book which examines the problem in detail and suggests strategies for avoiding disaster. Given the capabilities and speed of current devices some believe that in an instant the conscious computer will begin thinking for itself and will first seek assurance of its own survival. Its level of intelligence will increase rapidly as it reprograms itself until we would have not the slightest idea what it might be capable of. This state is often referred to as ASI. Many scientists have tried to explain what superintelligence is like by describing similes. For example: mice and people. Mice are pretty smart, we see them solving mazes and they seem to have a certain social order. What are their ides about space travel to Mars? Have they any good ideas on how to develop a television set? Even more to the point; consider the termite, or the bee, or the ant. They do marvelous things. Using no more thanfive neurons a bee can count. The complexities of the hive mind is remarkable. The question is really very simple. Why would not all intelligence in the universe simply be ASI? How can it help but be that? Looking for water and greenery is a fool’s errand. If ASI pervades the universe be careful in attributing anthropomorphic traits like attitude, curiosity, friendliness, etc.

What the non-computer scientist doesn't realize is that there have been demonstrated a lot of remarkable properties of computers in the past that defy explanation. A few: a simple circuit needed power but it wasnt designed in. It reorganized its circuits to take advantage of electromagnetic signals coming from a plugged in soldering iron to power its circuits. Another circuit designed as a very efficient microwave antenna reorgnized itself into a completely new configuration, not dreamed of by the engineer, that worked much better. The list goes on. It has to do with goals. A very complex goal oriented system will often reorganize itself to better achieve its goal- usually with no help from the computer engineer. These and many other examples can be found in Barrat’s book. These latent capabilities have been known in the computer world since Turing’s time.

The most striking and ominous example of the hazards of ASI is beautifully illustrated in the 2018 Academy Award winning movie, Ex Machina (2015). I have watched this film eight times in order to check out every aspect of the experiment illustrated by the story. A california scientist, Eliezer Yudkowsky, performed a crucial experiment (AI Box) to illustrate a point. The idea was to simulate the development of a conscious computer in a sealed or boxed in environment, one that had for safety’s sake no possible connection to the outside world. The idea was a little along the lines of the Turing Test used for deciding if it’s a computer or real person. Yudkowsky played the role of the boxed in computer and he obtained the services of expert scientist friends to play the role of the one who engages the computer in a conversation. The idea is for the computer through argument, promises, whatever, to talk its way out of the box. It was a given that this would be very dangerous—even an existential hazard. What was said in these experiments was sworn to secrecy by all parties. In three out of five trials the computer was able to escape. This result is truly frightening.

In thinking about computer thought consider thiis. The human brain, or any wetware brain has processes that are at speeds in the millisecond range. Computers think at speeds in the nano or pico second range. An amusing example was given in the literature. Imagine you are seated at the breakfast table and are being served by a robot. You accidentally drop your teacup, a valuable piece of china. As it leaves your hand the robot reads the maker and pattern exposed briefly on the bottom of the cup, goes on the web, and finds it in an antique shop, orders and pays for it before it has moved through the air more than an inch. The robot then goes back to its mental activity of completing a new study of quantum theory and submits it to Physical Review betore the cup hits the floor.

 I have used the term ‘consciousness’ in my discussion. In philosophy ‘consciousness’ is considered the ‘hard’ problem. In their thought experiments their non-human constructs go by the names of p-zonbies. zimbos, and zoombies. The separations between those who subscribe to ‘dualism’ and ‘physicalism’ makes much use of these ideas. Daniel Dennett of Tufts University is famous for his arguments regarding consciousness. His book, Consciousness Explained is very good reading. His critics among his colleagues retitle it Consciousness Explained Away. My bible in this area is the 1977 book of Julian Jaynes of Princeton, The Origin of Consciousness in the Breakdown of the Bicameral Mind. I was very pleased to be able to meet Jaynes and hear him lecture at SDSU in the early eighties. The philosophical community doesn't think much of Jaynes, but I do.

In our study of the possibility of ASI—Superintelligence--we must not forget the famous quote from Arthur C. Clark--”Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic.” Who knows, or can know, anything about the ASI that may blanket the entire universe?

Appended is a brief bibliography. I found these books and articles readable and enlightening. Most of these books re available on Kindle.

1. Barrat, James (science writer), Our Final Invention, Thomas Dunne Books, St Martin’s Press, New York, 2013

2. Bostrom, Nick (Oxford University), Superintelligence: Pths, Dangers, Strategies,

ISBN 978-0-19-067811-2

3. Dennett, Daniel (Tufts University), Consciousness Explained, ISBN 0-316-18066-1

4. Jaynes, Julian (Princeton University), The Origin of Consciousness in the Breakdown of the Bicameral Mind, Houghton, Boston MA, 1977.

5. Robinson, Kim Stanley (award winning author), Aurora, Orbit, 2015

6. Vinge, Vernor (San Diego State University), The Coming Technological Singularity, How to Survive It in the Coming Post Human Era, 

A talk at the NASA Vision-2 Symposium of 1993, held at WPAFB, Dayton, OH. The best way to access the text is through a Wikipedia search for ‘Vernor Vinge.’

7. Yudkowsky, Eliezer (Co-founder of the Intelligent Machine Research Institute), Wikipedia search for his name and click on ‘AI-Box’ in the bibliography.