Finding aliens is almost as terrifying an idea as never finding them. For several decades, The human being has set himself the goal of discovering life beyond Earthalthough so far without much fruit.
However, a new study seems to shed some light on the matter. Posted in Royal Society, it is a twist to the famous Fermi Paradox; and pretend discover the reasons why humanity has not found advanced civilizations.
“The common belief that the universe has numerous technologically advanced civilizations, combined with our observations suggesting just the opposite, is paradoxical, thus suggesting that our knowledge or observations are flawed or incomplete.”
Fermi paradox
As the Fermi theory explains, there is a conflict: the existence of aliens, versus the apparent absence of them in such a wide space. The new study attacks exactly this point, proposing that there is not an absence of aliens, but rather the lack of interest on the part of the latter in contacting other civilizations. We are going to explain the reason.
What does the asymptotic exhaustion theory refer to?
The new theory has been developed by Dr. Michael Wong of the Carnegie Institution for Science, together with Dr. Stuart Bartlett of the California Institute of Technology. In it, they explain how, after a point of no return in an interplanetary civilization, said society decides to make the decision to “prioritize homeostasis”describe the researchers.
“Civilizations collapse from depletion or reorient to prioritize homeostasis, a state in which cosmic expansion is no longer a goal, making them difficult to detect from a distance.”
Dr Michael Wong and Dr Stuart Bartlett
What does it mean? Well, in the event of large-scale alien civilizations, the depletion of resources in their region and the ever-increasing demand of an advanced society, could have caused them to revert back to a primitive stage again, or less advanced. This would allow them to continue subsisting as a species, limiting the consumption of resources, but also becoming increasingly undetectable in the dark vacuum of space.
The light at the end of the tunnel
However, although the news released by the researchers seems to indicate that we will never find a high-level civilization; There is another important point that allows us to have hope. As they comment in their study, those civilizations that were on the verge of reaching exhaustion they might be easier to spot than any other.
The reason is clear, and it is that before a break point, there is always a reason. If these alien societies are about to reach the exhaustion described, it means that at this time are in the process of altering their environment, dissipating energy in ways that are unhealthy for the environment, producing fluctuations at such a high level that they would produce noise that could be easily detected by scientists on Earth.
“This raises the possibility that a good portion of humanity’s early detections of extraterrestrial life were of the intelligent, though not yet wise, kind.”
Of course, This is just one theory among many.. Although we love the subject, remember to take it for what it is. At the moment, there is no evidence to support the words of Dr. Wong and Dr. Barlett.
In addition, there are other variables at play. What if the human experience was not applicable to the rest of the intelligent species? With a universe as vast as the one we live in, aliens may have slightly different ways of actingand based on their own criteria and variables.