Did anyone make a mistake? Did anyone ever consider the “Fermi paradox” a paradox in need of dissolution? Can you point to anyone making any argument that would be improved by this analysis? This community has generally focused on the “Great Filter” framing of the argument, which puts weight on multiple hypotheses, even if not explicit weight.
All this calculation says is that some people say that life is difficult. Did anyone ever say that they knew with great certainty that life is easy? On the contrary, many people have said that it is the key parameter and looking for traces of life on other planets will shed light on the question. Other people have said that it is important to pay attention to panspermia, because the presence of panspermia allows the possibility that life is difficult and happened only once in the universe, and yet spread to many planets, requiring another filter.
(The only paradox I can imagine is: if we don’t see any life, then life isn’t out there (perhaps first asserted by Hart 1975), so life is practically impossible, so we’re practically impossible; So why do we exist? This paradox is resolved by anthropic update (Carter 1983). The phrase “Fermi paradox” only appears around 1975, but I’m not sure that Hart or anyone else reached this paradoxical conclusion. In fact, lots of people complained that it’s not a paradox.)
Did anyone make a mistake? Did anyone ever consider the “Fermi paradox” a paradox in need of dissolution? Can you point to anyone making any argument that would be improved by this analysis? This community has generally focused on the “Great Filter” framing of the argument, which puts weight on multiple hypotheses, even if not explicit weight.
All this calculation says is that some people say that life is difficult. Did anyone ever say that they knew with great certainty that life is easy? On the contrary, many people have said that it is the key parameter and looking for traces of life on other planets will shed light on the question. Other people have said that it is important to pay attention to panspermia, because the presence of panspermia allows the possibility that life is difficult and happened only once in the universe, and yet spread to many planets, requiring another filter.
(The only paradox I can imagine is: if we don’t see any life, then life isn’t out there (perhaps first asserted by Hart 1975), so life is practically impossible, so we’re practically impossible; So why do we exist? This paradox is resolved by anthropic update (Carter 1983). The phrase “Fermi paradox” only appears around 1975, but I’m not sure that Hart or anyone else reached this paradoxical conclusion. In fact, lots of people complained that it’s not a paradox.)