I can't remember the title, but I once read a short story detailing how we discovered a new form of near-instant quantum-based communications. As soon as we powered it up, we became aware of the sheer number of other civilisations out there, all talking to one another in almost real-time. When they realise we can now access that technology, we're invited into the galactic internet, of sorts, and begin to learn from all the other species out there. It's not original, but it always made me feel a little more positive about first contact with alien life.
How is that not bloody original?!?! Was that short story based on a light novel?!?!?!?! I wish you knew the name, that story seems awesome, I've never even seen or heard of anything like that before.
I like the scenarios that involve cooperation between alien species (us and other extraterrestrial species). Not only does it give you fuzzy feelings of happiness but it also seems to play out in nature on Earth. Cooperation is just as prevalent among many social species as is competition.
I'm wondering, what if Alien females are far more beautiful than our own females and a personality that's more enjoyable too. Might be the end of both species. Especially if it reciprocates.
Look up what Haim Ashed, former head of Israel's space dept, has said in recent interviews. He speaks of a galactic federation of worlds and the level at which human global consciousness is at in relation to why those ETs dont just openly reveal themselves. Seems from history that humans end up worshipping them and they are susceptible to this bc they are living beings with desires and issues too. Look up michael salla and his work/books
If u want a good intro to all that then find a free pdf of this book. Facing the shadow, embracing the light. Also bill coopers book behold a pale horse. I can reccomend more stuff and ppl to look into. Lmk if u want that
It seems reasonable that civilizations would likely have some combination of cooperation and competition. I don't know how far a species would get if it was all one or the other. As presented here, it's interesting to think of cooperation as a function of self-interest as much as altruism, though. If intelligent life is rare, then the few who have it benefit by finding each other, sharing information of mutual interest, etc. - not because it helps the others out there but in the hopes that they will know things that can help us. This makes it a bit easier to believe this could actually happen.
I posed this question to a SETI podcast and Seth Shostak took it as a point of discussion. What if earth were the most advanced civilization and we were surrounded by dozens of civilizations at the technological level of Rome. How would we find them or count them?
There's actually a rather obscure paper out there, I don't recall the authors, that laid out that you might be able to to detect pre-industrial societies on exoplanets. The idea is that while the Romans weren't emitting radio obviously, they were practicing very large scale agriculture. This in principle, with a big enough telescope and were close enough, might be detectable in several ways. The first is the vegetative red edge. Photosynthesizing earth plants become highly reflective in certain infra red wavelengths, almost like mirrors. Plant analogues on other worlds might do the same. That's one tool in the kit for detecting other biospheres, but if you saw some strange stuff like little variation in the signal, much like fields all growing the same thing, that might be a tip that there is an agricultural civilization present on that exoplanet. There are also things like weird variations in brightness, seasonality, and other indicators that might indicate agriculture. One can envision a rapid, massive change in foliage due to a harvest without telltale chemical changes in the exoplanet atmosphere that would indicate huge wild fires for example. Admittedly though, this is a long shot, and while someone might have detected Rome because at the time there was lots of agriculture going on globally in addition to the empire, it gets harder the further back you go. When you get back to the stone age, there just isn't any marker we produced to tell we were here. But it can also be said that primitive alien civilizations might do stuff we did not, such as pave enormous sections of their planet. We didn't do that until recently, but maybe aliens think differently. But this is a hard one, so we probably couldn't tell how common such civilizations are, rather we might serendipitously discover a few by what they're doing. But, you know, technological civilizations have proven hard enough to find, so I kind of think this one would be extraordinarily hard. But, maybe?
I think we should be cautiously optimistic. If we find them, at least one of us and one of them are going to try to talk. That's inevitable. There also aren't a lot of good reasons to attack our planet. Going to war is costly, even if you're far more advanced than your target. Plus, mineral resources are extremely common in the universe but life is rare and valuable. It would make sense to want to preserve it.
Like many of your viewers (it seems), I really struggle to fall asleep at night without your soothing but informative videos… Most important and entertaining channel on UA-cam. Thanks so much for what you do 🙏
See, I try to use channels like this to fall asleep but I always end up laying awake for 6 hours listening to info I have already heard 100 times already! No wonder why Humans look at me like I'm crazy when I conversate.
13:36 My take on this has always been that, maybe if we ever get to stablish colonies in distant planets, the way we could comunicate instantaneously without the limitations of causality, is to establish a galactic network of probes that are composed of quantum computers that are all linked together by quantum entanglement, so when you decide to send a message, the quantum entangled comunication mechanism shares the information to all or certain probes instantaneously. To establish this comunication network you could do it by way of subluminal space travel or by FTL engines or whatever. This would also explain why there's no big radio meesages being sent throuout the galaxy...
Quantum entanglement doesn't allow FTL communication. While you can observe one of a pair of particles and determine the properties of the other particle in the pair based on those observations, if you try and put the energy into that particle to change its properties it would break the quantum entanglement and the second particle would be completely unaffected by the change in properties to the first. In order to send information you would need to be able to change the properties of your particle and have the other particle reflect those changes and as far as we know the laws of physics just prevents this from ever happening.
Two I would add are: "Is it possible to travel faster than light?" and "Is it possible to create matter/energy from nothing?" Even a yes or no answer would be big
why are you asking youtube commentators those questions lol.. I do know there is no "inside" to a black hole.. its a singularity, a sphere of physics breaking gravity.. but here- this may shed some light on to that subject- ua-cam.com/video/ZVPsNDonA84/v-deo.html also if time is eternal, there is no beginning and there is no end, there just is. gravity= a natural phenomenon where all things with mass and density are attracted to each other. Anyways, thats the best you get asking some rando on the internet instead of actual scientists lol
Maybe it’s no accident our universe seems reasonably well-tuned for life. Maybe it arose from the end of a previous universe that wasn’t as well-tuned, whose occupants came up with a way to tune the parameters of the subsequent universe. Perhaps this has been going on since the first universe arose capable of generating any sort of life. Each subsequent universe is better-tuned for the creation of even more consciousness.
"Maybe it’s no accident our universe seems reasonably well-tuned for life" Man I hate that saying No hate, just that life is barely tuned for life at all If anything its tuned for blackholes
Is it well tuned for life though? We have exactly one datapoint in the entire universe that says life can evolve here, it is possible (allthough I'd say very unlikely) that this is the only planet with life on it. From what we know, the universe could be really badly tuned for life and this planet's ecospehere is a crazy fluke. A universe without high energy radiation and configured in such a way that organic compounds have a much larger temperature range in which they are stable would be infinitely better for life (and that is just what I can come up with before breakfeast). Optimizing iterations of a universe are certainly a fun idea, maybe even a good pitch for a scifi novel, but in reality we can't even show if the premise is true and the application of Occam's razor certainly slashes that hypothesis to pieces.
It would take a truly benevolent entity to do such a thing, knowing any possibility of seeing its work or getting credit is impossible. I love this idea.
In the show "The Orville", there is an episode in which the crew of the spaceship receive a radio signal from a fledgling civilization, and I found that the crew's outburst of joy at this first contact was genuinely moving. They were so excited to meet these people and establish diplomatic relations, hoping to welcome them into the galactic community. I would hope that an advanced alien species would feel this way; a sense of fraternity and belonging, like upon learning that you have a secret brother that you never knew about and who is excited to make your acquaintance.
JMG, you know me, I know you. There isn’t much I can say other than you, your channel, and Event Horizon have been a huge factor in helping me get through some of the hardest times in my life. You have a life long fan in me. Thanks JMGoat
For me the big question is: do other civilizations have the virtue of compassion. Do they experience empathy for sentient beings who suffer, and are they motivated to help lessen the suffering? Conversely, given that the human species, or many members of it, are perfectly fine inflicting suffering on other sentient beings, would an empathic civilization withhold their knowledge, seeing humans as mental cases best left alone? Of course, one can conceive of an advanced civilization with the ability to alter human consciousness in any number of ways, including the ability to transform them into an empathic species. But maybe that would violate the doctrine of non-interference.
That last one made me rethink the "Prime Directive" (refraining from interfering with the development of alien civilizations). If life is exceedingly rare, and we happen to find an intelligent civilization, deciding not to interact with them seems like such a tragic waste.
I think this could be likely. If you think about it, if we meet a type 2 or type 3 civilization, they won’t require slaves. This may be a foolish thought but humans evolved to be selfish when in need or want. If these civilizations truly have no need, or want, they will most likely ignore us or potentially help.
John Michael Godier and Anton Petrov single handedly cured my insomnia and brought up an interest in physics that I never had, applied to uni recently. Imagine if our teachers were like this lol. All this in two years just listening to videos each night. Thanks I guess, worked better than therapy
Number 1 and 6 are probably the best scenarios imo, id love to live in a universe like mass effect where aliens are friendly and work together (minus the reapers) and a Santa clause probe is just so fitting for the time of year lol
John, imagine this scenario: An alien signal is picked up from a distant star system and the age old question of 'are we alone' is answered. There is no doubt. What do those first 24hrs after confirmation look like to you personally? What do you do? Does anything change for you personally or your daily life?
Obviously not John, but I'd be extremely skeptical. I'd wanna see it all, know everything they said, and learn everything about them. At this point, I'd be more suspicious of the government telling us there are aliens than there aren't. That being said, if it were true, nothing would change for me unless contact impacts my life in some way. It'd just be extremely cool and those stoner conversations about whether or not aliens exist won't happen anymore. Instead we can talk about the aliens.
There's an episode of Stargate SG-1 where they encounter a friendly alien civilization and they start working together, eventually even revealing the Stargate program to the public. It all goes well until the characters realize that the apparently friendly aliens actually play friendly to abuse and exploit other civilizations for their own good but of course then it's too late. For me, this is the scariest possible version of events. Just imagine a first contact with aliens that seem friendly and willing to help us but then after a while of working together, we find out that the aliens had no intentions to help us in the long run and we are basically just slaves to them now and there's nothing we could do about it.
7:30 Perhaps there have been many big bang big crunch cycles, but in this cycle someone found a way to stop the next crunch and we see that today as Dark Energy.
Very interesting theory. But whom? Something with that potential power would stick out like a sore thumb ? Or there would be traces of where the energy came from.
Yessssss new JMG video. Will be watching this several times as I try to catch more and more as I fall asleep! Keep up the awesome work John, your channel is absolutely my favorite.
Our radio transmissions 100 light years out would be very hard to discern from the background radiation. It'd be very hard for anyone to recognize it as something produced by an intelligent civilization. Not randomly at least. If by chance they had a solar system wide receiving antenna pointed our way, they'd not recognize it.
4. The End of the Universe Cafe fills me with such a melancholy yet warm feeling. The last civilizations accepting that the heat death is nigh and unavoidable, spending their last (millions of) years just chatting about all the good and bad times they've had, having a laugh, raising a glass etc. is a sad, yet a wonderful thing to imagine. Although the context is different, it kinda reminds me of Haydn's "Farewell" Symphony where at the end the musicians slowly leave one by one only for two violinists to finish the symphony.
I totally loved the end of the universe café idea. That was probably my favorite one. Thank you as always, John-live long and *drink alien coffee!* ☕😎🖖 Edit: Number 1 was actually my top favorite, and it captured exactly what I deeply hope the galaxy turns out to be for us. Finding even just one mostly altruistic civilization out there who views life, and especially intelligence, as preciously as I do, would be a dream come true, as well as the ultimate positive vibe, even if there are heartless marauding civilizations out here too. One would be more than enough for me.
i think "heartless marauding" civilizations would destroy themselves, or at least their technological capabilities, before they got very far exploring the universe.
I gotta say. Your theories are so awesome to think about. I have watched all your content and I wish I could have a convo with you to pick your brain about some theories of my own. Merry Christmas John. Thank you for opening up my mind and allowing my brain to begin to fathom some of these scenarios good and bad
A conversation I have not seen when discussing this subject, is what do we have to offer to a advanced species. A deep dive into this may better prepare us for a first contact event.
One thing I think could be positive aside from technological advances could be aliens that use simulations and VR or even something like Psychohistory, they could run a number of scenarios for us based on information we give them and we would receive projections that we could use to advance societally or to avoid great filters entirely.
I’ve been exploring space and astral travel since I was 12. You are a sole creator that fills this void in my heart. This will never be my future career, but you keep my universe curious mind at a state of satisfaction. Thank you for your unique content, no one does it like you do!!
we are trying to reach you again, your are sleeping in profund coma for seven iterations of the universe, please consider waking up, we know is hard, take your time and come back to us
its would be cool if we were alive in every cycle, but as a different intelligent being, as the universe observing itself, but we just can never remember the last time..
I find it better than the alternative of everything just dying from lack of resources at the end, but being the last civilization before the cycle restarts would suck.
I like the cyclic universe idea because it offers such a good explanation of where all the matter came from and how the initial singularity was formed, ie more and more black holes combining until all matter and the very fabric of time itself being eaten leaving nothing but a dot suspended out of time and space which then pops causing everything to start again.
Hi JMG! Especially with more of these alien civilization scenarios videos you've been making...Honestly, sometimes I wonder if you are an alien yourself. Haha, wouldn't that come off as a massive surprise, JMG the secret 3d-printed human alien representative to educate us silly humans about intelligent life, the cosmos, and beyond. But assuming you're still the non 3d-printed regular human we know and love, if intelligent life ever made contact, and we knew with good enough certainty that they didn't have malicious intentions...I say the first thing we do is send them over your videos. I'm sure they would be fascinated by all the theories we have about them and the Fermi Paradox that you go over on your channel. They would definitely laugh at a few, and maybe even be metaphorically scratching their heads (if they have any) with how us apparently advanced apes missed the obvious signs that we were not alone. KIC 8462852 will still remain a mystery to all intelligent life of course.
Speaking of that and jokes aside, something I imagine from time to time is if the first message an advanced civilization sends us is simply, _"You are not alone."_ Wouldn't that be amazing? But perhaps this message also carries a subtle, yet profound undertone of eerieness... By the way, I'm not sure if you still remember this, but you replied to a few of my comments not too long ago using my old account with the joke name "Big Brother". Unfortunately, the account got hijacked by some hacker a couple months ago after my computer got a Trojan Virus. Honestly, I won't be surprised and wouldn't blame you if you forgot considering all the comments you get and reply to on a regular basis. After all, you're a content creator with almost 300k subscribers. Anyway, I just thought I'd let you know that that was me in the mere off-chance that you happen to read this. JMG, keep up the good videos as always and as this year is coming towards an end, I wish you happy holidays! ;)
It's mathematically possible to create a "baby universe", if you can focus a tremendous amount of energy at a single point. I'd like to know what ET knows or believes about the creation of this universe.
Hi JMG you again have added to the by far superior playlist TOP 10's . I just cant get enough . The last comment I made about your studio yeah I wanted to tell you Ive got a PS4 in my cave too had it ages but cant quite get back in to gaming. Im glad your a 80's kid . I too was amazed by the things you studied as a kid. I think its really great we saw our evolution with the help of a couple of bits of technology like Rocket flight , flight and transistors and integrated circuits (Micro chips) and solar system exploration even if by proxy . Just amazing and you bring all that together in your shows very very well produced .
I got out of bed a bit early. Filling in with this a bit before heading out for work. "Whatever we knows" should also include culture. Apperantly the Klingons of Star Trek appreciate Shakespeare after all. 😀
I've been thinking of a better odds scenario that could be named "Lampposts in the Dark Forest", in which some alien civilizations realize the problem of the dark forest theory and build countermeasures to avoid intergalactic annihilation, like being able to lock the intergalactic travel megastructure away from species with genocidal intentions or something like.
3:38 “…and what happened before the first 300M years of the universe’s existence…”. John, don’t you mean the first 300 thousand years…as in before the Cosmic Microwave Background Radiation became visible?
If anyone is interested the game Outer Wilds is based on the idea of the universe ending/restarting and a new universe being created. It's also a fantastic game with fun mechanics and an amazing story.
i should probably give it anothert shot, kinda bounced off of it, heard alot of good things tho. been playing a shit ton of stellaris, gettin my space fix
One little nitpick - I understand what most mean when phrases like "a civilization a million years more advanced than us" are used, but, at the same time, if we look at sharks, well, they've been around for HUNDREDS of millions of years, and are even older than the existence of trees ... yet, they never even invented daytime television game shows. In that sense, as an extreme example of one kind of "filter" at work, similar intelligence filters could, potentially occur with alien civilizations where they're smart enough to be a successful civilization, successful enough to even perhaps colonize their entire local solar system, but, at a certain point, they run into a wall, and advance no further and this could take place at various benchmark moments for the civilization. As such, I think it's entirely possible a million-year old civilization could be successful enough to survive a million years, but, stuck at a preindustrial stage where every tool they use is made bespoke and/or passed down through inheritance, where the concept of an assembly line, or even using a template to make, or stamp out many items exactly the same ... is a concept entirely beyond their grasp. Every book is hand-written and/or copied by hand. everything else anyone uses from earthenware, furniture, everything is made by hand, and basically bespoke, even if there's something akin to a religious formula/ritual followed to make a thing the same way every time. Niven's Gripping Hand comes to mind. Anyway, sorry. That concept of time = advancement in technological sophistication/development just bothers me a bit, because sharks. :)
The first contact we might have may be abstract. As alien as their language would be to us ours would be just as alien to them. It could just be a symbol or one word they've been able to decipher in one of our many languages. Our first contact could be the word "question" in any language we have. And we'd spend years trying to respond
I would imagine since information takes so long to travel you might instead receive a really long stream of data all at once: "Hey we're over in this system here's our language and look at all this cool tech we're sending you, now please fill out our 100 page questionnarie on your civilization, thanks!"
Nothing gets me more excited than my phone playing John Micheal Godier by Snakes Have Legs everytime you post a video... "Black holes, light speed, intelligent life maybe"
I love the universal data archive idea. Actually, this reminded me of Carl Jung's theory, the collective unconscious which refers to the unconscious mind at large and the shared mental concepts universally.
Bro, I fucking love your channel. I hops you'll be a lil happy to hear that I have recommended your channel to countless other people in a good handful of comment threads around YT 😜 I am always so stoked on the content you upload~ ~Specifically how in depth you go into every topic//theory you cover, & yet it's typically never "too complex or complicated" to understand & comprehend.
Fusion is realistically going to take over 50 years to become viable. So far we've not been able to produce any useable power from fusion. And when we finally achieve that it's a matter of making it cheaper and sustainable.
Conflict arises when there is a scarcity of resources. Like you said, there is virtually limitless resources available in the cosmos. So, it doesn't seem that the few interplanetary capable civilizations would need to fight over anything. I personally don't worry about alien civilizations so much more advanced than us than I do the ones that are only slightly more advanced. Resources aren't the ONLY reason immature civilizations come into conflict.
There's a part of me that's come to really understand ufo cults. With all the injustice in the world it feels cruel that we have to do this on our own, and that no one is helping us step out to crush scarcity, disability, or our energy issues. Like I could grant that biology might not be translatable because of fundamental differences (like the geometry in chirality or something), and psychology and maybe even political science can't translate because we evolved in completely different ways, but at the very least they could help us get off fossil fuels or so on...
Yeah, I agree to a point. Some help would be nice. But if we want to become adults, we need to figure things out for ourselves the best we can. Then, we would need to prove we're worth the help that might be offered.
The moment humans achieve Interstellar travel, all the Aliens in the galaxy visit Earth to throw us a huge celebration party. YOU DID IT ON YOUR OWN! 🎉🎉
The simplest “bookmark” to the Fermi Paradox is that we simply haven’t looked enough. We’ve looked at less than 1% of our own galaxy. It’s too soon to start drawing conclusions. Our galaxy is vast, with hundreds of millions of stars, and even more planets. There’s lots of places for life to be. We just need to keep looking. If we get to 60% and we still haven’t even found a hint of life, then we can start drawing conclusions.
until this video, I've never had the thought of: what if there are technologically advanced space aliens who achieved technological and space advancement so long ago, that they literally have no idea where they came from, or what their former biological existence looked like, or was. That's a very interesting thought and it absolutely could happen if entities were created directly in space. Anyone remember that tv show "alien encounters" , where the aliens appeared as a seed with the apparent purpose of reproduction. thus, the enlightened humans that were merged with the "aliens" were ultimately left not having any idea who or what their alien ancestors were or how they came to be.
It's literally the only data we have to go on at the moment. Therefore upgrading it in the statistical analysis the highly likely thats the way it'd go. Until we have other/contradictory data it would behoove us to not ignore this.
It’s possible that intelligent life exists all over the universe but it does not perceive the rest of the universe in the way that people (and more specifically, Westerners like us) view the universe. We view the universe as an endless trove of resources meant to be exploited, so of course that worldview (or universe view for that matter) would then be applied to aliens. This whole time, dozens of civilizations could be thriving successfully on their planets with no need to expand outwards
This is far more profound than the negative alien scenarios. And far more plausible. All our futurists are mostly hoping for the positive things such as overcoming the 2nd law, getting past the end of the universe, etc, and at most for settling uninhabited places, not for wars of conquest. Future civilizations would, if they had achieved any of these things, want to share them. War is easy, but we have larger aspirations that have constantly grown more important for us with time. It comes with intelligence, technology, and prosperity, surplus -- aspirations change, the higher ones grow rapidly, the lower ones suffer relative decline and ultimately absolute decline. This was taught ages ago in the Talmud and is demonstrated with modern statistical brilliance in the books of Harvard prof. Steve Pinker - btw, you should send Pinker a copy of this video, he would probably give it a reference in his influential writings. The one major reason left for pessimism is that the technologies for destroying the universe grow even faster than the technologies for saving it. The risk of destroying it by accident, including research accident, might prove impossible to eliminate or reduce asymptotically toward zero over time, as would be necessary to preserve the universe.
I mean, i always want our species to be assimilated into an space empire of some sorts Where humans become ageless, our horizons would expand so much. I would like to see other species cultures, their languages, their books, their story, their biology. It's so interesting to just think about it
I think having advanced alien tech just thrown in our laps would be like the fabled lottery winners --self-destroyed in short order, i.e. technical development must progress in lock step with social development. We have hardly even "digested" the tech that we ourselves have come up with.
John, I really like listening to your videos; I like that you often discuss ideas based on the assumption (that is unembraced by most scientists, with good reason, I appreciate) that ETI occurs and is/was out there somewhere/when. I wonder a lot about one assumption you often (not always by any means) seem to make, though, and that is that a civilisation, a self-identifying 'we', can sustain a collective sense of continuous identity across space/time. 'We' can imagine and can talk like this because we happen to have a sense of continuous 'humanity' that has (just about) lasted a few thousand years on one planet (or part of one), and perhaps, soon, on one or two other same-system planets. But a few thousand years in a tenth of one star system is an utterly, astonishingly, appalling miniscule amount of time/space. To imagine that a civilisation could sustain the necessary shared biology / intelligence / science / culture to even have a sense of 'we' that could last long enough (and over a big enough area) is to imagine too too much, surely? Almost every time you talk of 'we/us' and 'they/them' (the ETIs), I think 'no, there is no way that a civilisation capable of thinking 'we' can defeat entropy for long enough for that as a basic concept to mean anything at a cosmic scale. I believe that there 'are' (were? will be? basic tenses are useless at galactic scales, which is of course how Dr. Dan Streetmentioner made his money) millions of lifeforms out there, some developing very brief biologically-, technologically- and culturally-based collective sense of 'we' - but MUCH, MUCH too briefly and too far apart for one 'we' ever to be able to notice even the remains, yet alone the presence 'now', of each other. Most of our imagining and talk and beautiful speculation about galactic or even local interaction is just madness, because spacetime is just WAY, WAY, WAY bigger than even people trying to be mathematically and cosmologically precise can't actually appreciate. Sadly...
When I was a little kid I read a book titled “Mr. Impossible” where the subject of the book, Mr. Impossible had a catch phrase “Nothing is impossible, only improbable”. If you take a baseball and toss it into the air it’s possible that it might fall back down as an opossum. It’s not impossible, only improbable.
Hey, just got my bachelors degree and now am applying to grad school for astrobiology. Thanks for keeping me inspired with your videos.
sounds fun. but you're unlikely to make a living at it.
I never knew that was a thing😲
Great job young man!
That's outstanding, way to go!!!!! I wish you the best of luck, my friend!
Nice! Best wishes mate.
I can't remember the title, but I once read a short story detailing how we discovered a new form of near-instant quantum-based communications. As soon as we powered it up, we became aware of the sheer number of other civilisations out there, all talking to one another in almost real-time. When they realise we can now access that technology, we're invited into the galactic internet, of sorts, and begin to learn from all the other species out there. It's not original, but it always made me feel a little more positive about first contact with alien life.
"Oh look, the apes finally plugged in the modem! Hey guys!"
How is that not bloody original?!?! Was that short story based on a light novel?!?!?!?! I wish you knew the name, that story seems awesome, I've never even seen or heard of anything like that before.
@@CerealExperimentsMizukifrrrr
The Pangalactic Federation is still waiting
Can you figure out what was the name of the book.
I like the scenarios that involve cooperation between alien species (us and other extraterrestrial species). Not only does it give you fuzzy feelings of happiness but it also seems to play out in nature on Earth. Cooperation is just as prevalent among many social species as is competition.
I'm wondering, what if Alien females are far more beautiful than our own females and a personality that's more enjoyable too. Might be the end of both species. Especially if it reciprocates.
Tell that to the Neanderthals
Look up what Haim Ashed, former head of Israel's space dept, has said in recent interviews. He speaks of a galactic federation of worlds and the level at which human global consciousness is at in relation to why those ETs dont just openly reveal themselves. Seems from history that humans end up worshipping them and they are susceptible to this bc they are living beings with desires and issues too. Look up michael salla and his work/books
If u want a good intro to all that then find a free pdf of this book. Facing the shadow, embracing the light. Also bill coopers book behold a pale horse. I can reccomend more stuff and ppl to look into. Lmk if u want that
It seems reasonable that civilizations would likely have some combination of cooperation and competition. I don't know how far a species would get if it was all one or the other.
As presented here, it's interesting to think of cooperation as a function of self-interest as much as altruism, though. If intelligent life is rare, then the few who have it benefit by finding each other, sharing information of mutual interest, etc. - not because it helps the others out there but in the hopes that they will know things that can help us. This makes it a bit easier to believe this could actually happen.
I posed this question to a SETI podcast and Seth Shostak took it as a point of discussion. What if earth were the most advanced civilization and we were surrounded by dozens of civilizations at the technological level of Rome. How would we find them or count them?
There's actually a rather obscure paper out there, I don't recall the authors, that laid out that you might be able to to detect pre-industrial societies on exoplanets. The idea is that while the Romans weren't emitting radio obviously, they were practicing very large scale agriculture. This in principle, with a big enough telescope and were close enough, might be detectable in several ways. The first is the vegetative red edge. Photosynthesizing earth plants become highly reflective in certain infra red wavelengths, almost like mirrors. Plant analogues on other worlds might do the same. That's one tool in the kit for detecting other biospheres, but if you saw some strange stuff like little variation in the signal, much like fields all growing the same thing, that might be a tip that there is an agricultural civilization present on that exoplanet. There are also things like weird variations in brightness, seasonality, and other indicators that might indicate agriculture. One can envision a rapid, massive change in foliage due to a harvest without telltale chemical changes in the exoplanet atmosphere that would indicate huge wild fires for example.
Admittedly though, this is a long shot, and while someone might have detected Rome because at the time there was lots of agriculture going on globally in addition to the empire, it gets harder the further back you go. When you get back to the stone age, there just isn't any marker we produced to tell we were here. But it can also be said that primitive alien civilizations might do stuff we did not, such as pave enormous sections of their planet. We didn't do that until recently, but maybe aliens think differently. But this is a hard one, so we probably couldn't tell how common such civilizations are, rather we might serendipitously discover a few by what they're doing. But, you know, technological civilizations have proven hard enough to find, so I kind of think this one would be extraordinarily hard. But, maybe?
Thanks so much John for your great answer! I love your show Event Horizon and commentary and I never miss it!
Honestly this is a great question.
The chances of that are very small in the time scales we are talking about.
@@JohnMichaelGodier brilliantly explained, my good sir.
Its always nice to hear the positive outlooks on extraterrestrial life 🌌
I think we should be cautiously optimistic. If we find them, at least one of us and one of them are going to try to talk. That's inevitable. There also aren't a lot of good reasons to attack our planet. Going to war is costly, even if you're far more advanced than your target. Plus, mineral resources are extremely common in the universe but life is rare and valuable. It would make sense to want to preserve it.
Humans: Hey aliens, what’s the meaning of life?
**waits 5,000 years**
Aliens: No idea, dude. Was hoping you guys knew
We respond with "42".
The meaning of life is to exist like nature in all of our strangeness and beauty. It's my opinion anyway.
Aliens: The answer is 42
HA! 😄
"Hey, while we waited for your response, we figured it out! Sending out the files, it's kinda tough to explain in a couple words!"
Like many of your viewers (it seems), I really struggle to fall asleep at night without your soothing but informative videos… Most important and entertaining channel on UA-cam. Thanks so much for what you do 🙏
Soothing? Half his videos tells us how we can be royally screwed by aliens. :D
See, I try to use channels like this to fall asleep but I always end up laying awake for 6 hours listening to info I have already heard 100 times already!
No wonder why Humans look at me like I'm crazy when I conversate.
‘ Sea ‘ actually generated a ‘Sleep Playlist’. 🌌 😴 ua-cam.com/play/PLkoaIad9k4NIlsG6g-almaZH6MzR_T5eV.html
ua-cam.com/play/PLkoaIad9k4NIlsG6g-almaZH6MzR_T5eV.html
13:36 My take on this has always been that, maybe if we ever get to stablish colonies in distant planets, the way we could comunicate instantaneously without the limitations of causality, is to establish a galactic network of probes that are composed of quantum computers that are all linked together by quantum entanglement, so when you decide to send a message, the quantum entangled comunication mechanism shares the information to all or certain probes instantaneously. To establish this comunication network you could do it by way of subluminal space travel or by FTL engines or whatever. This would also explain why there's no big radio meesages being sent throuout the galaxy...
Quantum entanglement doesn't allow FTL communication. While you can observe one of a pair of particles and determine the properties of the other particle in the pair based on those observations, if you try and put the energy into that particle to change its properties it would break the quantum entanglement and the second particle would be completely unaffected by the change in properties to the first. In order to send information you would need to be able to change the properties of your particle and have the other particle reflect those changes and as far as we know the laws of physics just prevents this from ever happening.
If I only had 3 questions definitiveltly answered:
1. What/why exactly is gravity?
2. What's inside a black hole? 🕳
3. What's before and after time?
1. A force
2. Nothing
3. Nothing
I'm confident in many years to come, our technology will find out what's inside a black hole.
Two I would add are: "Is it possible to travel faster than light?" and "Is it possible to create matter/energy from nothing?" Even a yes or no answer would be big
The last question has a funny phrasing, as outside of time there is no before or after.
why are you asking youtube commentators those questions lol.. I do know there is no "inside" to a black hole.. its a singularity, a sphere of physics breaking gravity.. but here- this may shed some light on to that subject- ua-cam.com/video/ZVPsNDonA84/v-deo.html
also if time is eternal, there is no beginning and there is no end, there just is.
gravity= a natural phenomenon where all things with mass and density are attracted to each other.
Anyways, thats the best you get asking some rando on the internet instead of actual scientists lol
Maybe it’s no accident our universe seems reasonably well-tuned for life. Maybe it arose from the end of a previous universe that wasn’t as well-tuned, whose occupants came up with a way to tune the parameters of the subsequent universe. Perhaps this has been going on since the first universe arose capable of generating any sort of life. Each subsequent universe is better-tuned for the creation of even more consciousness.
Anthropic principle
I'd love to see the patch notes (with included version history.)
"Maybe it’s no accident our universe seems reasonably well-tuned for life"
Man I hate that saying
No hate, just that life is barely tuned for life at all
If anything its tuned for blackholes
Is it well tuned for life though? We have exactly one datapoint in the entire universe that says life can evolve here, it is possible (allthough I'd say very unlikely) that this is the only planet with life on it. From what we know, the universe could be really badly tuned for life and this planet's ecospehere is a crazy fluke.
A universe without high energy radiation and configured in such a way that organic compounds have a much larger temperature range in which they are stable would be infinitely better for life (and that is just what I can come up with before breakfeast).
Optimizing iterations of a universe are certainly a fun idea, maybe even a good pitch for a scifi novel, but in reality we can't even show if the premise is true and the application of Occam's razor certainly slashes that hypothesis to pieces.
It would take a truly benevolent entity to do such a thing, knowing any possibility of seeing its work or getting credit is impossible. I love this idea.
What’s amazing is that I just genuinely thought “hey maybe John posted something cool again”
And here we are! Great content and keep it up!
In the show "The Orville", there is an episode in which the crew of the spaceship receive a radio signal from a fledgling civilization, and I found that the crew's outburst of joy at this first contact was genuinely moving. They were so excited to meet these people and establish diplomatic relations, hoping to welcome them into the galactic community. I would hope that an advanced alien species would feel this way; a sense of fraternity and belonging, like upon learning that you have a secret brother that you never knew about and who is excited to make your acquaintance.
Heck yeah the Orville!
Love the high level high velocity content. Your my favorite futurist and over all UA-cam. Keep it up you make my day everytime you uplaod.
JMG, you know me, I know you. There isn’t much I can say other than you, your channel, and Event Horizon have been a huge factor in helping me get through some of the hardest times in my life.
You have a life long fan in me.
Thanks JMGoat
For me the big question is: do other civilizations have the virtue of compassion. Do they experience empathy for sentient beings who suffer, and are they motivated to help lessen the suffering? Conversely, given that the human species, or many members of it, are perfectly fine inflicting suffering on other sentient beings, would an empathic civilization withhold their knowledge, seeing humans as mental cases best left alone? Of course, one can conceive of an advanced civilization with the ability to alter human consciousness in any number of ways, including the ability to transform them into an empathic species. But maybe that would violate the doctrine of non-interference.
I think if they are anything like us then we are doomed and if they do have some compassion then they wouldn’t bother with us
NO. JUST LOOK AT AMERICA 236 WARS SINCE CREATION AND THEY PRIDE THEMSELVES AS ADVANCED.
That last one made me rethink the "Prime Directive" (refraining from interfering with the development of alien civilizations). If life is exceedingly rare, and we happen to find an intelligent civilization, deciding not to interact with them seems like such a tragic waste.
I think this could be likely. If you think about it, if we meet a type 2 or type 3 civilization, they won’t require slaves. This may be a foolish thought but humans evolved to be selfish when in need or want. If these civilizations truly have no need, or want, they will most likely ignore us or potentially help.
My absolute favourite channel on the whole UA-cam. Please, never change your narrative style.
John Michael Godier and Anton Petrov single handedly cured my insomnia and brought up an interest in physics that I never had, applied to uni recently.
Imagine if our teachers were like this lol. All this in two years just listening to videos each night.
Thanks I guess, worked better than therapy
Number 1 and 6 are probably the best scenarios imo, id love to live in a universe like mass effect where aliens are friendly and work together (minus the reapers) and a Santa clause probe is just so fitting for the time of year lol
John, imagine this scenario: An alien signal is picked up from a distant star system and the age old question of 'are we alone' is answered. There is no doubt. What do those first 24hrs after confirmation look like to you personally? What do you do? Does anything change for you personally or your daily life?
Great question!
No
Well yeah, I would want to have them logged into my watsapp.
I 2nd this topic..... The world would change for sure
Obviously not John, but I'd be extremely skeptical. I'd wanna see it all, know everything they said, and learn everything about them.
At this point, I'd be more suspicious of the government telling us there are aliens than there aren't.
That being said, if it were true, nothing would change for me unless contact impacts my life in some way. It'd just be extremely cool and those stoner conversations about whether or not aliens exist won't happen anymore. Instead we can talk about the aliens.
There's an episode of Stargate SG-1 where they encounter a friendly alien civilization and they start working together, eventually even revealing the Stargate program to the public. It all goes well until the characters realize that the apparently friendly aliens actually play friendly to abuse and exploit other civilizations for their own good but of course then it's too late.
For me, this is the scariest possible version of events. Just imagine a first contact with aliens that seem friendly and willing to help us but then after a while of working together, we find out that the aliens had no intentions to help us in the long run and we are basically just slaves to them now and there's nothing we could do about it.
"It's a cookbook!"
Like what China is doing to many African nations right now? Lol.
Aschen , That Epsiode was one of the best in the season.
Death to the A’shen Confederacy
U guys worry to much about nonsense.
7:30 Perhaps there have been many big bang big crunch cycles, but in this cycle someone found a way to stop the next crunch and we see that today as Dark Energy.
Very interesting theory. But whom? Something with that potential power would stick out like a sore thumb ? Or there would be traces of where the energy came from.
I was thinking the same. What's even scarier is the thought that instead of just stopping the Big Crunch, they inadvertently caused runaway expansion.
Yessssss new JMG video. Will be watching this several times as I try to catch more and more as I fall asleep!
Keep up the awesome work John, your channel is absolutely my favorite.
Our radio transmissions 100 light years out would be very hard to discern from the background radiation. It'd be very hard for anyone to recognize it as something produced by an intelligent civilization. Not randomly at least. If by chance they had a solar system wide receiving antenna pointed our way, they'd not recognize it.
PETERS OUT AFTER 2 LIGHT YEARS TO BACKGROUND NOISE.
Need a solar system local Von neuman AI that starts broadcasting as soon as it detects civilization radio waves. Hello World!
4. The End of the Universe Cafe fills me with such a melancholy yet warm feeling.
The last civilizations accepting that the heat death is nigh and unavoidable, spending their last (millions of) years just chatting about all the good and bad times they've had, having a laugh, raising a glass etc. is a sad, yet a wonderful thing to imagine.
Although the context is different, it kinda reminds me of Haydn's "Farewell" Symphony where at the end the musicians slowly leave one by one only for two violinists to finish the symphony.
I totally loved the end of the universe café idea. That was probably my favorite one. Thank you as always, John-live long and *drink alien coffee!* ☕😎🖖
Edit: Number 1 was actually my top favorite, and it captured exactly what I deeply hope the galaxy turns out to be for us. Finding even just one mostly altruistic civilization out there who views life, and especially intelligence, as preciously as I do, would be a dream come true, as well as the ultimate positive vibe, even if there are heartless marauding civilizations out here too. One would be more than enough for me.
i think "heartless marauding" civilizations would destroy themselves, or at least their technological capabilities, before they got very far exploring the universe.
I gotta say. Your theories are so awesome to think about. I have watched all your content and I wish I could have a convo with you to pick your brain about some theories of my own. Merry Christmas John. Thank you for opening up my mind and allowing my brain to begin to fathom some of these scenarios good and bad
A conversation I have not seen when discussing this subject, is what do we have to offer to a advanced species. A deep dive into this may better prepare us for a first contact event.
One thing I think could be positive aside from technological advances could be aliens that use simulations and VR or even something like Psychohistory, they could run a number of scenarios for us based on information we give them and we would receive projections that we could use to advance societally or to avoid great filters entirely.
I’ve been exploring space and astral travel since I was 12. You are a sole creator that fills this void in my heart. This will never be my future career, but you keep my universe curious mind at a state of satisfaction. Thank you for your unique content, no one does it like you do!!
I’m taking this as a direct response to the Kurzgesagt video on the trending page
Happy holidays to JMG and crew. Thanks for all your hard work providing us with informative, intriguing and thought provoking episodes of EH and JMG.
Number 3 is a scenario that I never thought about. Love it!
One of the best optimistic analyses on the state of intelligent life in the universe. Thank you.
how is an infinite cosmological cycle a bad thing? I find it kind of nice.
we are trying to reach you again, your are sleeping in profund coma for seven iterations of the universe, please consider waking up, we know is hard, take your time and come back to us
its would be cool if we were alive in every cycle, but as a different intelligent being, as the universe observing itself, but we just can never remember the last time..
I find it better than the alternative of everything just dying from lack of resources at the end, but being the last civilization before the cycle restarts would suck.
@@tiagopesce fart balls
I find that comforting. Like the idea of reincarnation,but more science less karma.
In the Galactic Internet Scenario I have the feeling we would have our account cancelled pretty soon for trolling …
Just in time for bed, thank you 😁
I do the same..
JMG upload, new cigar shipment and it's my birthday?!
Howdy John, I would just like to thank you for the amazing content you put out and the work you put into your videos. Thank You!
I like the cyclic universe idea because it offers such a good explanation of where all the matter came from and how the initial singularity was formed, ie more and more black holes combining until all matter and the very fabric of time itself being eaten leaving nothing but a dot suspended out of time and space which then pops causing everything to start again.
Hi JMG! Especially with more of these alien civilization scenarios videos you've been making...Honestly, sometimes I wonder if you are an alien yourself. Haha, wouldn't that come off as a massive surprise, JMG the secret 3d-printed human alien representative to educate us silly humans about intelligent life, the cosmos, and beyond.
But assuming you're still the non 3d-printed regular human we know and love, if intelligent life ever made contact, and we knew with good enough certainty that they didn't have malicious intentions...I say the first thing we do is send them over your videos. I'm sure they would be fascinated by all the theories we have about them and the Fermi Paradox that you go over on your channel. They would definitely laugh at a few, and maybe even be metaphorically scratching their heads (if they have any) with how us apparently advanced apes missed the obvious signs that we were not alone. KIC 8462852 will still remain a mystery to all intelligent life of course.
Speaking of that and jokes aside, something I imagine from time to time is if the first message an advanced civilization sends us is simply, _"You are not alone."_ Wouldn't that be amazing? But perhaps this message also carries a subtle, yet profound undertone of eerieness...
By the way, I'm not sure if you still remember this, but you replied to a few of my comments not too long ago using my old account with the joke name "Big Brother". Unfortunately, the account got hijacked by some hacker a couple months ago after my computer got a Trojan Virus. Honestly, I won't be surprised and wouldn't blame you if you forgot considering all the comments you get and reply to on a regular basis. After all, you're a content creator with almost 300k subscribers. Anyway, I just thought I'd let you know that that was me in the mere off-chance that you happen to read this. JMG, keep up the good videos as always and as this year is coming towards an end, I wish you happy holidays! ;)
How hilarious would it be if we did receive a message from an extraterrestrial civilization/species and it said: “You are all alone”?
It's mathematically possible to create a "baby universe", if you can focus a tremendous amount of energy at a single point. I'd like to know what ET knows or believes about the creation of this universe.
Except for you don't know if the universe was even created. All we have are best guesses.
We power a car battery
Hi JMG you again have added to the by far superior playlist TOP 10's . I just cant get enough . The last comment I made about your studio yeah I wanted to tell you Ive got a PS4 in my cave too had it ages but cant quite get back in to gaming. Im glad your a 80's kid . I too was amazed by the things you studied as a kid. I think its really great we saw our evolution with the help of a couple of bits of technology like Rocket flight , flight and transistors and integrated circuits (Micro chips) and solar system exploration even if by proxy . Just amazing and you bring all that together in your shows very very well produced .
did you ever play starflight as a kid?
Pretty fascinating ideas, JMG! 😃
Thanks!!!
Stay safe there with your family! 🖖😊
I got out of bed a bit early. Filling in with this a bit before heading out for work. "Whatever we knows" should also include culture. Apperantly the Klingons of Star Trek appreciate Shakespeare after all. 😀
I've been thinking of a better odds scenario that could be named "Lampposts in the Dark Forest", in which some alien civilizations realize the problem of the dark forest theory and build countermeasures to avoid intergalactic annihilation, like being able to lock the intergalactic travel megastructure away from species with genocidal intentions or something like.
3:38 “…and what happened before the first 300M years of the universe’s existence…”.
John, don’t you mean the first 300 thousand years…as in before the Cosmic Microwave Background Radiation became visible?
If anyone is interested the game Outer Wilds is based on the idea of the universe ending/restarting and a new universe being created. It's also a fantastic game with fun mechanics and an amazing story.
i should probably give it anothert shot, kinda bounced off of it, heard alot of good things tho. been playing a shit ton of stellaris, gettin my space fix
I wouldn't be surprised if we've already been detected, and they're simply observing us before first contact
One little nitpick - I understand what most mean when phrases like "a civilization a million years more advanced than us" are used, but, at the same time, if we look at sharks, well, they've been around for HUNDREDS of millions of years, and are even older than the existence of trees ... yet, they never even invented daytime television game shows.
In that sense, as an extreme example of one kind of "filter" at work, similar intelligence filters could, potentially occur with alien civilizations where they're smart enough to be a successful civilization, successful enough to even perhaps colonize their entire local solar system, but, at a certain point, they run into a wall, and advance no further and this could take place at various benchmark moments for the civilization. As such, I think it's entirely possible a million-year old civilization could be successful enough to survive a million years, but, stuck at a preindustrial stage where every tool they use is made bespoke and/or passed down through inheritance, where the concept of an assembly line, or even using a template to make, or stamp out many items exactly the same ... is a concept entirely beyond their grasp. Every book is hand-written and/or copied by hand. everything else anyone uses from earthenware, furniture, everything is made by hand, and basically bespoke, even if there's something akin to a religious formula/ritual followed to make a thing the same way every time.
Niven's Gripping Hand comes to mind.
Anyway, sorry. That concept of time = advancement in technological sophistication/development just bothers me a bit, because sharks. :)
Your channel is great , and your voice is very calming
glad i got recommended this
I was hoping for a upload here we go 😌
Alan Dean Foster's "Humanx Commonwealth" from the Flinx series is a great example of realistic, positive interaction along several of these lines.
My favourite one so far, thank you for the positivity Mr Godier, merry merry
Love seeing a new video post from you in my notifications
The first contact we might have may be abstract. As alien as their language would be to us ours would be just as alien to them. It could just be a symbol or one word they've been able to decipher in one of our many languages. Our first contact could be the word "question" in any language we have. And we'd spend years trying to respond
I would imagine since information takes so long to travel you might instead receive a really long stream of data all at once: "Hey we're over in this system here's our language and look at all this cool tech we're sending you, now please fill out our 100 page questionnarie on your civilization, thanks!"
Nothing gets me more excited than my phone playing John Micheal Godier by Snakes Have Legs everytime you post a video...
"Black holes, light speed, intelligent life maybe"
20:23 So you mean, alien intelligence could have created a donut that makes Boston Cream seem like broccoli?
Cool concept for a video! Your uploads get me the most excited out of ANY of my other subs!
Thanks for the uplifting, positive outlook. True Christmas spirit 😊
Glad you mentioned the ents. What perfect parallel
A civilisation archive, with a telephone book and a phone to call them all. Brilliant
Civilizations shooting really friendly von Neumann AIs to help fellow civilizations.
I was told today I have to put my dog down soon. Thank you for this distraction.
I lost two this year. They don't stay here but they stay in our hearts forever.
Oh good! Some optimism, especially after the Kurgesat "Dark forest" turfing....
There’s been a lot of dark forest content it feels like. Thanks for the positivity lol
I love the universal data archive idea. Actually, this reminded me of Carl Jung's theory, the collective unconscious which refers to the unconscious mind at large and the shared mental concepts universally.
I was looking forward to something positive today and first contact is just my cup of thea.
please never stop making these videos!
Bro, I fucking love your channel. I hops you'll be a lil happy to hear that I have recommended your channel to countless other people in a good handful of comment threads around YT 😜
I am always so stoked on the content you upload~
~Specifically how in depth you go into every topic//theory you cover, & yet it's typically never "too complex or complicated" to understand & comprehend.
Fusion is realistically going to take over 50 years to become viable. So far we've not been able to produce any useable power from fusion. And when we finally achieve that it's a matter of making it cheaper and sustainable.
Fusion has been 20yrs away for the past 80yrs.
Conflict arises when there is a scarcity of resources. Like you said, there is virtually limitless resources available in the cosmos. So, it doesn't seem that the few interplanetary capable civilizations would need to fight over anything. I personally don't worry about alien civilizations so much more advanced than us than I do the ones that are only slightly more advanced. Resources aren't the ONLY reason immature civilizations come into conflict.
There's a part of me that's come to really understand ufo cults. With all the injustice in the world it feels cruel that we have to do this on our own, and that no one is helping us step out to crush scarcity, disability, or our energy issues. Like I could grant that biology might not be translatable because of fundamental differences (like the geometry in chirality or something), and psychology and maybe even political science can't translate because we evolved in completely different ways, but at the very least they could help us get off fossil fuels or so on...
Yeah, I agree to a point. Some help would be nice. But if we want to become adults, we need to figure things out for ourselves the best we can. Then, we would need to prove we're worth the help that might be offered.
I do like the "cafe" idea-- that last cuppa would be, by definition, the ultimate cup of coffee! MMmm
you never disappoint, john. thank you
Saving this one for work! Thanks again John (:
The moment humans achieve Interstellar travel, all the Aliens in the galaxy visit Earth to throw us a huge celebration party.
YOU DID IT ON YOUR OWN! 🎉🎉
The simplest “bookmark” to the Fermi Paradox is that we simply haven’t looked enough. We’ve looked at less than 1% of our own galaxy. It’s too soon to start drawing conclusions. Our galaxy is vast, with hundreds of millions of stars, and even more planets. There’s lots of places for life to be. We just need to keep looking. If we get to 60% and we still haven’t even found a hint of life, then we can start drawing conclusions.
until this video, I've never had the thought of: what if there are technologically advanced space aliens who achieved technological and space advancement so long ago, that they literally have no idea where they came from, or what their former biological existence looked like, or was. That's a very interesting thought and it absolutely could happen if entities were created directly in space. Anyone remember that tv show "alien encounters" , where the aliens appeared as a seed with the apparent purpose of reproduction. thus, the enlightened humans that were merged with the "aliens" were ultimately left not having any idea who or what their alien ancestors were or how they came to be.
There's zero reason to think that extraterrestrials would act anything at all like humans.That's a purely human-centric point of view.
give an example
It's literally the only data we have to go on at the moment. Therefore upgrading it in the statistical analysis the highly likely thats the way it'd go. Until we have other/contradictory data it would behoove us to not ignore this.
Convergent evolution.
It’s possible that intelligent life exists all over the universe but it does not perceive the rest of the universe in the way that people (and more specifically, Westerners like us) view the universe. We view the universe as an endless trove of resources meant to be exploited, so of course that worldview (or universe view for that matter) would then be applied to aliens. This whole time, dozens of civilizations could be thriving successfully on their planets with no need to expand outwards
2 words: Convergent evolution.
This is far more profound than the negative alien scenarios. And far more plausible.
All our futurists are mostly hoping for the positive things such as overcoming the 2nd law, getting past the end of the universe, etc, and at most for settling uninhabited places, not for wars of conquest. Future civilizations would, if they had achieved any of these things, want to share them.
War is easy, but we have larger aspirations that have constantly grown more important for us with time. It comes with intelligence, technology, and prosperity, surplus -- aspirations change, the higher ones grow rapidly, the lower ones suffer relative decline and ultimately absolute decline. This was taught ages ago in the Talmud and is demonstrated with modern statistical brilliance in the books of Harvard prof. Steve Pinker - btw, you should send Pinker a copy of this video, he would probably give it a reference in his influential writings.
The one major reason left for pessimism is that the technologies for destroying the universe grow even faster than the technologies for saving it. The risk of destroying it by accident, including research accident, might prove impossible to eliminate or reduce asymptotically toward zero over time, as would be necessary to preserve the universe.
Excellent video!
Love these vids about Space/aliens so tripped out to think about
I know I'm not the only one, but your videos are really nice to sleep to (and I mean that in the good way).
Another fantastic video! Thanks John!
I mean, i always want our species to be assimilated into an space empire of some sorts
Where humans become ageless, our horizons would expand so much. I would like to see other species cultures, their languages, their books, their story, their biology. It's so interesting to just think about it
Almost like the hitchhikers guide to the galaxy for the knowledge of everything and the universe . 👍🏻😁
I think having advanced alien tech just thrown in our laps would be like the fabled lottery winners --self-destroyed in short order, i.e. technical development must progress in lock step with social development. We have hardly even "digested" the tech that we ourselves have come up with.
Most Positive Alien Civilization Scenario: THEY GET ME. THE HELL. OUT OF HERE!
In unpleasant scenarios with first contact, we prepared for the worst. Now, we hope for the best.
Oh a positive alien vid
"Unless of course that information is malicious and wipes us out..."
Yep 😅
This sounds Amazing :))
The holiday tie-ins in this video were hilarious :)
Couldnt sleep so decided to watch the new video tonight instead of tomorrow
"It's a Festivus Miracle!"
its about time we get some positivity around here damn it
Great work! You certainly are consistent.
John, I really like listening to your videos; I like that you often discuss ideas based on the assumption (that is unembraced by most scientists, with good reason, I appreciate) that ETI occurs and is/was out there somewhere/when. I wonder a lot about one assumption you often (not always by any means) seem to make, though, and that is that a civilisation, a self-identifying 'we', can sustain a collective sense of continuous identity across space/time. 'We' can imagine and can talk like this because we happen to have a sense of continuous 'humanity' that has (just about) lasted a few thousand years on one planet (or part of one), and perhaps, soon, on one or two other same-system planets. But a few thousand years in a tenth of one star system is an utterly, astonishingly, appalling miniscule amount of time/space. To imagine that a civilisation could sustain the necessary shared biology / intelligence / science / culture to even have a sense of 'we' that could last long enough (and over a big enough area) is to imagine too too much, surely? Almost every time you talk of 'we/us' and 'they/them' (the ETIs), I think 'no, there is no way that a civilisation capable of thinking 'we' can defeat entropy for long enough for that as a basic concept to mean anything at a cosmic scale. I believe that there 'are' (were? will be? basic tenses are useless at galactic scales, which is of course how Dr. Dan Streetmentioner made his money) millions of lifeforms out there, some developing very brief biologically-, technologically- and culturally-based collective sense of 'we' - but MUCH, MUCH too briefly and too far apart for one 'we' ever to be able to notice even the remains, yet alone the presence 'now', of each other. Most of our imagining and talk and beautiful speculation about galactic or even local interaction is just madness, because spacetime is just WAY, WAY, WAY bigger than even people trying to be mathematically and cosmologically precise can't actually appreciate. Sadly...
When I was a little kid I read a book titled “Mr. Impossible” where the subject of the book, Mr. Impossible had a catch phrase “Nothing is impossible, only improbable”. If you take a baseball and toss it into the air it’s possible that it might fall back down as an opossum. It’s not impossible, only improbable.