Tuesday, 5 June 2018

Fermi

Poul Anderson suggests two solutions to the Fermi Paradox. See Contra von Neumann. Anderson discusses specifically robotic explorers but organisms are less likely to traverse interstellar distances at sub-light speeds.

In The Council Of Shadows, SM Stirling suggests another solution. If intelligent beings can access the psychic "Power," then they will never develop science or technology.

The Fermi Paradox is also mentioned in Stirling's Emberverse series but can anyone remember its relevance there? No way can I dig it out at this time of night.

4 comments:

S.M. Stirling said...

They find out that humans are the first sapient species. There had to be a first one, after all. No surprise it's us... anthropic principle...

Sean M. Brooks said...

Kaor, Paul and Mr. Stirling,

Paul: Unfortunately, I don't recall where in the DIES THE FIRE series, you can find characters discussing space travel and non human races.

Mr. Stirling: While I agree there had to be a FIRST sapient race, which might have been our species, that does not necessarily means ours is the only intelligent race that exists. It's difficult to believe that in a universe about 13 billion years old, that ours was or is the only intelligent species to exist.

Sean

paulshackley2017@gmail.com said...

Mr Stirling,
Thank you. I have just published a "Fermi II" post.

Sean,
If we are the first intelligent species, then we are the only one until a second arrives.

Paul.

Sean M. Brooks said...

Kaor, Paul!

That is logical, a first intelligent race was the only sentient species to exist till a second came.

Sean