Your favourite Sci-Fi contrivances

Discussion in 'Science Fiction' started by Mogador, Nov 21, 2021.

  1. Homer Potvin

    Homer Potvin A tombstone hand and a graveyard mind Staff Supporter Contributor

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    Distances and timelines. And assumptions that are only assumptions. Is there any evidence to suggest that faster than light travel is possible? And who says intelligent life is inevitable? For all we know, Earth is part of some grand design and that's all there is. Sure it sounds improbable but until we have something to the contrary....

    Hell, if it weren't for sci-fi writers extraterrestrials and warp speed wouldn't exist.
     
  2. w. bogart

    w. bogart Contributor Contributor Blogerator

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    The Drake equation is a probabilistic argument used to estimate the number of active, communicative extraterrestrial civilizations in the Milky Way Galaxy.

    The Fermi paradox is the discrepancy between the lack of conclusive evidence of advanced extraterrestrial life compared to the apparently high a priori likelihood of its existence. As a 2015 article put it, "If life is so easy, someone from somewhere must have come calling by now."

    There is no requirement for FTL travel. Cryogenic or generation ships while slower, would do the job.
     
  3. Homer Potvin

    Homer Potvin A tombstone hand and a graveyard mind Staff Supporter Contributor

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    Sure. More sci-fi constructs. I'm not saying it can't happen, but magic teleportation is just as probable.

    Drake's Equation is great at weeding through the steps that are likely to produce a planet capable of sustaining life as we know it, but there's nothing to suggest life is inevitable, though there are some arguments that organic compounds may be inevitable when the right molecules exist.

    Lots of assumptions in that statement. How would they get here? How would they know we were here? Why would they care?

    It all comes back to Drake's time-line for me. 20 plus billion years of universe (or whatever the number is this week) compared to a short century of radio signals capable of detection.
     
  4. w. bogart

    w. bogart Contributor Contributor Blogerator

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    The second quote you used was from the Fermi Paradox.

    You are assuming they are not just spreading out from their home world due to population pressures.
     
    Last edited: Jan 31, 2023
  5. Homer Potvin

    Homer Potvin A tombstone hand and a graveyard mind Staff Supporter Contributor

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    I know. Part of the reason why I started a new paragraph.

    I've got no beef with either of them. Both are fun intellectual exercises. I particularly like Drake's breakdown of stable orbits, habitable zones, and the required lifespan of the stars needed (we think) for Earth like planets to form. I forget what the breakdown was, but the O and B classes were written off I think. Fermi is kind of whatever. Everything is an assumption based off of another assumption. And how would we even know we've been visited? Maybe they've got Prime Directive human-blinds camouflaged in the trees or on a Brooklyn street corner. Or maybe they're only a few microns tall and are mixed up with the dust under my couch.
     
  6. w. bogart

    w. bogart Contributor Contributor Blogerator

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    It seems like an automated probe in the solar system would be sufficient monitoring with all the em emissions we have.
     
  7. Homer Potvin

    Homer Potvin A tombstone hand and a graveyard mind Staff Supporter Contributor

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    Sure. That's how I would do it. But I'm a sci-fi writer.

    I suppose the real question is how far away from Earth can a human radio signal be discerned through the background noise. I have no idea what the answer to that is. But if the aliens are capable of interstellar travel and communication, anything is possible.
     
  8. montecarlo

    montecarlo Contributor Contributor

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    [​IMG]

    xkcd: The Drake Equation
     
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  9. Homer Potvin

    Homer Potvin A tombstone hand and a graveyard mind Staff Supporter Contributor

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    Haha. I like Drake. It's not really bullshit. Just assumptive estimations, which is well-conceived bullshit. I can support that.
     
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  10. Steerpike

    Steerpike Felis amatus Contributor

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    The Fermi Paradox is kind of bullshit. Not really a paradox. Wasn’t it just an offhand remark by Fermi? I don’t know whether he spent a lot of time thinking about it.
     
  11. montecarlo

    montecarlo Contributor Contributor

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    Agree it’s not really bullshit, I just think it’s a funny comic
     
  12. w. bogart

    w. bogart Contributor Contributor Blogerator

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    Yes it was an off hand remark at a dinner, one that got people thinking of the why behind it.

    One Explanation to Fermi deals easily with Drake, that of civilizations destroying themselves. That Explanation seems compling after reading the news.

    Another is a species that has adopted the mindset of eliminating any possible competition as their survival mechanism. Great story fodder there, how do humans deal with that race, or do we become that race.

    It seemed to me that these ideas and the way the contrast, could provide some interesting story fodder.
     
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  13. Steerpike

    Steerpike Felis amatus Contributor

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    Would certainly be good fodder for an SF story. I suppose the reason I don't think of the Fermi paradox as a paradox is because of there are a number of plausible explanations for it. I think the most obvious explanation is the sheer size/distances involved in the universe. Estimates are between 100 billion and 200 billion galaxies in the universe (I've seen estimates as high as 1-10 trillion), and maybe 100 million stars in the galaxies on average--these are numbers that the human mind has a hard time grasping, and we also have a hard time grasping the tremendous size of the universe that contains such vast quantities of mass separated by mostly empty space. It shouldn't seem a contradiction to suppose there is a lot of intelligent life in the universe and, at the same time, it may be a long time before we see/hear signs of any of it, if ever.
     
  14. w. bogart

    w. bogart Contributor Contributor Blogerator

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    Yes we are talking about vast distances. But humans dealt with the issue of vast differences in our past. The Polynesian peoples crossed the pacific in essentially rafts.

    Even if we are talking about trips that take 40 of our years. With sufficient pressure a way could be found. So I class distance as an obstacle, not a barrier.

    With a limit of ten to twenty light years, a slow steady spread system by system would be possible. The limiting factor would be time. We have about 7,000 years of human history. How far could we spread with that amount of time to spread, even slowly with slower than light travel. That would have us spread through the local galactic arm to a fair degree.

    That approach allows that, we have the benefit of all the resources of various asteroid belts along the way.
     
  15. Homer Potvin

    Homer Potvin A tombstone hand and a graveyard mind Staff Supporter Contributor

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    10 to the fifteenth, sixteenth, seventeenth... kind of all the same after that, right? What's another factor of a thousand?
     
  16. Casper

    Casper Active Member Contest Winner 2023

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    What's another factor of a thousand? Quite a lot if you're thinking of interstellar travel! In a story or not.
    The world's population is around 8 billion - The USA's annual defence budget is over a trillion dollars - does that help?
    It's an achievement of mankind that we accurately know the age and size of the observable universe - and the distances to the stars and other galaxies.

    I reckon the most interesting factor in the Drake equation is L - Lifetime of such a civilization wherein it communicates its signals into space - it took us less than a century to get from radio transmissions to possible nuclear destruction - so many alien civilisations might have come and gone too early, or will exist too late for us...
    In 2001, SETI reported that existing Earth radio telescopes could only detect Earth radio transmissions from roughly a light year away. A quarter of the way to our nearest neighbouring star. Maybe things have improved.
     
  17. Casper

    Casper Active Member Contest Winner 2023

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    PS - my favourite Sci-Fi contrivance is Douglas Adams' Infinite Improbability Drive for the starship Heart of Gold.
     
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  18. Steerpike

    Steerpike Felis amatus Contributor

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    Joo Janta 200 Super-Chromatic Peril Sensitive Sunglasses.
     
  19. Username Required

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    1. If you’ve ever read the books Rare Earth and The Privileged Planet, you’ll see that the probability of a star having a life-bearing planet is extremely low. If one exists anywhere, it’s almost certainly so far away that its inhabitants will never make contact with humans.

    2. Space travel and colonization are so much more complex than science fiction makes them out to be; both are most likely impossible beyond short excursions to the moon or in cislunar space. I think that makes for far more interesting conflicts and plots than the Fermi Paradox and the Drake Equation.
     
  20. Steerpike

    Steerpike Felis amatus Contributor

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    Assuming the authors' assumptions are correct, which is by no means a given (especially since the latter appears to be rooted in creationism, not science). But, no matter how low the probability, if it is anything more than zero the sheer size of the universe and its multitude of stars means there should be numerous instances of life.
     
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  21. Username Required

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    Ah, but if the probability is low enough, then extraterrestrial life will almost certainly be so far away that no human will ever reach it. Out of curiosity, how do you explain the Fermi Paradox?

    Also, The Privileged Planet is rooted in intelligent design, not creationism. Just so you know, they’re two separate things. Creationism starts with Scripture and fits science into it. Intelligent design is a scientific hypothesis that an intelligent being designed the universe, based on empirical data, without committing to any idea about who or what that intelligent being is. This is not to debate for or against either idea, but to make sure we all have our terms straight.
     
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  22. Steerpike

    Steerpike Felis amatus Contributor

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    I disagree that intelligent design is scientific (and I'm not saying intelligent design is right or wrong, just I feel it is inherently outside of science--it's faith, no matter how it is dressed up). I guess that's something for the Debate Room.

    As for the Fermi Paradox--I don't really think of it as a paradox because of so many possible explanations. The distances involved in the universe seems most likely to me.
     
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  23. montecarlo

    montecarlo Contributor Contributor

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    I see this as a distinction without much difference. Okay, creationism maybe is more Abrahamic and intelligent design is more open minded to the characteristics of the deity, but in both there is a supreme being, right? Or do I misunderstand?
     
  24. Xoic

    Xoic Prognosticator of Arcana Ridiculosum Contributor Blogerator

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    Aren't those words synonyms? I think a major difference is that Creationism maintains the world is only like 7,000 years old. I don't think Intelligent Design makes any such claim, unless I'm mistaken. I think it's just the idea that some kind of intelligence directed evolution. It might be said that Creationism is a specific type of Intelligent Design theory.
     
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  25. montecarlo

    montecarlo Contributor Contributor

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    that’s the whole point of the phrase, akin to suggesting someone is splitting hairs or being pedantic.


    that makes sense to me. I think then, for someone like me who doesn’t believe in a supreme being they are functionally the same; but for someone who does believe it usually would be a distinction
     
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