Hi and thanks for responding.
"I honestly don't have a 15 minute window to spare right now."
Lol! I bet this took longer to write up.
"The most likely reasons are:"
To be fair, the video and author describe the most unsettling reasons, not necessarily the most likely.
"1. They are communicating; we're just not listening.
(There's a lot of Universe out there to have to listen to, and a lot of potential ways to listen.)
2. They are communicating; we just can't understand them or they us.
(Our intelligence and their intelligence are so different in thought that neither can recognize the other's communication as a rational message.)
3. They're not on our frequency, Kenneth.
(They and we use different communication technology which arise from different assumptions as to how an intelligent race will communicate at interstellar distances. In other words, metaphorically we're making phone calls and they're sending faxes.)"
I've linked these three together as they are similar. I'm not sure about this. Your analogy may be apt, but it presupposes that both civilizations have electrical power, us to work our phones, and them to work their faxes. Regardless of the specific technology employed, every civilization will be on the lookout for radiation. They may be biologically different from us to "see" different parts of the spectrum. But everyone will need of monitor radio signals. Everything gives of fields of some type, including technology. If we get a blast of alien radio waves we will know it. It won't look like radio waves from the sun, or other from other natural sources.
Understanding and comprehension is a different matter. Sensibly, aliens would need to send something that other aliens could translate properly. Mathematics would be the way to go. Things like the concept of Pi, or prime numbers come to mind.
"4. They follow the Prime Directive.
(We're not advanced enough for them to want to contact.)
5. We're not interesting enough to talk to.
(And would we kindly shut up?)"
I've linked these together with the Zoo idea that you made fun of. To me, they are all part of a "Sequestration" concept. They know of us but choose not to contact us at all, or not quite yet, or whatever. This relies on the aliens attitude towards us, something we can't know.
"6. It's too hard.
(Meaningful interstellar communication is effectively impossible. Yes, EM works, but by the time it gets there the people who sent it are dead, so what's the point? Yes, this one is depressing.)"
This is a critical one. The Universe is very, very, very, big. Incomprehensibly so. So we are either too far away, or we are too far away, or too close in time. Two civilizations that exist simultaneously, may have more difficulty contacting each other.
Also the resources to contact each other and have a "conversation" would be enormous. Just acceleration things to a fraction of c is very hard.
"7. We're the first.
(Somebody has to be, at least in the region to which we can reasonably expect to communicate. A telephone is a great thing, but there has to be one at the place you wish to call. We're still waiting for them to install theirs.)"
I like this one too. We are amongst the first. The Universe is about 13.8 billion years old. The first stars may have formed about 200 million years after the BB. But were they the type of stars we need to see? Most stars are red dwarf suns and these were the very first stars in existence. These stars burn so low that they can last for a trillion years. This does us no good. We need proper big or dwarf yellow stars to burn out and produce carbon soot. Then our system has to for inside one of those soot clouds. Then a few billion years later we are here.
Chances are, we are amongst the first carbon rich planets that formed by a star……around 4.5 billion years ago. An early yellow dwarf, which lived about 8-9 billion years had to burn up and create the carbon that became us 4.5 billion years after the Earth formed. By my math, that puts us close to right now, give or take a few hundred million years.
"I think the rest assume too much or are too wildly fanciful. (A zoo?!? An enclosed simulation?!? Universal mass suicide?!? Xenocidal Berserkers?!? Really?!?)"
Yep really……or maybe.
The "artificial simulation" idea is interesting. Universal Mass suicide? I would say if humankind doesn't become a space faring species it is exactly because we blew ourselves to oblivion beforehand. Or we destroyed the Earth before we could escape off of it. The Zoo is part of the Sequestration concept. Xenocidal Berserkers? Depends on the environment that the aliens grew up within, doesn't it? Xenocidal bellicosity can be simply a product of the species' aggressiveness that it needed to survive and evolve. If we went to a wonderful planet that could support us, but there was an intelligent but highly peaceful and passive lifeform on it, would that stand in the way of us fully exploiting their planet?
For example, take the xenomorphs from the Alien series of films. Besides a growth rate that defies the Laws of Thermodynamics, they don't act that much different from a terrestrial Ghila Monster or a Piranha. Apparently, the later sequels tell us that they are intelligent. What if in a few hundred thousand years later they develop space travel? My guess is that they wouldn't survive as a species in their atomic age.
I'm not being argumentative, just back and forth speculation and thanks again for that. Nice to have something interesting to talk about on the Climate Change Denial Board.
