Astronomy

The Dark Forest Hypothesis: an Unsettling Explanation for Why Aliens has not Made Contact

The Dark Forest Hypothesis: an Unsettling Explanation for Why Aliens has not Made Contact

You have probably heard of the Fermi Paradox, but if you have not found it, here a brief summary: Given the high probability of alien life in the universe (given the vastness of space and we keep looking for planets) in habitable zones, why still in contact with anyone? Did not come?

If there are many more civilizations to be found, perhaps at a much more advanced stage than ours, how long the universe has been dragging on, will certainly send at least one message or inquiry or do what we are doing: desperate search for signs of life? The answers in the paradox range range from optimistic to down draining. It could be that we just have not searched for a long time, or the aliens are still not sending us their own traceable signatures to search.

Alternatively, it could be that some aliens destroy themselves before they can do this kind of technology, which is not able to communicate with other species. At the very edge of the spectrum is the Dark Forest Theory, a piece of speculation on the subject described in Liu Cixin’s sci-fi novel The Dark Forest.

The professor says that there will be an effort to survive, and there is no way to know the motives of other exotic species. Even if life is not hostile, it will expand into a universe with limited resources, and those same resources will be more likely to conflict with others.

Considering these factors, the book suggests, all intelligent life left with the safest action: to delete them before any other lifeforms treat them the same way. “The universe is a dark forest. Each civilization is an armed predator that jumps into trees like a ghost, gently removing branches that block the path and trying to walk without making a sound. Even shortness of breath is with care. The hunter has to be careful because there are cunning hunters like him everywhere in the forest. If he finds another life – another hunter, an angel or a demon, a delicate child or a muttering old man, a fairy or a demigod – he can only do one thing: open fire and extinguish them, “read the book.”In this forest, hell is an eternal threat to other people. Any life that reveals its own existence will quickly erase. This is the image of cosmic civilization. This is the interpretation of the Fermi paradox.