In 1950, the American physicist Fermi put forward a hypothesis aimed at finding "extraterrestrial civilizations": there are about 250 billion stars in the Milky Way, and there are 70 billion stars in the observable range of humans, and even if life appears in these planets orbiting the stars with a small probability, then there are a considerable number of extraterrestrial civilizations in the Milky Way. But so far we have not observed any kind of "extraterrestrial civilization".
The existence or absence of extraterrestrial civilizations has been a topic that human beings have been keen to discuss since the development of modern science. Especially in the last century, both the scientific community and the folk have risen a "alien fever", which is not only manifested in the fact that science fiction has become the mainstream literary style of literature, science fiction film and television are popular, but also in the research boom of UFO among the people. The journal UFO "Research" at home and abroad has published a large number of topics on this topic, as well as contact and observation data on UFOs.
Due to the complexity of the "information" in this area, there is no doubt that there are traces of fabrication, but it cannot be denied that with the development of human technology and mind, more and more "evidence" shows that UFOs, aliens, and extraterrestrial civilizations are unveiling their mysteries, although the current data is still fragmented.
This leads us to 2 conclusions:
: There are aliens.
: There are no aliens.
When we start withThere are aliens - there are no aliensThe binary epistemology, when it recognizes that aliens may exist, moves on to another binary epistemology: what exactly are aliensOkayStillBad？Because if one day humanity comes into contact with aliens-We reached out to them, orThey took the initiative to come to us- We must face this choice: for humanityGood thingStillBad things
In the past 50 years, human beings have sent many aircraft and electromagnetic signals to space, hoping to find traces of extraterrestrial civilizations, and at the same time transmit information about our civilization. It is said that there are already astronomical observatories that have received a pulsed signal from an alien galaxy, and scientists will tell whether this signal is from the planet itself or from the civilizations on the planet, which has not been concluded so far. But this has attracted the attention of many scientists. For example, physicist Stephen Hawking has repeatedly warned: Don't try to contact aliens!
Hawking believes that there are more than 100 billion galaxies in the universe, and each galaxy has hundreds of millions of stars similar to the sun, so it can be concluded that aliens must exist. But humans should not contact them, because we don't know their civilization level, but it is likely that most alien civilizations are much more advanced than human civilizations, and their technology can be freely exchanged between the stars, and if they want to conquer the earth, the earthlings are not their opponents at all, so the earth may become an alien colony. This is just like in the 18th century, when Europeans discovered the American continent and "wiped out the Indians", human civilization will be wiped out.
Hawking's warning is not unreasonable.
The same idea is expressed in literature.
For example, Liu Cixin's "Three-Body Problem".
The Three-Body Problem fictionalizes a "law of the dark forest": the universe is a dark forest, and every civilization is a hunter with a gun, shuttling through the forest like a ghost, he tries his best not to make the slightest sound from his footsteps, and even breathes carefully, because there are many hunters like him in the forest, and when he finds the prey, the only thing he can do is to shoot and destroy the prey, otherwise he will become someone else's prey!Therefore, in the forest of the universe, "others are hell", and the result of exposing oneself is to be wiped out by hunters!
Ye Wenjie, an astronomer in "The Three-Body Problem", participated in the "Red Bank Project", and for the first time used the sun as an antenna to transmit the earth coordinates of human civilization to the stars, and obtained contact with the three-body civilization 4 light years away. At this time, the Three-Body Civilization was on the verge of destruction, so in order to obtain a stable living environment, the Three-Body Civilization decided to invade the earth, and they blocked the technology of the earthlings through "supertechnology". Ye Wenjie's "mistake" changed the fate of mankind, the huge trimaran fleet headed for the earth, and mankind ushered in the end.
Whether it is Hawking's warning or Liu Cixin's fantasy, we can see a veryInterestingofMindset: When we speculate on extraterrestrial civilizations, it is still based on ".The law of jungle competition for the survival of the fittest”。For example, Liu Cixin's fictionThe Law of the Dark Forest。Art is higher than lifeThe Law of the Dark ForestThat's itThe law of jungle competition for the survival of the fittest, which is also pursued by contemporary human beingsSocial Darwinism, both nature and human society, are the result of competition for survival.
This allows us to find two judges of the level of development of civilizationCoordinates。from oursMindsetMost of humanity is stillThe way of thinking about human nature, that is, tightly surroundedThe animal instinct to seek advantage and avoid harm, in the Western mind, yesThe law of competition in the jungle, in the minds of the Orientals, yesRelational Studies and Power Schemes, the purpose is the sameFor self-survival
fromThe level of scientific and technological developmentAbove, our science is based on Albert EinsteinThe speed of light cannot be surpassed, as wellNewtonian mechanicsbasis. This actually means that when humans use thisCompare the low-level way of thinking and the level of scienceWhen it comes to measuring the civilization of aliens, the conclusions drawn may not be correct!For example, our fantasies about alien flying machines are still based onLight yearsFor the fastest sailing units, why we can't fantasize about comparingThe speed of lightA faster way to sail?That's whyExceededOur way of thinking and scientific theories!
Our fantasies about all "extraterrestrial civilizations" are based on oursMindsetwithScientific levelOn!
Therefore, if we take the earth's civilization as the coordinates, we can speculate that there are three levels of civilization in the universe:
: An alien civilization that is higher than us
: An alien civilization that is lower than us
: An alien civilization similar to ours
Low-level alien civilizations are nothing to fear. Alien civilizations similar to ours don't mean much to us, because we can't set foot in their world, and they can't set foot in ours. What is truly significant are extraterrestrial civilizations that are higher than ours.
"Superior to us" is a broad term. There is a Russian astronomer Kardashov, who once put forward the hypothesis of the 7th level civilization of the universe: the 1st level civilization is a planetary civilization, which can only use the energy on the planet, and the earth civilization belongs to the 1st level civilization;Level 2 civilizations can use interplanetary energy and can travel freely between planetsCivilizations above level 3 are more powerful and can travel back and forth between galaxies or universes ......The highest level 7 civilization has evolved from the physical form of human animal nature and evolved into a purely spiritual intelligent body.
It's an interesting kind of science fiction. At the very least, he pointed out a basic path:Human beings are evolutionary and will inevitably evolve from a lower state to a higher state, and it is very likely that there is no end to this evolution. If there is some "factual basis" in this imagination, we can speculate that extraterrestrial civilizations that are more advanced than us have obviously developed to a degree that is difficult for us to imagine.
This gives us the coordinates to answer the above question.
: Why can't we find aliens?
We can't find evidence of the existence of aliens, not because aliens don't exist, but because we don't have enough intelligence. It is like a person walking at night with a lantern, he can only see where the light shines, but he cannot see the existence in the darkness. But not being able to see doesn't mean there's nothing in the dark. Human civilization has developed to the present, and the scientific level has made great progress, but compared with higher civilizations, our civilization is still at a low level. It is still difficult for humans to explore the Moon, Mars, and even fly out of the solar system, so how can we know more about more unfamiliar spaces outside the solar system?The space we see is directly proportional to the light of wisdom.
Why don't aliens come to us?
Alien civilizations that are lower or less than us are unable to interact with each other. But for alien civilizations that are more advanced than us, of course, "they" can come to "find" us at will, and the reason why they do not come to "find" us is that our level of civilization and intelligence is very low, and it is useless for "them". Just like the primitive tribes of the jungles of South America, their wisdom we can fully understand, our wisdom they cannot understand, so the primitive tribes of South America do not make much sense to our modern civilization.
Mankind has gone through three industrial revolutions and is now entering the fourth industrial revolution: Internet big data, ecological energy, atomic energy, artificial intelligence, and new energy are changing our lives day by day. The development of technology has given us a deeper understanding of ourselves and the outside world.
Summary
When we concentrate our effortsImproveScience and material civilization ignore the human way of thinking and wisdomUpgrades。Just like Hawking and Liu Cixin's "fantasy": if human beings reveal their coordinates, they will attract a devastating alien attackThis actually exposes one of our biggest problemsThinking shortcomings: Our science is improving, but our way of thinking and wisdom are still the sameThe law of competition in the jungle of animal nature
It is true that human beings are a "kind of animal" and "advanced animal", with the innate instincts and emotions of animals to survive, but what should not be forgotten is that human beings are more of a kind of animalWisdom body, spirit body。Hundreds of thousands of years of evolution have shown that human existence is a process of constant removal of animal nature:It is to realize that oneself is an "intelligent being" and a "spiritual being" from a "higher animal", that is, to remove the "animality" of the "self" again, and to evolve into a higher life form。The great progress of material and technological civilization needs to be directly proportional to the evolution of self-intelligence.