Wed, 14 May 2025 03:29:16 -0700 Andy from private IP, post #14115597 /all I posed this question to one of the greatest thinkers of our time-- might as well pose it to all us JDU flunkies ------ Dear Professor Hanson, I am an enthusiastic reader of your work, and I have reached out a few times previously-- thank you for your gracious responses to all of my layperson questions. I would like to pose my latest question to you because you are one of the leading thinkers of our time in this field: If the universe as we know it is inside a black hole, would that explain the Fermi Paradox and also the Great Filter? It seems to me that if we are inside a black hole and time is passing nearly infinitely slowly for us, we would have far more time than the outside universe for evolution to take place, among other effects. The billions of years this black hole interior has seemed to experience would translate to much less time on the outside, wouldn't it? And that could also explain why we appear to be alone in the universe-- no one wants to fall into this black hole since it's a one-way trip. I guess my main corollary question is: if we are inside a black hole, would we even be able to determine how far away the event horizon is? The James Webb Space Telescope keeps looking further out, and the further we see, the more galaxies there are. With current models of stellar evolution, it is simply impossible for the furthest galaxies seen by Webb to have formed within 100 million years of the Big Bang. This seems to suggest that the Big Bang or Hubble expansion is some type of optical illusion-- or that entire galaxies fell into the black hole we are in, in their full form. I don't know how large a black hole has to be for that to happen, but theoretically at least, a black hole event horizon could be bigger than a galaxy. I guess it doesn't answer the question of why we are alone in the vast sea of matter that fell into this black hole, but it could be that the rarity of the solar system is high and the section of the universe that fell into this black hole is small enough that, statistically, this solar system was the only one that had a chance at life. I suppose the alternative to these explanations for what we see is that God created the universe for himself to live in, and God is somewhere inside the universe. I'm not sure which possibility is scarier. In any case, thanks for your consideration and I'm wishing you the best over here with your important work. Regards, Andrew Watters ------ This was sent to Professor Robin Hanson, who I understand originated the concept of the Great Filter. It's a deep thinking issue, like everything else I find interesting. What do you think? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Black_hole_cosmology Wed, 14 May 2025 19:38:27 -0700 Wily from private IP Reply #18065016 👍 One of the best non-solipsistic answers I've heard to the Fermi Paradox is just that we've been looking too much at radio waves. When Fermi posed his question and SETI started looking focusing on nonrandom radio signals, Earth was at peak radio wave emissions with radio and television antennas everywhere and poorer accuracy, higher-power targeting of satellites from Earth. But since the 2000s, basically there's a lot less radio traffic emitted from Earth, since most communications have just gone to fiber optics or more precise transmissions. Perhaps advanced civilizations are only detectable by radio wave transmissions for a few decades before they go beyond that technology, as Earth basically has. Also, some combination of great distances and poor telescope technologies on Earth could help to explain it. Why does any civilization beyond Kardashev type 1 have to exist? Why is there an assumption that technology can actually advance so near-light-speed space travel is possible? Perhaps no civilization, with the limitations of biology, one planet where it began, and the resources of its solar system, can ever produce generation ships that actually colonize other star systems, even after millions of years of peaceful development. Combined with the fact that our telescopes can barely detect Earth-sized exoplanets, much less anything coming off them, and it's quite possible that there are just plenty of human-level or lower life forms nearby, but we can't detect them.Replies require login.
@18065016 Andy 👍
JDUnderground
70 users registered
Sign in | Register | Post width: chars
70 users registered
Sign in | Register | Post width: chars
Preview on Preview off |
Recently active users: 2tierreality marlon phosita whiteguyinchina +32 guests
Recently active users: 2tierreality marlon phosita whiteguyinchina +32 guests