I do believe in the existence of aliens.
Come to thing of vastness of the universe, it would be unnatural for them to not exist.
Moreover, if there is a life only on the planet Earth in the solar system which is less than a speck of dust in this infinite vastness of the universe, it is too sad and I’m so deeply horrified.
Then there is this kind of question, “Why don’t they come to see us, if there are aliens?” which is likely similar, but not, to the question “Why don’t they come to see us, if the time machine would have been invented in the future?“.
It seems a bit ridiculous that a civilization which doesn’t have the technology to visit aliens in the first place should ask why they don’t come. Personally, I think it is unlikely that we will ever come into contact with intelligent life on another planet. And I don’t think it would be a good thing if that day did come.
This belief turned into conviction when I came across this video on Kurzgesagt, a YouTube channel that explains scientific topic with cute animations.
A vast amount of time and space.
The observable universe is thought to be approximately 13 billion years old and has 2 trillion galaxies and 20,000 billion billion stars.
If we plot the civilization of man on a graph with 13 billion years as the horizontal axis, it would probably be too short to see.
If we assume that all civilizations will eventually die out, then each civilization, which like a brief spark in this incredibly long time, must exist in the universe at the same time to make a contact.
Besides, it is also necessary to discover the existence of the other in this vast universe.
If there were a graph in which the vertical axis represents the size of space and the range of observation/activity within it, and the horizontal axis represents time, a civilization would be represented like this.
And when this shape overlaps with another shape, we can say that the civilizations are in contact with each other.
However, in a graph with a horizontal axis of 13 billion years and a vertical axis of the size of the universe, every civilization should look like a dot or less.
In other words, contact with aliens will only occur if we are lucky enough to overlap the dots on this large graph.
And the probability of such a contact occurring in the short 100 years that “you” will live is hopelessly low.
This alone is enough to make us think that contact with aliens is unlikely, but there is another major factor.
Level of civilization
Kardashev Scale, a scale that indicates the level of civilization.
It is based on the idea that the progress of a civilization can be calculated fairly accurately from two points: how much energy it extracts from the environment, and how it uses that energy.
Since the laws of physics are unchanging, even on different planets, it can be said it is safe to consider other civilizations on this scale.
There are four categories, adding one more category to the original Kardashev scale.
Type 1: A civilization that can use all the energy of its inhabited planet.
Type 2: A civilization that can use the energy of not only its own planet, but also of its own planetary system.
Type 3: A civilization that can use the energy of its own galaxy.
Type 4: A civilization that can use the energy of several galaxies.
The energy handled by Earthlings has increased 25 times between 1800 and 2015, and will continue to increase exponentially. However, as we can see, Earth’s civilization has not even reached Type 1 yet.
It is thought that there are many other civilizations in our galaxy that are less than Type 1.
Earth’s civilization sends out radio signals to search for other civilizations, but the range of these signals is only about 30 light years in diameter, which is very small considering the 100,000 light year diameter of our galaxy.
Even if the range were to exceed 200 light years, the radio waves would be so attenuated and noisy that if another civilization were to receive them, they would most likely not be recognisable as coming from another civilization.
Type 2 civilizations are thought to expand beyond their own planet, colonising and terraforming other planets. It is likely that they will have invented a means of harnessing all the energy generated by the stars, and if they do, they will be able to handle a virtually infinite amount of energy.
Type 3 is no longer even imaginable for Earth civilization. Type 3 may have discovered laws of physics not yet discovered by mankind, ways of controlling dark matter, ways of travelling faster than light, and it is highly likely that we will have difficulty even understanding the technology and behaviour that drives it. Needless to say, to this point, they are now no less than gods, and conversely, to the other side, we are no better than ants to them.
If they come in contact with earth civilization, it will be because they are more than type 2, so there will be no so-called “take me to your leader” kind of contact.
And if it’s more like a Type 3 civilization, then we must be unworthy of consideration.
It would be grateful if an advanced civilization could help humanity to progress, as in Kubrick’s “Space odyssey”, but that would be more nonsense than people who don’t believe in aliens thinking it is nonsense to those who do.
