Earlier this month Cool Worlds Labs posted a video titled “Why Technological Civilizations Might Be Insanely Rare” that discusses the idea of self-replicating space probes.
The video starts with the assumption that self-replicating space probes, which have been discussed over the past 50 years, are something we should be able to achieve in the next few decades. That sounds like great news for space exploration. But there is a problem.
With each advance you often find a flaw, and in this case the flaw is that space probes will inevitably mutate into something destructive that slowly destroys exoplanets, then our own galaxy, and quite possibly other galaxies. So Professor David Kipping basically posits that such a probe can never be sent out because it is sure to eventually destroy the universe. This is quite a claim as we follow him through his calculations.
So the next question is why we are even here on Earth today since plenty of time has passed for the probe from another distant civilization to destroy us. The very fact that we are still here seems to indicate that no other civilization has ever sent out a self-replicating probe. And what does that mean? Could it mean there are no other civilizations? Or maybe no civilization survived to the point of sending such probes.
It is quite a mind twister worthy of your time. At the end of it, the overall question will change from “Why are we alone?” to “Why are we even here?” Or maybe, “How much longer will we be here?”
Don’t expect to get much sleep after watching this video.
Our Awesome Universe 