It was lunch time at Los
Alamos National Laboratory in California. The year was 1950. Renowned physicist
Enrico Fermi was having a candid conversation with few of his colleagues on
topics ranging from UFO sighting to the possibility of the existence life
outside the planet earth. As physicists do, soon they were engrossed in
discussion on interstellar travel at a speed greater than that of light and the
use of such travel technology by advance alien species in reaching earth. Please
remember that this was an era of considerable interest in UFO sightings. It may
not have all started with the now infamous Roswell UFO incident, rather crass,
which has gained tremendous public and media attention just three years back.
For reasons quite strange, that decade and two following it, has quite a
fistful of strange and unidentified encounters of the alien kind.
One reason behind this strange UFO frenzy of
that time could have been mere psychological. The world, just out of the mayhem
of Second World War was in a state of paranoia. Fear psychosis was high, you
can say for anything, which has the capability of destroying humanity. The very
thought of yet another global catastrophe or war, not from within, but from
outside this planet was being associated with any strange sighting in the night
sky. Early 20th century science fiction writers have already shown
the world what to expect from an alien attack, and those pale jumpy lights in
the night sky were adding fuel this global fear factor. Human race had always
revered Armageddon; UFOs were just another way for many to believe that
probably the end of days are near.
Anyway, coming back to Fermi, he did some
calculations over a cup of coffee and said, “If there is intelligent life out
there, then they should have visited earth in the past, many times over, but
where are they?” He was not ready to take the UFOs for their face value and
actually wanted to debate, that if these UFOs are for real, then why won’t they
come out and have a direct contact with us? He also asked where are the signs
that the aliens visited earth and left their mark here, if they are so numerous
in the universe? Unfortunately, there was neither any answer in 1950, nor even
today.
Over the past half a century, many theories have
come up to counter this famous Fermi Paradox. Some of the theories are quite appealing,
some workable and other pure nonsense. Anyway, today I am in no mode to take up
those theories and judge them on their merits or demerits, but I am having a
different plan altogether. Today, I will take up the Fermi paradox from the
perspective of an alien species, which has been charged by the earthlings of
sneak peeking into their planet. The reason behind this exercise is straightforward.
For long, the primary goal of the proponents of alien visitation theory has been
to ask, ‘Why should they visit?’ However, if for a moment, we change our
approach and imagine that we have all the recourses to make an intergalactic
voyage to a far flung habitable planet, and then logically work our way down to
deduce why should we be traveling there in the first hand. Remember such
intergalactic travels and not mere walk down the central park or Broadway. They
need resources and tremendous logistics; whichever way you may decide to
travel. So, unless you have a solid reason to go earth, there is no sponsor for
your UFO in your alien society. Just remember this stark fact of life, there
would have been no America, or new sea route to India, if there were no Spanish
and Portuguese dynasty backing Christopher
Columbus, Amerigo Vespucci
and Vasco da Gama.
Now before
we begin, I would like to introduce another appealing factor or constant in the
equation of any evolving life form. This constant, as I will explore in the next
few paragraphs, will be extremely valuable in understanding why and when should
an intelligent species decide to become a spacefaring race.
The other
day, as I was waiting in Penn station, in down town Manhattan, for a train to
Long Island, the importance of this constant became extremely obvious to me. At
that time, there should have been around a couple of hundred people in the
railway platform, all going about their own business. It was an office time commute
and the platforms soon swelled with the crowd beyond their capacity. However,
something was quite strange in that sea of humanity. There was hardly any
socialization going on over there, outside regular and known circles. Every individual
was engrossed in their own thoughts, eagerly waiting for their desired trains. It
is obviously a common phenomenon and most of has witnessed it sometime or the
other. You can always argue that a railway platform, an airport lounge or a
crowded bus terminus is hardly a place for candid socialization, as it’s a
population made up of complete strangers, and people do like to keep to
themselves than reach out in such circumstances, right? And by now, you would
have probably started to doubt the intention and the outcome of this article.
Well, frankly speaking, it’s not such a trivial
observation, and it does give a strange insight into the working of a living
species, its collective evolution oriented consciousness, and is obviously a
yard stick in the search for intelligent species in the universe. Let me show
you how.
If you remember, in one of my earlier post, I
have dealt a great deal on the importance of reaching out for biomolecules or
alien biochemistry to initiate panspermia. I have even mentioned that without
reaching out phenomenon, acting at full potential, the framework of life would
not have been successful in earth or anywhere else in the universe you can
imagine of. So, here I would like to pose one question. Does ‘reaching out’
always perpetuate? Is it noteworthy in every strata of any successful evolution?
If it is such a dogma, then why there was so limited reaching out, in Penn
station, by a crowd of intelligent consciousness?
The answer is quite tricky. Reaching out phenomenon
will work in coherence with evolution for a certain entity, but not for time
eternity to be frank. If I have to sum up its progression mathematically, I
would envisage a sigmoidal curve over a time and evolutionary axis. First of all, there will be a slow
progression of this curve, near to the base line of evolution axis, as the
molecules will try to establish themselves in an alien environment. Once the
initial phase is over, and the molecules have absolved the possibility of extinction,
they will start an exponential phase of the interaction cycle with other native
molecules in their environment. Not all of them will be successful or
productive, most will face dead ends, but they will try viciously. Over time,
if things go well, our pet molecule will fully and functionally dominate its niche,
and once it happens, there will be a paradigm shift in their behaviour towards
the phenomenon of reaching out. The enthusiasm to reach out and seek new
interaction partners will gradually subside. Our mathematical curve will
smoothen over time axis, and you can call this phase of a ‘status quo’ has been
reached.
Now don’t mistake me in believing that
evolution will stop altogether. What I simply imply is, once a state of the
status quo has been achieved, the paradigm of evolution will enter the next available
level, where, it will start the process of seeking altogether from scratch. If all these, which I have mentioned till
now, were happening at the level of biomolecules, then the next steps will start
at the level of intact cells, constituted of complex molecules in successful
interaction mesh work. The process will repeat as long as there is a scope for
a higher complex order or level to exist. Biomolecules will give rise to
unicellular compact cells, which will proceed into multicellular organisms and
finally ‘reaching out phenomenon’ will be knocking the door of a complexity of
unprecedented capability called intelligence and consciousness. However,
remember that the bottom line is, ‘next step in any evolution can hardly happen
until there is some short of the status quo in the preceding level of
complexity’. Thus, a ‘status quo’ enjoys the same privilege, as ‘reaching out’,
in any evolutionary process.
Now, let’s try to understand what
happens within a level of complexity that has already attained a status quo.
You will see not much, evolution wise, happening in there. Every component in that
level will try to maintain its own position and will try to contain the harmony,
which it has established within its interaction net. As biochemist, that is what
we regularly map for a protein within cells, to identify its function. This is
called system biology, and if you search the scientific literatures, you can
find fascinating interaction maps already scaled out for fruit fly Drosophila,
beakers yeast and microbes like Escherichia coli. These interaction maps are a
treasure trove of information and believe it or not they are quite stable, and took
over millions of year of evolution to attain the status quo which defines life
on earth. However, when pathogens like viruses try to make us ill, they simply disturb
this ‘status quo’ by squeezing into this complicated interaction mesh, through
molecular mimicry, for their own benefit. It is as simple as that.
If you are wondering, what has
‘status quo’ to do with my observation in Penn station, then I must tell you
here, that it is the very same phenomenon, but at the level of human consciousness that leads to such an obliviousness
among us towards others, which is regularly
observed in unfamiliar crowded places. This conclusion is not quite difficult
to grasp, if you look deeper into the working of our consciousness.
In any social structure, there need to be always
a ‘status quo’ to qualify as a civilized society. We may all have our own
individual interaction cycle or comfort zone, but we only venture out when need
compels. However, each individual interaction cycle is a working component of
the complete human social grid encompassing all the populations, which is in an
equilibrium or ‘status quo’. Remember one thing very clearly here; until and
unless there has been a serious challenge to this equilibrium in social,
environmental or any other parameter, to any species, reaching out technically
never happened.
It holds particularly true for the human race
if you study Anthropology. The classic
migration of humans out of Africa into the other continents, as shown in the
map below, never happened until there was a serious scarcity of food. So is
true for other migrations, associated with different species, in the planet
earth. Therefore, we can safely conclude that the quest for migration,
resettlement and adaptation to a new world is always a last option for any
living entity, wherever they may live, in this universe.
So armed with all this discussion
let’s try to understand under what condition, we, the prodigal little green men
from Kepler-22b, would like to launch our UFOs for planet earth, and
convenience our finance ministers and taxpayers to sponsor our 600 light year
journey, which may take over a few generations to complete, may not return with
any answer for a few thousand years, which may take over a few generations to
complete, may not return with any answer for a few thousand years, not in the
life time of your present financers. Well, wait, I heard you. You think you
will be using advance transportation like worm hole and gravity drive. Chill
out friends, if you do so, then you are even asking for more and more
resources. If had you been using such things, why don’t we earthlings see you
every day having coffee with us? Probably, it may not be such an easy affair
after all using warm holes for mass transit and if you were so advance, then
you would have solved your planet’s problem long back, and wouldn’t have to
come to my planets like thieves.
So, if UFOs are for real, and
they are manned by little green men from other worlds, then one thing is for
certain, the status quo in their evolving society may have been challenged
somehow, and that’s why they are here. So, what could have upset their status
quo? Let’s try point wise and answer them.
2. The species have overpopulated their home planet and need a new home. Hmm, that sounds interesting. Still, before I can sanction your budget of gazillion alien dollar space mission, I would ask you to consider populating the neighbouring planets first. If you were an earthling, I would ask you to consider Mars and Moon first. Next, I would show you Titan and Europa. I will even urge you to make space settlements, which can harness the energy of your Sun, than straightway giving a nod to your funky mission of populating an already populated alien planet. Not only a few light years ride is a tremendous deterrent, but you have also to consider the resistance your species will face from native populations and their pathogens. Is it really worth the risk?
3. What if the sun of their planet is dying? Yes, then you surely need a new home planet and a new sun. The journey is one way ticket and your species status quo is royally birched. In such a scenario, the story does look promising and possible. You surly will need to move with all your population in colossal spaceships and won’t mind generation wide travels. In such a case earth and its Sun could be to your liking and I have no doubt about it. You could hide your spaceship in the Asteroid belts and keep on sending scout missions to earth as UFOs. That does make sense. However, one problem, should you be not communicating with your UFOs from your mother ship? Why we earthlings don’t listen anything at all? Two possibilities, one you are not there at all. Second, we don’t know what to listen to.Hay, anybody down here on earth listening to me?
4. You are interested in basic scientific knowledge to lunch UFOs to earth. Nobody is going to sanction your mission. It does not have any profitable outcome. Getting answers will take ages for you. Of course, you won’t be discouraged. You will be asked to use optical and radio telescopic methods to carry out your search. Still, a nod for a manned mission seems improbable, until you prove that earth and earthlings are hospitable.
So, what do we conclude to end
this story? Nothing perhaps, Probably Fermi was right in asking ‘where are they?’
Intelligent aliens could be common in the universe, but real intelligent motive
for light years spanning space travel are hard to come, at least from an
earthling who is writing this blog. I may be wrong. I wish I am! For, however
we may write about the ‘status quo’, reaching out will always be there in our
blood.
What would do you say??
What would do you say??
