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Originally Posted by
TwistedHearts 
Fermi paradox. "I think this is the part where we lack evidence or proof of the existence of these alien civilizations. It's just another contradiction to the Drake equation since before we actually know the number of the alien civilizations that communicate with us, we have to know if these so-called alien civilizations do exist." Thinking about it for a while, this led her to those news she watched on TV. "But what about those UFO's? Are they considered as alien civilization that so happened to actually be in our planet?"
"This paradox is definitely a strong criticism of the Drake equation," Risu said, nodding. "As for your question... UFOs are, by their very nature, a grey area. That's what the abbreviation
means - unidentified. If you ask me personally, none of the proposed alien sightings have been convincing at all, so I think the question of whether alien life exists or not is still very much undecided. UFOs of any kind aren't very helpful."
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Originally Posted by
fire_faerie
Aha, moving forward. Drawing a line on her parchment, Ryden quickly jotted down "Fermi's Paradox" then scribbled swiftly as the words tumbled out of the professor's lips. The more he spoke, the more Ryden's frown deepened until she was positively scowling at her page.
Hmpf. Quite the little know it alls, these guys were. Ryden took her time to think before slowly raising her hand. "Professor... Um, it's true that with probability it would seem like we should have encountered alien life by now but. . . Well, probability isn't always right. And perhaps, as we said earlier, the life we're looking for doesn't actually exist but some OTHER type of life that we haven't defined yet? Perhaps it's right under our very noses, or just a few light years away from where we've reached?" she said, a little uncertainly this time.
It was a paradox, after all. Hmm. And then there WAS something else. "Also, we know for a fact that the universe is beyond enormous. If you take that into account, how large is the area we've probed, all in all? It can't be that big, can it? And how many planets have we actually studied? Not that many, if you take the size of the universe and the vast amount of galaxies. And each galaxy has a vast amount of stars - and those stars have planets... And aren't there loads of galaxy CLUSTERS floating around?" the brunette said, lowering her hand after she was done.
Well, it was any consolation, it made sense in her head.
"That's the paradoxical part of the whole problem," he said. "There undoubtedly
are a gigantic number of galaxies, and even more stars and planets. Even if life in the Universe was incredibly improbable with a chance of, say, one in a billion, that would still mean we'd have life on
billions of planets due to the sheer number of stars and planets. Ditto for any other galaxy. With that being the case, why aren't we in constant contact with other lifeforms? That's the paradox."
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Originally Posted by
nogoodforyou Hmmm. This Fermi was... interesting. At least his paradox.
Helena raised her hand quickly, when professor Antares stopped speaking. "If the Earth is an ordinary planet, then why wouldn't there be life on other planets? And I suppose we haven't made contact with anything because... maybe if there is life on other planets, the creatures, or whatever they are, are more..." more... what? "Intelligent? And maybe they don't want to be discovered." Yup. That had to be the reason.
And that was Helena's paradox.
Risu nodded. "That is, in fact, one of the possible 'solutions', if you wish, of the Fermi paradox. Alien civilisations consciously hide themselves from view. Of course, if that's the case, doesn't that suggest they're already so far above our own level of technology that they wouldn't be in any danger if they made their presence known to us?" He threw up his hands. "Now we're speculating about possible motives of possible alien civilisations. This is probably not going anywhere productive." He chuckled. "But you've made a very good point. Anyone else?" he asked, looking around the classroom.
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Originally Posted by
AuroraQuinn Aurora raised her hand. "I guess we haven't made a considerable effort to communicate on a large scale so if Earth is similar to other planets then maybe they just haven't reached us yet." She said.
He nodded again. "That is true, we haven't. But what about those other lifeforms? The galaxy and the Universe are, of course, very, very large, but if our assumptions about the development of life are correct, then there should be so much alien life that even if
we didn't make the effort to communicate, we would still pick up signals from elsewhere. What do you think?"