Can the zoo hypothesis explain why we haven’t found any extraterrestrials?
The zoo’s hypothesis speculates on the behavior and presence of technologically sophisticated alien species, as well as the reasons they have not made contact with Earth.
Fermi’s paradox can be explained in several ways, and this is one of them. The theory is that extraterrestrial life deliberately avoids contact with Earth, and one of the main interpretations is that this allows for natural evolution and social development, avoiding interplanetary contamination, much like humans watching animals in a zoo.
The theory aims to explain why there is no evidence of alien life despite the fact that its plausibility is widely recognized and therefore a fair anticipation of its presence.
Aliens may, for example, decide to contact humans after meeting specific technical, political or ethical criteria. They can delay communication until humans force them to do so, perhaps sending a spaceship to the planets they call home.
Hesitation to make contact may, on the other hand, indicate a reasonable desire to reduce danger. An extraterrestrial civilization with sophisticated remote sensing technology might come to the conclusion that direct contact with neighbors exposes itself to additional dangers without providing any additional benefits.
assumptions
The zoo hypothesis implies two things: first, that life will exist and develop whenever the circumstances are right, and second, that there are multiple locations where life can exist (i.e., that there are a large number of alien cultures). .
It is also assumed that these extraterrestrials have a high regard for spontaneous, self-sustaining growth and development. If intelligence is a physical process that works to maximize a system’s range of available possibilities, a key reason for the zoo’s hypothesis would be that early contact would “unintelligently” limit the total diversity of pathways that the cosmos itself could follow. These theories are most viable if a plurality of alien civilizations have a reasonably uniform cultural or legal policy requiring the isolation of civilizations at similar stages of development to Earth.
Random single civilizations with separate ideals would collide in a world without a hegemonic force. This gives credence to a busy Universe with well-defined laws. However, if there are multiple alien cultures, the uniformity of the motive concept may fail, because it takes only one extraterrestrial civilization to decide to act contrary to the imperative within our detection range to have it undone, and the likelihood of such a violation increases. as the number of civilizations grows. This idea becomes more plausible, however, if all civilizations tend to develop similar cultural patterns and values when it comes to contact, just as convergent evolution on Earth has independently evolved eyes on multiple occasions, or if all civilizations follow suit. of a civilization,
Fermi’s Paradox Fermi’s paradox is the apparent contradiction between the absence of evidence of alien civilizations and very high estimates for their probability, named after the Italian-American scientist Enrico Fermi. In light of this, a modified zoo hypothesis appears to be a more attractive solution to the Fermi conundrum.
The time interval between the birth of the first civilization and the development of all future civilizations within the Milky Way can be vast. The first few periods between arrivals between emerging civilizations would be comparable in length to geological epochs on Earth, according to a Monte Carlo simulation. What would a civilization be able to do if it had a head start of ten million years, one hundred million years, or half a billion years? Even if this first great civilization is long gone, its legacy may continue in the form of a past tradition, or even an artificial life form dedicated to such a purpose that does not face death.
Also, it doesn’t even have to be the first civilization; it just needs to be the first to spread its ideology and take control of a significant portion of the galaxy. If only one civilization achieved hegemony in the distant past, it could set in motion an unbroken cycle of prohibitions against greedy colonization in favor of non-interference with subsequent civilizations. In that case, the previously stated consistency of the notion of motivation would be irrelevant. If the oldest civilization still extant in the Milky Way has, say, a 100 million year advantage over the next oldest civilization, it is possible that they are in the unique position of being able to control, monitor, influence or isolate the emergence of all civilizations that come after them within their sphere of influence.
This is similar to what happens daily on Earth within our own civilization, where everyone born on this planet is born into a pre-existing system of family associations, customs, traditions and laws that have been in place a long time before our birth. and over which we have little or no control.
