A compelling answer to the Fermi paradox

Are we alone?

I’m as sure as I can be that we’ve made a breakthrough in answering the Fermi paradox. It’s obvious when you factor in psychology and the all-important matter of maturity - or, rather, the need for maturity. Time will tell, of course, if I’m correct. But when you consider this compelling answer, you’ll find it hard not to agree with the facts and the coherent logical reasoning.

Before getting to the heart of the matter, I’m first going to quickly run through a summary of what we can definitely all agree on. We live in exciting times and our knowledge base has increased in recent years. If you’re an astronomer, astrophysicist, or similar, you’ll already know the content of the next four paragraphs, so - if you’re someone who quickly gets mentally bored or irritated by reading basic information - it’s your choice if you want to jump ahead and get to the juicy bits. For everyone else, it’s relevant and won’t take long. I’ll next summarise the various suggestions that have been put forward to try to answer the Fermi paradox, before then explaining what we think is by far the most likely explanation.

Are we alone in the universe? The safest answer is “We don’t yet know”, but you don’t often hear this neutral position being voiced. Strong opinions are held on both sides of the argument. Some insist we are alone - that Earth is the only planet anywhere in the vastness of space where life has burst into existence. Others think the opposite is much more likely, going as far as considering that there might well be advanced civilisations that are way ahead of us. Mathematical calculations support the idea that there’s been sufficient time for “them” to explore far and wide, regardless of whether or not a quicker way of interstellar travel is possible. We humans launched the twin Voyager 1 and Voyager 2 spacecraft back in the summer of 1977 - a mere seven decades after the Wright brothers made their first powered aircraft flight - and both have now travelled beyond our solar system. It’s worth pausing to remember that, relatively speaking, we’re beginners when it comes to flying in the air and through space.

Voyager 1 entering interstellar space (artist’s concept) Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech

Enrico Fermi was a prominent physicist, credited as being the “architect of the nuclear age”. In the summer of 1950, Fermi had one or several conversations with his fellow co-workers - including Edward Teller - initially sparked through discussing a spate of recent flying saucer reports. (The UFO acronym wasn’t used until 1953 when it was coined by the US Air Force, much less the more recent UAP terminology.) They debated the apparent contradiction between a lack of evidence for extraterrestrial civilisations compared with the high probability for their existence in the Milky Way galaxy and beyond. This prompted Fermi to ask “Where are they?” Although he wasn’t the first scientist to consider this question, it’s nevertheless since become known as the Fermi paradox.

I remember a time when you’d hear a number of over-cautious scientists confidently state that there wouldn’t be any planets out there beyond those in our own solar system - that planets were somehow unique to the few that orbit the Sun, including Earth. They were wrong, of course, and the first two exoplanets were unexpectedly discovered in 1992 around a neutron star or pulsar. It got even more exciting when, in 1995, an exoplanet was detected around a Sun-like star. After that, the floodgates opened. Based on the Kepler mission data, astronomers now estimate there could be up to 40 billion Earth-sized planets within the habitable zones of Sun-like stars and red dwarfs in the Milky Way galaxy alone. Looking wider, that’s 1,000,000,000,000,000,000,000 (a zetta) habitable planets in the observable universe. You can read more about exoplanets here.

Closer to home, there’s a possibility of finding microbial life elsewhere in our own solar system. In the past, conditions on Mars seem to have been suitable for life, with liquid water on the surface, so it’s reasonable to speculate there could be evidence of past life - or perhaps even living microbes that are still hanging on beneath the surface. A recent study has suggested that bacteria might possibly exist in the clouds of Venus, prompted by the detection of an unexpected amount of phosphine, although that might be optimistic. Europa, a moon of Jupiter, has a vast ocean of liquid water below a frozen surface, which perhaps could be utilised by life. Enceladus, a tiny moon of Saturn, likewise has a subsurface ocean worthy of exploration. And Titan, another of Saturn’s moons, has aroused curiosity. We’ll get to the actual reality of what’s what when we send probes to these celestial bodies with appropriate instrumentation.

The surface of Europa, a moon of Jupiter Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech

Different answers to the Fermi paradox

Many educated minds have grappled with the Fermi paradox, resulting in a wide range of hypothetical answers. As I’ve already said above, the most cautious (or over-cautious) suggestion is that life exists nowhere else in the universe other than on Earth. Or, if life isn’t exclusively found here, then it is very, very, very rare - whether just at the microbial level or anywhere up to an evolved stage of intelligent beings. Alternatively, if life did once exist in greater frequency, then it has since died out. Perhaps other civilisations that become technologically clever, but lack the wisdom to avert global disaster, commonly annihilate themselves?

To bolster the above possible explanations for the Fermi paradox, a clever idea has been postulated. It’s called the Great Filter. It’s alleged that at some unknown point, whether it be when life is simple or complex, there’s a barrier that all - or almost all - life fails to get beyond. It gets stuck or is eliminated. If you follow this line of reasoning, a burning question alarmingly pops up. Is this Great Filter behind us or immediately ahead? If it’s behind us, then we’re super-special. But if it’s just ahead, then we’re in trouble because annihilation is probably imminent. This concept of a Great Filter has been commonly accepted amongst intellectuals, but I think it’s incorrect and needs to be replaced with what I first called “the Great Hurdle” in 2020. We’ll get back to the Great Hurdle shortly.

There’s a second group of possible explanations for the Fermi paradox, which all dismiss the arrogant notion that we’re special. They share the assumption that there’s an abundance of life in the universe, including other intelligent beings and civilisations, many of which could be far more advanced than ourselves. Different suggestions then stem from this starting point. Some argue that our planet might have been visited, but way back in recorded history. Others speculate that the Milky Way has been long-since colonised, but we’ve been ignored because Earth is located in the suburbs of the galaxy. Then there’s the idea that a scary predatory species exists, deterring too much space exploration - but perhaps this one’s just the result of watching too many Hollywood sci-fi films with an over-simplistic storyline?

Yet another suggestion is the Zoo Hypothesis. Advanced extraterrestrials have mutually agreed to observe but not interfere with us because we’re still an emerging intelligent species, only semi-civilised. (Think Star Trek’s Prime Directive.) We might be unaware or incapable of seeing their presence as we’re being watched, visited, or whatever - being treated as animals in a planetary national park. A counter-argument to the Zoo Hypothesis is that it would only take one maverick visitor to disagree with the embargo or Prime Directive, choosing instead to land on the White House lawn.....which hasn’t happened. Still others suggest that we’ve misunderstood the nature of reality and we’re part of some complex hologram or simulation. And so on.

Psychology is crucial

Okay, at this point, we have to bring in the topic of psychology, which is crucial to any serious consideration of this question. I’ll do my best to keep it brief and simple. Somewhat surprisingly, the psychological angle has usually been overlooked in this debate. Although biological “survival of the fittest” factors are the initial drivers for behaviour when life is physically dangerous, these are largely superseded with psychological motivations once a safer level of existence is achieved. We’re not interested in exoplanets or the possibility of life elsewhere as a direct biological imperative. Rather, it’s a psychological thing - a consequence of us thinking, being curious, wanting to explore for the sake of exploration, etc.

Homo sapiens is a contradictory creature. Humans can be intelligent, loving, funny, adventurous, creative, generous, and sometimes wise (fitting in with the Latin word for wise, which is sapien). We make music, play sport, appreciate great natural landscapes, write and read books, produce stirring films, manufacture all kinds of technological items to make life better and easier, and so on. But humans also behave badly. There’s another side which is dysfunctional. The list is long but includes the hurtfulness of bitching and gossip, bullying, greed, hatred, prejudice, comfort eating and obesity, anorexia and bulimia, depression, self-harm and self-loathing, alcohol abuse and alcoholism, plus drug abuse. There’s murder, rape, child abuse, robbery and theft, fraud, kidnapping, arson, drink driving, vandalism, assault, human trafficking, blackmail, domestic violence, etc etc. Plus war, other armed conflicts, overpopulation, habitat destruction, extinction of species, climate change, absolute poverty, terrorism, cruelty to animals, torture, genocide, and more.

It’s not difficult to imagine how we might be viewed by advanced extraterrestrials - this immaturity obviously isn’t flattering when you pause to reflect - but we need to go a bit deeper, in more than one way.

Hundreds of thousands of stars at the swirling core of our Milky Way galaxy Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech

Avoidance backfires

Psychological avoidance makes fools of even the most intellectual of people. Sigmund Freud was the first psychologist to appreciate the importance of avoidance in relation to anxiety. He did a good job of listing the various types or forms, even if he made the mistake of assuming they were fixed characteristics that couldn’t be unlearned. There’s the making of excuses, blaming someone or something else, minimisation, trivialisation, and intellectualisation. Plus escapism into fantasy and myth, as well as more normal distractions. Convenient forgetfulness is another type. When things are really desperate, there’s outright denial or repression.

Despite this psychological avoidance syndrome being clearly identified - and Americans often saying “He’s in denial!” - the reality nevertheless remains that avoidance is ubiquitous. The problem with people is that they just don’t want to see what the problem with them is. And this is despite all of the endless suffering caused, which should have been more than enough to spark a rethink and a change of mindset. But it hasn’t. Avoidance remains, largely normalised and unchallenged. It’s a remarkably simple defensive strategy in that you just avoid whatever you want to avoid. Avoidance limits and it ultimately doesn’t work. Although it might have some initial appeal as a way to minimise anxiety, emotional pain, or disappointment, it’s actually a stupid way of dealing with it because of the longer-term consequences on behaviour. It backfires and makes people vulnerable to irrational thinking, prompts a lower level of emotional intelligence, makes them conveniently blind to their own inadequacies, stunting overall psychological health.

The Great Hurdle

Next, we can start to look at what I’ve called the Great Hurdle. Human psychology is currently stuck in what can be thought of as an adolescent stage of evolutionary development. This is characterised by the self-orientated mindset, perpetuated by the avoidance strategy. We call this by a simple name - selfishness - for the sake of education. (The word “selfish” as defined by the dictionary is almost always conveniently misused to merely - and hypocritically - denote a particular or extreme version of this psychological state. However, the reality is that normal behaviour is self-centred, restricting primary concern to “me and mine”, and therefore selfish.) For the past three and a half thousand years or so, there have been many attempts to go beyond this limited psychology, with the aim of gaining a higher state of greater understanding and love for all. Yet these lofty endeavours have all failed. If you rationally look at the evidence, it’s been a history of failure. Some groups of people might try to believe or say otherwise, but the sad fact of billions of human beings still behaving the way they do speaks volumes. Selfishness remains, just as strongly rooted as ever.

Glimpses of a significantly better way of being have been reported for a long time. Instances of oneness experiences are quite rare, but have consistently shown up across the centuries, continents, and different cultures. The first scientific study of this was Cosmic Consciousness by the then eminent Dr Richard Maurice Bucke, published in 1900. Bucke’s pioneering study was closely followed by The Varieties of Religious Experience by William James, the “Father of American psychology”. Other notable academics have looked at what is happening, including Sir Alister Hardy and Abraham Maslow (specifically his work on self-actualisation and peak experiences). We’ll be covering this ground-breaking research - and the need for transpersonal psychology to buck up its ideas (pun intended) - in another article, if you want to learn more.

The problem has been an inability to translate these glimpses of our human potential into a new or advanced psychological framework. There are issues of neurology - not least habit and the massive problem of avoidance - that need to be practically addressed. A detailed, precise understanding of what’s what has been lacking until recently. All of which have contributed to a failure to burst the bubble of selfishness. This is the Great Hurdle which needs to be overcome. It’s the challenge to psychologically mature from adolescence to the beginning of adulthood. We explain much more about this here.

So, let’s quickly take stock of where we’re at, before venturing a step or two further. Humans are doing okay, but still a long way off being emotionally intelligent, advanced beings. Numerous forms of dysfunctional behaviour clearly demonstrate our juvenile limitations, with the school report saying “sometimes naughty, must do better”. Avoidance allows anyone to block anything they don’t want to face - so arrogance lives on, for example, because you can believe you’re smarter than you actually are by ignoring the pointers that suggest otherwise.

Now we have to make three reasonable assumptions. The first is that humans can evolve further - which will happen by deliberate educational endeavour, on a psychological level rather than by more primary biological means. The second reasonable assumption is that the two basic psychological levels that can be simply thought of in terms of selfishness (adolescent stage) and non-selfishness (adult stage) are likely to be universal. In other words, they are as fundamental as logical reasoning and compassion across any intelligent species, anywhere. The third hypothesis is that life exists elsewhere in the galaxy and wider universe, that it can evolve to advanced intelligence, and often won’t annihilate itself. It will have embraced the same or similar underlying qualities as ourselves, including curiosity and exploration. Furthermore, in keeping with what constitutes “advanced”, it will have psychologically evolved beyond the Great Hurdle - perhaps far beyond - with more developed technology.

At this point, it would be ideal if you had a good grasp of oneness experiences, but you probably haven’t. No problem. We’ll shortly be writing an article on the subject to clarify and demystify what it is and isn’t, [which has now been written and you can access it here]. Meanwhile, it’s sufficient to state that these peak experiences are merely glimpses of our non-selfish human potential. But they do clearly illustrate the huge capacity for a much higher state of caring, as well as much greater understanding. And (to repeat) when we’re considering advanced extraterrestrial intelligences, it’s reasonable to assume that they will have progressed beyond our adolescent stage of selfishness and be functioning from the much better non-selfish psychology. Just because most humans don’t yet clearly think in this way doesn’t mean that it isn’t so - nor already part of human aspirational thinking, albeit in a somewhat fuzzier format.

The Event

Now we’re getting to one of the best bits. If you could think and feel from the perspective of an advanced extraterrestrial, what’s happening here on planet Earth in the backwaters of the Milky Way galaxy, specifically at this point in our evolutionary history, would be of great interest. And by “interest”, I’m going way beyond the limited intellectual interest that is experienced by a human astronomer, medical doctor, journalist, or similar. Without wanting to sound slushy or dumb, think of your greatest feeling of love combined perhaps with cheering on your sports team at a special moment. You’re rooting for them to do well - to succeed - to the extent you’ve got tears streaming down your cheeks because you’re “with” them. There’s no separation. And that’s barely scratching the surface of a real psychological state that I’m feebly trying to explain in just a few words.

What’s close to possibly happening, here on Earth, will mathematically be a rare window of opportunity. Even if life is comparatively common on other habitable planets, this particular moment in time when an emerging intelligent species has got the means to finally make the transition from an adolescent psychology or behaviour, able to shift to the beginning of adulthood, will be a genuine rarity. It’s a simple matter of time, of which there’s already been a lot - just as there’s a lot of space out there. This rare window of opportunity will probably only be happening here, on Earth, with us being the subject matter, in the entire Milky Way and neighbouring galaxies.

We have to unfortunately make another assumption at this point, that’s again reasonable. In our infancy, we’re already demonstrating a keenness for exploring space, finding clever technological ways to do it. Recent advancements such as computers and the internet have already made a significant difference to how we live on the surface of the planet, so who can guess where the technological ceilings are for future progress? It’s already been postulated by leading physicists that at least a couple of ways of travelling faster than the speed of light might be theoretically achievable, so we just have to work out how to actually do it. And, if it’s possible, those way ahead of us have likely been doing it for some time - whether exploring in person, remotely, using bio-robotics, or by some other means that we haven’t yet thought about.

So back to the potential for us taking our next evolutionary step forward. Whereas human experience is currently limited, emotionally confused, and contradictory - fundamentally self-centred, despite some outer curiosity - this won’t be the case for any intelligent race with an advanced psychology. What’s happening here will undoubtedly be of great “interest” to them. (I use this inadequate word, though we really need a much better one in the English language to express the same meaning but at a significantly higher level.) They’ll be cheering us on - though, if any have ears like Yoda, they’ll no doubt be drooping quite often as we do less than our best. In local galactic terms, this will be known as The Event.

It’s not been long since we’ve gone past the point of just having knives, spears, bows and arrows, even guns. We’ve developed - and used - nuclear weapons. We’re beginning to weaponize space. Our capacity for being destructive has increased. Perhaps this could be of some slight interest to anyone beyond our planet, but I’m guessing we’d be of no real threat to anyone other than ourselves.

We’re on the verge of becoming a multiplanetary species, thanks especially to the efforts of SpaceX - a topic which we cover in a different category on this website. Again, this might possibly arouse some curiosity and mild concern. Would a semi-primitive or emerging intelligent species, like us, be tolerated beyond our own solar system? Might there be some kind of visa requirement to go beyond, based on psychological and behavioural maturity?

Evolve First - psychological maturity

Lesser considerations aside, the big one is undoubtedly our challenge to evolve further - to grow beyond the dysfunction of selfishness, moving into the psychologically healthier state of non-selfishness. It’s what should be - though currently isn’t - the most important thing on our agenda. But it will definitely be an engaging and ongoing “news story” or “reality show” (more language inadequacies!) on ETTV.

Perhaps the Zoo Hypothesis was tantalisingly close to the actual answer to the Fermi paradox? It just needed better appreciation and understanding of the state of human psychology and what lies closely ahead, in terms of evolutionary potential. Plus a grasp of the likely extraterrestrial psychology that will usually be beyond our current level. They could well be looking forward to saying “Hello”, but not until we evolve first.

This would explain the lack of contact.

A credible argument is starting to take shape amongst reasonable and intelligent people, being reported by leading news outlets, that Unidentified Aerial Phenomena (UAP) should be seriously investigated. The United States government is currently doing just that, as a result of several unexplained encounters involving the US Navy, through the UAP Task Force, formally established in August 2020. They‘re evaluating real data, attempting to work out what these unknown objects could be and where they might originate from. Is it new technology made by China, Russia, or another country? Or do these unidentified craft come from beyond our planet? Whereas it’s important not to jump to any premature conclusions - keeping an open mind, sticking to the data - if the authorities are able to rule out any terrestrial origin, this then becomes of additional interest to these questions of “Are we alone?” and “Where are they?” Our website has a UAP category to report any worthwhile news that might emerge.

We don’t need to wait to find out new discoveries of life out there. We do need to pay much greater attention to life here, on our planet, specifically the challenge for us to sort out our dysfunctional mess and evolve further. We need to move beyond immaturity - or, put bluntly, to grow up. Speculating about some possible Great Filter and the risk of annihilation is just crass intellectualisation if we do nothing in practical terms to prevent it. The responsibility boils down to each and every individual, for us to genuinely do the best that we can do at any given point. We all need to be better - to consistently live up to our self-appointed given scientific name of Homo sapiens, the “wise hominid”. There’s a lot of work to do.

Written by Iain Scott, 2nd May 2021

UPDATE (November 2022): We recommend this mini-series of three films as a good next step to learn more: