The views and opinions expressed on this site are my own. This site is completely independent and receives no third party support or sponsorship.

I hope that the site serves as an engaging and thought-provoking platform for those with inquisitive minds who look up a the stars and ponder the meaning of existence (insofar as existence has any objective meaning!)

The discussions and articles here are based strictly on the scientific method and are subject to academic scrutiny. Whilst not adhering strictly to positivist and reductionist schools of thought, the discussions and thought-experiments presented are testable in principle and give rise to measurable results.

“If we take in our hand any volume [book]; of divinity or school metaphysics, for instance; let us ask, Does it contain any abstract reasoning concerning quantity or number? No. Does it contain any experimental reasoning concerning matter of fact and existence? No. Commit it then to the flames: for it can contain nothing but sophistry and illusion.” – David Hume

Anyone who has published academic papers will be well aware of the peer-review process with its extended time periods, amendments and academic rigour; all of which are necessary requirements but which can be quite restrictive in terms of positing new ideas. An open forum is often a better approach in terms of generating new ideas and approaches, stimulating discussion and asking open questions. Some of those questions may be fundamentally unanswerable or overly ambitious in scope but the real pleasure is in the thinking.

Limited attention has been paid in the literature to the interdisciplinary nature of the Fermi Paradox. Instead, much of the focus has been around trying to detect electromagnetic alien signals, with ever increasing sophistication and budgets, in the hope that we will eventually make contact. There is a multitude of reasons why this approach is likely to fail and why a broader approach is needed.

For example, an alien civilisation which evolved before homo sapiens could have been tirelessly targeting Earth with a dedicated transmitter or beacon over millennia without ever receiving a response during the 99.999998% of Earth’s history where the required technology was absent. Earth being just one candidate planet amongst billions of other candidates. Applied to multiple candidate planets, the cost in time allocation and resources to the alien civilisation would likely be prohibitive.

In another example, crocodiles are well-equipped to survive asteroid impacts and other natural disasters which could wipe out humans, but have remained largely unchanged since the reign of the dinosaurs. Crocodiles arrived at an equilibrium where they were efficient and versatile enough that they did not need to evolve in a substantial way. Similarly, dinosaurs reigned the Earth for 165m years, during which no technological civilisation emerged. Thus, intelligence is not the goal of evolution nor is it necessarily the best adaptation for a given niche.

The above examples illustrate why a consideration of economics and evolution is important in relation to the Fermi Paradox. There are many other such discussions throughout the site.