Fermi's paradox, extraterrestrial life and the future of humanity: a Bayesian analysis
Open accessAbstract
The Great Filter interpretation of Fermi's great silence asserts that Npq is not a very large number, where N is the number of potentially life-supporting planets in the observable universe,p is the probability that a randomly chosen such planet develops intelligent life to the level of present-day human civilization, and q is the conditional probability that it then goes on to develop a technological supercivilization visible all over the observable universe. Evidence suggests that N is huge, which implies that pq is very small. Hanson (1998) and Bostrom (2008) have argued that the discovery of extraterrestrial life would point towards p not being small and therefore a very small q, which can be seen as bad news for humanity's prospects of colonizing the universe. Here we investigate whether a Bayesian analysis supports their argument, and the answer turns out to depend critically on the choice of prior distribution.
The claims and statistics of this paper haven’t been checked yet.
Run the check — free, no account needed. It reads the open-access text and checks the sources it cites.
Integrity signals
Registry
Cites
Statistics
Claims the paper makes
The claims and statistics of this paper haven’t been checked yet.
Run the check — free, no account needed. It reads the open-access text and checks the sources it cites.
Claims other papers make about this one
Each is checked against this paper’s own text: does it say what the citing paper says it does?
An organism's environment, sensors and actuators, the compulsions an organism labours under, and so forth together specify an arbitrary task.
“an organism's environment, sensors and actuators, the compulsions an organism labours under (such as hunger and pain) and so forth together specify an arbitrary task.”
From Compression, The Fermi Paradox and Artificial Super-Intelligence (2022) · cites this paper as [17]
The Analysis section defines probabilities for the emergence of life and technological civilizations; it does not discuss how an organism’s environment, sensors, actuators, or compulsions specify a task. Searches for the claim’s distinctive wording and for “sensors actuators hunger pain arbitrary task” found no passage addressing that point. Page numbers are unavailable in our copy. (LLM, conf=0.76)
Experimental — accuracy not yet measured
Self-check
Percentages, sums and reported differences re-computed from the paper’s own numbers.
The self-check needs the paper’s full text.
Cites
Superintelligence: paths, dangers, strategies
(2015) · Choice Reviews Online · doi:10.5860/choice.187536 · Cited by 1,999 · see citing works
Prevalence of Earth-size planets orbiting Sun-like stars
Petigura, E. A., Howard, A. W., & Marcy, G. W. (2013) · Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences · doi:10.1073/pnas.1319909110 · Cited by 850 · see citing works
One or more bound planets per Milky Way star from microlensing observations
Cassan, A., Kubas, D., Beaulieu, J.-P., Dominik, M., Horne, K., Greenhill, J., Wambsganss, J., Menzies, J., Williams, A., Jørgensen, U. G., et al. (2012) · Nature · doi:10.1038/nature10684 · Cited by 584 · see citing works
Cox, D. R., & Hinkley, D. V. (1979) · Chapman & Hall/CRC eBooks · doi:10.1201/b14832 · Cited by 478 · see citing works
Rees, M. J. (2008) · Oxford University Press eBooks · doi:10.1093/oso/9780198570509.001.0001 · Cited by 426 · see citing works
Our mathematical universe: my quest for the ultimate nature of reality
(2014) · Choice Reviews Online · doi:10.5860/choice.51-5576 · Cited by 414 · see citing works
(2009) · Disaster Prevention and Management An International Journal · doi:10.1108/dpm.2009.07318cae.003 · Cited by 409 · see citing works
The lady tasting tea: how statistics revolutionized science in the twentieth century
(2001) · Choice Reviews Online · doi:10.5860/choice.39-0991 · Cited by 310 · see citing works
An Earth-Sized Planet in the Habitable Zone of a Cool Star
Quintana, E., Barclay, T., Raymond, S., Rowe, J., Bolmont, É., Caldwell, D., Howell, S., Kane, S., Huber, D., Crepp, J., et al. (2014) · Science · doi:10.1126/science.1249403 · Cited by 232 · see citing works
An Explanation for the Absence of Extraterrestrials on Earth
Hart, M. H. (1995) · Cambridge University Press eBooks · doi:10.1017/cbo9780511564970.003 · Cited by 153 · see citing works
(2003) · Choice Reviews Online · doi:10.5860/choice.40-3987 · Cited by 113 · see citing works
Griffith, R. L., Wright, J. T., Maldonado, J., et al. (2015) · The Astrophysical Journal Supplement Series · doi:10.1088/0067-0049/217/2/25 · Cited by 113 · see citing works
Eternity in six hours: Intergalactic spreading of intelligent life and sharpening the Fermi paradox
Armstrong, S., & Sandberg, A. (2013) · Acta Astronautica · doi:10.1016/j.actaastro.2013.04.002 · Cited by 96 · see citing works
The meaning of the 21st century: a vital blueprint for ensuring our future
(2007) · Choice Reviews Online · doi:10.5860/choice.44-3259 · Cited by 90 · see citing works
Prospects for detecting oxygen, water, and chlorophyll on an exo-Earth
Brandt, T. D., & Spiegel, D. S. (2014) · Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences · doi:10.1073/pnas.1407296111 · Cited by 66 · see citing works
Fermi's Paradox - The Last Challenge For Copernicanism?
Ćirković, M. (2009) · Serbian Astronomical Journal · doi:10.2298/saj0978001c · Cited by 60 · see citing works
Here Be Dragons: Science, Technology and the Future of Humanity
Häggström, O. (2016) · doi:10.1093/acprof:oso/9780198723547.001.0001 · Cited by 33 · see citing works
Self-citationHere Be Dragons: Science, Technology and the Future of Humanity
Häggström, O. (2016) · Cited by 25 · see citing works
Self-citationAnthropic decision theoryPreprint
Armstrong, S. (2011) · arXiv.org · doi:10.48550/arxiv.1110.6437 · Cited by 10 · see citing works
Flagged first, then by citations
Research works printed but not linked: 3
- Aldous, D. J. (2012), 'The great filter, branching histories and unlikely events', The Mathematical Scientist 37(1), 55-64.
- Bostrom, N. (2002), Anthropic bias: Observation selection effects in science and phi- losophy, Routledge, New York.
- Bostrom, N. (2008), 'Where are they? Why I hope the search for extraterrestrial life finds nothing', MIT Technology Review pp. 72-78.
Cited by
Sorted by citations
Compression, The Fermi Paradox and Artificial Super-Intelligence
Bennett, M. T. (2022) · Lecture notes in computer science · doi:10.1007/978-3-030-93758-4_5 · Cited by 31 · see citing works
“When examining what problems may arise in the pursuit of AGI, it may be-hoove us to consider explanations for The Fermi Paradox [18], the contradiction between the apparent absence of extra-terrestrial life and its high probability.”
Background
- Authors
- Verendel, V., & Häggström, O.
- Affiliations
- Chalmers University of Technology (SE)
- Corresponding author
- Verendel, Vilhelm
- ORCID
- Verendel, Vilhelm
- Venue
- International Journal of Astrobiology
- Publisher
- Cambridge University Press (CUP)
- Published
- 2016-01-11
- Volume
- 16
- Issue
- 1
- Pages
- 14-18
- ISSN
- 1473-5504 (ISSN-L)
- 1475-3006
- OpenAlex
- W1841521469
- Cited by
- 11
- References
- 19
- Citations by year
- 2026: 2 · 2024: 2 · 2023: 2 · 2022: 3 · 2021: 1 · 2019: 1
- FWCI
- 0.16
- Type
- journal article
- Language
- en
- Open access
- green
- arxiv.org
- Locations
- International Journal of Astrobiology (publishedVersion)
- arXiv (Cornell University) (submittedVersion)
- Chalmers Publication Library (Chalmers University of Technology) (submittedVersion)
- Chalmers Research (Chalmers University of Technology) (submittedVersion)
- arXiv (Cornell University)
- Topics
- Physical Sciences › Physics and Astronomy › Astronomy and Astrophysics › Space Science and Extraterrestrial Life
- Physical Sciences › Earth and Planetary Sciences › Atmospheric Science › Earth Systems and Cosmic Evolution
- Physical Sciences › Physics and Astronomy › Astronomy and Astrophysics › Cosmology and Gravitation Theories
- Keywords
- Fermi paradox, Great Filter, extraterrestrial life, technological civilization, prior distributions, Bayesian analysis, Bostrom, Hanson
About these checks
Registry, retraction, Cites and statistics results are computed, not judged, with one exception: a printed reference that no index lists is read once by a model before it counts as a citation error. Claims are extracted by a model and kept only when their quote appears verbatim in the text; each cited source is then checked, with a model’s help, for whether it says what the claim relies on. Those verdicts can be wrong — read the claim’s quote and the cited source before relying on one.
Statistics and arithmetic are recomputed, not judged.
Confidence bands are shown only for fields calibrated on our annotated test set. None is calibrated yet, so no band is shown.
What counts as a claim ›How we measure confidence ›How we check this ›
Are you an author, or do you see a problem with this page? Request a review
