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Originally posted by GakFace
Since you and I are debating for what its worth  ... heres one for ya. Now.. Seeing how we humans can only see a small spectrum of the colors that exist. Then couldn't it be possible that they 'slipped' through our defenses and are actually here observing us? I mean we would be unable to see them with our current five senses, and if they aren't making themselves known, I'm sure they'd evade anything that would show them visible to us. This being said.. I'll go back to the Paradox's meaning.
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I'm reminded of Arthur C Clarke's famous saying that "technology of a high enough level would seem to us to be indistinguishable from magic".
I believe most people who "study" (or theorize about) ET life tend to believe that if an advanced civilization reached us it would make contact.
Believing otherwise is certainly an option, but a little paranoid and "Plan B from Outer Space"-like...
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"IF Intelligent life outside the solar system exists, it would be here by now. It has not arrived. Ergo, it does not exist."
Now, from my hypothetical situtation... How could we know they have not arrived? Perhaps they have, but we are unable to notice them. I know this is about to sound REALLY Geeky, and on the verge of Dorkish, but think like Star Trek. They would monitor groups, but they would either blend in, or use holograms to "cloak" thier observation base.[/b]
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We
don't know they haven't arrived. It's just assumed that if they got here, they would make contact.
Fermi's Paradox is not meant to
prove anything, but is a thought experiment. And a very good one at that.
Like
all statements, theories and "laws", it is based upon assumptions. One of those core assumptions is that intelligent life would not hide itself from us after taking the extraordinary effort of travelling through inter-stellar space. I hate to break it to you, but in the "real world" there
is no "warp drive" etc. The speed of light is as fast as it gets.
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And on a side note: This can also be reflected back to ghosts and spirits as well. The normal 5 senses don't notice them, but perhaps there are other senses that we have that can.
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Well, ghosts are another kettle of fish entirely. A belief in them posits a belief in the after-life. Something I don't have. It's a bummer really, because I'm not looking forward to dying. But there you go.
And now, finally, for the clincher...
For the record, I personally believe that there
IS intelligent life somewhere "out there" in the Universe. I just don't think they're capturing wayward motorists in West Virginia and performing anal probes on them.
Like us, they are doomed to die out in their small, trivial solar system when their sun goes nova.
Isn't the Universe a wonderfully positive place?!
Mr Mephisto