The Dark Forest With 200 billion stars and 100 billion planets in the Milky Way, it wouldn’t be unrealistic to think there are other life forms in our galaxy. There might even be a few intelligent extraterrestrial civilizations far more advanced than us. The Drake equation was created to determine the number of alien civilizations in the galaxy based on the potential number of habitable stars and planets. Thus, after calculation, it would seem that at least 20 intelligent civilizations could well live in our vicinity.
What is quite surprising is that until today, we have not yet succeeded in detecting a single one of these civilizations. The Fermi Paradox has been given to this somewhat contradictory situation.
This Paradox Has Led Many Researchers To Form Theories About The Reasons Behind The Lack Of Extraterrestrial Contact.
Among the hypotheses proposed are those that say that the birth of life itself is sporadic, others that most civilizations survive for a short time before destroying themselves. Another rather peculiar hypothesis states that the aliens remain undetectable because they choose to be and that there is a rather dark reason behind this silence. This theory is call “The Dark Forest Solution” or the dark forest theory.
This theory is based on the story told in the science fiction novel “The Dark Forest” written by Liu Cixin.
The Basics Of The Dark Forest Theory
The reasoning behind this theory is well explained in Liu Cixin’s novel. The book is mostly about how best to interact with potentially hostile extraterrestrial life forms. So, according to the book, all life forms desire to stay alive; there is no way of knowing if other civilizations will want to finish you if given a chance.
Based on this way of thinking, any contact with another civilization is dangerous since sending a message would be a means of revealing its position. Everyone tries to stay in total radio silence.
The novel explains this paranoia by comparing the Universe to a dark forest. In this forest, each civilization is a hunter who moves between the trees making as little noise as possible.
He must be conscientious since other hunters doing the same thing, and the one who is discover will be immediately eliminate to avoid any risk.
Is This Theory Possible?
What about this theory in reality? It has the advantage of affecting only one of the Drake equation variables, especially the one which is the source of much speculation. Moreover, with this theory, one does not have to make assumptions about. How all extraterrestrial civilizations behave since it only takes one advance. Race to act in this way to cause the observed situation.
This theory could thus explain why we have not yet detect. Radio signals during the last hundred years that we have been able to do so. Perhaps other civilizations so afraid of being spot that they choose not to emit any signals that might reveal their existence.
Hundred years. Any extraterrestrial civilization within 100 light-years of Earth could thus currently receive a barrage of radio signals from our planet. On the other hand, we have been sending our radio signals to space—for purpose or by accident.
If this theory is correct, it could be that humanity has put itself in danger. With all the signals emitted so far. But in conclusion, this is just a theory. And only time will tell which of all the hypotheses put forward about extraterrestrials is correct.
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