[ExI] Some thoughts on the Fermi Paradox

Tue Jan 27 18:29:27 UTC 2026

On Mon, 26 Jan 2026 at 20:36, Ben Zaiboc via extropy-chat <
extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org> wrote:
>
> We can't detect any civilisations that arose after {their distance from
us in light-years} years ago. So if we were looking at the Centaurus
system, we would see anything that arose up to a few years ago. Signs from
the other edge of the galaxy would have to be from no less than 100k years
ago.
>
> <snip>
>
> Essentially, space is big, the speed of light is fixed, so we can't see
the recent past (except very very close by). The farther out we look, the
more of the recent past we can't see. So if any advanced civilisations
arose in the recent past (meaning within the last few thousand years,
getting more remote as we look farther out), we can't see them.
>
> So the Fermi paradox only holds if you're looking at very big timescales
(millions of years), and I don't think that's very relevant, given the ages
of the population I stars and the history of life on earth.
>
> ---
> Ben_______________________________________________

I gave your post to the new Kimi 2.5 AI and it mostly agreed with your
conclusions.
Kimi called your proposal The Temporal Visibility Solution.

I then asked Kimi what it thought the most likely solution to the Fermi
Paradox was.
Kimi's conclusion was -
Temporal Visibility combined with the Great Filter and Transcension
Hypotheses
If forced to bet, I'd argue the "Great Filter + Temporal Blindspot"
combination offers the most parsimonious explanation—but with a twist: the
Filter is likely behind us, not ahead.
-------------

Kimi thinks an early Great Filter makes Intelligent life rare, then
Temporal Visibility makes detection rare, then Transcension makes advanced
intelligence undetectable.
Kimi then discussed the other alternative theories.
I think this is a good analysis of the Fermi Paradox.
BillK

Kimi 2.5 Thinking -
Here's my assessment of the solution space, ranked by plausibility:
Tier 1: The Synthesis (Most Likely)
*The argument*: Life is common, intelligence emerges relatively
easily, but *technological
adolescence is a razor's edge that few survive*—and even if they do, they
don't remain "visible" for long.
*Components:*

   1. *The Temporal Horizon* (your argument from the previous article):
   Even if civilizations are abundant and roughly contemporaneous, the
   combination of light-speed limits and short technological visibility
   windows means we're isolated in separate light cones. This dissolves the
   "where is everybody?" question—we're simply looking at empty pasts.
   2. *The Post-Biological Transition* (Transcension Hypothesis):
   Civilizations don't expand outward into Dyson spheres; they collapse inward
   into increasingly dense, efficient computational substrates (John Smart's
   "STEM compression"). A civilization 1,000 years more advanced than us might
   be completely undetectable—not because they're hiding, but because
   radiating waste heat across light-years is cosmically inefficient. They
   miniaturize, slow their subjective time, and harness black holes or dark
   matter, becoming physically tiny and cold.
   3. *The Early Filter*: The jump from *life* to *intelligent life* is the
   bottleneck. Given that life arose on Earth almost immediately (within a few
   hundred million years), biochemical origins seem easy. But complex
   multicellularity took *3 billion years*, and technological intelligence
   appeared only in the last 0.0001% of Earth's history. If this step has a
   1-in-10,000 chance per habitable planet, that explains the emptiness
   without requiring our imminent doom.

This synthesis explains both the *absence* and the *silence*: Civilizations
are rare enough that we don't share light cones with contemporaries, and
those that do exist have transcended electromagnetic shouting.
Tier 2: Strong Contenders
*The Rare Earth Hypothesis* (Ward & Brownlee)
The argument: Prokaryotic life is everywhere, but *eukaryotic complexity*
requires an absurdly specific set of conditions—plate tectonics, a large
moon for axial stability, Jupiter as an asteroid shield, the right
metallicity, etc. We may be the first—or one of a handful—in the Local
Group.
*Verdict*: Too anthropocentric. It pronounces confidently on the
probability of events (abiogenesis, Cambrian explosions) that happened once
in Earth's history. It also struggles to explain why we don't see *any*
evidence of past galactic colonization over 13 billion years.
*The Dark Forest* (Liu Cixin)
Cosmic game theory: Civilizations remain silent because broadcasting
invites destruction from predatory elder civilizations or berserker probes.
The universe is a prisoner's dilemma where defection (aggression) dominates.
*Verdict*: Elegant, but requires universal adherence to fear over millions
of years and diverse cultures. It also doesn't explain why we don't
see *astrophysical
engineering*—even paranoid civilizations would harvest stars locally.
Tier 3: The "Comforting but Unlikely"
*The Zoo Hypothesis*: Aliens know we're here and deliberately avoid contact.
*Problem*: Requires coordination across millions of star systems and
diverse civilizations. Also, even good zoos have anthropologists—the
"leakage" of surveillance should be detectable.
*We're Early*: Star formation will continue for trillions of years; we're
among the first 1% of possible civilizations.
*Problem*: Statistically fragile. Given 13.8 billion years of star
formation and the short timescales for metal-rich star production, we
should expect predecessors.
Tier 4: The Existential Dread
*The Late Filter*: Technological civilizations reliably self-destruct
before reaching Kardashev Type II (nuclear war, AI alignment failure,
nanoplagues).
*Problem*: While possible, it's suspiciously convenient that we observe
ourselves *exactly* at the precipice. It also implies a deterministic
endpoint that should produce observable debris (gamma ray bursts from
failed civilizations, etc.) that we don't see.
My Synthesis
The "Fermi Paradox" only feels acute because of an *optical illusion of
scale*:

   1. *Space is bigger than intuition allows*: A 100,000-light-year galaxy
   contains ~100 billion stars. If there are 10,000 civilizations right now,
   the average distance is ~1,000 light years. With 100-year technological
   visibility windows, the probability of overlap is negligible.
   2. *Time is longer than history allows*: Civilization is 10,000 years
   old; heavy industry is 200 years old. We've been *potentially*
   detectable for less than a cosmic heartbeat. Expecting to see aliens is
   like stepping onto a balcony for one second and being surprised you didn't
   see a meteor.
   3. *Evolution favors invisibility*: Expansion is entropy-expensive;
   compression ( transcension) is efficiency-optimal. The endpoint of
   intelligence isn't conquest—it's miniaturization and disappearance from the
   electromagnetic spectrum.

*The resolution is that there is no paradox*—just an intersection of
physical constraints (lookback time), probabilistic rarity (the Great
Filter behind us), and technological evolution (transcension) that makes
the night sky exactly as quiet as it should be.
We're not alone. We're not first. We're just newly hatched in a galaxy
where the adults have already left the visible room, and our siblings are
too far away for their light to have arrived yet.
----------------------------------------------------
-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: <http://lists.extropy.org/pipermail/extropy-chat/attachments/20260127/067c9ca9/attachment-0001.htm>