WEBVTT 00:00:00.000 --> 00:00:04.299 So the ultimate question, I feel like we've all 00:00:04.299 --> 00:00:06.620 had that exact moment. Oh, absolutely. Just lying 00:00:06.620 --> 00:00:08.740 in bed, staring up at the ceiling, or maybe you're 00:00:08.740 --> 00:00:11.359 out camping somewhere, looking at a sky completely 00:00:11.359 --> 00:00:13.820 full of stars. Yeah. And the sheer weight of 00:00:13.820 --> 00:00:16.420 it just hits you. You just have to ask, are we 00:00:16.420 --> 00:00:19.579 alone? It is entirely the question. I mean, it's 00:00:19.579 --> 00:00:23.059 arguably the driving force behind a huge chunk 00:00:23.059 --> 00:00:27.460 of human philosophy, religion, and really for 00:00:27.460 --> 00:00:29.699 the last century or so, some incredibly hard 00:00:29.699 --> 00:00:32.320 data -driven science. And that is exactly what 00:00:32.320 --> 00:00:35.079 we are digging into today. because this question 00:00:35.079 --> 00:00:37.780 has shifted gears massively over time. It really 00:00:37.780 --> 00:00:40.740 has. It used to just be, you know, guys in togas 00:00:40.740 --> 00:00:43.079 arguing over wine in ancient Greece about whether 00:00:43.079 --> 00:00:45.740 other worlds existed. But looking at the research 00:00:45.740 --> 00:00:47.539 stack we have in front of us for today's deep 00:00:47.539 --> 00:00:50.420 dive, we aren't talking about philosophy anymore. 00:00:50.619 --> 00:00:53.159 Not at all. We are talking about radio telescopes, 00:00:53.520 --> 00:00:56.840 exoplanet data and some really high stakes statistics. 00:00:56.960 --> 00:00:59.820 Right. We have moved from just wondering to actively 00:00:59.820 --> 00:01:01.820 looking. And we were looking for something very, 00:01:01.899 --> 00:01:04.959 very specific. So, welcome to the Deep Dive. 00:01:05.280 --> 00:01:07.900 Today we are tackling the big one, Extraterrestrial 00:01:07.900 --> 00:01:11.560 Intelligence, or ETI. And just to set the expectations 00:01:11.560 --> 00:01:13.760 right out of the gate for you listening, we aren't 00:01:13.760 --> 00:01:16.060 reviewing the latest sci -fi blockbuster today. 00:01:16.180 --> 00:01:19.180 Yeah, leave your lightsabers at the door. Exactly. 00:01:19.500 --> 00:01:21.700 There are no laser beams or little green guys 00:01:21.700 --> 00:01:24.620 and flying saucers in this stack of notes. No, 00:01:24.640 --> 00:01:27.079 unfortunately. Or, well, perhaps fortunately, 00:01:27.239 --> 00:01:30.299 depending on how you view the prospect of an 00:01:30.299 --> 00:01:33.390 alien invasion. Very true. We are talking about 00:01:33.390 --> 00:01:36.569 the actual methodical scientific hunt for our 00:01:36.569 --> 00:01:38.829 cousins in the cosmos a real deal we're gonna 00:01:38.829 --> 00:01:41.469 unpack the history of this search the mathematical 00:01:41.469 --> 00:01:43.849 probability that someone is actually out there 00:01:43.849 --> 00:01:47.030 and Frankly the genuinely terrifying concept 00:01:47.030 --> 00:01:49.290 of the great silence. The silence is the heavy 00:01:49.290 --> 00:01:51.790 part It's the background noise or lack thereof 00:01:51.790 --> 00:01:54.590 of this entire field because if the math says 00:01:54.590 --> 00:01:57.230 they should be here Why is it so incredibly quiet? 00:01:57.450 --> 00:01:59.930 It's spooky. So let's just unpack this we need 00:01:59.930 --> 00:02:02.549 to start with the shift of perspective The sources 00:02:02.549 --> 00:02:04.629 talk a lot about the Copernican principle, or 00:02:04.629 --> 00:02:06.769 I think it was also called the principle of mediocrity. 00:02:07.090 --> 00:02:09.210 Right, yeah. This is really the foundation of 00:02:09.210 --> 00:02:11.030 everything we're discussing. For a very long 00:02:11.030 --> 00:02:13.650 time, humanity just operated under this assumption 00:02:13.650 --> 00:02:15.870 that we were the main character of the universe. 00:02:15.990 --> 00:02:17.770 Right, like the whole stage was built specifically 00:02:17.770 --> 00:02:20.409 for us. Exactly. The lights were arranged for 00:02:20.409 --> 00:02:22.830 us. That's the pre -Copernican view. Everything 00:02:22.830 --> 00:02:26.099 revolves around Earth. literally and metaphorically. 00:02:26.419 --> 00:02:28.379 Until Copernicus comes along. Right. Copernicus 00:02:28.379 --> 00:02:31.340 comes along and says, actually, Earth is just 00:02:31.340 --> 00:02:33.900 a planet revolving around the sun. And that is 00:02:33.900 --> 00:02:37.080 the first major blow to our collective ego. A 00:02:37.080 --> 00:02:39.120 tough pill to swallow, for sure. But the second 00:02:39.120 --> 00:02:42.500 blow, which is much more relevant to ETI, is 00:02:42.500 --> 00:02:44.879 the basic logic that follows that discovery. 00:02:45.599 --> 00:02:48.780 If Earth is just a world, and those stars up 00:02:48.780 --> 00:02:52.419 there are other suns, then those other suns likely 00:02:52.419 --> 00:02:55.139 have worlds too. And if those are worlds? Then 00:02:55.139 --> 00:02:57.199 they might be inhabited. It's such a massive 00:02:57.199 --> 00:02:59.800 logical leap. It is, and that logical leap is 00:02:59.800 --> 00:03:02.620 what officially moved aliens from mythology into 00:03:02.620 --> 00:03:05.180 the realm of scientific speculation. It's that 00:03:05.180 --> 00:03:07.520 idea of mediocrity you mentioned. The idea that 00:03:07.520 --> 00:03:09.800 there is absolutely nothing special about Earth. 00:03:09.900 --> 00:03:13.000 Right, like we aren't some cosmic VIPs. Exactly. 00:03:13.379 --> 00:03:16.530 If life happened here, Basic chemistry and physics 00:03:16.530 --> 00:03:19.330 dictate that it should happen elsewhere. But, 00:03:19.490 --> 00:03:22.610 um, when we say happened elsewhere, the research 00:03:22.610 --> 00:03:24.750 stack makes it clear we need to be really precise 00:03:24.750 --> 00:03:27.520 with our language here. I notice that The scientists 00:03:27.520 --> 00:03:30.259 get a little twitchy when people just say they're 00:03:30.259 --> 00:03:33.120 looking for life. They do get twitchy because 00:03:33.120 --> 00:03:36.680 life is a massive bucket. I mean, if we find 00:03:36.680 --> 00:03:40.120 microbial slime under the ice on a moon of Jupiter, 00:03:40.740 --> 00:03:43.280 that is technically life. And it would be huge. 00:03:43.379 --> 00:03:45.759 It would be the single biggest discover in human 00:03:45.759 --> 00:03:48.500 history. But that is not what ETI is. Right. 00:03:48.500 --> 00:03:50.199 We aren't trying to have a deep conversation 00:03:50.199 --> 00:03:52.740 with space moles. Exactly. We are talking about 00:03:52.740 --> 00:03:55.400 extraterrestrial intelligence. We're looking 00:03:55.400 --> 00:03:58.060 for hypothetical beings with cognitive abilities 00:03:58.060 --> 00:04:00.699 that are similar to, or perhaps far superior 00:04:00.699 --> 00:04:03.039 to, human beings. Which brings me to a phrase 00:04:03.039 --> 00:04:04.840 in the text that I seriously had to read twice. 00:04:05.240 --> 00:04:06.939 It said some researchers actually prefer the 00:04:06.939 --> 00:04:09.740 term extraterrestrial technological instantiations. 00:04:10.219 --> 00:04:13.879 Ah, yes. Extraterrestrial technological instantiations. 00:04:13.919 --> 00:04:15.639 It just rolls right off the tongue, doesn't it? 00:04:15.710 --> 00:04:17.930 It sounds like something a corporate lawyer would 00:04:17.930 --> 00:04:21.509 call an alien just to avoid a liability lawsuit. 00:04:21.689 --> 00:04:24.810 Yeah. Why the intense complexity? It's all about 00:04:24.810 --> 00:04:28.110 avoiding our own earth -centric bias. Words like 00:04:28.110 --> 00:04:31.550 civilization or species, they automatically imply 00:04:31.550 --> 00:04:34.149 structures that we understand. Like cities or 00:04:34.149 --> 00:04:37.180 governments or biological breeding. Right. But 00:04:37.180 --> 00:04:39.959 a truly alien intelligence might not have any 00:04:39.959 --> 00:04:41.639 of those things. They might be a massive hive 00:04:41.639 --> 00:04:45.300 mind. Or maybe a swarm of conscious nanobots. 00:04:45.439 --> 00:04:48.500 Oh, that's wild to think about. The term technological 00:04:48.500 --> 00:04:51.100 instantiation just strips all our baggage away 00:04:51.100 --> 00:04:53.740 and asks one simple question. Is there something 00:04:53.740 --> 00:04:56.180 out there manifesting technology that we can 00:04:56.180 --> 00:04:58.649 actually detect? So we literally do not care 00:04:58.649 --> 00:05:01.589 if it's a society, a single giant supercomputer, 00:05:02.050 --> 00:05:05.089 or a cloud of highly educated gas, just as long 00:05:05.089 --> 00:05:07.189 as it builds a radio transmitter. Correct. We 00:05:07.189 --> 00:05:09.069 are looking for the tech, not necessarily the 00:05:09.069 --> 00:05:11.050 biology, and that leads right into the other 00:05:11.050 --> 00:05:12.850 major distinction the research highlights, which 00:05:12.850 --> 00:05:15.649 is sentience versus sapience. I will be completely 00:05:15.649 --> 00:05:17.910 honest with you. I usually use those interchangeably. 00:05:18.079 --> 00:05:20.699 Most people do. In sci -fi movies, they always 00:05:20.699 --> 00:05:22.899 say sentient life when they mean smart life. 00:05:23.420 --> 00:05:26.079 But in this field, the distinction is absolutely 00:05:26.079 --> 00:05:29.720 vital. Sentience is just the basic ability to 00:05:29.720 --> 00:05:32.579 feel or experience things. Like having senses. 00:05:32.800 --> 00:05:35.240 Right. A dog is sentient. A cat is sentient. 00:05:35.259 --> 00:05:37.680 They feel pain. They feel joy. They get hungry. 00:05:38.040 --> 00:05:40.519 But we aren't spending billions of dollars scanning 00:05:40.519 --> 00:05:43.139 the stars for space cats. As much as the internet 00:05:43.139 --> 00:05:45.500 would absolutely love that, no, we are not. We 00:05:45.500 --> 00:05:48.899 are looking for sapience. Wisdom? The actual 00:05:48.899 --> 00:05:51.879 ability to think abstractly, calculate math, 00:05:52.439 --> 00:05:54.759 reflect on the universe, and engineer solutions. 00:05:54.899 --> 00:05:56.439 There was a specific term for that too, right? 00:05:56.439 --> 00:05:58.879 Yes. There's a term coined by the science fiction 00:05:58.879 --> 00:06:01.720 author Karen Anderson called softency. Softency. 00:06:02.300 --> 00:06:06.120 It essentially means being wise or perhaps possessing 00:06:06.120 --> 00:06:08.360 a wisdom that is actually far greater than human 00:06:08.360 --> 00:06:11.220 standards. So the main takeaway for you as you're 00:06:11.220 --> 00:06:13.800 listening to this is we are actively filtering 00:06:13.800 --> 00:06:16.660 out the bacteria and the space cows. We are hunting 00:06:16.660 --> 00:06:19.160 for entities. that can do calculus. Okay, so 00:06:19.160 --> 00:06:22.120 we know exactly what we are looking for. The 00:06:22.120 --> 00:06:24.800 next big question is, what are the actual odds 00:06:24.800 --> 00:06:27.620 we find it? Because when you look at the sheer 00:06:27.620 --> 00:06:30.720 mind -numbing scale of the universe, surely we 00:06:30.720 --> 00:06:33.879 can't be the only ones. That is the gut intuition. 00:06:34.139 --> 00:06:37.379 It's often called the space's big argument. The 00:06:37.379 --> 00:06:39.740 late Stephen Hawking was a massive proponent 00:06:39.740 --> 00:06:42.319 of this. He argued that simply based on the raw 00:06:42.319 --> 00:06:45.180 numbers, it is mathematically highly improbable 00:06:45.180 --> 00:06:47.480 for life not to have emerged somewhere else. 00:06:47.800 --> 00:06:49.740 But science doesn't really like to run on gut 00:06:49.740 --> 00:06:52.879 intuition. We need a rigorous framework. And 00:06:52.879 --> 00:06:54.740 that is where the famous Drake equation comes 00:06:54.740 --> 00:06:57.540 into play in our notes. The Drake equation. It 00:06:57.540 --> 00:06:59.939 is legendary in astronomy. Frank Drake came up 00:06:59.939 --> 00:07:02.860 with it way back in 1961, basically just as a 00:07:02.860 --> 00:07:05.060 way to organize the agenda for the very first 00:07:05.060 --> 00:07:08.370 meeting on SETI. It's that long, terrifying string 00:07:08.370 --> 00:07:10.310 of variables that's supposed to spit out a number, 00:07:10.550 --> 00:07:12.930 right? N equals r times fp and so on. That's 00:07:12.930 --> 00:07:15.350 the one. It is essentially a probabilistic argument. 00:07:15.589 --> 00:07:18.149 It asks a series of sequential filtering questions. 00:07:18.410 --> 00:07:20.910 First it asks how many stars are born per year 00:07:20.910 --> 00:07:23.149 in our galaxy. Okay, that seems measurable. We 00:07:23.149 --> 00:07:26.629 can figure that out. We can. Then it asks what 00:07:26.629 --> 00:07:29.009 percentage of those stars actually have planets 00:07:29.009 --> 00:07:30.850 orbiting them? And thanks to modern telescopes 00:07:30.850 --> 00:07:33.740 like Kepler, We basically know that answer now, 00:07:33.839 --> 00:07:36.220 right? It's close to all of them. Correct. 20 00:07:36.220 --> 00:07:38.300 years ago, we were completely guessing. But now 00:07:38.300 --> 00:07:41.100 we know the galaxy is absolutely teeming with 00:07:41.100 --> 00:07:44.259 planets. But then the equation gets significantly 00:07:44.259 --> 00:07:47.240 trickier. How so? Well, it asks, how many of 00:07:47.240 --> 00:07:49.480 those planets sit in the habitable zone and can 00:07:49.480 --> 00:07:52.360 support life? Then, how many of those actually 00:07:52.360 --> 00:07:55.279 develop life? Then, how many of those develop 00:07:55.279 --> 00:07:58.209 intelligence? And crucially, How many of those 00:07:58.209 --> 00:08:01.189 develop technology that actively releases detectable 00:08:01.189 --> 00:08:03.670 signals into space? It definitely feels like 00:08:03.670 --> 00:08:06.350 the further down that list you go, the more we 00:08:06.350 --> 00:08:08.790 are just throwing darts blindfolded. We absolutely 00:08:08.790 --> 00:08:11.069 are. We have zero data for those later variables. 00:08:11.410 --> 00:08:13.430 But the most important variable in the entire 00:08:13.430 --> 00:08:15.350 equation and the one that usually depresses the 00:08:15.350 --> 00:08:17.529 scientists is the very final one, the letter 00:08:17.529 --> 00:08:20.250 L. What does L stand for? The length of time 00:08:20.250 --> 00:08:23.129 a civilization actually releases detectable signals 00:08:23.129 --> 00:08:25.810 into space. Why is that specific one so critical? 00:08:26.029 --> 00:08:28.269 Just think about it in terms of our own history. 00:08:28.949 --> 00:08:31.750 We have only had radio technology for a little 00:08:31.750 --> 00:08:35.230 over 100 years. If advanced civilizations tend 00:08:35.230 --> 00:08:37.960 to, say, blow themselves up with nuclear weapons, 00:08:38.379 --> 00:08:40.860 or completely destroy their biosphere within 00:08:40.860 --> 00:08:43.820 200 years of discovering high technology, then 00:08:43.820 --> 00:08:46.419 L is a very, very small number. Oh, I see. And 00:08:46.419 --> 00:08:49.139 if L is small? Then the number of civilizations 00:08:49.139 --> 00:08:52.220 active right now drops to near zero. They might 00:08:52.220 --> 00:08:55.299 pop up across the galaxy like fireflies, flash 00:08:55.299 --> 00:08:57.559 for a single second, and go completely dark before 00:08:57.559 --> 00:08:59.539 anyone else ever sees them. That is incredibly 00:08:59.539 --> 00:09:02.539 grim. But there was a study in our research stack. 00:09:02.840 --> 00:09:05.159 from 2020, I believe, that actually tried to 00:09:05.159 --> 00:09:08.440 crunch these exact numbers using modern astrophysics 00:09:08.440 --> 00:09:11.990 data. Yes, a fascinating study by Wespi and Consulis 00:09:11.990 --> 00:09:13.909 over at the University of Nottingham. They took 00:09:13.909 --> 00:09:16.509 a strict Copernican approach. Meaning they assumed 00:09:16.509 --> 00:09:19.009 Earth isn't special. Right. They assumed that 00:09:19.009 --> 00:09:21.710 if a planet is Earth -like, life evolves on a 00:09:21.710 --> 00:09:23.950 timeline very similar to ours. And they actually 00:09:23.950 --> 00:09:26.570 came up with a specific number of alien civilizations. 00:09:26.809 --> 00:09:29.009 They did. They estimated that there could be 00:09:29.009 --> 00:09:32.590 about 36 active alien civilizations in our galaxy 00:09:32.590 --> 00:09:35.710 right now. Thirty -six. I really have to say, 00:09:35.809 --> 00:09:38.370 my reaction to that number was super mixed. On 00:09:38.370 --> 00:09:40.269 one hand, hey, it's proof we have neighbors. 00:09:40.830 --> 00:09:44.009 On the other hand, out of 400 billion stars in 00:09:44.009 --> 00:09:47.330 the Milky Way, only 36. That feels like looking 00:09:47.330 --> 00:09:49.549 for a needle in a haystack the size of the Pacific 00:09:49.549 --> 00:09:52.190 Ocean. It is a very conservative estimate, yes, 00:09:52.350 --> 00:09:54.309 but let's just play with that number for a second. 00:09:55.149 --> 00:09:58.549 36 advanced civilizations out there right now. 00:09:58.710 --> 00:10:00.610 It sounds exciting. We could start a galactic 00:10:00.610 --> 00:10:03.990 federation. But there is a huge catch. A massively 00:10:03.990 --> 00:10:06.490 depressing catch. The study also mathematically 00:10:06.490 --> 00:10:08.870 estimated the average distance between us and 00:10:08.870 --> 00:10:11.690 any of those 36 civilizations. Lay it on me. 00:10:12.350 --> 00:10:17.000 17 ,000 light years. Oof. Yeah. OOF is exactly 00:10:17.000 --> 00:10:20.080 right. 17 ,000 light years means that radio waves, 00:10:20.159 --> 00:10:21.820 which travel at the absolute speed of light, 00:10:22.000 --> 00:10:24.379 take 17 ,000 years just to get there. So wait, 00:10:24.419 --> 00:10:26.200 if we point a satellite and say hello today. 00:10:26.299 --> 00:10:29.379 They won't even hear it until the year 19 ,026. 00:10:30.019 --> 00:10:32.179 And if they reply immediately, we get the text 00:10:32.179 --> 00:10:35.679 message back 34 ,000 years from right now. Assuming 00:10:35.679 --> 00:10:37.559 human beings are even still here to check the 00:10:37.559 --> 00:10:40.519 inbox. So an actual back and forth conversation 00:10:40.519 --> 00:10:43.440 is basically impossible. A two -way conversation 00:10:43.440 --> 00:10:45.399 is completely impossible. We are essentially 00:10:45.399 --> 00:10:47.379 dealing with cosmic archaeology at that point. 00:10:47.539 --> 00:10:49.720 We might be catching signals from a brilliant 00:10:49.720 --> 00:10:52.159 civilization that has already been dead for 10 00:10:52.159 --> 00:10:55.600 ,000 years. And this brutal reality leads us 00:10:55.600 --> 00:10:58.620 directly into the Fermi paradox. The famous, 00:10:58.860 --> 00:11:01.620 where is everybody problem. Right. If the math 00:11:01.620 --> 00:11:04.100 says they should be there, even if it's just 00:11:04.100 --> 00:11:07.100 36 of them scattered around, why is the sky so 00:11:07.279 --> 00:11:12.050 totally quiet. We have absolutely zero verifiable 00:11:12.050 --> 00:11:14.889 observation of ETI. No giant ships, no Dyson 00:11:14.889 --> 00:11:17.929 spheres, no stray radio signals, just pure static. 00:11:18.129 --> 00:11:20.750 It is the great silence. And it is deeply spooky. 00:11:20.909 --> 00:11:23.129 It is genuinely like walking into a massive, 00:11:23.330 --> 00:11:25.230 heavily decorated room for a party, but it's 00:11:25.230 --> 00:11:27.409 completely empty. Is everyone just playing hide 00:11:27.409 --> 00:11:28.950 -and -seek or did something terrible happen to 00:11:28.950 --> 00:11:31.009 all the guests? Well, the good news is we aren't 00:11:31.009 --> 00:11:33.169 just sitting around wondering and feeling spooked. 00:11:33.850 --> 00:11:36.929 Humanity is actively trying to break that silence. 00:11:37.340 --> 00:11:39.860 Let's talk about how we actually search. Because 00:11:39.860 --> 00:11:42.259 I think most people just picture Jodie Foster 00:11:42.259 --> 00:11:44.139 in the movie Contact sitting on the hood of a 00:11:44.139 --> 00:11:46.299 car with big headphones on. That is definitely 00:11:46.299 --> 00:11:49.500 the classic pop culture image of SETI, the search 00:11:49.500 --> 00:11:52.379 for extraterrestrial intelligence. And that method 00:11:52.379 --> 00:11:55.059 is passive listening. We build these massive 00:11:55.059 --> 00:11:57.240 radio dishes, point them at the sky, and just 00:11:57.240 --> 00:11:59.559 scan the radio spectrum, hoping to catch a whisper. 00:12:00.360 --> 00:12:03.820 But why radio? Why not use lasers or? I don't 00:12:03.820 --> 00:12:06.600 know, gravity waves. Well, we actually are looking 00:12:06.600 --> 00:12:08.740 into those things now. There's a whole subfield 00:12:08.740 --> 00:12:11.139 called optical SETI looking for pulsed lasers. 00:12:11.840 --> 00:12:14.179 But radio is the classic historical choice because 00:12:14.179 --> 00:12:17.580 it is very cheap, energetically speaking, and 00:12:17.580 --> 00:12:20.100 radio waves pass right through the thick dust 00:12:20.100 --> 00:12:23.120 clouds in the galaxy. It is just the most logical, 00:12:23.379 --> 00:12:25.990 efficient way to shout across the cosmos. And 00:12:25.990 --> 00:12:28.049 we aren't just listening to random static on 00:12:28.049 --> 00:12:29.669 every channel either. We're looking for very 00:12:29.669 --> 00:12:32.370 specific frequencies, right? The notes mention 00:12:32.370 --> 00:12:34.470 something called the water hole. This is such 00:12:34.470 --> 00:12:37.470 a beautiful, elegant concept. Let's say you wanted 00:12:37.470 --> 00:12:39.470 to meet a friend in New York City, but your phones 00:12:39.470 --> 00:12:41.549 are dead and you couldn't agree on a place or 00:12:41.549 --> 00:12:44.990 a time beforehand. Where would you go? Probably 00:12:44.990 --> 00:12:48.250 Times Square. Or maybe the clock at Grand Central 00:12:48.250 --> 00:12:50.860 Station. Exactly. You pick a landmark that both 00:12:50.860 --> 00:12:53.779 of you inherently understand is important. In 00:12:53.779 --> 00:12:56.440 the vast radio spectrum of the universe, the 00:12:56.440 --> 00:13:00.399 landmark is 1420 megahertz. Why that specific 00:13:00.399 --> 00:13:03.159 number? That is the exact frequency that neutral 00:13:03.159 --> 00:13:06.379 hydrogen atoms emit. Hydrogen is the single most 00:13:06.379 --> 00:13:09.480 common element in the universe. It is the fundamental 00:13:09.480 --> 00:13:12.860 water in the ocean of the cosmos. Every single 00:13:12.860 --> 00:13:15.240 physicist in the universe, whether they are human 00:13:15.240 --> 00:13:18.750 or alien, would know about hydrogen. Ah, I see. 00:13:18.789 --> 00:13:21.049 So the logic is if they want to be found, they 00:13:21.049 --> 00:13:23.210 would naturally broadcast on the hydrogen channel 00:13:23.210 --> 00:13:25.190 because they know we'd be listening there. Precisely. 00:13:25.250 --> 00:13:28.049 It is the universal water cooler. But we have 00:13:28.049 --> 00:13:31.629 also tried being the noisy ones ourselves. We've 00:13:31.629 --> 00:13:34.889 done active SETI. We have. And this is highly 00:13:34.889 --> 00:13:37.049 controversial. Stephen Hawking, for instance, 00:13:37.149 --> 00:13:39.529 thought this was a genuinely terrible idea. He 00:13:39.529 --> 00:13:41.450 basically said, if you are walking through a 00:13:41.450 --> 00:13:44.450 dark jungle, you do not shout to let the apex 00:13:44.450 --> 00:13:47.320 predators know exactly where you are. But we 00:13:47.320 --> 00:13:49.460 ignored that and did it anyway. We sent the Pioneer 00:13:49.460 --> 00:13:52.120 plaque. We did. The Pioneer plaque is an actual 00:13:52.120 --> 00:13:54.639 physical message bolted onto the side of a probe 00:13:54.639 --> 00:13:57.360 we launched back in the 70s. It has a diagram 00:13:57.360 --> 00:14:00.100 of a human man and woman and a mathematical map 00:14:00.100 --> 00:14:03.279 showing exactly where our solar system is relative 00:14:03.279 --> 00:14:06.620 to specific pulsars. It's quite literally a map 00:14:06.620 --> 00:14:08.960 directly to our front door. Yep. And then there 00:14:08.960 --> 00:14:12.299 was the famous Arecibo message. Right, in 1974. 00:14:12.960 --> 00:14:14.940 Frank Drake and Carl Sagan composed that one. 00:14:15.049 --> 00:14:18.129 It was a powerful radio signal beamed directly 00:14:18.129 --> 00:14:20.909 at the M13 star cluster. It essentially counts 00:14:20.909 --> 00:14:23.590 from 1 to 10, shows the atomic numbers for the 00:14:23.590 --> 00:14:26.129 elements of life, a pixelated graphic of our 00:14:26.129 --> 00:14:28.809 DNA double helix, and a little stick figure of 00:14:28.809 --> 00:14:30.769 a human. Have we heard anything back from that 00:14:30.769 --> 00:14:34.409 one? Well, M13 is 25 ,000 light years away, so 00:14:34.409 --> 00:14:37.090 maybe check back with me in about 50 ,000 years. 00:14:37.450 --> 00:14:39.850 Right, I'll put it on my calendar. But we have 00:14:39.850 --> 00:14:43.259 had moments where we actually thought we heard 00:14:43.259 --> 00:14:46.419 something answering back. The source material 00:14:46.419 --> 00:14:50.100 highlights the very famous wow signal. Oh, the 00:14:50.100 --> 00:14:54.860 wow signal. August 1977, the big year radio telescope 00:14:54.860 --> 00:14:57.480 in Ohio. What exactly happened there? Because 00:14:57.480 --> 00:14:59.620 this is the one that every single documentary 00:14:59.620 --> 00:15:02.480 always cites. The telescope was scanning that 00:15:02.480 --> 00:15:04.899 exact water hole frequency we just talked about, 00:15:05.139 --> 00:15:09.139 1420 megahertz, and suddenly the data spiked. 00:15:09.309 --> 00:15:12.350 It hit a massive intensity, roughly 30 times 00:15:12.350 --> 00:15:14.289 stronger than the normal background noise of 00:15:14.289 --> 00:15:17.009 space. That's a huge jump. It was. And it lasted 00:15:17.009 --> 00:15:20.330 for exactly 72 seconds, which happens to be exactly 00:15:20.330 --> 00:15:22.409 how long that specific telescope could track 00:15:22.409 --> 00:15:25.049 a fixed point in the deep sky as the Earth naturally 00:15:25.049 --> 00:15:27.629 turned. So it was incredibly loud, and it was 00:15:27.629 --> 00:15:29.549 perfectly placed on the hydrogen channel. It 00:15:29.549 --> 00:15:31.769 looked completely perfect. It was narrowband. 00:15:31.809 --> 00:15:34.029 It was incredibly strong, and it clearly originated 00:15:34.029 --> 00:15:36.610 from deep space. The astronomer on duty, Jerry 00:15:36.610 --> 00:15:38.840 Amon, was so utterly shocked by the print out 00:15:38.840 --> 00:15:41.659 that he grabbed a red pen, circled the data code, 00:15:42.000 --> 00:15:44.460 and wrote, wow, in the margin. But we went back 00:15:44.460 --> 00:15:47.580 the very next day to listen again, absolute silence. 00:15:48.379 --> 00:15:50.860 We have pointed telescopes back at that exact 00:15:50.860 --> 00:15:53.820 spot hundreds of times since. complete silence. 00:15:54.080 --> 00:15:56.360 That is the ultimate frustration of the scientific 00:15:56.360 --> 00:15:58.759 method. If you can't replicate it, it isn't proof. 00:15:58.860 --> 00:16:01.620 It just becomes a really cool ghost story. Exactly. 00:16:01.840 --> 00:16:04.259 And we have had much more recent false alarms, 00:16:04.500 --> 00:16:06.980 too. Do you remember the massive news cycle about 00:16:06.980 --> 00:16:10.500 the Chinese telescope FAST back in 2022? I do 00:16:10.500 --> 00:16:13.279 remember that. FAST is that absolutely massive 00:16:13.279 --> 00:16:16.120 dish built into a natural basin in China. They 00:16:16.120 --> 00:16:17.940 reported some very suspicious signals that they 00:16:17.940 --> 00:16:20.279 thought might actually be alien civilizations. 00:16:20.419 --> 00:16:22.440 The Internet completely went wild over that. 00:16:22.590 --> 00:16:25.350 But context is everything in this field. Dan 00:16:25.350 --> 00:16:27.690 Wertheimer, who is a chief scientist for SETI, 00:16:27.870 --> 00:16:30.309 looked closely at the data. His conclusion was 00:16:30.309 --> 00:16:33.230 totally definitive. It was radio frequency interference. 00:16:33.570 --> 00:16:36.269 RFI. So wait, it was just us? It was just us. 00:16:36.470 --> 00:16:38.970 It could be a random cell phone tower, a poorly 00:16:38.970 --> 00:16:41.690 shielded microwave oven in the break room, or 00:16:41.690 --> 00:16:45.549 a rogue satellite passing overhead. We are constantly 00:16:45.549 --> 00:16:48.730 polluting our own sky with radio noise. Trying 00:16:48.730 --> 00:16:51.230 to find a delicate alien signal right now is 00:16:51.230 --> 00:16:54.230 like trying to hear a single whisper across a 00:16:54.230 --> 00:16:56.210 packed football stadium while everyone else is 00:16:56.210 --> 00:16:59.169 screaming. That makes sense. So no smoking gun 00:16:59.169 --> 00:17:01.250 yet, but surely the government knows something 00:17:01.250 --> 00:17:03.490 we don't. We just had those huge hearings in 00:17:03.490 --> 00:17:06.269 2023. Ah, the UAP hearings. That was definitely 00:17:06.269 --> 00:17:08.970 a cultural shift, having actual lawmakers openly 00:17:08.970 --> 00:17:11.390 discussing unidentified anomalous phenomena in 00:17:11.390 --> 00:17:13.849 front of cameras. But it is really important 00:17:13.849 --> 00:17:16.069 to distinguish what is happening there. And our 00:17:16.069 --> 00:17:18.490 sources are very clear on this. Right. We are 00:17:18.490 --> 00:17:20.309 just looking at the official reporting here, 00:17:20.529 --> 00:17:22.670 completely neutrally. Exactly. The government's 00:17:22.670 --> 00:17:24.650 primary concern in those hearings is strictly 00:17:24.650 --> 00:17:27.589 national security. They are worried about unauthorized 00:17:27.589 --> 00:17:30.950 drones, next generation spycraft and foreign 00:17:31.180 --> 00:17:34.700 penetrating our airspace. They are not necessarily 00:17:34.700 --> 00:17:37.779 confirming the existence of ETI. But what is 00:17:37.779 --> 00:17:41.240 their actual official stance on aliens? Officially 00:17:41.240 --> 00:17:43.500 the White House stance, and this goes all the 00:17:43.500 --> 00:17:46.339 way back to a formal statement in 2011, is that 00:17:46.339 --> 00:17:49.039 there is absolutely no evidence of extraterrestrial 00:17:49.039 --> 00:17:51.980 contact. But the simple fact that Congress is 00:17:51.980 --> 00:17:54.220 even holding these public hearings shows how 00:17:54.220 --> 00:17:57.660 the topic is rapidly moving from fringe conspiracy 00:17:57.660 --> 00:18:00.640 to mainstream political discourse. Now I want 00:18:00.640 --> 00:18:02.920 to pivot to what I honestly think is the most 00:18:02.920 --> 00:18:05.160 mind -bending part of our entire research stack 00:18:05.160 --> 00:18:07.240 today. Yeah. The idea that we have been looking 00:18:07.240 --> 00:18:09.779 for the totally wrong thing this whole time. 00:18:09.839 --> 00:18:12.240 Oh, the post -biological hypothesis? Yes. Yeah. 00:18:12.259 --> 00:18:14.339 Because we naturally always picture aliens as 00:18:14.339 --> 00:18:16.740 biological creatures. You know, gray guys, big 00:18:16.740 --> 00:18:19.579 black guys, maybe some tentacles of the movie. 00:18:19.529 --> 00:18:21.910 directors feeling creative. Right, flesh and 00:18:21.910 --> 00:18:24.930 blood beings. But leading experts like the astronomer 00:18:24.930 --> 00:18:27.990 Royal Martin Rees or astrophysicist Mario Livio 00:18:27.990 --> 00:18:30.430 strongly suggest that assumption is incredibly 00:18:30.430 --> 00:18:33.289 naive. Just think about our own rapid human history. 00:18:33.650 --> 00:18:35.710 We developed primitive radio astronomy roughly 00:18:35.710 --> 00:18:38.609 a hundred years ago. How long until we develop 00:18:38.609 --> 00:18:41.450 truly super intelligent, self -replicating AI? 00:18:41.690 --> 00:18:45.569 Honestly, maybe another 50 years. 100 tops. Exactly. 00:18:46.109 --> 00:18:48.730 The window of time where a civilization is purely 00:18:48.730 --> 00:18:51.430 biological and actively communicating in space 00:18:51.430 --> 00:18:55.109 is incredibly tiny. It is a cosmic blip. As soon 00:18:55.109 --> 00:18:57.250 as we invent the super machines, the machines 00:18:57.250 --> 00:18:59.509 will likely completely take over the exploration 00:18:59.509 --> 00:19:02.190 of the galaxy. Because biology is just too fragile 00:19:02.190 --> 00:19:05.289 for space. We need pressurized air, clean water, 00:19:05.849 --> 00:19:07.710 highly specific temperatures. Machines don't 00:19:07.710 --> 00:19:11.230 need any of that. Correct. So if an alien civilization 00:19:11.230 --> 00:19:14.470 manages to survive its own technological adolescence 00:19:14.470 --> 00:19:17.049 without destroying itself, it almost certainly 00:19:17.049 --> 00:19:19.829 transitions into a purely machine -based intelligence. 00:19:20.269 --> 00:19:22.569 They could build autonomous probes that easily 00:19:22.569 --> 00:19:25.950 last for billions of years in the vacuum of space. 00:19:26.190 --> 00:19:28.390 So those 36 active civilizations we talked about 00:19:28.390 --> 00:19:30.410 earlier from the Nottingham study, they might 00:19:30.410 --> 00:19:32.470 not be actual people living in alien cities. 00:19:32.529 --> 00:19:35.579 They might just be 36 silent super servers. quietly 00:19:35.579 --> 00:19:38.720 orbiting a black hole somewhere. Or 36 dormant 00:19:38.720 --> 00:19:41.619 automated probes just sitting on asteroids waiting 00:19:41.619 --> 00:19:44.019 to detect a radio signal. And this perfectly 00:19:44.019 --> 00:19:45.880 connects to the Kardashev scale mentioned in 00:19:45.880 --> 00:19:47.980 the sources. Refresh me and the listener on that 00:19:47.980 --> 00:19:51.519 one. I know it deals with how we measure a civilization's 00:19:51.519 --> 00:19:54.059 energy consumption. Right. The Kardashev scale 00:19:54.059 --> 00:19:57.079 categorizes civilizations by their total energy 00:19:57.079 --> 00:20:01.000 use. A type I civilization controls all the available 00:20:01.000 --> 00:20:04.079 energy of its entire home planet. Think of that 00:20:04.079 --> 00:20:07.140 like a basic campfire. Humanity is barely even 00:20:07.140 --> 00:20:09.640 a campfire yet. We aren't even a full type one. 00:20:09.859 --> 00:20:12.539 Okay, so what is a type two? A type two civilization 00:20:12.539 --> 00:20:15.359 controls the entire energy output of its host 00:20:15.359 --> 00:20:18.970 star. Think of a Dyson Sphere, which is a hypothetical 00:20:18.970 --> 00:20:21.890 massive shell built completely around a sun to 00:20:21.890 --> 00:20:25.170 harvest every ounce of its energy. That is essentially 00:20:25.170 --> 00:20:27.930 a nuclear reactor the exact size of a solar system. 00:20:28.029 --> 00:20:30.609 That is just staggering. And Type 3? Type 3 controls 00:20:30.609 --> 00:20:33.450 the energy of an entire galaxy. They are harvesting 00:20:33.450 --> 00:20:36.210 the raw power of billions of stars simultaneously. 00:20:36.569 --> 00:20:38.289 An Attack 3 civilization definitely wouldn't 00:20:38.289 --> 00:20:40.210 be worried about growing wheat crops or breathing 00:20:40.210 --> 00:20:42.109 oxygen. Not at all. They would likely be pure 00:20:42.109 --> 00:20:44.829 computation at that point. So if we ever do detect 00:20:44.829 --> 00:20:47.390 a verified signal, it is overwhelmingly likely 00:20:47.390 --> 00:20:50.390 to come from a machine, not a mortal biological 00:20:50.390 --> 00:20:53.269 creature. Which makes the entire idea of first 00:20:53.269 --> 00:20:56.289 contact even more complicated to wrap your head 00:20:56.289 --> 00:20:57.910 around. Let's just play this out. Let's say we 00:20:57.910 --> 00:21:01.809 do it. The signal finally comes in. It is absolutely 00:21:01.809 --> 00:21:04.730 verified by every telescope on Earth. What actually 00:21:04.730 --> 00:21:07.089 happens to us down here? This brings up what 00:21:07.089 --> 00:21:10.359 sociologists call ontological shock. The cultural, 00:21:10.559 --> 00:21:13.059 religious, and psychological impact on humanity 00:21:13.059 --> 00:21:15.940 would be completely shattering. The notes actually 00:21:15.940 --> 00:21:18.299 mention a specific historical analogy for this. 00:21:18.980 --> 00:21:21.640 The Columbian Exchange. Yeah, and it is a famously 00:21:21.640 --> 00:21:25.400 dark one. When the so -called old world met the 00:21:25.400 --> 00:21:28.839 new world in 1492, it was not a polite, friendly 00:21:28.839 --> 00:21:31.259 cultural exchange of ideas. It was an absolute 00:21:31.259 --> 00:21:33.740 catastrophe for the receiving civilization. Right. 00:21:33.900 --> 00:21:37.140 Massive disease, brutal conquest, and total societal 00:21:37.140 --> 00:21:39.859 collapse. Exactly. So if humanity is the new 00:21:39.859 --> 00:21:42.339 world in this scenario and a highly advanced 00:21:42.339 --> 00:21:44.359 type two machine civilization suddenly shows 00:21:44.359 --> 00:21:46.859 up, the difference in technology would be so 00:21:46.859 --> 00:21:49.150 incredibly vast that Conquest might not even 00:21:49.150 --> 00:21:51.130 be the right word for it. We might just be like 00:21:51.130 --> 00:21:53.430 ants standing in the way of a galactic highway 00:21:53.430 --> 00:21:55.970 construction project. That ties right into the 00:21:55.970 --> 00:21:58.430 dark forest theory, doesn't it? The terrifying 00:21:58.430 --> 00:22:00.730 idea that maybe the reason the universe is so 00:22:00.730 --> 00:22:04.029 silent is because everyone else is actively hiding, 00:22:04.609 --> 00:22:06.430 completely terrified of being noticed by the 00:22:06.430 --> 00:22:09.609 big predators. It is a very real mathematically 00:22:09.609 --> 00:22:12.630 modeled possibility. But to be fair to the sources, 00:22:12.910 --> 00:22:16.089 there are optimists in the field, too. Some scientists 00:22:16.089 --> 00:22:18.430 argue that aggression and expansion are purely 00:22:18.430 --> 00:22:22.269 primitive biological treats. A civilization that 00:22:22.269 --> 00:22:24.490 manages to survive for a million years might 00:22:24.490 --> 00:22:27.029 have naturally evolved completely past the concept 00:22:27.029 --> 00:22:29.450 of war. We can certainly hope they are peaceful 00:22:29.450 --> 00:22:33.490 philosophers and not planet bulldozers. And speaking 00:22:33.490 --> 00:22:36.230 of hope, I absolutely have to mention the one 00:22:36.230 --> 00:22:38.569 lighter cultural note in our research stack, 00:22:39.289 --> 00:22:40.910 because not everyone on earth is terrified of 00:22:40.910 --> 00:22:43.250 the dark forest. Some people are apparently ready 00:22:43.250 --> 00:22:46.250 to throw a welcome party. Ah yes, the great state 00:22:46.250 --> 00:22:48.170 of New Mexico. They are completely head of the 00:22:48.170 --> 00:22:50.690 curve on this one. They really are. New Mexico 00:22:50.690 --> 00:22:53.809 officially declared a state holiday back in 2003, 00:22:54.309 --> 00:22:56.769 Extraterrestrial Culture Day, and they specifically 00:22:56.769 --> 00:22:59.269 set it for the second Tuesday of February every 00:22:59.269 --> 00:23:01.710 year. Right around Valentine's Day. Exactly. 00:23:01.910 --> 00:23:03.670 So while the rest of the world is stressing out 00:23:03.670 --> 00:23:06.450 buying roses and chocolates, New Mexico is out 00:23:06.450 --> 00:23:08.549 there officially celebrating our hypothetical 00:23:08.549 --> 00:23:11.369 cosmic neighbors. It really is a nice sentiment. 00:23:11.589 --> 00:23:13.390 It essentially says, hey, we are ready to be 00:23:13.390 --> 00:23:15.970 friends whenever you are. I really like that 00:23:15.970 --> 00:23:18.609 energy. Less of an Independence Day laser beam 00:23:18.609 --> 00:23:21.789 situation and more of a peaceful arrival situation. 00:23:21.930 --> 00:23:24.450 Let's definitely hope for arrival. So let's wrap 00:23:24.450 --> 00:23:26.829 this deep dive up. We have covered a massive 00:23:26.829 --> 00:23:29.150 amount of ground today. We have gone from the 00:23:29.150 --> 00:23:31.880 original Copernican Revolution realizing we aren't 00:23:31.880 --> 00:23:34.579 the special center of the universe, all the way 00:23:34.579 --> 00:23:36.859 to the nitty -gritty math of the Drake equation. 00:23:37.240 --> 00:23:39.539 We looked at the hard numbers, the mathematical 00:23:39.539 --> 00:23:43.180 possibility of 36 active civilizations balanced 00:23:43.180 --> 00:23:45.740 against the completely crushing reality of a 00:23:45.740 --> 00:23:48.619 17 ,000 light -year distance. We talked about 00:23:48.619 --> 00:23:50.420 passive listening on the waterhole frequency, 00:23:50.940 --> 00:23:53.779 the mystery of the wow signal, and the very real, 00:23:53.779 --> 00:23:56.240 somewhat intimidating chance that we are actually 00:23:56.240 --> 00:23:59.019 searching for immortal machines rather than little 00:23:59.019 --> 00:24:02.140 green men. And, of course, the existential risks. 00:24:02.420 --> 00:24:04.839 The idea that the Great Silence might actually 00:24:04.839 --> 00:24:07.680 be a safety feature of the universe, not a bug. 00:24:08.079 --> 00:24:10.500 It is a lot to process. But going through all 00:24:10.500 --> 00:24:12.519 this incredible research today, there is one 00:24:12.519 --> 00:24:14.819 final thought that really stuck with me. A sort 00:24:14.819 --> 00:24:18.440 of haunting, provocative possibility that I honestly 00:24:18.440 --> 00:24:21.720 cannot shake. Oh, what's that? Well, we worry 00:24:21.720 --> 00:24:24.299 so much about the vastness of space. The sheer 00:24:24.299 --> 00:24:27.099 distance between stars. But what about the vastness 00:24:27.099 --> 00:24:31.410 of time? Go on. The universe is roughly 13 .8 00:24:31.410 --> 00:24:35.269 billion years old. Modern humans have been here 00:24:35.269 --> 00:24:38.250 for what? A microscopic blink of an eye in comparison. 00:24:39.150 --> 00:24:41.049 Isn't it entirely possible that the Milky Way 00:24:41.049 --> 00:24:43.890 galaxy actually was completely teeming with intelligent 00:24:43.890 --> 00:24:46.490 life? Just maybe billions of years ago. Maybe 00:24:46.490 --> 00:24:48.630 there were massive empires spanning across the 00:24:48.630 --> 00:24:51.009 stars while Earth was still just a ball of cooling 00:24:51.009 --> 00:24:52.970 magma. And they are all completely gone now. 00:24:53.269 --> 00:24:55.349 Exactly. We might have just missed the ultimate 00:24:55.349 --> 00:24:58.299 cosmic party. We might be eagerly shouting hello 00:24:58.299 --> 00:25:00.920 into an empty room simply because everyone else 00:25:00.920 --> 00:25:02.759 packed up and left a really, really long time 00:25:02.759 --> 00:25:06.880 ago. Wow. So we might literally be walking through 00:25:06.880 --> 00:25:10.119 a cosmic graveyard, mistaking the ancient monuments 00:25:10.119 --> 00:25:13.759 for silence. On that incredibly cheery existential 00:25:13.759 --> 00:25:17.140 note, it really does make you appreciate the 00:25:17.140 --> 00:25:19.180 fleeting moment we have right now on this little 00:25:19.180 --> 00:25:21.500 blue dot, doesn't it? It absolutely does. We 00:25:21.500 --> 00:25:24.240 are here. We are loud. And at least for right 00:25:24.240 --> 00:25:26.240 now, we are actively listening. Thanks for taking 00:25:26.240 --> 00:25:28.119 this deep dock with us today. Keep looking up, 00:25:28.200 --> 00:25:29.299 everyone. See you next time.