Related papers: The Great Filter hypothesis -- a new Great Filter?
The Drake equation has been used many times to estimate the number of observable civilizations in the Galaxy. However, the uncertainty of the outcome is so great that any individual result is of limited use, as predictions can range from a…
This paper addresses the theoretical conditions necessary for some subject of study to survive forever. A probabilistic analysis leads to some prerequisite conditions for preserving, say, electronic data indefinitely into the future. The…
We observe neither life beyond Earth, nor moons around exoplanets, despite the prevalence of Earth-like planets across the galaxy. We suggest Moonfall as a possible mechanism to explain both simultaneously.
For billions of years, evolution has been the driving force behind the development of life, including humans. Evolution endowed humans with high intelligence, which allowed us to become one of the most successful species on the planet.…
Natural selection is general and powerful concept not only to explain evolutionary processes of biological organisms but also to design engineering systems such as genetic algorithms and particle filters. There is a surge of interest, both…
Oceanic planets formed by type Ia supernovae become spectacularly abundant as stars cease to shine. However, the timing may not be altogether inappropriate. Neutrino annihilation might thermally regulate iron-cored water-worlds, sustaining…
Temporal explanations to the Fermi paradox state that the vast scale of the galaxy diminishes the chances of establishing contact with an extraterrestrial technological civilization (ETC) within a certain time window. This argument is…
Applying a principle of "radical mundanity", this paper examines explanations for the lack of strong evidence for the presence of technology-using extraterrestrial civilizations (ETCs) in the Galaxy - the Fermi paradox. With this principle,…
Persistence phenomena in colonization processes could explain the negative results of SETI search preserving the possibility of a galactic civilization. However, persistence phenomena also indicates that search of technological…
Stronger selection implies faster evolution---that is, the greater the force, the faster the change. This apparently self-evident proposition, however, is derived under the assumption that genetic variation within a population is primarily…
The fixation probability of a single mutant invading a population of residents is among the most widely-studied quantities in evolutionary dynamics. Amplifiers of natural selection are population structures that increase the fixation…
Why did the big bang occur, why do the laws and constants of nature as well as the boundary conditions seem so fine-tuned for life, what is the role of intelligence and self-consciousness in the universe, and how can it escape cosmic…
Predicting evolution of expanding populations is critical to control biological threats such as invasive species and cancer metastasis. Expansion is primarily driven by reproduction and dispersal, but nature abounds with examples of…
Humanity's path to avoiding extinction is a daunting and inevitable challenge which proves difficult to solve, partially due to the lack of data and evidence surrounding the concept. We aim to address this confusion by addressing the most…
At any moment in time, evolution is faced with a formidable challenge: refining the already highly optimised design of biological species, a feat accomplished through all preceding generations. In such a scenario, the impact of random…
It has been widely acknowledged that self-replicating space-probes (SRPs) could explore the galaxy very quickly relative to the age of the galaxy. An obvious implication is that SRPs produced by extraterrestrial civilizations should have…
A wide range of stochastic processes that model the growth and decline of populations exhibit a curious dichotomy: with certainty either the population goes extinct or its size tends to infinity. There is a elegant and classical theorem…
If a civilization wants to maximize computation it appears rational to aestivate until the far future in order to exploit the low temperature environment: this can produce a $10^{30}$ multiplier of achievable computation. We hence suggest…
According to the "hard-steps" model, the origin of humanity required "successful passage through a number of intermediate steps" (so-called "hard" or "critical" steps) that were intrinsically improbable with respect to the total time…
If the parameters defining the physics of our universe departed from their present values, the observed rich structure and complexity would not be supported. This article considers whether similar fine-tuning of parameters applies to…