We often hear about the Fermi paradox, or why we are unable to get in touch with other forms of life, here you know that the Berserker hypothesis might have a valid explanation for that, and it’s a bit dark and dark explanation. According to the explanation dictated by the Berserker hypothesis, it would not only mean that the universe is a dead and lifeless shell, but it would imply that our own destruction is imminent.
The Fermi paradox in its most basic form can be summarized as: given the high probability that alien life exists out there (bearing in mind the vastness of space and that we keep finding planets within habitable zones), why does nobody are you still in contact with us?
If there are so many other civilizations out there – perhaps at much more advanced stages than we are due to the amount of time the universe has been dragging on – surely at least one would be sending probes or actively trying to inhabit the galaxy? If so, why haven’t we met them? Anyone who believes there is life out there in the universe must explain what it has come to be known as The Great Silence from any advanced civilization out there.
In addition to this problem, the mathematician John von Neumann proposed a type of probe that would come to be known as the von Neumann probebut what was it about? The idea behind this probe is that once a civilization is advanced enough, it could send self-replicating probes out into the universe, and these would harvest energy from stars and extract materials from planets and moons, to build more probes that would do exactly the same. , like seeds that spread throughout the universe. and how he explains Michio Kaku in the YouTube video below, these probes might even take over the form of nanobots.
Various estimates have been put forward as to how long it would take for von Neumann probes to populate the galaxy or universe, with some suggesting that the process could be rapid enough to warrant the question: Why haven’t we seen any signs of them on Earth?
One more explanation on the Berserker hypothesis
Carl Sagan’s answer regarding the Berserker hypothesis and von Neumann probes was to assume that any civilization advanced enough to make probes wouldn’t have been stupid enough to actually make these machines.
“These relentless replicators won’t stop until the entire universe is converted into some 1047 von Neumann machines, which will presumably cannibalize each other. If something like this were a real danger, an emerging interstellar civilization would be wise, for the sake of self-preservation, to take steps to prevent it.”
Sagan wrote in an articlewho also added:
“The prudent policy of any technical civilization must be, with the highest reliability, to prevent the construction of von Neumann’s interstellar machines and to limit their domestic use.”.
Among other things, it should not be forgotten that civilizations would also seek out and destroy any other replicating probes of the Berserker hypothesis they come across.
According to other scholars however, the ultimate goal or at least the desire of some advanced civilizations was not to protect the universe, in fact there would have been suggestions according to which dying aliens could create probes as a way to preserve records of their results for future civilizations or to sow life throughout the universe, not counting those aliens who would be the most likely to realize the Berserker hypothesis, i.e. that species out of 100,000 who might want to use those probes for malicious purposes.
The Berserker hypothesis, first outlined in science fiction by author Fred Saberhagen, would result in a theoretical probe sent as a way to protect the creator species (although in some variants, the Berserker hypothesis is simply a von Neumann probe that has gone berserk and replicates with the goal of destroying other civilizations, or simply destroying them as they harvest their resources), so under this premise, the probes would seek out and destroy developing civilizations before they can pose a threat.
“Let’s say many advanced ETIS [specie intelligenti extraterrestri] they get the robot-emissary idea and send first generation probes… to replicate and fill the void with messages of brotherhood. So let’s assume that for every 100 or 1,000 or 10,000 healthy ETISs, there is one who is xenophobic, even paranoid. Such a race could program its self-replicating emissaries to add powerful bombs to their repertoire and command them to aim at any unrecognized source of modulated electromagnetic radiation.”
he stated in a comprehensive article on the Berserker hypothesis lo NASA scientist Glen Brinwho further stated:
“It only needs to happen once for the results of this scenario to become the equilibrium conditions in the Galaxy. We would not have detected extraterrestrial radio traffic – nor would any ETIS ever settle on Earth – because everyone was killed shortly after radio was discovered.”
If this theory were correct, it would mean that the universe is silent because whenever a civilization is “noisy,” it soon turns “dead,” and while presumably more as a thought experiment than an actual proposition, Brin has suggested that previous extinction events on Earth – and the large gaps between them – could be explained by the time it takes for a civilization to spread the berserker hypothesis probes across the galaxy.
“If the Cretaceous ecological holocaust was a local manifestation of the death throes of an earlier space race whose overpopulated sphere of settlement broke down as the shell of ‘civilization’ passed outward, Earth could be the first nursery world in the vicinity whose inhabitants have recovered sufficiently to develop a species with technology”
concludes the scientist, adding;
“offers an explanation of why our region of space may be in a disequilibrium state of vacuum.”
Or perhaps another berserker probe, triggered by our own signals sent haphazardly through space, may already be on its way.
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