What do you think the Great Filter is?

The Great Filter is the idea that, in the development of life from the earliest stages of abiogenesis to reaching the highest levels of development on the Kardashev scale, there is a barrier to development that makes detectable extraterrestrial life exceedingly rare. The Great Filter is one possible resolution of the Fermi paradox.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_Filter

The Fermi paradox is the discrepancy between the lack of conclusive evidence of advanced extraterrestrial life and the apparently high likelihood of its existence. As a 2015 article put it, "If life is so easy, someone from somewhere must have come calling by now."

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fermi_paradox

Personally I think it's photosynthesis. Life itself developed and spread but photosynthesis started an inevitable chain of ever-greater and more-efficient life. I think a random chain of mutations that turns carbon-based proto-life into something that can harvest light energy is wildly unlikely, even after the wildly unlikely event of life beginning in the first place.

I have no data to back that up, just a guess.

Kolanaki ,
@Kolanaki@yiffit.net avatar

I always thought my Pür was great. /s

HubertManne ,

I always thought of it as a series of tests or filters. Like a multistage filter. So like nukes is one, responsible environment management is another. Something like photosynthesis is more of a conditions for life to emerge thing to me really. If like can flourish to begin with then mutations are common enough that things like photosynthesis are inevitable.

Chainweasel , (edited )

I think that the great filter/fermi paradox is a combination of two facts,

  1. Our entire radio output (the only example we have to go by) is pitiful compared to the sun, like a candle in front of a flood light, you'll only be able to see it so far before it's completely drowned out. After a few dozen light years our radio output is less than the margin of error of a stars detectable radio output.
  2. As a civilization advances it must reduce radio leakage. As data gets more important, it gets more important that you're not wasting energy moving it around. Narrow beamed radio transmission becomes the norm and even less radio signals escape the system than when radio was messy and overpowered.

They're not missing or gone, they've just moved beyond messy radio signals. Even we tightened up our radio emissions in a little over a century. Most of what we watch or listen to comes to us via fiber, cable, or short range transmissions like cell phone towers and Wi-Fi.

CarbonIceDragon ,
@CarbonIceDragon@pawb.social avatar

My suspicion is that it's abiogenesis, but it's only a suspicion that I can't have any certainty of

NeptuneOrbit ,

Definitely the simplest answer and aligns so far with out observations.

Kyrgizion ,

Nah, I'm willing to bet there is actual physical life in our very own solar system (apart from all life on Earth, of course).
Europa's oceans for example have a decently high probability of hosting microbial life.

Of course, discovering primitive life all around us would be a bad sign the great filter is still ahead of us instead of behind us...

whotookkarl ,
@whotookkarl@lemmy.world avatar

There's been at least 5 mass extinction events we are aware of where I think over 80% of all species become extinct. I'd probably guess one or more of those could do the trick.

TheBananaKing ,

  • space

  • time

We've been producing noticeable radio waves for a matter of decades. We've been capable of detecting even super-powerful, super-deliberate, super-targeted broadcasts for even less time.

And on top of that, it doesn't look as though our civilisation is going to exist for more than a handful more decades, in any detectable-from-light-years-away form.

The chances of that onionskin-thin slice of lightcone intersecting with that of any other civilisation out there seems ludicrously remote.

JayTreeman ,

Capitalism
I can imagine how capitalism could be inevitable. I can't imagine enough controls on it to make it sustainable

bravesilvernest ,
@bravesilvernest@lemmy.ml avatar

Personally? Nationalism & nation states. The longer they stay around, the more likely everyone is to think they're more deserving of X, and pull the literal and metaphorical trigger that leads to hitting the filter.

I recognize that individuality is very much our thing, but that will literally only take you so far.

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