Back on June 4th, 2017 I
wrote about the West Virginia county where CELL phones and other electronic
appliances give way to a giant telescopic “ear” with which earthlings listen
for interstellar messages. Since then I have given much thought to some of the
possible implications of Fermi’s Paradox,
which that research pointed me toward; an invitation as it seemed to explore
some subject matter I would not ordinarily take the chance of boring my readers
with. The name of Enrico Fermi, the father of the nuclear age, has been
well-known to me ever since I came under the influence of a New Jersey junior
high school teacher who was devoted to educating her students on much more than
the Math her contract specified.
Fermi, an Italian-born physicist
and Nobel laureate who escaped his fascist homeland just in time to head up the
Manhattan Project and the development
of the atomic bomb, had the chance in his short lifetime (he died of stomach
cancer at age 53) to think logically of possibilities beyond the earth’s sphere
and even the outer reaches of our galaxy. In a discussion with some of the best
scientific minds of his day, he discussed what has famously become known as The Fermi Paradox. I note here that
there are those who argue that the “question” is not a true “paradox”, and that
beyond that, it does not have any support in established science.
Because I am a story-teller and not a papered
professor with a scholarly reputation on the line, I feel free to continue
anyway.
At the heart of the so-called paradox
is the increasingly evident fact that not only are we surrounded in our galaxy
by billions of other planetary
systems – that is a central star (or two) such as our sun, around which a
family of circling and associated planets have organized – but that many of
them are similar enough to our own to suggest the possibility of a
life-sustaining, earth-like environment. Add to that the likelihood that many
of them would be older – perhaps much
older – than our planet’s teenage
level of maturity.
The big question that possibility
poses for an earth-bound thinker boils down to this: If there are other
human-like populations in advanced development stages elsewhere who know about
us and “our world”, and have the technological prowess to do so, why haven’t they made contact with us?
Setting aside all the cosmic and
scientific hypotheses which make Dr. Fermi’s list of 22, I am fascinated most
by these two:
1.
It
is the nature of intelligent life to destroy itself.
And . . .
2.
It
is the nature of intelligent life to destroy others.
If
either or both of these be true, perhaps potential “visitors” may have
destroyed themselves just about the time they might have said “hello” to us; OR
perhaps they observed just enough of our earthly doings from a distance to
decide they couldn’t afford to get involved with folks who were building big
bombs and exhibiting so limited a respect for the doctrine of “loving one’s neighbor”.
[In 1954, I was briefly tasked by
the U.S. Air Force Office of Special Investigation (OSI) to interview citizens
reporting UFO sightings near Washington’s Hanford
Atomic Works as part of Project Blue
Book (UFO investigations 1949-1969). Since “declassified”, I will still
only mention that most of my reports came from experienced pilots, control
tower operators, aviation professionals and on one occasion a gathering of 50
adult RC (radio control) hobbyists who all saw the same thing. Please don’t ask
me what I think of all this; I really don’t know what to say.]
As an octogenarian who reads history,
has seen war, watches several hours of TV news every day, and has a large and
loving family, I am a worrier. Why then do I work so hard at what I do every
day? I still believe that living a good
life and loving my neighbors, and doing everything I can to contribute
something worthwhile is important. I hope you feel the same.
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