One day, in 1950, at lunch in the engine room of the Manhattan project, Enrico Fermi, a luminary of that intellectual powerhouse, asked the question “Where is everyone?” (or words to that effect – accounts vary).
His fellow physicists understood what he meant. “Given the size and age of the observable universe, why have we not encountered intelligent life?” or “Where are the aliens?” Fermi’s paradox has long obsessed me, and its relation to the search for God.
A modest estimate of the observable universe suggests there are a billion earth-like planets in our galaxy alone, and there are thought to be at least 2 trillion galaxies. Bear in mind that these numbers are estimates and different astronomers make different estimates. It scarcely matters – the numbers are mind-blowing however you calculate them. Hence the question: “Where is everyone?”
Fermi’s paradox has been long and lovingly debated ever since, and several theories have arisen to answer it. They fall into categories of likelihood and are brilliantly summarised here.
Where Is Everyone?
I often cause a flutter in the hen house by saying, almost, but not quite, from the pulpit, “All thinking Christians should be agnostics.” How is it possible, rationally, to believe in a omniscient, all-powerful God having an overview of a universe of such scale, who also takes an interest in our petty affairs. My sister prays for a parking space (and infuriatingly, always finds one).
When I pose this question, firm believers chide me, saying “But that’s the point – God is omniscient and all-powerful, so He can take an interest in our petty concerns.” And there’s an implicit criticism : “How come you’re a practising Christian and a lay preacher, and you don’t believe?” The answer has been given by many thinking Christians over the centuries – doubt is an essential part of faith.
But curiously, one of the theories proposed in answer to Fermi’s paradox actually makes faith easier for the thinking Christian. The reason, this theory goes, that we seem to be alone in this imaginably vast universe, is due to The Great Filter. According to the Great Filter, life as we understand it, has repeatedly arisen but has been snuffed out or halted in its tracks at one of many stages. For example, the odds against abiogenesis (life originating in the first place) are, by any measure, enormous. The chances are much argued over – but enormous.
Where Is Everyone?
However another version of the Great Filter suggests that civilisations arise, then become increasingly sophisticated to the point where they self-destruct. This no longer sounds as fanciful as perhaps it did ten years ago. It is perfectly possible to postulate a world where super-intelligent non-human bots set off a chain of mutual destruction, and our world is wiped out, the dinosaurs de nos jours.
According to this theory, the Great Filter is still ahead of us. Given the estimated age of the universe, many civilisations may have arisen, sent out probes into the darkness, and, as Milky Stellar so beautifully puts it, like matches struck in a long dark corridor flashed briefly and were extinguished. Our match is alight but may soon be extinguished.
Now, this theory fits neatly into Christian eschatology – the theology of end times. Standard Christian belief is that the earth had a beginning and will have an end, at which point it will be destroyed and all souls, living or dead, will remove to another plane of existence. In this world view, God, though creator of all worlds, is currently only interested in this world. At the moment. This flash in the eternal pan…
Where Is Everyone?
Before you ask, of course I can see the flaws in this logic. But the search for God, the need for God is not logical. No matter how well we think we understand the universe, no matter how many of the conundrums of existence are explained, perfectly intelligent people still feel the need for God. In this latest phase of religion, it may be that many people think of God as a figure like Jack in Simon Bowden’s extraordinary Vonnegut-esque fable The Manual.
Jack is a God figure who cares for humans deeply, has supra-natural powers, but does not intervene. He helps in a totally believable human way – although he takes on the form of the resurrected Christ (did I mention this is a complicated book, a work of many parts?) The Manual of the title is a Bible in Motor Manual form, devised by the Corporation who run the world, to satisfy the need for some sort of God figure. When the Corporation decide the Manual has served its time, Jack comes into the story as a real person – is brutally killed and seems to undergo a resurrection, saving the people in the process. Man’s need for God…
In Feline Philosophy brilliant atheist philosopher John Gray argues that we would all be happier if we took cats as our role models in life. However, in the final summing up of his arguments he writes: “Living like a cat means wanting nothing beyond the life you lead. This means living without consolations, and that might be too much for you to bear. If so, take up an old-fashioned religion, preferably one that abounds in rituals.”
His point is sound – old-fashioned religions, with plenty of rituals, are perfect for those who want to believe in God, but find the intellectual questions too imponderable. To partake in rituals that have been performed with care and loving attention to detail for centuries provides a groundedness in a swirling universe.
The agnostic but wannabe-believer can quite consistently say in his or her head “I am not sure about the nature of God, or whether God hears our prayers, but singing Evensong, as it has been sung for centuries, with the delicious addition of some incense and a cope or two is consoling enough in itself.”
The worshipper feels aligned with generations of good people who have gone before. Hence, I believe, the current attractiveness of traditional religions to the young – observable across the world, and in every religion.
So I shall continue to ponder Fermi’s paradox while I perfect my plainsong.
Imogen de la Bere is a published novelist and licensed lay preacher from New Zealand. She now lives in St Albans and will write practically anything when the occasion demands.
God is a concept that gives me a sense of security. God is an explanation for everything I do not comprehend and therefore I can let it rest.
True, there is an amazing number of earth-like planets (2×10^21, according to the estimate in the first sentence) but (1) the probability of really complex molecules (amino acids, DNA . . . ) forming from simple molecules such as H2O, CO2, NH3 etc must be tiny (no estimate of the probability of abiogenesis is given but the odds against are ‘enormous’). (2) The other form of the great filter theory (the likelihood of possible civilisations extinguishing themselves) means the probability of one existing at the time of observation is another very small number. (3) There is the possibility that development could slow or stop long before advanced intelligent life arrived – after all the age of giant reptiles lasted many millions of years compared with ours of only a few millennia, or only a few decades as highly advanced technologically. (In fact the dinosaurs might still be dominant if the world had not been hit by a large meteorite 60m years ago; like the crocodile, they might not have needed to have evolved much further). (4) The Universe is a very big space; other planets (outside the solar system) are tens, hundreds . . . up to billions of light years away. If we sent out a strong radio signal it would be essentially undetectable at a range of few light days. (The Earth is about 8 light minutes from the sun, and half an hour? from Jupiter). If we managed to detect a planet with an oxygen rich atmosphere (which the Earth had only after life had got going) would this necessarily mean there was life there?
There are further difficulties we could add, but multiplying a lot of the probabilities of success for detection of those given above, I think it is not really surprising that no sign of life has been found. I believe Professor Brian Cox has stated a similar view.