The Great Filter

So, I am writing again after a long gap. And what I am gonna discuss today is very much important, tricky and can make you scratch your head a lot......xD! But honestly this concept is really an important and tough one, and deep knowledge in this concept, holds some realistic answers to our question:" Are We Alone in the universe? "

As it's an important but hard topic, I will try my best to illustrate it as lucid as possible. If still you are stuck with some riddles in your mind, feel free to contact me by mail, and don't forget to follow and share my blogs over your social media accounts so that others can access these stuffs!

Today's topic is all about The Great Filter. It is a hypothetical wall that filters different life-forms in the universe. But to understand what it actually is & how does it function, we need to start from the very beginning step of life, for instance, as we've observed it on Earth.

Life, as we see on our planet, was first developed with the step of inception. It is the step when organic molecules like some carbonaceous compounds react together along with some other elements including hydrogen, oxygen, phosphates etc to form Bio Molecules under some physical conditions (like temperature, pressure etc). But still today we do not know the exact process how these were actually formed. We clearly rely on Urey-Miller Experiment to understand the most probable process. Well, after formation of bio molecules like amino acids, they eventually were formed into peptides, polypeptides, and through such long biochemical activities first premature kind of cells.

Urey Miller Experiment

Later on, cellular life forms were further evolved and after about 3.5 billion years later, it developed itself so that I am writing this blog here! But it is notable, during each step of evolution, the next advanced life-form experienced a shrink in their population pool than their primitive predecessors; that's why there are more bacteria existing on earth than fungi. Well this gradual decreasing pyramid of number is quite natural, as resources are limited and the more advanced you are, the more you consume! But a life-form, as advanced as us, who can maintain their existence, might not accept this lack of consumables, so it is necessary for them to go beyond their planetary boundary and expand their civilization, colonizing nearby planets, then nearby stellar systems, and then to the entire galaxy. And this seems to the quite natural rule for life. That's what we humans are intending to do. But in order to do so, we are finding Earth-like potentially habitable planets, & existing extraterrestrial life-forms (if any) on other planets.

Although, we have faced a huge success in finding a lot of potentially habitable planets, but in the latter case, we did not find anything. We yet not had received any convincing proof of life beyond earth! It seems like Space is empty and dead. And this thing made us to think about the constraints that is playing behind this scenario. 

One thing is much sure that, if a life-form is advanced the lesser will be the size of its population pool. And we have seen, that on earth, only humans were able to reach at this stage of supreme intelligence. This means that there is something prohibiting beings to develop at this stage or higher. This is known as the GREAT FILTER. The filter acts as a barrier to a life being to enter into its next step of intelligent evolution. So, that arbitrary life-form which encounters this barrier, if, finds it impossible with the already evolved state, gets wiped out totally. And in the present case of us, where we are unable to find any signature of alien life, there may be two possibilities: 

1. The Filter is Behind Us: This will be the happiest matter for us if the filter is behind us. It means we have already passed through it successfully, 7 we are also the first to reach beyond this filter in the universe. It also means that the Universe has selected us only to be the supreme most. This condition makes us to conclude that it is 99% possible that we are alone the universe because we are the chosen ones, there will still be a slight probability that other alien beings will exist faraway, very similar to us, and number of such civilizations will be less than 30!

Filter Behind Us

1. The Filter is Ahead of Us: If this is so, then we are in front of great danger. A great wall can never be escaped! Then we are going to encounter it soon and our civilization is on the edge of the doomsday. As we know from our experience, a civilization when becomes more advanced, it starts to destroy its planet, pollutes it and brings its destruction before its full bloom. But this can be avoided if proper actions are taken! And if this resembles the barrier, then it is not great at all, rather it will be just a road block, which can be easily overcome. But if we think about civilizations with advanced levels of Kardashev Scale, they can destroy their planet or stars as they are that advanced. This will also finish them. Other types of barriers may be a Nuclear War (hope it never occurs), out-of-control nanotechnology, or may be artificial intelligence. We are on the verge of all these possibilities, and these quite capable to play the role of the filter.

Filter Ahead of us

But what our ultimate extra-terrestrial observations suggest us about for our future?
Well, as we have seen on our planet, development of a cell to a stage of multi cellular life form is so easy, and probable, then if we find alien cellular life-form beyond earth (provided that it naturally grew there), it will imply that being a human like being, and intergalactic colonization is the toughest thing. So the Filter might be ahead of us. If we find remainings of ruined ET civilization which was more developed or was like us, then it would be alarming from us as this will suggest we are very near to the wall! If we find advanced civilization is living somewhere, then it will imply that reaching our stage of development is so easy and we are again on the verge of the wall. But this case also imply a chance of inter-civilization competition which may cause our destruction. 

But the best case for us is what we have yet observed till date. We found Mars is deserted, oceans of Europa and Titan are lifeless, many potentially habitable planets, with no existing life, waiting to be colonized (maybe by us). So being alone in this universe is the best case scenario for us.

Still there are many critical theories opposing this hypothetical paradox. Fermi's Paradox tells, that it is natural for intelligent life-forms to hide from others to ensure their existence and avoid competition. Then we the fool to let ourselves discover-able! And another thought that actually sparked this filter theory is that "it is likely for other beings in the Milky Way to develop them to the level of galactic civilization upto the time elapsed already, and so Earth should have been colonized by them, and by the time, we must have now understood whether earth was colonized by such civilization, but this is not the case!" So to sate the situation, such paradox is implemented.
But counter-arguments tell the possibility of such imperial galactic civilization to run out of resources to colonize the Earth, or, if not so, the galaxy is heterogenously colonized & Earth may be in the galactic backwater. 

Whatever may be the reality, I believe that if we are alone in the universe it will be honestly best for us, devoid any conflicts & competitions with other potential alien competitors. And Arthur C Clarke said that alien civilization, if more advanced than us, would be hard to detect as their technology would seem  either, magic and beyond explanation to us, or we won't be simply detect or understand that. 

We humans have just started to search for unusual unexpected unnatural things in space, we have just started to look for Dyson Spheres (I am an official Planet Hunter under NASA's mission to find Dyson Spheres a& unnatural stars). So it is too early to conclude at any decision at the moment.

However,

I think our existence is pretty much dependent on our behaviors to nature. From now on, I request all the readers not to pollute your surroundings and spread such consciousness from the grassroot level, otherwise, you see we are in front of great danger.