NASA Scholars explained in new paper Why do they think it’s possible that we haven’t encountered intelligent extraterrestrial life – that’s heartbreaking.
They argue that all intelligent life likely destroyed itself before it reached a sufficiently complex point in evolution to support such an encounter. They believe that the same fate likely awaits humans unless we take action.
The “Great Filter” theory argues – as in the “liquidation” of various life forms – that other civilizations, possibly several, existed during the life of the universe. But they all destroyed themselves before they could contact the Earth, as the paper noted, “Avoid the Great Candidate: Extraterrestrial Life and Humanity’s Future in the Universe. “
Scientists fear that all intelligent life, like humans, suffers from deep-rooted imbalances that may “rapidly deteriorate in the Great Filter,” they wrote.
But there is still a little hope for humans — provided we can learn and take steps to avoid our extinction, notes the paper by a team of researchers at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Southern California.
“Humanity’s key to successfully passing such a universal filter is… Identification [destructive] In the research paper published online Oct. 23, astrophysicist Jonathan Jiang and colleagues wrote, “The traits are in ourselves and are pre-neutralised.”
The paper has not yet been peer reviewed.
The authors argue that whatever seems likely to wipe out humans would also threaten intelligent life on other planets. The authors noted that potential culprits—which could be influenced by humans or other intelligent life forms—include nuclear war, pandemic, climate change, and uncontrolled artificial intelligence.
The trick, the researchers said, is the greatest challenge of all, to work together to survive.
“History has shown that competition between species, and most importantly, cooperation, has led us toward the highest peaks of invention. Yet we perpetuate notions that seem to be antithetical to long-term sustainable growth: racism, genocide, injustice, and subversion,” the book warns.
check the full paper here.
This article originally appeared HuffPost It has been updated.