One in Five Stars Has Earth-sized Planet in Habitable Zone

[GliderGuider]

32. My closure of the Fermi Paradox is quite simple.

This possibility for the closure came to me during some rumination about how the operation of Non-Equilibrium Thermodynamics (specifically the operation of the Second Law of Thermodynamics in open systems) creates life, with the result that the operation and imperatives of those same laws are embedded in the genetic code. Enter evolutionary psychology to explain how human behavior arises from our evolutionary history, and you get a continuous connection from human culture all the way back to the Second Law.

In effect culture (in general, not in detail) is a direct consequence of NET, and aggregate human behavior - i.e. culture - is shaped and constrained by the Second Law. It goes a long way toward explaining our utter inability to address the risk of fossil-fuel-driven climate change, even though it will probably result in our extinction. I realized that if this thermodynamic influence on life is generally true, then our experience is probably very common among life forms, and the extinction at the end of it explains the "eerie silence".

I've written it up and published it on my web site as A Thermodynamic Answer to Fermi's Paradox. The Cliff's Notes version is this:

• Carbon is ubiquitous in the universe, as is oxygen. That means the carbon/oxygen reaction is the most likely foundation for life.
  
• In the presence of suitable solar energy gradients and planetary conditions, life probably arises very commonly (per Schneider and Kay: Life as a Manifestation of the Second Law of Thermodynamics).
  
• Therefore life is likely quite common in the universe. This new calculation increases the certainty of this conclusion.
  
• Intelligent life will be less common, but still arising with a non-trivial frequency because of the evolutionary development guaranteed by the Second Law.
  
• Arguing from the Mediocrity Principle, human life is probably fairly representative of carbon-based life.
  
• While we can get energy from other sources, all those processes are more complex than burning carbon.
  
• Most of the other sources that are easily accessible, such as solar, wind and water power exhibit lower energy gradients than burning carbon.
  
• This means that carbon combustion would almost certainly have been the first high-quality energy source exploited by an intelligent carbon-based life form.
  
• Other energy sources would achieve prominence only after being kick-started by processes using carbon combustion.
  
• Carbon combustion will continue to be an important energy source even after others are kick-started, because of its convenience and steep energy gradient.
  
• Carbon combustion can be accomplished in the absence of scientific knowledge of the properties of CO2.
  
• In the absence of that scientific knowledge the dangers of CO2 in the atmosphere go unrecognized.
  
• CO2-driven climate change takes many decades to recognize, and many more to become apparent.
  
• Until the carbon/climate link is broadly accepted, the species will continue to burn carbon.
  
• By the time the danger is fully accepted, and the risk of planetary risk climate change is understood to be greater than the social risk of eliminating carbon combustion, it may well be too late to avoid having the planetary climate risk materialize.
  
• Climate disruption damages the planetary biosphere and disrupts the organization of the intelligent specie's civilization within a small number of decades after the first signals of rising radiative forcing are detected. While this disruption may or may not cause the specie's extinction, the disruption would probably be enough to reduce its technical capability below the threshold required to send radio waves strong enough to be detected at interstellar distances.
  
• Eerie silence...

Have a nice infinity...