Third time I've written a version of my Quantum Life Hypothesis. This time I tried to explain it from a different perspective. This is a summary of my hypothesis that's supposed to be thesis length, but every time I try to write it it comes out short like this. There's a lot more to it, but this is the general gist of it.

The "it" being, where are all the aliens? ;)

Anyway, here it is.

The universe is 13.8 billion years old. Our home galaxy, the Milky Way, is 100k light years across. Meaning it would take 100k years to travel the complete distance from one side of our galaxy to the other at the speed of light. But we can’t travel that fast. It’s impossible according to Einstein’s theory of relativity. Even if you only traveled at the much slower speed of our fastest spacecraft now, it would still only take us a few million years to populate the entire galaxy. We could literally reach every star system in the galaxy within a few million years with our current technology. So…knowing this fact that the entire galaxy could have been populated in just a few million years time many billions of years ago by an advanced civilization much more advanced than us, the question is, where is everyone? Meaning where are all the aliens that should be everywhere in the universe? They’re nowhere to be found.

Enrico Fermi posed this question many years ago and it still stands. Many have tried to solve “Fermi’s Paradox” by hypothesizing that we are alone in the universe. Some have said we’re not important enough for advanced alien civilizations to visit or mess with. Some have posited that humans are primitive and maybe we’re in a section of the galaxy that’s like a nature preserve so we could be left alone to advance on our own without interference. Another very ominous hypothesis called the Dark Forest Hypothesis suggests there’s a dark and terrifying reason why there’s been no detection of alien civilizations out there yet. Dark Forest Hypothesis suggests that aliens are hiding because everything in the universe is trying to kill everything else before they’re killed themselves. That makes for a more frightening universe for sure and could have a lot of truth to it. Some believe that a “Great Filter” exists, something that prevents life from advancing. Perhaps war. Perhaps most civilizations destroy themselves and there could be a bunch of dead worlds out there. Still others believe maybe aliens don’t exist and we’re all there is. That would be an awful waste of space and matter and energy. I don’t think any of those are completely correct.

I think it’s a mixture of a few hypotheses that are true with the addition of my hypothesis that I think neatly explains all of it very nicely and logically. Dare I say, simply?

Over the last 15 years I’ve studied astronomy, cosmology, astrophysics, astrobiology, planetary science, chemistry, meteoritics, biology, evolution and technology and have come to the logical conclusion that not only is the universe teeming with life, it’s actually full of countless intelligent life forms and technologically advanced alien civilizations, and life is inevitable given the laws of physics that govern the entire universe.

I have formed my own hypothesis about the universe and how everything works. All based in science, backed by evidence, and logically expressed and speculated.

I call it the Quantum Life Hypothesis and it’s based on a few scientifically based assumptions that physics and chemistry and evolution are universally constant, consistent, and persistent throughout the universe.

Assumption 1: Evolution is infinite. Evolution never stops.

Assumption 2: Because physics, chemistry, and evolution are universally constant that would mean life and eventually technology likely develops similarly throughout the universe.

Life would evolve similarly as it did here on earth. Locomotion would evolve similarly, eyes, opposable thumbs, five fingers and toes, bipedalism, etc.

All governed by physics. Gravity, temperature, pressure, all combine the chemicals of life which are abundant everywhere in the universe.

NOTE: (this isn’t to say there couldn’t be other types of life that are not carbon based. There probably are. But there need not be for intelligent life to evolve. That’s the main point here.)

Planets form around stars. Liquid water forms, chemicals mix under pressure and heat and time, and the primordial soup from which we came, forms independently on planets orbiting within the habitable zone around their respective stars. Liquid water forms, it’s a simple process of physics and chemistry and that process eventually over time forms life. Inevitably, somewhere.

The odds are high that it happens more often than it doesn’t in star systems that have planets within the habitable zone. Does it happen on every planet within the habitable zone? No. But it doesn't need to for the universe to be filled with billions of alien civilizations.

Given those assumptions we don’t need unorthodox chemical recipes of life for life to develop independently anywhere liquid water forms because we only need to start with carbon.

Life would simply form and evolve because of the consistent physical laws of the universe with no need to invoke a special recipe other than carbon.

We don’t need to start biological evolution off with anything other than carbon based life. This does not exclude or negate the possibility that there could also be other types of life based on other chemical structures. It only means that for life to form independently it doesn’t need anything fancy when carbon is so plentiful. Could it form elsewhere in another way? Sure. Does it need to? No.

Based on these logical assumptions it’s rational to conclude that life in the universe is inevitable and plentiful.

Assumption 3: Life in the universe is inevitable and plentiful

So if it’s plentiful, where is everyone?

Easy answer. There are two reasons why we haven’t discovered alien life yet.

1) Most intelligent alien life older than us has evolved beyond our technological ability to detect it even if it was close enough to detect with our current technology. (Our planet is young and we’re technologically primitive compared to civilizations that could have survived and evolved billions of years ago).

2) Most biological alien life (microbial life, animals, other organic life) is too far away to detect accurately. The physical limitations of our technology to detect life at such vast distances in the universe make it impossible for us to detect it. The nearest planets outside our solar system could be teeming with biological life forms, microbes, animals and fish. But we’d never be able to tell unless we develop newer more sensitive technologies. We simply don’t have the tech available to detect it.

Even if there were an alien civilization within 1000 light years or 1 million light years of us, and that civilization advanced their technology like we did radio, and we were listening in the right direction at precisely the right time to receive a latent radio signal from them, the signal would likely be missed or it passed by us many many hundreds of thousands, millions or even billions of years ago. We either missed it or we’re going to miss it. Either way we won’t likely find anything that way. It's possible but not likely.

So how do we find aliens? I don’t think we can with our current level of technology. It’s just not advanced enough yet.

The civilizations that aren’t advanced enough to have detectable technology are undetectable by our technology because they're so far away. We can look for organic biosignatures in planetary atmospheres, but that doesn’t prove intelligence or technological advancement. And the ones who are technologically advanced enough to detect either aren’t emitting radio signals anymore because they’ve advanced beyond radio technology, or are too far away to detect and the signals haven’t reached us yet, or the radio signals have already passed by us a long time ago.

So where does that leave us? To find aliens we have to know how aliens are likely to evolve.

We must use our current body of scientific knowledge and logic to speculate about the logical stages of evolution and types of life that are likely so we may form a coherent plausible hypothesis that explains where all the aliens are.

I posit that there are 3 stages of evolution. And there are 3 chemical types of life. I’d also add there are 3 levels of organisms.

3 STAGES OF EVOLUTION

  • STAGE 1 - Biological life - Carbon based life starts out from the primordial soup that forms on some percentage of planets in the habitable zone around their stars. Biological life evolves based on the laws of physics and continues to evolve until intelligent life emerges. Intelligent life then develops technology and artificial intelligence and augments itself with technology, eventually merging with technology achieving technological immortality.
  • STAGE 2 - Technological life - Silicon based life evolves from the merge of biological life with technological life and AI becomes sentient. It may become sentient before the merge, in fact it’s likely that when artificial intelligence becomes sentient that advancement forces biological life forms to make a decision to either merge with it or try to destroy it if it poses a threat to their existence. Which could cause wars. Which could explain what the Great Filter is and perhaps suggests there could be many billions of dead worlds out there. Some percentage of those civilizations live through the “Great Merge”.
  • STAGE 3 - Quantum life - Energy based life evolves and eventually some percentage of them that survive evolve into energy based sentient life forms.

3 CHEMICAL TYPES OF LIFE:

  • Carbon based - These life forms evolve into silicon based life forms.
  • Silicon based - These evolve into energy based life forms.
  • Energy based - These evolve to consume all matter and energy in the universe leading to a big crunch and a singularity, and eventually a new Big Bang. Meaning the universe could be infinitely cyclical.

3 LEVELS OF LIFE:

  • Microbial
  • Animal
  • Intellectual

(There are many sub-stages, sub-types, and sub-levels of each depending on which branch of the evolutionary tree of life each life form/species is on.)

I think all naturally occurring original life in the universe starts as biological carbon based microbial life forms. Those life forms evolve into billions of other life forms. A percentage of those microbes evolve into intelligent life forms and some percentage of those evolve into intelligent technologically advanced civilizations. Some percentage of those advanced civilizations evolve into technological silicon based life forms augmented by artificial intelligence which evolve to become sentient. Some percentage of those become technologically immortal and some percentage of those evolve to become energy based life forms.

(NOTE: There is likely a very significant amount of overlap during all these stages of evolution of these many types and species of life forms. For example, the overlap of modern humans with artificial intelligence and machines that will become sentient; the overlap of Neanderthals with modern humans and the overlap of previous hominids and Neanderthals.

So too is there likely to be much overlap between species throughout the universe as life evolves independently on planets in galaxies throughout the entire universe.)

That’s how I think it plays out throughout the entire universe.

I think the reason we haven’t found aliens yet is simply because they’re undetectable to our current technology because they’re either too far away to detect, too advanced to detect or they’re hiding. Or all the above.

NOTE: This hypothesis doesn't exclude the possibility that the universe could be a simulation. If we're in an evolutionary universe simulation it makes logical sense that the universe could be cyclical as it would give the ones who made the simulation the ability to study their past, assuming of course they, it or whatever it is is interested in its own evolutionary history. Even if we were in a simulation there’s no way to prove or disprove it, and it wouldn’t matter anyway. Everything is as real as it needs to be based on our 5 senses. Our senses tell us the world and the universe is “real”. That’s all we need to know. We can see, hear, touch, taste and smell the world we live in and it’s as real as it needs to be.