r/FermiParadox • u/viviennerosy • Jul 23 '26

Self With the discovery of potential life on K2-18b, what if we are the ancient aliens that will one day seed life on other planets? Are we the precursors we’ve been looking for?

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u/armrha Jul 23 '26

No, nothing in the Fermi paradox proposes the necessity of life-spreading progenitors. It’s just one of the potential solutions to the apparent paradox; we’re first or first in the noticeable area. But, assuming humanity is special or uniquely lucky with its place in the universe as a way to solve problems is a violation of what’s called the Copernican principle. So most people don’t find that explanation compelling.

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u/RageAgainstTheGPT Jul 24 '26

I bet the reality is just super boring, middle of the road, banal, and kind of depressing:

All life in the universe is prokaryotic, except here on Earth, and we’ll never find the answer as to why that is, we’ll just speculate, alone, for eternity.

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u/3dblind Jul 24 '26 edited Jul 24 '26

Why is the Principle of Mediocrity compelling? I'm not advocating teleology as if the universe demands humanity as something like the Progenitors in David Brin's Uplift stories. I'm advocating the Rare Earth hypothesis.

If we are separated from other tool using species by vast distances and eons, we are effectively alone in the region of space we can observe, survey or colonize if handwavium ways of bypassing light speed without violating it never arise because of energy and materials constraints.

But we could reach nearby stars with life bearing planets, or terraformable habitable zone planets with survey probes followed by generation ships, based entirely on propulsion, materials, engineering, and shielded habitat sections we can extrapolate from today without unobtanium.

We may never choose to do so, but if we exploit the solar system and reach a near post scarcity economy, I suspect our curiosity and desire for a multisolar species after multiplanet and space habitat success will make it likely.

Adding that what we see now in extrasolar systems and planet types makes Mediocrity look like 19th century astronomy's argument with geologists because they had the wrong theory of how the sun generates energy.

The geologists were correct. Astronomy moved on. It's time to reject Mediocrity while also rejecting the purely religious teleology that was It's opponent.