What we believe shapes us. Particularly, the unseen. Gods or aliens, or aliens as gods, have captivated the imaginations of generations through millennia; appearing on Earth in myths, cave paintings, crop circles and temple symbols. UFO mania has gripped the world; the Pentagon has as much admitted that space travel is real. Had physicist Enrico Fermi, who built the world’s first nuclear reactor, been around today, he would’ve snorted derisively. The Fermi Paradox argues that since there isn’t enough conclusive evidence of advanced extraterrestrial life, it is unlikely to exist. In short, what you can’t see, doesn’t exist.
As space scientists, intelligence agencies, Generals and flying-saucer fantasists go into a tizzy, wouldn’t it be easier to apply the Fermi Paradox to democracy? Ever since Diogenes went about in broad daylight with a lit lantern in ancient Greece looking for an Honest Man (HM), the search is still on. Because it is tough to run into one in politics, government, bureaucracy, academia, law enforcement, diplomacy, science, medicine and such spheres that total civilised society.
The UN estimates that more than USD 2.6 trillion, or 5 per cent of the global GDP, is annually lost to corruption worldwide. By applying British physicist Brian Cox’s theories, this Argonautic search may be made simpler. Fermi questioned why, in spite of there being billions of planets and suns in the universe, nobody has seen a single little green man land in a flying saucer, demanding, “Take me to your leader!” (Though plenty of leaders have been taken to the cleaners by voters or cops.)
Time could be the factor why Dr Spock is just a TV character with pointy ears—while Earth had time to survive the big asteroid hit, droughts and epidemics, other planets didn’t. Cox thinks that the sheer size and scale of the universe prevents civilisations from overlapping; the massive magnitude and osmotic nature of corruption has snuffed HM’s chances of surviving. So Fermi could be both right and wrong: HM existed and then HM de-existed. Of course, it has been argued that aliens are so technologically advanced that we can’t detect their probes or disguises. Getting back to Fermi, Cox wonders if the distance between galaxies is so huge that by the time cosmic rays reach us, their origin planets would’ve died billions of years ago.
The James Webb Space Telescope recently discovered the four oldest galaxies ever seen, of which one was born a mere 320 million years after the Big Bang that happened 13.8 billion years ago, when the universe was just 2 per cent of its present age. Does this mean that the distance between an honest man and Diogenes was too large to close? The Dark Quarantine Hypothesis suggests that morally and intellectually sophisticated civilisations are afraid of being contaminated by us, a planet full of the wickedness of corruption, wars, human trafficking and industrial greed. This theory makes more sense since the highly sophisticated machine of corruption doesn’t wish to be infected by the honesty virus and crash. Maybe the HM is hibernating, waiting for the right time to show up.
Interestingly, Cox mentions a Great Filter that prevents civilisations on various planets from technologically advancing enough to achieve interstellar travel, because at some point, they are destroyed by a malicious comet or a nuclear holocaust. Could that filter be the god everyone is searching for? That’s
a paradox for another time. And space.
ravi@newindianexpress.com
