Potential incompatibility of inherited behavior patterns with civilization: Implications for Fermi paradox

Abstract

All intelligent organisms presumably originally have a number of inherited behavior patterns (IBPs) that are not fine-tuned for conditions prevailing in civilized communities. Indeed, some IBPs may be highly incompatible with such conditions and have high potential to induce self-destruction. These patterns may include responses of social organisms seeking power over conspecifics in relation to harvesting and consuming energy. It is possible that all emerging civilizations could face problems associated with incompatible IBPs, which may partially explain why civilizations are apparently rare (since we have not detected any others in our galaxy).

Introduction

“Fermi paradox” is an astrobiological paradox that refers to an expectation that our own civilization is unlikely to have been the first to have arisen throughout our galactic neighborhood and it would likely have been preceded by other civilizations having an advantage of thousands of our centuries of technological development. ¹ One can assume then, that such enormously advanced civilizations would have had ample opportunity to have either visited us or, at least, sent decipherable signals to us by now. ¹ The lack of such contacts needs an explanation.

In 1988, Hanson composed a list of evolutionary steps necessary for the appearance of civilization. ² He argued that the Great Silence implies that one or more of these steps are very improbable, and there is a “Great Filter” along the path between simple dead matter and explosive life. It is likely that the vast majority of matter that starts evolving along this path never makes it. Moreover, one could hypothesize that the great filter could also be located at the beginning of the evolution of technological civilization making the technological civilizations extremely short-lived and thus unlikely to co-exist with us.

Based on contemporary estimates, the universe is approximately 13.6 billion years old. ³ Our Milky Way Galaxy alone contains over 200 billion stars, and the observable universe boasts at least 500 billion galaxies. ⁴ NASA's recent estimates, driven by the rapid discovery of exoplanets, suggest the potential existence of trillions of Earth-like planets within our Galaxy. ⁵ Extrapolating further, the observable universe could harbor around 5 × 10²² planets. ⁴ Our Solar System and Earth have been around for about 4.5 billion years, indicating that many generations of stars predated the Sun. ³ Homo sapiens emerged as an intelligent species roughly 300,000 years ago, and organized civilizations began about 5000 years ago. Throughout their existence, humans have progressed from developing writing and forming the first states to manipulating matter at the atomic level and exploring nearby space. ³

Given the disparity in timescales between human civilization's rapid advancement and the age of the universe, stars, and planets, it's logical to assume that if the emergence of intelligent life is a natural, albeit rare, phenomenon, numerous other civilizations should have existed before ours. ³ Given the potential for such civilizations to advance and explore space over millions of years, they could have expanded far beyond their home planets. Despite extensive efforts over recent decades, such as Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence's (SETI's) astronomical observations, no definitive evidence of extraterrestrial civilizations has been found. ³ This puzzling situation, often termed the “Fermi Paradox,” prompts ongoing research and speculation to resolve the apparent contradiction between the high probability of extraterrestrial life and the lack of observable evidence. ³

The aim of the current study is to discuss the possibility that the supposed great filter may have universal biological roots related to evolutionary animal behavior.

Inherited behavior patterns (IBPs)

The behavior of complex organisms is in some part inherited from their evolutionary ancestors. ⁶ IBPs have been evolutionarily tuned to optimize the survival and reproduction of organisms in their natural environments (in terms of acquiring and using energy and avoiding damage by predators). The capacities of social organisms organized in packs to acquire energy may be much higher than those of solitary organisms because their individual capacities can be pooled. However, violence between individuals within packs of social organisms may occur in tussles for dominance, social status, food, or other resources. ⁷ In addition, violence between packs may occur if resources are limited. ⁸ Such interactions between individuals or packs usually result in few (if any) fatalities. ⁸ Furthermore, in natural environments (in which IBPs were tuned) far less resources are generally available than in civilized communities, and excessive harvesting of resources is generally limited by the physical capacities of individuals and regulatory mechanisms, such as disease and predation. ⁹ In addition, it is generally impossible for individuals or even individual packs to cause mass fatalities among conspecifics due to the geographic distances between them and their limited physical power. However, no natural conditions are likely to foster the evolution of successful behavior for conditions prevailing in civilized communities, where the regulatory mechanisms and limiting factors mentioned above are absent. These conditions include several technological capacities that do not occur in the natural environments where behavioral patterns evolve. The most universal are presumably technologies enabling rapid, comprehensive consumption of available resources. It is also highly likely that civilized social organisms would develop extensions of such technologies that enable individuals or packs to obtain power and high status via mass extermination of conspecifics. Thus, the IBPs regulating energy harvesting and competition between individuals and packs may be highly incompatible with the corresponding technologies in a civilized community. The most universally incompatible IBPs are likely to lead to excessive consumption of energetic resources. In communities of social organisms, incompatible IBPs could cause excessive casualties both in competition among individuals for status and in competition among packs for energetic resources. They could also lead to massive wastes of resources in demonstrations of power and prowess by sexually selective organisms. ¹⁰ Ultimately, incompatible IBPs could lead a civilization to self-destruct by consuming available energetic resources more quickly than they can replaced (or technologies for exploiting new resources can be developed) and/or the application of mass destructive technologies in conflicts between packs.

Possible IBPs operating in human civilization

Possible IBPs also operate in human civilization and several human values are based on them, such as leadership (status in the pack) and material wealth (possession of energetic resources). Incompatible human IBPs include drives to possess and demonstrate possession of both energetic resources and social status, which are probably responsible for excessive wastes of available energetic resources (ecological crises) and violent conflicts between packs (war). Other human drives that may pose less severe danger but may still raise risks include: curiosity (related risks include use of dangerous technologies before adequate tests); the sex drive (raising several risks, including over-population); parental instincts (nursing of offspring) and need for a home (nesting), which may lead to efforts to acquire disproportionately high shares of resources and thus conflict.

The bottleneck for emerging civilizations—“IBPs”

One could ask why we have not found any alien civilization yet. Why the detectable civilizations are rare or absent in the universe? Incompatible Inherited behavior patterns (IPBs) may pose problems that all emerging intelligences and civilizations must face, and thus at least partially explain why we have not yet detected any alien civilizations. It is also possible that biological evolution could lead to intelligence and civilization via routes that are very different from those that occurred on Earth. Thus, the number and type of incompatible IBPs could vary widely. However, all living organisms must harvest energy from the environment. Hence, the emergence of intelligence and civilization will always probably be accompanied by the evolution of incompatible IBPs for energetic solutions. It is also possible that only social organisms will develop civilizations, if intense communication between individuals in packs is essential for the emergence of intelligence. If so, incompatible IBPs for leadership solutions and competition between packs will always be involved. Thus, emerging civilizations that cannot solve the problem of incompatible IBPs may inevitably become extinct shortly after the appearance of advanced technologies (Figure 1).

Figure 1.

Possible dynamics of a number of civilizations in the universe. The extinctions before the bottleneck of IBPs are due to other causes.

Drake equation and IPBs

In 1961, Drake formulated an equation ¹¹ that estimates the number of active communicating civilizations (ACCs) in our galaxy. It reads as follows:

$$ACCs=R*\cdot f_p\cdot n_e\cdot f_l\cdot f_i\cdot f_c\cdot L$$

where R^∗ = number of new stars born in our galaxy per year, f _p  = the fraction of stars that have planetary systems, n _e = the average number of planets per planetary system that could support life, f _l = the fraction of habitable planets where primitive life develops, f _i = the fraction of planets with life that evolve intelligent lifeforms and civilizations, f _c= the fraction of civilizations that become advanced communicating civilizations (ACCs), L = the length of time that ACCs broadcast radio signals into space.

There is significant debate over the values of parameters in the Drake equation, but the original estimates from 1961 were ¹¹ :

R^∗ = 1 per year (1 star forms per year in our galaxy),

f _p  = 0.2–0.5 (one-fifth to one-half of all stars formed in our galaxy will have planets),

n _e  = 1–5,

f _l  = 1 (in 100% of planets life will appear),

f _i  = 1 (in 100% of planets with life, the intelligent civilizations will arise),

f _c  = 0.1–0.2 (10%–20% of civilizations in the galaxy become ACCs),

L = 1000–100,000,000 years.

Drake suggested that there are significant uncertainties in these estimates (yielding ACCs = 200–50,000,000) and inferred a probable range of 1000–100,000,000 ACCs in our galaxy. ¹¹ Later other authors, using different values, have produced a range from fewer than 100 to several million ACCs. ¹² The Fermi Paradox argues that previously used values in the Drake equation have been too high. Stern and Gerya ¹² suggested that the fraction of planets with life that gives rise to intelligent civilizations should be broken into two variables: f _oc (the fraction of habitable worlds with major continents and oceans) and f _pt (the fraction of these planets that have had plate tectonics for at least 0.5 billion years), where f _oc ⋅f _pt  = f _i (planets that harbor life and will develop intelligent civilizations). Based on their modified Drake Equation, Stern and Gerya ¹² suggested that the Fermi Paradox may partially be resolved if the value of f _oc ⋅f _pt is extremly low. Their initial approximations indicate that f_oc could be around 0.0002–0.01 whereas f _pt is less than 0.17, making their product (f _i ) minuscule (<0.00003 to <0.002). ¹² This drastically diminishes the potential number of ACCs to <0.006 to <100,000 in the galaxy. ¹² Further reductions are based on re-evaluating the length of time ACCs communicate (L), which can approximately be 400–7,800,000 years due to societal collapse ¹³ and maximal duration of a species. ¹⁴ This re-evaluation lowers the possible number of ACCs even more (<0.0004 to <20,000). ¹² The severe existential problems caused by IBPs to emerging technological civilizations suggest that the L is most likely close to its lowest limit of 400 years. Thus, it would not be surprising if there are currently no other technological civilizations in our galaxy.