Re:Model predicts we're the only advanced civilization in th...
by pure-awesome on Monday June 25, 2018 @08:43AM
(#17391918)
> The "Fermi paradox" isn't meant to be an actual paradox in formal terms.
I think this is a misunderstanding of the use of the word "paradox". Informally, people use "paradox" like it means "contradiction" when in actuality it means "APPARENT contradiction". See, e.g., https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paradox
> A paradox is a statement that, despite apparently sound reasoning from true premises, leads to an apparently self-contradictory or logically unacceptable conclusion.
The Fermi paradox is indeed an apparent contradiction, whether or not it is an actual contradiction.
The same holds for many, if not almost all uses of the word "paradox" in standard literature. For example, Zeno's Paradox is not a contradiction, we've resolved it (an infinite sum of decreasing values can add up to a finite number), and yet it is still a paradox.
(For a more precise classification, see e.g. Quine's classification of Paradoxes)
I think this is a misunderstanding of the use of the word "paradox". Informally, people use "paradox" like it means "contradiction" when in actuality it means "APPARENT contradiction". See, e.g., https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paradox
> A paradox is a statement that, despite apparently sound reasoning from true premises, leads to an apparently self-contradictory or logically unacceptable conclusion.
The Fermi paradox is indeed an apparent contradiction, whether or not it is an actual contradiction.
The same holds for many, if not almost all uses of the word "paradox" in standard literature. For example, Zeno's Paradox is not a contradiction, we've resolved it (an infinite sum of decreasing values can add up to a finite number), and yet it is still a paradox.
(For a more precise classification, see e.g. Quine's classification of Paradoxes)