The Great Filter is the idea that, in the development of life from the earliest stages of abiogenesis to reaching the highest levels of development on the Kardashev scale, there is a barrier to development that makes detectable extraterrestrial life exceedingly rare. The Great Filter is one possible resolution of the Fermi paradox.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_Filter

The Fermi paradox is the discrepancy between the lack of conclusive evidence of advanced extraterrestrial life and the apparently high likelihood of its existence. As a 2015 article put it, “If life is so easy, someone from somewhere must have come calling by now.”

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fermi_paradox

Personally I think it’s photosynthesis. Life itself developed and spread but photosynthesis started an inevitable chain of ever-greater and more-efficient life. I think a random chain of mutations that turns carbon-based proto-life into something that can harvest light energy is wildly unlikely, even after the wildly unlikely event of life beginning in the first place.

I have no data to back that up, just a guess.

  • KevonLooney@lemm.ee
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    4 days ago

    conscious beings can’t be part of the wave function

    That’s not how any of this works. Your brain is made out of regular matter, not special fancy matter.

    • rsuri@lemmy.world
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      4 days ago

      I don’t know if the type of matter matters, rather I’m basing in on the idea that measurement collapses the wave function, and consciousness does measure things

      • KevonLooney@lemm.ee
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        4 days ago

        Your brain isn’t what “collapses the wave function”, it’s the measuring device that you use. You can do a double slit experiment and watch it with your eyes the whole time. Light will still act as a wave until you interact with it experimentally.

        You are reading too much Deepak Chopra. Your brain is just a computer made out of meat. It’s not magic.