/sci/ - Science & Math

If you're aware of modern thought around intelligent life in the universe, you might be familiar with the Fermi paradox and the concept of a "Great Filter" as a proposed solution. (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_Filter))

Basically the idea of the Fermi paradox is, if it's likely that intelligent life exists somewhere else in the universe, why has no evidence been discovered. And the Great Filter basically posits, as an explanation, that maybe some inevitable consequence of life crossing a certain threshold of development has wiped them all out, and either we're one of the relatively few species in the universe that survived this consequence, or, more worryingly, it's coming for us next.

But what if it's not a "Great Filter," but a "Great Divide"? What if, as life in the universe grows more complex, the damning threshold it approaches is not a mass extinction event, but an event in its development that renders it too different from anything else in the universe for communication to be meaningful?

Could this be? Could intelligent alien life be among us even now, and just undetectable because it's so different that we fail to recognize it as intelligent or alive? Discuss

Link to comment and video in image:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UjtOGPJ0URM&lc=UgzRgPwIUtFAjJpSWrx4AaABAg