Editing Fermi paradox (section)

==== Alien life may be too incomprehensible ====
[[File:TerrestrialMicrowaveWindow.jpg|thumb|upright=1.25|Microwave window as seen by a ground-based system. From NASA report SP-419: SETI – the Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence]]

Another possibility is that human theoreticians have underestimated how much alien life might differ from that on Earth. Aliens may be psychologically unwilling to attempt to communicate with human beings. Perhaps human mathematics is [[Parochialism|parochial]] to Earth and not shared by other life,<ref>Schombert, James. [http://abyss.uoregon.edu/~js/cosmo/lectures/lec28.html "Fermi's paradox (i.e. Where are they?)"] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20111107220554/http://abyss.uoregon.edu/~js/cosmo/lectures/lec28.html |date=November 7, 2011 }} ''Cosmology Lectures'', University of Oregon.</ref> though others argue this can only apply to abstract math since the math associated with physics must be similar (in results, if not in methods).<ref>{{cite journal |title=Mathematics on a distant planet |author=Hamming, RW |journal=The American Mathematical Monthly |volume=105 |issue=7 |pages=640–650 |date=1998 |jstor=2589247|doi=10.2307/2589247 }}</ref>

In his 2009 book, SETI scientist [[Seth Shostak]] wrote, "Our experiments [such as plans to use drilling rigs on Mars] are still looking for the type of extraterrestrial that would have appealed to [[Percival Lowell]] [astronomer who believed he had observed canals on Mars]."<ref>[https://books.google.com/books?id=jFcJHatXiWIC&dq=%22Our+experiments+are+still+looking+for+the+type+of+extraterrestrial+that+would+have+appealed+to+Percival+Lowell%22&pg=PT212 Confessions of an Alien Hunter: A Scientist's Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence], Seth Shostak (Senior Astronomer, SETI Institute), Ch. 7 "Beyond Gray and Hairless," p. 264, published by National Geographic, 2009.</ref>

Physiology might also be a communication barrier. Carl Sagan speculated that an alien species might have a thought process orders of magnitude slower (or faster) than that of humans.<ref>{{cite book |title=Contact |author=Carl Sagan}} Chapter 3, p. 49.</ref> A message broadcast by that species might seem like random background noise to humans, and therefore go undetected.

[[Paul Davies]] stated that 500 years ago the very idea of a computer doing work merely by manipulating internal data may not have been viewed as a technology at all. He writes, "Might there be a still {{em|higher}} level{{Nbsp}}[...] If so, this 'third level' would never be manifest through observations made at the informational level, still less the matter level. There is no vocabulary to describe the third level, but that doesn't mean it is non-existent, and we need to be open to the possibility that alien technology may operate at the third level, or maybe the fourth, fifth{{Nbsp}}[...] levels."<ref>[https://archive.org/details/eeriesilencerene00davi/page/145 <!-- quote="Might there be a still higher level" inauthor:Davies. --> ''The Eerie Silence: Renewing Our Search for Alien Intelligenc''e], Paul Davies (Beyond Center for Fundamental Concepts in Science, Arizona State University), Boston, New York: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, 2010, pp. 144–145.</ref>

[[Arthur C. Clarke]] hypothesized that "our technology must still be laughably primitive; we may well be like jungle savages listening for the throbbing of tom-toms, while the ether around them carries more words per second than they could utter in a lifetime".<ref>{{cite book |title=Living Philosophies The Reflections of Some Eminent Men and Women of Our Time |date=1990 |publisher=Doubleday |page=50}}</ref> Another thought is that technological civilizations invariably experience a [[technological singularity]] and attain a post-biological character.<ref>{{cite news |last=Istvan |first=Zoltan |author-link=Zoltan Istvan |date=March 16, 2016 |title=Why Haven't We Met Aliens Yet? Because They've Evolved into AI |url=https://www.vice.com/en/article/why-havent-we-met-aliens-yet-because-theyve-evolved-into-ai/ |url-status=live |archive-url=https://archive.today/20171230231127/https://motherboard.vice.com/en_us/article/vv7bkb/why-havent-we-met-aliens-yet-because-theyve-evolved-into-ai |archive-date=December 30, 2017 |access-date=December 30, 2017 |work=Motherboard |publisher=[[Vice Media]]}}</ref>