Abstract
In the beginning of this book we introduced the idea of a Great Filter, something that stood between the formation of planets (which we know is common) and the existence of technological civilizations (which seems rare). We asked ourselves where the Great Filter may be and surmised that it may be located in principle at any of the many steps that have led from the origin of life to modern humanity over a time period of roughly 4 billion years.
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Further Reading
Bostrom, N. (2014). Superintelligence: Paths, dangers, strategies. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Clark, A. (2003). Natural-born cyborgs: Minds, technologies, and the future of human intelligence. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Darling, D., & Schulze-Makuch, D. (2012). Megacatastrophies: Nine strange ways the world could end. London: One World Publisher.
Gray, R. H. (2015). The Fermi paradox is neither Fermi’s nor a paradox. Astrobiology, 15, 195–199. doi:10.1089/ast.2014.1247.
Hanson, R. (1998). The great filter – Are we almost past it? http://www.webcitation.org/5n7VYJBUd or http://mason.gmu.edu/~rhanson/greatfilter.html
Webb, S. (2015). If the Universe is teeming with aliens … where is everybody?: Seventy-five solutions to the Fermi paradox and the problem of extraterrestrial life, Science and Fiction Book Series (2nd ed.). Berlin: Springer.
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Schulze-Makuch, D., Bains, W. (2017). The Great Filter and the Fermi Paradox. In: The Cosmic Zoo. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-62045-9_13
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-62045-9_13
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