On its longest axis the Imperium is only a measly *3,336.58 light-years*, from Alpha Leporis to Deneb. Which is but a tiny fraction of a fraction, of a fraction of the currently observable universe, that has a radius of about *46.508 billion light years* and this is only its radius. It's like a bacteria colony living in the middle Sahara desert and thinking its the only life in the solar system. That's how small the occupied dune universe is.
Yes, in part the great filter is probably the development of a certain type of multicellular life thats not an evolutionary dead end. We know multicellular life developed many times. 25 proven times in our case of eucaryotes. But all complex modern life we see thats bigger than microscopic? At most its three off those that made the leap, fungy, plants and animals. Looking at it the main hurdle does not really seem to be just getting multicellular or becoming a eucaryote but a needed specific combination to make it past the microcosm. Multicellular life happens often, even now there are new multicellular life forms that develop. But none have been or are as successful as the three kingdoms we know so well. Especially as just developing life seems to be quiet easy, seeing as basically as soon as water was there life popping up on earth. But to get anywhere complex it took billions of years, but after that it went really fast.
@@theexchipmunk You are overinterpreting facts and accepting your interpretations too enthusiascticly. There are only guesses that live appeared several times on Earth, no proofs.
@@Edmund_Mallory_Hardgrove I agree that it's more likely that there are very many "lesser filters" combined, with every step making the full journey more and more unlikely, rather than one great filter that single-handedly makes the journey unlikely.
That is a possibility, it could be the filter is pretty low on the macro scale. Or it could just be self annihilation on a technological level. Just look at how humans managed to advance so much from two world wars to potentially resetting. But as i stated in another comment the drake equation is constantly changing because of the three primary variables and even if similar a advance life was with in our local group we probably wouldn't detect them. Our reference point is solely based on what we have on earth, so we look for carbon based tracers, but there could be other ways we are unfamiliar with.
The Drake equation has been significantly expanded since he originally created it further reducing the likelihood of intelligent life emerging. Just one example is that in addition to "habitable zones" around planets the galaxy posses a band of metal rich systems that begins pretty far out from the center of the Galaxy. The further inward you move in the Galaxy the less metal rich star systems become making it less and less likely to encounter life with the available resources to develop technology... So the equations "number of stars" is dramatically less than the total of stars in the Galaxy, amongst other things added that reduce the prospects of the original equation.
The Great Enemy is Warner Brothers. Seriously though, great video. I like that Dune doesn't have Aliens, with the possible exception of the Sandworms, but as you said they might well not be. There is a ton of Sci-fi out there dealing with alien contact and dealings with alien species. The fact that Dune focuses on humanity and what we could become in the future in one of the things that makes it so compelling.
@@masonman_2113 well neither then does Warner brothers, which is the comment I was responding too. Also, it’s not that Dune would have specifically Trump and the republicans, but rather a representation of a “Great Filter” .. have you been following along to know what a “Great Filter” is? Fermi Parardox and all that? So it could be that every dead alien civilization had their alien MAGA that doomed em.. get it?
Recently, I was watching a Dr. Becky video that briefly mentioned the Drake Equation and the Fermi Paradox. She's a physicist and has interesting insights about science and sci-fi. I think the problem with the Drake Equation is that the variables that compose it are...variable. We plug them in based on information that is subject to change. Subjective information. These factors can each vary wildly. There is another general problem I think, not specifically with the equation, but with how we, as humans, frame our search for extraterrestrial intelligence. We model our expectations of alien intelligence according to the only other example of intelligent life we have: ourselves. For example, almost all of our current ideas of advanced intelligent lifeforms presumes technological complexity. We assume they'd reach a point, like we did, when they'd start making tools; tools which grow in complexity. We assume they'd start, as we did, inadvertently crapping out radiowaves into the skies which, by god, we should be detecting, shouldn't we? And we assume that the absence of this flood of signals is indicative of some grand barrier to the development of advanced intelligence in the void. What if they never needed tools in the first place? Look at the octopus. It's a pretty damn smart creature. Capable of advanced problem solving, capable of manipulating its environment and capable of adapting to changes in its environment. It has no need for tools whatsoever. It can open up a jar with a shrimp inside that some researcher put into its tank. It can navigate increasingly complicated obstacle courses we use to test their intelligence. It can even crawl out of its tank to reach an unsecured food source across the room. Why would such a being ever need to build power plants or radio towers? Of course, these animals tend to live short, violent lives in a hostile, incredibly competitive environment. Maybe for them, that's the great filter. Or maybe there simply is no great filter, and there are thousands of alien beings living in perfect balance with their environments, never needing to rely on tools like technology to adapt their environment as we do. Maybe we're the galactic dunces, crafting boats because we don't swim very well; planes because we suck at flying; radios because we're not great at communicating across long distances. What if our assumption that advanced intelligence necessarily breeds technological development is just that: an assumption? We might not be hearing those advanced civilizations because they're not making any noise. At least, not the type of noise we think they should be making.
A friend and I were debating this issue long ago. I stated that any sufficiently advanced species would create technology to spread to other worlds. My friend retorted with, “Why would a whale want to go to Mars?” He was correct. We, as humans, assume all intelligent species would be like us but, in fact, they probably wouldn’t be. They would have their own drives and motivations. They would also have unique physiologies that might make it extraordinarily difficult to bootstrap themselves into a spacefaring civilization. A whale could be just as smart as a human but without thumbs and fingers, it cannot create things. Being trapped in a watery environment, is basically playing on hard mode already. And their sheer size is another detriment. Imagine how much fuel you would need to launch a whale into space.
I mean its quite clear that intelligence is only a real advantage in rare occasions. We didn't have a lot of tools that other successful species had for survival so big brains developed over hundreds of millions of years were an advantage to our simian ancestors but also had great costs.
Funnily one of my favorite franchises on the space opera genre, Mass Effect has their answer to the great filter in the form of ancient lovecraftian machines called Reapers.
@@arthurfleck629 An oceanic Apex species, millions of years old, called in game as, 'Leviathan' or more precise, Leviathan's species created an A.I millions of years ago to salvage life in the universe/galaxy, only to have it turn on them. The rogue A.I created the very first Reaper, by harvesting their creator's assence & creating 'Harbinger', the very first Reaper we meet in Mass Effect 1. The Legendary Edition of ME3 has a quest where we go in search of Leviathan(s).
"The most merciful thing in the world, I think, is the inability of the human mind to correlate all its contents... some day the piecing together of dissociated knowledge will open up such terrifying vistas of reality, and of our frightful position therein, that we shall either go mad from the revelation or flee from the light into the peace and safety of a new Dark Age." H.P. Lovecraft
just speculating, but dark matter is now called "dark sector" and it's implied there is a bunch of particles that we are not aware of it, maybe even complex organisms that are "dark" to us, we can't perceive them well, for now, scientists claim it's just particles filling halos around galaxies, but they may be wrong and they may be complexity out there we can't perceive even entities and other realities so alien to us we can't know it
As soon as you started talking about a great a filter my mind went immediately to the The Dark Forest. That concept is very interesting and that book series "remembrances of earth's past" is excellent. One of those series that gets better with each book. Looking forward to hearing your videos on it!
Problem is that its counterproductive and pretty much impossible to hide your existence from others. In fact we can already detect tentative signs of life on exoplanets. You can't simply hide. The three body problem and dark forest are interesting fiction but not at all plausible or realistic in reality. The real solution to the Fermi Paradox is just the rarity of complex life in the galaxy. Most Stars are wholly unsuitable for sustaining habitable planets that could give rise to more than simple microbes and many stars that are the right type are also too old and low in metalicity. Much of the core of the galaxy which contains the most stars would be sterilised by supernovae and emissions from the super massive black hole in the centre of the galaxy. Plus we have no idea about the average time required for abiogenesis. Life might have simply arose very early on earth and around other G-Type stars there wouldn't be long enough for complex or intelligent life to arise before the increased output of the star burned away any oceans. I dont doubt there could be a lot of life out there but intelligence is likely incredibly rare and probably nonexistent in our galaxy at least.
I´m hugely excited you are reading cixin liu! I found his trilogy extremely interesting because there is a nihilistic and pessimistic tone to them and "heroes" that on some fundamental level are completely different to what I was used to from "western" literature. I hope you´ll do some in-depth exploration on this series, not just one vid.
Really great video! I'm a big futurism geek too, great to see these concepts being explored through the lens of Dune. I'm sure there's already a great deal of shared viewership with this channel, but for anyone interested in futurism I highly recommend Science and Futurism with Isaac Arthur (SFIA). Isaac loves to collab with other channels, would be awesome to see a Quinn and Isaac collab video.
Humans are just lucky that they evolved at the time when this planet has conditions that support existence of complex civilizations, potential Aliens maybe aren't so lucky.
One also has to consider that actually we are most likely very early. For many billions of years the universe was most likely uninhabitable for complex long lasting life as we know it. Mainly because of the rapid star formation and only very short lifespans of early stars. And form statistics and observation we can tell we are pretty damn early already. Most stars will still form and have not existed yet. And seeing how it took billions of years for a civilisation to come around one earth, we might be missing the party because we got there days before it started so to speak. Roughly speaking? We live in the first 0.02 or 0.03 percent of the lifetime of the universe. So maybe in a few billion years some civilisation will find a piece of metal drifting interstellar space and go, huhu thats artificial. So a civilisation was around that early? But also, this gives us one big benefit. Most likely most civilisations will have no real idea where the universe came from or where its going for a long long time. Because we live in a sweet spot to look back with relatively primitive tools and see creation at work. But the expansion of the universe will make all that disappear behind the cosmic event horizon in some billion years. And then its just single galaxies as islands of light in an endless black void.
@@theexchipmunk yup. Not just that, but think about all the things that had to happen to allow even us humans to reach a sufficiently high level of technology: -Enough supernovae to have accumulated enough silicon to make semiconductors, the heavy elements to permit development of metallurgy, actinide elements to permit discovery of nuclear fission. Intelligent Life that started earlier in the universe might not have had access to necessary elements that would have allowed them to make computers or rocket ships. Like what if intelligent life evolved on a world that didn’t have gold or silver and the entire concept of currency and market economy never developed? Could they have ever advanced beyond a Stone/Iron Age? -The evolution of lignin-bearing plants at a time no organisms existed that could digest lignin, who proliferated across the world and whose dead tissue eventually turned into fossil fuels so we could dig them up and burn them to produce power. If intelligent life arose on another planet where something like this didn’t happen, would those civilizations be stuck at a pre-industrial age level of technology for millennia upon millennia? -Multiple mass extinctions and evolutionary “innovations” leading to a world that favored the ascension of intelligent hairless apes. This, I think, is self-explanatory.
@@BoxStudioExecutive This makes a lot of sense, I think that a lot of different factors came together just right for human civilization. I think that "intelligent life" has already evolved several times with other mammals like orcas, chimps, elephants and even crows and octopuses. But they all lack either the need or ability to take the next step in advanced tool use and development of advanced culture. Things like elephants have size to deter almost all predators, orcas, dolphins and crows lack the ideal apendages for tool use, and octopuses reproduce in a way that doesn't allow for members to pass down knowledge to the next generation. Everything came together with early humans being highly intelligent while also living in a savanna environment which forced our ancestors to work together to overcome predators and find food and to use our perfectly suited hands and arms for making more complex tools and throwing things rather than climbing trees. And this is all in addition to the number of factors that you mentioned affecting the development of advanced technology. I think it's definitely more likely a long string of random occurrences that all need to line up perfectly to get to our stage rather than one single great filter. As someone else mentioned in these comments we might also be very early to the game in terms of the age of the universe meaning that there has been a lot less time for all those random occurences to line up just right on other planets.
@@BoxStudioExecutive He's saying we're in the outskirts of the galaxy where the stars have developed enough to be livable. There are no earlier civilizations because we are at the outskirts of the galaxy. Eventually the expansion of the stars will make the distance to travel impossible but at the same time new civilizations are born. If we would travel to the stars we will not be able to return and the alien civilizations maybe exist or not or be of human kind but our starting position will be lost.
@Tesla-Effect Sadly the deeper we delve into physics the more the universe seems hell bend on stopping anything from circumventing the speed of light. It goes as far as to seemingly reverse causality to stop stuff like that. The same with Heisenbergs Uncertainty. Its absolutely ridiculous.
Lem is an entire different universe in scifi. Recollecting the time all the Lem Novels have been written, it is even way more amazing. It is that I miss most of the soviet and eastern european scifi in common scifi. Not just a cowboy story in space, but entirely different ideas and plots.
@@sapakangi7039 I don't remember its name, but I read this short story about a flying saucer crash-landing in Russia. The village mechanic could not repair it because he didn't understand the technology, and even if he did, he would not know how to make the necessary replacement parts. Aboard the crashed craft had been an extraterrestrial accountant, and even though he spoke Russian for some reason, he didn't understand the technology either. He only knew how to use the technology, including what he used for his job, so his expertise was no use to him on Earth, nor to anyone on Earth, and he had no way of returning home.
@@davidwuhrer6704 That sounds like it could be something by Arkady and Boris Strugatsky -- but who knows! I would ask any librarian at any institution known for having a great science fiction collection -- UC Riverside springs to mind. Good luck!
I bought the entire Dune series because of your passion. After a few months of not really diving into the books I started the audio books. Ive finished the first 2 but really only absorbed the first one. I think I might try and finish the first book and then pick up the audio books afterward. I find audio books to be difficult to immerse myself in if I am unfamiliar with the material. Either way I am committed to this journey because of your passion. I think to myself, if he likes it that much then its gotta be kinda cool.
Ooh, can't wait for Cixin Liu videos. Fred Saberhagen's Beserker series was all about an active, predatory great filter. Conversely, Robert Charles Wilson's Spin trilogy is about some unknown force trying to shield developing cultures from threats from beyond.
@@ChristmasLore I hope he doesn't do any content on it. It was fun but it was bubble-gum science fiction. The motivation of the characters and the races make absolutely no sense and come from the psyche of someone deeply helpless.
For all scientific speculation fans here, check out Event Horizon by John Michael Gaudier and Arthur Isaac's channels on TH-cam. Both are science fiction writers and explore the possibilities of alien life and space travel, etc. Quinn brings a nice touch to the subject! I'm hyped for more!!!
Have you heard of 'Perry Rhodan'? Of course you have. It's amazing how little info you can find on TH-cam (in english) about it and it's another saga that extends for thousands of years (and hundreds of books)
Dude! I just stumbled across your channel a few days ago, been binge watching all your ASOIAF content. That led me to your Dune videos... You've single handedly got me started on a new serires! Great videos. Definitely subbed.
In Alastair Reynolds "Revalation space" universe, there is a super intelligent AI that culls species who get too advanced. I wont give away why this is but thats a hell of a great filter.
Have you read Peter F Hamilton's Commonwealth Saga? Pandora's Star and Judas Unchained? Those books were really good and would be worth some attention imho. His Night's Dawn series is also a separate space opera series about his Confederation of Man. The Reality Dysfunction, The Neutronium Alchemist and The Naked God.
I had been thinking about this exactly a lot recently. Great video, I love the way these are constructed. The fact that Leto saw the end to humanity, would also suggest that other space faring peoples may have also experienced such an extinction. Of course they most likely didn't have a worm God that could guide them away from such a fate.
6:40 That's a heck of a statement - we don't know how common life is in the real universe at all - it ranges from every star at least having slimes to earth being borderline unique. Until we have more data, we can't really be sure.
So, here's my thing about the "great filter." Once you get beyond a few dozen light years, even the strongest electromagnetic signals we could conceive of (short of starlight itself) becomes indistinguishable from background static. Space, as Adams said, is big. The idea that no intelligent life is encountered within hundreds or couple thousand light years isn't that strange compared. Question for you, Quinn. Is it ever stated how big the domain of humanity in Dune is? Even just the old Empire? Or if there's a range limit on the Holtzman drives? (X light years in a jump, for instance.) That can limit the ability of the setting to expand and discover (see Battletech, a harder sci-fi than some want to admit, where the jump drives have limits on how far and often they can jump).
Space is always being created everywhere, so doesn't that mean that from any given point, there is a three dimensional spheroid type shape, beyond which the expansion is faster than the speed of light? I mean, I assume the universe is that big, that most parts of it are just expanding away from us much faster than light, and permanently unobservable no matter what technology might ever offer... probably?
@@FUNKY_BUTTLOVIN It is, without FLT tech, but most of the more grounded sci-fi keeps things either within one galaxy (occasionally two or more if they're close enough).
@@nutyyyy Eh, note quite. Most things are way more powerful than anything we can generate, and the power we use fades to background static before it's much past a couple dozen light-years.
Hey Quinn, I enjoy most things you talk about (and you even got me into Hyperion!). Therefore I think you'll really enjoy The Expanse (books & TV series). It also plays with the idea of a filter, though not as explicitly.
What's amazing is that one of those factors is the fraction of Earthlike planets to all planets, and now we have a rough estimate based upon all of those detected planets. The Earth is a rare thing! It's nearly 1/3 the age of the universe too.
I can't wait for the Rememberence of Earth's Past discussion!!! I'm so glad you are taking the Three Body novels into consideration. Literally cannot wait!!
Nice to see the uptick in Dune content recently , I can't think what cause it! BTW the Liu books are superb and I'd welcome your take on them, great work as always
Hey Quinn!!! I love your work! This is one of the most fascinating things in Dune...no aliens. Dune is about human evolution. Its even more realistic when aliens are not around. Probably humans are alone in the Dune universe. I think the God Emperor would've known...since he had an all seeing mind. In Dune human alienate other humans...the Navigators to me are alien....every being with prescience is alien to me. The sandworms and the symbiosis with Leto2 are also alien.
Really looking forward to hearing your thoughts on the Cixin Liu books. The Dark Forest in particular has one of my favourite Fermi discussions in any book.
DUNE VIDEO REQUEST: Please do one on The Wierding Way and shields. Description, training details, use, tactics of employment. You have an exceptional talent of story-telling. Bravo!!!!
Could an alien Great Enemy have created the sandworms? The sandworms by their presence imposed limits on humanity which Leto II broke via "The Golden Path".
Another great video, thanks for putting it together. One science fiction series I think would be very interesting for you to delve into is Iain M. Banks 'The Culture', its unique in many ways, grows on you over time from a slow ish start and is the only utopia that feels plausible I'm familiar (& and in love) with.
Perhaps you’ve already read it, but the Revelation Space trilogy by Alastair Reynolds really impressed for its world building, intelligence, and storytelling. It’s a generation spanning galactic space opera. Hard sci-fi with rich characterization and plot- lines. Thanks for your work- always fascinating!
Two notes; I believe its The Inhibitor Trilogy/Inhibitor Cycle (of the Revelation Space "universe"); and apparently there is a fourth book coming out this year that should bump it up to a Quadrilogy (titled Inhibitor Phase)
The human factions in this saga are fascinating and the expansion into much more in Galactic North and The Prefect are worth reading as well. Look forward the new “inhibitor phase” book in early Oct.
7:57 "To suggest that, it would require some leaps"- that's also a great description for Drake's equation. Square that and you'll get the description for the "great filter" theory.
I think it is naïve to assume that we know all conditions that could support intelligent alien life or indeed that we would necessarily recognize signs of intelligent life if we saw it. We already have observed patterns in the cosmos that should not exist naturally.
I'd adjust that to "patterns in the cosmos that our current model of the universe does not support". I'd point out that it's still less than 170 years since we discovered a mountain range running down the middle of the Atlantic ocean, so assuming our understanding of the universe is complete is foolish.
Its a human assumption to assume Alien life is common without any evidence of it. We simply don't know. The odds could be 1 in a million or 1 in quintillion. One means the galaxy has many civilisations the other means we are a statistical anomaly. We ultimately do not know at all. We could be alone or we could not be. We might be very far from the nearest civilisation that could be many galaxies away. We don't know and anyone who says otherwise is making massive assumptions. Humans have believed in Aliens for thousands of years, it's the default position largely based on faith. But it's entirely possible that we are in fact alone - or at least practically alone.
I can't remember if you've looked into The Expanse book series before, but for me, they've been an amazing reading experience. It's a very different kind of sci-fi/galactic empire story. It shifts between whodunnit mystery, cosmic horror and a lot of slow burn (which I personally love, but I know isn't for everyone)
I'd love to hear Quinn's ideas on Perry Rhodan. The story is massive in its stories and also in the number of books. Although not being well known in the US, it has influenced a lot of popular stories, in particular star trek.
I've plugged enough guesses into the Drake equation variables to know that even with no great filter, there could be as few as 1 or a very large number advanced civilizations. 0 is the smallest if you don't consider earth.
The equation is just that. Intelligent in it's calculation but ultimately it isn't a rule. It simply can't be. It's just hypothesis. There could be everything from no aliens to many. We have no idea.
I just read "The Expert Systems Champion" by Adrian Tchaikovsky and geeze is that some bio-body horror. It creeped my out more than anything i have read in a while.
Time is the big one though isn't it? We are not just searching in three dimensions we are searching in four. We have been around for an eyeblink on a cosmic scale and we will be gone in an eyeblink. All these flashes of life We just need to accept we might never find alien life and that our planet's existence is but a eyeblink in the fourth dimension. Yes the great filter is actually time I reckon. Oh EDIT Cheers for the tip on those Cixin Liu books I shall check them out. Cheers for the upload old chap.
Commonwealth Saga + sequels by Peter F Hamilton Troy Rising series by John Ringo Axis of Time series by John Birmingham Gateway series by Frederik Pohl
it reminds me of Forbidden Planet the SF movie where an old alien civilization has destroyed itself by war before humans found and studied their emptied cities.
Not by war. The entire civilisation vanished literally over night. Of course there were no records of what happened because nobody was left to make them. But the doctor figured it out, and it was not war.
@@redcapetimetraveler7688 That particular monster was of the professor's subconscious. (Spoilers!) Technology made it manifest. A _monster from the Id_ if you will. What the good doctor figured out using the same technology on himself is that the Krell had had subconscious desires as well.
@@davidwuhrer6704 ohh like we could have unconsciously self-destructive desires, as a specie or as an individuel ? i don't remember if the movie answers that.
@@redcapetimetraveler7688 The implication is not that the species was subconsciously self-destructive, nor that all individuals were subconsciously self-destructive. The professor held irrational resentment against the astronauts, nothing he would consciously express or even approve of in himself. Not even strong resentment either, very mild irritation at most. Which is perfectly understandable. Yet in his sleep, in his dreams, this sentiment went unchecked, and even temporarily amplified, his connection to the machines of the Krell made his unconscious desire manifest itself as that invisible, unstoppable monster. Nothing too destructive, really: He could just have wished for them to all go away instead. But destructive enough to cause alarm. Even just idle curiousity might have had the same effect. The Krell were many more than just one individual. The implication is that they unintentionally and unexpectedly killed each other in their sleeps. The professor states that the Krell, intellectually sophistated as they were, thought themselves above such sentiments, or simply didn't consider their animal desires to be a factor. Yet with the power at their disposal, it would only have taken a few with bad dreams to wipe out the entire civilisation over night. That is what is implied, but of course there is no way to be certain that that is indeed what happened. What is certain is that the professor, with his augmented intellect, was the intellectual equivalent of a Krell toddler. And that humans would not be able to wield that power safely, seductively convenient and useful though it would be. (Not in the form the Krell left it anyway.)
Alastair Reynold's Revelation Space, Vernor Vinge's Zones of Thought, SA Corey's The Expanse, David Brin's Uplift Series? Revelation Space has some great ideas about the Fermi Paradox. Tobias Buckell's Xenowealth series also has some great ideas about an alien-induced Fermi Paradox. If you want to go through all of the most common Fermi Paradox reasons, you should read David Brin's Existence.
Something that I believe would be right up your alley is Peter F. Hamilton's Commonwealth Saga and Void Trilogy (especially the latter but the first one is a fantastic primer).
@@UnrepentantWolf Nah. I bought and read the 3rd book and it's just a rip on the previous 2 books, remotely mentioning the characters we knew. It's an entirely new novel, just riding the "Mote" for sales. Seen that way, it's a wonderful novel and the glimpses we get of the previous characters are distracting and irritating. Loved the description of "how do we get into space by ourselves" (which is necessary to be considered an "adult" civilization able to join the Empire of Man as self-governing). P.S. The Moties were the first and only aliens the Empire had met.
Main problem with the drake formula is that Ne and fi variables are constantly changing, and the fc factor is pretty limited to the inverse square law. Even if there was a planet within 100 LY of us broadcasting radio waves we would see it as background static.
it also fails on the front of what if we're the first in our galaxy. What if right now there is primitive life on other planets or the alien version of dinosaurs, or cavemen. What if the great filter is a quirk of evolution, the evolution of our minds and how we think. look at all the life on earth from the most basic virus to mammals, reptiles, insects, nothing thinks like we do. 100's of billions of different lifeforms.
I may not believe in aliens, but I'm utterly fascinated by the idea. I would love to be proven wrong, as being the only planet with life on it feels kind of lonely.
@@saphiriathebluedragonknight375 "There is no help coming... It's just us." Paraphrased from one of Carl Sagan's famous speeches; I get that we want to feel kinship with something else in the Universe, but I think we need to develop kinship with ourselves first... How many wars have been fought because we feared or misunderstood another nation? How many wars have been fought because of cultural differences? ...And what makes people think we're going to suddenly be friends with any alien nation that appears? When we can't even get along on Earth. We make a lot of assumptions as a species.
maybe humans in Dune are the "Firstborn" of the Milky Way, and their expansion in the Galaxy removed any chance of other intelligent aliens* to appear... *except of intelligent/sentient machines
@@JohnnyZenith Or the last. Only three new stars are formed on average per year in our galaxy. We're living at the very end of the starlight era. And about 97% of the observable galaxies we see today are unreachable.
This is always my answer to the fermi paradox. It took us billions of years to evolve, but only thousands to spread over the entire planet. It's very likely that in the next tens or hundreds of thousands of years (ie nothing on an evolutionary time scale) we will colonize every speck of dust in the galaxy capable of supporting life, disrupting the entire galactic ecosystem long before the next intelligent species has a chance to evolve.
Along with the great recommendations already mentioned; Blindsight by Peter Watts offers one of the most unique explanations of the Fermi Paradox and the great filter that revolves around the nature of consciousness and the evolution of intelligent life.
To put it simply, the actual observable universe is about *27.87 million* times bigger than the tiny space occupied by even Leto II at the height of his empire in the Dune universe. So not meeting any aliens in Dune is not jarring.
It is interesting to consider the Fermi Paradox and the Drake Equation in terms of a far future fictional timeline like Dune wherein humans have still not made formal contact. Cool vid. Re: Drake's equation - it's really fun to play with, since you can plug in different values for different fields and get very different results. Makes for a cool way to consider how likely advanced civilizations are to be near to us, as updated info comes out from our newer and more sensitive equipment. The Kepler K2 mission has really changed the way I run Drake's equation now, and I imagine that the James Webb Telescope will do the same when it comes online. :)
with the naked eye humans can see 0.000003% of the milky way. i dont think that if you stared at 0.000003% of anything you could really describe it. The % of the universe we can see might as well be 0.
@@1183newman You either vastly overestimate the naked eye, or underestimate the capabilities of astronomers. The visible (to the naked eye) part of the electromagnetic spectrum is miniscule compared to what modern telescopes can image. (The entire spectrum.) And telescopes are not the only tools in use. There are parts of the Milky Way that we cannot see. The largest of those is the section behind the centre. More relevant here though is the limited resolution. With today's telescopes we wouldn't be able to detect Earth from outside of the Solar system. But that is something that keeps being improved.
I've always been somewhat bothered by the Fermi Paradox, because so many people take it at face value when it relies on a huge assumption that we currently have no reason to believe is true; and in fact, have every reason to believe isn't the case. It assumes that it's *possible* to make any sort of contact with beings thousands or millions of light years away. We currently have every reason to believe that light speed propagation is the best it gets, and on the slim chance that warping space is even possible; we have every reason to believe that it's highly directional and you can only use it to contact someone you already know is there. The Fermi Paradox is science fiction, nothing more.
@@bob_the_barbarian No I don't. Interstellar travel is possible. We know we can travel .9 to the speed of light which is good enough for interstellar travel. It's definitely not fast enough to travel to another galaxy through the huge voids between galaxies. If our search for life is only contained to our galaxy and if advanced life is so rare it only happens once or twice per galaxy or less. We may never find another advanced species.
@@buckwildsrq I had actually just thought you'd made the mistake so common these days of thinking that different star systems were "galaxies." I don't know if you've noticed, but many don't seem to know the difference. It makes me very sad and increases my desire to outlaw the teachers unions. But, that only comes after the apoplexy dies down.
I'm enjoying this discussion. Okay, secondly, yes, a Great Filter is in place, as the conditions of just about everything on the universe is hostile to life. Life as we know it has to have very precise conditions so that evolves and adapts to exist under conditions which, while allowing for that evolution and creating the environment in which it can happen, driving it indeed, are also hostile to it. Earth itself is actually NOT ideal for us, we are evolved "just good enough," basically.
The drake equation is so biased on what we define as life on habitable worlds based on an infinitesimal fraction of possibilities available to us in our solar system which we can only judge from robotic scrutiny and satelite images.
The Drake Equation wasn't a serious attempt to ascertain how muvh life there was in tg3 universe. It was put together to stimulate a conversation at a scientific conferrence. You taking it too seriously.
@@jpgduff making a comment about it on TH-cam shouldn't imply seriousness. While I have your attention, if the equation is so casual, why does every conversation or video include it?
The Long Earth series (by British authors Terry Pratchett and Stephen Baxter) is quite good and refreshing. I'd like to hear your views on this series.
What an interesting video! And a very important philosophical topic we ought to discuss even more urgently under the present circumstances. To me, who or what "The Great Enemy" refers to is ultimately not as important as the seemingly best solution against them: the Scattering. The God Emperor believed that humanity would be saved because it wouldn't be limited into a small part of the universe, but instead go out and explore more. This is rather similar to certain historical examples imo- when a power (be it a state, kingdom or empire) reaches its expansion limits, it starts to decline and shrink, until it's replaced. Therefore, pushing humanity to leave their comfort zone and explore is crucial for the continuous development and survival of humans. And because a scattered humanity would have many different centres of power, overstretching- which is a usual problem for our world- wouldn't be that damaging.
Tbh not only does BH have a very different style from his father but the notes and ideas his father left unused just muddle certain things like the aquatic humanoids that don't appear to be related to humans in any way is so drying FH left out to streamline the series a a succinctly human saga. He never dove into digital AI either other than in the aftermath of the age of machines. He did seem to feel meddling with the basics of life as with face dancers was doomed to bring down whoever does so.
Maybe Frank Herberts books take part in a similar universe to Battlestar Galactica, where humans invent thinking machines (or Cylons), their machines rebel and wipes out humans, only to decide they want to become humans themselves using advanced technology, and then they too decide to create their own thinking machines who once again rebel. Perhaps in the Duneverse just like in Battlestar Galactica, this cycle has happened again, and again and again, and will happen again in the future.
Life is quite rare in our universe, based on our sample. The scarcity of life does not affect whether the Drake equation applies, merely the values of the variables. For the Drake equation to not apply, fundamental laws of the universe, luke the formation of life on planets orbiting stars, would havr to be different. Which also brings up a flaw in the Drake equation, in that it presupposes life evolves only on planets (it doesn't define what an environemt suitable to life actually is, but it does state that it occurs on a planet orbiting a star).
Two remarks: For one, we already have aliens in the Dune universe. Pretty obviously as well. The sand worms are alien life. And humanity has already faced One Great Filter in form of the thinking machines and the Butlerian Jihad against it. Ofc in the original meaning (men controlling machines to control other men); but with the expanded uniserse and synchronist worlds, that already a great filter. the concept of the great filter is not limited to ONE great filter. There can very well be more.
@@isaacnickel Uhm, first of all, no. The paper says its unlikely by our current understanding. But seeing as our understanding is, well lacking, it is still a maybe. Especially if we think about life as we not know it. Because yeah, silicon based "organic" life similar to us? Very unlikely. But who says that there is not a possibility for nature to twist the growth of crystals the right way to create "life". Especially as it could operate on very different time scales to us. And thats not talking about the really weird possibilitys such as magnetic fields interacting inside stars to form something like life feeding of the fusion energy. Also a maybe but unlikely. Cease in point, we simply don't know enough to make a safe assumption, especially as life AS we know it is still pulling one over us and found doing stuff thought impossible.
@@langhamp8912 That is another posibility. Life does not necessarily have to occur naturally. And if we manage self sustained machines, they might survive for a long long time.
have been a fan of the Peter F. Hamilton works - the Night's Dawn Trilogy - Reality Dysfunction/Neutronium Alchemist/Naked God; The Commonwealth Books, and the more Cyberpunkish Greg Mandel Books. The Commonwelath Saga would be more in line with your love for galaxy spanning space operas, although I always personally preferred the Night's Dawn Trilogy for interesting world building, human divergence, and how a science based society would struggle with an almost "magical" impact to the species as a whole
Looking forward to your videos on Cixin Liu, his trilogy would make a great tv series. For a book recommendations how about 'Hummingbird Salamander' by Jeff VanderMeer or 'Parable of the Sower' by Octavia Butler which I hear is going to be adapted for a move.
On its longest axis the Imperium is only a measly *3,336.58 light-years*, from Alpha Leporis to Deneb. Which is but a tiny fraction of a fraction, of a fraction of the currently observable universe, that has a radius of about *46.508 billion light years* and this is only its radius. It's like a bacteria colony living in the middle Sahara desert and thinking its the only life in the solar system. That's how small the occupied dune universe is.
Amazing.
SF writers tend to have a shockingly poor grasp of interstellar scales. They frequently use galaxy and universe interchangeably.
I mean, the Chinese emperor called itself the emperor of everything under heaven at one point in time. Its human nature I guess
Yea but Frank Herbert is dead so
Additionally it's very possible we alone at least in this galaxy. So having no aliens is very plausible in any sci-fi setting.
It's also possible that most life never goes beyond single cell. Think about how unlikely the mitochondria is.
I bet this is the answer.
Yes, in part the great filter is probably the development of a certain type of multicellular life thats not an evolutionary dead end. We know multicellular life developed many times. 25 proven times in our case of eucaryotes. But all complex modern life we see thats bigger than microscopic? At most its three off those that made the leap, fungy, plants and animals. Looking at it the main hurdle does not really seem to be just getting multicellular or becoming a eucaryote but a needed specific combination to make it past the microcosm. Multicellular life happens often, even now there are new multicellular life forms that develop. But none have been or are as successful as the three kingdoms we know so well. Especially as just developing life seems to be quiet easy, seeing as basically as soon as water was there life popping up on earth. But to get anywhere complex it took billions of years, but after that it went really fast.
@@theexchipmunk You are overinterpreting facts and accepting your interpretations too enthusiascticly.
There are only guesses that live appeared several times on Earth, no proofs.
@@Edmund_Mallory_Hardgrove I agree that it's more likely that there are very many "lesser filters" combined, with every step making the full journey more and more unlikely, rather than one great filter that single-handedly makes the journey unlikely.
That is a possibility, it could be the filter is pretty low on the macro scale. Or it could just be self annihilation on a technological level. Just look at how humans managed to advance so much from two world wars to potentially resetting. But as i stated in another comment the drake equation is constantly changing because of the three primary variables and even if similar a advance life was with in our local group we probably wouldn't detect them. Our reference point is solely based on what we have on earth, so we look for carbon based tracers, but there could be other ways we are unfamiliar with.
The Drake equation has been significantly expanded since he originally created it further reducing the likelihood of intelligent life emerging. Just one example is that in addition to "habitable zones" around planets the galaxy posses a band of metal rich systems that begins pretty far out from the center of the Galaxy. The further inward you move in the Galaxy the less metal rich star systems become making it less and less likely to encounter life with the available resources to develop technology... So the equations "number of stars" is dramatically less than the total of stars in the Galaxy, amongst other things added that reduce the prospects of the original equation.
The Great Enemy is Warner Brothers.
Seriously though, great video. I like that Dune doesn't have Aliens, with the possible exception of the Sandworms, but as you said they might well not be. There is a ton of Sci-fi out there dealing with alien contact and dealings with alien species. The fact that Dune focuses on humanity and what we could become in the future in one of the things that makes it so compelling.
WRONG. the great enemy is trump and the republican party.. All else is a sideshow, a distraction.
@@raidermaxx2324 I don’t think that the Democrats and Republicans still exist by time Dune takes place.
@@masonman_2113 well neither then does Warner brothers, which is the comment I was responding too. Also, it’s not that Dune would have specifically Trump and the republicans, but rather a representation of a “Great Filter” .. have you been following along to know what a “Great Filter” is? Fermi Parardox and all that? So it could be that every dead alien civilization had their alien MAGA that doomed em.. get it?
Aliens would distract from the story, I think.
@@raidermaxx2324 Work on your bait you silly person.
Science & Futurism with Isaac Arthur has a fantastic series exploring great and minor filters an their likelihood in detail. Highly recommended.
Recently, I was watching a Dr. Becky video that briefly mentioned the Drake Equation and the Fermi Paradox. She's a physicist and has interesting insights about science and sci-fi. I think the problem with the Drake Equation is that the variables that compose it are...variable. We plug them in based on information that is subject to change. Subjective information. These factors can each vary wildly.
There is another general problem I think, not specifically with the equation, but with how we, as humans, frame our search for extraterrestrial intelligence. We model our expectations of alien intelligence according to the only other example of intelligent life we have: ourselves.
For example, almost all of our current ideas of advanced intelligent lifeforms presumes technological complexity. We assume they'd reach a point, like we did, when they'd start making tools; tools which grow in complexity. We assume they'd start, as we did, inadvertently crapping out radiowaves into the skies which, by god, we should be detecting, shouldn't we? And we assume that the absence of this flood of signals is indicative of some grand barrier to the development of advanced intelligence in the void.
What if they never needed tools in the first place?
Look at the octopus. It's a pretty damn smart creature. Capable of advanced problem solving, capable of manipulating its environment and capable of adapting to changes in its environment. It has no need for tools whatsoever. It can open up a jar with a shrimp inside that some researcher put into its tank. It can navigate increasingly complicated obstacle courses we use to test their intelligence. It can even crawl out of its tank to reach an unsecured food source across the room.
Why would such a being ever need to build power plants or radio towers?
Of course, these animals tend to live short, violent lives in a hostile, incredibly competitive environment. Maybe for them, that's the great filter. Or maybe there simply is no great filter, and there are thousands of alien beings living in perfect balance with their environments, never needing to rely on tools like technology to adapt their environment as we do.
Maybe we're the galactic dunces, crafting boats because we don't swim very well; planes because we suck at flying; radios because we're not great at communicating across long distances.
What if our assumption that advanced intelligence necessarily breeds technological development is just that: an assumption? We might not be hearing those advanced civilizations because they're not making any noise. At least, not the type of noise we think they should be making.
That's big brain. I like this theory.
A friend and I were debating this issue long ago. I stated that any sufficiently advanced species would create technology to spread to other worlds. My friend retorted with, “Why would a whale want to go to Mars?”
He was correct. We, as humans, assume all intelligent species would be like us but, in fact, they probably wouldn’t be. They would have their own drives and motivations. They would also have unique physiologies that might make it extraordinarily difficult to bootstrap themselves into a spacefaring civilization. A whale could be just as smart as a human but without thumbs and fingers, it cannot create things. Being trapped in a watery environment, is basically playing on hard mode already. And their sheer size is another detriment. Imagine how much fuel you would need to launch a whale into space.
I mean its quite clear that intelligence is only a real advantage in rare occasions. We didn't have a lot of tools that other successful species had for survival so big brains developed over hundreds of millions of years were an advantage to our simian ancestors but also had great costs.
Funnily one of my favorite franchises on the space opera genre, Mass Effect has their answer to the great filter in the form of ancient lovecraftian machines called Reapers.
Who built the Reapers?
@@arthurfleck629
An oceanic Apex species, millions of years old, called in game as, 'Leviathan' or more precise, Leviathan's species created an A.I millions of years ago to salvage life in the universe/galaxy, only to have it turn on them. The rogue A.I created the very first Reaper, by harvesting their creator's assence & creating 'Harbinger', the very first Reaper we meet in Mass Effect 1. The Legendary Edition of ME3 has a quest where we go in search of Leviathan(s).
Funnily?
"The most merciful thing in the world, I think, is the inability of the human mind to correlate all its contents... some day the piecing together of dissociated knowledge will open up such terrifying vistas of reality, and of our frightful position therein, that we shall either go mad from the revelation or flee from the light into the peace and safety of a new Dark Age."
H.P. Lovecraft
That was the guy who was afraid of the colour blue.
He's just describing pathological anxiety right?
just speculating, but dark matter is now called "dark sector" and it's implied there is a bunch of particles that we are not aware of it, maybe even complex organisms that are "dark" to us, we can't perceive them
well, for now, scientists claim it's just particles filling halos around galaxies, but they may be wrong
and they may be complexity out there we can't perceive
even entities and other realities so alien to us we can't know it
Wow....
neat, that guy lived in the 1920's..
As soon as you started talking about a great a filter my mind went immediately to the The Dark Forest. That concept is very interesting and that book series "remembrances of earth's past" is excellent. One of those series that gets better with each book. Looking forward to hearing your videos on it!
Problem is that its counterproductive and pretty much impossible to hide your existence from others. In fact we can already detect tentative signs of life on exoplanets. You can't simply hide. The three body problem and dark forest are interesting fiction but not at all plausible or realistic in reality. The real solution to the Fermi Paradox is just the rarity of complex life in the galaxy. Most Stars are wholly unsuitable for sustaining habitable planets that could give rise to more than simple microbes and many stars that are the right type are also too old and low in metalicity. Much of the core of the galaxy which contains the most stars would be sterilised by supernovae and emissions from the super massive black hole in the centre of the galaxy.
Plus we have no idea about the average time required for abiogenesis. Life might have simply arose very early on earth and around other G-Type stars there wouldn't be long enough for complex or intelligent life to arise before the increased output of the star burned away any oceans.
I dont doubt there could be a lot of life out there but intelligence is likely incredibly rare and probably nonexistent in our galaxy at least.
I´m hugely excited you are reading cixin liu! I found his trilogy extremely interesting because there is a nihilistic and pessimistic tone to them and "heroes" that on some fundamental level are completely different to what I was used to from "western" literature. I hope you´ll do some in-depth exploration on this series, not just one vid.
Well said. I read the first book and stopped. Tooi depressing, and all too possible.
@@veramae4098 it gets even „better“!
I like his “Dark Forest” hypothesis as the answer to the “Fermi Paradox”!!
_"Monsters from the Id...Monsters from the subconscious mind."_ *-- FORBIDDEN PLANET*
Really great video! I'm a big futurism geek too, great to see these concepts being explored through the lens of Dune. I'm sure there's already a great deal of shared viewership with this channel, but for anyone interested in futurism I highly recommend Science and Futurism with Isaac Arthur (SFIA). Isaac loves to collab with other channels, would be awesome to see a Quinn and Isaac collab video.
Humans are just lucky that they evolved at the time when this planet has conditions that support existence of complex civilizations, potential Aliens maybe aren't so lucky.
One also has to consider that actually we are most likely very early. For many billions of years the universe was most likely uninhabitable for complex long lasting life as we know it. Mainly because of the rapid star formation and only very short lifespans of early stars. And form statistics and observation we can tell we are pretty damn early already. Most stars will still form and have not existed yet. And seeing how it took billions of years for a civilisation to come around one earth, we might be missing the party because we got there days before it started so to speak. Roughly speaking? We live in the first 0.02 or 0.03 percent of the lifetime of the universe. So maybe in a few billion years some civilisation will find a piece of metal drifting interstellar space and go, huhu thats artificial. So a civilisation was around that early? But also, this gives us one big benefit. Most likely most civilisations will have no real idea where the universe came from or where its going for a long long time. Because we live in a sweet spot to look back with relatively primitive tools and see creation at work. But the expansion of the universe will make all that disappear behind the cosmic event horizon in some billion years. And then its just single galaxies as islands of light in an endless black void.
@@theexchipmunk yup. Not just that, but think about all the things that had to happen to allow even us humans to reach a sufficiently high level of technology:
-Enough supernovae to have accumulated enough silicon to make semiconductors, the heavy elements to permit development of metallurgy, actinide elements to permit discovery of nuclear fission. Intelligent Life that started earlier in the universe might not have had access to necessary elements that would have allowed them to make computers or rocket ships. Like what if intelligent life evolved on a world that didn’t have gold or silver and the entire concept of currency and market economy never developed? Could they have ever advanced beyond a Stone/Iron Age?
-The evolution of lignin-bearing plants at a time no organisms existed that could digest lignin, who proliferated across the world and whose dead tissue eventually turned into fossil fuels so we could dig them up and burn them to produce power. If intelligent life arose on another planet where something like this didn’t happen, would those civilizations be stuck at a pre-industrial age level of technology for millennia upon millennia?
-Multiple mass extinctions and evolutionary “innovations” leading to a world that favored the ascension of intelligent hairless apes. This, I think, is self-explanatory.
@@BoxStudioExecutive This makes a lot of sense, I think that a lot of different factors came together just right for human civilization. I think that "intelligent life" has already evolved several times with other mammals like orcas, chimps, elephants and even crows and octopuses. But they all lack either the need or ability to take the next step in advanced tool use and development of advanced culture. Things like elephants have size to deter almost all predators, orcas, dolphins and crows lack the ideal apendages for tool use, and octopuses reproduce in a way that doesn't allow for members to pass down knowledge to the next generation. Everything came together with early humans being highly intelligent while also living in a savanna environment which forced our ancestors to work together to overcome predators and find food and to use our perfectly suited hands and arms for making more complex tools and throwing things rather than climbing trees.
And this is all in addition to the number of factors that you mentioned affecting the development of advanced technology. I think it's definitely more likely a long string of random occurrences that all need to line up perfectly to get to our stage rather than one single great filter. As someone else mentioned in these comments we might also be very early to the game in terms of the age of the universe meaning that there has been a lot less time for all those random occurences to line up just right on other planets.
@@BoxStudioExecutive
He's saying we're in the outskirts of the galaxy where the stars have developed enough to be livable. There are no earlier civilizations because we are at the outskirts of the galaxy.
Eventually the expansion of the stars will make the distance to travel impossible but at the same time new civilizations are born.
If we would travel to the stars we will not be able to return and the alien civilizations maybe exist or not or be of human kind but our starting position will be lost.
@Tesla-Effect Sadly the deeper we delve into physics the more the universe seems hell bend on stopping anything from circumventing the speed of light. It goes as far as to seemingly reverse causality to stop stuff like that. The same with Heisenbergs Uncertainty. Its absolutely ridiculous.
So glad you make a distinction between Frank's and Brian's ideas
BOOK RECOMMENDATION:
Quinn I'm curious of your opinion on "Solaris" by Stanisław Lem, grandfather of sci-fi on the eastern side of the iron curtain
Cyberiad from Łem is one of the most ingenious piece of written art ever created. Highly recommended.
Lem is an entire different universe in scifi. Recollecting the time all the Lem Novels have been written, it is even way more amazing. It is that I miss most of the soviet and eastern european scifi in common scifi. Not just a cowboy story in space, but entirely different ideas and plots.
@@sapakangi7039 I don't remember its name, but I read this short story about a flying saucer crash-landing in Russia.
The village mechanic could not repair it because he didn't understand the technology, and even if he did, he would not know how to make the necessary replacement parts.
Aboard the crashed craft had been an extraterrestrial accountant, and even though he spoke Russian for some reason, he didn't understand the technology either.
He only knew how to use the technology, including what he used for his job, so his expertise was no use to him on Earth, nor to anyone on Earth, and he had no way of returning home.
@@davidwuhrer6704 That sounds like it could be something by Arkady and Boris Strugatsky -- but who knows! I would ask any librarian at any institution known for having a great science fiction collection -- UC Riverside springs to mind. Good luck!
@@GGirl99 Now that you mention it, it does have parallels to The Inhabited Island. I never noticed that before.
I am currently going through your videos, liking and downloading all of your videos. Keep up the work Quinn!
I bought the entire Dune series because of your passion. After a few months of not really diving into the books I started the audio books. Ive finished the first 2 but really only absorbed the first one. I think I might try and finish the first book and then pick up the audio books afterward. I find audio books to be difficult to immerse myself in if I am unfamiliar with the material. Either way I am committed to this journey because of your passion. I think to myself, if he likes it that much then its gotta be kinda cool.
I love that your videos go into a more general direction now, discussing these ideas independet of dune. Go on, I love it! :D
Ooh, can't wait for Cixin Liu videos. Fred Saberhagen's Beserker series was all about an active, predatory great filter. Conversely, Robert Charles Wilson's Spin trilogy is about some unknown force trying to shield developing cultures from threats from beyond.
Yay, Quinn is reading Cixin Liu’s Three-Body Problem Trilogy!
@@thedragondemands5186 sigh....
That's gonna be gorgeous! Can't wait for his content on it!😜
Didn't enjoy the series. I feel like he is the sci-fi version James Joyce. And I prefer hard sci-fi, so not sure why it just did nothing for me.
@@ChristmasLore I hope he doesn't do any content on it. It was fun but it was bubble-gum science fiction. The motivation of the characters and the races make absolutely no sense and come from the psyche of someone deeply helpless.
@@thedragondemands5186 how the hell did they get the rights to that?
For all scientific speculation fans here, check out Event Horizon by John Michael Gaudier and Arthur Isaac's channels on TH-cam. Both are science fiction writers and explore the possibilities of alien life and space travel, etc. Quinn brings a nice touch to the subject! I'm hyped for more!!!
YES🙆🏿♂️, I remember requesting you to do a video on remembrance of earths past a couple of years ago glad to finally see it happening
Have you heard of 'Perry Rhodan'? Of course you have. It's amazing how little info you can find on TH-cam (in english) about it and it's another saga that extends for thousands of years (and hundreds of books)
Dude! I just stumbled across your channel a few days ago, been binge watching all your ASOIAF content. That led me to your Dune videos... You've single handedly got me started on a new serires! Great videos. Definitely subbed.
In Alastair Reynolds "Revalation space" universe, there is a super intelligent AI that culls species who get too advanced. I wont give away why this is but thats a hell of a great filter.
Was the video game Mass Effect influenced by this? The main villains do the same exact thing
@@jimbeam2299 Likely
Have you read Peter F Hamilton's Commonwealth Saga? Pandora's Star and Judas Unchained? Those books were really good and would be worth some attention imho. His Night's Dawn series is also a separate space opera series about his Confederation of Man. The Reality Dysfunction, The Neutronium Alchemist and The Naked God.
I had been thinking about this exactly a lot recently. Great video, I love the way these are constructed. The fact that Leto saw the end to humanity, would also suggest that other space faring peoples may have also experienced such an extinction. Of course they most likely didn't have a worm God that could guide them away from such a fate.
6:40 That's a heck of a statement - we don't know how common life is in the real universe at all - it ranges from every star at least having slimes to earth being borderline unique. Until we have more data, we can't really be sure.
So, here's my thing about the "great filter." Once you get beyond a few dozen light years, even the strongest electromagnetic signals we could conceive of (short of starlight itself) becomes indistinguishable from background static. Space, as Adams said, is big. The idea that no intelligent life is encountered within hundreds or couple thousand light years isn't that strange compared.
Question for you, Quinn. Is it ever stated how big the domain of humanity in Dune is? Even just the old Empire? Or if there's a range limit on the Holtzman drives? (X light years in a jump, for instance.) That can limit the ability of the setting to expand and discover (see Battletech, a harder sci-fi than some want to admit, where the jump drives have limits on how far and often they can jump).
Space is always being created everywhere, so doesn't that mean that from any given point, there is a three dimensional spheroid type shape, beyond which the expansion is faster than the speed of light? I mean, I assume the universe is that big, that most parts of it are just expanding away from us much faster than light, and permanently unobservable no matter what technology might ever offer... probably?
@@FUNKY_BUTTLOVIN It is, without FLT tech, but most of the more grounded sci-fi keeps things either within one galaxy (occasionally two or more if they're close enough).
We detect radio waves from space all the time and very powerful signals from earth have significant leakage.
@@nutyyyy Eh, note quite. Most things are way more powerful than anything we can generate, and the power we use fades to background static before it's much past a couple dozen light-years.
I second Alistair Reynolds' Inhibitor books. They directly talk about a possible explanation for the Fermi Paradox. Good stuff!
Hey Quinn,
I enjoy most things you talk about (and you even got me into Hyperion!).
Therefore I think you'll really enjoy The Expanse (books & TV series). It also plays with the idea of a filter, though not as explicitly.
What's amazing is that one of those factors is the fraction of Earthlike planets to all planets, and now we have a rough estimate based upon all of those detected planets. The Earth is a rare thing! It's nearly 1/3 the age of the universe too.
On the title: it should be "a" great filter, as many and multiple are possible.
Exactly , the solution of the Paradox must be a combination of all solutions with their possibilities to apply multiplied for the full effect
Then it should be: What are the great filters?
Because it is specific to Dune.
I can't wait for the Rememberence of Earth's Past discussion!!! I'm so glad you are taking the Three Body novels into consideration. Literally cannot wait!!
It would be great for you to look into The Expanse if you haven't already.
Nice to see the uptick in Dune content recently , I can't think what cause it!
BTW the Liu books are superb and I'd welcome your take on them, great work as always
Hey Quinn!!! I love your work!
This is one of the most fascinating things in Dune...no aliens. Dune is about human evolution. Its even more realistic when aliens are not around. Probably humans are alone in the Dune universe. I think the God Emperor would've known...since he had an all seeing mind.
In Dune human alienate other humans...the Navigators to me are alien....every being with prescience is alien to me.
The sandworms and the symbiosis with Leto2 are also alien.
Maybe his all-seeing mind can only see human civilization. I don't think he could see into the past before life existed on earth, for example.
@@Will-tn8kq
It could be. Awesome point!
Really looking forward to hearing your thoughts on the Cixin Liu books. The Dark Forest in particular has one of my favourite Fermi discussions in any book.
I would love to hear Quinn’s thoughts on Brian Herbert’s dune books.
DUNE VIDEO REQUEST: Please do one on The Wierding Way and shields. Description, training details, use, tactics of employment. You have an exceptional talent of story-telling. Bravo!!!!
Could an alien Great Enemy have created the sandworms? The sandworms by their presence imposed limits on humanity which Leto II broke via "The Golden Path".
Another great video, thanks for putting it together. One science fiction series I think would be very interesting for you to delve into is Iain M. Banks 'The Culture', its unique in many ways, grows on you over time from a slow ish start and is the only utopia that feels plausible I'm familiar (& and in love) with.
Perhaps you’ve already read it, but the Revelation Space trilogy by Alastair Reynolds really impressed for its world building, intelligence, and storytelling. It’s a generation spanning galactic space opera. Hard sci-fi with rich characterization and plot- lines.
Thanks for your work- always fascinating!
I second this. It is hard to start because it take a while to understand what is going on, but once you understand it is mind blowing!
@@YanickaQuilt Yeah, Revelation Space is probably my favorite followed closely by Vernor Vinge's Zones of Thought
Two notes; I believe its The Inhibitor Trilogy/Inhibitor Cycle (of the Revelation Space "universe"); and apparently there is a fourth book coming out this year that should bump it up to a Quadrilogy (titled Inhibitor Phase)
The human factions in this saga are fascinating and the expansion into much more in Galactic North and The Prefect are worth reading as well. Look forward the new “inhibitor phase” book in early Oct.
7:57 "To suggest that, it would require some leaps"- that's also a great description for Drake's equation. Square that and you'll get the description for the "great filter" theory.
The expanse book series,has an interesting “great filter”
Would be great if you covered The Expanse books and show, Mr. Quinn.
Which one?
@@defrary5569 basically there are no aliens because they're pretty much all dead.
@@no2party thats not entirely true, you still have the ones that wiped them out to deal with.
This is one of the few channels that gets an auto like.
I think you’d love Expanse it has great ideas, fascinating characters and intriguing plot
I've just started reading the books and i love them
Thank you Quinn, love that you always give me thoughts long past the video.
I think it is naïve to assume that we know all conditions that could support intelligent alien life or indeed that we would necessarily recognize signs of intelligent life if we saw it. We already have observed patterns in the cosmos that should not exist naturally.
I'd adjust that to "patterns in the cosmos that our current model of the universe does not support". I'd point out that it's still less than 170 years since we discovered a mountain range running down the middle of the Atlantic ocean, so assuming our understanding of the universe is complete is foolish.
If you were an alien looking at Earth from no closer than Jupiter, what proof of intelligent life would there be that you could detect?
Its a human assumption to assume Alien life is common without any evidence of it. We simply don't know. The odds could be 1 in a million or 1 in quintillion. One means the galaxy has many civilisations the other means we are a statistical anomaly. We ultimately do not know at all. We could be alone or we could not be. We might be very far from the nearest civilisation that could be many galaxies away. We don't know and anyone who says otherwise is making massive assumptions. Humans have believed in Aliens for thousands of years, it's the default position largely based on faith. But it's entirely possible that we are in fact alone - or at least practically alone.
Good coverage of the Dune universe. Stellar job!
I can't remember if you've looked into The Expanse book series before, but for me, they've been an amazing reading experience. It's a very different kind of sci-fi/galactic empire story. It shifts between whodunnit mystery, cosmic horror and a lot of slow burn (which I personally love, but I know isn't for everyone)
Thank you to introduce me to the notion of slow burn, I do not know about it before. By the way the Expanse series (books and tv) is really good!
The Expanse has a great answer to the Great Filter. There are aliens in our backyard, they just want to make a road out of our corpses.
I'd love to hear Quinn's ideas on Perry Rhodan. The story is massive in its stories and also in the number of books. Although not being well known in the US, it has influenced a lot of popular stories, in particular star trek.
Brethren Moons: Allow Us To Introduce Ourselves
Felt so depressed after that ending...
thanks for recommending the 3 body problem. I read it because of your recommendation.
"Now it's time to look inward.... and start asking the big questions"
Like is getting high on spice a Great Filter?
It is.
man i spend time every day listening to your thoughts on dune thank you so much for your knowledge @quinn's ideas
I've plugged enough guesses into the Drake equation variables to know that even with no great filter, there could be as few as 1 or a very large number advanced civilizations. 0 is the smallest if you don't consider earth.
The equation is just that. Intelligent in it's calculation but ultimately it isn't a rule. It simply can't be. It's just hypothesis. There could be everything from no aliens to many. We have no idea.
@@JohnnyZenith It is an equation. It is not intelligent. It is not a hypothesis. It is a tautology.
@@davidwuhrer6704 Of course it is.
you've said nothing
I just read "The Expert Systems Champion" by Adrian Tchaikovsky and geeze is that some bio-body horror. It creeped my out more than anything i have read in a while.
Time is the big one though isn't it? We are not just searching in three dimensions we are searching in four. We have been around for an eyeblink on a cosmic scale and we will be gone in an eyeblink. All these flashes of life We just need to accept we might never find alien life and that our planet's existence is but a eyeblink in the fourth dimension. Yes the great filter is actually time I reckon. Oh EDIT Cheers for the tip on those Cixin Liu books I shall check them out. Cheers for the upload old chap.
Commonwealth Saga + sequels by Peter F Hamilton
Troy Rising series by John Ringo
Axis of Time series by John Birmingham
Gateway series by Frederik Pohl
Troy Rising was fun, but not really anything to do with the Fermi Paradox.
Book Recommendation: Revelation Space by Alastair Reynolds. I think you would love the themes and technology in that book and series.
Pushing Ice by Alastair also covers the Fermi Paradox
@@dauchande I haven't read that one yet. I have it on audible so I'll get to it eventually. AR hasn't really missed yet for me.
Darn, I've just started reading God Emperor! Love to hear your musings on Dune Saga
What if there was a highly advanced pre-jihad AI that hid itself away from humanity, to become the great enemy
Who call themselves Marty and Daniel?
Read the suneater series
That's what I assumed when I read it
@@bradleynoneofyourbizz5341 or Omnius
And it tricked the god emperor into thinking he had won. This was all part of it's plan to insure humanity didn't have unified leadership.
Quinn discussing 3BP and Dark Forest philosophy!? Yes PLEASE!
it reminds me of Forbidden Planet the SF movie where an old alien civilization has destroyed itself by war before humans found and studied their emptied cities.
Not by war.
The entire civilisation vanished literally over night. Of course there were no records of what happened because nobody was left to make them.
But the doctor figured it out, and it was not war.
@@davidwuhrer6704 , oh yeah but it was their tehnology which got them not a natural cause , wasnt' it ? the giant electrical monster ?
@@redcapetimetraveler7688 That particular monster was of the professor's subconscious. (Spoilers!)
Technology made it manifest.
A _monster from the Id_ if you will.
What the good doctor figured out using the same technology on himself is that the Krell had had subconscious desires as well.
@@davidwuhrer6704 ohh like we could have unconsciously self-destructive desires, as a specie or as an individuel ? i don't remember if the movie answers that.
@@redcapetimetraveler7688 The implication is not that the species was subconsciously self-destructive, nor that all individuals were subconsciously self-destructive.
The professor held irrational resentment against the astronauts, nothing he would consciously express or even approve of in himself. Not even strong resentment either, very mild irritation at most. Which is perfectly understandable.
Yet in his sleep, in his dreams, this sentiment went unchecked, and even temporarily amplified, his connection to the machines of the Krell made his unconscious desire manifest itself as that invisible, unstoppable monster. Nothing too destructive, really: He could just have wished for them to all go away instead. But destructive enough to cause alarm.
Even just idle curiousity might have had the same effect.
The Krell were many more than just one individual. The implication is that they unintentionally and unexpectedly killed each other in their sleeps.
The professor states that the Krell, intellectually sophistated as they were, thought themselves above such sentiments, or simply didn't consider their animal desires to be a factor.
Yet with the power at their disposal, it would only have taken a few with bad dreams to wipe out the entire civilisation over night. That is what is implied, but of course there is no way to be certain that that is indeed what happened.
What is certain is that the professor, with his augmented intellect, was the intellectual equivalent of a Krell toddler. And that humans would not be able to wield that power safely, seductively convenient and useful though it would be. (Not in the form the Krell left it anyway.)
Alastair Reynold's Revelation Space, Vernor Vinge's Zones of Thought, SA Corey's The Expanse, David Brin's Uplift Series?
Revelation Space has some great ideas about the Fermi Paradox. Tobias Buckell's Xenowealth series also has some great ideas about an alien-induced Fermi Paradox.
If you want to go through all of the most common Fermi Paradox reasons, you should read David Brin's Existence.
Make more Foundation content. The show comes out this year!
Something that I believe would be right up your alley is Peter F. Hamilton's Commonwealth Saga and Void Trilogy (especially the latter but the first one is a fantastic primer).
I would recommand you to read "The Mote in God's Eye" as long as you haven't read it already. ^^
The Moties are the best ETs that I have ever encountered in a Science fiction universe.
Easily the best arguement for interstellar travel and space exploration.
And both sequels!
@@UnrepentantWolf Nah. I bought and read the 3rd book and it's just a rip on the previous 2 books, remotely mentioning the characters we knew. It's an entirely new novel, just riding the "Mote" for sales.
Seen that way, it's a wonderful novel and the glimpses we get of the previous characters are distracting and irritating.
Loved the description of "how do we get into space by ourselves" (which is necessary to be considered an "adult" civilization able to join the Empire of Man as self-governing).
P.S. The Moties were the first and only aliens the Empire had met.
@@veramae4098 But written by Pournelles' daughter with his agreement and Nivens
The night's dawn trilogy by Peter f Hamilton.
It even features al capone and fletcher Christian
Me looking at the entirety of the 40K lore after reading Dune: Wait, it's all Dune?
God Emperor holding bolter to back of my head: Always has been
Got a copy of the first edition 40K rules here. If you read that its not even trying, its just plainly Dune. :D
Main problem with the drake formula is that Ne and fi variables are constantly changing, and the fc factor is pretty limited to the inverse square law. Even if there was a planet within 100 LY of us broadcasting radio waves we would see it as background static.
it also fails on the front of what if we're the first in our galaxy. What if right now there is primitive life on other planets or the alien version of dinosaurs, or cavemen. What if the great filter is a quirk of evolution, the evolution of our minds and how we think. look at all the life on earth from the most basic virus to mammals, reptiles, insects, nothing thinks like we do. 100's of billions of different lifeforms.
I may not believe in aliens, but I'm utterly fascinated by the idea. I would love to be proven wrong, as being the only planet with life on it feels kind of lonely.
@@saphiriathebluedragonknight375 "There is no help coming... It's just us."
Paraphrased from one of Carl Sagan's famous speeches; I get that we want to feel kinship with something else in the Universe, but I think we need to develop kinship with ourselves first... How many wars have been fought because we feared or misunderstood another nation? How many wars have been fought because of cultural differences?
...And what makes people think we're going to suddenly be friends with any alien nation that appears? When we can't even get along on Earth.
We make a lot of assumptions as a species.
I enjoyed the Bobiverse books and you might as well.
maybe humans in Dune are the "Firstborn" of the Milky Way, and their expansion in the Galaxy removed any chance of other intelligent aliens* to appear...
*except of intelligent/sentient machines
A very good and powerful point. It is often asked 'are we alone?', it could be 'we are the first'.
@@JohnnyZenith Or the last. Only three new stars are formed on average per year in our galaxy. We're living at the very end of the starlight era. And about 97% of the observable galaxies we see today are unreachable.
This is always my answer to the fermi paradox. It took us billions of years to evolve, but only thousands to spread over the entire planet. It's very likely that in the next tens or hundreds of thousands of years (ie nothing on an evolutionary time scale) we will colonize every speck of dust in the galaxy capable of supporting life, disrupting the entire galactic ecosystem long before the next intelligent species has a chance to evolve.
@@JustOneFletch And then become extinct in time before the next interstellar species does the same.
@@davidwuhrer6704 That's my view as well. Technology gives a species a great number of pathways to extinction.
Along with the great recommendations already mentioned; Blindsight by Peter Watts offers one of the most unique explanations of the Fermi Paradox and the great filter that revolves around the nature of consciousness and the evolution of intelligent life.
There were aliens in the Dune series, just not intelligent ones, until the Futars were found (or created). Remember fur whales and schlag?
or ... the worms of Arakis
Love the teaser at the end! I can’t wait for you to finish Remembrance Of Earths Past!
To put it simply, the actual observable universe is about *27.87 million* times bigger than the tiny space occupied by even Leto II at the height of his empire in the Dune universe. So not meeting any aliens in Dune is not jarring.
No if anything is keeps the Dune universe grounded and helps it feel possible
@@alastairmcleod3635 I can't see what you are disagreeing with.
It is interesting to consider the Fermi Paradox and the Drake Equation in terms of a far future fictional timeline like Dune wherein humans have still not made formal contact. Cool vid.
Re: Drake's equation - it's really fun to play with, since you can plug in different values for different fields and get very different results. Makes for a cool way to consider how likely advanced civilizations are to be near to us, as updated info comes out from our newer and more sensitive equipment. The Kepler K2 mission has really changed the way I run Drake's equation now, and I imagine that the James Webb Telescope will do the same when it comes online. :)
with the naked eye humans can see 0.000003% of the milky way. i dont think that if you stared at 0.000003% of anything you could really describe it. The % of the universe we can see might as well be 0.
Good point, including dark matter makes things even more unknown and mysterious.
We are not just looking with our naked eyes though.
@@davidwuhrer6704 yea then it is 0.003% still not enough
@@1183newman You either vastly overestimate the naked eye, or underestimate the capabilities of astronomers.
The visible (to the naked eye) part of the electromagnetic spectrum is miniscule compared to what modern telescopes can image. (The entire spectrum.) And telescopes are not the only tools in use.
There are parts of the Milky Way that we cannot see. The largest of those is the section behind the centre.
More relevant here though is the limited resolution. With today's telescopes we wouldn't be able to detect Earth from outside of the Solar system. But that is something that keeps being improved.
I've always been somewhat bothered by the Fermi Paradox, because so many people take it at face value when it relies on a huge assumption that we currently have no reason to believe is true; and in fact, have every reason to believe isn't the case. It assumes that it's *possible* to make any sort of contact with beings thousands or millions of light years away. We currently have every reason to believe that light speed propagation is the best it gets, and on the slim chance that warping space is even possible; we have every reason to believe that it's highly directional and you can only use it to contact someone you already know is there.
The Fermi Paradox is science fiction, nothing more.
The Fermi Paradox is an educated guess based on intelligent hypothesise. That's what it is. As such it we have no idea as to it's veracity.
Maybe inter-galactic travel is impossible, in real life.
Do you mean "interstellar" travel?
@@bob_the_barbarian No I don't. Interstellar travel is possible. We know we can travel .9 to the speed of light which is good enough for interstellar travel. It's definitely not fast enough to travel to another galaxy through the huge voids between galaxies. If our search for life is only contained to our galaxy and if advanced life is so rare it only happens once or twice per galaxy or less. We may never find another advanced species.
@@buckwildsrq Just wait another four gigayears, and another galaxy will come to us. That should cut down on travel time.
@@buckwildsrq I had actually just thought you'd made the mistake so common these days of thinking that different star systems were "galaxies."
I don't know if you've noticed, but many don't seem to know the difference. It makes me very sad and increases my desire to outlaw the teachers unions. But, that only comes after the apoplexy dies down.
I'm enjoying this discussion.
Okay, secondly, yes, a Great Filter is in place, as the conditions of just about everything on the universe is hostile to life. Life as we know it has to have very precise conditions so that evolves and adapts to exist under conditions which, while allowing for that evolution and creating the environment in which it can happen, driving it indeed, are also hostile to it. Earth itself is actually NOT ideal for us, we are evolved "just good enough," basically.
The drake equation is so biased on what we define as life on habitable worlds based on an infinitesimal fraction of possibilities available to us in our solar system which we can only judge from robotic scrutiny and satelite images.
The Drake Equation wasn't a serious attempt to ascertain how muvh life there was in tg3 universe. It was put together to stimulate a conversation at a scientific conferrence.
You taking it too seriously.
@@jpgduff making a comment about it on TH-cam shouldn't imply seriousness. While I have your attention, if the equation is so casual, why does every conversation or video include it?
The Long Earth series (by British authors Terry Pratchett and Stephen Baxter) is quite good and refreshing. I'd like to hear your views on this series.
“We have met the enemy and he is us.” Pogo- 1970
What an interesting video! And a very important philosophical topic we ought to discuss even more urgently under the present circumstances. To me, who or what "The Great Enemy" refers to is ultimately not as important as the seemingly best solution against them: the Scattering. The God Emperor believed that humanity would be saved because it wouldn't be limited into a small part of the universe, but instead go out and explore more. This is rather similar to certain historical examples imo- when a power (be it a state, kingdom or empire) reaches its expansion limits, it starts to decline and shrink, until it's replaced. Therefore, pushing humanity to leave their comfort zone and explore is crucial for the continuous development and survival of humans. And because a scattered humanity would have many different centres of power, overstretching- which is a usual problem for our world- wouldn't be that damaging.
Check out Book of the New Sun. You can spend years trying to find all the little hidden details.
Ah. Gene Wolfe. Sigh. The "Soldier" trilogy is great, too.
I like Neal Ashers books. Reminds me of the great "Space Oprah" books I grew up with. Like the Lensman Series by Doc EE Smith.
Why do you skeptically compare BH’s books, but positively compare the Dune Encyclopedia? Why lean towards one extra-canon source and not the other?
Tbh not only does BH have a very different style from his father but the notes and ideas his father left unused just muddle certain things like the aquatic humanoids that don't appear to be related to humans in any way is so drying FH left out to streamline the series a a succinctly human saga. He never dove into digital AI either other than in the aftermath of the age of machines. He did seem to feel meddling with the basics of life as with face dancers was doomed to bring down whoever does so.
Dang Quinn, you're bringing up some seriously cool topics.
Maybe Frank Herberts books take part in a similar universe to Battlestar Galactica, where humans invent thinking machines (or Cylons), their machines rebel and wipes out humans, only to decide they want to become humans themselves using advanced technology, and then they too decide to create their own thinking machines who once again rebel. Perhaps in the Duneverse just like in Battlestar Galactica, this cycle has happened again, and again and again, and will happen again in the future.
Life is quite rare in our universe, based on our sample. The scarcity of life does not affect whether the Drake equation applies, merely the values of the variables. For the Drake equation to not apply, fundamental laws of the universe, luke the formation of life on planets orbiting stars, would havr to be different. Which also brings up a flaw in the Drake equation, in that it presupposes life evolves only on planets (it doesn't define what an environemt suitable to life actually is, but it does state that it occurs on a planet orbiting a star).
Two remarks: For one, we already have aliens in the Dune universe. Pretty obviously as well. The sand worms are alien life.
And humanity has already faced One Great Filter in form of the thinking machines and the Butlerian Jihad against it. Ofc in the original meaning (men controlling machines to control other men); but with the expanded uniserse and synchronist worlds, that already a great filter. the concept of the great filter is not limited to ONE great filter. There can very well be more.
Re: other sci-fi to check out -- Peter Watts. I'd love to hear your thoughts on Blindsight/Echopraxia, or the Rifters books.
Or perhaps it’s not carbon based life so we can’t recognise it.
Silicon based life is not possible...there was a paper from NASA that proved it.
@@isaacnickel Uhm, first of all, no. The paper says its unlikely by our current understanding. But seeing as our understanding is, well lacking, it is still a maybe. Especially if we think about life as we not know it. Because yeah, silicon based "organic" life similar to us? Very unlikely. But who says that there is not a possibility for nature to twist the growth of crystals the right way to create "life". Especially as it could operate on very different time scales to us. And thats not talking about the really weird possibilitys such as magnetic fields interacting inside stars to form something like life feeding of the fusion energy. Also a maybe but unlikely. Cease in point, we simply don't know enough to make a safe assumption, especially as life AS we know it is still pulling one over us and found doing stuff thought impossible.
@@theexchipmunk Silicone based life may be artificial life, if we extrapolate our present thinking machines well into the future.
@@langhamp8912 That is another posibility. Life does not necessarily have to occur naturally. And if we manage self sustained machines, they might survive for a long long time.
have been a fan of the Peter F. Hamilton works - the Night's Dawn Trilogy - Reality Dysfunction/Neutronium Alchemist/Naked God; The Commonwealth Books, and the more Cyberpunkish Greg Mandel Books. The Commonwelath Saga would be more in line with your love for galaxy spanning space operas, although I always personally preferred the Night's Dawn Trilogy for interesting world building, human divergence, and how a science based society would struggle with an almost "magical" impact to the species as a whole
Day 271983739 of asking Quinn for some videos on the Culture
It might require Prime Mover ;)
Looking forward to your videos on Cixin Liu, his trilogy would make a great tv series. For a book recommendations how about 'Hummingbird Salamander' by Jeff VanderMeer or 'Parable of the Sower' by Octavia Butler which I hear is going to be adapted for a move.
Love your videos and thanks for introducing me to my favorite series Dune.