Ted Chiang's The Great Silence

In “The Great Silence” Ted Chiang presents the reader with the idea that humans and other intelligent species do live on earth. Communication between different species on earth can be difficult because they can’t express their thoughts to one another. According to a possible solution to fermi’s paradox, intelligent life would rather hide than to present themselves to potential enemies. Humans have a hard time trying to find other species to communicate with because they only focus on extraterrestrial life. Humans created the Arecibo observatory to send out signals into space and pick up any signals that could be sent by extraterrestrial life. Although Humans cannot speak directly to other species we are able to communicate with our actions and vibes. In the “The Great Silence” Ted Chiang creates a thought experiment that helps the reader understand a possible answer to Fermi’s paradox. Fermi’s paradox poses two questions the first is why haven’t we encountered extraterrestrial life if there are billions of stars in the universe like the sun that are capable of sustaining life. Second, the universe has existed long enough for interstellar travel to be possible, but why hasn’t anything contacted us yet? These questions are given a possible answer in The Great Silence when the bird explains his

Fermi’s paradox supports this claim because theoretically there should be species capable of interstellar travel due to the age of the universe. Although we haven’t encountered any life forms from other galaxies it doesn’t mean there aren’t any. Ted Chiang uses an endangered parrot to show that a possible reason for our great silence is due to or erratic and dangerous nature as humans. However, there are still some instances where humans have connected with other species and created special bonds in the