Great Filter

The Great Filter, in the context of the Fermi paradox, is whatever prevents non-living matter from undergoing abiogenesis, in time, to expanding lasting life as measured by the Kardashev scale. The concept originates in Robin Hanson's argument that the failure to find any extraterrestrial civilizations in the observable universe implies that something is wrong with one or more of the arguments that the appearance of advanced intelligent life is probable; this observation is conceptualized in terms of a "Great Filter" which acts to reduce the great number of sites where intelligent life might arise to the tiny number of intelligent species with advanced civilizations actually observed. This probability threshold, which could lie behind us or in front of us, might work as a barrier to the evolution of intelligent life, or as a high probability of self-destruction.