4 ms·
If we assume that life is common enough* that it will evolve independently multiple times in the future, then the chance we are "the first" is closer to that of
by mablap 10y ago
If we assume that life is common enough* that it will evolve independently multiple times in the future, then the chance we are "the first" is closer to that of being "the last", unless you have a convincing prior I'm unaware of. So it should be a pretty low probability.
Don't you think?
*Common in the sense of "easy enough to create", i.e. the macrostate corresponding to "life" can be made up of a very large number of microstates.
- Houshalter 10y agoThe first intelligent life to evolve will be able to colonize it's entire galaxy in a relatively short amount of time. The fact that Earth hasn't been colonized is pretty strong evidence to me that we are the first. To me at least. Even if aliens chose to leave Earth alone for some strange reason, we still haven't observed any evidence of aliens elsewhere. No dyson spheres, no signals from space, no stars arranged in perfect geometrical patterns. Let alone visits from aliens, either to help us or hurt us.
- mablap 10y agoWoah there, how do you support your first claim? The Milky Way is about 100K light years in diameter.
- Houshalter 10y ago100k years is tiny compared to the age of the universe. Even if their ships only travel a tenth of the speed of light, they could have colonized the whole galaxy in a million years. That's a third of the time it took humans to evolve from chimpanzees, and only a tiny fraction of Earth's total history.
- leakybit 10y agoOnly if the intelligent species survives long enough to actually achieve those things. The more we advance, the easier it becomes to destroy ourselves. How many years till 3D printers are able to make nuclear bombs.
- Houshalter 10y agoWell, yeah that's a plausible hypothesis. I tend to think the great filter is behind us. Most animals on Earth aren't intelligent, and it took a long time for humans to appear. But I did read something today about how a nuclear war almost happened at least a few times. Though I think that would only be a temporary setback, it would take an awful lot to exterminate us completely.