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The laws of physics are not localized to earth and yet we see life on earth among countless other possible earths with extreme immense distances between them th

The laws of physics are not localized to earth and yet we see life on earth among countless other possible earths with extreme immense distances between them that light (communication) takes thousands if not millions of years to reach. We see life evolving in the heat vents at the bottom of the ocean along with entirely different paths of evolution to create an eye. Why is this a mystery we have not seen intelligent life? Earths may be frequent and life as well but intelligent life capable of communicating through light AND close enough to communicate may be very very rare. After all, we are only here because the dominant dinosaurs with tiny brains died out changing the rules. In other words, I don't know but intelligent life isn't necessarily the normal end game.

Klathmon 8y ago
But part of the paradox is that "universe time" is so monumentally longer than "human time". Even if only a fraction of a fraction of a fraction of all life make it to what we could call "intelligence", then those beings are most likely millions or billions of years "ahead" of us, or won't be intelligent for millions or billions of years from now. At those timescales, even things millions of light-years away are "within reach" of some kind of contact, unless there is something making it impossible (like all intelligent life snuffs itself out given enough time). This is easily one of my favorite things to just think about.
- gowld 8y ago
  you don't need to "snuff out" life to make it undetectable to us, you just need something that prevents life from getting complex enough for interstellar travel. It's quite plausible that live ebbs and flows (like it has on Earth), but never gets large enough and powerful enough to be detected at remote locations subject to inverse-square signal dissipation.
- sebringj 8y ago
  I think that's a pretty good point. The vastness of space should be changed to the vastness of space-time which then makes it feel even less likely to find intelligent life which is a little sad.

Klathmon 8y ago

But part of the paradox is that "universe time" is so monumentally longer than "human time". Even if only a fraction of a fraction of a fraction of all life make it to what we could call "intelligence", then those beings are most likely millions or billions of years "ahead" of us, or won't be intelligent for millions or billions of years from now. At those timescales, even things millions of light-years away are "within reach" of some kind of contact, unless there is something making it impossible (like all intelligent life snuffs itself out given enough time). This is easily one of my favorite things to just think about.

gowld 8y ago
you don't need to "snuff out" life to make it undetectable to us, you just need something that prevents life from getting complex enough for interstellar travel. It's quite plausible that live ebbs and flows (like it has on Earth), but never gets large enough and powerful enough to be detected at remote locations subject to inverse-square signal dissipation.
sebringj 8y ago
I think that's a pretty good point. The vastness of space should be changed to the vastness of space-time which then makes it feel even less likely to find intelligent life which is a little sad.