4 ms·

You piqued my interest, what makes you think there's any intelligence, artificial or otherwise, anywhere else but here in the Milky Way?

by Jach 7y ago

intrasight 7y ago
Space is big and time is long. You may have been thrown by a typo in my comment. Was "I've do doubt" but meant "I've no doubt"
- Jach 7y ago
  That's precisely why I don't believe there is any interesting intelligent life out there, at least in our neck of the woods (the Milky Way). Mostly the time aspect. The galaxy is big, but not so big that it would take more than 200 million years to send a von-neumann probe to every star. The galaxy itself is only slightly younger than the universe, over 10 billion years. In all that time not a single intelligence has arisen and advanced just a bit beyond our level to at least start a mapping project, let alone anything like megascale structures and other projects we would expect instrumental convergence on? That only makes sense to me if we live in a mostly dead galaxy that has always been mostly dead (whether the filter is ahead or behind us makes little difference apart from judging our own prospects), or if we're so deluded about the nature of reality that we might as well say God has tricked us into thinking we're alone until we're spiritually ready or whatever.
  - sytelus 7y ago
    The problem is that evolution up to human stage requires 1B years. Let's break this 1B years in thousand 1M year blocks. Assume that probability that all life terminates at each 1M year block is 1% due to events like super volcanos, astroid hits, solar flairs, ice ages, magnetic pole reversals etc. This leaves chance of only 0.004% that life will continue to exist after 1B years on a planet that was already viable. If probability of life serviving after each 1M year block was 90% instead of 99% then completing full 1B year would be astonishingly small 10^-44%. Current estimate in milyway galaxy is 20 billion Earth-like planets. However if probability for completing full evolution cycle was so small than intelligent human-like life indeed would be extra-ordinarily rare. Another thing to think about: Any sufficiently advanced life form would eventually do long term space travel and face with the fact that life is super rare. This will lead to them seeding life with their own genetic material to other planets. This will eventually lead to millions of planets full of life in span of few million years. However this hasn't appeared to have happened indicating that we might be the one who do this.
edm0nd 7y ago
I think because the universe is so infinite and vast the math makes sense there would be others out there. We just don't have the technology yet to travel fast or far enough and also cant communicate/detect them.
- Jach 7y ago
  The Milky Way is not infinite and not even that vast. As for "not having the technology", why not postulate an equal likelihood for heavenly angels? We just don't have the technology to perceive heaven, after all...

You piqued my interest, what makes you think there's any intelligence, artificial or otherwise, anywhere else but here in the Milky Way?

by Jach 7y ago

You piqued my interest, what makes you think there's any intelligence, artificial or otherwise, anywhere else but here in the Milky Way?

intrasight 7y ago

Space is big and time is long. You may have been thrown by a typo in my comment. Was "I've do doubt" but meant "I've no doubt"

Jach 7y ago
That's precisely why I don't believe there is any interesting intelligent life out there, at least in our neck of the woods (the Milky Way). Mostly the time aspect. The galaxy is big, but not so big that it would take more than 200 million years to send a von-neumann probe to every star. The galaxy itself is only slightly younger than the universe, over 10 billion years. In all that time not a single intelligence has arisen and advanced just a bit beyond our level to at least start a mapping project, let alone anything like megascale structures and other projects we would expect instrumental convergence on? That only makes sense to me if we live in a mostly dead galaxy that has always been mostly dead (whether the filter is ahead or behind us makes little difference apart from judging our own prospects), or if we're so deluded about the nature of reality that we might as well say God has tricked us into thinking we're alone until we're spiritually ready or whatever.
- sytelus 7y ago
  The problem is that evolution up to human stage requires 1B years. Let's break this 1B years in thousand 1M year blocks. Assume that probability that all life terminates at each 1M year block is 1% due to events like super volcanos, astroid hits, solar flairs, ice ages, magnetic pole reversals etc. This leaves chance of only 0.004% that life will continue to exist after 1B years on a planet that was already viable. If probability of life serviving after each 1M year block was 90% instead of 99% then completing full 1B year would be astonishingly small 10^-44%. Current estimate in milyway galaxy is 20 billion Earth-like planets. However if probability for completing full evolution cycle was so small than intelligent human-like life indeed would be extra-ordinarily rare. Another thing to think about: Any sufficiently advanced life form would eventually do long term space travel and face with the fact that life is super rare. This will lead to them seeding life with their own genetic material to other planets. This will eventually lead to millions of planets full of life in span of few million years. However this hasn't appeared to have happened indicating that we might be the one who do this.

edm0nd 7y ago

I think because the universe is so infinite and vast the math makes sense there would be others out there. We just don't have the technology yet to travel fast or far enough and also cant communicate/detect them.

Jach 7y ago
The Milky Way is not infinite and not even that vast. As for "not having the technology", why not postulate an equal likelihood for heavenly angels? We just don't have the technology to perceive heaven, after all...