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This is nice work. I am amazed at the advances in planet discovery from "other stars 'might' have planets" to post Kepler "more than half the stars have planets

This is nice work. I am amazed at the advances in planet discovery from "other stars 'might' have planets" to post Kepler "more than half the stars have planets." The other "unknown" is under what conditions can intelligent life evolve? Once you know that window, the Drake equation gets even more interesting. The notion that we are the only intelligent species in the galaxy seems more and more unlikely.

charlesdenault 6y ago
Not to mention these are gas giants at a relatively nearby star (300 lightyears away) and we consider the universe is something shy of 100 billion lightyears in diameter. We're not even scratching the surface!
Vysero 6y ago
I think it's super cool personally, and inspiring. Imho, the notion seems rather silly at this point.
rkagerer 6y ago
The pictures are much better quality than I expected! I thought I'd be lucky to see a couple specks. These are reminiscent of (and a bit better than) looking at Jupiter through a small refractor.
runarberg 6y ago
Question: What do you consider ‘intelligence’? I mean, we don’t need to look outside our own planet to find traits of what I consider intelligent behavior in other species. I have a feeling that if we find an alien species it wont be intelligent, simply because we won’t define it as such. They might even have technology we couldn’t even begin to understand, but at the same time they will probably fail at exhibiting something we consider basic. And worse, they will have no way of being taught. Aside: I suggest in the future—if you want to avoid pedantic comment like these—that you reword your last sentence to include intelligent life on earth, e.g. “The notion that earth is the only planet to harbor intelligent life...”
- ChuckMcM 6y ago
  Its a fair question. My take on it is more toward the introspection/self-analytical side of the argument than the tool-using/self-awareness side. Though both are clearly "intelligent" in the dictionary definition. In casual conversation however, per Gretchen McCulloch's book "Because Internet"[1], I tend to stick with phrases that are most accessible rather than those that are most precise. My experience is that being overly precise in my speech can be off-putting to people. Enough so, that when I have encouraged feedback, both positive and negative, on my communication skills it came up more than once as "making you seem like you are showing off how much you know about something and making others feel dumb." [1] Really a great read, my daughter got it for me for my birthday and I thoroughly enjoyed it.
  - runarberg 6y ago
    Fair enough. I do think that finding evidence of extra-terrestrial life would be amazing enough. If we could then later explore how life outside our own planet behaves, I am in no doubt that our minds will be blown. And if we find a way to communicate with one of these species... perhaps by that time any philosophical speculation on what intelligence is will be rendered obsolete.
  - nitrogen 6y ago
    making you seem like you are showing off how much you know about something and making others feel dumb I wish we could get past this (finding intelligence offensive while finding physical strength appealing) as a species. But until then it's good advice. It's also a bit of a double bind: if you're not precise enough, someone will be offended by your ambiguity. If you're too precise, someone will be offended by your precision. It limits the rate at which experts can convey knowledge, which can be problematic at work as teams are limited to the pace of whoever is most offended.
    - eru 6y ago
      When communicating face-to-face, you typically have real time feedback. So you can afford to be more potentially ambiguous, because you monitor for misunderstandings, and clear them up as they arise. If you want to go all mathematical, that's similar to just sticking a checksum on tcp packets and resending vs the lengths that CD-ROMs go to correct errors. Or to bring another analogy, compare an interactive proof (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Interactive_proof_system https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Interactive_proof_system) with a more conventional formal proof. As an aside, people do admire intelligence in real life perhaps more so than physical strength, but a minimum of social acumen goes a long way.
kazagistar 6y ago
The more unlikely it gets that we would be the only intelligent life, the more dire our future outlook, due to the lack of signs of intelligent civilization in the stars. If they must have existed, then there must also be a reason they don't anymore.
- ShamelessC 6y ago
  There's also the Dark Forest theory which suggests any space faring civilization which broadcasts signals too loudly is "quickly" eliminated/threatened by a more advanced civilization. All that remain are the civilizations smart enough to remain silent.
- misja111 6y ago
  It can simply be that civilisations, no matter how intelligent, do not send out any signals that are strong enough for us to detect from our distance.
  - kazagistar 6y ago
    Its not signals. They should already be here if interstellar colonization is at all possible.
    - drcongo 6y ago
      Couldn't they just be at a similar evolutionary level to us, looking at the first photo of our solar system taken from theirs?
      - defnotashton2 6y ago
        I think the earth is considered relatively young and so are humans compared to the universe so there should be others. Hence the Fermi paradox.
    - pharke 6y ago
      I don't think there is sufficient evidence to say that an automated probe has not already visited our solar system. Let's consider two probe types Von Neumann and Bracewell Von Neumann: 1) They arrived too early for us to have a chance of detecting them and they left little trace 2) One or more have arrived recently but they are discrete e.g. no active propulsion, passive sensors, tight beam communication, they only harvest a small amount of material for self-replication etc. 3) We just aren't looking hard enough, space is big and we have limited resources devoted to this pursuit 4) We've observed the activity of a probe but we mistook it for an anomaly or a natural occurrence Bracewell: 1) Non-self replicating and arrived and left too early 2) Present but not fully autonomous and awaiting confirmation to begin contact (could be a long time waiting depending on distance from home) 3) Present, fully autonomous but we haven't met the criteria to begin contact 4) Present, fully autonomous, has attempted to contact us but we lack the ability to detect and understand their method of communication 5) Present, fully autonomous, has successfully contacted us but whoever was in contact has successfully convinced the probe to not make itself more widely known and has managed to keep their own communication with it a secret (probably the most unlikely scenario but still possible if the probe has protocols for dealing with local geopolitics) If we're talking about colonization by the alien species itself there are still further explanations for silence: 1) All civilizations capable of reaching us have some equivalent of the "Prime Directive" where they do not forcibly colonize or contact primitive civilizations 2) No civilizations attempt to colonize the entire galaxy, perhaps they all focus on fully utilizing each solar system as they need it, maybe they eventually run out of needs that require expansion. The human population is trending towards replacement level birthrate within the next 100 years, if that is a common trend for all intelligent life then their population may simply stop expanding at some point and after a limited number of systems are colonized they may not have enough population to support further expansion. Maybe birthrates actually trend to 0 and lifespan approaches immortality. 3) Maybe colonizing planets is a dumb idea. Gravity wells are hard to get out of so once your civilization moves to space maybe it just stays in space. We are proposing generation ships as a main method of colonization but if the ship is good enough to live on for generations then why disembark? Why not just continue to live in space habitats and travel the galaxy continuously? Planets are dangerous and unpredictable with uncontrolled weather, volcanism, asteroid impacts, solar flares, etc. If you build a synthetic world you don't need to worry about that. 4) There might be other alternatives, upload to VR, conversion to another form of matter, time travel, alternate universes. These are pretty unlikely but so is the probability that we are the only life to have emerged in such a vast galaxy.
visarga 6y ago
I would like to see your calculations for the number of intelligent civilizations in our galaxy. How many? What percentage? Do they exist on any kind of scale? Are there any major differences between them? Thanks!
defnotashton2 6y ago
I think simply based on size, you would be crazy to not think there is life out there. I think that if we were truly the only ones out here that would be the best evidence for God..

charlesdenault 6y ago

Not to mention these are gas giants at a relatively nearby star (300 lightyears away) and we consider the universe is something shy of 100 billion lightyears in diameter. We're not even scratching the surface!

Vysero 6y ago

I think it's super cool personally, and inspiring. Imho, the notion seems rather silly at this point.

rkagerer 6y ago

The pictures are much better quality than I expected! I thought I'd be lucky to see a couple specks. These are reminiscent of (and a bit better than) looking at Jupiter through a small refractor.

runarberg 6y ago

Question: What do you consider ‘intelligence’? I mean, we don’t need to look outside our own planet to find traits of what I consider intelligent behavior in other species. I have a feeling that if we find an alien species it wont be intelligent, simply because we won’t define it as such. They might even have technology we couldn’t even begin to understand, but at the same time they will probably fail at exhibiting something we consider basic. And worse, they will have no way of being taught. Aside: I suggest in the future—if you want to avoid pedantic comment like these—that you reword your last sentence to include intelligent life on earth, e.g. “The notion that earth is the only planet to harbor intelligent life...”

ChuckMcM 6y ago
Its a fair question. My take on it is more toward the introspection/self-analytical side of the argument than the tool-using/self-awareness side. Though both are clearly "intelligent" in the dictionary definition. In casual conversation however, per Gretchen McCulloch's book "Because Internet"[1], I tend to stick with phrases that are most accessible rather than those that are most precise. My experience is that being overly precise in my speech can be off-putting to people. Enough so, that when I have encouraged feedback, both positive and negative, on my communication skills it came up more than once as "making you seem like you are showing off how much you know about something and making others feel dumb." [1] Really a great read, my daughter got it for me for my birthday and I thoroughly enjoyed it.
- runarberg 6y ago
  Fair enough. I do think that finding evidence of extra-terrestrial life would be amazing enough. If we could then later explore how life outside our own planet behaves, I am in no doubt that our minds will be blown. And if we find a way to communicate with one of these species... perhaps by that time any philosophical speculation on what intelligence is will be rendered obsolete.
- nitrogen 6y ago
  making you seem like you are showing off how much you know about something and making others feel dumb I wish we could get past this (finding intelligence offensive while finding physical strength appealing) as a species. But until then it's good advice. It's also a bit of a double bind: if you're not precise enough, someone will be offended by your ambiguity. If you're too precise, someone will be offended by your precision. It limits the rate at which experts can convey knowledge, which can be problematic at work as teams are limited to the pace of whoever is most offended.
  - eru 6y ago
    When communicating face-to-face, you typically have real time feedback. So you can afford to be more potentially ambiguous, because you monitor for misunderstandings, and clear them up as they arise. If you want to go all mathematical, that's similar to just sticking a checksum on tcp packets and resending vs the lengths that CD-ROMs go to correct errors. Or to bring another analogy, compare an interactive proof (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Interactive_proof_system https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Interactive_proof_system) with a more conventional formal proof. As an aside, people do admire intelligence in real life perhaps more so than physical strength, but a minimum of social acumen goes a long way.

kazagistar 6y ago

The more unlikely it gets that we would be the only intelligent life, the more dire our future outlook, due to the lack of signs of intelligent civilization in the stars. If they must have existed, then there must also be a reason they don't anymore.

ShamelessC 6y ago
There's also the Dark Forest theory which suggests any space faring civilization which broadcasts signals too loudly is "quickly" eliminated/threatened by a more advanced civilization. All that remain are the civilizations smart enough to remain silent.
misja111 6y ago
It can simply be that civilisations, no matter how intelligent, do not send out any signals that are strong enough for us to detect from our distance.
- kazagistar 6y ago
  Its not signals. They should already be here if interstellar colonization is at all possible.
  - drcongo 6y ago
    Couldn't they just be at a similar evolutionary level to us, looking at the first photo of our solar system taken from theirs?
    - defnotashton2 6y ago
      I think the earth is considered relatively young and so are humans compared to the universe so there should be others. Hence the Fermi paradox.
  - pharke 6y ago
    I don't think there is sufficient evidence to say that an automated probe has not already visited our solar system. Let's consider two probe types Von Neumann and Bracewell Von Neumann: 1) They arrived too early for us to have a chance of detecting them and they left little trace 2) One or more have arrived recently but they are discrete e.g. no active propulsion, passive sensors, tight beam communication, they only harvest a small amount of material for self-replication etc. 3) We just aren't looking hard enough, space is big and we have limited resources devoted to this pursuit 4) We've observed the activity of a probe but we mistook it for an anomaly or a natural occurrence Bracewell: 1) Non-self replicating and arrived and left too early 2) Present but not fully autonomous and awaiting confirmation to begin contact (could be a long time waiting depending on distance from home) 3) Present, fully autonomous but we haven't met the criteria to begin contact 4) Present, fully autonomous, has attempted to contact us but we lack the ability to detect and understand their method of communication 5) Present, fully autonomous, has successfully contacted us but whoever was in contact has successfully convinced the probe to not make itself more widely known and has managed to keep their own communication with it a secret (probably the most unlikely scenario but still possible if the probe has protocols for dealing with local geopolitics) If we're talking about colonization by the alien species itself there are still further explanations for silence: 1) All civilizations capable of reaching us have some equivalent of the "Prime Directive" where they do not forcibly colonize or contact primitive civilizations 2) No civilizations attempt to colonize the entire galaxy, perhaps they all focus on fully utilizing each solar system as they need it, maybe they eventually run out of needs that require expansion. The human population is trending towards replacement level birthrate within the next 100 years, if that is a common trend for all intelligent life then their population may simply stop expanding at some point and after a limited number of systems are colonized they may not have enough population to support further expansion. Maybe birthrates actually trend to 0 and lifespan approaches immortality. 3) Maybe colonizing planets is a dumb idea. Gravity wells are hard to get out of so once your civilization moves to space maybe it just stays in space. We are proposing generation ships as a main method of colonization but if the ship is good enough to live on for generations then why disembark? Why not just continue to live in space habitats and travel the galaxy continuously? Planets are dangerous and unpredictable with uncontrolled weather, volcanism, asteroid impacts, solar flares, etc. If you build a synthetic world you don't need to worry about that. 4) There might be other alternatives, upload to VR, conversion to another form of matter, time travel, alternate universes. These are pretty unlikely but so is the probability that we are the only life to have emerged in such a vast galaxy.

visarga 6y ago

I would like to see your calculations for the number of intelligent civilizations in our galaxy. How many? What percentage? Do they exist on any kind of scale? Are there any major differences between them? Thanks!

defnotashton2 6y ago

I think simply based on size, you would be crazy to not think there is life out there. I think that if we were truly the only ones out here that would be the best evidence for God..