5 ms·

The earth is a life bearing planet with only 1 technological advanced life form. I would think this has a large impact on the possibility of detecting alien lif

The earth is a life bearing planet with only 1 technological advanced life form. I would think this has a large impact on the possibility of detecting alien life (its rare for life bearing planets, rarer to evolve sentient, even rarer to create a civilization)

AnIdiotOnTheNet 6y ago
It's actually quite possible that earth has had one or more technologically advanced, for certain definitions of the term, lifeforms in its 4 billion year history but these have all been wiped out in one way or another before being able to leave any significant trace in the geological record. The best evidence against this is the lack of evidence of plastics and isotopes indicative of atomic energy use.
- grishka 6y ago
  There are those Egyptian artifacts that we would've struggled to replicate even with our current technology.
  - enchiridion 6y ago
    I haven't heard of this.
  - todd8 6y ago
    Could you describe an example of such?
    - grishka 6y ago
      https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BNSb5gPdqsA https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BNSb5gPdqsA
      - todd8 6y ago
        Nice, I've seen large Egyptian exhibits at the Louvre and the King Tut traveling exhibit in San Fransisco. Very impressive indeed. The same day I saw the King Tut exhibit I also saw an exhibit from feudal Japan. The workmanship of the Japanese items was absolutely stunning, much more impressive than the King Tut items as one would expect from a period many centuries later. All of these examples were still done by hand. It's hard to imagine a person in the modern era devoting a lifetime to make only a handful of swords. What makes these items interesting is that they were made without modern tools or technology. Today our manufacturing technology could replicate these achievements easily. Even common items like grave tombstones can be produced in short order with highly polished stone and precise engraving. See [1]. [1] https://legacyheadstones.com/gallery/photo-gallery.html https://legacyheadstones.com/gallery/photo-gallery.html
Barrin92 6y ago
the easiest way to find possible life on a planet isn't technology but gas composition of the atmosphere, in particular 'biosignature' gases like ammonia, nitrous oxide, and oxygen among a few others.
aeternum 6y ago
Is being sentient or having a civilization actually required though? Given the wide variety of environments where life can reproduce, shouldn't even non-sentient life eventually escape into space? This removes many of the 'great filter' arguments. This would be more likely on a planet with a shallower gravity well than earth. Life, even bacterial-level life tends to spread out exponentially as resources allow, which should make it easier to detect.
jjk166 6y ago
This ignores a lot of nuance. There are a large number of species which have independently evolved significant intelligence, many of whom have been observed to use tools at a level comparable to our geologically recent ancestors. We currently occupy the "use tools to dominate the world" niche - any other species that adapts to use more advanced tools will come into direct competition with us. Regardless of how easy or hard it is to get into this niche, it's unlikely that more than one species will occupy it at any given time. However if we were to suddenly disappear, there are many candidates that could potentially get to our level within a few million years. There is no reason to believe life bearing planets are rare (all evidence points to earth-like planets being common), no reason to believe the evolution of sentience is rare (depending on your definition of sentience, it happened more than once here), and no reason to believe it's rare for sentient life to produce civilization (for humans, civilization has emerged independently many times).

AnIdiotOnTheNet 6y ago

It's actually quite possible that earth has had one or more technologically advanced, for certain definitions of the term, lifeforms in its 4 billion year history but these have all been wiped out in one way or another before being able to leave any significant trace in the geological record. The best evidence against this is the lack of evidence of plastics and isotopes indicative of atomic energy use.

grishka 6y ago
There are those Egyptian artifacts that we would've struggled to replicate even with our current technology.
- enchiridion 6y ago
  I haven't heard of this.
- todd8 6y ago
  Could you describe an example of such?
  - grishka 6y ago
    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BNSb5gPdqsA https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BNSb5gPdqsA
    - todd8 6y ago
      Nice, I've seen large Egyptian exhibits at the Louvre and the King Tut traveling exhibit in San Fransisco. Very impressive indeed. The same day I saw the King Tut exhibit I also saw an exhibit from feudal Japan. The workmanship of the Japanese items was absolutely stunning, much more impressive than the King Tut items as one would expect from a period many centuries later. All of these examples were still done by hand. It's hard to imagine a person in the modern era devoting a lifetime to make only a handful of swords. What makes these items interesting is that they were made without modern tools or technology. Today our manufacturing technology could replicate these achievements easily. Even common items like grave tombstones can be produced in short order with highly polished stone and precise engraving. See [1]. [1] https://legacyheadstones.com/gallery/photo-gallery.html https://legacyheadstones.com/gallery/photo-gallery.html

Barrin92 6y ago

the easiest way to find possible life on a planet isn't technology but gas composition of the atmosphere, in particular 'biosignature' gases like ammonia, nitrous oxide, and oxygen among a few others.

aeternum 6y ago

Is being sentient or having a civilization actually required though? Given the wide variety of environments where life can reproduce, shouldn't even non-sentient life eventually escape into space? This removes many of the 'great filter' arguments. This would be more likely on a planet with a shallower gravity well than earth. Life, even bacterial-level life tends to spread out exponentially as resources allow, which should make it easier to detect.

jjk166 6y ago

This ignores a lot of nuance. There are a large number of species which have independently evolved significant intelligence, many of whom have been observed to use tools at a level comparable to our geologically recent ancestors. We currently occupy the "use tools to dominate the world" niche - any other species that adapts to use more advanced tools will come into direct competition with us. Regardless of how easy or hard it is to get into this niche, it's unlikely that more than one species will occupy it at any given time. However if we were to suddenly disappear, there are many candidates that could potentially get to our level within a few million years. There is no reason to believe life bearing planets are rare (all evidence points to earth-like planets being common), no reason to believe the evolution of sentience is rare (depending on your definition of sentience, it happened more than once here), and no reason to believe it's rare for sentient life to produce civilization (for humans, civilization has emerged independently many times).