4 ms·

The lifetime of the universe is so long that it's hard to reason about intuitively. Saturn's rings were formed about 100 million years ago, which is cosmologica

by ido 4y ago

The lifetime of the universe is so long that it's hard to reason about intuitively. Saturn's rings were formed about 100 million years ago, which is cosmologically speaking a blink of an eye. 1 million years ago is 1/14,000th (0.007%) of the lifespan of the universe, so almost trivially miniscule in cosmological sense. If some sentient alien civilisation got 1 million years head-start on us wouldn't they basically already have achieved any technological advancement possible?

867-5309 4y ago
the fact we have only been bleeding EM radiation for the last hundred years or so only gives us a radius of 100ly for detection - another tiny fraction of the galaxy
- bluGill 4y ago
  At most. Radio waves follow the inverse square law for attenuation, most of the signals we have sent over the past 100 years are not detectable out that far.
jonathanstrange 4y ago
Somebody must be the first, though. It is worth noting that assuming that we're the first (or among the first) seems no less reasonable than assuming we're the only intelligent life. At least it seems like that to me, maybe I've missed some argument.
- bluGill 4y ago
  All cases of this are astounding. No other life - astounding. Live, but none other intelligent - astounding. We are first, but there will be more - astounding. There is lots of intelligent life - astounding. We are the last - astounding.
- aflag 4y ago
  It's not unreasonable to assume we are alone. We have no evidence that we aren't. For me that's the strongest claim. What I'm saying is that not seeing any evidence doesn't reduce the probability of no other intelligent life existing that much. There is still a lot of unknowns and we are sort of still in the early phases of the universe, all things considered.
SkyMarshal 4y ago
Also worth considering is that humanity is not the first major species to evolve on Earth. Dinosaurs came first, about 230 million years ago, went extinct ~60 million years ago, then humanity came about 1-2 million years ago. Imagine some other planet in the universe (or even our galaxy) that went through similar geological processes as Earth and at roughly the same time, but on which the first species to evolve did not go extinct and instead went on to develop intelligence. That species would have a roughly ~200+ million year head start on humanity. Further, consider the planets at the far edge of the observable universe from Earth, whose light emitted billions of years ago is only just now reaching us, and which are much older than the Milky Way. What if any of those planets went through a similar evolutionary process and developed intelligent life, but billions of years ago. Such species would now be using science and technology completely incomprehensible to, and likely undetectable by, humanity. We're scanning for electromagnetic transmissions, while they're communicating via subspace, superstrings, ninth membrane, or whatever other exotic means. Everything we currently know about physics and the nature of reality would be useless in detecting and analyzing such advanced species. If they happened to detect and visit us, we wouldn't know unless they wanted us to. It's possible there are many planets in the universe on which life evolved, and the subsequent emergence of intelligent life follows some distribution of trial and error. Most planets evolved intelligent life after one or more errors (dinosaurs and the like), but some small percent developed intelligent life first, ahead of the curve.
- bluGill 4y ago
  > Such a species would now be using technology completely incomprehensible to, and likely undetectable by, humanity. They are undetectable by us, but this isn't because of how good their technology is (though it may well also be that good), but simply because the universe is so large and the speed of light so slow. Even if their first "person" to create a powerful enough radio had the idea to beam a signal directly to earth, it still wouldn't have arrived. That signal would have been sent before I sun even started forming, so there is no reason for them to have had the idea, but even if they did anyway.
  - deleted 4y ago
    [deleted]
snowwrestler 4y ago
> If some sentient alien civilisation got 1 million years head-start on us wouldn't they basically already have achieved any technological advancement possible? “Any technological advancement possible” (my emphasis) might exclude technological advances that would make us aware of intelligent life in other star systems. Just because we can imagine things does not mean they are actually possible, even with lots of time to try.

by ido 4y ago

867-5309 4y ago

the fact we have only been bleeding EM radiation for the last hundred years or so only gives us a radius of 100ly for detection - another tiny fraction of the galaxy

bluGill 4y ago
At most. Radio waves follow the inverse square law for attenuation, most of the signals we have sent over the past 100 years are not detectable out that far.

jonathanstrange 4y ago

Somebody must be the first, though. It is worth noting that assuming that we're the first (or among the first) seems no less reasonable than assuming we're the only intelligent life. At least it seems like that to me, maybe I've missed some argument.

bluGill 4y ago
All cases of this are astounding. No other life - astounding. Live, but none other intelligent - astounding. We are first, but there will be more - astounding. There is lots of intelligent life - astounding. We are the last - astounding.
aflag 4y ago
It's not unreasonable to assume we are alone. We have no evidence that we aren't. For me that's the strongest claim. What I'm saying is that not seeing any evidence doesn't reduce the probability of no other intelligent life existing that much. There is still a lot of unknowns and we are sort of still in the early phases of the universe, all things considered.

SkyMarshal 4y ago

Also worth considering is that humanity is not the first major species to evolve on Earth. Dinosaurs came first, about 230 million years ago, went extinct ~60 million years ago, then humanity came about 1-2 million years ago. Imagine some other planet in the universe (or even our galaxy) that went through similar geological processes as Earth and at roughly the same time, but on which the first species to evolve did not go extinct and instead went on to develop intelligence. That species would have a roughly ~200+ million year head start on humanity. Further, consider the planets at the far edge of the observable universe from Earth, whose light emitted billions of years ago is only just now reaching us, and which are much older than the Milky Way. What if any of those planets went through a similar evolutionary process and developed intelligent life, but billions of years ago. Such species would now be using science and technology completely incomprehensible to, and likely undetectable by, humanity. We're scanning for electromagnetic transmissions, while they're communicating via subspace, superstrings, ninth membrane, or whatever other exotic means. Everything we currently know about physics and the nature of reality would be useless in detecting and analyzing such advanced species. If they happened to detect and visit us, we wouldn't know unless they wanted us to. It's possible there are many planets in the universe on which life evolved, and the subsequent emergence of intelligent life follows some distribution of trial and error. Most planets evolved intelligent life after one or more errors (dinosaurs and the like), but some small percent developed intelligent life first, ahead of the curve.

bluGill 4y ago
> Such a species would now be using technology completely incomprehensible to, and likely undetectable by, humanity. They are undetectable by us, but this isn't because of how good their technology is (though it may well also be that good), but simply because the universe is so large and the speed of light so slow. Even if their first "person" to create a powerful enough radio had the idea to beam a signal directly to earth, it still wouldn't have arrived. That signal would have been sent before I sun even started forming, so there is no reason for them to have had the idea, but even if they did anyway.
- deleted 4y ago
  [deleted]

snowwrestler 4y ago

> If some sentient alien civilisation got 1 million years head-start on us wouldn't they basically already have achieved any technological advancement possible? “Any technological advancement possible” (my emphasis) might exclude technological advances that would make us aware of intelligent life in other star systems. Just because we can imagine things does not mean they are actually possible, even with lots of time to try.