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I’ve been following this topic for a long time, and I’ve noticed within the last decade or so, more and more people on this issue arguing that we could be the f

I’ve been following this topic for a long time, and I’ve noticed within the last decade or so, more and more people on this issue arguing that we could be the first intelligent species in the galaxy. For some reason, I’m very hostile to this idea, mostly given the age of the universe and where we sit in the light cone since the Big Bang. Are there any proponents of the idea that we are the first who can convince me otherwise? Another idea of that seems to be trending in fiction for the last several decades, from the Culture series to the Three-Body Problem to Westworld, is the idea of the sublime, and the proposition that the so-called elder species would have transitioned and left our galaxy some time ago, hence why we haven’t seen any evidence for their existence. Could anyone also comment on this popular idea?

xqcgrek2 4y ago
The universe will continue with most stars living for trillions of years. We are early.
- xwdv 4y ago
  And in the end humanity will still only have been nothing more than some percent of a percent of a percent of its existence at best. And an individual human life so short someone could ask if you ever even existed at all.
kevinventullo 4y ago
I’m not a proponent of the idea that we are the sole intelligent species in the galaxy, but I think it’s at least plausible. In my mind it boils down to statistics. Basically, it seems to me that many, many conditions have to come together for life to emerge at all on a given planet, and then many, many more conditions have to develop for intelligent life to emerge. If the denominator in that probability is significantly larger than the number of planets in the galaxy, then the probability of any given galaxy harboring intelligent species would be approximately zero. Similarly, the conditional probability that there are at least two intelligent species in a galaxy given there is at least one (namely humans here on Earth) is still approximately zero.
Jasper_ 4y ago
The galaxy is billions of years old. Human civilization is a few thousand. Human civilization with a significant radiometric footprint above noise is less than a hundred. And there's some not unreasonable concern that if we don't change our behavior en mass, the human race might cease to exist in a couple hundred to a thousand years. If that comes true, all of our human achievements will be a percent of a percent of a percent all throughout time. I personally think there was civilized life long ago, but it died out fairly quickly, the same way ours might. Time and space are so vast that there can easily be million-year and trillion-mile gaps in between each attempt at life that gets far enough to meaningfully search for the existence of other life elsewhere. Our universe is brutal and doesn't have any bias towards sentient life surviving. It does not care.
- encoderer 4y ago
  Yeah this is the heart of why the Fermi paradox does not convince me. The vastness of space and time mean that there might have been millions of other civilizations that have reached our current level of technical advancement with no real overlap.
  - bullfightonmars 4y ago
    The fermi paradox is a question, not an answer. The answer may indeed be one of probability of timing.
  - LarryMullins 4y ago
    The number of stars in the observable universe is really big, but perhaps not as big as you are thinking. Wolfram Alpha gives it as 10^24, which seems like a ludicrously huge number. But suppose for the sake of argument that intelligent human life on Earth were the consequence of just five independent "one in a million" chances. That's 1 in 10^30. Just five independent "one in a million" hurdles to clear makes intelligent life unlikely to occur anywhere in the universe at all. Now consider that advanced human life took a very long time to develop on Earth, even after multicellular life took off, which itself took a very long time to happen. Assuming that evolution inevitably converges onto something like humans is anthropocentric. It may be the case that life is reasonably common but intelligent life such as us is an absurdly rare fluke of luck.
technothrasher 4y ago
You seem to have created a little bit of a strawman in your first paragraph. You said that people are starting to argue that we could be the first in the galaxy, and then asked somebody to defend the claim that we are the first. Honestly, I don't think we have nearly enough information to be able to put much confidence in our ability to calculate a meaningful probability of life currently. Drake's Equation is fine, but without any way to validate the coefficients, you can make it say anything you want.
WhitneyLand 4y ago
>>Are there any proponents of the idea that we are the first who can convince me otherwise? There are Prof Kippling’s arguments. Why we might be alone https://youtu.be/zcInt58juL4 https://youtu.be/zcInt58juL4 Bayesian analysis of existence of intelligent life https://youtu.be/iLbbpRYRW5Y https://youtu.be/iLbbpRYRW5Y
shocks 4y ago
> The earliest life forms we know of were microscopic organisms (microbes) that left signals of their presence in rocks about 3.7 billion years old. And yet civilisation has only existed (that we know) for the last few thousand years. It seems that it might take a long time for complex life to establish itself. Brian Cox touches on this here https://youtu.be/aPOCP4GHJvI https://youtu.be/aPOCP4GHJvI at around the 7:00 mark.

xqcgrek2 4y ago

The universe will continue with most stars living for trillions of years. We are early.

xwdv 4y ago
And in the end humanity will still only have been nothing more than some percent of a percent of a percent of its existence at best. And an individual human life so short someone could ask if you ever even existed at all.

kevinventullo 4y ago

I’m not a proponent of the idea that we are the sole intelligent species in the galaxy, but I think it’s at least plausible. In my mind it boils down to statistics. Basically, it seems to me that many, many conditions have to come together for life to emerge at all on a given planet, and then many, many more conditions have to develop for intelligent life to emerge. If the denominator in that probability is significantly larger than the number of planets in the galaxy, then the probability of any given galaxy harboring intelligent species would be approximately zero. Similarly, the conditional probability that there are at least two intelligent species in a galaxy given there is at least one (namely humans here on Earth) is still approximately zero.

Jasper_ 4y ago

The galaxy is billions of years old. Human civilization is a few thousand. Human civilization with a significant radiometric footprint above noise is less than a hundred. And there's some not unreasonable concern that if we don't change our behavior en mass, the human race might cease to exist in a couple hundred to a thousand years. If that comes true, all of our human achievements will be a percent of a percent of a percent all throughout time. I personally think there was civilized life long ago, but it died out fairly quickly, the same way ours might. Time and space are so vast that there can easily be million-year and trillion-mile gaps in between each attempt at life that gets far enough to meaningfully search for the existence of other life elsewhere. Our universe is brutal and doesn't have any bias towards sentient life surviving. It does not care.

encoderer 4y ago
Yeah this is the heart of why the Fermi paradox does not convince me. The vastness of space and time mean that there might have been millions of other civilizations that have reached our current level of technical advancement with no real overlap.
- bullfightonmars 4y ago
  The fermi paradox is a question, not an answer. The answer may indeed be one of probability of timing.
- LarryMullins 4y ago
  The number of stars in the observable universe is really big, but perhaps not as big as you are thinking. Wolfram Alpha gives it as 10^24, which seems like a ludicrously huge number. But suppose for the sake of argument that intelligent human life on Earth were the consequence of just five independent "one in a million" chances. That's 1 in 10^30. Just five independent "one in a million" hurdles to clear makes intelligent life unlikely to occur anywhere in the universe at all. Now consider that advanced human life took a very long time to develop on Earth, even after multicellular life took off, which itself took a very long time to happen. Assuming that evolution inevitably converges onto something like humans is anthropocentric. It may be the case that life is reasonably common but intelligent life such as us is an absurdly rare fluke of luck.

technothrasher 4y ago

You seem to have created a little bit of a strawman in your first paragraph. You said that people are starting to argue that we could be the first in the galaxy, and then asked somebody to defend the claim that we are the first. Honestly, I don't think we have nearly enough information to be able to put much confidence in our ability to calculate a meaningful probability of life currently. Drake's Equation is fine, but without any way to validate the coefficients, you can make it say anything you want.

WhitneyLand 4y ago

>>Are there any proponents of the idea that we are the first who can convince me otherwise? There are Prof Kippling’s arguments. Why we might be alone https://youtu.be/zcInt58juL4 https://youtu.be/zcInt58juL4 Bayesian analysis of existence of intelligent life https://youtu.be/iLbbpRYRW5Y https://youtu.be/iLbbpRYRW5Y

shocks 4y ago

> The earliest life forms we know of were microscopic organisms (microbes) that left signals of their presence in rocks about 3.7 billion years old. And yet civilisation has only existed (that we know) for the last few thousand years. It seems that it might take a long time for complex life to establish itself. Brian Cox touches on this here https://youtu.be/aPOCP4GHJvI https://youtu.be/aPOCP4GHJvI at around the 7:00 mark.