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This is basically the premise to the Fermi paradox: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fermi_paradox https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fermi_paradox And more specifical
by its_ethan 3y ago
This is basically the premise to the Fermi paradox: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fermi_paradox https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fermi_paradox
And more specifically the Drake equation (a subsection of the wikipedia article).
I personally think anyone's "answer" to the paradox just reveals their personal opinion/ what they want to believe, rather than any meaningful result from data.
- blfr 3y agoThis question has been (very unsatisfyingly) answered, or at least resolved: > When the model is recast to represent realistic distributions of uncertainty, we find a substantial probability of there being no other intelligent life in our observable universe, and thus that there should be little surprise when we fail to detect any signs of it. https://arxiv.org/abs/1806.02404 https://arxiv.org/abs/1806.02404 SSC has an article on the paper as well https://slatestarcodex.com/2018/07/03/ssc-journal-club-dissolving-the-fermi-paradox/ https://slatestarcodex.com/2018/07/03/ssc-journal-club-disso...
- JohnMakin 3y agoUnfortunately this conclusion leads to Boltzmann brains, which isn’t very fun.
- its_ethan 3y agoThis isn't a satisfying resolution at all, it's akin to someone saying "I disagree with the value you used for X, it should be __ instead" - which is basically what I said: it reveals their personal opinion/ what they want to believe. The article says they "incorporat[e] models of chemical and genetic transitions on paths to the origin of life" -- I'm not an expert but that sounds like the territory of some very unsettled science.