3 ms·
200 billion galaxies in the observable universe, 100 billion stars just in this galaxy, and this one star among those quadrillions being the only one with intel
by throwanem 3y ago
200 billion galaxies in the observable universe, 100 billion stars just in this galaxy, and this one star among those quadrillions being the only one with intelligent life - this by you is the simplest explanation?
- bluGill 3y agoAre we the only intelligent life or not. Both Yes and No answers would be astonishing, though for different reasons. The question however is unknowable: the speed of light compared to the size of the universe is just too slow. We have every reason to believe most intelligent species will rise, develop, and die off (as their star dies!) and we never find out about them - either the signals never reach us before our star dies, or they have already passed us by.
- WithinReason 3y agoIt would just mean that life is improbable, which is perfectly plausible.
- throwanem 3y agoPlausible, sure, but such a vast improbability itself requires what would have to be quite a complex explanation.
- WithinReason 3y agoWhy? It could be simply statistically unlikely, nothing complex about it. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anthropic_principle https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anthropic_principle
- throwanem 3y agoOne out of many quadrillions doesn't seem like much of a sample size, for the kind of statistical analysis you imply.
- WithinReason 3y agoWe don't know the prior probability. Life being common has the same probability as life being rare.
- throwanem 3y agoExactly.
- int_19h 3y agoIf you throw a coin 100 times, and it's always tails, it is plausible that this just happened randomly, but I doubt most people would agree that it's the simplest explanation.