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Or the great filter is a misconception based on an extremely myopic view on the universe.

• exe34 2y ago
  possibly, but absence of evidence isn't evidence of presence.
• MattPalmer1086 2y ago
  Well true, the great filter may not be the entire explanation for the Fermi paradox. It seems uncontroversial though that the probability of each of the steps to get from lifeless to intelligent life will be a factor.
  • A_D_E_P_T 2y ago
    Possibly, but there's almost no way to meaningfully weigh any of the factors -- we still can't say to any degree of certainty whether the emergence of unicellular life in the cosmos is common or exceptionally rare -- so it's useless as a predictive tool, and highly constraining as a thought experiment.
    • MattPalmer1086 2y ago
      You say there's no way to weigh any of the factors, but the point of my original post was that the emergence of complex life more than once means that step is not as hard as it could have been. We also now know that the creation of organic molecules is commonplace in the cosmos. True, we don't get any predictive power from this. We're just exploring the space of possibilities, and there's still a lot of unknowns. I still see value in a thought framework like this to guide that exploration, but maybe there's a better approach?