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Novice question here: What use is there in adding a term like that to the Drake equation? It seems like it's value would be completely uncertain (like other ter

Novice question here: What use is there in adding a term like that to the Drake equation? It seems like it's value would be completely uncertain (like other terms in the equation) and so you have overwhelming uncertainty in the output of the equation.

andrewflnr 2y ago
Your instinct is largely correct. This is a silly idea.
simne 2y ago
Right answer is - we don't know. Unfortunately, Drake equation now is just estimate, without any real data, as humanity just don't know example of any extraterrestrial life at all. And what even more sad, our empty knowledge is not because non-existence of life in Universe, but because our science is very young and we just don't have powerful enough instruments to detect et life. We could only be sure, life was not exist on Moon equatorial stripe on surface, but for example we cannot be sure about deep under-surface and about polar regions.
- simne 2y ago
  Things are even worse for intelligent life. Because we only could understand et with similar to our level of sci/tech development, but what if we encounter civilization, even one magnitude older than our? For example, now our science have evidences about human civilizations up to somewhere 10k..50k years, and our current civilization oldest evidences are about 5k years. Imagine, how could look our civilization in 500k years? And if we use adequate considerations, human life was appear on Earth ~ 500 thousands years ago, and before was possible reptile civilization, for about 10 millions years, but our Earth become life planet ~ billion years, and exist planets in other star systems, which are tens billions years older than Earth. So what I mean, in our 5k years our civilization decided to re-circling resources and probably in ~ 100 years we could implement this decision and will become invisible to ets of our level. Imagine, what technologies would be available for magnitude older civilization. Could someone be sure about possibility of detection so much newer technologies? You may hear classification of seti scientists as Cygnus, Cancer and Pike. What I want to say, civilizations younger than our are detectable for us, but older are detectable only if them decided to contact us.
qingcharles 2y ago
I agree, I think poster was just throwing it out there as a thought experiment. Of course, if an alien race did accidentally nuke the universe we'd have some extra data for the Drake equation as we watched the shockwave coming to destroy us.

andrewflnr 2y ago

Your instinct is largely correct. This is a silly idea.

simne 2y ago

Right answer is - we don't know. Unfortunately, Drake equation now is just estimate, without any real data, as humanity just don't know example of any extraterrestrial life at all. And what even more sad, our empty knowledge is not because non-existence of life in Universe, but because our science is very young and we just don't have powerful enough instruments to detect et life. We could only be sure, life was not exist on Moon equatorial stripe on surface, but for example we cannot be sure about deep under-surface and about polar regions.

simne 2y ago
Things are even worse for intelligent life. Because we only could understand et with similar to our level of sci/tech development, but what if we encounter civilization, even one magnitude older than our? For example, now our science have evidences about human civilizations up to somewhere 10k..50k years, and our current civilization oldest evidences are about 5k years. Imagine, how could look our civilization in 500k years? And if we use adequate considerations, human life was appear on Earth ~ 500 thousands years ago, and before was possible reptile civilization, for about 10 millions years, but our Earth become life planet ~ billion years, and exist planets in other star systems, which are tens billions years older than Earth. So what I mean, in our 5k years our civilization decided to re-circling resources and probably in ~ 100 years we could implement this decision and will become invisible to ets of our level. Imagine, what technologies would be available for magnitude older civilization. Could someone be sure about possibility of detection so much newer technologies? You may hear classification of seti scientists as Cygnus, Cancer and Pike. What I want to say, civilizations younger than our are detectable for us, but older are detectable only if them decided to contact us.

qingcharles 2y ago

I agree, I think poster was just throwing it out there as a thought experiment. Of course, if an alien race did accidentally nuke the universe we'd have some extra data for the Drake equation as we watched the shockwave coming to destroy us.