|
Do Not Fear Jazz posted:If intelligent life is the norm, and we are not special, why haven't we been contacted? The thing about low probabilities is that given enough iterations they become nearly certain. There’s something like a quintillion stars in the observable universe, and it’s starting to look like planets are the norm rather than the exception. Life, in a very basic sense, is probably not vanishingly rare. I’ll grant that “metabolic process” and “self awareness” are miles apart, but there’s no reason to believe that evolution wouldn’t be a thing elsewhere, so it’s just a question of whether sentience is an advantageous trait. I’m not convinced that it is; a half billion years of natural selection produced me and all I do is panic about my inevitable demise Honky Dong Country posted:I think there's aliens and we'll prolly never meet one another because space is loving huge Yeah, if it turns out that FTL travel actually is literally impossible, then that puts a pretty big damper on expansion capability. Or there actually is a Great Filter. Dross fucked around with this message at 06:42 on Feb 23, 2021 |
#
¿
Feb 23, 2021 06:40
|
|
|
|
| # ¿ Apr 27, 2024 03:29 |
|
|
GABA ghoul posted:We have no idea how probable abiogenesis is though. If you plug in the numbers it could turn out that you would only expect to observe the occurrence of life one or two times per 10 billion years in the whole universe. Like, yeah, the number of planets in the universe has a pretty huge exponent, but so do things in organic chemistry, just with the opposite sign. Sure, but until a few decades ago we also had no idea how probable planetary formation was, and it turns out the answer is “very.” It’s estimated that about 20-25% of Sun-like stars have an Earth sized planet in the habitable zone. And that’s with narrowing the definition of “life” to that which is similar to Earth’s. As of now, we know of one planet that has been proven to harbor life and a few which do not appear to with our currently limited observation capability. I know there’s a frame of reference issue there, but that’s the data we have.
|
|
#
¿
Feb 23, 2021 18:48
|
|
|
If I were an intelligent alien species I would not contact us. What’s always been really bizarre to me is that there seems to be only one higher thinking species on Earth.
|
|
#
¿
Feb 24, 2021 17:32
|
|