Our server costs ~$56 per month to run. Please consider donating or becoming a Patron to help keep the site running. Help us gain new members by following us on Twitter and liking our page on Facebook!
Current time: December 25, 2024, 6:13 am

Thread Rating:
  • 0 Vote(s) - 0 Average
  • 1
  • 2
  • 3
  • 4
  • 5
Why we might be alone in the Universe
#18
RE: Why we might be alone in the Universe
(May 9, 2019 at 11:18 am)Anomalocaris Wrote: The third is entirely relevant to the thesis.   Even if we exhaustively eliminated any possibility of any technological civilization from every part of the entire universe whence any indication of any technological civilization can even be theoretically be accessible to us,  we would have ruled out the presence of technological civilization from just a few % of the volume of the observable universe, and just for one single conical slice of time.    But we are so far from having exhaustively ruled that out, that to first, second and third degree of approximation we can say we are 0% of the way there. 

In other words, we are not in, and has no prospect of ever being in, any position to observationally contradict the probabilistic assessment that other technological civilization likely exist in some numbers elsewhere in the universe.

Even if the average distance between any technological civilization that ever arise is 1 billion light years when they arise, there can still be >10,000 technological civilizations that arose within the observable volume of universe.

Finding a second data point is crucial to making any determination as to how common life is in the universe. As it stands now, the size of the universe cannot tell us a thing. In order to make any claims about the abundance of life in the universe (or lack thereof) we need:

1) To find another example of life. (We haven't found one yet.)

OR

2) Figure out the probability of abiogenesis. (We have no clue how probable abiogenesis is.)

As for technological civilizations and/or advanced life on other planets, we can assume that IF abiogenesis is fairly common, advanced lifeforms in the universe will also be very common. If advanced life forms are common, then it seems plausible that other technological civilizations exist somewhere out there.

The issue discussed in the video is that (for all we know) the chance of abiogenesis could be so infinitesimally small that even in an area many times the size of our observable patch of the universe, it may be unlikely for it to happen more than once.

If this is true, then it is useless to speculate about other technological civilizations because (without abiogenesis) such civilizations won't even have a chance to emerge.
Reply



Messages In This Thread
RE: Why we might be alone in the Universe - by no one - May 9, 2019 at 12:12 am
RE: Why we might be alone in the Universe - by Silver - May 9, 2019 at 12:17 am
RE: Why we might be alone in the Universe - by no one - May 9, 2019 at 12:41 am
RE: Why we might be alone in the Universe - by vulcanlogician - May 9, 2019 at 12:13 pm
RE: Why we might be alone in the Universe - by Brian37 - May 10, 2019 at 5:00 pm
RE: Why we might be alone in the Universe - by AFTT47 - May 10, 2019 at 8:38 pm
RE: Why we might be alone in the Universe - by Alan V - May 9, 2019 at 11:34 am
RE: Why we might be alone in the Universe - by madog - May 9, 2019 at 7:54 pm
RE: Why we might be alone in the Universe - by madog - May 9, 2019 at 8:27 pm
RE: Why we might be alone in the Universe - by Jehanne - May 10, 2019 at 6:33 am
RE: Why we might be alone in the Universe - by Jehanne - May 10, 2019 at 8:12 pm
RE: Why we might be alone in the Universe - by Jehanne - May 11, 2019 at 1:35 pm
RE: Why we might be alone in the Universe - by Brian37 - May 10, 2019 at 8:00 am
RE: Why we might be alone in the Universe - by Brian37 - May 10, 2019 at 9:34 am
RE: Why we might be alone in the Universe - by Brian37 - May 10, 2019 at 1:21 pm
RE: Why we might be alone in the Universe - by Brian37 - May 10, 2019 at 3:30 pm
RE: Why we might be alone in the Universe - by AFTT47 - May 10, 2019 at 1:31 pm
RE: Why we might be alone in the Universe - by Fireball - May 10, 2019 at 10:05 pm
RE: Why we might be alone in the Universe - by AFTT47 - May 10, 2019 at 10:43 pm
RE: Why we might be alone in the Universe - by Brian37 - May 11, 2019 at 8:41 am
RE: Why we might be alone in the Universe - by Brian37 - May 11, 2019 at 10:36 am
RE: Why we might be alone in the Universe - by AFTT47 - May 11, 2019 at 10:32 am
RE: Why we might be alone in the Universe - by Brian37 - May 11, 2019 at 12:42 pm
RE: Why we might be alone in the Universe - by Brian37 - May 11, 2019 at 2:33 pm
RE: Why we might be alone in the Universe - by Jehanne - May 11, 2019 at 2:14 pm
RE: Why we might be alone in the Universe - by Jehanne - May 11, 2019 at 10:01 pm
RE: Why we might be alone in the Universe - by madog - May 11, 2019 at 11:02 pm
RE: Why we might be alone in the Universe - by Jehanne - May 12, 2019 at 6:58 am

Possibly Related Threads...
Thread Author Replies Views Last Post
  Sounds like this might be a win for embryonic stem cells brewer 4 1192 February 6, 2016 at 4:55 am
Last Post: Fidel_Castronaut
  Alien Life (Intelligent Or Otherwise) In The Universe Kyuuketsuki 18 8759 June 2, 2009 at 7:03 pm
Last Post: Samson



Users browsing this thread: 22 Guest(s)