Why we might be alone in the Universe

[Anomalocaris]

No, it’s more like one person groping for 3 minutes with both his hands in water 3 miles deep and covering 3/4 of the size of the planet.  He is looking for an object,  But he has no idea how big it is, how deep it is, or where it is.

He is feeling for a specific feel, because that is all he could feel, not because the object would necessarily feel that way even if by chance his hands come into contact with it.

If all of our astronomical observations were done with only the naked eye, your analogy would hold up.  They aren't, so it doesn't.

Boru

The analogy is not trying to parallel the relationship between what we already see and what we can visualize now.  It is trying to recapitulate the relationship between what we already see, and what might yet be out there which our wildest imagination may not be prepared to touch upon for a very long time.    There is absolutely no reason why signs of alien civilization must reside within or close to what we can visualize now.

So If all of our astronomical observations were done with the naked eye the analogy would be plumbing the depth of the ocean with the tip of our left hand’s little finger.  But thanks to our technology we are now so vastly ahead we have now reached as unfathomably deep as our elbow, and have covered so much more as with both of our elbows.   It is inconceivable there could be things in the ocean we have not felt?  And we must take seriously the proposition that there is nothing to be felt?