Posted on 12/21/2024 8:53:00 AM PST by EBH
Is there some evidence suggesting that humans are the Galaxy’s only intelligent species? Enrico Fermi thought so – and he was a pretty smart guy. Could he be right?
In 1950, the famous physicist made a seemingly innocuous lunchtime remark that has caught and held the attention of every SETI researcher since. The utterance came while Fermi was discussing with his mealtime mates the reasonable possibility that many sophisticated societies populate the Galaxy. But somewhere between one sentence and the next, Fermi’s supple brain realized that if this was true, it implied something profound. If there are really a lot of alien societies, then some of them might have spread out.
Fermi grasped that any civilization with a modest amount of rocket technology and an immodest amount of imperial incentive could rapidly colonize the entire Galaxy. Within a few tens of millions of years, every star system could be brought under the wing of empire. Tens of millions of years may sound like a long project, but in fact it’s quite short compared to the age of the Galaxy, which is roughly a thousand times more.
So what Fermi immediately recognized was that the aliens have had more than enough time to pepper the Galaxy with their presence. But looking around, we don’t see any clear indication that they’re out and about. We don’t see any obvious evidence of a galactic empire or a United Federation of Planets.
This prompted Fermi to ask what was (to him) an obvious question: “where is everybody?”
(Excerpt) Read more at seti.org ...
We announced ourselves to the galaxy in 1945 to the early seventies. Nuclear explosions send a burst of gamma rays into space. An intelligent species would pick this up and know what it is. The first atomic test was in 1945. Thus our signal to the galaxy is about 79 light years. The diameter of our galaxy is about 100,000 light years.
Maybe they JWs knocking on their doors. They’ve heard the pitch and just want to get on with their day. Just a thought. LOL
“Extra terrestrial” is a very earth centric way to look at this. It’s the galactic term for racciissst. Ha ha.
Time is big too.
Given the size of the universe and the fact that we’ve been around for a tiny blip of time, what are the odds that two life forms with different origins are close to each other at the same time?
So what’s the first thing people from earth would do? They build a rocket and go to Europa. I don’t think we follow directions well.
Please quote me on that one.
Romans 8:22: "For we know that the whole creation groans and suffers the pains of childbirth together until now."
As I stated in my first post that you responded to, this would mean that any non-humans are suffering from the Curse. If you have a way to faithfully exegete Romans 8:22 in a way that makes such hypothetical beings not subject to the Curse I'd be interested in hearing it. Because I've never run across an interpretation that says the "whole of creation" is not the whole of creation, or that the verse as a whole is not referring to the cursed state of creation ("groans and suffers") that will be undone in the end times.
So, you figure God isn’t resourceful enough to bring Salvation to “others”?
And so much more!
I agree...after all the scriptures of the Jews and Christians believe in “heavenly” beings...angels, fallen angels, and Satan.
Even the Muslims believe in spirits...angels etc...as far as material based created creatures out there, I agree it is possible...as far as the whole of human research and experiences so far...not found, or clearly demonstrated....at least the SETI project should stop and recalibrate...their report should start as..”sorry, nothing yet, wait for possible success...drink your Ovaltine” instead of all the wild speculation, books, movies, conventions, etc.
Freegards
Yeah, you could probably make a very, very long list of all the thing that can go wrong to undermine advanced intelligence.
I agree. See my post #8.
I began reading SF at a young age and the early authors I remember were Andre Norton and Poul Anderson. Later as I grew older, I began to understand that some of the authors were explaining or advancing philosophies. Many good books and stories are out there by Asimov, Clarke, and Heinlein.
Strange isn’t it? For a period of time I felt like I was a male trapped in a woman’s body. And then I was born.
There are no naturalistic aliens. And were there any, they are too far away to do anything with. Consider all of earth’s special properties necessary for life. It is in the water habitable zone. The UV habitable zone. It has a magnetic field. The magnetic field is the right strength. Etc, etc. Now, consider each of these properties probability. Is it less probable than 1/10 that the earth’s magnetic field is the right strength? (too weak and the solar wind fries cells). Is it less probable than 1/10 that the planet is in the UV habitable zone? Do this for each property. Let us point out that MANY of these properties are far less probable than 1 out of 10. Next, multiply those probabilities together (1/10)(1/10)(1/10).... where we have just arbitrarily assigned each probability a 1 out of 10 chance. And guess what? All you need is 23 such properties, where the chance of eacn one is less than 1/10,
and VIOLA: you have run out of planets. There are 10^23 planets in the Universe. That’s all you get. So if your chance of habitable-for-life is less than 10^-23, you have run out of planets. And all you need for that is 23 properties which are less probable than 1 out of 10. And I think the most casual observer can recognize there are far more than 23 properties that make earth habitable for life, and each of those is far less likely than 1 out of 10. We are completely alone unless: God performed deliberate act of creation of an Earth-like planet somewhere else. It isn’t naturally occurring.
You win the internet comment for the day.
If God was lonely, why did he say let us create man in our image?
Good point! I guess that leaves leaves us with mischievous. ;-D
Except we’re like... well... mediocre at best.
I’d go with radio, and artificial lighting, which hit about the same time, 1870s-ish. But it’s an insignificant percentage of the Milky Way who could possibly know we’re here. And of the Milky Way is an insignificant percentage of the universe.
Yeah. And it’s an even smaller blip when you about how little time we’ve really been able to detect anything outside our planet. Plus of course anything detection would have to travel too. Let’s say one of our early high powered radio transmissions from around 1900 got detected by somebody on its 100th anniversary, so 2000 (cause I’m math lazy). And those aliens were all “hey, there’s somebody out there” and sent a signal back... well we ain’t getting that signal until 2100, 75 years out still). Space is big, time is big, people and our ability to see and be seen are small.
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