Posted on 05/13/2014 1:43:32 PM PDT by BenLurkin
I think it unlikely that any intelligent life arose within 2by as most heavier elements were still fusing in earlier generations of stars, and galactic formation was still in its early phases. Plus the scattering of those elements would have taken longer still. I'd say we are constrained by the universe we live in regardless where it is.
We agree that the odds of a terrestrial radio signal having reached a system with intelligent life at this point is minuscule.
You did catch an error of mine, the bubble has a 200 light year diameter, not 100 ly. But I did make a compensating error in that deliberate transmissions form a smaller bubble. Taken together, that expands the number of systems that could have heard a recognizable signal a bit, to about a thousand or so.
Waddaya figure? one system in a million? ten million? a hundred million? has a technological civilization capable of hearing radio?
We've got a ways to go, eh?
I think that would be optimistic, at best. :’) That doesn’t mean I think we’re alone in the Big U though.
Sagan merely associated himself with Drake; Drake was an actual scientist, instead of the global warming demagogue and leftist that Sagan was.
"But I am not really willing to accept your premise, because it may well be that the means of communications they have are of a kind that we do not know how to receive, and that they would not have the means of communicating with sufficiently powerful radio or optical signals. That is something which, technologically, is too difficult for them but they would have some other means we would not recognize." -- Thomas J. Gold, 'Communication with Extraterrestial Intelligence' (Sagan, ed)
You are looking in the wrong direction.
Not upward and out, but in...at your DNA if you want to see intelligence prior to Man.
I read a sci-fi story once where the aliens finally got around to contacting us and were amazed that we didn’t know they were there all along. Pulsars, black holes and dense energetic clusters were all obviously artificial constructs, but we made up equations to explain how they occurred naturally. Pretty funny, we couldn’t imagine the time scale required to build and operate them.
Freegards
“In this scenario, powerful aliens sit hiding in wait to destroy any visible intelligence that appears. Hanson doesn’t believe that would work because if there were multiple berserker species, there would be opposing parties.”
The Berserkers destroyed all life wherever they found it but concentrated on intelligent life when it was present, unless it could help destroy other life. And it could be many berserker species mutually united in the eradication of life, especially intelligent life. Seems just as valid as his reason for dismissal of the berserker theory.
Maybe the motive to explore or contact others is very, very rare among sapient life. Hard for us to imagine, but we only have an example of one and it’s us. Maybe the galaxy is mostly comprised of super ancient cultures that are just content with their very comfortable homes.
Freegards
Unless, of course, we simply haven’t attracted the attention of the Berserker killer species, but if they should perceive our probing signals......
Yeah. I remember when he showed up at JPL to hog the limelight.
I remember watching an oldie (he looked young) on the local PBS station years ago, 1970s, in which Sagan was “explaining” red shift and blue shift, but kept having to go back and correct himself. In that book I quoted, I found a long contribution he made, right in the middle of one of the panel discussions (it is mostly a transcript of sorts) but it was followed by an asterisk. The footnote stated that he hadn’t actually said it at the time, he just thought of it while “editing” and stuck it in as if it were done live. The footnote didn’t mitigate this.
Pretty much any alien civiliztion would need a piece of real estate like the one we have.
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