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Posted on 07/22/2025 6:02:46 AM PDT by MtnClimber
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It seems unlikely that we could pick up a signal from any great distance even within our own galaxy.
Ping
What percentage of earth’s existence did it contain intelligent life?
why haven’t we seen evidence of intelligent life elsewhere in the universe?
We have. When they appear we label them Angels and Devils. Not only in the Judeo tradition, but in many cultures of the past there have been tales of “non-human” intelligent life forms.
It is our own pride that prevents honest discussion.
I believe this value is typically wildly overestimated.
One Ping and one ping only, please!...............
“...Why haven’t we seen evidence of intelligent life elsewhere in the universe?...”
Because we haven’t been anywhere.....
Maybe we shouldn’t want to be found…..
A superior intelligence might not be impressed by our “ civilization”
Ham radios. Nuff said. 😂👍
A superior civilization might not use radio communications for very long any more than they would use smoke signals.
The percentage of Earth’s existence that we have been generating radio waves is 100 years divided by 4.5 billion years. That is 0.0000000022%.
fL, fI and L are what are so unknowable about the Drake equation. And for all we know, fL could be 1x10^-100,000,000,000. The circular reasoning supporting the notion that fL is some non-infinitessimal number is incredible. And the misreporting just as much.
Do you realize when they report that they’ve discovered conditions under which it would be possible for an amino acid to form, it’s not even the right amino acid? And so what? To suggest that this makes life inevitable and therefore common is like saying that the fact that a mark on a stone resembles a letter means it’s capable that with an infinite number of marks possible over an infinite amount of time (the “monkeys typing” argument), it’s inevitable that the complete, unabridged works of Shakespeare will spontaneously emerge. Oh, except the letter that it looks a little bit like is epsilon, not a letter in the English language.
Oh, and that “monkey argument?” That says that if you have an infinite number of monkeys hitting random keys for an infinite amount of time, they’ll eventually type the entire works of Shakespeare, verbatim, consecutively, so anything could happen to exist by chance, no matter how complex. It’s based on false premises.
There’s not an infinite amount of time, not an infinite amount of space, and not an infinite number of universes as the argument presumes. There’s no evidence for a multiverse (which is not to say there’s no evidence for multiple dimensions, we just don’t know whether those dimensions are sparse or dense). There’s strong evidence against the notion of our universe pulsing. There’s a finite minimum size (Planck’s constant), and a finite size of the universe. The scale of these numbers is literally unimaginable, but nothing compared to 26^5,000,000, which is how many keystrokes you’d have to type to accidentally type Shakespeare. (Actually, more, because there are more than 26 keys.)
In fact, infinity does not exist, except possibly the forward direction of time. Our notion of infinity stems from its use in Calculus, but that use is allegorical. We substitute “negligibly small” or “infinitely small,” and we get Alice in Wonderland. (Literally: Lewis Carroll was a Christian minister who recognized the theological danger posed by the methods used to teach Calculus and wrote Alice in Wonderland to warn against it. There are, by the way, ways of teaching calculus without using the absurdities of infinity.)
See, 1 divided by infinity doesn’t equal zero. There are tons of mathematical absurdities created by this notion, such as infinity PLUS 1/infinity can be proven to equal -1. The fact that is “obviously” not true doesn’t disprove the math used to conclude that, it disproves the way infinity is used in arithmetic.
“Not only in the Judeo tradition, but in many cultures of the past there have been tales of “non-human” intelligent life forms.”
Exactly right. And they all came from “the Heavens”.
There is an eternal realm that is both spiritual and invisible. Jesus said, “God is spirit.” The spiritual rules over the visible.
The spiritual realm has beings (angels, demons - fallen angels) which can apparently at times become visible.
Why can we not explain this? Because we are so unaware of the spiritual realm. Jesus was totally aware of it - He came from it, and reigns now over both the visible (temporal) world and the invisible (eternal) realms.
God sets the universe before us as something that declares - by its un-measurable dimension - His glory and power. He created it in an instant by speaking a word - and it came into being.
We are fools to not see the hand of God in His visible, created universe.
This is based on a misconception anyhow. It assumes we will find it far away. When the reality is they are right here now and have been for thousands if not hundreds of thousands of years.
All was created by Him and for Him. John 1, Colossians 1. Earth is unique in that it was created for man - who was made “in His image”.
Both earth and man were created for what Ephesians calls “the eternal purpose”, which is to display and glorify the Lord Jesus Christ forever. For that purpose, Jesus took on flesh and became a Man - to go to the cross and die for man’s sins, and to deal a death blow (yet to be seen) over both death and sin.
He was raised from the dead to establish forever that He is Lord over both heaven and earth - forever!
Look into the rare earth hypothesis.
In a great number of solar systems that we observe, a large gas giant like Saturn will end up “crashing” down through the solar system toward the star taking out all of the smaller rocky planets between it and it’s eventual final orbit. Our solar system just so happens to have 2 of them right next to each other to prevent this “crashing” down effect and keep them in a stable orbit far out from the sun. They also protect the inner planets from debris coming in from outside the solar system.
The earth has a comparatively enormous moon to similar planets as the result of a previous impact. In addition to protecting us from impacts, it more importantly creates tides. Tidal pools are likely where the first life began. Without the ancient impact and resulting huge moon creating tides, there may be no life on earth.
These both seem like pretty unique circumstances.
I don’t think it is a “gimme” that there is life all over the universe. In fact, I might be inclined to believe that we are the only place.
I think the Drake Equation is misunderstood.
It’s NOT an equation in the sense that it is solvable.
It’s only an illustration of the various conditions we would need to say without doubt how many extraterrestrial civilizations might exist and our probability of discoveing them.
As our technology advances, we are able to estimate some of the parameters in the equation, such as the number of stars that have planetary systems and the number of those systems capable of supporting life.
Over the last years, great advances have been made in the detection of extraterrestrial planets around stars - when I was growing up, such detection was thought to be impossible.
But astrometry has progressed. It is possible now to detect the *gravitational* effect of a large planet on a star’s motion.
It is also possible to detect the small, small “shadow” of a planet passing in front of a star.
And more recently, the we are able to detect certain chemicals in planet’s atmospheres that indicate the chemicals are formed by living organisms.
So one, by one, we are able to arrive at values for the various components of Drake’s equation. But it will take actual exploration to find the true value of N.
“to boldly go where no man has gone before.”
Some few have been listening at the "water hole," using the red shift features a filter, and hear -- nothing.
One may add, "as yet." But to what effect? We grossly overestimate ourselves.
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