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(06-05-2024, 05:42 PM)argentus Wrote: Although it's a book/movie, I like the quotes in the work 'Contact' where Ellie and her father figure say:While the Drake Equation has variables which cannot be assigned, even if we take a minimalist approach, we are left with millions of civilizations, just within our galaxy alone. The interstellar distances -- at least within context of our primiative modes of travel -- are currently insurmountable.
- Young Ellie: Dad, do you think there's people on other planets?
- Ted Arroway: I don't know, Sparks. But I guess I'd say if it is just us... seems like an awful waste of space.
I believe that many civilizations have survived to the point where we are now. They either progressed past the point of self-destruction and grew, or they perished, never to be heard from again. I personally believe that we will eventually discover or report evidence that supports the notion that this is exactly what happened on Mars long ago.
I don't have a difficulty with the Fermi Paradox, because it seeks to measure distances that are well beyond our abilities. Are they well beyond the abilities of all the "others"? Probably not, but consider, if you will, how we humans relate to ants. We think they are amazing, and their social structure is worthy of study, but how often have we attempted to communicate with them? We consider them so far below our level of intelligence that communication is impossible, and yet, there is a wealth of evidence that they communication to a very high order among themselves. Same with bees.
I wonder what ants and bees 10,000 years from now will be, or 100,000, or 10,000,000, assuming us knuckle-draggers don't wipe everything out for the sake of social mores -- politics and religion.
Much as the red dwarf you reference in your name, there are world within worlds which we cannot see, but can only guess. We tend to guess that life out there is based upon carbon the same as us. What if it is based upon ammonia, or hydrogen? What would they even look like? Perhaps their vibrational energies would make them invisible to us.
Good question.
Carbon based like is what we know and almost certainly exists in various parts of the universe. Many many of them.
But is it the only element that life can be based upon? Probably not. There is no rule or law in nature that prevents life to be developed id it's not carbon based.
(06-05-2024, 01:59 PM)schuyler Wrote: Every variable in the Drake Equation is a guess or an assumption, which is a fancier way of saying it is a guess. They may or may not be educated guesses, but they are still guesses. Changing the assumptions about a single variable doesn't change that. It does not make the equation more or less valid.
Frank and Sullivan, the two guys responsible for this revision of the Drake Equation, also have some built in assumptions that are NOT part of the equation. For example, they bring up the limitations imposed by the speed of light, suggesting that a round trip to some other civilized planet would take longer than a given civilization would be alive. This says more about our understanding of reality than reality itself. We've convinced ourselves that faster than light travel is impossible, this in spite of the inconvenience of quantum entanglement. But if you eliminate that assumption, then the time-related variables still in the equation are invalid.
Now throw in the assumption that three-dimensional space (or four-dimensional space-time, if you prefer) is all there is to the Universe, and you may as well throw out the Drake Equation altogether as an anthropomorphic representation of humanity's current understanding that has little to do with reality itself.
The equation is an attempt to quantify the probability of intelligent life in our galaxy. It seems we are almost certain that it does exist but where and when are the main problems and how we communicate over large distances.
We need to build up things based on our perspective and understanding of reality. It would be unwise to do otherwise.
