3,548
06-06-2024, 12:44 PM
Humans model everything.
Our efforts to formalize that compulsion by casting more and more fundamental concepts into the realm of modelling have brought us to a point where we have to accept that we can only be as successful as our current understanding encompasses.
The problem with the 'designed' reality approach is that it complicates our ability to model. We can discuss that gap between the theoretical and the practical in many ways, and we often do. But in the context of this thread, the point I maintain is we can never forget that we don't know everything.
Every model, from Drakes equation to the theory of relativity is - in a very real sense - flawed. The reason is simple simply because we don't know everything. There is no reason to assume that intelligent communicative life must be as we see and understand it here, on Earth. There is no reason to exclude non-carbon-based life, extra-dimensional processes, and even "spiritual" elements from the equation. We just don't (or possibly can't) explain it, or understand it well enough to "model it."
"Impossible" is a word we have to embrace as a gross generalization... the universe is as close to infinite as we can imagine. That being the case, we have to accept that neither the design theory, nor the 'scientifically modelled' universe theory can be declared "better." Perhaps more 'acceptable' or more 'understandable'... but not 'better.'
That being said, Drakes's equation is only a means to an end. That end? To figure out why we haven't discovered other intelligences in the cosmos, and how likely is it that we can. (After all, if it's not out there, you will never find it.) All the author was trying to present was that according to some, it's less likely than initially assumed based upon the model because they have a 'tweaked' formula that changes the variables.
Our efforts to formalize that compulsion by casting more and more fundamental concepts into the realm of modelling have brought us to a point where we have to accept that we can only be as successful as our current understanding encompasses.
The problem with the 'designed' reality approach is that it complicates our ability to model. We can discuss that gap between the theoretical and the practical in many ways, and we often do. But in the context of this thread, the point I maintain is we can never forget that we don't know everything.
Every model, from Drakes equation to the theory of relativity is - in a very real sense - flawed. The reason is simple simply because we don't know everything. There is no reason to assume that intelligent communicative life must be as we see and understand it here, on Earth. There is no reason to exclude non-carbon-based life, extra-dimensional processes, and even "spiritual" elements from the equation. We just don't (or possibly can't) explain it, or understand it well enough to "model it."
"Impossible" is a word we have to embrace as a gross generalization... the universe is as close to infinite as we can imagine. That being the case, we have to accept that neither the design theory, nor the 'scientifically modelled' universe theory can be declared "better." Perhaps more 'acceptable' or more 'understandable'... but not 'better.'
That being said, Drakes's equation is only a means to an end. That end? To figure out why we haven't discovered other intelligences in the cosmos, and how likely is it that we can. (After all, if it's not out there, you will never find it.) All the author was trying to present was that according to some, it's less likely than initially assumed based upon the model because they have a 'tweaked' formula that changes the variables.
