(06-06-2024, 12:44 PM)Maxmars Wrote: 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.
You stand correct about what the authors tried to present in their paper. All they did is to give smaller values for the lower and upper bounds of the intelligent civilizations in our galaxy.
One objection though. The Drake Equation was created to give some numbers and not to answer why we haven't been visited yet. That's a very different issue and I have given some explanations as to why we haven't met anyone yet.
(06-06-2024, 12:04 PM)CCoburn Wrote: The quote feature I normally use doesn't seem to be available, so I'll just do two replies this time.
Apparently you just did. I might've been 'implying' it, but I never said it. I did say that probabilistic theories/formulas such as the Drake Equation and the Fermi Paradox would be less meaningful if there exists a "design element" at the core.
Your quote that I'm replying here seems a bit lazy, pointless, and/or rushed. What difference does it make whether or not anyone previously "said anything" about it? I entered it into the discussion in forming a point which was conveniently ignored in paving the way for this flippant comment of yours.
I'm not exactly sure of its magnitude, and you seem to be a little off with your assessment here. In the context I provided it was more of a hypothesis or maybe even a theory, but not quite an "assertion", let alone a "huge" one.
It's true, I did go on about it a bit though, but it does seem relevant since design and probability do appear to be somewhat at odds with one another in a cosmological setting.
Probability is a dice roll, and to paraphrase Einstein "God doesn't roll dice with the universe.", or you could also say that a design element eliminates dice rolls altogether, which is not to say that there could not exist any trivial probabilities as part of a designed universe since we know this to not be the case, or one might even go so far as to hypothesize that even trivial probabilities are actually not even probabilistic at all but are in fact ingrained as part of a deterministic model.
From your posts I see you have introduced the notion of a creator and of intelligent design. I wasn't the one to refer to because I don't see any signs of intelligent design. There is zero evidence for it.
Your second paragraph in your first post clearly implies there could be some creator who is behind this design.
