Study: Probability of extraterrestrials in the Milky Way low (opens in new tab)

(heise.de)

6 pointsLordGrey9mo ago4 comments

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3 comments · 1 top-level

A_D_E_P_T9mo ago· 2 in thread

> The probability of two civilizations with highly developed technology existing simultaneously in the Milky Way is so low that another would have to be at least 280,000 years old to exist alongside us now. At least, that is what two researchers from the Austrian Academy of Sciences have calculated, based on their estimates of how many rocky planets with plate tectonics and an atmosphere of nitrogen and oxygen appear to exist.

Oh man, I have about 200 science fiction books to recommend to these guys.

To summarze: Extraterrestrial life doesn't have to be just like us. It could very well be aquatic, it could very well be post-biological in any of a million different ways. (See, e.g., Accelerando.) We don't even know if there's life on Ganymede; it's absolutely absurd -- frankly, it hardly even seems sane -- to rule out extraterrestrial life in the Milky Way on such shaky and unimaginative grounds.

elmerfud9mo ago

You're missing out on key phrase "highly developed technology". Science fiction books are fiction, it's right in the name. They do offer some nice explorations of ideas and some are based on sound scientific principles I can assure you that none of them talking about advanced extraterrestrial life are built upon any known scientific testable principles that we have today.

Talking about Ganymede, if there was highly developed extraterrestrial life on par with technology within 100 years of ours we would have detected it. Nothing about what they say excludes undeveloped extraterrestrial life or microorganisms.

Aquatic life, we have examples of intelligent aquatic life on this planet but that life does not fit the "highly developed technology" requirement. We don't know how intelligent the aquatic life is but we know it is intelligent and appears to be self-aware.

Is the development of technology a key factor in determining intelligence? That seems like a philosophical question more than a scientific question but not having the answer to that does not negate the calculations that were made which require highly developed technology of two or more civilizations simultaneously.

A_D_E_P_T9mo ago

If we don't destroy ourselves, mankind is perhaps 100 years from going post-human, post-biological. At a relatively early stage in our technological development -- ~10,000 years since developing agriculture -- we're leaving behind the paradigm where we require biomarkers that are (supposedly) common to Earthlike life. A "highly developed technological society" is unlikely to require plate tectonics, lol.

Ganymede's an extreme example as it's quite literally next door, and we still have absolutely no idea what swims in its 60-mile-deep oceans, save to say that they're not shooting lasers through the ice or launching satellites. Do you know from what distance we'd be able to detect an Earthlike planet with extraterrestrials who are at a current-Earth tech level?

> none of them talking about advanced extraterrestrial life are built upon any known scientific testable principles that we have today.

And what testable principles are those?

Last I checked, biopoiesis is an unsolved problem, and chemical space is extremely vast -- there are many different ways to organize CHONS life, and there are also ways to organize other forms of life entirely.

Surely "they have to be just like us" is one of the most annoying scientific fallacies.

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