For a while now I've wondered about the circumstances necessary for intelligent life to evolve, and I speculate that at least six conditions with odds of just 1 in 10,000 might be necessary. Right star, right planet, big iron core with lots of heat, maybe a big moon, maybe gas giants in the outer system for shielding, etc. If true, or even close, it would imply the odds of intelligent life are on the order of 1:10²⁴. Compared to 10¹¹ stars in the Milky way or even the 10²² stars in the visible universe.
If this speculation is at all accurate, we may be alone here. Intelligent life in the universe might be rare and extraordinary.
My feeling is that simple life is reasonably common, since the ingredients all seem to be widespread and there are probably enough warm and wet places for it to emerge in. But more complex life must be rare, since this takes a lot more luck and needs more specific circumstances. Intelligence must be even rarer - after all, our planet had complex life for a very long time before a civilization emerged. It doesn't seem to me that our presence here was inevitable. Without a chance asteroid strike a few million years ago, this would probably still be a world without civilization.
I agree… and, given the vastness of it all, we're effectively alone, even if we aren't really alone… our own galaxy is huge, and if we're alone in our little neighborhood, it doesn't really matter if there a few other advanced civilizations in their own little corner… each of them is alone… all that bullshit with traveling vast distances is childish… it's exceedingly hard just to detect each other's radio signals… the SETI program should keep going, but the chances of finding something are very slim…
Yep, exactly. And insurmountable distances are a whole other reason I’ve never believed in UFOs. Based on our own meager efforts so far, it seems likely if an intelligent species does exist, they’d send robots into space just like we do.
Love this concept of stellar twins, thanks for the writeup. I wonder whether the distribution of matter around these stars is similar to that of our solar system, or whether there are multiple paths to get to a star like ours.
The new SETI information is fascinating. Sagan's idea of civilizations beaming our first signal back at us was incredibly sticky, but also impossible... something he probably knew as he wrote it.
You may like this essay I did a few months ago on that idea...
The researchers in your bit on the Great Silence are, I firmly believe, onto something. Think about it: solar storms can scramble our cell signals, knock out our radio, and confuse our GPS and all of these signals originate just a few hundred miles away and the nearest star is over 4 light years distant. SETI may have been a scientific dead-end from the start.
Our radio signal - as you point out, probably significantly degraded, has only travelled 120 light years. That’s not much of a percentage of the Milky Way. Seems like civilizations would have to produce signals for a long time to have much chance of being detected. If we stopped transmitting in the next 100 years, the odds of our signal crossing another world with an intelligent civilization that also lasted less than 1000 years seems vanishingly small.
For a while now I've wondered about the circumstances necessary for intelligent life to evolve, and I speculate that at least six conditions with odds of just 1 in 10,000 might be necessary. Right star, right planet, big iron core with lots of heat, maybe a big moon, maybe gas giants in the outer system for shielding, etc. If true, or even close, it would imply the odds of intelligent life are on the order of 1:10²⁴. Compared to 10¹¹ stars in the Milky way or even the 10²² stars in the visible universe.
If this speculation is at all accurate, we may be alone here. Intelligent life in the universe might be rare and extraordinary.
My feeling is that simple life is reasonably common, since the ingredients all seem to be widespread and there are probably enough warm and wet places for it to emerge in. But more complex life must be rare, since this takes a lot more luck and needs more specific circumstances. Intelligence must be even rarer - after all, our planet had complex life for a very long time before a civilization emerged. It doesn't seem to me that our presence here was inevitable. Without a chance asteroid strike a few million years ago, this would probably still be a world without civilization.
Exactly. I doubt the SF vision of a galaxy populated with interesting alien species exists.
I agree… and, given the vastness of it all, we're effectively alone, even if we aren't really alone… our own galaxy is huge, and if we're alone in our little neighborhood, it doesn't really matter if there a few other advanced civilizations in their own little corner… each of them is alone… all that bullshit with traveling vast distances is childish… it's exceedingly hard just to detect each other's radio signals… the SETI program should keep going, but the chances of finding something are very slim…
Yep, exactly. And insurmountable distances are a whole other reason I’ve never believed in UFOs. Based on our own meager efforts so far, it seems likely if an intelligent species does exist, they’d send robots into space just like we do.
Love this concept of stellar twins, thanks for the writeup. I wonder whether the distribution of matter around these stars is similar to that of our solar system, or whether there are multiple paths to get to a star like ours.
The new SETI information is fascinating. Sagan's idea of civilizations beaming our first signal back at us was incredibly sticky, but also impossible... something he probably knew as he wrote it.
You may like this essay I did a few months ago on that idea...
https://astrodermatologist.substack.com/p/most-kernels-pop-alone?r=6n71ui
The researchers in your bit on the Great Silence are, I firmly believe, onto something. Think about it: solar storms can scramble our cell signals, knock out our radio, and confuse our GPS and all of these signals originate just a few hundred miles away and the nearest star is over 4 light years distant. SETI may have been a scientific dead-end from the start.
Our radio signal - as you point out, probably significantly degraded, has only travelled 120 light years. That’s not much of a percentage of the Milky Way. Seems like civilizations would have to produce signals for a long time to have much chance of being detected. If we stopped transmitting in the next 100 years, the odds of our signal crossing another world with an intelligent civilization that also lasted less than 1000 years seems vanishingly small.