What are the chances of humanity being the only intelligent, technological civilisation in our galaxy with 400 billion stars to choose from?
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answers:
Slim McCheesy say: ???
There could be many, there could be none, you also have to take into account the time frame, we've only been an advanced technological civilization for a couple of hundred years and the universe is 13 billion years old, thats a blip, and if we continue on our current trajectory with regards to environmental pollution we could be gone by the end of the century. So if the average life expectancy of such a civilization is 300 years then it vastly decreases the chances that there are others.
On top of that you have to take account the importance of the moon, and the distance from the sun, the milankovitch cycles, the hoover protector that is jupiter and a whole bunch of luck avoiding massive asteroids or nearby supernova explosions. When you weigh it all up it seems very fortunate that we are here.
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say: ETs have been visiting this planet for thousands of years
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MARK say: I think the probability of there being some form of life elsewhere in our universe is quite high. I think if you go from that basic idea to complex, multi-cellular forms of life then to intelligent life the probability decreases with each. However, I personally doubt we are the only intelligent life form in the universe. I suspect that because we have no evidence of any other that all intelligent lifeforms are so thinly spread out through the universe that we may never discover and contact them.
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William say: Until more is known, there is no way to derive a probability factor.
One recent discovery which deserved MUCH more attention that it has, is that phosphorus may only be produced by a certain rare type of supernova. This could be a MAJOR factor in reducing the possibility.
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nineteenthly say: The trouble is that we only have one known example.
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Craig say: I believe that almost all intelligent life in the universe destroys itself when it gets to the point where we are now. They just go to war and destroy themselves or they have a pandemic and people die of sickness. We're transitioning into a new type of global society right now and it's a very dangerous transition. Yolo
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Jeffrey K say: The aliens might not consider us intelligent or technological. We might be like monkeys using a stick to catch an ant compared to them. They would consider us to be just animals.
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az_lender say: It's possible (likely?) that technological civilizations tend to extinguish themselves within a few thousand years. In that case, the chance of any two such civlizations coming into contact with one another could be infinitesimal.
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Starrysky say: Zero to good chances. You should read the book "Rare Earth" to find out how weird our host planet is, what it went through to give life, intelligent species, and long enough living conditions to have technology. About a billion to one shot or even worse.
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Ronald 7 say: A lonely existance indeed
But think of us Dinosaurs
We ate all the rest
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Land-shark say: N = R* • fp • ne • fl • fi • fc • L
Look up the Drake Equation to estimate the communicating ones. in the Universe. It is reckoned today that there are more than 10 to the power of 22 potentially Earth-like planets out there in the Universe, with the right conditions for life on them. The figures have been refined and given more confidence today there could be between 252 and 1008 civilizations in the Milky Way galaxy emitting detectable electromagnetic signals.
It also depends if the idea of having a technological civilisation is intelligent, given all the problems ours is causing to the Biosphere. We can't ignore the Fermi Paradox.
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Slim McCheesy say: ???
There could be many, there could be none, you also have to take into account the time frame, we've only been an advanced technological civilization for a couple of hundred years and the universe is 13 billion years old, thats a blip, and if we continue on our current trajectory with regards to environmental pollution we could be gone by the end of the century. So if the average life expectancy of such a civilization is 300 years then it vastly decreases the chances that there are others.
On top of that you have to take account the importance of the moon, and the distance from the sun, the milankovitch cycles, the hoover protector that is jupiter and a whole bunch of luck avoiding massive asteroids or nearby supernova explosions. When you weigh it all up it seems very fortunate that we are here.
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cosmo say: 0.5 plus or minus 0.5
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Venus 1485AD say: We have no halfway certain method to calculate any such probability.
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Bill say: What you are asking is known as the "Fermi Paradox." Google it for the multiple perspectives on you question.
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Chris Ancor say: 100% that there is plenty of intelligent life out there. Technology users, far less likely.
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Fred say: Even the Earth, with it's life form favorable environment has still suffered multiple life extinguishing asteroid strikes in it's past. One so large it tipped the larger Earth's rotational axis and formed it's moon. Debris spherically reforming. All other planets in our solar system display a tilted axis!
The probability of other intelligent life is rare, intelligent life in the Universe can only be viewed as 'temporary', and the probability of NO intelligent life is much higher and comprises the predominate share of elapsed time on a cosmic time scale!!!
Sleep soundly tonight!
Long answer Short: 99.000,000,000,000,9 % we live alone in the Universe as intelligent life.
99.0 % chance we will find life on a bacteria level in this solar system.
If that bacteria life is found generated from sterile base elements Creationists are going to have the darkest day since whale life form fossils where found with terrestrial limbs in the African desert! And all the evolutionists will be dancing in the streets!
But even with that; there still exists an argument that the asteroid strike that gifted the polar tilt, seasons, and Earth's Moon may have contaminated the Solar system with early bacterial life.
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CarolOklaNola say: Evert time someone asks this question I want to ask them WHY these other civilizations HAVE ti exist at the SAME TIME as we do. How ma y civilizations have destroyed themselves or gone extinct?
I suspect we were quarantined in 1948 or earlier. Honestly, would you want to make first contact with a self destructive species like us that kills each other for power and money and the things other people have. We've had a global community actions system for less than a 100 years while whales have had a global communications system for more than a million years. Our veneer of civilization is very thin.
We are babies. We have to evolve and grow up before first contact.
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[ DI 4 REALITY ] say: Well, statistically, the Milky Way should be teaming with life, but we haven't found them. This has three possible answers:
(1) We are the only technologically advanced civilisation in our solar system and the Milky Way galaxy.
(2) They don't wish to communicate.
(3) We may not be broadcasting in the right medium. We have only recently switched to digital communications and the aliens may have evolved beyond that medium.
Remember that in Star Trek, the Vulcans only made contact when we became capable of interstellar travel.
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Leviticus Daytonᴱᴺ say: Chances are 1000 to 1
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Thomas Price. say: Its something I have wondered all my life and I was born far before the "space age" yes surely there must be some kind of life no matter how primitive. The vast distance is the problem. We know its impossible to travel faster than the speed of light and we are going to have to do and for them to find us otherwise a one way journey could take a century !
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