Nostr Web Client

It’s my first time hearing about these. I think both have good logic to support them and I agree it’s something to think about.

On this topic I haven’t yet found anything that fully resonates for me. But clearly I haven’t looked very hard.

Mike Brock 2y ago

It's a very abstract problem. Because we have only one empirical datapoint. Which is our own existence. You can't prove a negative about the existence of other intelligent civilizations, their time horizons for emergence, yet unknown constraints on interstellar travel, etc.

At the end of the day, Drake's equation sort of bootstraps from

The Law of Big Numbers and then goes from there. So it's a fundamentally statistical argument for which we have no empirical ground for nominator and denominator in the function. Well, we know the nominator is a minimum value of 1, because we exist.

Reply to this note

Please Login to reply.

Discussion

nobody 2y ago

In other words, where are all the aliens 👀

Mike Brock 2y ago

That was Enrico Fermi's question!

nobody 2y ago

Yes 👽

nobody 2y ago

#[3] there is a great YouTube video that explains the paradox. This is an old one I remembered watching.

https://youtu.be/sNhhvQGsMEc

nybe 2y ago

One of my favorite explorations of Fermi Paradox by Tim Urban: https://waitbutwhy.com/2014/05/fermi-paradox.html

Rosalia 2y ago

He’s great. He just published a book.

https://amzn.asia/d/dfz5D2L

nybe 2y ago

Neil Degrasse Tyson says (paraphrasing): “asking where are all the aliens are is like going to the ocean, scooping up a glass of water and saying: ‘I don’t see any whales in here…’”

HoloKat 2y ago

It’s possible that life after a certain point just progresses inwardly (simulating it’s own environment) rather than exploring distances it could not possibly cover. This is one theory I’ve been thinking about and wrote a fun little essay exploring

Mike Brock 2y ago

This is one of the major theories, yes. I'm weirdly skeptical of it. But that might only be because I'm too romantic about how the human behavioral utility function in our genetics works.

nobody 2y ago

I love the theory of panpsychism. It would be beautiful if true- it’s basically that all things have a “mind-like” quality. I romanticize it as “consciousness came first and birthed all reality.”

Rosalia 2y ago

I like it. Thank you. Will read up on this too.

HoloKat 2y ago

This is an essay I wrote a while back. It explores some of these concepts, timelines and my thoughts about what may actually happen. https://undefined.scribbble.co/posts/phase-4

Rosalia 2y ago

Kudos on writing a whole essay on this. Thanks for sharing. Will take a look.

Rosalia 2y ago

100% on your first point. I also believe our definition of “life” is limited in that it’s entirely self referential. Something can exist but we are unable to perceive it.

First time hearing of Drake’s equation too and you seem to have summed it up nicely. It’s conjecture.

“The nominator is a minimum value of 1, because we exist.” Very poetic.