How could a universe be without advanced civilizations living on their home planets?

What if the drake equation is a trick question, in which we are the only pre-type I civilization in the universe. The drake equation is not false, because we are here on earth, and the answer will always be 1. However, there is no evidence for advanced civilizations elsewhere in the universe.

With the great silence from 35 years of seti, no evidence of dyson spheres on Hubble’s telescope and Fermi's paradoxical question of "where are they," events, and time may be foretelling us something of our absolute loneliness in the universe.

With no evidence of probes in orbit or in our prehistoric past. - It appears that we have not been visited by advanced civilizations because we are freaks of nature, and there is no such thing as advanced civilizations in the universe, because we are it.

well who said that intelligent civilizations haven't sent back a signal yet? and it hasn't reach us? to many people are being optimistic about the SETI program.. the chances of making contact are slim, as been studied and debated for over 30 years.. i dont think you can expect anything just after 30 years of searching.

agreed!

Yes, we must keep searching.

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Bear in mind too, we are only able to 'see' the very local.
Even Hubble can only see so far... and the further out it looks, the longer that light has been traveling to us. Like looking bac in time.

Our own E.M. radiation barely makes it out past the outer fringe of the solar system. Even if someone is out there with a SETI of their own- they are not likely to pick up our E.M. any time soon. It would be extremely weak and degraded to the point of non existence before it reached the nearest star.

We can discover extra-solar planets, but only by measuring gravitational effects. Not direct observation. Most of the ones we have found are bigger than Jupiter.

So, realistically, at our current technology, the odds of us seeing anyone or being seen are actually very slim.

Yes, but this doesn't explain the Fermi paradox: if intelligent life is common, why they're not here? Assuming that none of the civilizations haven't decided to colonize the Milky Way over the billions of years when intelligent life has been possible is far-fetched. Interstellar distances and vast timespans are not a problem for a highly resilient or mechanical entities.

Either they don't exist, or we understand the advanced civilizations fundamentally wrong. I suspect the latter. No doubt that our view of how advanced civilizations ought to operate is hopelessly naive.

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Well, I'd consider humans to be fairly intelligent, as life forms go, and interstellar distances look pretty challenging to me.

I could really misinterpret that

Maybe. But there are pretty severe limits to what we can "see" even in our neighborhood. Add to that the vast distances between galaxies and the vast number of galaxies... It's pretty danged unlikely that anyone is close enough for us to talk to.

Or maybe we just can't see them yet.
Let's be realistic about the sizes and distances and timeline that we are currently able to observe.

Right now, we can't even tell if there is life on Europa- and that's pretty close!

Over distances- we are looking back in time. Add to that, we may not see the machines or markers of an advanced civilization- even if it's only a few hundred light years away.

From Alpha Centuri, would an observer be able to tell if there was any life on Earth at all? Most likely not. We are tiny, our EM radiation barely significant if noticable-
Our machines in space would be as easy to spot as a molecule of oil in the ocean.

Good point.

Another good point.

I'm sure that somewhere out there, probably in our own galaxy, there are other intelligent beings who are saying the same thing - "there's nothing out there".

To a civilization just a little more advanced than us, from Alpha Centauri, Earth with its 21% O₂ atmosphere would stick out like a floodlit sign saying here is life!

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The fallacy of the SETI project is that we are searching for signals that we ourselves are unwilling to send out. Should the other civilizations be similarly inclined then no one will ever be heard.

You know, it could be just too soon.

We like to think the Universe has been around a long time, because it has as far as we're concerned. 13 billion years IS forever to humans. But the Universe is easily expected to get to be a trillion years old (1000 billion) and may reach 3 trillion (3 thousand billion!) before the laws of reality change markly from present day observation.

Anybody see what I'm getting at here?

Somebody has to be first. I know science has gone a long way to prove we are not "special" in the Universe.

What, we (the Universe where Spock is clean shaven) are just now getting into our third generation of stellar formation? I'll worry about the lack of other civilizations at around the 500 billion year mark. I bet we will be full then. And they will wonder who was first. And have absolutely no way of knowing it was us.

Just wait for it. I bet I'm right.

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...Assuming that's what their planet's life uses.

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No! I'm assuming that they have brains and know how to use them.

If we find a planet a similar percentage of chlorine or flouring, we will be just as certain that there is life there and for the same reason!

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Or that some other chemical process is at work. We can't jump to hasty conclusions, it's science, not blogging.

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"If this were play'd upon a stage now, I could condemn it as an improbable fiction."
Shakespeare, Twelfth Night
Illuminati's Razor-The most complicatedly evil answer is usually the most correct answer. - Fazor
"Every book is a children's book if the kid can read." - Mitch Hedberg
"Distance doesn’t matter much in space, where if you just start a thing off with the right kind of shove, sooner or later it will get where you want it to go." -Frederik Pohl, Mining the Oort

This is basic chemistry. It is (more than) fairly well understood. Do you know what happens if you mix hydrogen and fluorine (in the dark, by the way) and expose it to direct sunlight?

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Any day you wake up on "the right side of the dirt" is a good day.

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I've got a dollar that says you're wrong!

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We have direct observations of some now. Look up brown dwarf on wikipedia, you'll be happy to see an image. Cool stuff.

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