I interpreted "I don't doubt that" as "I am certain that". Was I wrong?

How technical can we get with a single example of advanced civ, one that has yet to move off planet?

I think it is the extra terrestrial hypothesis for a reason, based on speculation as it is.
Well, that and some back of the envelope calculations as it were.

Perhaps I should've phrased myself differently...

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"Where the telescope ends, the microscope begins. Which of the two has the greater view?" - Hugo

"Men occasionally stumble over the truth, but most pick themselves up and hurry off as if nothing had happened." - Churchill

Not unless you really thought we'd wandered out of speculative territory and I had evidence of a galactic civilization.

When I said "I don't doubt," in my mind, I was thinking "we don't know enough either way, it's entirely plausible."

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"Where the telescope ends, the microscope begins. Which of the two has the greater view?" - Hugo

"Men occasionally stumble over the truth, but most pick themselves up and hurry off as if nothing had happened." - Churchill

There is nothing anthropocentric about saying that a species simply has not advanced sufficiently to indulge in interstellar travel - either they have achieved the necessary level of technology or they have not. If not then they are not going to be around here any time soon.

As for saying they have not "budgeted" for it whilst I may be using a human fiscal expression that is simply a "shorthand" way of stating the obvious that interstellar travel will require the allocation of resources (probably considerable resources) regardless of the type of species and whatever passes for culture among them. Starships don't come for free, regardless of whether you are humanoid, insectoid, hive intelligence or any other type of multi-cellular lifeform. Therefore it is quite possible that any such species may well choose to use those resources for other purposes (purposes that we humans might find difficult to comprehend) than sending some of its biological components on a journey of many light years. There is nothing anthropocentric about that either, just that for any complex organism considering insterstellar colonisation "there is no free lunch".

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Note 1. All requests for planetary demolition must now be submitted in quadruplicate on form UX-565/B4 and be counter-signed by the assistant administrative officer for interstellar traffic calming - department QG-7. Subject to approval by the chief planning officer and the infrastructure development coordination sub-committee.

Oh well. I suppose it's an idiom with which I am unfamiliar.

Yeah, I should've phrased it differently.

Oh well.

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"Where the telescope ends, the microscope begins. Which of the two has the greater view?" - Hugo

"Men occasionally stumble over the truth, but most pick themselves up and hurry off as if nothing had happened." - Churchill

Fine, though this still doesn't change the fact that your starting assumption- "You cannot apply the Fermi Paradox as proof that there are lots of spacefaring species but they just decide to avoid contact with us." - was wrong.

Did I apply it as "proof" of anything or was I asking someone else's opinion as to whether or not it too constituted an "assumption with little basis?"

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"Where the telescope ends, the microscope begins. Which of the two has the greater view?" - Hugo

"Men occasionally stumble over the truth, but most pick themselves up and hurry off as if nothing had happened." - Churchill

Well when you said this earlier

That sounds very much like someone trying to tell us that assuming there are aliens species "buzzing" around us is the obvious position to take.

I say that given the unconvincing "evidence" to the contrary it is equally credible to assume that we may well be one of the most advanced species as yet to evolve in our Galaxy. The few that have progressed further than us may only be a little more advanced and certainly not able to buzz around us now or 4,000 years ago. Quite frankly to suggest otherwise is an act of faith not reasoning. Of course we might in distant millennia discover that we were the very first species to transport itself beyond the atmosphere of it's home planet, who knows. There could be aliens "buzzing" around the stars, but to claim that it is more probable than we are the first, is to apply reasoning that is not supported by hard fact.

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Note 1. All requests for planetary demolition must now be submitted in quadruplicate on form UX-565/B4 and be counter-signed by the assistant administrative officer for interstellar traffic calming - department QG-7. Subject to approval by the chief planning officer and the infrastructure development coordination sub-committee.

Have the search for alien life really made any progress at all? Can there be anything between evidence of it and non-evidence?
The best pro-argument: it is unbelievable earth is the only "living" world among so many billions of billions logically lead to the following: it is unbelievable there is not very "similar" worlds to our own (at least some of them should be very like earth in many resopects).

Until we have bigger space based telescopes we cannot determine what the odds are of finding earthlike planets (right size, right mass, right temperature, with water in liquid form) for all we know it could be 1 in 10 or 1 in 50 or 1 in 100 or 1 in 1000 star systems. I think it is reasonable to assume that earth is not only planet like this in the whole galaxy but how many planets like this are there? At the moment that is anyone's guess.

Where a planet like this exists then we are still unable to determine how probable is it that biological activity gets started. Once again we only have our sample of one. It might be reasonable to assume that given enough time some form of life may well get started. What becomes more difficult is to determine if it ever develops the complexity to become a technological species. There have been large multicellular life forms on this planet for nearly 600 million years. For most of that time the "Wild Life" got along just fine without much intelligence. And if one particular group of "tree swingers" had not needed to adapt to climate change at a critical point in the history of life they would never have gone on to develop stone tools, fire, steam engines and the internet. It is perfectly possible that were it not for some little chance event in geology and climate then this planet today would have no roads or cities but just "wildlife". I think we must be prepared to accept that there are a fair proportion of planets that may develop large multicellular species but which never go on to evolve spacefarers before their sun finally scorches them at the end of its life.

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Note 1. All requests for planetary demolition must now be submitted in quadruplicate on form UX-565/B4 and be counter-signed by the assistant administrative officer for interstellar traffic calming - department QG-7. Subject to approval by the chief planning officer and the infrastructure development coordination sub-committee.

Not so, 3rdvogon; what you left out in quoting my post is the final "IMHO."



So, not only am I not telling you it's the obvious position to take (it's my opinion), I didn't apply Fermi's paradox as "proof" as you had suggested.


And so you have "hard fact" supporting a higher probability that we are the first?
Or do you base that notion on your perception of the "unconvincing evidence to the contrary?"



To me, suggesting we may be the first and/or only advanced civ in the galaxy flies in the face of the copernican principle.

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"Where the telescope ends, the microscope begins. Which of the two has the greater view?" - Hugo

"Men occasionally stumble over the truth, but most pick themselves up and hurry off as if nothing had happened." - Churchill

No I do not have hard facts either way and to suggest that one scenario is more probable than any other given the available evidence is wishful thinking.

You are so fond of throwing about the "Copernican Principle" as it comes up so many times in your posts though I doubt its real relevance to this debate.

As I have said before in other posts all we can say is "WE JUST DON'T KNOW YET". To simply suggest that intelligent life must be common or that we have to be the only intelligent life in the Galaxy is to overstate the either case. We cannot produce probability estimates based on the limited data we currently have and that is the end of it until we know more.

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Note 1. All requests for planetary demolition must now be submitted in quadruplicate on form UX-565/B4 and be counter-signed by the assistant administrative officer for interstellar traffic calming - department QG-7. Subject to approval by the chief planning officer and the infrastructure development coordination sub-committee.

"Wishful thinking" or simply optimistic / pessimistic viewpoints?

The copernican principle (or more pertinent to the ETH, mediocrity principle) is entirely relevant to how we perceive ourselves and our planet in this universe.

And so you know, antithetical to the mediocrity principle is rare earth hypothesis.

I agree we don't know yet and have never said otherwise.

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"Where the telescope ends, the microscope begins. Which of the two has the greater view?" - Hugo

"Men occasionally stumble over the truth, but most pick themselves up and hurry off as if nothing had happened." - Churchill

Even if intelligent life should happen in multiple places eventually,
there has to be someplace where it happened first

Doesn't necessarily contradict the Copernican principle.

I can agree with this but I have a problem thinking the universe waited 10Gyrs before producing intelligence.

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"Where the telescope ends, the microscope begins. Which of the two has the greater view?" - Hugo

"Men occasionally stumble over the truth, but most pick themselves up and hurry off as if nothing had happened." - Churchill

"Fermi's Paradox" could be better termed "Fermi's Baseless Speculation". There is really nothing to it but assumptions that we don't have enough data to confirm or deny.

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"You miss 100% of the shots you don't take" - Wayne Gretzky

Based on direct observations of life. Life moves and colonizes/adapts to new environments. It's not unreasonable that life will eventually develope a way to colonize the galaxy.

Myths and religious texts offer only answers. Whether or not they are the right answers, is a matter of opinion.

And are you suggesting the airlines are a form of alien life?

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Fields of Space

LOGIC, n.
The art of thinking and reasoning in strict accordance with the limitations and incapacities of the human misunderstanding.

In the Year 2525.

"One small step for (a) man. One giant leap for mankind".

If an astronaut doesn't need good grammar, niether does you.

Host of Seraphim

Hi Jason.

While I personally don't agree there's a paradox I wouldn't go so far as to term it "baseless speculation."
Do we know the approximate age of the universe?
Are our estimates for the number of stars in the MW galaxy or the universe accepted, or are they vastly overestimated?
Does Earth hold a special place in the cosmos?

I think these are the bases on which Fermi raised his question.