The big problem is this... If life is common when circumstances are right, then complex life systems should already exist, some being millions of years old. Imagine homo sapiens one million years from now... At the very least we would have invested in beacons transmitted intelligent signals to star systems with the potential for life... Where are the signals?
...
The Fermi Paradox.
Also imagine where our technology will be thousands of years from now, or even millions.
The Fermi Paradox - if life is common in the Universe, wouldn’t some be way ahead of us, and have contacted us by now?
A few possibilities:
- We are too dim-witted to be worth talking to. We are not much interested in negotiating with most other species less intelligent than us.
- the speed of light may be a fundamental physical barrier. The vast distances may fundamentally isolate us.
- We may be on the leading edge of the development of intelligence - perhaps the first to awaken. The book that I referenced in an earlier post, “the Life of Super-Earths”, laid out an interesting analysis of the timeline since the Big Bang. The great bulk of the time is required for matter to coalesce into stars, and for the heavier elements to form, allowing complex chemistry that could form complex organisms.
The estimates of the times required, indicates that we are indeed on the theoretical leading edge of the development of life, on a Universal scale. It doesn’t rule out another civilization being ten million years ahead of us, but it does indicate that we could well be on the leading edge.
Look how far we've come in a mere hundred years.....