Hi Craig, Alex & All
Quote:
Originally Posted by CraigS
I don't think I would feel confronted about this … (does that make me weird or something ?)
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No I wouldn't be confronted either and nor would I be particularly surprised. But the answer I want, is to this question:
Why do people feel it would be upsetting, confronting, shocking etc etc if we are alone as intelligent life? Why does this make people feel sad?
Why is this such a bad thing (if it were true)? I just cannot grasp as to why it has become such an emotional issue and further, how that emotion sways our assessments of the probabilities. Jen wants to move to Pandora but I say you can just as easily talk to the trees here on Earth (just ask George III ...)
Alex has also re-emphasised what I think is an important point (and I raised it a few times in this thread too). At the moment it comes down to a statistical argument with a substantial number of assumptions and variables. Some of the variables are being narrowed down as time goes on but there are others that are difficult to estimate to within two or three orders of magnitude -- at the moment. It is, at least in part, guesswork until someone from Zeta Reticuli parks their star-cruiser on the White-House lawn.
The short answer is: We don't know. We can guess, we can estimate but we don't know.
My opinion is that intelligent life is extremely rare in the Milky Way and even the Universe, but that is only my opinion. The rest of you are of course perfectly entitled to your own wrong opinions.
Best,
Les D