The Extreme Scarcity of Life in the Universe

[Num7]

Let's talk about how big the universe is before we get started. It is huge, beyond comprehension.

Hypothetically speaking, even if there were 1 trillion civilizations evenly distributed throughout the observable universe only... Well, they'd still be roughly, on average, 7 million light-years away from each other.

As you can imagine: Life is more than likely quite rare. Perhaps extremely rare. So there are far, far fewer than 1 trillion civilizations in the observable universe. That means they're probably separated by unfathomable distances. 100 million light-years? Billions?

Now that we’ve established that distance and scarcity are two immense challenges in finding traces of other civilizations, let's dig deeper and add time to the equation.

Bear with me, here. What if life is so extraordinarily rare that there has never been more than one sentient civilization at a time in the whole universe?

If so, how far apart in time are these few, rare civilizations? A couple of thousands of years? Millions of years?

Think about how little traces of an advanced civilization would be left after 10 or 20 thousand years. Let alone after 1 or 2 million years... Let alone 100 million...

Does this mean that even if we someday achieved instantaneous space travel and could explore 100% of the universe in its present state… We still wouldn't be able to find evidence of other civilizations because they existed too far in the past?

In other words, sentient species would be so rare and few, that once one rises, all traces of other previous ones would be long gone (millions or billions of years) and impossible to find anymore.

My head is spinning! That would suggest that not only are such sentient races separated by vast amounts of space... But maybe they're also separated by vast amounts of time.

What do you think?

 

[MODAT7]

Since nobody can truly prove that the observable universe actually exists, what we see must be an observation error.

There have been some debates about how NASA defines size in the universe, but it's still big.

On an active geology planet like Earth, ancient civilization traces would eventually be wiped out. Maybe that's a good thing. The only things that seem to survive time are the harder stone structures. I've yet to see advanced technology built out of stone, but a stone casing could protect something like that for a long time.

Derelict ships should still be around if they haven't gotten too close to stars or black holes. Their hulls would show radiation damage from constant space bombardment along with any (micro)meteors. It's theoretically possible to have a self sustaining life cycle in a large enough ship that could go on for a very long time if properly maintained. Maybe the beings in those ships got fed up with civilization and formed hippy communes that shun outsiders, so we never see them.

The question of time between civilizations comes down the the created vs evolved argument. If life is created, maybe we don't get along with each other so well, so the universe is given a break between species. If life is evolved, there could be countless numbers of species out there, but many could be at an evolutionary dead end... or maybe they all went to war and destroyed each other. In that case, there would be natural breaks, but there could be survivors still living in self sustained ark ships.

Since the universe still exists after all this unknown time, we should take comfort that a universe destroying superweapon hasn't been created and used. Maybe those species destroyed themselves with a planet buster before they developed to that point.

 

[8thsinner]

There are planets out there that were destroyed by their own hands but not that many in percentage terms.
Life though, it's not as rare as you think, or, as rare as nasa tells you.
What is rare though is diversity. This planet is a library planet. It contains life type samples of billions of other planets. Most planets are abundant with life but it's usually a case of only a few types of trees, or bugs, not the billions we have here.
I will say though, when I visit other planets, it's the flowers that always catch my attention, and I'm not sure if it's because I am in a higher dimensional 4th d or 5th d when I visit them or what but they are always so much more vibrant than flowers and plants seem to be here because here in 3d is, well, a lot more grey than higher dimensions.

 

[OakFieldAlienz444]

Let's talk about how big the universe is before we get started. It is huge, beyond comprehension.

Hypothetically speaking, even if there were 1 trillion civilizations evenly distributed throughout the observable universe only... Well, they'd still be roughly, on average, 7 million light-years away from each other.

As you can imagine: Life is more than likely quite rare. Perhaps extremely rare. So there are far, far fewer than 1 trillion civilizations in the observable universe. That means they're probably separated by unfathomable distances. 100 million light-years? Billions?

Now that we’ve established that distance and scarcity are two immense challenges in finding traces of other civilizations, let's dig deeper and add time to the equation.

Bear with me, here. What if life is so extraordinarily rare that there has never been more than one sentient civilization at a time in the whole universe?

If so, how far apart in time are these few, rare civilizations? A couple of thousands of years? Millions of years?

Think about how little traces of an advanced civilization would be left after 10 or 20 thousand years. Let alone after 1 or 2 million years... Let alone 100 million...

Does this mean that even if we someday achieved instantaneous space travel and could explore 100% of the universe in its present state… We still wouldn't be able to find evidence of other civilizations because they existed too far in the past?

In other words, sentient species would be so rare and few, that once one rises, all traces of other previous ones would be long gone (millions or billions of years) and impossible to find anymore.

My head is spinning! That would suggest that not only are such sentient races separated by vast amounts of space... But maybe they're also separated by vast amounts of time.

What do you think?

it's an interesting theory.
Note the emphasis on a "long time ago" in the star wars intro.
A long time ago, in a galaxy far far far far away.

 

[PaulaJedi]

There could be life bearing planets so far away that we could never reach them, even with the proper technology.