Of course there is life in the universe, 100% sure, the existence of earth is indisputable proof, now, the physical laws are similar anywhere in the universe, the elements of the periodic table are present everywhere, stars and planets are everywhere, definitely life, there is there,… But what about civilizations other than the human one? Before the time of the answers, first, we will have to realize that humans are not particularly special or divine but somewhat ordinary and rather humble with respect to the rest of the universe”
gw
The Drake equation is a way of creating discussion about life outside of earth, beyond being a realistic attempt to establish a calculation about alien civilizations, rather it was about putting on the table the possibility of not only engaging in conversation with an alien civilization, which would already be a lot of discussion in fact, but to have the prospect of communicating with a group of alien civilizations, because after all, we live in an incredibly huge galaxy.
This small equation is rather a probabilistic conjecture that allows us to give free rein to the imagination, because playing with its variables, we can estimate a number of civilizations from 10, to say a number, to several million civilizations, depending on what the user considers the best valid parameters, what is clear is that there will always be an x number of civilizations, Which is reasonable, given the size of the universe.
It is important to note that we are not talking about the number of planets with life in the universe, but about civilizations, life is a broad concept that encompasses viruses, bacteria, spores, fungi, animals, in this case it would be xeno-animals if they are from other planets, and encompassing a whole multitude of beings that are not precisely rational or capable of advanced civilizations with culture or philosophy. perhaps at most form hives, colonies under the soils, marine swarms, etc. An indirect conclusion suggested by the equation is that certainly the number of planets with the capacity to host life is much greater but much greater than the worlds where civilizations have taken root, because there will always be things that will go wrong in the delicate line of evolution, since it is a multitude of successes and errors. where surely on many planets with life it would have been a disaster, not counting catastrophes such as comet impacts or volcanism, or simply extreme environments in other places.
With the above in mind, it would be worth breaking down the Drake equation:
The Big N
N is the number of more or less advanced alien civilizations with respect to the human civilization with which we would clearly engage in reasonable conversation, or maybe not…, the problem is that perhaps our cosmic peers are not interested in conversing after all, since their form of conversation would be by weapons, or perhaps they are just telepathic, or excessively ambiguous in their lexicon, making communication difficult, Certainly, two civilizations will achieve some kind of communication, but converse? , there is like a long way, consider our own planet, usually countries are at war because they cannot engage in a civilized conversation because they simply do NOT understand each other, imagine trying to engage in a conversation with some species that has nothing to do with humans. We have to be very cautious in this matter of “talking,” whatever that means to the aliens. The big N may be a much smaller number than it seems, and it may be the difference between the peace of hearts and the silence of the graves.
Rx: Making stars
The galaxy is always giving birth to stars, every day new planetary mass is forming, the problem is to calculate how many stars would form in, say, each year. Although there are potentially thousands of stars in formation almost every day we have to rule out many star abortions, in addition to those that are destroyed during the process, and it should also be noted that a star in formation easily lasts millions of years, remember that usually star formation begins with a cloud of interstellar gas and dust compacting either by varying density of the same cloud or by collisions or influences with others bodies such as neighboring stars, supernovae, whose perturbations force the cloud to reach a critical mass by collapsing into its own gravity, thus giving rise to the birth of a new star. A conservative number would be 2 or 3 new complete stars per year but actually about 10 stars per year would be reasonable, it may seem like a very low number but you have to keep in mind that 1 year on galactic time scales is nothing, if the Milky Way is at least 10 billion years old, Not surprisingly, there are at least 100 billion stars.
fp: Stars with planets
Generally stars have planets although there may be cases without planets, but every planet must have at least one star where it rotates, generally planets are formed with the remains of stars which would be usual, although there may be cases that there are stars with planets that were wandering or ejected from other places, It is difficult to establish the number of planets that a star could have, at least it is taken that there must be 1 or 2 planets revolving around a star.
Ne: The fraction of planets capable of supporting life
Taking into account our standard, the earth, although I would say that potentially every planet that rotates a star can harbor life, because the conditions of the earth do not necessarily have to be sacrosanct, because it is life that adapts to the conditions of the planets and not the other way around, and we may have to change the criteria here, But following human logic, which wouldn’t be enough but it’s the only one we have, then let’s take the Earth as our standard. So it is necessary for the planet to be in the habitable zone, which is the distance where the planet is not very cold or almost absolute zero or very hot like the pit of hell, nor is it close to a black hole or a star about to explode, that would be sad, the number can be very high in the value of millions, but being cautious, It should be estimated that for every solar system with planets there will be at least 2 or 3 planets with the capacity to have life. In our solar system we have the Earth (also Venus and Mars in the remote past). Not to mention certain moons of Jupiter or Saturn that can also harbor life without problems.
FL: Planets with life, why life?
Planets capable of hosting life are not the same as planets currently with life (including those that have had life in the remote past), there is a huge difference and there is nothing subtle about it, there must be conditions for life to exist, it is like when rains form, there must be certain conditions such as cloudiness, humidity and atmospheric pressure, otherwise it will never rain, that’s how it should be with life, at least in the way we know it, here we are excepting possible exotic forms of life, it can be mineral life, metallic, extremophiles, and who knows what else.
It is not very clear how life originates but it seems that panspermia is a reasonable way to approach it, it is clear that there are bodies such as comets, wandering planets or remains of matter that spread from one system to another carrying the ammonia acids essential for life, it is similar to when the field is fertilized with the spores or seeds of plants that animals carry from one place to another in their bellies, And because nature copies itself, this would be happening right now on either side of the Milky Way. Another case is that there really is a transition from chemistry to life, in some form of abiogenesis, but it’s not really clear, we would have to keep investigating, I wouldn’t say no but life came to be as we know it for some reason.
Other unconventional hypotheses for the origin of life is the religious one with the creation of life on earth by God or the appropriate divinity of whatever religion it is, it does not seem to be the case, because the religion view is very anthropomorphic and highly subjective that would fit the view of what suits the doctrine in question or what the person wants to believe in himself. but what is common in these cases is that God would technically be an extraterrestrial, a non-human, because he is alien to the earth or humans, being a form of life whether they like it or not, and even if it were supernatural, it would have to come from somewhere else or outside the universe or some different existential plane but certainly from somewhere with radically different physical conditions.
If we talk about aliens, there is also the possibility that life on earth and its entire evolutionary line is some experiment of some advanced alien race, which would throw away Drake’s equation (and this article) in addition to everything we believe, this hypothesis seems something out of science fiction like Star Trek, But incredibly, it is more reasonable than we think, although it would take several conjectures, but it is nothing supernatural. It is possible that these aliens come from somewhere in the universe where the conditions are more appropriate and very highly fertile for life, and it happens that this area of the galaxy that we inhabit is a desert for life, which seems to be the case, and it is what would make us think that it is so everywhere. when this is not necessarily the case. That’s why I say you have to be humble in the face of life, and have an open mind. Any situation explained can be the real one, but believe it, somehow we got here, and that’s an incredible story, more interesting than any known science fiction story.
fi: Fraction of planets developing intelligent life
This is the real great filter, intelligence is an extremely scarce and valuable resource in the galaxy, this scarcity alone is the origin of many of our problems. The truth is that for a civilization to exist, the inhabitants have to be aware of themselves and the world around them, I don’t think that an ant is aware of itself or much less of what surrounds it, it is only concerned with eating, contributing its effort to the hive, and then die. There is no philosophy, no reflection, pure work and more work, the constant in the species is to eat and not let themselves be eaten, to reproduce at any cost and if providence provides, to be able to live at least one more day. It is not easy to live, let alone evolve, the universe is so hostile, it is a never-ending struggle against adversity. What I don’t understand is how a civilization can come to exist, most likely it will succumb long before it is formed due to adversity, but… However… hmm… We’re here.
The truth is that beings, no matter what kind of life it is, form niches and from those niches, communities, and from those communities, entire species, where the group of beings is basically an organism, it is what you would call a hive mind, and it is the form of organization present in ants, bees and even human beings, this would be what your servant thinks here, The one that creates civilizations, if we let the ants evolve several tens of millions of years it is very possible that we will find an advanced civilization, the key would be that, that thinking collective that the species form, is the magic that creates communities and matures nations in a kind of positive feedback to give rise to individual geniuses that in turn promote the advances of the community to unsuspected limits and out of all probability.
Certainly, any earth-like place, even with animal life and abundance, it is very unlikely that any intelligent civilization of any of its species can originate, but it is also true that the adversities of life make individuals better and better in their actions, at first it would be with their hands. Then with a stone, suddenly with a bone and even with a piece of metal, and then as a family, begin to think abstractly, and if these individuals form communities, there will be a positive feedback capable of creating nations if time permits, despite the adversities, it becomes more likely that advanced civilizations may be more common than we think. By the end any of these civilizations look into space, and wonder, are we the only ones?
fc: Fraction of planets whose civilization develops technology
It is not only about developing advanced civilizations such as Rome, Chinese, Indian, Maya, Mesopotamian or the medieval empires, they are advanced but do not have advanced technology, these nations rely on the physical effort of citizens, slaves, animals, etc. and use the elements that nature gives, but they are not able to manipulate the forces of nature. as if it happened after the Age of Enlightenment with the emergence of combustion engines, the manipulation of electricity, and many inventions, in addition to the scientific method as a way to find knowledge, The latter allowed the reorganization of ideas in a structured, efficient way for high-level thinking, it was not a matter of doing simple blurred philosophy to address phenomena, which is acceptable but not enough, but of observing, experimenting and testing hypotheses to reach practical conclusions without subjectivities, as simple as that. This way of approaching things is what has made civilization take off and would be the transit that every civilization must make to really reach a level of refinement capable of trying to answer those questions that have troubled us.
In this section the discovery of many phenomena such as radio, relativity, and the construction of ships such as rockets, and the application of new sciences such as quantum mechanics, is typical of any advanced civilization and the only one capable of looking for its colleagues from other planets, here we get to the point?, not necessarily, there is a small problem: time.
L: Time at which civilizations leave detectable signals in space
Time gives everything and takes everything away, it is the last one that laughs, the one that is always there, only time can resist time and nothing else, no matter how powerful you are, you will eventually decline and die, as has happened with the most powerful civilizations, and it will happen with our civilization, in time all its achievements will be forgotten and buried in the sands of time. As it should be.
There will always be traces of civilizations in the form of monuments, books, some kind of relic with symbols, some satellite, rockets or radio signals that can be detected, and that is the problem, the duration of civilizations is very short in terms of time, classical Rome lasted about 1000 years, ancient Egypt was like 2000 or 3000 years of continuous history, and most of them a few centuries, and the evidence shows that the more civilization advances, their lifespan shortens to a mere centuries. However, it is possible that the time of influence is 500 years, which seems like an average time of duration for a civilization.
Our current global civilization is the product of the N=12500 advanced civilizations. It could be, and it would only be the value for our Milky Way, it’s something local, it’s just our humble galaxy, and what happens with the Andromeda galaxy, that’s massive, not counting the billions of galaxies out there, that result would be astronomical, that if I wanted to see it.contribution of several civilizations that already had a few centuries of history, modern Europe at least since the French Revolution (1790), the United States (1776), China (1950), the peak apparently would be between 2000 and 2050, and then decline and possibly collapse in 2100 or earlier, After the 2100s to the 2200s, the influence of our civilization would be palpable in the following civilizations, possibly less advanced, and something similar could happen when Rome collapsed in the fifth century to give way to the Dark Ages, or even worse with the collapse of the Bronze Age, which had to take many centuries for the Middle East to recover somewhat.
The point is that it is clear that the complexity of a society is also its weak point, anything can shake the entire system, currently the confrontation of China with the US is worrying, also Russia against the West, and the cultural and moral decadence already notorious in Europe, cradle of today’s civilization, in addition to the US, Not to mention the economic depression that entire countries are going through, everything seems to indicate that the centers of power will revert to Asia, but the evident confrontation that would come from the changes can end global society and revert to a state prior to global civilization, which would be a setback, as well as advances in technology, In fact, at this point our fate would be sealed, and it would be a phenomenon that would occur in the other stellar civilizations. Even so, our technological footprint would be enough for an alien civilization in its heyday to observe us, the problem is that the distances between stars are enormous even for light making effective communication impossible, let alone in person. Any attempt at communication would take hundreds of years even if it were a laser with data pointed at the earth, by which time we would have no way of answering because there will not be the global human civilization that these aliens detected in the first place, we would not even be sure that our descendants even if they still have the wisdom to obtain that message we would not know if that alien civilization still existed to respond, many centuries later.
Even with all the adversity it is possible that some alien machine will arrive on earth and be able to communicate with our distant descendants, possibly cyborgs, to finally have a proper conversation.
The Final Calculation
The Drake equation raises a lot of discussion, many have ventured to obtain a value that approaches reality from this equation. Skeptics have calculated values below N<1, which implies that we would be alone in the universe, but it is known the pettiness and excessive conservatism that exists in many areas of science that makes their opinions doubted, and of course the other side would be very optimistic, which would have values of hundreds of thousands of advanced civilizations. which is also unrealistic, leading me to think that subjectivism and the determination to make their beliefs true disturb the results of research, even though they are respectable scientists and researchers they are still human.
The author of this article thinks that there are advanced alien civilizations but it would be very few, perhaps a few dozen, because if there were thousands, and with so many millions of telescopes pointed at any star, it would have been certain that some Dyson sphere in some distant star would be evident, but it is not the case, nor is it true that we are the only ones because we are made of the same material as the stars and we are products of a certain conditions. that can be replicated anywhere else in the universe, just as it rains in Oregon, it will also rain in Vietnam or Colombia, and these places have nothing to do with each other. Please believe me, humans are not special or anything extraordinary. What’s more, for some thinkers, humans are a plague that should be reduced, damaging the ecosystem for other beings and in turn putting an end to the natural evolution that has taken hundreds of millions of years to establish.
The following calculation was made by an astrobiologist, invoking the equation:
Rx=10 stars per year
Fp=100%=1. Assuming that all stars have planets.
Ne=25%=0.25 (Life can be anywhere, ask tardigrades)
fl= 100%=1 (The components for life can be anywhere)
fi=1%=0.01(Not all life will be intelligent, as I said, the scarcest commodity in the universe is intelligence)
fc=50% =0.5 (after hits and misses the smart ones usually get their chance)
L=1000000 years (Rome and ancient Egypt collapsed millennia ago, but many of their teachings and institutions we use, even if our civilization collapses, their knowledge and inventions may endure and even evolve the next millennia to unsuspected levels).
N=10*1*0.25*1*0.01*0.5*1000000=12500
N=12500 advanced civilizations. It could be, and it would only be the value for our Milky Way, it’s something local, it’s just our humble galaxy, and what happens with the Andromeda galaxy, that’s massive, not counting the billions of galaxies out there, that result would be astronomical, that if I wanted to see it.
I don’t think the title of your article matches the content lol. Just kidding, mainly because I had some doubts after reading the article.