[ExI] fermi paradox

[Kevin Freels]

>
> Life is not the issue, intelligence is. 
But the intelligence (intelligent life)  is just a subset of life. It is 
still ife we are talking about and it is a solid part of the Drake 
equations.
> Life came to the Earth almost as
> soon as the planet was born but during most of its history all it had was
> bacteria; and if you visited the place just a million years ago, which is
> nothing in its 4.5 billion year history, you would find no intelligent
> species.
>   
Right. So you agree. Intelligence may indeed be more rare than the Drake 
equations assume.
>   
>> To get where you are you have to make even more assumptions.
>>     
>
> I am assuming nothing I am just making an observation, I observe that the
> universe has not been engineered and I find that puzzling if intelligence is
> common.
Correct again. So we are both on the same page. Intelligent life is very 
uncommon.
>  If we are not the first then I can only conclude that something
> puts a lid on brain power and prevents it from erecting large scale
> structures. I can speculate but I make no claim to know what that
> something is, it could be that no human mind could understand it.
>
>   
And here is where you lose me. If we are not the first, we could be 
second. Or 3rd. Or 4th. And they may have been out there for only a 
short time. And maybe the first killed itself off. And maybe the second 
is somewhere near the galaxy's middle and hasn't been around enough to 
really put a dent in it. These aren't specific proofs I am trying to 
make. They are simply illustrations to show that there are countless 
alternatives other than "we are first" and "something puts a lid on it". 
But that's just my opinion. I think this thread has gone on long enough. 
I don't think we're going to come up with anything new that hasn't been 
debated here before. So unless you feel a strong desire to contest my 
points,  we can simply agree to disagree and move on. Cheers.
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