[ExI] Silence in the sky-but why?

[BillK]

On Wed, Aug 28, 2013 at 5:34 PM, Adrian Tymes wrote:
> Quite.  The argument needs it to be one in a sextillion?  Fine, it is.
> That's just as justifiable, given our current (extremely minimal) evidence.
>
> Indeed.  It is in fact trivially easy to argue that the step from life to
> intelligence is *that* low probability.  More accurately, the steps from
> planet through life to intelligence: we don't yet have confirmation of life
> on any non-Earth planet, especially outside our solar system; the only solid
> evidence people are arguing from is the number of stars and planets, and
> that some of those planets have some characteristics similar to Earth that
> are believed to be conducive to life.
>
>

It is a bit more than just the unimaginable size of the universe and
the billions upon billions of planets.
Life on earth is more than just humans. Life appears in almost every
environment, even in environments that are deadly to humans. The
impression produced is that the universe is constructed so that life
appears anywhere that it is remotely possible to survive.

It is likely that progress to intelligent life takes millions of
years, but the universe has far more than that available.

Considering the size of the universe, galaxies without number as far
as we can see, it seems unbelievably arrogant to say that humans are
the only intelligent life. The whole universe is there just to produce
humans! Yee-Hah!

(I use 'intelligent life' with reservations, seeing that we are about
to start World War III).

BillK