I once asked my dowsing rods how many planets with intelligent/ advanced species there were in the Milky Way galaxy and I got it to approximately 700 🤷🏼♀️ 🌌
That’s a really interesting answer/number. And I think it does make a lot of sense, especially in terms of what I was getting at about Quiet Times vs. busy times (I must think of/channel what the proper term is for busy time).
Ironically I was going to write something about this very thing (partly as a follow-up to these two little posts). There’s a lot missing from the Drake equation of course, most glaringly the concepts of ‘intervention’ (e.g. terraforming; interfering in evolution, preventing extinction level asteroids etc.) and colonisation. If we take your 700 as a true answer and work backwards then - sparing you the maths - we’re looking at something like 2-3000 light years between intelligent species. Although that only applies to their Homeworlds, and that’s the important point.
That might seem like a lot, but even if we disregard faster than light travel for the moment, and assume a realistic velocity of say 0.25%, then if two species head towards each other (which they would - they’d send probes out in all directions) and they are, say 3000 LY apart, then it only takes them 6,000 years to meet each other (halfway). So if this happens throughout the galaxy then that’s all it takes for the entire galaxy to become populated (and eventually interconnected - especially if they connect up all their Archives). And that’s just a blink of an eye in cosmic terms. When we then consider the galactic disc is some 7-8 billion years old, then the idea that there isn’t anything out there is ludicrous.
Plus of course these civilisations would do interventions, leave monitoring devices (AI) in place, along with their Archives, and the only consideration which remains is the two factors also not considered in the Drake equation - namely how long is the spacefaring phase of a lifeform’s existence, and how often do new spacefaring species come along (to replace the previous ones). If the second is longer than the first then we end up with Quiet Times. I would say both of those answers are in the hundreds of thousands of years - which again isn’t that long.
Another wonderful thought is that after, say, 10-20,000 years of this, a distant colony would’ve evolved a completely different cultural identity to that of their Homeworld. Possibly even different physiological characteristics, such that they really do become a new, different species. So that 700, in other words, doesn’t take very long to become 7,000.
There’s a lot more to say about all this of course. Which is where I’m kind of going with all this…
good question: "...But if our captain Kirk and the crew came across Atlantis, would they see themselves as more, or less intelligent and advanced?..." and therein also lies a paradox: when we encounter something/someplace/someone we consider "strange", as in; different from ourself, why is it we tend to attach a subjective adverb to it? different is just different, not better/worse, more/less beautiful or desirable, just - different. no labels required. at least not untill we know more about it.
Agree completely - the mature attitude is indeed to not use comparatives like ‘superior’ and ‘inferior’. Instead, it is to be curious about difference, and celebrates the diversity and delights in it. And so we end up with a wonderfully multicultural galactic community.
I think a lot of humans have a long way to go before they are mature enough to be like that, and therefore compatible with that multiculture. Hence the quarantine/hands-off approach. This human species still has the designation ‘dangerous’ (or dystopian isolate, rather). Visit at your own peril! They will shoot you down, incarcerate you, do horrid experiments on you, and try and reverse engineer your ship. So best stay away, eh!
I once asked my dowsing rods how many planets with intelligent/ advanced species there were in the Milky Way galaxy and I got it to approximately 700 🤷🏼♀️ 🌌
That’s a really interesting answer/number. And I think it does make a lot of sense, especially in terms of what I was getting at about Quiet Times vs. busy times (I must think of/channel what the proper term is for busy time).
Ironically I was going to write something about this very thing (partly as a follow-up to these two little posts). There’s a lot missing from the Drake equation of course, most glaringly the concepts of ‘intervention’ (e.g. terraforming; interfering in evolution, preventing extinction level asteroids etc.) and colonisation. If we take your 700 as a true answer and work backwards then - sparing you the maths - we’re looking at something like 2-3000 light years between intelligent species. Although that only applies to their Homeworlds, and that’s the important point.
That might seem like a lot, but even if we disregard faster than light travel for the moment, and assume a realistic velocity of say 0.25%, then if two species head towards each other (which they would - they’d send probes out in all directions) and they are, say 3000 LY apart, then it only takes them 6,000 years to meet each other (halfway). So if this happens throughout the galaxy then that’s all it takes for the entire galaxy to become populated (and eventually interconnected - especially if they connect up all their Archives). And that’s just a blink of an eye in cosmic terms. When we then consider the galactic disc is some 7-8 billion years old, then the idea that there isn’t anything out there is ludicrous.
Plus of course these civilisations would do interventions, leave monitoring devices (AI) in place, along with their Archives, and the only consideration which remains is the two factors also not considered in the Drake equation - namely how long is the spacefaring phase of a lifeform’s existence, and how often do new spacefaring species come along (to replace the previous ones). If the second is longer than the first then we end up with Quiet Times. I would say both of those answers are in the hundreds of thousands of years - which again isn’t that long.
Another wonderful thought is that after, say, 10-20,000 years of this, a distant colony would’ve evolved a completely different cultural identity to that of their Homeworld. Possibly even different physiological characteristics, such that they really do become a new, different species. So that 700, in other words, doesn’t take very long to become 7,000.
There’s a lot more to say about all this of course. Which is where I’m kind of going with all this…
good question: "...But if our captain Kirk and the crew came across Atlantis, would they see themselves as more, or less intelligent and advanced?..." and therein also lies a paradox: when we encounter something/someplace/someone we consider "strange", as in; different from ourself, why is it we tend to attach a subjective adverb to it? different is just different, not better/worse, more/less beautiful or desirable, just - different. no labels required. at least not untill we know more about it.
Agree completely - the mature attitude is indeed to not use comparatives like ‘superior’ and ‘inferior’. Instead, it is to be curious about difference, and celebrates the diversity and delights in it. And so we end up with a wonderfully multicultural galactic community.
I think a lot of humans have a long way to go before they are mature enough to be like that, and therefore compatible with that multiculture. Hence the quarantine/hands-off approach. This human species still has the designation ‘dangerous’ (or dystopian isolate, rather). Visit at your own peril! They will shoot you down, incarcerate you, do horrid experiments on you, and try and reverse engineer your ship. So best stay away, eh!