Hacker News Reader

Comment by Buttons840 | Hacker News Reader

If our universe is a simulation, we're presumably the focus, or at least a result worthy of attention. If some Gods able to see all of our universe could inspect, say, an entire galaxy, or a single microbe on Earth, they'd probably find the microbe on Earth more interesting. Even the simplest life is more interesting than all the rest of the universe, and all available evidence suggests Earth has the only life.

View on HN

> all available evidence suggests Earth has the only life

Absence of evidence is not evidence of absence

There is evidence though. We've been using telescopes and listening to radio waves for decades but are yet to find anything substantial.

We can at least conclude complex life is exceedingly rare.

No, you can conclude that there aren’t any immediately discernible radio signals pointed our way in our rather extremely small space-time vicinity.

> We've been using telescopes and listening to radio waves for decades but are yet to find anything substantial.

To add to what @ethanbond said about space-time vicinity:

---------------

Article, subTitle: We have been broadcasting for over 100 years. Now a new 3D map of the galaxy reveals the stars these signals have reached that can also see Earth:

https://www.discovermagazine.com/planet-earth/our-radio-sign...

“1,715 stars within 326 light-years are in the right position to have spotted life on a transiting Earth since early human civilization, with an additional 319 stars entering this special vantage point in the next 5,000 years,” they say.

-----------------------

A microscopically small amount given the total number of stars in our own galaxy, the total number of galaxies in the Universe.

Space is big and there are a lot of planets, I get it.

The odds of life are 1/N. We don't know how big N is, but it might be much larger than the number of sub-atomic particles in the universe. Perhaps N is (10^100000)^10000000000.

I'm, of course, not arguing we should stop searching or having philosophical arguments. (Although, to whomever it may apply, we could stop down voting comments that make objectively true philosophical arguments like postingawayonhns.)

> we could stop down voting comments that make objectively true philosophical arguments like postingawayonhns

(postingawayonhns: "We can at least conclude complex life is exceedingly rare.")

I wouldn't have downvoted a comment like that (or the comment you made). In fact, there's a large part of me that grudgingly agrees with you both. It's sad to think about and worthy of discussion.

I did a quick search because the other part of me - the one that doesn't want to believe we are alone in the Universe - had to find... hope.

The article I linked wasn't just a reply to OP but it's something I, myself, found eye-opening. I wasn't aware about the 3D map and the limited number of stars we've reached at this point. Especially the expected number of star systems we're expected to reach in the next 5,000 years (it's quite low a figure).

It was disheartening but helped hammer home just how vast the Universe is. It also leaves the door open for the hopeful...

My reply was meant to help drive discussion forward. (Downvotes suck and can change the way a message is received).

There is a huge difference between life and advanced civilization. For most of its existence, Earth had life but not intelligent life.

Telescopes only recently have been able to detect signatures of life relatively close to Earth. There have been very recent possible discoveries. But may not be able to confirm without going there.

There is no systematic search for radio waves. We would only be able to hear anyone for short distance. Advanced civilizations would be rare so not hearing doesn’t say anything about life.

The one thing we haven’t seen are megastructures like Dyson Spheres. Those would be visible for long distances and we haven’t seen any in our galaxy.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com