The Drake Equation - How Many Aliens Are Out There?

[@ThatWriterKevin]

Yes, I made a mistake and it is F sub L not F sub 1. No matter how many places I saw it written, the lowercase L always looked like a 1 to me.

[@slcpunk2740]

At least you can admit you were wrong, unlike ChatGPT. 😂

[@Venialbartender]

All is good , this equation is fascinating

[@packetcreeper]

“Two possibilities exist: either we are alone in the Universe or we are not. Both are equally terrifying.” - Arthur C. Clarke

[@Anonymous-yh4ol]

I've witness that to be untrue. One is more terrifying than the other. People are more terrified of being alone.

[@kevcalms]

@@Anonymous-yh4ol only in the literal sense, I’d have thought most people really don’t have the time to procrastinate and worrie about weather they’re little green men out there

[@scienceunbound460]

@@Anonymous-yh4ol Maybe they'll change their tune when the aliens show up and start removing their skin.

[@Colonel-Commissar_Renik]

@@scienceunbound460 Simon, dafuq?! 😆

[@icecold9511]

Not alone is far more of a threat. Alone means nothing can choose by intent to harm use. Not alone means our world looks like a nice place to live, as soon as the exterminator is finished fumagating.

[@ignitionfrn2223]

0:25 - Chapter 1 - The equation 4:55 - Chapter 2 - Current estimates 10:05 - Chapter 3 - Arguments for and against 12:10 - Wrap up

[@warrenreid6109]

This is the most useful part of the comment section.

[@bobsponge1877]

@@warrenreid6109 this is the most underrated comment in the comment section.

[@BrianHartman]

This is one of the reasons manned spaceflight to other planets in our solar system is so important. If we could find evidence of past life on Mars, or current life in the oceans of Europa, it would make the search for intelligent life look a lot different. It would essentially mean that life in general isn't uncommon.

[@oldionus]

OK, but your argument does not explain why the exploration you describe needs to be manned. I think we will EVENTUALLY send probes to some of the potentially habitable planets orbiting other stars, but, just from a pure practicality point of view, these probes will almost certainly be robotic and only in a very distant, hazily glimpsed future, would such exploration be manned. I think within the Solar System the argument for manned missions isn't so much exploratory... that can be done by robots... but preparatory. We need to learn how to live in space, and construct self-sustaining colonies. Probably Earth Orbit and the Moon are the best places to do this for a good long while, since a planet like Mars, or even worse Venus, offers very little to justify the cost of transporting large amounts of personnel and materiel there for a very considerably long time in terms of human lifetimes. Robotic exploration, a few talisman manned missions... sure... but real space development will be near Earth for a good long while, I would bet.

[@e.h.4933]

I believe in the transhumanism theory. I think we will adapt our bodies to be less biological, or at least, biological but change some genetics to make it easier to survive in different environments, including space and other planets.

[@BrianHartman]

@@oldionus I think that there are probably things that are just going to be easier to test in person than via a robot or probe. It's admittedly a cost-benefit problem, though. How much easier would it be to do in person, compared to how much it would cost to get a person there (to Europa, for instance)?

[@BrianHartman]

@@e.h.4933 That's possible. I don't know whether we'll do that before or after we're ready to send manned missions.

[@jgbeck1000]

@@BrianHartman Remember that astronauts wear bulky protective suits thus they have little to no advantage over modern robots in dexterity. Also, humans carry many, many microbes and are liable to forward contaminate any celestial body they set foot on. Although robots may harbor some microbes, they can be subjected to much stronger disinfecting protocols than can humans. Additionally, there is a race between developing technology to safely transport humans to other worlds and developing robots & AI better at analyzing samples than humans can do... the latter is winning that race. And don't forget that there are return sample missions from Mars in a few years which may be better overall than anyone/anything sent to conduct in situ analysis.

[@geodkyt]

Yeah, people generally misinterpret the Drake Equation. It wasn't an attempt to find the *answer* - he was merely trying to define the *problem* . It also doesn't really take into account the limits of RF propagation and background noise. Radio *doesn't* go infinitely far as a coherent signal, as it rapidly drops in signal strength with distance, until the signal is quieter than the background noise, making attempts to notice, much less interpret, the signal effectively impossible, like trying to hear your date's wristwatch tick during a death metal concert.

[@theraven6836]

A stable yellow sun in a stable part of the galaxy; planets with stable, nearly circular orbits, a large, stable moon, plate tectonics, not one but two gas giants outside our orbit that act as comet and asteroid magnets; it seems to me that we are unique enough that the rare Earth hypothesis might actually be the solution to the Fermi paradox.

[@kristenjanosco8409]

Absolutely

[@I.am.Sarah.]

Great arguments but what is this large stable moo you speak of? 😉

[@brendanh8193]

That is a very narrow understanding of the conditions for life. What about the potential for life on the ice moons of Jupiter or Saturn? Or on the methane moon of Triton? Extremophiles, discoveries of recent decades, have changed the understanding of where life could exist. Even of how life could emerge.

[@theraven6836]

@@I.am.Sarah. LOL. Moon. I changed it. Thanks.

[@theraven6836]

@@brendanh8193 I'm referring to technological civilizations, as that is the purpose for the Drake Equation. It seems to me that for technological civilizations to appear and flourish three things are required: Intelligent life; a stable environment; and, access to fire. While the first two can exist in the ice moons of Jupiter and Saturn, I find it impossible to believe they can manipulate fire while submersed in whatever solution comprises their oceans. Without fire, there can be no smelting of iron or steel, no casting of bronze and in short no metal "ages". Without metal there can be no machines complex enough to create computer chips or rocket ships. In short, while there may be life in such environments, perhaps akin to our octopuses and cetaceans, I seriously doubt that they will ever develop machines of any sort. Perhaps I'm wrong, but then again our situation in the galaxy is very uncommon but may also explain why the presence of other civilizations is also uncommon.

[@MahraiZiller]

Another problem is that people view abiogenesis as an event, when it's actually a process - a process that involves complex chemistry creating structures that are handily edible for existing life. A clump of fatty lipids, amino acids, proteins, all great things for existing life to eat. So abiogenesis can still be going on, but once you have life it will dominate the ecosystem and eat any results in any part of the process of another abiogenesis, preventing it from taking root. Hence why we don't see it "happening" today.

[@ferencivanics9980]

I like this idea, and I believe this process starts everywhere where it can, and goes so far as it can. Lots of planets with microbial life, and a few one with complex intelligent life.

[@clintquasar]

The video also mentions every bacteria (life) being related to each other, if life works the same way on similar conditions specimens could have "merged" thus making making multiple branches of evolution a single one where we are all related as far as we can see.

[@ProfEngywook]

Literally zero proof of this.

[@danymalsound]

People like this are the types with whom I wish I could hang out with on a regular basis. Fascinating conversations!

[@cyberherbalist]

How many channels is this guy narrating, anyway? *_HE'S EVERYWHERE!!!_*

[@Enjoymentboy]

The thing I find most comical about this subject, and people's strong opinions either way, is that they almost always are around if it is safe for humans to contact other civilisations but we tend to ignore whether it is safe for the other civilisations to contact us. After all, humans don't exactly have a great track record for when we encounter other previously unknown, and new, cultures. Truth be told I think that we would be the real danger to any alien species and if they are smart enough to communicate with us they'll also be smart enough to stay away from us. I would not be the least bit shocked to find out there are a vast number of other civilisations out there but they've all put us on a "do not call" list. That we really show us that they truly are intelligent.

[@Transilvanian90]

That's because it's natural to consider your interests first. I'm more concerned about whether a stranger will rob and kill me on the street than if he's afraid I'll do the same to him.

[@Enjoymentboy]

@@Transilvanian90 Exactly my point. You only think about yourself and tend to forget that the other person might assume you're a threat. It's our arrogance at play here where we just assume that we are so amazing and awesome that there is no way any other species could be afraid of us so it's always US that should be afraid of them. For all we know hundreds of other civilisations have been watching the last 30 years of our TV broadcasts and thinking to themselves "Nope. They are way too violent and messed up to bother with. if you see them coming just cross the street and pretend like they aren't there".

[@zn4rf]

@@Transilvanian90 natural to whom? You can't measure alien life and behaviour with a human yard stick...

[@Michael75579]

I think it depends on which way the contact is initiated. If a civilisation capable of interstellar travel arrived at present-day earth, I don't think they'd have much to worry about from us.

[@LostAmericanJ]

Sad as I am to say it as a human being... I have to say that I agree 😔 What a disappointed we are to ourselves. Cool username though 😆 SAME HERE! 👍

[@oxylepy2]

Life developing is already really optimistic, considering the number of times our world has had life challenged near a breaking point and that one time life almpst destroyed itself and converted the world into an ice cube...

[@TheInsaneupsdriver]

wasn't there like 7 mass extinctions or something? even humans almost died off once already about 250000 years ago during the iceage before this one.

[@oxylepy2]

@@TheInsaneupsdriver five major, this is wiki's major and minor list: Holocene (current, probably anthropogenic), 3 notable other times in the quaternary period at .640/.074/.013 mya, 2 in the neogene 2/14.5mya, one in the paleogene 33.9mya, 3 in the cretaceous 66/94/117mya, 2 in the jurassic 45/186mya, 3 in the triassic 201/230/249mya, 3 in the permian 252/260/270mya, 2 in the carboniferous 305/325mya, 4 in the devonian 359/372/384/388 mya, 3 in the silurian 420/424/428 mya, one in the ordovician 445mya, 3 in the cambrian 488/502/517mya, and 2 in the precambrian 542 mya and 2.4 bya. These only the ones we know as of yet, and considering some of the gaps are fairly regular, some of the causes are cyclical, and a few gaps are large... And the one that gets me, by far, is that in order for aerobic organisms to develop the entire world was bathed in toxic gaseous waste and then froze over. That was like a defining feature that made way to multicellular aerobic organisms. This just makes me feel like it's REALLY heavy stretch to assume that anything close to 100% that can develop life will develop intelligent life. I'd say anything more than the multiplication of the surviving fraction of each extinction event would be optimistic, with that being the percentage of worlds that can develop life developing intelligent life (which is two factors in the equation), and that's just to get to where we are now, there are still filters we haven't reached yet

[@JJ-on3hb]

Oh goody another channel in the Simon Cinematic Universe

[@pixelfairy]

The Miller-Urey experiment demonstrated partial abiogenesis in 1953. Would be a good subject for a video.

[@MountainFisher]

No, it didn't demonstrate how only left handed amino acids make proteins. All it did was make some ingredients that wouldn't work. Take one class of how a cell works in Biology and then explain how it supposedly assembled itself. The assumption that life just forms is not based on any kind of science that can be replicated. OOL researchers do not do experiments relevant to early Earth conditions. 3.6 billion year old fossils show a photosynthetic cyanobacteria just appears out of nowhere like thousands of fossils have (according to Stephen J. Gould). Nothing else has been found that old. The stromatolite beds in Australia made our Oxygen and at 3.6 billion years old it happened right after the possible early bombardment period and for over a billion years there was no fossils found to confirm that any evolution happened. My biology professor was puzzled by this and that was in the 1970s and the situation has not progressed beyond Miller-Urey. Only progress is materialists spending more money trying to prove philosophical materialism.

[@boterlettersukkel]

"The Universe is pretty big place. If it's just us, seems like an awful waste of space." Carl Sagan.

[@Anonymous-yh4ol]

Not if we're meant to grow into it.

[@Primitarian]

Why can't space be wasted?

[@jasonjuneau2948]

Unless you subscribe to the multiple universe theory. Then maybe in this universe we are the only intelligent life. In another humans don't exist.

[@boterlettersukkel]

@@jasonjuneau2948 Who was talking about humans? Is wookies not good enough? Or Alf? Klingons? Cardassians? Bayorans?Vulcans? ... or all those from Babylon 5? or Starwars? The list is limitless. ET is somewhere out there.

[@vigo894]

Marvin The Martian? Ha ha ha. 😀.

[@padawanmage71]

“Where the f**ck are they?” -Enrico Fermi

[@ProfessorJayTee]

If there were multiple instances of abiogenesis, the most likely event on Earth is that one variety was far more efficient and used the commonly needed resources faster than (or simply ate) the rest.

[@SgtSupaman]

While that could have been the most likely event in your "if" scenario, it certainly isn't the most likely event in real life. The most likely event is that it only happened once. Had there been multiple instances, they would have occurred in multiple places, leaving evidence of such occurrences before the two (or three or however many) even encounter each other to be able to wipe each other out. It's not like Earth was the size of a sandbox back then.

[@another3997]

@@SgtSupaman Every year we find new species of animal and plant life, new fossils provide us with information on past life, and new geological evidence shows the ways our planet has changed etc. But evidence of bacteria, microbes and simple life forms from several hundred million years ago isn't going to be particularly easy to find, considering the major upheavals the planet has been through. Such life may have come and gone fairly quickly, perhaps never having the chance to evolve further. And the evidence of it's existence may also be long gone.

[@ntal5859]

And yet you fail to see how many different life forms evolved here, it would suggest life is easy to create.

[@jevinday]

I've only ever heard of the Drake equation from the perspective of what it potentially implies, never learned about what the actual equation is. Interesting stuff Simon, this is a great channel idea as usual!

[@jdranetz]

The meteor theory should include that when the planetoid Theia struck Earth 2.0, most of it's iron core stayed here. The rotating of the core in the magma, iron in the core of Earth 2.0 gives us greater magnetic field projection from gamma rays, etc.

[@antyspi4466]

"Communicating with us" is a pretty hefty qualifier. Not only are we using radio waves for just about a hundred years and this technology might get replaced by more advanced technologies within the next hundred, but the vast distances between the stars also mean that radio waves that would reach us now would have been sent when all humans were using stone tools. So communicating with us with the technology we are now using is nigh impossible. And there is another stepping stone to fall over. Our whole technological advance was essentially fueled by fossil fuels. Coal did not only power steam engines, it is an important ingredient of steel. Any society that doesn´t have access to fossil energy resources, which are the product of biomes existing millions of years prior, might find itself doomed to a more naturalist lifestyle, preventing them from communicating with other planets despite being intelligent.

[@rubycelica]

oh man, what a treat this video is! i'm wildly interested in topics like that, thank you very much for your effort!

[@ScottBakernewthinking]

When counting for R, you need to include habitable moons, like Pandora (fictional) or Titan, Enceladus, Europa, etc. (hypothetical). This might double or triple potential life sources. Also, it now looks like water is much more prevalent then previously believed and that panspermia with at least the building blocks of Amino Acids, is a real thing. If we find verifiable traces of extinct life on Mars, that would also up the odds of life elsewhere by ~2X per solar system.

[@jeffreycarman2185]

Thanks for this breakdown of the Drake Equation. It’s always good to be reminded, in equal portion, how precious our habitable planet is, and how little we know in the entirety of the scope of possible knowledge.

[@JM-us3fr]

I liked how he kept calling it “f sub 1” when the subscript is clearly “L” for “life.”

[@RideAcrossTheRiver]

Remember--KZbin videos are done by amateurs.

[@paulgrant285]

Loving the sarcasm "Captain Sarcasm" lol . Brilliant!

[@anderspaulsson]

You know its not a serious video when Drake shows up

[@Relentless13ZA]

The background music of this video is absolute fire and I need it for my beat saber explorations 😂

[@BillHimmel]

There might be tons of aliens in the universe, but to us the only ones that matter are the ones in our galaxy (and maybe the andromeda galaxy in the future!) Whatever is in other galaxies, we will never know, because the distances between galaxies are beyond imagination!

[@ianbrown7235]

Never say never.

[@terryarmbruster9719]

Not imagination but due to expansion being faster than light. Also those are places we are viewing in distant past so their true current and future positions we do not know with full confidence. Efen within our own galaxy the time/distance would put a hamper on two civilizations having current relationships as in the exact same time as in we share the same present.

[@ThePhysicalReaction]

Yea. It's estimated there are 125 billion galaxies in the observable universe. For reference, it is estimated there are 100-400 billion stars in the milky way galaxy alone. Multiplying that out, the universe is unfathomably vast.

[@Chris-hx3om]

@@ThePhysicalReaction But the shear distances trumps the 'unfathomably vast'...

[@BryceHomier17]

@@ThePhysicalReaction Space Time fabric is expanding faster than the speed of light. Mass cannot travel FTL. So...its a never.

[@matthewmckinney993]

Terrific--seriously one of the best illustrations of the plight of modelers I've ever seen. It's not Drake's fault.

[@rustythecrown9317]

limitations of his Zeitgeist.

[@MinistryOfMagic_DoM]

Even if it's only one successful life having planet per galaxy it's still billions of life forms in the universe.

[@sentientflower7891]

It isn't. N=0 for the Universe, size irrelevant.

[@mattheww.6232]

The time and distances involved mean they will never meet each other. Like if you were to set off in a generation ship...at the speed of light....to the other side of the galaxy it would be 50,000 years before even got half way across. Keep in mind just 5,000 years ago clipped stone was high tech and maybe some very, very rare metal bits in jewelry. So we are effectively alone and the most likely "aliens" we will meet are offshoots of humans with wildly different cultures and some micro-evolutionary environmental adaptations or genetic engineering.

[@sentientflower7891]

@@mattheww.6232 it is worth pointing out that radio communication of information from the Earth to the Oort cloud is quite literally impossible so communication between stars isn't a possibility even if Alpha Centauri hosted a technological civilization.

[@professorpancakes6545]

@@sentientflower7891 impossible? Or does it just take a really long time?

[@sentientflower7891]

@@professorpancakes6545 impossible as abiogenesis isn't a process afforded a long time.

[@gizfpv]

The answer is simple: we don't get aliens until the simulation gets upgraded to version 2.0

[@sofabuddha]

I'm still waiting for us to find intelligent life on this planet...

[@robocook01]

Well Simon, the obvious follow up to this has to be: The Fermi Paradox. We'll be waiting. Thanks for all you guys do.

[@JamesFromTexas]

It's not f sub one. It's f sub L as in fraction to support LIFE. No other sub is a number, the f subs all represent the first letter of the main idea. P is planets, L is life, I is intelligence, and C is civilizations.

[@warrenreid6109]

I wish people would learn the difference between a solar system and a galaxy.

[@joshuapartridge5092]

I think life in the universe is probably very rare but maybe it wont be forever if life can spread life.

[@RainingAnarchy]

The rare earth hypothesis boils down to humanity’s hubris. As a species we hold so much self pride as not just a whole but as nations, religions, family groups. Our evolution is still in its infancy in this aspect.

[@brandonvasser5902]

If life is out there we could communicate with, the odds of us being near enough in time and space to discover each other is incredibly low. There may have never been any civilization that was visited by another in the history of the universe.

[@TheInsaneupsdriver]

it would be allot easier to find dead ones then live ones. like millions to a few billion years dead even. odds are there is like one other out there in this galaxy at the moment. that's intelligent life i mean. complex life in general is probably a little more common, like a 1000 to 100,000 planets or something.

[@Sacrengard]

@@TheInsaneupsdriver that is another thing the equation might not be taking into account... WHEN the life began in said planet and how FAST they evolved. We cant say for sure if our evolution was slow or fast, if our civilization advanced slowly or fast... what if dinosaurs were never extinguished, etc... and also, when did the other civilizations started sending signals and from how far away, because that would tell us an estimation of when we would be getting a signal at the very least.

[@KeithElliott-zd8cx]

@@TheInsaneupsdriver would it? Why? At least an active teck civilization is potentially sending a signal we could detect. A billion year dead civilization might not be detectable even if we landed on the fucking planet.

[@RideAcrossTheRiver]

* Credibly low.

[@KeithElliott-zd8cx]

@@RideAcrossTheRiver weird that incredibly seems like it should maybe mean not credible, but it's more an expression of intensity rather than disbelief. Then again, kinda makes sense in a 'you're not gonna believe this' take which is probably the definition. Just, we don't use it quite like that. But i kinda side with incredibly. That number of likelihood is so fucking small, there could be a billion instances of 'mebbe aliens' shit happening to everyone, everyone each could deadpan 'it's not' for all of them for like a million years, and it'd still probably be a few orders of magnitude off. That's incredible, but yeah, its very credible local aliens are safe to assume not a thing.

[@thecommenternobodycaresabout]

The channel called "Astrum" made a fairly good point when he made a video about this topic: how many planets in our universe have life and how many of those are intelligent enough to communicate with other civilizations. He said that life on earth developed based on what earth has: water, our air, sun intensity, etc. It wouldn't be a far fetched scenario that life, in other planets, can be created and maintained based on other conditions. The only difference between the two is that the life "there" was created based on different kind of conditions than what earth has. So, I add: based on that logic, our search, in finding life other planets might not even be correct. We search for life assuming that the life on that planet is similar to ours, mainly because this is how we know how living organism work and how they show signs of their existence. Which means, that we don't take into account other signs that may show that there is life on a planet that simply works different than how life on this planet works. Therefore, it may be harder to find it, but there might be life almost everywhere, possibly in our own solar system as well. It's simply much harder to create life with different conditions and it may be too early to be visible without extented search. As for the communication part, well, why would they communicate with something that will not offer anything positive? Think about it. If we, finaly, get a "message" from another civilization, would we go there? What if the distance is too great for a journey to be feasible or to be of any profit, in general? Let's not forget that things like "lifetime" and "living conditions" must be applied to other living organisms, especially in space, and without them, the ability to travel from one place to another may not be possible, just like in our case. If technology is your excuse about how they could come or we could go there, let me remind you that we can only manipulate technology so much and that there *is* an end to how much technology can be developed and work properly.

[@WyndStryke]

The way to approach the drake equation is to run it backwards. Count how many non-human sentient species that we have observed so far, then see what the numbers look like when you reverse the equation (taking into account the limitations on what we can reasonably observe). The conclusion is that there must be some hard filters.

[@sathivv950]

If you made an exact duplicate of Earth with all the humans and their tech and put it elsewhere in the galaxy we do not currently have the technology to detect them. So there is no reason to assume that because we can't detect intelligent civilizations that they don't exist or are few. The real crux of the Drake equation is that an advanced civilization should have spread out through the entire galaxy and we would see their massive signature. But that is a huge assumption that they share a human value for unlimited growth and expansion.

[@WyndStryke]

@@sathivv950 But that's the point - within the radius of star systems that we *could* observe human life, what faction of them have we observed something from. Then you use Bayesian maths to calculate the plausible upper limit. For example, if there were 1000 star systems within that range, you can calculate a reasonable maximum chance from that. Of course it tells you nothing about the lower limit or average.

[@sathivv950]

@@WyndStryke Completely agree that we can draw some conclusions from what we observe. But from what we can observe I don't think you can say there MUST be hard filters. Also I would content that there could be an advanced civilization in our closest stellar neighbors and only now with Webb we *might* have the ability to detect their signature. It is true in the 40s we had high power TV broadcasts but since then our radio emissions have become much more quiet. Saying that if there was an intelligent civilization close by they must be blasting out easy to detect signals that our current tech can detect is an assumption that doesn't even match up with our own civilization's behavior.

[@Chris-hx3om]

"The conclusion is that there must be some hard filters." And I believe we're banging up against one of them now. Self-destruction through polluting our own living space.

[@AndrewManook]

@@sathivv950 All life has the "value" for unlimited growth and expansion, it's how life expands and keeps each other in check...

[@michaelhendricks9462]

Well done. Loved the ending!

[@RobDucharme]

I think it's more likely that we'll discover signs of life on an exomoon orbiting a large gas giant (bigger than Jupiter). Assuming the radiation shielding of the moon is sufficient, of course.

[@zogar8526]

That is probably where most simple life in the universe exists. But not on the surface. It will be in subsurface oceans. But it won't be complex at all. The energy there will almost certainly never be enough for multicellular life, or only the most basic forms of it. And we'd never find intelligent life native to a moon like that. The radiation is the issue. I suppose on hot Jupiter's the conditions for surface water could exist, but the issue is how long. Hot Jupiter's exist because they started falling to their sun. So even if they hit the goldilocks zone, they will likely move out of it too fast for life to get going. And I have no doubt it'd be theoretically possible for the proper set up to happen to stabilize the planet there, it'd be super rare and hard to have happen. So I don't think this is all that likely.

[@warlock64c]

Nah viking pretty conclusively proved life on Mars. Plus there's hundreds of radio signals that SETI picked up that qualify, but they kept to a stupid standard that we ourselves wouldn't meet. Oh and there's a galaxy with a titanic void inside it that currently can only be properly explained by alien civilizations. Our scientific institutions have failed so miserably here that it genuinely looks like a conspiracy.

[@WildStar2002]

Loving this new channel, Simon! 🤩

[@sciandsci-fi1723]

The Drake Equation could be supplemented by the Fermi paradox.

[@sebastianblack6506]

You referring to Jimmy Fremi, dude who works at the 7-11 around the corner from me? I know the dude has some mind-blowing theories but not sure he can really add anything to the Drake equation, seeing how he didn't even graduate high school.

[@sciandsci-fi1723]

@@sebastianblack6506 en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fermi_paradox

[@sebastianblack6506]

@@sciandsci-fi1723 I'm well aware of the Fermi paradox when it's spelled correctly. ;-)

[@sciandsci-fi1723]

@@sebastianblack6506 fixed.

[@davidwhittington7638]

It is estimated that there a 2 trillion galaxies in the known universe. Each universe has approximately 400 billion stars per galaxy. So, even accounting for the highest Drake Equation estimates, there aren't even enough civilisations per galaxy. And including existing time spans of intelligent civilisations and distances between civilisations etc. We can literally say in layman's terms, we are alone.

[@QBCPerdition]

Life spreads pretty quickly. Even if abiogenesis happened only once on Earth, it may be because the other places it may have happened were overrun with life from the first time. And it may not have been the first time, the first time, or first 100 times, life didn't stick, it died. Of course, this just points to the idea that life surviving is rare. I tend to think that the branch we are on just out-competed all other branches. Similarly, intelligent life has developed multiple times. There are the other hominids and great apes, but even beyond that great apes, we ha e cetaceans, corvids, octopuses. We might be the only intelligent life to develop technology, but that is also because we kill and drive out the others from being able to do so. While whales and dolphins are unlikely to develop fire, ravens, crows, and octopuses might if we weren't here. Life and technology are both things that can stunt the possibility of each re-emerging, so we can't really point at it happening once on our planet and conclude much of anything from that. Also, it is F sub L, not 1. The L stands for life. Edit: I forgot to include the possibility that one civilization, if in a more densely populated, but stable, area of space might spawn multiple civilizations. We, ourselves, are already looking to create colonies on two celestial objects in my life time. It may be too far to get to Proxima Centauri, but a civilization with a closer cousin star might even expand to an interstellar civilization. Once again, in some cases, intelligent life may only have to develop once for N to end up being a dozen or so. I think that is a variable Drake forgot, F sub E, the percentage of communicative civilizations that expand beyond their home planet.

[@SHADOW1414]

There are significant barriers to both corvids and octopus developing fire. 1. Corvids have already specialized a limb for flight, making it significantly harder for them to use tools. 2. Octopus are water dwellers and fire has no immediate benefit. 3. Long lifespans are required to learn, develop and pass on skills (like firemaking) Octopus only live 5 years and there is no parental involvement. Corvids less than 20. Not impossible, but both would require other evolutionary changes before their intelligence could be used for significant technological development.

[@QBCPerdition]

@SHADOW1414 all true, though octopuses can live out of water for a while. And I know they would need to develop differently, but I would say our existence makes those developments less likely than they would be if we weren't here.

[@devincreislerstudios]

I met Frank Drake! What a guy!

[@john_doe_not_found]

I think it will turn out that life is hard at every step. Going from non living to living is probably a hard step requiring a confluence of the right chemicals, environment and luck. Going from single cell to multi-cell requires a planet stable enough to let that happen (moon/tilt/size/distance - this is probably wrapped up in step 1 as well). Even if you get complex intelligent life it might be planetarily locked, smart aquatic creatures with no arms or legs will never build a civilization, for instance. And lastly, if some multi-limbed land animal became smart, if the planet is too large, chemical propulsion won't be enough to escape it's gravity. And if the planet is too small, the atmosphere could be stripped away before life gains civilization forging intelligence.

[@john_doe_not_found]

More variables: If the planet is rocky but low in metals, the civilization will be stuck at basic farming level for so long that some event wipes it out before it figures out how to improve itself. Life is lazy and tends to follow the path of success. Success is often fangs and claws and not many paths lead to the formation of intelligence. We had hundreds of millions of years of fangs and claws before the monkey branch got lucky. Millions of branches and only a few are on the path to intelligence (dolphins and primates). Smart dolphins would build a non-technical civilization. Tough to build anything while underwater and only having a mouth to manipulate your world. Smart crows would be equally handicapped. Wings, beaks, and claws, even if you can imagine how to manipulate your world, your body will let you down.

[@BryceHomier17]

@@john_doe_not_found I always want to chime in and say octopus, but those unfortunate creatures live like 2 years max...

[@johnrossman6679]

Dang another channel with Simon. And it is on Science of Science Fiction, yay.

[@joelb8653]

Next should be the femi paradox.

[@acealeshire]

i dig the new look on this video

[@PaulsGarage]

Easy, the aliens stopped by, tapped into the internet to learn about humanity, found Reddit and immediately noped out of here for good. That's why they aren't here. Drake's equation missed it the "alien tolerance for human B.S. factor.

[@EmilyJelassi]

Very interesting video. I wish I could say that I understood all of it, but I think I got most of it. If it is just us in the vast expanse of the universe, it’s a tremendous waste of space.

[@aprylvanryn5898]

My problem with the Drake equation is that it doesn't take into account several variables (both know and unknown). As a secondary problem, we have a sample size of 1 to base all this information on.

[@wendelllecroy214]

The Drake Equation was always an educated guess. The only thing that we can infer with certainty from more recent scientific advances in astronomy and biology is that life is far more likely to be common than we thought thirty years ago. Working against this is that we have found a lot more than can endanger or shorten the span of a technical civilization, probably the most important of which is how a civilization can overcome toxic energy sources. As we have only one civilization to gauge by that made wrong choices about becoming dependent on ubiquitous fossil fuels, we can't extrapolate anything about what other civilizations might do with their energy options. So. probably lots of life forms, probably not a lot of enduring civilizations. I suspect most of them will find extensive space travel to be prohibitively difficult, as long as they are not strongly motivated to expand.

[@zogar8526]

The drake equation could tell us exactly how many intelligent species we should find in any giving galaxy. If we knew the variables. And now we know far more then we did when he created it. However, there are I think two, but at least one variable, that is is completely impossible we will even be able to know. All the others we can learn eventually. But the average lifespan of an intelligent species just can't be known. As we will never have a complete set of data to figure it out.

[@barcode6495]

The bible says we are not more than a mist in the morning. Hope that answers your question

[@Agnemons]

We do have a valid value for the average lifespan of an intelligent species. If we say that, as of 2023, we humans have been intelligent for 100,000 years then that is the average. Next year the average will be 100,001, assuming we survive the coming year. The Drake equation is a very high-level overview of the problem. Each of the variables in the equation are, in fact, the sum of multiple other equations. Just like a brick wall is built one brick at a time so the Drake equation will be solved incrementally by driving solutions for each of the supporting equations one by one, piece by piece.

[@kylegesin7021]

@@Agnemons but no, we don't actually have the average, as we only have a data set of one. And unless we somehow search the entire galaxy to know exactly how many species are there, we can never have a complete data set, and this can't ever know this value.

[@kylegesin7021]

@@terreschill461 what drake is talking about, is how long they would be detectable. So, as humans, we've only been detectable for about 150 years so far. And this is what that variable is concerned with. How long the species with exist after becoming detectable.

[@kylegesin7021]

@@terreschill461 yes, it is basically guaranteed that there is other intelligent life out there. And likely lots of it. Many have likely died out, and many are likely to come as well. But there is too many places for it to happen to imagine it hasn't. One in five stars, at least, have an earth like planet in their habitable zone. That is literally billions of possible planets, 20-80 billion planets that could easily host intelligent life like us. Not even considering other situations where life could happen that isn't exactly like us. And giving how multiple intelligent species popped up on earth, if life gets going, giving enough time, it will become intelligent.

[@cellscribe]

Communicate is an interesting idea. We went digital recently. Encrypted digital signals are to an outside observer are essentially indistinguishable from noise. So we had been broadcasting "clear" signals for less than a century. There, if you know what to look for.

[@ChrisModjeska]

I feel like the noise that you are referring to is different from background radiation or interstellar noise. Its more like its designed to be indistinguishable from noise generating functions used to prevent decryption through statistical analysis. I'm not disagreeing, just pointing out that property is purposeful, and it seems unlikely that something capable or needing of encryption wouldn't also have unecrypted signals, or would neccesarily use this property as part of their encryption.

[@ArchFundy]

I have felt for a very long time that abiogenesis is very rare. I think that panspermia is a more likely way for there to be much life out there. If panspermia doesn't happen naturally then maybe WE will become the transmitters of life, eventually in the depths of time.

[@SgtSupaman]

Humans are part of nature, too, no? If we are the initiators of life on other planets, is that any less naturally than some other alien species doing it?

[@ArchFundy]

@@SgtSupaman I was actually referring to asteroid impacts, etc. I didn't articulate that as well as I should have.

[@KeithElliott-zd8cx]

You do kinda need abiogenesis out there somewhere tho, but the radiation should've killed the dna in space, not to mention dna can seemingly only last a few million years

[@ArchFundy]

@@KeithElliott-zd8cx If that is the case then I believe life will be very rare. It is possible though that there is some species out there that is deliberately spreading life around. Give one species a few million years and they could seed the galaxy.

[@KeithElliott-zd8cx]

@@ArchFundy could, still not that likely. The biggest issue with us not seeing a galactic wide inception of life is it'd be galaxy wide. Even if it's like one planet per 1000 stars, their 'seeding viable worlds' drones would need to me around a lot. Another issue, you don't just plop life into 'good nuff' conditions. Iirc a prerequisite for even simplest microorganisms to thrive was waters with already available organic chemicals. Iirc you can't dump them in like 'pure' water and they'll thrive. But just talking points. I'm also admittedly against the idea of expanding to the entire galaxy but thats just my take. Could be the 'spreader' in a 'galaxy sized life generator plan' with an abiogenesis start will be us, and rather than us traveling the stars, our self replicating machine arks do.

[@Svensk7119]

One problem, Simon. You said, "the nearest habitable planet". No other planets have been proven to be habitable.

[@justinread4381]

There simply has to be intelligent life in the universe, sadly it's extremely rare on this planet.

[@Barnabas45]

You definitely got that right!

[@simonbyrd6518]

Eric Idle said it best, "there's bugger-all down here on Earth."

[@chadimirputin2282]

I've counted and my calculations have concluded that there are only 69 alien civilizations.

[@greenmountainpokemon2112]

Idk... my math said only 67.5633!!

[@chadimirputin2282]

@Greenmountainpokemon 6 love to probe humans and 9 love to turn cows inside out, and the other 54 are pretty chill and just like to float about in glowing spheres getting the airforce to chase them about like teenagers.

[@ThatWriterKevin]

Checking your work, it appears you left out a variable. You were supposed to multiply that 69 by 6.09

[@lostbutfreesoul]

The biggest problem for me: It assumed Seti was the right 'ear' for the task...! Perhaps the reasons we can't hear anything out there is due to the fact we are quite deaf....

[@erichoss5684]

It seems every year scientist find another factor that makes Earth unique for life. Perfect level of this, or the correct distance from that, or the right amount of such n' such. I think I saw a chart that there are like 200 factors that have to fall into a narrow spectrum to get intelligent life.

[@fluffcrunchmini4572]

Recent research suggests basic life (prokaryotic) may have instantiated many many times and may even still occur - and even eukaryotic life beginning may have been common for a period.

[@chasefoster8092]

One of the glaring overlooked excluded variables is the probability of life as we know it comes into existence at any point in the galaxy, especially on earth. The probability of life on earth arising is astronomically small alongside the astronomically small probability that the earth should be habitable.

[@AllknowingUnknown]

Given the fact that the building blocks for our solar system is literal everywhere in the universe, we are certainly not alone in our galaxy.

[@ianmetcalfe7389]

I can certainly say the amount of alien life in the galaxy is from 0 to ♾️ 😂

[@Free_Krazy]

Omg, how many more Simon Whistler channels are there??? They are popping up faster than I can find them, never mind actually watch them lol

[@multiyapples]

This is fascinating yet scary.

[@censusgary]

When you make up most of the numbers in your equation (or, if you prefer, take wild guesses at them), you can’t really say you’ve figured out anything.

[@jeffg4570]

I completely agree. Another way of saying this: if you have essentially no confidence in the values of some of the terms of the equation, you should have essentially no confidence in the results of the equation. Beware confirmation bias.

[@sunn_bass]

Nice topic and video. The equation is interesting. The problem is that F sub 1, F sub i, F sub c and L are complete guesses. Ignoring that those valued are guesses, many people really latched on to the values of the variables and use it as proof intelligent life exists. So cool formula for discussion, but not more meaningful than a typical conservation over beers at the corner pub. To me this is more a philosophical topic than meaningful science. Still interesting.

[@themaskedhobo]

Length of broadcast is also likely WAY overblown. We are quieter from the outside now than we were 70 years ago because directed information broadcasts are significantly more efficient than omni directional broadcasts. We've only been broadcasting around 123 years (really started heavy around 1900) and we are quickly growing quieter.

[@_Ben___]

The main issue I spot with the equation is the variable L , it's not relative to our time spent observing signals. L could be in our past or our future, there needs to be another variable to show the length of time we are listening for and how those times overlap. Also we have other samples to test some of the variables - Mars and Venus. If they were once habitable, supposedly they were, it would give 3/8 planets capable of supporting life. We could narrow others down from 1 to 0.3.

[@Indyofthedead]

I like how when we say that life needs a planet like Earth to exist as if WE need to be able to live on it for it to exist. Meanwhile, we're finding liquid water is getting pretty common on rocky bodies within our own solar system. So, even if conditions are hostile to Earth life on a body (e.g. a place that doesn't have a big moon,) why does that mean that they're completely uninhabitable? Extremophiles people? Tardigrades? If it can live, life will find a way.

[@barcode6495]

Great video

[@zacharylindahl]

I'd love to see a crossover episode with Issac Arthur

[@Novakiller]

We need two more factors. One for our over sized core from the moon formation and another to account for the grand tack theory! Super earths seem more likely… Life would be stuck within an inch or two of the surface of such a large rocky planet with such strong gravity.🤘

[@redweed4018]

The most likely solution to the Fermi Paradox is the Dark Forest analogy

[@giovannicaproni6489]

It's important to remember that for 7/8ths of the Earth's existence (about 4.6 billion years), life on Earth never advanced beyond the bacterial stage. The Cambrian "explosion" occurred very recently, geologically speaking. That would suggest that it's very difficult for multicellular life, let alone "intelligent" life to appear. Also, the Drake equation is meant to estimate the number of intelligent civilizations at this instant of time. Intelligent life therefore could have developed in a nearby star, say, 3 billion years ago, but we missed it by 3 billion years. Taking these factors into consideration, I would estimate that the odds are vanishingly small, if not zero.

[@PlasmaMongoose]

The fact that we have yet managed to create even the most basic of lifeforms from lifelessness in a lab points to the idea that life itself is extremely rare in the universe, maybe even lower than one case of it per galactic super-cluster and if life is that rare, the odds that we are indeed alone in the universe is extremely high. On the other hand, if we figure out how to recreate life from lifelessness, only then can we begin to figure out the odds.

[@cttommy73]

The fact that you can say "we have yet managed to create even the most basic of lifeforms from lifelessness in a lab points to the idea that life itself is extremely rare in the universe" shows how highly you think of humans. Let's be honest here, humans are stupid. Way stupider then able to be imagine. Also, humans are weak as all hell and in case you don't get it, creating life from lifelessness has already long since been achieved and humanity's inability to do so is in no way inductive of anything. Humanity is just too stupid to do it. After all, humans are not gods. How you manage to get that, I will never know.

[@tk9780]

The Cosmos is so new, I believe we are among the very first 'Intelligent life' within the Cosmos, and the very first within the Milky Way galaxy.

[@bob_the_bomb4508]

“You better hope that there’s intelligent life somewhere out in space, ‘cos there’s bugger all down here on Earth” - Eric Idle

[@mho...]

no matter what solution comes out, all are equally terrifying!

[@RCola1217]

I think finding life will be common. Finding intelligent life in the way we define ourselves though, I think that is FAR less common, and may not be found within our own galaxy, but in others.

[@johanneshaukanes4531]

I love your scary intro

[@joujoukosmozou4094]

The beautiful thing about all these guesses, is that the universe is under no obligation to obey our wishes or musings.

[@RideAcrossTheRiver]

It produced us, though.

[@unclerojelio6320]

Imagine a field on a warm summer evening. See a firefly light up over there then another one over there. Civilizations are like the fireflies. They exist briefly and always far apart.

[@RideAcrossTheRiver]

How do you know this?

[@jimmybisk]

It's an interesting study, even if we are no nearer to getting answers. The thing that gets me with SETI is that I don't think it's beyond the realm of possibility that communicative radio signals might be able to only travel so far before they become completely garbled and indistinguishable from the noise generated by the background radiation. I may misunderstand the nature of radio signals but how are we ever going to be able to test that theory? Given there doesn't seem to be any other way of detecting alien technology on other planets beyond our solar system, or know it's out there, save for coming across an alien space probe, maybe what we class as intelligent life really is super rare.

[@bradleyhiggs3824]

we can detect gasses that can only be emitted by an industrial civilization, at least i believe that's what's happening with that new whackado telescope :) What a time to be alive!

[@jimmybisk]

@@bradleyhiggs3824 Indeed yes, that's pretty exciting - especially if it was detected on an exoplanet orbiting a star say 50,000 light years away. Imagine where they might be now!

[@harrisonbutchart9993]

My favorite theory about life in the universe is that it truly is plentiful……but Earth is just that one rest stop set way far away from the highway, and so nobody ever visits us

[@jedidrummerjake]

I'm lucky. You're lucky. WE'RE ALL LUCKY! -Magenta.

[@GordonGordon]

Hahahhahahhaa. An equation largely of conjecture. I saw through it as a kid. Thank you for being so very candid about it 🤪

[@jezlawrence720]

I think mats and Venus are both in our habitable zone. So F1 is around 0.3 based on a sample size of three. I think it's reasonable to assume life develops wherever it can, given how early it appeared here. Intelligent life is where it all probably starts to go wrong!

[@KeithElliott-zd8cx]

Other way around, they're too close. Mars still is in the zone but barely.

[@jezlawrence720]

@@KeithElliott-zd8cx I thought mars was actually well I side the zone, just too small to have held its atmosphere and a smaller core which has cooled off faster. Venus I know much less about. But mars is very well studied (cos it's a lot easier to study!). I mean the specifics of why Venus and Mars went the way they did isn't really the point. The point is there's three planets in our habitable zone, it's just that only one is actually habitable. The biggest worry I have is that increasingly it looks like our moon - and how we got it - is the key for us. And that's a hell of a series of coincidences to hope get replicated.

[@KeithElliott-zd8cx]

@@jezlawrence720 there's not three tho. Venus is too close. Mars is basically okay wuth enough greenhouse effects, but iirc venus is so fucking hot lead melts on the surface. Some of that is a runaway greenhouse effect and pressure, but earth atmo there now instead would still be like 400 degrees.

[@jezlawrence720]

@@KeithElliott-zd8cx yes there is only one habitable planet. But there are three in the habitable *zone*, i.e. the area in which planets that exist *could* be habitable. We have three. But for various other reasons two of them turned out not to be, given time. Remember it's thought once mars had liquid water and an atmosphere it's just too small to hold onto the atmosphere which means it can't stay warm enough. Venus we're not sure why the runaway greenhouse effect, but she's about our size and in the right zone. The question is why earth turned out ok - from what I know out best guess is it's all about our moon, giving us rotational stability and tides.

[@audreywinter4553]

My major issue with the Drake equation is that it assumes communication is going to be done by radio. Radio is *atrocious* for distances beyond a single planet. As soon as a civilization discovers a way to communicate that is better than radio, it's going to essentially fall silent to our limited, radio-based search. So the "length of time" variable is rather meaningless, because they could be communicating for millions of years with methods that we can't hear.

[@billymania11]

Valid points regarding radio. Which is why many of us favor the search for collimated beams of light in the cosmos. It's thought that advanced civilizations would leverage lasers for communication purposes.

[@neiljohnson6815]

Drake just threw numbers against a wall and saw what stuck. We had never even discovered an exoplanet during his lifetime.

[@billmullins6833]

Guesses multiplied by guesses multiplied by guesses. It's nothing but guesswork. BALDERDASH!

[@lazylazerrsp8781]

The only addition to the equation i can think of is extra variables for intelligent life that lends itself to technological advancements with which they can finally send out signals. Whether that be simply having a wealth of abundant materials to tinker with like rare earth metals, or the fact of if the form of the life can even craft something intricate enough to advance technology. On the matter of form, i could imagine some form of sapience that just can't create things like anatomy limitations, aquatic beings, or even creatures with a deathly 'allergy' to artificial emissions. Anatomical limits such as the inability for precision work such as no grip hooves or burst controlled limbs like claws. Aquatic environments doesn't really lend itself to industry. Allergies as in their biology is sensitive enough to become imbalanced by localized sources like heat or emf. Those are just the ones off the top of my head and honestly it's a lot more creativity intensive than i thought trying to come up with species that actively conflict with science work.

[@misterbitey2107]

My main issue with the Drake Equation is with the final two variables: odds of life showing up that will broadcast and average lifespan for that life to broadcast. The reason those variables are an issue is that until we've explored so much of the galaxy as to confidently assert those other values are zero, we won't have any reasonable guesses for those values until we already find life that is broadcasting. Furthermore, at this point we're already exploring the stars so we have to factor in human intervention since those variables are no longer operating in a vacuum - humans may choose to uplift certain species and given the vast size of the galaxy no matter how loudly the nearest government screams "don't do that" somebody will do it anyway. Even with FTL in the picture, space is too big for adequate policing of such policies which you know some people would violate for their own principles. In short: the only scenarios I can see us ever being able to successfully answer the drake equation are - 1) We have explored enough of the galaxy to determine we are alone 2) We have found enough examples of life that we must now alter the equation to account for human interference 3) We have been around for long enough to observe species start talking and then stop, so if the drake equation says there should be more species out there than we've observed then it ends up slamming into Fermi's Paradox which takes on new existential meaning when you are able to helplessly observe aliens die off.

[@donsandsii4642]

It does take in the things that stop everything. Asteroids, volcanoes, wars could end us

[@BRADSPIG]

Hmm, bit tangential, but I wonder if the Drake Equation could be modified to create a probability model of getting a date. Probably over thinking it.

[@Jayjay-qe6um]

"There are only a handful of planets in the cosmos that are capable of supporting complex life..." -- Klaatu