Sure but it's all 100% speculation. There's no data to extrapolate from.

Here is some math I punched out based on stats that may or may not be accurate...i was drinking beer and looking through my telescope,

The milky way is 100,000 light years across. There are as many as 100 billion solar system in the milky way,
Hercules A is 1.5 million LY across, IV 1101 is 2 million LY across.

The universe has perhaps 100-1,000 billion galaxies.
At minimum, that makes 10,000,000,000.000.000.000.000 galaxies, which is ten sextillion. At most, one hundred sextillion.

If you and every other person on earth visited one solar system per minute, every minute, with no breaks it would take the worlds population 297,000 years to visit them wll (24 hrs per day, 80 years lifespan).assuming the low end of the estimate on the number of solar systems.

Do you feel small now?

FWIW that math is based on numbers i pulled then and may or may not be accurate but even if off by large amounts...wow.

That's the real question.

Here's another: What is the earliest that a technological species could have arisen?

Life popped up on earth almost immediately, then proceeded to go through 5 or 6 extinction level events.

That took 4 billion +/-. That's a baseline.

The sun is at least a third generation star: The first stars came from the Bang, and were H1 and H2, went nova creating metals, next generation

congregated into globular clusters.

That gets cross pollination for metal rich stars and planets going.

So when could life form if it didn't have all of our extinctions...and without extinctions could intelligent life arise?

Discuss.

Look up the great filter.

The current correct answer that we know of is either 0 or 1. I'm in the 0 boat.

Any statement past that is just a best guess as we don't have any data to support it.

Id guess thousands, however there are a number of possibilities that make the idea that we'd ever detect one extremely improbable.

More like a rationalization turned into a hypothesis by the use of mathematics.
We are here and assign the attributes of life values. extrapolated out (Drake Equation)within our known universe, number of planets and galaxy’s.
The math says yes. Absolutely there are other worlds with life. Therefore it is dam likely the universe is also littered with planets where life failed.
We will probably be one of them.

I learned today, thanks

We have 4 appendages

I feel kind of bad when I use certain noise reduction processes on images because it could be wiping out countless civilizations.  That's like something an intergalactichitler would do.  I feel bad, and I should feel bad.

If time and the universe are infinite, then the answer is infinite as well.

We can extrapolate from datum.  It's the best kind of extrapolation.  A single datum doesn't constrain you like data.  Pick a direction and go!

Came here to post this.

It’s my opinion that the absence of data only exists if you ignore our own existence.

People who think we are the only intelligent life in the universe are the same, to me, as people that think the world exists for them. They are the center of their own universe.

We are not special. We are just lucky.

There is not zero evidence. We are the evidence.

A person gets stabbed to death. There’s no evidence found. Did a murder not happen?

Isaac Arthur has a great youtube channel
Hundreds of videos on science and futurism.  

Lots of current estimates are guessing "not that many currently, or we would see them"

42

A person is found stabbed to death. We know that murder happened. Based on this information, How many fatal stabbings happened in the Andromeda Galaxy during the same time period?

Someone been binging stargate on Netflix

Beautiful photo.

Unfortunate that we feel the need to drive the night sky away.

In the 70s and even into the early 80s I could still see some of the Milky Way from the house im in now.

These days everyone around me feels the need to illuminate their yard and home with the ridiculous lights that have all but ruined viewing the night sky around here.

Purpose of that equation was not to estimate the number of civilizations but to spark thought and discussion about it and the factors that would go into it.

Just wait until Elon gets done with it!

Careful, I was pretty much called a tard in a similar thread, for pointing out that things like "fl = the fraction of planets that could support life that actually develop life at some point" were currently all wild ass guesses.

I think there has been proof of other civilizations for a while and it is being hidden merely because we have so many religious nuts that will absolutely lose their entire bag of shit if it were revealed.  

Not saying we have had visitors, just that astronomical observations may very well have captured proof and the powers that be swooped in to hide it and brief anyone who knew how bad things would get for them and their family/loved ones if they didn't keep quiet.

The odds of there being other life in the vast universe are too high for there to be nothing.

this is pretty cool

https://www.visualcapitalist.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/11/histomap-big.html




ETA:  I missed part about entire universe.  But the map of earth civilizations past 4000 yrs is still pretty cool.

How about just our planet.
I doubt that we're the first cycle of advanced civilization on the planet

Based on that data I feel I could safely surmise at least 1 fatal stabbing happened in Andromeda in the same time period. Our galaxy has 100 billion stars, Andromeda is estimated to have 1trillion.

If you believe we are actually one in 100billion then using those odds there are at least 10 planets with intelligent life in Andromeda.

It being unknown doesn’t default it to zero. That’s the point I’m making. I’m not even claiming a number, I’m just claiming it’s more than 1 (us being 1 already), you are (seemingly) claiming it’s zero, which is insane to me given the odds, and given the already proven and irrefutable fact intelligent life exists in the universe.

How did it all start? Don’t know? Can’t prove it one way or another? Must not have started, we must not exist?

The answer is 42.

Do they have knives in the andromeda galaxy? Maybe they have really sharp teeth and big mouths, and have no need for knives. I’m gonna surmise that. Could you change the original scenario to “bitten to death”?

Who said anything about knives?

I don’t mind having an intellectual conversation but if you’re gonna do the snowflake thing and keep moving the goalpost to shore up your own confirmation bias we may as well just call it quits.

I don’t want to get in your way of being the very special center of your own special universe.

Pornhub has all the answers.

It's a thing... a largely useless thing, but still a thing.

-----------------
From Wikipedia,
The Drake equation is:

R*fp*ne*fl*fi-fc*L

R = the average rate of star formation in our galaxy
fp = the fraction of those stars that have planets
ne = the average number of planets that can potentially support life per star that has planets
fl = the fraction of planets that could support life that actually develop life at some point
fi = the fraction of planets with life that actually go on to develop intelligent life (civilizations)
fc = the fraction of civilizations that develop a technology that releases detectable signs of their existence into space
L = the length of time for which such civilizations release detectable signals into space
--------------------------

How many stars have planets? Most of them probably.

How many of those planets could potentially support life? That's a really difficult question because it depends on what you mean. The planet might support life but that doesn't mean it can support advanced life. I could imagine that some bacteria could live on Mars, but that bacteria would never develop beyond bacteria. A planet might, for a time be highly suitable for life but cease to be so suitable after a few hundred million years due to a variety of reasons. So what matters is the number of planets that can support advanced life and could support it for long enough for that advanced life to evolve. ("Advanced Life" is anything as complex as a worm. Because when you get to the level of a worm you are already 80% of the way to space travel on the evolutionary scale, at least in Earth terms.) And we have little idea of what this number is but it might be as high as one in a thousand or as low as one in several million.

And what fraction of the planets that can support life actually do. We don't have a clue... Panspermia might be a thing and then perhaps all the planets in the solar system, galaxy, or even universe, might be exposed to bacteria falling from space. Or perhaps life is some kind of bizarre fluke, a one in a quadrillion long shot. We don't know. We do know that even the most simple life possible is incredibly complicated.

What is meant by "intelligent life" is somewhat vague as well. That worm is intelligent in the sense that it has the ability to react to it's environment. I would expect that most advanced life would find a way to do that to some extent. Although it should be noted that plants are also advanced life and have only the most basic responses to the environment. For the purpose of the Drake equation what matters is if the life has a human level intelligence and if it has the kind of mind that can invent technology. Dolphins are smart but even if they had the ability it's unlikely they would want to spend years in a classroom learning physics when there are so many fish in the ocean that need a good eating.

Anyway, the point is that we are left with a bunch of numbers that we have to multiply together with wildly different values. That means any estimate we get is going to be wildly inaccurate to the point you might as well guess... So I am going to say 87.

zero.zero

some of you guys need to look at modern, way more probable theories instead of parroting high school level anecdotes.

Simulation theory is possible, even probable when calculated in a particular manner.  However, even that wouldn't preclude the simulation from simultaneously simulating multiple worlds and species.

Well the American / Western civilization is in its death throws now...so there's that.

The Hubble Ultra-Deep Field is tantalizing.

Actually, you did when you used a stabbing as an analogy.  I think there is a real good chance something else is out there. I’m fixated on debunking any attempts to quantify it because that requires assumptions we don’t have data/information to make.

Any number is as likely as any other number except 0,  which is more likely.  0 has the greatest chance of being correct.

Theories.

Only ours exists until proven different. Just fantasy.

There a several papers on it with different theories.

But in an infinite universe or multiverse, the answer is also infinite.

You people using 1 per galaxy are still just making stuff up.  Why look at galaxy?  Why not look at stars?  Your number goes way up!  You just created more life!  You should look at universes.  One out of each universe,  then do your math.

Less than 10, this place is pretty young yet. We might actually be one of the first early ones.

A few trillion here and there

Even Drake knew the equation was in no way legitimate. It was just a point to discuss possibilities.

Our Sun is a 2nd, 3rd, or 4th generation star within our local galactic neighborhood.

Stars lived and died for billions of years before ours was even born.  We've been able to count past one for maybe 100,000.

Ok, I'll try to explain my position on the subject.

The universe isn't that old, relatively speaking. The circumstances that led to the creation of Earth as it is, where it is, based on current observation data, are highly unlikely. I believe that life formed on Earth under absolutely ideal circumstances and even with those ideal circumstances it took a very very very very long time just to create a creature that could invent a telescope. And it took that creature a very long time to actually invent a telescope. Much less everything else an advanced civilization demands.

If there are other forms of life out there in the universe then I believe that life will be fairly primitive. If it exists at all. Something that a lot of people don't seem to realize. An advanced civilization will not hide itself. Practically speaking, it can't. The emissions of their technology is something that can't be covered up and for that matter, why would they want to? Even if the Milky Way galaxy is infested by Berserker Probes that wipe out advanced civilizations sooner or later those probes are going to trip up on something far more advanced than the race that created them in the first place. Incredibly advanced civilizations that don't do anything in their galactic playground is just stupid writing.

Oh and to everyone who seem to think that some form of communism or socialism eventually kills all the advanced civilizations out there. It's unlikely that everyone on this planet, much less the wider universe is going to be a complete chickenshit coward and roll over and present their collective asses for the intergalactic communists.

If there are other civilizations out there then either they haven't evolved technologically enough for us to detect them. Or much more likely, the emissions of their technology are simply outside our current range of detection. For all we know a civilization might have turned the entire Triangulum Galaxy into a Dyson Supercluster and we haven't seen the light from that transformation yet.

Again, based on the evidence I'm seeing. I believe that we are the first race in the known universe to achieve advanced technology and over the next 100 years or so we will evolve into a Kardashev 2 level civilization by creating a Dyson Swarm. I believe that civilization will be a far richer, diverse and stranger place than most current science fiction writers can wrap their heads around.

Heck I've been trying to imagine life in such a civilization for months now and I keep petering out.

I'm going to have to disagree with you on everything except your ultimate conclusion.

We're just starting to get a handle on two factors of the equation, and we cannot be certain of our accuracy.  However, at present it appears that about one-third of the stars have planets. The accuracy of this limited by our ability to observe both in distance, and resolution.

We're also looking at the idea that only planets within the Goldilocks zone can support life.  We've only ever seen life within that zone based on our sample size of one, and that has been defined as places that have liquid water.  Of those exo-planets that have been discovered, they're assigning possibilities that they're in the Goldilocks zone based on star characteristics and planet distance from the star.  Of course, our ability to define the Goldilocks zone is limited to our knowledge, so who knows how accurate it is.

My point being that our ability to determine fp (the fraction of those stars that have planets) and ne (the average number of planets that can potentially support life per star that has planets) while admittedly limited is still better than a wild guess.

All of that being said, anybody that answers the Drake equation is making a guess.

Sure.
I estimate it's somewhere between zero and eighty-seven bazillion.
Prove me wrong.

The assumption that there have been any other civilizations, or any other life for that matter, seems faulty (or at least premature) to me.
Everyone wants to throw around a bunch of huge numbers as though x-billion potentially-habitable planets is evidence of life, but it's not even evidence for the potential of life until we know where life came from here.

I see that as galactically naive, given the size and age of the universe, along with the fact that we've become as advanced as we are in a very short time, relatively speaking.

Not disrespecting you, and I understand that this is all just speculation.  But it seems overwhelmingly obvious that we can't be the only intelligent life out there.  The odds against it are too great - especially given the nature of organic chemistry, and the abundance of water.

It goes further than that. We find the fundamental building blocks of life all over the place... oxygen, nitrogen, carbon, sulfur, phosphorous etc... they are so common throughout the known universe that NASA recently found them in a star at the center of the Boötes constellation.

Meteorites fall from the sky all the time, panspermia is a solid theory backed up by mounds of evidence. People who lash out at any idea we are not alone in the cosmos are just desperately trying to coverup their unwarranted fears. Mostly religious in nature. Funny how many demand absolute proof of life elsewhere before they will allow even others to discuss it, but most of them will accept unquestionably the existence of a supernatural god based on nothing more than a book written by men in the 1600's to control other men...