Comment by chistev
16 days ago
Maybe we aren't the first living things to exist in the universe, but the first intelligent ones, and intelligent here meaning creatures with ability to ask these questions and make space probes to explore the universe.
Maybe intelligence isn't always a product of evolution. Even here on Earth, in the, what, 4 billion years history of the planet, humans are the only evolved creatures with intelligence as defined here. Maybe intelligence doesn't always occur.
A lengthy tangentially related post on my blog if you care -
https://www.rxjourney.net/extraterrestrial-intelligence-and-...
> Even here on Earth, in the, what, 4 billion years history of the planet, humans are the only evolved creatures with intelligence as defined here. Maybe intelligence doesn't always occur.
It is unlikely that other beings becoming intelligent enough to rival us and deny us the supremacy over the planet would ever be allowed. Homo sapiens are believed to have "contributed to" the extinction of several other modern-human-like species (one of them being the Neanderthals). How many other times before could something similar have happened, perhaps far earlier in the evolutionary timeline?
The only way we would allow sufficiently highly intelligent life to develop and flourish is if it is completely subservient to us.