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Originally Posted by Daradon
So I guess I'll have to wait for the documentary, but it doesn't really say how likely Hawking thinks it is that we will eventually be contacted by an alien race. Though I imagine if he's talking about it, he assumes it's within the realm of realistic probability.
I more and more get the feeling that if any species finds another one, it will be us discovering one. We seem to be getting at that threshold technologically where 100-200 years could make differences we can't even imagine. Compared to the 100,000 years or so of our species' evolution and the half billion of years before that which our planet evolved.
Then WE would be the ones that would be the concern.
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I think the Fermi Paradox notes we Earthlings are relatively new on a very ancient cosmic stage and, all things being equal, intelligent life had a long period to come to the fore while we were still being amoebas . . . . . hence their signals should be here waiting for us to find already, in spite of the vast distances involved.
Yet . . . . there is nothing. A lack of evidence is proof there is nothing postulated Fermi.
As Photon noted, that's the physics answer.
The mathematical opinion is there are simply too many opportunities amid hundreds of billions of stars in tens of billions of galaxies in the universe for ourselves to be the only success. It's the height of arrogance to suppose we're the only place this could happen . . . .
That's Hawking's opinion . . . . and mine.
I don't know why people would suppose that greater intelligence means less malevolence. Sci-fi writers have long postulated that it makes good old fashioned common sense for increasingly intelligent beings to send out probes into the universe to eliminate potential competition, as an example.
Lastly, directly to Hawking's comments, if you're walking in the wilderness, it's never a good idea to let your dog take off into the woods . . . . you never know what kind of bear/cougar it's going to bring back to it's master.
Maybe he's right about that.
Cowperson