fyl2u
Striker
Given the size of the universe, I would think that chance is quite high.
look at the number of planets estimated to be able to sustain life. Then think what stages they’ll be at. A vast number will be way beyond our technology.
There are a number of assumptions necessary to make that judgement. Not least of which:
1. Life happens everywhere it can. Or at least in a significant number of places where it can.
2. Life happened on Earth at an average or slow rate compared with other planets.
3. Life tends not to die out / Civilisations tend not to end.
There's also a big elephant in the room, namely that life tends to expand into every place it can, particularly intelligent life. If there were other civilisations that arrived before ours that are so much more advanced than us, then why haven't they colonised our whole galaxy (including Earth, considering how lushous, fertile and habitable our planet is compared with most)?
And also, if there were civilisations that have existed a long time before ours that were a lot more advanced than ours, where are all the dyson spheres tapping energy from stars? Or indeed the supermassive black hole at the centre of the galaxy?
Also, some planet has to be the first one that intelligent life evolves on. It could be ours for all we know.
Essentially, there are way too many variables for us to be making the assumption that intelligent life currently lives elsewhere in the universe. It might, or it might have died out already at some point in the 13.8bn years before the human race existed and left no trace at all that it was ever here, or it might not have evolved yet elsewhere. We just don't know.