I find the notion that we have enough information to even guess at where life is let alone that we can assume there is none downright laughable to the point of obscenity. We know a lot less about this universe than it takes to make even sensible guesses as to generalizations about the nature of life in the universe.
Our best-effort guesses are literally the best we can do. Pretty much by definition, dismissing them because "we know so little" means taking a view that's worse than that guess.
excuse me, but no. Our best-effort guesses might be the best we could literally do. But there is no need to be that literal, or literal at all. As long as the uncertainty range includes 0.5, it's OK, but merely a test of how much we know as a fact as opposed to intuitively. And at that, the equation can surely be blown up further. Why would it be optimal?
My thoughts exactly, I always think: perhaps in 10 years we find an alternative to radio based communication which is far superior and then we find the galaxy teaming with communicating life forms... Or not. Who's to say? This whole thing seems to me an exercise in quantifying unknowns. We don't know the size of the categories we don't even know we don't know anything about. This can still be a fun exercise of course and it can give you an idea of the assumptions to prove or disprove but still... the value (beside the entertainment value) is pretty small imho.
Yep. Or maybe we’re all wrong about quantum mechanics or any of a number of theories. There’s a huge portion of the universes mass that we can’t explain. The unknowns are far too large to extrapolate.
