2016/08/20 by David Haussler, Haussler, David
Physics and Astronomy · #Astrophysics of Galaxies (astro-ph.GA) #Cosmology and Nongalactic Astrophysics (astro-ph.CO) #FOS: Biological sciences #FOS: Physical sciences #Popular Physics (physics.pop-ph) #Populations and Evolution (q-bio.PE) #Space Science and Extraterrestrial Life
paper · pdf · doi:10.48550/arxiv.1608.05776
openalex publication_date 2016/08/20 · openalex created_date 2025/10/10 · openalex updated_date 2026/07/28
We are at a stage in our evolution where we do not yet know if we will ever communicate with intelligent beings that have evolved on other planets, yet we are intelligent and curious enough to wonder about this. We find ourselves wondering about this at the very beginning of a long era in which stellar luminosity warms many planets, and by our best models, continues to provide equally good opportunities for intelligent life to evolve. By simple Bayesian reasoning, if, as we believe, intelligent life forms have the same propensity to evolve later on other planets as we had to evolve on ours, it follows that they will likely not pass through a similar wondering stage in their evolution. This suggests that the future holds some kind of interstellar communication that will serve to inform newly evolved intelligent life forms that they are not alone before they become curious.