Could we be one of the OLDEST civilizations in the galaxy?

On Jan 23, 2007, at 20:29 UTC, Alex Michael Bonnici wrote:

> For all we know we may indeed be one of the OLDEST
> civilizations in the galaxy?

Yes, indeed, we almost certainly are, unless we're living in a nature
preserve (which seems unlikely but not ridiculous). Those are the only
two reasonable explanations for why the galaxy appears so empty.

> By that I mean that it is only in this
> epoch of galactic history that civilizations have begun to emerge and
> we are one of them.

Not just one of them -- one of the first, if not the very first.
Remember, the #2 civilization might just barely get to expand a bit
before bumping into the #1 civ. The #3 and all subsequent civs will
almost certainly arise in an already-fully-settled galaxy.

> Or if there where older civilizations they where
> wiped out by some galaxy wide catastrophe like gamma ray busters.

Well, a GRB wouldn't be likely wipe out a spacefaring civilization. It
could cause mass extinctions on pre-spacefaring planets, though. These
certainly help the Fermi paradox a bit, and make it slightly more
likely that more than one civilization could arise before the first one
had settled the whole galaxy.

> Implying that in this period of galactic history we are seeing
> intelligent civilizations beginning to reemerging now. And, we happen
> to be one of the first.

Well, you make it sound like there are others. Most likely, in this
scenario, there are not. We've only been around, as a civilization,
for a few tens of millenia; that's an eyeblink. It's extremely
unlikely that the first several civilizations would be within millions
of years of each other, let alone a few millenia. So, since we don't
see anybody else, this implies that we're the first, and the #2 guys
will be developing millions (or hundreds of millions) of years from now.

I rather suspect that this is the case -- when we do get out and about
in the galaxy, we'll find lots of planets with life, but the vast
majority of those will have only microscopic life. A rare few will
have advanced plants and animals. But we will find no other planets
with even a pre-space civilization like ours today, unless we wait for
hundreds of millions of years for it to develop on the planets we will
have already found.

Best,
- Joe

Joe Strout -- joe@...