Also worth considering is that humanity is not the first major species to evolve on Earth. Dinosaurs came first, about 230 million years ago, went extinct ~60 million years ago, then humanity came about 1-2 million years ago.
Imagine some other planet in the universe (or even our galaxy) that went through similar geological processes as Earth and at roughly the same time, but on which the first species to evolve did not go extinct and instead went on to develop intelligence. That species would have a roughly ~200+ million year head start on humanity.
Further, consider the planets at the far edge of the observable universe from Earth, whose light emitted billions of years ago is only just now reaching us, and which are much older than the Milky Way. What if any of those planets went through a similar evolutionary process and developed intelligent life, but billions of years ago.
Such species would now be using science and technology completely incomprehensible to, and likely undetectable by, humanity. We're scanning for electromagnetic transmissions, while they're communicating via subspace, superstrings, ninth membrane, or whatever other exotic means. Everything we currently know about physics and the nature of reality would be useless in detecting and analyzing such advanced species. If they happened to detect and visit us, we wouldn't know unless they wanted us to.
It's possible there are many planets in the universe on which life evolved, and the subsequent emergence of intelligent life follows some distribution of trial and error. Most planets evolved intelligent life after one or more errors (dinosaurs and the like), but some small percent developed intelligent life first, ahead of the curve.
> Such a species would now be using technology completely incomprehensible to, and likely undetectable by, humanity.
They are undetectable by us, but this isn't because of how good their technology is (though it may well also be that good), but simply because the universe is so large and the speed of light so slow. Even if their first "person" to create a powerful enough radio had the idea to beam a signal directly to earth, it still wouldn't have arrived. That signal would have been sent before I sun even started forming, so there is no reason for them to have had the idea, but even if they did anyway.
Imagine some other planet in the universe (or even our galaxy) that went through similar geological processes as Earth and at roughly the same time, but on which the first species to evolve did not go extinct and instead went on to develop intelligence. That species would have a roughly ~200+ million year head start on humanity.
Further, consider the planets at the far edge of the observable universe from Earth, whose light emitted billions of years ago is only just now reaching us, and which are much older than the Milky Way. What if any of those planets went through a similar evolutionary process and developed intelligent life, but billions of years ago.
Such species would now be using science and technology completely incomprehensible to, and likely undetectable by, humanity. We're scanning for electromagnetic transmissions, while they're communicating via subspace, superstrings, ninth membrane, or whatever other exotic means. Everything we currently know about physics and the nature of reality would be useless in detecting and analyzing such advanced species. If they happened to detect and visit us, we wouldn't know unless they wanted us to.
It's possible there are many planets in the universe on which life evolved, and the subsequent emergence of intelligent life follows some distribution of trial and error. Most planets evolved intelligent life after one or more errors (dinosaurs and the like), but some small percent developed intelligent life first, ahead of the curve.