X-Message-Number: 30749
From: David Stodolsky <>
Subject: Re: The Singularity
Date: Wed, 21 May 2008 13:20:45 +0200
References: <>

On 20 May 2008, at 22:31, John K Clark wrote:

> 1) We are the first, after all somebody had to be. Life existed on  
> this
> planet for 4 billion years, it started about as soon as liquid water  
> was
> available, but intelligent beings are much more recent, only a few
> hundred thousand years old. Life could be common but mind very rare in
> the universe, perhaps even unique to this planet.

Given an at least 13.2 billion year old Galaxy this isn't plausible.  
Also, estimates place the evolution of life and then intelligent life  
at about 1/4 billion years for each. It is generally agreed that life  
evolves whenever the conditions are sufficient.

Conservative estimates are that there are 4,000 intelligent  
civilizations in the Galaxy. I disregard those based upon religious  
views.


dss


David Stodolsky    Skype: davidstodolsky

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