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<blockquote data-quote="J.Quondam" data-source="post: 9639569" data-attributes="member: 7030100">That's the big question, i suppose. If the observations suggest that the greater universe is infinite in extent (and I defer to your astrophysics expertise over mine!), then I can't argue your reasoning there. But I wonder: are &quot;all outcomes of evolution&quot; finite, and able to fit in the (greater) universe? Or are those possibilities infinite, and if they are is it a &quot;small enough&quot; sort of infinity that it fits in whatever sort of infinity that the universe is.&nbsp; Does that make sense?&nbsp; It's&nbsp; one of those questions that I don't have the background in mathematics to even ask, much less answer. But more quantitatively understanding &quot;all the possibilities of evolution&quot; would make for a convincing statement about infinite civilizations, either way.Right. And with no more than speculation, I personally suspect that this is the situation for us: we're either all alone or effectively so.I also think all of this is a pretty convincing argument that there's no weird physics allowing for FTL or time travel or the like. If such were possible, someone somewhere with some motivation would have showed themselves already. I'd assume that for every infinity of advanced civilizations who hide themselves, there's another infinity happy to show off.</blockquote>

[QUOTE="J.Quondam, post: 9639569, member: 7030100"] That's the big question, i suppose. If the observations suggest that the greater universe is infinite in extent (and I defer to your astrophysics expertise over mine!), then I can't argue your reasoning there. But I wonder: are "all outcomes of evolution" finite, and able to fit in the (greater) universe? Or are those possibilities infinite, and if they are is it a "small enough" sort of infinity that it fits in whatever sort of infinity that the universe is. Does that make sense? It's one of those questions that I don't have the background in mathematics to even ask, much less answer. But more quantitatively understanding "all the possibilities of evolution" would make for a convincing statement about infinite civilizations, either way. Right. And with no more than speculation, I personally suspect that this is the situation for us: we're either all alone or effectively so. I also think all of this is a pretty convincing argument that there's no weird physics allowing for FTL or time travel or the like. If such were possible, someone somewhere with some motivation would have showed themselves already. I'd assume that for every infinity of advanced civilizations who hide themselves, there's another infinity happy to show off. [/QUOTE]

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