Bear with me on this: What if we can't find aliens because they are religious? [View all]

[DetlefK]

"Why have we not found aliens? They must be so scientifically advanced! Why can't we find traces of them?"

This is based on the assumption that any civilization eventually advances to a technological level where interstellar communication (signals, probes...) becomes possible.

But what if REACHING that technological level is an extremely rare incident for a civilization?




Back in the Stone-Age, cavemen wondered how the world works. They saw how they, as intelligent beings, shaped the world and they concluded that there must also be somebody out there who is shaping the world on a large scale. That's how religion was born.

But moving away from religion and towards science was an extraordinary feat for mankind. The development of science hinged on ridiculous coincidences:
* It hinged on a philosophy ("Hermeticism&quot becoming popular where the power to shape the world is not exclusive to gods but where mortals can also do this. This philosophy becoming popular hinged on a mistake where the book (the "Corpus Hermeticum&quot was misdated twice(!) to be extremely old.
* It hinged on the coincidence that a philosophy that nature is governed by a system of laws was popular roughly at the same time.
* It hinged on the coincidence that massive advancements in mathematics were made roughly at the same time.
* It hinged on the coincidence that a technological level where you could do experiments to test theories (telescopes, microscopes, hydraulics, pneumatics...) was reached roughly at the same time.



My point is:

Imagine a civilization of cave-aliens. What if developing religion is natural for curious, uninformed minds?

Imagine the cultural/philosophical/religious revolution and the many coincidences it would take for these aliens to develop science.

What if we can't find technologically advanced aliens because developing science is a rare thing?

What if we can't find alien civilizations because they are stuck at medieval technology?