>>213683895
Probability is always confusing to people because they’re not aware of how complicated things can get when you take into account how many factors can influence each other, or how the very act of observing phenomena or placing importance on specific events impacts the calculation.
I can’t remember who it was at SETI who made the license plate analogy, but it goes something like this:
If you’re walking outside and see a parked car, the odds that you will see the very specific license plate (combination of state, design, and number) on that exact model of car at that exact time are incredibly low in a vacuum. But as a passive observer you’re not placing an extreme amount of importance on the astronomical odds of seeing that specific combination. It’s only when such a number has assigned significance (let’s say it happened to be the same numbers as your birthday, ON your birthday!) that you would begin to mull on how unlikely it all was.
Ultimately the fact that we are even here to go on morning walks, observe license plates, and talk about the nature of probability and extraterrestrial intelligence shows that the development of intelligent life DID happen. How unlikely that was really doesn’t matter given that we weren’t around to observe all the other permutations where it DIDN’T happen.
