Odds for an enlightened rather than barren future

TL;DR

The paper explores the likelihood of interstellar communication occurring before intelligent life becomes curious, using Bayesian reasoning to suggest a future where contact informs new intelligent beings they are not alone.

Contribution

It introduces a Bayesian framework to estimate the probability of interstellar communication occurring early in intelligent life evolution.

Findings

Interstellar communication is likely to occur before curiosity develops in new intelligent life.

The probability of early contact increases with the assumption that intelligent life has similar evolutionary propensities.

The model implies a future where communication informs and possibly guides emerging intelligent civilizations.

Abstract

We are at a stage in our evolution where we do not yet know if we will ever communicate with intelligent beings that have evolved on other planets, yet we are intelligent and curious enough to wonder about this. We find ourselves wondering about this at the very beginning of a long era in which stellar luminosity warms many planets, and by our best models, continues to provide equally good opportunities for intelligent life to evolve. By simple Bayesian reasoning, if, as we believe, intelligent life forms have the same propensity to evolve later on other planets as we had to evolve on ours, it follows that they will likely not pass through a similar wondering stage in their evolution. This suggests that the future holds some kind of interstellar communication that will serve to inform newly evolved intelligent life forms that they are not alone before they become curious.