Over the last decade or so, new astronomical discoveries have come up by leaps and bounds. The size of the universe has grown by orders of magnitude. And with it, the identified numbers of stars and planets have grown immensely. We have always envisioned the existence of intelligent creatures like us existing in other planets. Now with the presence of billions and billions of planets, the existence of intelligent life like ours appears to be almost a certainty.

A friend of mine was recently toying with the dream of being reborn in such a planet with intelligent creatures like us, or even more intelligent, around him. This got me thinking and my thoughts branched out in several directions, some probably quite far-fetched. The first obvious question is: what is the probability of such a world existing or more importantly ‘not existing’? Probabilities are rarely ever hundred percent or zero, always somewhere in between. Admittedly, there are billions and billions of planets and one is logically inclined to expect some planet(s) somewhere which could satisfy my friend’s dream (100 percent probability). However, there may be a few deterrents to getting to that 100 percent. For one, human beings and life for that matter appeared on earth after several million years of its existence and will probably disappear but the earth will likely live on a few million years after that. Assuming it is similar for all other planets, the time spans for the presence of intelligent life in different planets will likely occur at different times – they may not necessarily overlap. My friend, therefore, has to find a planet, where intelligent life is currently existing, to be reborn in, Therefore, there is just a narrow window of opportunity for my friend to cash on, reducing the probability some.

And there is more. I happen to recall something written by the famous scientist, late Stephen Hawking in his bestseller, ‘A Brief History of Time. He was a confirmed atheist. Yet, in his first book he wrote something to the effect that if the earth was slightly closer to or further from the sun, or slightly different in size, or had a few other differences, the temperatures, pressures and gravitational forces on earth would be slightly different. These slight differences would be enough to preclude the existence of any living form, let alone intelligent life. To me, this was an eye-opener. The constraints spelled out by Hawking would greatly reduce the number of potential planets capable of nurturing intelligent life thereby greatly reducing the probability further. These are all an outcome of physics and statistics.  We do not need a God in here to satisfy the logic, though we may be inclined to bring him into the mix.

With this, I was reminded that Holy Mother Sarada Devi is reported having said after being asked the question, something to the effect, “No, there is no other place in the universe where man-like intelligent creatures exist”. Of course, she had no definitive scientific basis for her statement. But till proven otherwise, we have little gone on to refute her divinely inspired statement (of course I am not fully sure if she had actually said that!).

Epilogue

I have recently come across a very interesting article in the recent edition of the Popular Mechanics publication. I attach the link below.

https://apple.news/AyrMf7_rmTCys4QwqJB9tqg

The article reports some scientific studies which claim that in our universe there could be about 36 or so planets where there is the possibility of the existence of human life.  The finding is based on something called the Drake Equation, and it assumes that it takes the same amount of time, 5 billion years for intelligent life to form on other planets as it did on our Earth.  I could not but be thrilled with the finding.  It comes so close to my rudimentary speculation.  After all, there are several billion stars in our Milky Way (where our earth and our sun reside).  Thirty-six out of several billion is not too far from my ‘zero’.  In fact, the article clarifies that the calculated numbers range from a piddly 4 to a high of 211, indicating the level of uncertainty in the numbers.  Also,  near the end of the article, it even mentions that there may not be any active civilizations in our galaxy.