The ability to come up with a lot of alternatives is an important Thinkibility skill, reflecting “mobility” in thinking. As all skills, they have to be trained and maintained by exercises. Recently we came across a funny, but existential exercise.
Since the 1950s, scientists have argued the idea that “habitable zones” around stars are the most likely places to find life. Numerous discoveries in these zones since 2007 have generated estimations of frequencies of Earth-like planets —in terms of composition— numbering in the many billions though as of 2013, only a small number of planets have been discovered in these zones. Nonetheless, on November 4, 2013, astronomers reported, based on Kepler space mission data, that there could be as many as 40 billion Earth-sized planets orbiting in the habitable zones of Sun-like stars and red dwarfs in the Milky Way (Extraterrestrial life).
And yet, we see nothing, hear nothing, and we’re visited by no one.
So where is everybody?
Welcome to the Fermi Paradox.
We have no answer to the Fermi Paradox—the best we can do is “possible explanations.”
The Thinkibility nibble for today is just that. Give us at least 15 “possible explanations” why mathematically there must be extraterrestial life, yet we have never experienced it.
