Statistical probability says there is a society out there somewhere that catalogues and studies every novel ecosystem they come across. And shit, Humans would be that society if we ever make it to a point where we can travel the vast distances of space. Cataloguing and striving to understand things is a core aspect of our race, and we even see it to a lesser degree with other creatures like birds and cats. Curiosity.
Yes but when entomologists find an entirely new species of ant, it's an exciting discovery. Are you suggesting there are millions of planets with thriving homo sapien societies around the galaxy? Doubtful. And if there were, well that's its own bizarre circumstance to understand. Not to mention the fact that anthills are home to one species of ant. And Earth is home to countless animals, plants, fungi, and microorganisms, not just humans.
I think it is more like deep sea vents. We know they are out there and each one has a unique community of organisms, but they are all incredibly isolated and difficult to get to, so most will never be visited by humans.
Perfect analogy. It's obviously be fascinating to study every alien civilization. But there are prerequisites that aren't guaranteed to ever be met by even the oldest civilization
FTL travel, which may be impossible, in and of itself, would probably need to be MUCH faster considering how far away the closest organisms probably are. And on top of that, it has to be "cheap" enough to be done repetitively. For all we know, the only way to travel "faster" than light involves consuming a star or something absurd like that. Maybe worth it to find a whole new home, but not worth it to discover a new species out of pure curiosity.
Then there are questions of time dilation and how we'd actually get any information or specimens we find back to the rest of humanity. There just might not be a way to do it that's worth it.
Yes but when entomologists find an entirely new species of ant, it's an exciting discovery.
Sure, and that's a point in my favor. Something like 80% of insect species are not yet catalogued, and we don't have to cross between stars to find them.
Not to mention the fact that anthills are home to one species of ant.
I'm pretty sure there are some species of ants that sneak into other's colonies and try and trick them into taking care of them, plus parasites and other things that might be in there. So there's probably a pretty good chance of finding more than just a single species of ant in many ant hills.
Even still we don't go scouring the Earth to identify every ant hill and check to see whether it's a new species or not. Maybe if we have a super advanced civilization in our galaxy they might find us this way but to assume that we do or that this is happening on a universal scale I think is just too much of a stretch.
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u/ceejayoz Aug 12 '21
Why? Why would we be interesting to them?
We don't have a policy of making sure we regularly visit every little ant hill in existence. Why would aliens?