>>13297942Total age of universe could exist has nothing to do with chances of intelligent life (or life in general). You might have an argument if we were outside observes capable of accessing any point in time from a done and dusted universe. More scientific guess based on probability would be that we are an average civilization in terms of our position in the universal time scale which would imply lot of more advanced civilizations existing. Another way of looking at it could be taking star formation, adding some time for things to cool off and then comparing age of the sun to average star, on this scale most stars come very early while majority of universal time is occupied by basically empty black hole era.
In the end it's impossible to say since we only have one reference point on chances of life developing and the development speed. We can make educated guesses like it's probably impossible for life to develop while the planet is still molten but anything beyond that is just someone talking out of their ass. Basically there is no evidence to support that we are first or even near the top
The only thing we can say with certainty is that we have not observed other life as of now but our search hasn't been very thorough either. Very advanced civilizations could exist in basically any neighboring star and even our own equivalent civilizations could only be detected from few light years with radio and our own radio phase has only lasted scant 100 years of our 100000 year history. Technological development for us is stupidly fast compared to geological timescales.
