A medieval lord would be very confused by our current world, yes.
He wouldn’t fail to notice it. No, we don’t have castles. But a medieval lord who saw New York City would be very unlikely to say ‘hah, no castles, what weak primitives these people are’, and even less likely to say ‘what? No grain fields? Clearly there is no civilization here!’
It’s possible that aliens are more advanced in ways we don’t understand. However, they would e.g. have to be advanced in ways that result in them entirely ignoring thermodynamics to have no use for the huge amounts of energy in stars.
The medieval lord doesn’t get to see New York. He’s asking about things he knows well: troops, castles, woodland, farmland. Towns and cities are small and less significant remember? All societies are agrarian! He doesn’t get to see what we want to show him, he’s asking us questions and we’re answering and wishing we could say ‘yes but you should be asking about our arsenal of nuclear submarines that fire 12 missiles each with 8 warheads that can incinerate an entire army anywhere in the world within 30 minutes’
We’re looking at stars, the things we know well. Stars, black holes, planets and dust are 5% of the universe. The entire visible universe is not huge nor does it have much energy, it is dwarfed by the dark stuff we don’t understand.
The entire universe is being torn apart by two mysterious forces that we cannot identify! We are staring at something enormously powerful. If we can’t identify life in the 5% we understand well, life is very likely in the other 95%.
A medieval lord would be very confused by our current world, yes.
He wouldn’t fail to notice it. No, we don’t have castles. But a medieval lord who saw New York City would be very unlikely to say ‘hah, no castles, what weak primitives these people are’, and even less likely to say ‘what? No grain fields? Clearly there is no civilization here!’
It’s possible that aliens are more advanced in ways we don’t understand. However, they would e.g. have to be advanced in ways that result in them entirely ignoring thermodynamics to have no use for the huge amounts of energy in stars.
The medieval lord doesn’t get to see New York. He’s asking about things he knows well: troops, castles, woodland, farmland. Towns and cities are small and less significant remember? All societies are agrarian! He doesn’t get to see what we want to show him, he’s asking us questions and we’re answering and wishing we could say ‘yes but you should be asking about our arsenal of nuclear submarines that fire 12 missiles each with 8 warheads that can incinerate an entire army anywhere in the world within 30 minutes’
We’re looking at stars, the things we know well. Stars, black holes, planets and dust are 5% of the universe. The entire visible universe is not huge nor does it have much energy, it is dwarfed by the dark stuff we don’t understand.
The entire universe is being torn apart by two mysterious forces that we cannot identify! We are staring at something enormously powerful. If we can’t identify life in the 5% we understand well, life is very likely in the other 95%.