You wrote “the class of all potential civilizations in our galaxy that have reached our level of technological advancement at around the same time as us and seen no aliens”
Does this violate relativity by assuming there exists some absolute type of simultaneity?
Considering the size of the galaxy relative to the age of the universe, I’d say replacing “the same time” with “the same spacelike interval” doesn’t change the meaning enough to offset the distracting terminology.
It doesn’t, because the motion of the galaxy sets a common reference frame that most objects in the galaxy do not depart greatly from, and did not depart greatly from in the evolution of stars, planets, and any possible life.
You could even make some argument that the cosmic background radition provides some sort of crude “universal standard of rest”. More importantly, given the probable origins of the galaxy, any alien beings that have gone through relativistic accelerations relative to us will have have had less time to develop than us, not more.
You wrote “the class of all potential civilizations in our galaxy that have reached our level of technological advancement at around the same time as us and seen no aliens”
Does this violate relativity by assuming there exists some absolute type of simultaneity?
Considering the size of the galaxy relative to the age of the universe, I’d say replacing “the same time” with “the same spacelike interval” doesn’t change the meaning enough to offset the distracting terminology.
It doesn’t, because the motion of the galaxy sets a common reference frame that most objects in the galaxy do not depart greatly from, and did not depart greatly from in the evolution of stars, planets, and any possible life.
Yep.
You could even make some argument that the cosmic background radition provides some sort of crude “universal standard of rest”. More importantly, given the probable origins of the galaxy, any alien beings that have gone through relativistic accelerations relative to us will have have had less time to develop than us, not more.