If you assume the cosmological principle (i.e. that the universe in homogeneous and isotropic at the largest scales), as all modern cosmologists do, then yes. Indeed, the implication would be even more extreme, namely that the number of other civilisations in the universe is infinite as well. Whether the universe is infinite or not is an open question and depends on its curvature, which is determined by the energy density of the universe. According to our best current observations, the energy density of the universe is exactly equal to the critical density, and the universe therefore infinite and flat with zero curvature. However, a slightly higher energy density, resulting in positive curvature and a closed, i.e. finite universe, is well within our range of uncertainty. Except maybe for speculative multiverse-wide cooperation, this is of no practical relevance though, as we cannot influence anything outside of the observable universe. In fact, we can only influence events within our cosmological event horizon, which (assuming a cosmological constant) is only 16 billion light years, compared to the 46 billion light years radius of the observable universe (anything we can ever see).
Jan L. Gaida
Karma: 5
EA Hamburg Meetup
EA Hamburg Workshop: Priorities Research and Exploring new Cause Candidates
Hello, I would like to join the meetup. Have been interested in EA for a while, but it’s my first time doing this kind of thing, and I am quite intrigued.
That’s fair. Personally, I think there is a substantive chance that an underlying theory requires the relative density to be one. This would also resolve the question of why the value is so close to one in the first place if it could’ve been very different (bounded by anthropic arguments I assume).