HossAg said:
I think it's possible to see a galaxy during a time when life existed in it, even if it didn't exist at the same time as us. Andromeda is 2.5 million light years away, so I could see there being life there somewhere 2.5 million years ago even if it doesn't exist anymore. I'll admit that's a long shot when we're talking billions of years, but just pick a galaxy 1 billion light years away and the same logic applies.
But as far as actually making contact with other forms of life near us, I think that's impossible. There's just no way there's some form of intelligent life close enough to us to make contact that also exists in the same time period. We've barely had that type of communication ability for 50 years, and we still have barely sent the voyager probes beyond our own solar system.
The problem with the Fermi Paradox is that it does not account for the fact that the further you look in space the further back in time you're looking at. And the further back in time you're looking at, the fewer heavier elements beyond hydrogen and helium you see which is required for life.
Population III stars are made up of only hydrogen and helium. Population II stars contain some heavier elements and Population I contain the most.
So there's several billion years at the beginning of the universe where life is impossible. Then when you get to a time when 2nd generation stars come along with a few rocky planets and the ingredients for life, you still have to wait another few billion years for it to evolve into intelligent life.
So there's only a radius of about 3-5 billion LY from earth where we'd expect to find intelligent life. Anything outside of that hasn't had time to develop. You may find galaxies in every direction you look, but after you filter out everything further than 5 billion LY, you're left with much less.
