[Udo]

> Say a 1080p monitor display is completely randomized, until it shows a clear visible five-pointed star. Given I'm looking at a star, what is the likelihood there is another one on the screen?

That's an unnecessarily convoluted example, a way of asserting that you think the probability of a technological civilization arising is vanishingly small, and taking into account the vast time intervals in question, therefore unlikely for more than one to exist simultaneously.

Is that a valid point of view? Sure. It just means at least one of the factors in the Fermi equation is exceedingly small. Barring further evidence, that thesis may well turn out correct. But we still need to know what that inordinately small factor is, because we haven't found anything that fits the bill yet. Granted, there are big questions about the probability of things like abiogenesis, but over the entire history of science, arguments from exceptionality or uniqueness have almost always turned out to be incorrect.

[Almaviva]

> a way of asserting that you think the probability of a technological civilization arising is vanishingly small

I have no idea one way or another. I wonder why many scientists are confident that extraterrestrial intelligent life exists though. Viewing through the lens of one example in a random (otherwise) unremarkable multiverse, it's not clear to me why this should be so.