Zero
“It is known that there is an infinite number of worlds, simply because there is an infinite amount of space for them to be in. However, not every one of them is inhabited. Therefore, there must be a finite number of inhabited worlds. Any finite number divided by infinity is as near to nothing as makes no odds, so the average population of all the planets in the universe can be said to be zero. From this it follows that the population of the universe is also zero, and that any people you may meet from time to time are merely the product of a deranged imagination.”
– Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy
There are so many levels at which one could interpret this… ;)
This made me think of a line from a TV show that’s stuck with me ever since I first heard it years ago: “My house has many rooms; I occupy but a few. The rest go unvisited.” Obviously that applies to seeking satisfaction in our Earthly lives… but maybe could be tweaked to read ‘the universe has many planets; intelligent life occupies but a few’? :)
Or we could just say that we’re all just hitchhikers on the road of life. And we do meet some strange characters indeed… :)
Well, to me this is more along the lines of “the man that drowned in a stream with an average depth of 2 inches.” Averages are quite useless in most applications of any real importance. :)
Extraordinary odds are quite ordinary on a large scale or in many applications (like taking a deck of cards, lying them out in the random sequence in which they come, and realising that the sequence had a virtually impossible chance of occurring yet nothing amazing took place.) But now I just sound geeky. :)
Indeed, averages are useful in generalisations only. Totally meaningless when looking at individual examples.
I just like the humour. Manipulating statistics and the average person’s (hehe, average, there’s that word again…) understanding of it to make people stop and scratch their heads and think, “heeey, yeah, how *does* that work anyway?” Kinda like how I am sometimes when reading an XKCD panel on physics or some obscure math brain teaser, lol…