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Another idea is those friendly conditions only seem to have occurred once here on Earth - everything living is descended from that one Thing. That's the kind o

Another idea is those friendly conditions only seem to have occurred once here on Earth - everything living is descended from that one Thing. That's the kind of train of thought that keeps me up at night.

pluma 11y ago
At astronomical timescales even Earth's life is just a blink of an eye. It's not at all unlikely that life on other planets happened, is happening or will happen somewhere out there. The odds are just pretty good that we'll never be able to find out because we not only happen to be in the wrong place to observe it, but also in the wrong time. That's pretty depressing IMO.
- eru 11y ago
  > At astronomical timescales even Earth's life is just a blink of an eye. Age of the universe: ~13.8 billion years Life on earth: ~4.1 billion years That's a decent chunk, not the blink of an eye.
  - codeshaman 11y ago
    > Age of the universe: ~13.8 billion years If the age of the Universe is 13.8 billion years, I wonder, what was happening 13.9 billion years ago? What about 13.8^2 = 190 billion years ago and even before that ? Kind of mind bending, but time seems to be infinite (at least to us) so at that scale, the life of Earth is really a blink of an eye or less.
    - Sharlin 11y ago
      As far as we know, time began 13.8 billion years ago. Talking about events before that is not meaningful.
      - codeshaman 11y ago
        > As far as we know What we 'know' is given to us by the mathematical models which we invented to describe the observed reality. Currently, we have different models to describe reality based on the scale of observation.... Which is interesting because as you zoom into the microcosmos there's a point were the laws of physics magically 'switch' from relativity to quantum mechanics. As a programmer who is not a physicist, I can smell a hack right there. Which brings me to the inevitable conclusion that maybe our model of reality is not entirely correct. So if I were to bet on weather time existed before our model's mathematical moment zero or that our mathematical model is imprecise, I would definitely choose the infinity of time. Our mathematical model is for us or future generations to adjust to whatever we discover in the future.
        oelang 11y ago
        > As a programmer who is not a physicist Let me stop you right there...
        coldtea 11y ago
        >What we 'know' is given to us by the mathematical models which we invented to describe the observed reality So, do you have to propose anything better? Mere intuition "but time seems infinite" is not that.
        codeshaman 11y ago
        > So, do you have to propose anything better? If I did, would anyone listen to it here ? The point being that, throughout history humans always had a dominant theory about the origin of Universe and it was considered the truth at the time. The bing bang theory is one such theory which is currently accepted as 'truth' by the scientific majority, but it is not the last and not the only theory explaining the origins of the Universe. The man himself said it: "We may now be near the end of the search for the ultimate laws of nature." - Stephen Hawking
        eru 11y ago
    - deleted 11y ago
      [deleted]
    - cousin_it 11y ago
      Asking "what happened before the big bang?" isn't necessarily any more meaningful than asking "what's beyond the edge of the screen in a Pac-Man game?" or "what's the predecessor of a Garden of Eden configuration?"
  - 6502nerdface 11y ago
    Yeah, it would be really fascinating if it turned out that life rare is in space, but not so rare in time.
  - headShrinker 11y ago
    Earth didn't exist 13 billion years ago. By most calculations Earth is only 4.5 billion years old.
    - eru 11y ago
      Sorry, did you mix something up? I'm not even mentioning the age of the earth anywhere.
Sharlin 11y ago
Not necessarily. For all we know, abiogenesis may have occurred many times on the early Earth, it's just that the lineage that lead to extant organisms is the only one that survived.
cmrdporcupine 11y ago
Nick Lane makes the argument that abiogenesis of our kind of life itself has very specific conditions involving warm alkaline thermal vents (not the hot super smokers, but the kind) and iron rich water oceans. But he also points out that the development of eukaryotes, which are a class apart from prokaryotes (1000x the size and probably 1000x as complex) is even more of a mystery/fluke. And, again, looks to have happened just once in 4 billion. Some series of unlikely events.

pluma 11y ago

At astronomical timescales even Earth's life is just a blink of an eye. It's not at all unlikely that life on other planets happened, is happening or will happen somewhere out there. The odds are just pretty good that we'll never be able to find out because we not only happen to be in the wrong place to observe it, but also in the wrong time. That's pretty depressing IMO.

eru 11y ago
> At astronomical timescales even Earth's life is just a blink of an eye. Age of the universe: ~13.8 billion years Life on earth: ~4.1 billion years That's a decent chunk, not the blink of an eye.
- codeshaman 11y ago
  > Age of the universe: ~13.8 billion years If the age of the Universe is 13.8 billion years, I wonder, what was happening 13.9 billion years ago? What about 13.8^2 = 190 billion years ago and even before that ? Kind of mind bending, but time seems to be infinite (at least to us) so at that scale, the life of Earth is really a blink of an eye or less.
  - Sharlin 11y ago
    As far as we know, time began 13.8 billion years ago. Talking about events before that is not meaningful.
    - codeshaman 11y ago
      > As far as we know What we 'know' is given to us by the mathematical models which we invented to describe the observed reality. Currently, we have different models to describe reality based on the scale of observation.... Which is interesting because as you zoom into the microcosmos there's a point were the laws of physics magically 'switch' from relativity to quantum mechanics. As a programmer who is not a physicist, I can smell a hack right there. Which brings me to the inevitable conclusion that maybe our model of reality is not entirely correct. So if I were to bet on weather time existed before our model's mathematical moment zero or that our mathematical model is imprecise, I would definitely choose the infinity of time. Our mathematical model is for us or future generations to adjust to whatever we discover in the future.
      - oelang 11y ago
        > As a programmer who is not a physicist Let me stop you right there...
      - coldtea 11y ago
        >What we 'know' is given to us by the mathematical models which we invented to describe the observed reality So, do you have to propose anything better? Mere intuition "but time seems infinite" is not that.
        codeshaman 11y ago
        > So, do you have to propose anything better? If I did, would anyone listen to it here ? The point being that, throughout history humans always had a dominant theory about the origin of Universe and it was considered the truth at the time. The bing bang theory is one such theory which is currently accepted as 'truth' by the scientific majority, but it is not the last and not the only theory explaining the origins of the Universe. The man himself said it: "We may now be near the end of the search for the ultimate laws of nature." - Stephen Hawking
        eru 11y ago
  - deleted 11y ago
    [deleted]
  - cousin_it 11y ago
    Asking "what happened before the big bang?" isn't necessarily any more meaningful than asking "what's beyond the edge of the screen in a Pac-Man game?" or "what's the predecessor of a Garden of Eden configuration?"
- 6502nerdface 11y ago
  Yeah, it would be really fascinating if it turned out that life rare is in space, but not so rare in time.
- headShrinker 11y ago
  Earth didn't exist 13 billion years ago. By most calculations Earth is only 4.5 billion years old.
  - eru 11y ago
    Sorry, did you mix something up? I'm not even mentioning the age of the earth anywhere.

Sharlin 11y ago

Not necessarily. For all we know, abiogenesis may have occurred many times on the early Earth, it's just that the lineage that lead to extant organisms is the only one that survived.

cmrdporcupine 11y ago

Nick Lane makes the argument that abiogenesis of our kind of life itself has very specific conditions involving warm alkaline thermal vents (not the hot super smokers, but the kind) and iron rich water oceans. But he also points out that the development of eukaryotes, which are a class apart from prokaryotes (1000x the size and probably 1000x as complex) is even more of a mystery/fluke. And, again, looks to have happened just once in 4 billion. Some series of unlikely events.