4 ms·

Your computer ran billions of instructions in the time it takes to read this. Therefore, it probably made a mistake in that time, even if the chance of a mistak

Your computer ran billions of instructions in the time it takes to read this. Therefore, it probably made a mistake in that time, even if the chance of a mistake in any one instruction is "astronomically low", right? No, many real-life frequencies are way below one in a billion.

opportune 9y ago
That's a good point, but I think it's reasonable to say that the frequency at which planets are similar to Earth is high. Non-tidally locked, geologically active, high-water-content, with enough gravity to trap oxygen/CO2 but not hydrogen/helium, and within a certain distance from a star based on its output planets can't be that uncommon. I'm pretty sure Venus actually fits all those requirements - which isn't to say that there is life on Venus, just that superficially most of what we consider "the requirements" are there. In fact Mars fits all those requirements too, aside from geological activity. We can't know how probable life is given similar conditions to Earth because our sample size is too small. But there are definitely a lot of Earth-like planets out there.
- abecedarius 9y ago
  Yes, there must be a lot of Earth-mass rocky planets out there in habitable zones. Twenty years ago I'd have said we just don't know. There may've been some real progress too on figuring out the origin of life, but our knowledge is still compatible with almost all potentially-habitable planets being lifeless -- it wouldn't badly contradict what we know so far (afaik) and would explain why we haven't seen any advanced aliens taking stars apart, etc.
  - opportune 9y ago
    Well, I think you're assuming intelligent life must be common given that life is common. I'm of the opinion that life in general is pretty common, but that intelligent life is very uncommon, possibly unique. I'm basing this assumption on the fact that life has existed on Earth for ~4b years but intelligent life has only existed for about ~40,000 years, depending on when you consider humanity to have become "intelligent."
    - abecedarius 9y ago
      Not assuming that -- I'm just uncertain. I was arguing against "life must be common" but not arguing for "life must be uncommon". I think your scenario is plausible, though I wouldn't want to bet that way -- octopuses are very distant relatives of us.

opportune 9y ago

That's a good point, but I think it's reasonable to say that the frequency at which planets are similar to Earth is high. Non-tidally locked, geologically active, high-water-content, with enough gravity to trap oxygen/CO2 but not hydrogen/helium, and within a certain distance from a star based on its output planets can't be that uncommon. I'm pretty sure Venus actually fits all those requirements - which isn't to say that there is life on Venus, just that superficially most of what we consider "the requirements" are there. In fact Mars fits all those requirements too, aside from geological activity. We can't know how probable life is given similar conditions to Earth because our sample size is too small. But there are definitely a lot of Earth-like planets out there.

abecedarius 9y ago
Yes, there must be a lot of Earth-mass rocky planets out there in habitable zones. Twenty years ago I'd have said we just don't know. There may've been some real progress too on figuring out the origin of life, but our knowledge is still compatible with almost all potentially-habitable planets being lifeless -- it wouldn't badly contradict what we know so far (afaik) and would explain why we haven't seen any advanced aliens taking stars apart, etc.
- opportune 9y ago
  Well, I think you're assuming intelligent life must be common given that life is common. I'm of the opinion that life in general is pretty common, but that intelligent life is very uncommon, possibly unique. I'm basing this assumption on the fact that life has existed on Earth for ~4b years but intelligent life has only existed for about ~40,000 years, depending on when you consider humanity to have become "intelligent."
  - abecedarius 9y ago
    Not assuming that -- I'm just uncertain. I was arguing against "life must be common" but not arguing for "life must be uncommon". I think your scenario is plausible, though I wouldn't want to bet that way -- octopuses are very distant relatives of us.