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Just because something is unlikely doesn't mean it can't happen. Furthermore, there could be something very special about Earth's position that makes it far mor

Just because something is unlikely doesn't mean it can't happen. Furthermore, there could be something very special about Earth's position that makes it far more likely than we initially calculate. It doesn't make sense to dismiss theories as 'unlikely' when our degree of understanding of that probability is absurdly primitive.

PeterisP 7y ago
"something very special about Earth's position that makes it far more likely than we initially calculate" - makes what far more likely ? Spawning life? If so, then that special factor, whatever it is, would simply be an example of a great filter behind us. I'm not saying that we can't be the first ones, I'm just noting that us being the first implies that we're alone in the galaxy. To make that point perhaps more clearly, let's say that before and including us, our galaxy has had X planets like Earth. Whatever that X is (1 or 1000 or billions), the total number of such planets that our galaxy will ever have is less than 2X. That doesn't rely on any poorly understood theories, that doesn't rely on any aspects of how life or intelligence might form - the lifecycle of stars is well understood, the age of universe is well understood, and the future has less new stars and planets than the past; we're currently past the midpoint of star/planet forming and that's that, most of the planets that will ever exist in our galaxy either exist right now (most of them for longer than Earth) or are gone already. So whatever the "dice" of a suitable planet existing and creating intelligent life are - if we're the first ones (and I'm not making a point whether we are or aren't, whether that's likely or not, that "if" is an assumption), if X rolls of dice resulted in just a single success - then the remaining less than X rolls simply won't suddenly roll a hundred more successes; if the total number of spawned civilizations until us is 1, then that means that the total number of spawned civilizations until end of the universe would be 1 or 2 - and if it's 2, then it would be a hit-by-a-lightning-while-typing-this level of coincidence is that second one happened to arise at the same insignificantly tiny moment in time that constitutes the existence of homo sapiens until now, just some tiny 100 000 years after us instead of some 10 000 000 or much more years after us. OR, possibly, there are and will be much more civilizations than that - but then some of them have been long before us.
- K0SM0S 7y ago
  “if X rolls of dice resulted in just a single success - then the remaining less than X rolls simply won't suddenly roll a hundred more successes” Mmhh.. not so sure you can conclude this. You assume all rolls of the dice are identical (same likeliness of all outcomes), but this ignores the fact that the universe is ever-changing from a particular state towards its inevitable fate. Consider for instance the "pulse" of galaxies as they collide and 'ignite' their central quasars anew — this coincides with extremely harsh local conditions for said galaxy merger, which becomes likely very unhospitable to life. Conversely, when the jets calm down (mature) and winds recede, star formation kicks back up and a new galactic cycle begins until the next merger (if ever). This mechanism alone could paint a very asymmetric past and future set of conditions (relatively to our rather 'calm' present, but it's actually a cycle). Some of these conditions would definitely affect life (for instance, during its active phase, we suspect that a galaxy's quasar might be strong enough to blow away planets atmospheres). There's just too many unknowns at this point. Drake's famous equation was actually meant to expose this fact (he actually knew it was flawed/impossible to solve, but felt it was a meaningful thought experiment, iirc).
  - blackflame 7y ago
    Exactly! You can only extrapolate statistical observations to identical scenarios but we know that every aspect of this universe has a great degree of variation and is anything but uniform. Statistics breaks down when you cannot ensure uniformity.
RandomTisk 7y ago
Most people's understanding of the complexity of a single-celled organism is absurdly primitive too.

PeterisP 7y ago

"something very special about Earth's position that makes it far more likely than we initially calculate" - makes what far more likely ? Spawning life? If so, then that special factor, whatever it is, would simply be an example of a great filter behind us. I'm not saying that we can't be the first ones, I'm just noting that us being the first implies that we're alone in the galaxy. To make that point perhaps more clearly, let's say that before and including us, our galaxy has had X planets like Earth. Whatever that X is (1 or 1000 or billions), the total number of such planets that our galaxy will ever have is less than 2X. That doesn't rely on any poorly understood theories, that doesn't rely on any aspects of how life or intelligence might form - the lifecycle of stars is well understood, the age of universe is well understood, and the future has less new stars and planets than the past; we're currently past the midpoint of star/planet forming and that's that, most of the planets that will ever exist in our galaxy either exist right now (most of them for longer than Earth) or are gone already. So whatever the "dice" of a suitable planet existing and creating intelligent life are - if we're the first ones (and I'm not making a point whether we are or aren't, whether that's likely or not, that "if" is an assumption), if X rolls of dice resulted in just a single success - then the remaining less than X rolls simply won't suddenly roll a hundred more successes; if the total number of spawned civilizations until us is 1, then that means that the total number of spawned civilizations until end of the universe would be 1 or 2 - and if it's 2, then it would be a hit-by-a-lightning-while-typing-this level of coincidence is that second one happened to arise at the same insignificantly tiny moment in time that constitutes the existence of homo sapiens until now, just some tiny 100 000 years after us instead of some 10 000 000 or much more years after us. OR, possibly, there are and will be much more civilizations than that - but then some of them have been long before us.

K0SM0S 7y ago
“if X rolls of dice resulted in just a single success - then the remaining less than X rolls simply won't suddenly roll a hundred more successes” Mmhh.. not so sure you can conclude this. You assume all rolls of the dice are identical (same likeliness of all outcomes), but this ignores the fact that the universe is ever-changing from a particular state towards its inevitable fate. Consider for instance the "pulse" of galaxies as they collide and 'ignite' their central quasars anew — this coincides with extremely harsh local conditions for said galaxy merger, which becomes likely very unhospitable to life. Conversely, when the jets calm down (mature) and winds recede, star formation kicks back up and a new galactic cycle begins until the next merger (if ever). This mechanism alone could paint a very asymmetric past and future set of conditions (relatively to our rather 'calm' present, but it's actually a cycle). Some of these conditions would definitely affect life (for instance, during its active phase, we suspect that a galaxy's quasar might be strong enough to blow away planets atmospheres). There's just too many unknowns at this point. Drake's famous equation was actually meant to expose this fact (he actually knew it was flawed/impossible to solve, but felt it was a meaningful thought experiment, iirc).
- blackflame 7y ago
  Exactly! You can only extrapolate statistical observations to identical scenarios but we know that every aspect of this universe has a great degree of variation and is anything but uniform. Statistics breaks down when you cannot ensure uniformity.

RandomTisk 7y ago

Most people's understanding of the complexity of a single-celled organism is absurdly primitive too.