4 ms·

I don't think this is a very good analogy because we know far more about the nature of life, what is required to make it, and the abundance of those ingredients

I don't think this is a very good analogy because we know far more about the nature of life, what is required to make it, and the abundance of those ingredients throughout the cosmos. Life isn't a lengthy, specific sequence of precise things. It's a phenomenon that occurs when certain kinds of things come together in certain kinds of ways -- many variations of these ingredients and permutations exist on Earth alone. Your perspective reminds me of the anthropic principle: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anthropic_principle https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anthropic_principle The popular conception is the "puddle analogy." You can imagine a rain puddle becoming conscious, seeing the intricacies of its perfect fit with the pavement that surrounds it and concluding "wow, this hole fits me SO perfectly, it must have been made for me."

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tsimionescu 5y ago
> many variations of these ingredients and permutations exist on Earth alone. Apart from cells, what are you referring to here? Especially, is there anything that can be considered "somewhat living" that is not a by-product of regular life, which as far as we know has only ever appeared (or thrived) once Earth's history?
- saas_sam 5y ago
  Let's take a different naturally-occurring type of object that has only ever been found on Earth: waterfalls. To get a waterfall, you need a set of ingredients and circumstances to occur in a particular way that a waterfall results. We've only ever seen this on Earth. They come in many forms: Niagara Falls, jungle waterfalls, small waterfalls, even frozen waterfalls and underground waterfalls. They even have different colors, chemical characteristics, and each one can be said to be very unique from all the others. We know of no other planet that has waterfalls. Yet, because we have seen enough waterfalls on Earth we have an evidence-based scientific belief that waterfalls cannot be Earth-specific because all that is required for one: water, erosion, gravity -- exists throughout the cosmos in very large amounts. Life is the same. We have seen enough of it in enough variety to know that it can take on many forms, including exotic forms that are impossible on Earth but would be possible elsewhere. The abundance of the ingredients and time are all that's required.
  - CorrectHorseBat 5y ago
    I don't think that's a good analogy, all those waterfalls developed independent of each other. As far as we know all life is related and has the same ancestor. Even on earth the emergence of life seems to be a freak accident.
    - saas_sam 5y ago
      Sigh. Analogies are hard.
      - tsimionescu 5y ago
        I don't think this is just a limitation of the analogy, but it is the key point: for any structure where we know the process that forms it (like waterfalls or snow flakes), we can have some informed opinion about the chances of it happening elsewhere in the universe, even if we have only observed one instance of it happening. However, for structures where we have no idea of the process by which they are formed (like cells), we can't have any opinion on how likely they are to happen elsewhere, unless we see more examples.
        saas_sam 5y ago
        I think we know more about abiogenesis than you are giving us credit for.
        tsimionescu 5y ago
        We know a few things about the formation of organic compounds that life uses from inorganic compounds, and how some specific organic compounds crucial to life appeared, but not much more than that. Nothing even close to the formation of a simple self-replicating cell, for example.
  - cwkoss 5y ago
    > Life is the same. We have seen enough of it in enough variety to know that it can take on many forms, including exotic forms that are impossible on Earth but would be possible elsewhere. What forms of life that are impossible on earth do we know about?

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tsimionescu 5y ago

> many variations of these ingredients and permutations exist on Earth alone. Apart from cells, what are you referring to here? Especially, is there anything that can be considered "somewhat living" that is not a by-product of regular life, which as far as we know has only ever appeared (or thrived) once Earth's history?

saas_sam 5y ago
Let's take a different naturally-occurring type of object that has only ever been found on Earth: waterfalls. To get a waterfall, you need a set of ingredients and circumstances to occur in a particular way that a waterfall results. We've only ever seen this on Earth. They come in many forms: Niagara Falls, jungle waterfalls, small waterfalls, even frozen waterfalls and underground waterfalls. They even have different colors, chemical characteristics, and each one can be said to be very unique from all the others. We know of no other planet that has waterfalls. Yet, because we have seen enough waterfalls on Earth we have an evidence-based scientific belief that waterfalls cannot be Earth-specific because all that is required for one: water, erosion, gravity -- exists throughout the cosmos in very large amounts. Life is the same. We have seen enough of it in enough variety to know that it can take on many forms, including exotic forms that are impossible on Earth but would be possible elsewhere. The abundance of the ingredients and time are all that's required.
- CorrectHorseBat 5y ago
  I don't think that's a good analogy, all those waterfalls developed independent of each other. As far as we know all life is related and has the same ancestor. Even on earth the emergence of life seems to be a freak accident.
  - saas_sam 5y ago
    Sigh. Analogies are hard.
    - tsimionescu 5y ago
      I don't think this is just a limitation of the analogy, but it is the key point: for any structure where we know the process that forms it (like waterfalls or snow flakes), we can have some informed opinion about the chances of it happening elsewhere in the universe, even if we have only observed one instance of it happening. However, for structures where we have no idea of the process by which they are formed (like cells), we can't have any opinion on how likely they are to happen elsewhere, unless we see more examples.
      - saas_sam 5y ago
        I think we know more about abiogenesis than you are giving us credit for.
        tsimionescu 5y ago
        We know a few things about the formation of organic compounds that life uses from inorganic compounds, and how some specific organic compounds crucial to life appeared, but not much more than that. Nothing even close to the formation of a simple self-replicating cell, for example.
- cwkoss 5y ago
  > Life is the same. We have seen enough of it in enough variety to know that it can take on many forms, including exotic forms that are impossible on Earth but would be possible elsewhere. What forms of life that are impossible on earth do we know about?