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So where's the bacteria outcompeting moon dust? Theories which make life inevitable are inherently shaky because we have 1 sample.

by ajuc 3y ago

nerdbert 3y ago
You can't have theories without life to conceive of them, so in fact life is inevitable under any theory.
- ajuc 3y ago
  That's just antrophic principle, no need for any selection pressure or any particular theory at all. That's why all of them are shaky.
bmitc 3y ago
Where are the conditions for life on the Moon? You can't have something if the conditions to form it are missing. Your question is equivalent to asking why stars don't form outside dust clouds.
- ajuc 3y ago
  There are ways for the matter on the moon to dissipate energy faster than moon dust. We could build a moon base for example. It doesn't do it. In fact as far as we know - most of the space in the universe is doing the dissipation in a very inefficient way. Which means the theory that it will do it simply because of the "selection pressure" is empirically wrong. Let's say a huge asteroid sterilized Earth 100 years ago. What could the life do to outcompete that? Was it the result of this "selection pressure" that it didn't or was it simply result of starting conditions and gravity? This theory seems to provide almost no predictive value it just takes a thing that happened once and makes a story about how it had to happen.
  - bmitc 3y ago
    > Which means the theory that it will do it simply because of the "selection pressure" is empirically wrong. Again, this is not true. We have empirical evidence that life on Earth began as soon as it could. And the universe doesn't spontaneously do things as you're wishing it to do to support your argument. > Let's say a huge asteroid sterilized Earth 100 years ago. What could the life do to outcompete that? That doesn't negate anything. Entropy increases over time. Given the various conditions available in the universe, its processes follow that directive relevant to their conditions.
    - ajuc 3y ago
      > And the universe doesn't spontaneously do things as you're wishing it to do to support your argument. That's the whole point. The theory reduces to "if conditions are right life will happen" which moves the whole predictive power to the "conditions are right" and leaves the theory with 0 value added.

So where's the bacteria outcompeting moon dust? Theories which make life inevitable are inherently shaky because we have 1 sample.

by ajuc 3y ago

So where's the bacteria outcompeting moon dust? Theories which make life inevitable are inherently shaky because we have 1 sample.

nerdbert 3y ago

You can't have theories without life to conceive of them, so in fact life is inevitable under any theory.

ajuc 3y ago
That's just antrophic principle, no need for any selection pressure or any particular theory at all. That's why all of them are shaky.

bmitc 3y ago

Where are the conditions for life on the Moon? You can't have something if the conditions to form it are missing. Your question is equivalent to asking why stars don't form outside dust clouds.

ajuc 3y ago
There are ways for the matter on the moon to dissipate energy faster than moon dust. We could build a moon base for example. It doesn't do it. In fact as far as we know - most of the space in the universe is doing the dissipation in a very inefficient way. Which means the theory that it will do it simply because of the "selection pressure" is empirically wrong. Let's say a huge asteroid sterilized Earth 100 years ago. What could the life do to outcompete that? Was it the result of this "selection pressure" that it didn't or was it simply result of starting conditions and gravity? This theory seems to provide almost no predictive value it just takes a thing that happened once and makes a story about how it had to happen.
- bmitc 3y ago
  > Which means the theory that it will do it simply because of the "selection pressure" is empirically wrong. Again, this is not true. We have empirical evidence that life on Earth began as soon as it could. And the universe doesn't spontaneously do things as you're wishing it to do to support your argument. > Let's say a huge asteroid sterilized Earth 100 years ago. What could the life do to outcompete that? That doesn't negate anything. Entropy increases over time. Given the various conditions available in the universe, its processes follow that directive relevant to their conditions.
  - ajuc 3y ago
    > And the universe doesn't spontaneously do things as you're wishing it to do to support your argument. That's the whole point. The theory reduces to "if conditions are right life will happen" which moves the whole predictive power to the "conditions are right" and leaves the theory with 0 value added.