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This is scary on two fronts. One, whatever happened to Mars could happen to Earth, and two, it puts the Great Filter probably in our future. If our solar system

This is scary on two fronts. One, whatever happened to Mars could happen to Earth, and two, it puts the Great Filter probably in our future. If our solar system had two hospitable planets then there should be plenty of Earth like planets around in our galaxy. In which case we end up with the Fermi Paradox. If life is so abundant in the Universe how come we haven’t been in contact with aliens?

xyst 2y ago
That’s easy. Earthling tech is just too behind the curve and society is stuck in a state where we are considered primitive.
- elorant 2y ago
  We could locate technosignatures though. Even if they don't wish to contact us we could tell if the galaxy was teeming with intelligent life.
mewpmewp2 2y ago
I don't understand Fermi Paradox. Why couldn't the chance of life be extremely miniscule, e.g. given all billions of stars and planets, why couldn't there have been even 10% or 0.0001% odds of it happening at all one any given stars or planets? E.g. maybe even it happening on one was such a lucky occurrence? Maybe given even 1,000,000 of observable universes the odds were just 1 out of 1,000,000. How can people confidently claim that there must be some other civilizations, we wouldn't know the odds in the first place unless we know the exact mechanisms involved. To me it seems like the probability could have been anything. It could have required any amount of certain chemical reactions to happen in certain order where the probability can vary wildly depending on the amount and likelihood of those reactions. E.g. it could be 0.01 to the power of 1,000,000 or as well as to the power of 10e64 and so on.
- killthebuddha 2y ago
  > To me it seems like the probability could have been anything. The point is that we do know some things about the universe and, given what we do know, we think the probability is high. So we're obviously missing something but we don't know what. The thing that makes the Fermi Paradox so interesting is that every resolution is either interesting or implies something interesting.
  - mewpmewp2 2y ago
    How do we know the probability of chained events required to start life in any given planet with potentially suitable environment? How do we know that the probability isn't something like 0.01 to the power of some very large number, far higher than amount of total planets etc? If we don't know the exact mechanism for all we know the odds could be infinitely low, even so low that even after billions of big bangs only 1 would have had life occurring anywhere at all and lower than that. Because maybe the first life form literally had to appear spontaneously from bruteforce chemical reactions with such low odds of ocurring.
    - killthebuddha 2y ago
      What you're describing is one possible resolution and part of what's interesting. A very big open question is "which, if any, of the known factors are wildly rarer than we think?". Another possible resolution is that most of our estimates are actually ok and there's some other variable that's going to whack us on the head at some point.
      - mewpmewp2 2y ago
        I just don't get how anyone can go past the idea that maybe it required freak N amount of specific chemical reactions to happen in a row for the first lifeform and without knowing N the odds could just simply be anything. It seems as if people seem to assume that odds of first life form occuring are high and basically just a matter of time, which doesn't make sense to me.
        2y ago
- elorant 2y ago
  If life is so rare, then having two planets in the same system with life, even at different epochs, seems absurd. That’s why I said it’s scary. It means that life can easily get a kickstart but for some reason it doesn’t make it all the way to interstellar civilizations. And that reason could very well be ahead of us and could eliminate humanity. That’s the hypothesis of “The Great Filter”. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_Filter https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_Filter
- andrewflnr 2y ago
  Life started on Earth really fast after it was physically possible for it to exist on the surface. So either Earth was astronomically lucky, or forming life was easy (on the scale of a couple hundred million anyway), or Earth got seeded really quickly by the next passing rock. The first is unlikely, almost by definition, and the other two both imply life is common.
lugu 2y ago
The Fermi paradox calculations consider that life started on an earth like planet. But have we confirmed that life can appear on an earth like planet?
- deleted 2y ago
  [deleted]
- 8fingerlouie 2y ago
  But if life cannot appear on an earth like planet, and they're "abundant" enough that two planets in the "goldilocks zone" within the same solar system can develop into "earth like" planets, that might indeed mean that we're alone, but at the same time also hint at there's a whole galaxy out there with "earth like" planets just waiting for us to colonize them.

xyst 2y ago

That’s easy. Earthling tech is just too behind the curve and society is stuck in a state where we are considered primitive.

elorant 2y ago
We could locate technosignatures though. Even if they don't wish to contact us we could tell if the galaxy was teeming with intelligent life.

mewpmewp2 2y ago

I don't understand Fermi Paradox. Why couldn't the chance of life be extremely miniscule, e.g. given all billions of stars and planets, why couldn't there have been even 10% or 0.0001% odds of it happening at all one any given stars or planets? E.g. maybe even it happening on one was such a lucky occurrence? Maybe given even 1,000,000 of observable universes the odds were just 1 out of 1,000,000. How can people confidently claim that there must be some other civilizations, we wouldn't know the odds in the first place unless we know the exact mechanisms involved. To me it seems like the probability could have been anything. It could have required any amount of certain chemical reactions to happen in certain order where the probability can vary wildly depending on the amount and likelihood of those reactions. E.g. it could be 0.01 to the power of 1,000,000 or as well as to the power of 10e64 and so on.

killthebuddha 2y ago
> To me it seems like the probability could have been anything. The point is that we do know some things about the universe and, given what we do know, we think the probability is high. So we're obviously missing something but we don't know what. The thing that makes the Fermi Paradox so interesting is that every resolution is either interesting or implies something interesting.
- mewpmewp2 2y ago
  How do we know the probability of chained events required to start life in any given planet with potentially suitable environment? How do we know that the probability isn't something like 0.01 to the power of some very large number, far higher than amount of total planets etc? If we don't know the exact mechanism for all we know the odds could be infinitely low, even so low that even after billions of big bangs only 1 would have had life occurring anywhere at all and lower than that. Because maybe the first life form literally had to appear spontaneously from bruteforce chemical reactions with such low odds of ocurring.
  - killthebuddha 2y ago
    What you're describing is one possible resolution and part of what's interesting. A very big open question is "which, if any, of the known factors are wildly rarer than we think?". Another possible resolution is that most of our estimates are actually ok and there's some other variable that's going to whack us on the head at some point.
    - mewpmewp2 2y ago
      I just don't get how anyone can go past the idea that maybe it required freak N amount of specific chemical reactions to happen in a row for the first lifeform and without knowing N the odds could just simply be anything. It seems as if people seem to assume that odds of first life form occuring are high and basically just a matter of time, which doesn't make sense to me.
      - 2y ago
elorant 2y ago
If life is so rare, then having two planets in the same system with life, even at different epochs, seems absurd. That’s why I said it’s scary. It means that life can easily get a kickstart but for some reason it doesn’t make it all the way to interstellar civilizations. And that reason could very well be ahead of us and could eliminate humanity. That’s the hypothesis of “The Great Filter”. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_Filter https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_Filter
andrewflnr 2y ago
Life started on Earth really fast after it was physically possible for it to exist on the surface. So either Earth was astronomically lucky, or forming life was easy (on the scale of a couple hundred million anyway), or Earth got seeded really quickly by the next passing rock. The first is unlikely, almost by definition, and the other two both imply life is common.

lugu 2y ago

The Fermi paradox calculations consider that life started on an earth like planet. But have we confirmed that life can appear on an earth like planet?

deleted 2y ago
[deleted]
8fingerlouie 2y ago
But if life cannot appear on an earth like planet, and they're "abundant" enough that two planets in the "goldilocks zone" within the same solar system can develop into "earth like" planets, that might indeed mean that we're alone, but at the same time also hint at there's a whole galaxy out there with "earth like" planets just waiting for us to colonize them.