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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 prob
by mewpmewp2 3y 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 3y agoWhat 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 3y agoI 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.
- gilmore606 3y agoPeople go past that idea by noticing that it happened on Earth almost as soon as it possibly could have happened. If we just got incredibly lucky, you'd think the planet would have sat around a while before the big stroke of luck, but it didn't. This is fairly suggestive that abiogenesis is not that unlikely.
- mewpmewp2 3y agoYou can't make any such conclusion from a single event.