3 ms·
> using Cambrian explosion as a benchmark I think that's wrong. And thinking of it like that provides another possibility: The dinosaur era was a local maxim
by Izkata 2y ago
> using Cambrian explosion as a benchmark
I think that's wrong. And thinking of it like that provides another possibility:
The dinosaur era was a local maximum that couldn't develop human-like intelligence and technology. Then around 65 million years ago, Earth got "reset" and broke us out of the local maximum. Only after that did life have a chance to develop in a different direction and end up as us.
Seems at least possible to me that life is quite abundant, but local maximums that can't develop intelligence/technology might be more common than we think and it's easy to get stuck there. Earth just got lucky.
- andsoitis 2y agoExtending your logic (which is convincing), we, too, could be a local maximum and a form that is relatively low on the “cosmic intelligence scale”, if there is such a thing and if it is linear-ish.
- stevesimmons 2y agoConversely, it can be amazingly rare to break out of these local maxima. For instance, it took 60 million years from the first trees until the appearance of the right fungi able to decompose the lignin in wood. (Coal deposits arose because trees from the Carboniferous Period had nothing to make them rot). If you think about it, that's a very long time for a very small amount of evolution. Equally, as I understand it, all life on Earth has a common ancestor, and therefore a single origin. So life only started here once. And therefore is exceedingly rare.