Does anyone seriously believe there is not intelligent life...

[Andrew Karpinski]

Does anyone seriously believe there is not intelligent life on other planets? Out yourselves!

[hmkpoker]

*requisite "there's no intelligent life on THIS planet" joke*

[Stu Pidasso]

[ QUOTE ]
Does anyone seriously believe there is not intelligent life on other planets? Out yourselves!

[/ QUOTE ]

I wouldn't go so far as to say I believe there is no other intelligent life out there....lets just say I would not be "floored" if it were some how discovered there wasn't.

Stu

[Kurn, son of Mogh]

I'm still not 100% sure there's intelligent life on earth. /images/graemlins/wink.gif

[RJT]

[ QUOTE ]
I'm still not 100% sure there's intelligent life on earth. /images/graemlins/wink.gif

[/ QUOTE ]

Exactly what I was gonna say.

[tomdemaine]

God made man in his image to rule his kingdom on earth. Why would he bother with other life forms?

[CallMeIshmael]

[ QUOTE ]
Does anyone seriously believe there is not intelligent life on other planets? Out yourselves!

[/ QUOTE ]



To be honest, I havent put enough thought into it to really have a solid opinion.

The arugment "the universe is big, and we know intelligent life got there once (lets just assume we're intelligent) so it must have happened elsewhere" sounds nice, but in fact it might be kind of lazy.


Now, lets use an example to illustrate my point courtesy of my man jason_t.


Lets take a shakesperean sonnet. Say it has 600 characters. Lets assume we have a monkey and a typewriter. This type writer has 28 characters, 26 letters a space and a line return. Lets assume we have the monkey type up a 600 character block, and if he got that sonnet we picked, he's done. Otherwise he trys again. Well, there are 28^600 different 600 character length blocks of of text.

28^600 ~ 27^600 = (3^3)^600 = 3^1800 = (3^2)^900 ~ 10^900.

If we assume our monkey can type 100 characters a minute, it means he takes 6 minutes per "sonnet." This means 10 an hour, 240 a day and 87600 a year. Lets just assume 87600 ~ 10^5. So, this monkey makes 10^5 blocks per year. This means that each monkey takes on average 10^895 years to give us the sonnet we want. Now, there are 10^80 electrons in the universe. So, lets give the monkeys the benefit of the doubt, and assume that there are 10^80 monkeys. That means there are 10^85 character blocks created each year.
With that many blocks per year, we can expect to wait about 10^815 years before one of our electron-monkeys gives us our sonnet.

10^815 / (20 billion years, the large estimate of universe age) = 5*10^813.


Now Im aware this is a flawed analogy, in that evoltuion has feedback where this doesnt.

But, I think its great at illustrating that even when working in ABSURDLY huge space (10^80 monkey-electrons) certain events with a non-0 probability can still have an essentially 0 probability of occuring.



Basically, I think the argument "big univserse, we know intelligent life can develop, therefore it has to have developed many times" is lazy, since it assumes that the relation between the probability of intelligent life developing and the size of the universe is setup so that its true, if you see what I mean.

Estimating the probability of intelligent life evolving seems rather difficult to do, given that we cant really say what conditions are necessary for intelligent life to evolve.

[aeest400]

So your reply to the "lazy" argument is that if intelligent life is really, really, really, really improbable, then it might not exist elsewhere? (The universe is pretty big--in fact, it's everything, and there is more everything there than most folks realize--though, unfortunately, less than some believe). So far we're about 1/9 for planets we are aware of in terms of intelligent life. That's not a bad start for an inductive argument. Also, Stanley Miller's primordial soup chem experiments showed that it's not likely that hard to get the evolutionary ball rolling. Based on this, I'd say it is about 1000x more likely that intelligent life exists than god does. [Ok, the last sentence is just for fun--I'm probably underestimating the prob. of other intelligent life in relation to the probability of god existing].

[Andrew Karpinski]

Let's look at how big the universe really is. I think it is a relatively safe assumption, given current astronomical knowledge, that the milky way has around one hundred billion stars. In my opinion this is an overly cautious estimate. We have discovered over 100 planets out of our solar system already, so while we do not have any idea what % of these stars have planets around them, or really any idea how many of these stars have the possibility of sustaining life, I think that it's pretty safe to say atleast one out of a thousand of these stars have planets around them (and in my opinion it is much, much higher). This leaves one hundred million stars with planets in our galaxy alone. And there are hundreds of billions of galaxies.

Now, while not every planet is capable of sustaining life (surely our solar system proves that), we should note how hardy life is on Earth. It is found on the ocean floors, in harsh deserts and unforgiving anartica. If even one in a million of these planets can sustain life, that still leaves us with one hundred planets sustaining life in our galaxy. And there are hundreds of billions of galaxies.

Now, in my opinion, this is far too pessimistic. I think it is much more likely that the universe and our galaxy is teeming with life. But I think it absolutely absurd that intelligent life doesn't exist elsewhere.

[allisfulloflove]

[ QUOTE ]
I'd say it is about 1000x more likely that intelligent life exists than god does. [Ok, the last sentence is just for fun--I'm probably underestimating the prob. of other intelligent life in relation to the probability of god existing].

[/ QUOTE ]

"God" can mean a lot of different things, and by some definitions, god does exist. If you're referring to the traditional Christian "god," then it is infinitely more likely that intelligent life exists elsewhere than "god" does.

[CallMeIshmael]

[ QUOTE ]
So far we're about 1/9 for planets we are aware of in terms of intelligent life. That's not a bad start for an inductive argument.

[/ QUOTE ]


My name in real life is Jordan. I post on a site called www.twoplustwo.com (http://www.twoplustwo.com) under the name CallMeIshmael.

So far, we're 1/9 in planets we are aware for that happening too.

[CallMeIshmael]

[ QUOTE ]
we should note how hardy life is on Earth. It is found on the ocean floors, in harsh deserts and unforgiving anartica.

[/ QUOTE ]

This is intelligent life we're debating, not just life in general.



Also, Ill just go on record and say if I had to guess, that yes there is intelligent life out there. BUT, before Im willing to take it as more than I guess, Id like to hear someone's estimate for the parlay of:

- Planet exists
- Planet has suitable environment to sustatin life (whatever those requirements are)
- Planet has been around long enough for life to come into existence
- Life on this planet has evolved intelligence

[CallMeIshmael]

Im not quite sure Im stating this very well, since its kinda hard.

Bascically, we are looking at 2 things: the vast size of the universe (many options for life to start) and the rather unlikely parlay I stated above (I think we can all agree that intelligent life evolving on any given planet is unlikey)

Humans (ie. the post above) tend to want to make the argument: well, it happened here, so it cant be that unlikely.

But this seems to ignore the fact that the only reason we are observing that it happened, is because it happened. You cant flip a coin 3 times, get heads all of them and determine that the probability of heads is 1.


Its difficult to define the conditions under which intelligent life can evolve, since we only have a sample size of 1.

[aeest400]

I think Alex's post does a good job laying out the likely number of planets, etc. That's a lot of monkeys. The question is whether they are typing Shakespeare or geq[4gfhrh[ownj'o. Based on the data we have, including what we know about biology and chemistry, geq[4gfhrh[ownj'o seems more likely. I'm not saying that intelligent life couldn't be really, really, really rare, but the universe is really, really, really, really big, and it's evolution doesn't appear freakish--even slugs have neurons.

Here's a brief link to Miller's work. http://www.accessexcellence.org/WN/NM/miller.html

[CallMeIshmael]

[ QUOTE ]
we should note how hardy life is on Earth. It is found on the ocean floors, in harsh deserts and unforgiving anartica.

[/ QUOTE ]


This assumes that the desert and antartica are very different. Are they really?


I mean, just think about temperature. To humans, the difference between -30 C and 45C is HUGE. But, the core of the sun is 14 million C. That HUGE 75 degree change to us, represents 5.37*10^-4 % of the sun core's temperature.


The reason we think antarctica and the desert are vastly different isnt because of some huge temperature difference, but because of a huge temperature difference RELATIVE to what we experience.


Also, relative to all possible combinations, the gas compositions of those places are going to be incredibly similar as well.

[CallMeIshmael]

[ QUOTE ]
I'm not saying that intelligent life couldn't be really, really, really rare, but the universe is really, really, really, really big, and it's evolution doesn't appear freakish--even slugs have neurons.

[/ QUOTE ]

Considering that all life (most likely) shares a common ancestor, Im having trouble seeing seeing what this proves. Can you reword?

[ QUOTE ]
Here's a brief link to Miller's work. http://www.accessexcellence.org/WN/NM/miller.html

[/ QUOTE ]

Im more than familiar with the work.

[tolbiny]

"Now, while not every planet is capable of sustaining life (surely our solar system proves that), we should note how hardy life is on Earth. It is found on the ocean floors, in harsh deserts and unforgiving anartica."

You need to note that "sustaining" life is potentially very different from thoeries of biogenesis.

[CallMeIshmael]

General question to all:

Do you think the following things exist on a planet other than earth:

- A being so like you that it could fool your family into thinking it was you

- A being so like you that if could fool a casual friend into thinking it was you BASED ON LOOKS ALONE (ie. personality doesnt need to match)

- A group of animals so similar to what we call alligators that they are capable of interbreeding with our alligators

- A group of animals so similar to our alligators that most experts cannot detect a difference, but underlying genetic code prevents mating



Now, keep in mind that the probability of all of these events in non-0, and the universe is really large.

[StepBangin]

[ QUOTE ]
General question to all:

Do you think the following things exist on a planet other than earth:

- A being so like you that it could fool your family into thinking it was you

- A being so like you that if could fool a casual friend into thinking it was you BASED ON LOOKS ALONE (ie. personality doesnt need to match)

- A group of animals so similar to what we call alligators that they are capable of interbreeding with our alligators

- A group of animals so similar to our alligators that most experts cannot detect a difference, but underlying genetic code prevents mating



Now, keep in mind that the probability of all of these events in non-0, and the universe is really large.

[/ QUOTE ]

I'd say yes to all of these.

[CallMeIshmael]

[ QUOTE ]
I'd say yes to all of these.

[/ QUOTE ]


Do you also believe that in this universe there exists a man known as Darth Vader who wears a large black breating suit, and whose twin children Luke and Leia were astranged from him at birth?

(note: all the force/palpatine stuff doenst need to be true, just that there is someone people call Darth Vader, wearing the suit, with twins that were astranged from him)

[hmkpoker]

[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
I'm still not 100% sure there's intelligent life on earth. /images/graemlins/wink.gif

[/ QUOTE ]

Exactly what I was gonna say.

[/ QUOTE ]

I beat both of you to it /images/graemlins/laugh.gif

[StepBangin]

Has anyone heard of the Green Bank Formula? It's basically a formula to "Figure out" how much intelligent life is out there

The formula is:

R*fp ne fl fi fc L


N - The # of civilizations in galaxy capable of interstellar communications
R* - The average annual rate at which stars develop during lifetime of the galaxy
fp - The fraction of stars with planets
ne - The average number of planets per star, capable of supporting life
fl - The fraction of planets with life
fi - The fraction of planets with intelligent life
fc - The fraction of planets with intelligent life capable of interstellar communications

L - The average lifetime of the society capable of interstellar communications

Frank Drake plugged these numbers into the forumla
R* = 10 per year
fp = 1/2
ne = 2
fl = 1
fi = 1/100
fc = 1/100
L = 10,000 yrs

I had a college Physics course that we went in great depth about intelligent life. It was a fascinating course!

[StepBangin]

[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
I'd say yes to all of these.

[/ QUOTE ]


Do you also believe that in this universe there exists a man known as Darth Vader who wears a large black breating suit, and whose twin children Luke and Leia were astranged from him at birth?

(note: all the force/palpatine stuff doenst need to be true, just that there is someone people call Darth Vader, wearing the suit, with twins that were astranged from him)

[/ QUOTE ]

I don't know if you're taking a "shot" at me here.

But if the universe is infinite, then yes, I would believe this.

In an infinite universe, there are infinite possibilities right?

[Andrew Karpinski]

[ QUOTE ]
"Now, while not every planet is capable of sustaining life (surely our solar system proves that), we should note how hardy life is on Earth. It is found on the ocean floors, in harsh deserts and unforgiving anartica."

You need to note that "sustaining" life is potentially very different from thoeries of biogenesis.

[/ QUOTE ]

Isn't the theory of biogenesis self defeating? If only life can produce other life than how did it begin in the first place?

[StepBangin]

[ QUOTE ]
Isn't the theory of biogenesis self defeating? If only life can produce other life than how did it begin in the first place?

[/ QUOTE ]

The Theory of Biogenesis says that Life forms from other life, but Abiogeneis says that life may also come from inorganic matter

[madnak]

Where did he get those numbers he "plugged in?" None of these attempts to quantify the likelihood of intelligent life on other planets, on either side, seem very credible to me. There is no realistic way to determine these ratios - it all amounts to speculation. With a sample size of 1, there's not much we can say about planets that support life.

[CallMeIshmael]

[ QUOTE ]
Has anyone heard of the Green Bank Formula? It's basically a formula to "Figure out" how much intelligent life is out there

The formula is:

R*fp ne fl fi fc L


N - The # of civilizations in galaxy capable of interstellar communications
R* - The average annual rate at which stars develop during lifetime of the galaxy
fp - The fraction of stars with planets
ne - The average number of planets per star, capable of supporting life
fl - The fraction of planets with life
fi - The fraction of planets with intelligent life
fc - The fraction of planets with intelligent life capable of interstellar communications

L - The average lifetime of the society capable of interstellar communications

Frank Drake plugged these numbers into the forumla
R* = 10 per year
fp = 1/2
ne = 2
fl = 1
fi = 1/100
fc = 1/100
L = 10,000 yrs

I had a college Physics course that we went in great depth about intelligent life. It was a fascinating course!

[/ QUOTE ]


In another thread on this topic, wacki actually posted info about this from a course I had taken.

link to relevant slide from course: http://instruct1.cit.cornell.edu/courses/astro101/lec35.htm


But these are all just estimates.


Again, I will stay that I feel it is very likely that ingelligent life is out there. Just, that anyone saying it is certainly out there is being short sighted.

[CallMeIshmael]

[ QUOTE ]
I don't know if you're taking a "shot" at me here.

But if the universe is infinite, then yes, I would believe this.

In an infinite universe, there are infinite possibilities right?

[/ QUOTE ]


I was not taking a shot at you, and sorry if it came off as such.


But think about what you're saying.

Lets stick with star wars. OK, so a guy named George Lucas wrote a movie called star wars.

So, by your logic, there should be more than 1 George Lucas who wrote EXACTLY what we've seen in episdoes 1-6, right?

But, there is no finite limit of the number of Lucas' who wrote those movies. So, that means there are an infinite number of George Lucas' in the universe right now.


That seems to follow from what you're saying. Do you really believe that?

[Andrew Karpinski]

[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
Isn't the theory of biogenesis self defeating? If only life can produce other life than how did it begin in the first place?

[/ QUOTE ]

The Theory of Biogenesis says that Life forms from other life, but Abiogeneis says that life may also come from inorganic matter

[/ QUOTE ]

Right but isn't the theory of biogenesis self defeating? Aboigenesis makes sense to me.

[Andrew Karpinski]

If the universe is INFINITE, than everything that can possibly be happening is happening. I don't really think the universe is infinite though.

[aeest400]

I don't believe any of these. You're committing a basic fallacy here. There are good reasons to suspect that the evolution of intelligence is nonrandom, but all your analogies are to traits that are random. If looking like me conferred a selective advantage in any environment where complex organic molecules could form, then i'd say it was possible that there are being out there that look like me. For example, I bet that fins and wings exist on other planets (probably many more than intelligence because their morphology is simpler than that required for intelligence), and that cells exist on more planets than wings. Given the prevalence of parallel evolution on Earth, this does not seem like a stretch to me. Given that intelligence confers a selective advantage, it does not seem too far of a stretch to assume that intelligence could evolve in any environment where evolution takes places. If I thought intelligence were a random trait, I'd be more sympathetic to your doubts.

Now, I'm not assuming that the evolution of intelligence wouldn't require a number of preexisting chemical and biological conditions, but it's evolution would likely be nonmiraculous. Looking like me, on the other hand, while clearly advantageous, wouldn't seem to offer nearly the same degree of selective advantage. Thus to me your skepticism seems merely head-in-the-sand. Can you give any reason to believe that intelligence wouldn't evolve on one or more of, say, 100,000,000 planets on which some form of evolution could presumably take place? Do you believe that multicelluar life would? What about cells? What about amino acids or proteins? If so, why is the leap from cells to intelligence so awesome? Or do you suspect that cells wouldn't evolve?

That first jump, to cells and "genetic" material is probably the most radical jump--but once the chemistry gets rolling, it takes over and evolution gets going. (This may be more like the monkey and shakesphere step--but again, there are a lot of monkeys and once that first self-replicating molecule is formed, it's off to the races). Some of these ideas here could be presented better, but I think they help to identify the flaw in your superficial analogy.

[aeest400]

This sounds good, but i think you may be playing fast and loose with the concept of infinity here. However, I try to avoid thinking about the infinite. I'm content to whittle away my days thinking about the "really big" or the "whole bunch." I've leave the infinite to the mystics, christians, and mathematicians.

[Stu Pidasso]

I would think that if our universe was teeming with intelligent life, SETI would have detected radio signals from alien civilizations by now. I understand of course, that SETI's failure does not prove there is no intelligent life outside out solar system.

I can also imagine that the nature of the universe is such that it goes through an infinite cycle of banging, crunching, and rebanging. The genesis of life may be such a rare event that it only occurs once in a googleplex of universes. Its quite possible that on this rock we call earth the comsmic lotto was hit.

Stu

[CallMeIshmael]

[ QUOTE ]
Do you believe that multicelluar life would? What about cells? What about amino acids or proteins? If so, why is the leap from cells to intelligence so awesome? Or do you suspect that cells wouldn't evolve?

[/ QUOTE ]


2 things about this quote:


1. The leap from cells to intelligence isnt so awesome, it just increases the parlay. If n is the fraction of planets on which the prebiotic soup can start, and m is the fraction... blah blah blah.


2. I have no idea about the conditions under which cellular life can and cannot form. All I know is that it happened on this planet.


[ QUOTE ]
Can you give any reason to believe that intelligence wouldn't evolve on one or more of, say, 100,000,000 planets on which some form of evolution could presumably take place?

[/ QUOTE ]


This isnt my job.

Ill attempt to clarify once again: im not saying that intelligent life isnt out there. Im just saying that we know VERY little about the conditions under which the process from amino acids to intelligence occurs, since we have a sample size of 1.



Your argument of, its evolutionarily favourable, therefore given enough time it will occur, is a common error. Just because something is favourable, doenst mean it will come into existence. There are an infinite number of favourable traits that have never come into existence. By the same logic there are an infinite number of favourable traits that have come into existence only once.

[CallMeIshmael]

Also, just a random thought (actually, it was the result of andrew's other thread)

But, take even life on earth for example. How old is life? 3-4 billion years old maybe?


Intelligent life is about 5 million years old at the most, and it only appears on land. (im going to assume we all agree that things like dolphins dont fall under the defintion of intelligence that is being debated)


What is is about the terrestrial environment that brought us intelligence, but the aquatic environment has yet to produce it?


I mean, it took 3.5 billion years in the water to go from early life to unintelligent being. And like 400 million years to go from walking fish to Stephen Hawking on land.

Is the ocean capable of being an environment in which intelligence is evolved? Does something stop it from happening? Will it happen?



EDIT: if we assume that for some reason the ocean isnt a place where intelligent life can arise, but obviously the land on earth can, what seperates these environments? And why can we assume that whatever makes intelligence "evolvable" on earth isnt incredibly rare? Again, I really have no idea how likely an intelligence evolvable area is, so I remain agnostic about the proability of intelligent life elsewhere.

[Copernicus]

[ QUOTE ]
Also, just a random thought (actually, it was the result of andrew's other thread)

But, take even life on earth for example. How old is life? 3-4 billion years old maybe?


Intelligent life is about 5 million years old at the most, and it only appears on land. (im going to assume we all agree that things like dolphins dont fall under the defintion of intelligence that is being debated)


What is is about the terrestrial environment that brought us intelligence, but the aquatic environment has yet to produce it?


I mean, it took 3.5 billion years in the water to go from early life to unintelligent being. And like 400 million years to go from walking fish to Stephen Hawking on land.

Is the ocean capable of being an environment in which intelligence is evolved? Does something stop it from happening? Will it happen?

[/ QUOTE ]

why would you exclude dolphins from a definition of "intelligence"?

[CallMeIshmael]

[ QUOTE ]
why would you exclude dolphins from a definition of "intelligence"?

[/ QUOTE ]

This all hinges on the definition of intelligence.

If dolphins are intelligent, seems like next we include great apes, parrots, ravens, dogs, horses...


Coming up with a good definition of intelligent probably deserves its own thread.

[aeest400]

I'd have to say I'd include all of the listed as intelligent. But it's an interesting question what you need for human-type intelligence. Some think you need 6 layers of neurons and a whole lotta feedback loops and complex sensory systems. Further, say dolphins are as smart as humans (which I have no reason to believe), because they lack the ability to use tools due to their morphology they cannot produce the technical culture of humans. Thus, intelligent life with no technical thing-a-ma-bobs we could discover with SETI, etc.

An interesting point re evolution of intelligence on earth: For most of the history of complex life forms, evolution seemed to favor big, bad creatures. Dinosaurs ruled for a looong time. It was (perhaps) only due to the extinction of the dinosaurs that the varmints that eventually led to humans had a chance to flourish. With dinosaurs around, the pre-humans may have been stuck in their dino-snack niche, dunno.

However, my sense is that the stuff between primordial soup and dinos was a lot harder to do than intelligence. Maybe not.

Nevertheless, I think earlier stages of evolution are largely "deterministic." The soup on planets with liquid water and available carbon is likely to be pretty similar, and thus amino acids and proteins will likely become plentiful in the environment, given a reasonable range of conditions.

As soon as there are complex molecules that exothermically self-replicate, they will continue to do so. That is the lesson of evolution--it will happen because the chemistry make it happen. And after the chemistry starts to make it happen (i.e., self-replication), it's off to the races for "better" self-replicating systems.

I started to think of things this way while reading The Selfish Gene. Early "chemical animals" (ie., organisms that are essentially genes) do not "choose" to reproduce, they have to because they is the nature of their chemistry. Everything else, like gills and Kreb's cycles, and intelligence, is just bells and whistles to keep chemicals that are inherently self-replicating on the job of self-replicating. That's why i see life as largely inevitable, and intelligent life as one more offshoot of that inevitability, an offshoot that doesn't seem at all miraculous once meat learns how to react to the environment via sensory systems (and, for real intelligence, to retain the sensory imprint and the consequences of any behavior taken in response to it, i.e., learning).

[CallMeIshmael]

[ QUOTE ]
I'd have to say I'd include all of the listed as intelligent. But it's an interesting question what you need for human-type intelligence. Some think you need 6 layers of neurons and a whole lotta feedback loops and complex sensory systems. Further, say dolphins are as smart as humans (which I have no reason to believe), because they lack the ability to use tools due to their morphology they cannot produce the technical culture of humans. Thus, intelligent life with no technical thing-a-ma-bobs we could discover with SETI, etc.

[/ QUOTE ]

Im beginning to think a lot of the debate actaully hinges on the definition of the word intelligence.


The more broad a trait, the more likely it will be to appear on other planets.

When comparing the chances of finding locomotion vs the design of a peacock's tail on another planet, I think just about everyone will agree locomotion is more likely.

Even though on our planet, both are evolutionarily favourable.



Similarily, we have broad intelligence (such as that seen in, say starting at dogs, and all animals more intelligent) and highly specific human intelligence found only in our species, found on earth for 10^-7% of its existence.


For most of the thread, I'd been thinking we were discussing mainly human type intelligence (difficult to define, but absract thought is certainly a big requirement) but if it is more along the lines of problem solving seen in animals, well that makes it a lot more likely to be present extraterrestrially.

[StepBangin]

[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
why would you exclude dolphins from a definition of "intelligence"?

[/ QUOTE ]

This all hinges on the definition of intelligence.

If dolphins are intelligent, seems like next we include great apes, parrots, ravens, dogs, horses...


Coming up with a good definition of intelligent probably deserves its own thread.

[/ QUOTE ]

In my college physics course, I was taught that intelligence is determined by whether or not "it" can create radio waves.

[scotchnrocks]

[ QUOTE ]
If the universe is INFINITE, than everything that can possibly be happening is happening. I don't really think the universe is infinite though.

[/ QUOTE ]

If it is infinite, how was there ever a "big bang", if it's not infinite, what is outside the edge of it/what is it expanding into. These questions annoy me a lot.

[siegfriedandroy]

"Based on this, I'd say it is about 1000x more likely that intelligent life exists than god does."

How can you possibly make a statment like that? So foolish. What evidence do you have to support such a view?

[siegfriedandroy]

zero to all, and it's not close

[aeest400]

Whatever evidence one needs to make a joke.

[FlFishOn]

Two books to look into. Stuart Kaufman's 'At Home in the Universe : The Search for the Laws of Self-Organization and Complexity' makes the case that thing can self-organize. Compelling stuff.

And 'Rare Earth' which crunches the numbers regarding probability.

The more I read about developemental evolution the less I like the idea that life comes easy. It looks like the ultimate longshot.

[CallMeIshmael]

[ QUOTE ]
If the universe is INFINITE, than everything that can possibly be happening is happening. I don't really think the universe is infinite though.

[/ QUOTE ]


FWIW, this would probably interest you, and others in the thread:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hilbert%27s_paradox_of_the_Grand_Hotel

[siegfriedandroy]

come on, bro. think rationally. first of all, what do you mean when you say the universe is 'infinite'?

[CallMeIshmael]

[ QUOTE ]
"Based on this, I'd say it is about 1000x more likely that intelligent life exists than god does."

How can you possibly make a statment like that? So foolish. What evidence do you have to support such a view?

[/ QUOTE ]

He was just playing around with that statement

[StepBangin]

[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
If the universe is INFINITE, than everything that can possibly be happening is happening. I don't really think the universe is infinite though.

[/ QUOTE ]

If it is infinite, how was there ever a "big bang", if it's not infinite, what is outside the edge of it/what is it expanding into. These questions annoy me a lot.

[/ QUOTE ]

The big bang was a big cosmic explosion right? So what was outside of that explosion before it happend?

If the universe isnt infinite, how close are we to the "edge"?

These are things that bug me.

Another thing that bothers me is the universal elastic rebound theory. What is on the outside of the universe where it starts rebounding?

Ugh! So many questions! Why can't aliens just visit us and tell us more answers?

[CallMeIshmael]

[ QUOTE ]
And 'Rare Earth' which crunches the numbers regarding probability.

[/ QUOTE ]


I REALLY REALLY wanted to read this since this is such a cool topic.

But, Ive heard accusations that there was somehow a creationist involved or something. Have you heard about this? Does the book have hints of ID at all?

[CallMeIshmael]

[ QUOTE ]
In my college physics course, I was taught that intelligence is determined by whether or not "it" can create radio waves.

[/ QUOTE ]


I can dig this.

[Andrew Karpinski]

[ QUOTE ]
"Based on this, I'd say it is about 1000x more likely that intelligent life exists than god does."

How can you possibly make a statment like that? So foolish. What evidence do you have to support such a view?

[/ QUOTE ]

There is a ton of evidence for this. We KNOW intelligent life can exist and have proof for it (us, obv.) There is absolutely no rational reason to believe in God.

[StepBangin]

[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
If the universe is INFINITE, than everything that can possibly be happening is happening. I don't really think the universe is infinite though.

[/ QUOTE ]


FWIW, this would probably interest you, and others in the thread:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hilbert%27s_paradox_of_the_Grand_Hotel

[/ QUOTE ]

That hotel thing was stupid. I dont think I understood it or liked it. Maybe it was just confusing for me? ok, I KNOW it was too confusing for me. Whats the point of moving all the guest's? Why not put guest 1 in room 1, guest 2 in room 2...and so on...

Infinitey is just too confusing when talking about physical objects

[CallMeIshmael]

[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
If the universe is INFINITE, than everything that can possibly be happening is happening. I don't really think the universe is infinite though.

[/ QUOTE ]


FWIW, this would probably interest you, and others in the thread:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hilbert%27s_paradox_of_the_Grand_Hotel

[/ QUOTE ]

That hotel thing was stupid. I dont think I understood it or liked it. Maybe it was just confusing for me? ok, I KNOW it was too confusing for me. Whats the point of moving all the guest's? Why not put guest 1 in room 1, guest 2 in room 2...and so on...

Infinitey is just too confusing when talking about physical objects

[/ QUOTE ]

I *think* we didnt just keep counting since we wanted to come to the paradox. I PMed this thread to jason a little while ago, when he gets to it, he could do a beter job than me.


Similarily, you have the natural numbers:

A = {1,2,3...}

and 2 subsets:

B = {1,3,5,7...}
C = {2,4,6,8...}


Now, no one will deny that there are infinitely many elements in both A and B. But, when you take B away from A, you get C, which is also infinite /images/graemlins/confused.gif /images/graemlins/confused.gif

[aeest400]

I suspect it does. This is a complex issue, with plenty of room for those who want to slip god in between the gears. Some of the drivel is the most interesting "Humans really are the center of the universe" stuff I've seen. This doesn't mean it should not be ignored, because responding to people with a preordained agendas [i.e., ID'ers] is usually a waste of time.


This post was made in response to questions about a possible ID agenda in the book mentioned.

[StepBangin]

I like Little Caesars Crazy bread with pizza sauce.....

[FlFishOn]

Who doesn't have an agenda?

SETI has an agenda, these guys are on the other side.

[CallMeIshmael]

[ QUOTE ]
Who doesn't have an agenda?

SETI has an agenda, these guys are on the other side.

[/ QUOTE ]

Well, I suppose everyone has an agenda in some way, but the way I meant it was:

IF someone is a creationist, I would fear they had a belief in God before they looked for evidence, and sought evidence that backed their belief, rather than seeking evidence and then drawing conclusions like a scientist should.


(yes, im aware of hypothesis, blah blah blah, but I think we all know what I mean)

[aeest400]

I'm pretty sure the folks at SETI would be quite pleased if they "discovered" God launching radio waves or whatever, as would I. I don't think finding the truth should be considered just one agenda amongst others. Most "Christian" science starts with the Christian and tries to wiggle science into that framework. As for me, if they found a big f***ing ark and a fossil record with two of every species, I'd get my ass to church. I'm open-minded like that--not exactly out there to promote the "we're all fck'ed and there is no justice" cause. Just trying to stick to the evidence.

[StepBangin]

[ QUOTE ]
I would think that if our universe was teeming with intelligent life, SETI would have detected radio signals from alien civilizations by now. I understand of course, that SETI's failure does not prove there is no intelligent life outside out solar system.

I can also imagine that the nature of the universe is such that it goes through an infinite cycle of banging, crunching, and rebanging. The genesis of life may be such a rare event that it only occurs once in a googleplex of universes. Its quite possible that on this rock we call earth the comsmic lotto was hit.

Stu

[/ QUOTE ]

SETI has not been around for a long time. Earth has only been around for a very very short time compared to the Universe.

What if 100 or 100,000,000,000 years ago the Radio waves sent to us had already passed?

What if Aliens were here and saw that our planet was vacant 1 million years before we got here? They then tell all of their "buddy" civilizations that "Earth" is empty and lifeless, why would they bother when there are billions of other planets to visit or send signals to?

Even if we do pick up radio signals, they could be so old that this civilization is already gone.

[CallMeIshmael]

[ QUOTE ]
I don't think finding the truth should be considered just one agenda amongst others. Most "Christian" science starts with the Christian and tries to wiggle science into that framework. As for me, if they found a big f***ing ark and a fossil record with two of every species, I'd get my ass to church. I'm open-minded like that--not exactly out there to promote the "we're all fck'ed and there is no justice" cause. Just trying to stick to the evidence.

[/ QUOTE ]

Yes. Yes. Yes.

[chrisnice]

I would suspect that there is not any other intelligent life out there. Given some basic assumptions there should be intelligent life all around us if it did exist.

I would much more confidently argue that intelligent life first came about on earth.

[CallMeIshmael]

[ QUOTE ]
Given some basic assumptions there should be intelligent life all around us if it did exist.

[/ QUOTE ]

Like what?

[StepBangin]

[ QUOTE ]
I would suspect that there is not any other intelligent life out there. Given some basic assumptions there should be intelligent life all around us if it did exist.

[/ QUOTE ]

Please explain what you mean by "all around us"

You realize the closest star is over 4 LIGHT YEARS away? It would take us 4 years just to get a beam of light there, so its kind of hard to study them to find out if there is life

[Andrew Karpinski]

[ QUOTE ]
I would suspect that there is not any other intelligent life out there. Given some basic assumptions there should be intelligent life all around us if it did exist.

I would much more confidently argue that intelligent life first came about on earth.

[/ QUOTE ]

Why do you think there isn't intelligent life all around us?

[FlFishOn]

"...but I think we all know what I mean"

Clearly. You're a bigot.

[Andrew Karpinski]

[ QUOTE ]
"...but I think we all know what I mean"

Clearly. You're disagreeing with my deep rooted idiotic beliefs and therefore I hate you.

[/ QUOTE ]

FYP, and for what it's worth, I AM a bigot.

[FlFishOn]

I am secular and you are presumptuous and quite wrong, a common occurance I'd assume.

[CallMeIshmael]

[ QUOTE ]
"...but I think we all know what I mean"

Clearly. You're a bigot.

[/ QUOTE ]

Explain further pls.

[FlFishOn]

Do you deny being anti-Christian or, at a minimum, anti-Creationist? Perhaps I misread your post but that is the feeling I got, a secular bigot.

[CallMeIshmael]

[ QUOTE ]
Do you deny being anti-Christian or, at a minimum, anti-Creationist? Perhaps I misread your post but that is the feeling I got, a secular bigot.

[/ QUOTE ]

My parents are both Christian, and I love them very much. So, im certainly not anti-christian.


I think creationism is very clearly wrong, and really shouldnt be addressed as a theory. Does that make an an anti-creationist biggot?

[CallMeIshmael]

Also, I just want to go on record and quote two of your recent posts (keep in mind this was the person who just called me a biggot):


"Show me the Christian suicide bombers. Islam is a broken culture, unfit for the 21st century."

"Yes, once great France was a great friend. Our debt to them has been paid twice over (forget Vietnam). They are now scum, best as I can tell."




Yeah...ummm...hmmm....mmm'k?

[FlFishOn]

"Does that make an an anti-creationist biggot? "

I'm thinking yes.

Be honest, you don't think too much of Christians either, do you?

[StepBangin]

[ QUOTE ]
I don't think finding the truth should be considered just one agenda amongst others. Most "Christian" science starts with the Christian and tries to wiggle science into that framework. As for me, if they found a big f***ing ark and a fossil record with two of every species, I'd get my ass to church. I'm open-minded like that--not exactly out there to promote the "we're all fck'ed and there is no justice" cause. Just trying to stick to the evidence.

[/ QUOTE ]

I believe that God created us. I just think the Bible leaves a lot of stuff out. Sure God created earth, I just dont think he went POOF! and there it was! Maybe God initiated the "Big Bang" which in turn created the earth.

Same with the creation of Man. Maybe God initiated evolution rather than going POOF! "I will call him...Adam!"

Now back to the topic of intelligent life. Does the Bible mention or hint at any sort of extraterrestrial life?

Also, just because Christians believe God made Earth, Man and eveything else, Why can't the believe that he made other intelligent life too? Just because it isnt in the Bible doesnt mean he didnt do it.

It really bothers me when Christians say things like "no, there isnt other intelligent life! God created earth and man."

Yeah so?!?! What kind of [censored] proof is that?!?!

[aeest400]

[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
Do you deny being anti-Christian or, at a minimum, anti-Creationist? Perhaps I misread your post but that is the feeling I got, a secular bigot.

[/ QUOTE ]

My parents are both Christian, and I love them very much. So, im certainly not anti-christian.


I think creationism is very clearly wrong, and really shouldnt be addressed as a theory. Does that make an an anti-creationist biggot?

[/ QUOTE ]

I share the confusion. I may be an anti-christian biggot, but that has little to do with creationism being a dumb idea.

[CallMeIshmael]

[ QUOTE ]
"Does that make an an anti-creationist biggot? "

I'm thinking yes.

[/ QUOTE ]

After getting an idea about who you are, and some of your views, I retract any questions I had for you. Anyone who rips on Islam/France like you did and then calls me a biggot is pretty clearly delusional. Your opinions are no longer valid.

[ QUOTE ]
Be honest, you don't think too much of Christians either, do you?

[/ QUOTE ]

I try not to make sweeping generalizations about like a billion people. I disagree with some things Christians believe, Im not saying anything about them as people.

[FlFishOn]

Takes one to know one.

I'm an anti-Islamic bigot in a big way, awaiting evidence to change my mind

[CallMeIshmael]

[ QUOTE ]
Takes one to know one.

[/ QUOTE ]

ZING!

And I think this is a good place to end this line of dialogue

[Andrew Karpinski]

[ QUOTE ]
I am secular and you are presumptuous and quite wrong, a common occurance I'd assume.

[/ QUOTE ]

*wipes egg off his face*

[chrisnice]

[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
Given some basic assumptions there should be intelligent life all around us if it did exist.

[/ QUOTE ]

Like what?

[/ QUOTE ]

Basicly, it evolved at a rate relativly similar to earths. They travel. They arose before us. They arent hiding.

[CallMeIshmael]

[ QUOTE ]
Basicly, it evolved at a rate relativly similar to earths. They travel. They arose before us. They arent hiding.

[/ QUOTE ]

But the universe is soooooo huge.

Essentially all of the places life could have evolved are too far away to ever reach, even traveling a non trivial fraction of lightspeed.

[Lestat]

[ QUOTE ]
The more I read about developemental evolution the less I like the idea that life comes easy. It looks like the ultimate longshot.

[/ QUOTE ]

It doesn't matter how much of a longshot it is. Odds still say that intelligent life existing (or having existed), elsewhere is almost certain.

[GMontag]

[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
Basicly, it evolved at a rate relativly similar to earths. They travel. They arose before us. They arent hiding.

[/ QUOTE ]

But the universe is soooooo huge.

Essentially all of the places life could have evolved are too far away to ever reach, even traveling a non trivial fraction of lightspeed.

[/ QUOTE ]

The universe is also incredibly old. The earth has been around for approx. 4.5 billion years. Life has been around for 4 billion of those years. If the earliest life in the galaxy evolved even .0001% faster than we did, they would be 400,000 years older than us. The Milky Way galaxy is only 400,000 light years across. So even if they evolved in a planetary system diametrically opposed to us, their radio signals should have reached us by now.

You are also assuming that it is impossible (or at least impractical) for any civilization, regardless of their level of technology, to travel or signal faster than the speed of light. I have serious doubts about that.

I see only two solutions to the "why aren't they all around us?" problem.

1. The emergence of intelligent life is a rare enough event that we are the first example of it. The only reason I even mention this possibility is the fact that Sol is an intermediate Population I star (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Population_I_stars). In other words, one of the first stars with enough heavy elements for it to have rocky planets and water and other necessities for life.

Of course this would mean the answer to the question of whether or not other intelligent life existed in the universe would be "no", or at least "not yet, but possibly in the near (geologically) future".

2. Life does exist all around us, but we are being deliberately shielded from it. I really don't like this answer, because I don't think it would really be feasible for there to be an "interstellar police force" capable of such a feat as blanking out all transmissions and prevent any and all travelers from getting close enough to us for an observation (and no, I don't think that UFO and alien abduction reports are credible).

[Andrew Karpinski]

GMontag :

How long do you think we are going to be using radios for?

[godBoy]

I don't think so,
This is not because I am christian, the bible says nothing on the topic. Simply personally, I believe that this planet is the only that will harbour life.. I don't believe in common decent, I do believe in micro-evolution. I think that this planet is very special indeed.

[MidGe]

[ QUOTE ]
I think that this planet is very special indeed.

[/ QUOTE ]

But much smaller than the ego capable of thinking that way.... Ah well, what's new?

[FlFishOn]

"It doesn't matter how much of a longshot it is. Odds still say that intelligent life existing (or having existed), elsewhere is almost certain. "

Site your evidence. You can not.

[chezlaw]

[ QUOTE ]
"It doesn't matter how much of a longshot it is. Odds still say that intelligent life existing (or having existed), elsewhere is almost certain. "

Site your evidence. You can not.

[/ QUOTE ]
Its just a matter of not having an oversized ego.

The universe is very large.
The earth isn't very special.
Life exists on earth.
Therefore it's likely that life exists elsewhere in the universe.

chez

[Stu Pidasso]

[ QUOTE ]
Its just a matter of not having an oversized ego.

The universe is very large.
The earth isn't very special.
Life exists on earth.
Therefore it's likely that life exists elsewhere in the universe.


[/ QUOTE ]

Hi Chez,

In order to properly predict the likelyhood of life existing outside this solar system you must first have an undestanding of the process of abiogenesis.

Since humans do not have an understanding of the process of abiogenesis the best any human can do is make a wild guess.

Stu

[bunny]

[ QUOTE ]
It doesn't matter how much of a longshot it is. Odds still say that intelligent life existing (or having existed), elsewhere is almost certain.

[/ QUOTE ]
With due respect it is obviously wrong that it doesnt matter how much of a longshot it is. If the odds are long enough then life existing elsewhere can become infinitesimally unlikely no matter how big the universe is.

[chezlaw]

[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
Its just a matter of not having an oversized ego.

The universe is very large.
The earth isn't very special.
Life exists on earth.
Therefore it's likely that life exists elsewhere in the universe.


[/ QUOTE ]

Hi Chez,

In order to properly predict the likelyhood of life existing outside this solar system you must first have an undestanding of the process of abiogenesis.

Since humans do not have an understanding of the process of abiogenesis the best any human can do is make a wild guess.

Stu

[/ QUOTE ]
Accurate predictions are an oxymoron in this context.

Its just a question of the likelyhood of life occuring where its possible, compared to the the number of possible places for it to occur.

Hence if the universe is large enough (in space and time) and there's nothing special about earth then life exists elsewhere with probability approaching one.

Maybe the universe isn't large enough, maybe the probability is to low but it don't matter much.

chez

[FlFishOn]

No worries then. You're free to remain a bigot in peace.

Enjoy!

[FlFishOn]

[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
"It doesn't matter how much of a longshot it is. Odds still say that intelligent life existing (or having existed), elsewhere is almost certain. "

Site your evidence. You can not.

[/ QUOTE ]
Its just a matter of not having an oversized ego.

The universe is very large.
The earth isn't very special.
Life exists on earth.
Therefore it's likely that life exists elsewhere in the universe.

chez

[/ QUOTE ]

No evidence noted. No odds noted. No reason to grant you any points here.

[chezlaw]

[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
"It doesn't matter how much of a longshot it is. Odds still say that intelligent life existing (or having existed), elsewhere is almost certain. "

Site your evidence. You can not.

[/ QUOTE ]
Its just a matter of not having an oversized ego.

The universe is very large.
The earth isn't very special.
Life exists on earth.
Therefore it's likely that life exists elsewhere in the universe.

chez

[/ QUOTE ]

No evidence noted. No odds noted. No reason to grant you any points here.

[/ QUOTE ]
Yes the only points are logical ones, I know you don't rate that /images/graemlins/smile.gif

chez

[CallMeIshmael]

Chez,

I think this is what Im disagreeing with:

[ QUOTE ]
The earth isn't very special.

[/ QUOTE ]


How can you state that?


I mean, if there are 1000 different properties a plantet can have, and only 5 options for each of those different properties, we are looking at: 9.33*10^698 different types of planets. (certainly its far more, since there probably more than 1000 properties, and 5 options per).


Now, what percetange of those planets are capable of going from nothing to intelligence? Well, it seems you are assuming that whatever that number is, its big enough such that the probability of it happening on at least one other planet is ~1. I just dont see how someone can make that assmption, without using the "well, we're here, so it cant be that hard to get life" argument.



Again, I do think there is probably intelligent life out there, but Im also well aware of the fact that im making best guesses at an absurdy large number (number of planets) and an absurdly small number (probability of going from 0 to intelligence on a given planet), about neither of which can I make an even halfway decent guess.

[FlFishOn]

"Since humans do not have an understanding of the process of abiogenesis the best any human can do is make a wild guess. "

Just so.

The wild guess that strike me as most likely to be true is that abiogenesis is a huge longshot.

[CallMeIshmael]

[ QUOTE ]
It doesn't matter how much of a longshot it is. Odds still say that intelligent life existing (or having existed), elsewhere is almost certain.

[/ QUOTE ]

That's absurd.



This is really just a simple math equation:

n = number of plaents = 10^21 (reasonable estimate?)
p = probability of evolving intelligence on random planet


Probability of life on none of the 10^21 planets:

= (1-p)^n


Pulling up matlab, we get that 10-16 and 10-17 is a switching point.

If p < 10-17, we would expect intelligence not to have evolved elsewhere

If p > 10-16, we expect it to have evolved elsewhere.




There are a lot of intelligent arguments in this thread for the case of p being greater than 10-16, and I agree it probably is.


But, at the same time, Id think that humans are probably pretty biased by the fact we have all observed the evolution of intelligence, and we tend not to put mind numbingly small probabilities to things we have obsereved.

[CallMeIshmael]

FWIW, I think I might actually need to state that in no way am I bringing an agenda to my comments in this thread. Im not thinking "look how unlikely life is... wow, abiogenesis cant be correct"

[FlFishOn]

"Accurate predictions are an oxymoron in this context."

The salient point is that you have NO prediction of value.

[Lestat]

I'm not going through the trouble of actually performing calculations, because the answer is too obvious if you have even a modicum understanding estimations.

There are TRILLIONS of stars, with TRILLIONS of solar systems, with TRILLIONS of planets that have had BILLIONS of years to spawn life.

No matter how much of a longshot it is that intelligent life evolved on our planet, it is ludricrous to think it has not also happened elsewhere at some point in time. In fact...

That intelligent life HAS occured once (on our planet), makes it an almost certainty that it has occured elsewhere. No matter how rare it is.

[Lestat]

[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
It doesn't matter how much of a longshot it is. Odds still say that intelligent life existing (or having existed), elsewhere is almost certain.

[/ QUOTE ]
With due respect it is obviously wrong that it doesnt matter how much of a longshot it is. If the odds are long enough then life existing elsewhere can become infinitesimally unlikely no matter how big the universe is.

[/ QUOTE ]

I disagree Bunny, but since you are a teacher I'll defer to you.

We know for a fact that life has occured at least "once", right? So it's not impossible for life to form no matter how rare. Now...

You've got gazillions of stars with trillions of solar systems, with gazillions of planets, which have had billions of years to spawn intelligent life. Common sense says (to me anyway), that it is almost impossible for life not to have developed elsewhere.

That has life occured at "least" once that we know of, is extremely significant when it comes to estimation given the huge numbers involved. No matter how rare it is.

[Lestat]

There can be no question that life has occured at least once. That's all the evidence I need.

[CallMeIshmael]

[ QUOTE ]
There are TRILLIONS of stars, with TRILLIONS of solar systems, with TRILLIONS of planets that have had BILLIONS of years to spawn life.

[/ QUOTE ]

I appreciate the capitalization, but Im well aware. See n=10^21, in my previous post.

[ QUOTE ]
That intelligent life HAS occured once (on our planet), makes it an almost certainty that it has occured elsewhere. No matter how rare it is.

[/ QUOTE ]


Any arugment that uses "its already happened" to estimate a probability of something that can only be observed if its already happened doesnt seem to be that solid.

[Riddick]

Maybe another intelligent life form existed but it got so intelligent that it figured out how to escape the universe.

[CallMeIshmael]

Also, FWIW, it took roughly a third of the universe's age to produce us. Its not like "its had billions of years" really adds that much to the argument.

[CallMeIshmael]

Also, somewhat interesting (at least to me /images/graemlins/smile.gif):

Lets say 2 people come up with an estimate for the probability of life forming (p, under the above, and assume 10^21 planets)

One estimate is: 10^-11.

The other is: 10^-30


With the first, we expect 10^10 planets that evolved intelligence but the later we expect 10^-9 (almost 0 chance)


Now, those two estimates seem like they're miles apart, but the difference between 10^-11 and 10^-30 is about equal to the chances of two people picking the exact same litre of water in the atlantic. Adding that small of a chance to the probability of intelligent life evolving completely changes the outcome.


We are dealing with probabilities so small that humans arent really used to dealing with them.

[Stu Pidasso]

[ QUOTE ]
I'm not going through the trouble of actually performing calculations, because the answer is too obvious if you have even a modicum understanding estimations.

There are TRILLIONS of stars, with TRILLIONS of solar systems, with TRILLIONS of planets that have had BILLIONS of years to spawn life.

[/ QUOTE ]

Even in a universe as large as ours, there are certainly events which occurred that are completely unique. Why can't abiogenesis be one of those events?

Stu

[StepBangin]

[ QUOTE ]
Also, FWIW, it took roughly a third of the universe's age to produce us.

[/ QUOTE ]

Take away all the mass extinctions and fall-backs and this is true. But we were actually "produced" much faster.

In my physics course we discussed that everything evolves towards intelligence. Therefore if there were no great extinctions, there would still be intelligent life on earth, just not in the form of Human Beings. And we would be much much much more advanced by now.

Question I should have asked the proffesor! He said everything evolves towards intelligence, does that mean in 100 Million years Humans wont be the only intelligent life on this planet? Will Dogs, Cats, Dolphins....etc...Become intelligent?

[DougShrapnel]

[ QUOTE ]
2. Life does exist all around us, but we are being deliberately shielded from it. I really don't like this answer, because I don't think it would really be feasible for there to be an "interstellar police force" capable of such a feat as blanking out all transmissions and prevent any and all travelers from getting close enough to us for an observation (and no, I don't think that UFO and alien abduction reports are credible).

[/ QUOTE ] What would a significatly intelligent lifefrom require of a civiliation before it introduced itself to them?

I think you also forgot a 3rd possibilty: All intelligent life reaches a "critiacl mass" and destroys itself, before it can "contact" other intelligent life.

And a 4th: The universe is expanding in such a fashion that the farther away a system is from another system the faster they are moving away from each other, making contact impossible between much of the universe. Combined with, life is rare enough to have isolated instanciations to far apart from any other instance on life for communication to reach each other.

[FlFishOn]

"...with TRILLIONS of planets that have had BILLIONS of years to spawn life."

And not a one of these is sending out radio. Well, one.

[FlFishOn]

"Will Dogs, Cats, Dolphins....etc...Become intelligent? "

Too late. Already, my dog is smart enough to avoid playing online poker.

[StepBangin]

[ QUOTE ]
And not a one of these is sending out radio. Well, one.

[/ QUOTE ]

We have no proof that they are or that they arent. The NEAREST is over 400,000 Light years away. Since Radio Waves dont travel past the speed of light, it would take 400,000 years just to get here! so if they sent out signals 400,100 They would be passed already. If they sent them out 399,900 Years ago, we wont receive them for 100 years. And if they were sending signals that long ago, chance are the Civilization has killed itself off or has been killed off by an outside force. Lets assume they Just started sending signals to us 200,000 years ago. By the time the signals get here, our civilization will be gone as well.

I believe that there is a lot of intelligent life out there but I think coming in contact with them using our technology is impossible. They would have to find us

[Lestat]

This is exactly right. Thanks for handling my response so eloquently!

[Lestat]

[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
I'm not going through the trouble of actually performing calculations, because the answer is too obvious if you have even a modicum understanding estimations.

There are TRILLIONS of stars, with TRILLIONS of solar systems, with TRILLIONS of planets that have had BILLIONS of years to spawn life.

[/ QUOTE ]

Even in a universe as large as ours, there are certainly events which occurred that are completely unique. Why can't abiogenesis be one of those events?

Stu

[/ QUOTE ]

Well, it CAN be... There's just no reason to think that based on statistical probabilities. It's like if you lose at poker for the next 3 years. You CAN be a winning player who's just running really bad, but there's no reason to think that's the case.

[madnak]

[ QUOTE ]
The universe is very large.
The earth isn't very special.
Life exists on earth.
Therefore it's likely that life exists elsewhere in the universe.

[/ QUOTE ]

My objection is similar to CMI's, but less mathematical. This argument is circular. If the earth is the only planet that contains intelligent life, then it is very special. The earth is only "not very special" if we accept the proposition you're trying to prove here.

[CallMeIshmael]

[ QUOTE ]
My objection is similar to CMI's, but less mathematical. This argument is circular. If the earth is the only planet that contains intelligent life, then it is very special. The earth is only "not very special" if we accept the proposition you're trying to prove here.

[/ QUOTE ]

Same as my argument, but far more eloquently phrase. Nice post.

[FlFishOn]

[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
And not a one of these is sending out radio. Well, one.

[/ QUOTE ]

We have no proof that they are or that they arent. The NEAREST is over 400,000 Light years away. Since Radio Waves dont travel past the speed of light, it would take 400,000 years just to get here! so if they sent out signals 400,100 They would be passed already. If they sent them out 399,900 Years ago, we wont receive them for 100 years. And if they were sending signals that long ago, chance are the Civilization has killed itself off or has been killed off by an outside force. Lets assume they Just started sending signals to us 200,000 years ago. By the time the signals get here, our civilization will be gone as well.

I believe that there is a lot of intelligent life out there but I think coming in contact with them using our technology is impossible. They would have to find us

[/ QUOTE ]

Star Trek dreaming.

There are about 6-10 billion years during which other civilizations may have developed. None seem to be knocking on our door. Can you imagine humans not exploring the entire Milky Way in the next 6 billion years? It's only 100,000 LY in diameter, time enough to cross it 10,000 times at sub-light speed. Time enough for many round trips to M31.

Yet no one knocks.

[Stu Pidasso]

[ QUOTE ]
Well, it CAN be... There's just no reason to think that based on statistical probabilities.

[/ QUOTE ]

What statistics are you basing this statement on? Do you know what the probability is of abiogenesis occurring on a planet that could support life? Thats really a necessary peice of information if you are going to make any kind of statement on the matter which is better than a wild guess.

Personally, I hope the universe is teeming with intelligent life. My wild guess is that it is. However I do have to consider that the complexity of life is such that a number of longshot parlays may have had to be hit inorder for abiogenesis to occur on this planet. It doesn't take a large number of longshot parlays before it becomes likely abiogenesis would occur only once in a universe as large as ours.

Stu

[madnak]

You forget the prime directive!

[chezlaw]

[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
The universe is very large.
The earth isn't very special.
Life exists on earth.
Therefore it's likely that life exists elsewhere in the universe.

[/ QUOTE ]

My objection is similar to CMI's, but less mathematical. This argument is circular. If the earth is the only planet that contains intelligent life, then it is very special. The earth is only "not very special" if we accept the proposition you're trying to prove here.

[/ QUOTE ]
Its not circular but it is a bit brief. Its about reasonable belief and there's no reason to believe that the earth is special. It could turn put to be special but that would be a discovery:

Its reasonable to believe the earth is not special. (The only reason not to believe this is ego)
It's reasonable to believe the universe is very large (very very large as has been pointed out)
Life exists on earth (more than reasonable belief)
Therefore it's reasonable to believe that life is likely to exist elsewhere in the universe.

Its not a proof that life exists elsewhere but there's no reason to believe it doesn't.

chez

[Stu Pidasso]

[ QUOTE ]
We have no proof that they are or that they arent. The NEAREST is over 400,000 Light years away. Since Radio Waves dont travel past the speed of light, it would take 400,000 years just to get here! so if they sent out signals 400,100 They would be passed already. If they sent them out 399,900 Years ago, we wont receive them for 100 years. And if they were sending signals that long ago, chance are the Civilization has killed itself off or has been killed off by an outside force. Lets assume they Just started sending signals to us 200,000 years ago. By the time the signals get here, our civilization will be gone as well.

[/ QUOTE ]

In the last 100 years, radio signals from earth have already passed about 14000 stars neighboring stars. Where are you getting this figure of 400000 light years?

Stu

[chezlaw]

[ QUOTE ]
I think this is what Im disagreeing with:


Quote:
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

The earth isn't very special.


--------------------------------------------------------------------------------




How can you state that?

[/ QUOTE ]
as I explained in another post its about beliefs not facts and the claim is that there's no reason to believe the earth is special except appeals to ego.

chez

[Stu Pidasso]

[ QUOTE ]
the claim is that there's no reason to believe the earth is special except appeals to ego.


[/ QUOTE ]

Sorry to burst your bubble, but all the evidence so far indicates that the earth is unique. Its only speculation that it isn't.

Stu

[chezlaw]

[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
the claim is that there's no reason to believe the earth is special except appeals to ego.


[/ QUOTE ]

Sorry to burst your bubble, but all the evidence so far indicates that the earth is unique. Its only speculation that it isn't.

Stu

[/ QUOTE ]
unique but not special.

In the same way that I am unique but not special.

chez

[CallMeIshmael]

[ QUOTE ]
as I explained in another post its about beliefs not facts and the claim is that there's no reason to believe the earth is special except appeals to ego.

[/ QUOTE ]


This has nothing to do with ego and everything to do with mathematics.


As I said above, the probability that there is no intelligent life in the universe is:

(1-p)*10^21 (estimate)


Now, I have no clue if p is on the order of 10^-4 or 10^-50. And we cant use the argument that we're here so it must be pretty likely, since we make that observation for all values of p, once we get here.

[Lestat]

<font color="blue">It doesn't take a large number of longshot parlays before it becomes likely abiogenesis would occur only once in a universe as large as ours. </font>

Well, I guess this is where I'm disagreeing. I do not for a second deny that it takes several longshot parlays to occur in order for intelligent life to develop. It's just my sense that even so, it is still very likely that life has developed elsewhere. It also takes several longshot parlays to win the lotto or to be struck by lightning, yet this is almost a daily occurance somewhere. Before you say it...

I understand that the odds are significantly longer for life to develop. I just don't think you are able to step outside of your (of the human mind's), limited conception of numbers. The universe is (or is for all intents and purposes), infinite. I don't think you're comprehending that.

[Lestat]

<font color="blue"> Even in a universe as large as ours, there are certainly events which occurred that are completely unique. </font>

Other than the big bang itself, can you name one?

[CallMeIshmael]

[ QUOTE ]
I just don't think you are able to step outside of your (of the human mind's), limited conception of numbers. The universe is (or is for all intents and purposes), infinite. I don't think you're comprehending that.

[/ QUOTE ]


I think the bold part is where you are wrong. I dont think you're comprehending the difference between an absurdly large universe and an infinite one.


As I posted above, if every electron in the universe were to crank out 10,000 attempts at a shakesperean sonnet per year, it would take more than 10^800 years before we expect one of them to get it right.

Now, if the universe were infinite, then we'd have that sonnet immediately.


Assuming the universe to be infinite is fine in almost every aspect. But when you are making calculations about probabilties of events that MIGHT BE on the order of 10^-15 or 10^-25, then assuming the universe to be infinite causes big mistakes.

[AllIn3High]

I am not knowledgeable in the subject at all, but wouldn't most of the radio signals emitted from a planet drown in noise after a fairly short distance (in astronomical terms)?

And wouldn't it be terribly difficult to know if the radio signal came from an intelligent source (unless it was a signal specifically made to make themselves know)?

In other words: does us not having deciphered a signal from outer space in the lifetime of the SETI program even mean it hasn't been trasmitted?

[FlFishOn]

"The universe is (or is for all intents and purposes), infinite. I don't think you're comprehending that. "

I have a pretty good idea. We're looking at maybe 10^81 baryons. That's all. You know how many ways a deck of cards can be ordered? I'll guess that it's 10^55. What if one unique deal represents life and all the others failure? Well, that's it, more or less. There aren't 10^55 systems, more like 10^30 or 40. That's a 10^-20 shot. I don't like those odds.

Go and read Stuart Kaufman, you'll be comforted. Then study evolutionary development and it'll wash away.

[Lestat]

Man are you ever wrong!

First, let's agree that intelligent life is indeed a longshot. Mankind's existence has not even lasted for half the time it takes to blink an eye compared to how long the universe has been around. So you expect within that time frame we should be picking up all kinds of signs of intelligent life elsewhere?

Keep in mind that other intelligent life forms may have came and went long before we even arrived on the scene. Mankind also will not likely last that near the 6 billion years you state either.

We are also in a remote non-distinct corner of 1 galaxy among millions! It could be that any intelligent life that does happen to co-exist in our time frame and within a distance where we could receive a signal, is not yet advanced enough to do so.

You are way off. It is much more likely that we would not have heard from intelligent life than would at this point.

[chezlaw]

[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
as I explained in another post its about beliefs not facts and the claim is that there's no reason to believe the earth is special except appeals to ego.

[/ QUOTE ]


This has nothing to do with ego and everything to do with mathematics.


As I said above, the probability that there is no intelligent life in the universe is:

(1-p)*10^21 (estimate)


Now, I have no clue if p is on the order of 10^-4 or 10^-50. And we cant use the argument that we're here so it must be pretty likely, since we make that observation for all values of p, once we get here.

[/ QUOTE ]
That's exacrly what I said isn't it? It just depends on the number of possible places for life to exist compared with the probability of life arising in those places.

chez

[StepBangin]

[ QUOTE ]
Where are you getting this figure of 400000 light years?
Stu

[/ QUOTE ]

Wow. Maybe Im just a f*cking retard! I seriously dont know why I kept insisting its 400,000 Light years. Its weird how random numbers just jump into my head. I just did a quick google search and found itss a little over 4 light years away which sounds familiar...

Maybe I just subconsiously know that intelligent life exist's 400,000 Light years away!?!?

[ QUOTE ]
It's only 100,000 LY in diameter

[/ QUOTE ]

I've never heard of this, someone please explain

EDIT: Nevermind thought you were talking about the Universe and I had no clue what LY was..lol

[ QUOTE ]

Yet no one knocks.

[/ QUOTE ]

Maybe they have thousands of times. Maybe all the UFO sightings arent fake? Maybe Area 51 is covering up a lot of things about extraterrestrials

[aeest400]

[ QUOTE ]
"The universe is (or is for all intents and purposes), infinite. I don't think you're comprehending that. "

I have a pretty good idea. We're looking at maybe 10^81 baryons. That's all. You know how many ways a deck of cards can be ordered? I'll guess that it's 10^55. What if one unique deal represents life and all the others failure? Well, that's it, more or less. There aren't 10^55 systems, more like 10^30 or 40. That's a 10^-20 shot. I don't like those odds.

Go and read Stuart Kaufman, you'll be comforted. Then study evolutionary development and it'll wash away.

[/ QUOTE ]

Don't forget that each planet on which a certain range of conditions (e.g., liquid water, solid carbon) gets A LOT of deals. Hitting the lotto is more probably when you play every day (or millions of times every second).

[madnak]

[ QUOTE ]
Its not a proof that life exists elsewhere but there's no reason to believe it doesn't.

[/ QUOTE ]

I agree, but there's no reason to believe it does, either.

[chezlaw]

[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
Its not a proof that life exists elsewhere but there's no reason to believe it doesn't.

[/ QUOTE ]

I agree, but there's no reason to believe it does, either.

[/ QUOTE ]
Of course there is. Its just a matter of how probable.

chez

[Peter666]

What I really want to know is this:

Does anyone seriously believe that aliens are coming to earth, abducting people and anally probing them? Out yourselves you perverts!

[madnak]

[ QUOTE ]
Don't forget that each planet on which a certain range of conditions (e.g., liquid water, solid carbon) gets A LOT of deals. Hitting the lotto is more probably when you play every day (or millions of times every second).

[/ QUOTE ]

I think your emphasis of "lot" is deceptive here. Let's say there are 5 million "draws" every second for 4 billion years. You'd have 6.3 * 10^23 total draws by my calculations. This seems about as extreme as we can expect for "attempts" at abiogenesis, even on an appropriate planet, and it's by no means enough to overwhelm the odds.

In Fl's situation, with 10^30 total systems, each having 1 planet that can support life, and abiogenesis being 1/10^55 likely, then even with 5 million tries per second in every system, chances are life wouldn't develop at all. 10^55 is a much larger number than 10^24. Winning the lottery, being generous, involves more like 10^8, which is extremely tiny by comparison.

The fact is we don't know the frequency of planets that can support life, or the likelihood of life developing on such planets, or any number of other variables that are critical to the calculation of such things. But none of these "big numbers" being thrown around, even if they were 100% true, is big enough to be considered overwhelming or to settle the issue.

[madnak]

[ QUOTE ]
Of course there is. Its just a matter of how probable.

[/ QUOTE ]

We don't know the probability. So we can't determine whether it makes more sense to believe there is life or to believe there isn't.

[Andrew Karpinski]

How does the possibility of life on mars (in the past) affect the current discussion?&gt;

[aeest400]

well, see my comment above on the chemistry of self replication. My intuitions are that "abiogenesis" (sounds like a damn ID term) is not a freak--more likely it's chemically inevitable.

[madnak]

I can't argue with intuitions. I really have none on the subject. But so far we know very little about the creation of life, so no intuitions are backed up with fact. There may be some validity to an intuition that there's someone else out there, but that hardly makes it a mathematical or scientific certainty.

[bunny]

[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
It doesn't matter how much of a longshot it is. Odds still say that intelligent life existing (or having existed), elsewhere is almost certain.

[/ QUOTE ]
With due respect it is obviously wrong that it doesnt matter how much of a longshot it is. If the odds are long enough then life existing elsewhere can become infinitesimally unlikely no matter how big the universe is.

[/ QUOTE ]

I disagree Bunny, but since you are a teacher I'll defer to you.

We know for a fact that life has occured at least "once", right? So it's not impossible for life to form no matter how rare. Now...

You've got gazillions of stars with trillions of solar systems, with gazillions of planets, which have had billions of years to spawn intelligent life. Common sense says (to me anyway), that it is almost impossible for life not to have developed elsewhere.

That has life occured at "least" once that we know of, is extremely significant when it comes to estimation given the huge numbers involved. No matter how rare it is.

[/ QUOTE ]
I think you will appreciate the point without too much effort - The "no matter how rare it is" part is what is clearly wrong. To illustrate, suppose there are 10^30 stars in the universe - if the odds of life occuring in a stellar system are 10^60 then it is extremely unlikely there is life in any solar system other than ours. Of course, I'm not claiming these numbers are correct merely that no matter how many stars there are - if the odds against life are great enough we can still be the only intelligent species. The point is that the existence of life here doesnt allow us to make any estimation of the probability of life occurring in a stellar system - we dont know if it was extremely unlikely or not (at least not yet).

[chezlaw]

[ QUOTE ]
well, see my comment above on the chemistry of self replication. My intuitions are that "abiogenesis" (sounds like a damn ID term) is not a freak--more likely it's chemically inevitable.

[/ QUOTE ]
Sounds right. Life is probably common as dirt given any half decent conditions and some time.

Anyway we have very good reason to believe the universe is biggish and no reason to believe the probability of abio... is tiny, so its reasonable to conclude that life is more likely out there than not.

chez

[aeest400]

[ QUOTE ]
I can't argue with intuitions. I really have none on the subject. But so far we know very little about the creation of life, so no intuitions are backed up with fact. There may be some validity to an intuition that there's someone else out there, but that hardly makes it a mathematical or scientific certainty.

[/ QUOTE ]

My intuition isn't that there is "someone else out there," my intuition is that if you take common elements in a reasonable range of conditions and add energy, then you will eventually will end up with chemicals that "reproduce" themselves. Such chemicals will continue to reproduce themselves, and those that are the most successful, through adding new chemicals, etc, to their "systems" will reproduce the most, and pretty soon you'll have a bunch of reproducing chemicals. Given a few billion years, you may even end up with packages of meat carrying such chemicals who wonder why they exist and do some research into the issue (after a long period of simply making up funny anthropocentric stories). Maybe it's my chem/mo-bio background, but that's the lens through which I view evolution.

[Vincent]

I read "The Law of Accelerating Returns" by Ray Kurzweil, and I like his argument for why we're alone. I haven't heard arguments for why we're not alone, so I'm ignorant on the subject.

[CallMeIshmael]

Question to all:

Compare the probabilites:

Abiogenesis vs Intellignce|Abiogenesis


(that is, chances of going from nothing to life, vs chances of going from nothing to intelligence given that we've already got a planet with abiogenesis)


Clearly, anything we say is going to be pure speculation.


Ill say the latter is smaller by at least 5 orders of magnitude and probably more.

[Andrew Karpinski]

Also, how rare do you think intelligence to the degree of humanity once life forms on a planet? I think given enough billions of years of evolution intelligence is inevitable.

[madnak]

I think intelligence|abiogenesis is much more likely than abiogenesis itself.

I think the mechanism of natural selection makes intelligence very likely given the existence of life, but I know of no such mechanism for abiogenesis.

[CallMeIshmael]

[ QUOTE ]
Also, how rare do you think intelligence to the degree of humanity once life forms on a planet? I think given enough billions of years of evolution intelligence is inevitable.

[/ QUOTE ]

I think this depends a lot on the planet.


Like I said before, there might be something about the ocean that makes intelligent (and lets use the radio wave definition of intelligent) life highly imporbable, since its been 3.5 billion and nothing in there seems close, yet it took land animals 400-500 million to get there.

[chrisnice]

[ QUOTE ]

You've got gazillions of stars with trillions of solar systems, with gazillions of planets, which have had billions of years to spawn intelligent life. Common sense says (to me anyway), that it is almost impossible for life not to have developed elsewhere.

[/ QUOTE ]

And this is how common sense will often lead you astray. Gazillions of galaxies with billions of stars, etc, etc, etc, actually supports the no other (or at least none older) intelligent life theory.

[aeest400]

[ QUOTE ]
Question to all:

Compare the probabilites:

Abiogenesis vs Intellignce|Abiogenesis


(that is, chances of going from nothing to life, vs chances of going from nothing to intelligence given that we've already got a planet with abiogenesis)


Clearly, anything we say is going to be pure speculation.


Ill say the latter is smaller by at least 5 orders of magnitude and probably more.

[/ QUOTE ]

That doesn't sound bad, but (as I hinted at earlier) I think a protein synthesis system (RNA), and energy system (mitochondria), cellular transport, etc, etc, may be even harder to develop. But they are much more "low level" and therefore have many more chances to evolve than intelligence would.

[CallMeIshmael]

[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
Question to all:

Compare the probabilites:

Abiogenesis vs Intellignce|Abiogenesis


(that is, chances of going from nothing to life, vs chances of going from nothing to intelligence given that we've already got a planet with abiogenesis)


Clearly, anything we say is going to be pure speculation.


Ill say the latter is smaller by at least 5 orders of magnitude and probably more.

[/ QUOTE ]

That doesn't sound bad, but (as I hinted at earlier) I think a protein synthesis system (RNA), and energy system (mitochondria), cellular transport, etc, etc, may be even harder to develop. But they are much more "low level" and therefore have many more chances to evolve than intelligence would.

[/ QUOTE ]



Yeah, thats a big step from abiogenesis -&gt; intelligence

I can only imagine the conditions under which that stuff forms are rare

[chezlaw]

[ QUOTE ]
I can't argue with intuitions. I really have none on the subject. But so far we know very little about the creation of life, so no intuitions are backed up with fact. There may be some validity to an intuition that there's someone else out there, but that hardly makes it a mathematical or scientific certainty.

[/ QUOTE ]
I don't think were arguing for certainty, just reasonable belief.

Even though, no-one yet know how life arose on earth, there's no reason to believe it was a freakisly unlikely incident and some reason to believe it was fairly likely [ fairly likely in this case could be 1 in gazillions per year and still make life elsewhere almost a certainty]

The argument against is somehow based on life being very special and relies on the nonsense argument that because we don't know how very simple life arose then its likely to be unlikely. In fact, if we didn't have any idea about natural selection we would have no idea how likely it was to be unlikey and hence it would be very unlikey that it was so unlikey that given the size of the universe it never happened anywhere else.

Given that we know just how powerful selection is, it seems likely that the likelyhood of abio... is not tiny.

chez

[madnak]

I don't understand how selection applies.

[chrisnice]

[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
well, see my comment above on the chemistry of self replication. My intuitions are that "abiogenesis" (sounds like a damn ID term) is not a freak--more likely it's chemically inevitable.

[/ QUOTE ]
Sounds right. Life is probably common as dirt given any half decent conditions and some time.

Anyway we have very good reason to believe the universe is biggish and no reason to believe the probability of abio... is tiny, so its reasonable to conclude that life is more likely out there than not.

chez

[/ QUOTE ]

Its really not reasonable. Time is the factor that most leave out. Us earthlings are very young, yet think how much evidence of our existence there would be to an outside intelligent observor, and just think of how much more there will be in 1000, 5000 or 10000 years when we colonize other planets and can travel to other galaxies. If the evolution of intelligence was common as dirt, and evolved at a rate similar to ours, one would expect that it would have happened billions of years (or at least hundreds of thousands) of years before us. If this was the case the universe would be flooded with evidence of intelligent life.

[chezlaw]

[ QUOTE ]
I don't understand how selection applies.

[/ QUOTE ]
To quote the late great Mr Adams

Stuff that happens, happens.
Stuff that in happening cause something else to happen, causes something else to happen.
stuff that in happening causes itself to happen again, happens again.

This results after time in a proliferation of stuff that causes itself to happen again - onwards to life.

chez

[aeest400]

[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
well, see my comment above on the chemistry of self replication. My intuitions are that "abiogenesis" (sounds like a damn ID term) is not a freak--more likely it's chemically inevitable.

[/ QUOTE ]
Sounds right. Life is probably common as dirt given any half decent conditions and some time.

Anyway we have very good reason to believe the universe is biggish and no reason to believe the probability of abio... is tiny, so its reasonable to conclude that life is more likely out there than not.

chez

[/ QUOTE ]

Its really not reasonable. Time is the factor that most leave out. Us earthlings are very young, yet think how much evidence of our existence there would be to an outside intelligent observor, and just think of how much more there will be in 1000, 5000 or 10000 years when we colonize other planets and can travel to other galaxies. If the evolution of intelligence was common as dirt, and evolved at a rate similar to ours, one would expect that it would have happened billions of years (or at least hundreds of thousands) of years before us. If this was the case the universe would be flooded with evidence of intelligent life.

[/ QUOTE ]

Na, no one ever makes it past the develop-nuclear-weapons phase. /images/graemlins/shocked.gif

[Andrew Karpinski]

[ QUOTE ]

Na, no one ever makes it past the develop-phasers &amp; photon torpedos phase. /images/graemlins/shocked.gif

[/ QUOTE ]

[madnak]

Imagine I find myself in Paris. I'm a robot, intelligent but with no knowledge of anything. I see the Eiffel Tower.

Its reasonable to believe Paris is not special. (The only reason not to believe this is ego)
It's reasonable to believe the universe is very large
The Eiffel Tower exists in Paris
Therefore it's reasonable to believe that an Eiffel Tower is likely to exist elsewhere in the universe.

Valid reasoning, or not?

Also it took billions of years for life to form on earth. And it doesn't seem to have been a cumulative process. Why would something so likely as to be inevitable have taken so long?

[MidGe]

I am amazed that no one has raised the question about why is intelligence the basis of the question.

There is no doubt that intelligence has been one of, if not , the most successful survival trait. Essentially because it occured in a completely different direction, giving the individual the ability to reminisce and project abstractly into the future. Thus, allowing the playing of what-ifs scenarios with a modicum of accuracy, wothout having to go to the large generation numbers to try them out. It also allows inter-generational transmission of cultural artefacts, a very other rapid evolutionary like feature.

Now, given abiogenesis, there is absolutely no guarantee, that, even given a similar world elsewhere, evolution will follow the same steps. I mean, even the first replcator could be different, let alone all the intermediates. Other mechanisms supporting survival, like a different flight system that one based on feathers are also possible. Don't ask me what it could be, but many things fly without feathers. In the same way, intelligence as we see it, as a sort of summit, albeit be it temporarily, may also be outsmarted (in fitness) by other replicators in other worlds having had a different evolution. In fact those abilities could put our intelligence to shame.

I feel that this concern with intelligence is still rooted in antiquated concepts of man holding a special place in the natural world, especially when it is not matched against the possibility of superior traits. Let's call it a thow back from our anthropocentrist view of the world. /images/graemlins/smile.gif

[madnak]

What do you mean by "superior" traits, that can't be considered "intelligence?" Do you have any examples?

[aeest400]

[ QUOTE ]
Imagine I find myself in Paris. I'm a robot, intelligent but with no knowledge of anything. I see the Eiffel Tower.

Its reasonable to believe Paris is not special. (The only reason not to believe this is ego)
It's reasonable to believe the universe is very large
The Eiffel Tower exists in Paris
Therefore it's reasonable to believe that an Eiffel Tower is likely to exist elsewhere in the universe.

Valid reasoning, or not?

Also it took billions of years for life to form on earth. And it doesn't seem to have been a cumulative process. Why would something so likely as to be inevitable have taken so long?

[/ QUOTE ]

The Eiffel Tower was not made by the laws of chemisty and physics. The only issue is what range of conditions is neccessary for life. Bacteria are found in a fairly wide range of places on the earth. You can't stop life if the conditions are right, and I'd bet they are reasonably broad.

[chezlaw]

[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
well, see my comment above on the chemistry of self replication. My intuitions are that "abiogenesis" (sounds like a damn ID term) is not a freak--more likely it's chemically inevitable.

[/ QUOTE ]
Sounds right. Life is probably common as dirt given any half decent conditions and some time.

Anyway we have very good reason to believe the universe is biggish and no reason to believe the probability of abio... is tiny, so its reasonable to conclude that life is more likely out there than not.

chez

[/ QUOTE ]

Its really not reasonable. Time is the factor that most leave out. Us earthlings are very young, yet think how much evidence of our existence there would be to an outside intelligent observor, and just think of how much more there will be in 1000, 5000 or 10000 years when we colonize other planets and can travel to other galaxies. If the evolution of intelligence was common as dirt, and evolved at a rate similar to ours, one would expect that it would have happened billions of years (or at least hundreds of thousands) of years before us. If this was the case the universe would be flooded with evidence of intelligent life.

[/ QUOTE ]
My argument is about life not intelligent life I appreciate thats not the OP's intent but thats where i joined the debate and I'm only talking about life.

Why we have no evidence of intelligent life elsewhere is interesting but deeply inconclusive. Maybe the universe is flooded with evidence of intelligent life but we're not yet adapt at noticing it (as you say we're young and only have primative technology), maybe intellignet life is rare and the distances too great, who knows.

chez

[madnak]

[ QUOTE ]
The Eiffel Tower was not made by the laws of chemisty and physics.

[/ QUOTE ]

Sure it was. Anyhow, the robot in this scenario would have no way of understanding the basis of the Eiffel Tower's construction.

[ QUOTE ]
The only issue is what range of conditions is neccessary for life. Bacteria are found in a fairly wide range of places on the earth. You can't stop life if the conditions are right, and I'd bet they are reasonably broad.

[/ QUOTE ]

That's not necessarily true. In fact, I think it's very false. I'd look at it more as a continuum - some planets are more conducive to the generation of life than others. It's not a binary thing. Regardless, we have no idea what the conditions are, and can't speak usefully about their frequency.

[MidGe]

[ QUOTE ]
What do you mean by "superior" traits, that can't be considered "intelligence?" Do you have any examples?

[/ QUOTE ]

Hi madnak,

No, I don't have any example, given my limited intelligence. I could speculate and say that instead of apprehending experience in a time serial nature, one could conceive of beings able to discern the underlaying matrix arrangement in the moment and use that to advantage. OTOH, neither can I conceive what forms replicators may have evolved elsewhere, altough I am certain they will be different from here. When I say "certain", I mean much more conviced about than the idea of god which has zero credibility for me.

[madnak]

Hmm. Well, I'd consider that a form of intelligence, so maybe it's just semantic.

[CallMeIshmael]

Interesting thing I just thought of:


The "abiogenesis isnt that unlikely" hypothesis seems to predict multiple incidences of abiogenesis on our planet, no?


I mean, given the universiality of the genetic code we assume that all life evolved from a single ancestor, but if abiogenesis isnt that unlikely, shouldnt it have happened several times, leading to organisms with a different genetic substance that DNA?


I guess you could argue that for some reason DNA species are more fit that species that use something other than DNA, but I find that kind of hard to believe. I mean, there has to be a bunch of chemicals that can do DNA's job, no?

[aeest400]

[ QUOTE ]
Interesting thing I just thought of:


The "abiogenesis isnt that unlikely" hypothesis seems to predict multiple incidences of abiogenesis on our planet, no?


I mean, given the universiality of the genetic code we assume that all life evolved from a single ancestor, but if abiogenesis isnt that unlikely, shouldnt it have happened several times, leading to organisms with a different genetic substance that DNA?


I guess you could argue that for some reason DNA species are more fit that species that use something other than DNA, but I find that kind of hard to believe. I mean, there has to be a bunch of chemicals that can do DNA's job, no?

[/ QUOTE ]

Interesting point. In fact, there are different types of genetic material we are aware of, and not just RNA. See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/RNA_world_hypothesis. It's interesting, though, that only nucleic acids seem to fill this role. Maybe nucleci acids are the only "self-replicating" chemicals that work on the earth, dunno.

Here's a relevant quote from the cited article (which also cites reasons to doubt that RNA was the initial "organism.")

[ QUOTE ]
At first glance, the RNA world hypothesis seems implausible because, in today's world, large RNA molecules are inherently fragile and can easily be broken down into their constituent nucleotides with hydrolysis. Even without hydrolysis RNA will eventually break down from background radiation. (Pääbo 1993, Lindahl 1993).

A proposed alternative to RNA in an "RNA World" is the peptide nucleic acid, PNA. PNA is more stable than RNA and appears to be more readily synthesised in prebiotic conditions, especially where the synthesis of ribose and adding phosphate groups are problematic. Threose nucleic acid (TNA) has also been proposed as a starting point, as has Glycol nucleic acid GNA.

A different alternative to the assembly of RNA is proposed in the PAH world hypothesis.

Additionally, in the past a given RNA molecule might have "lived" longer than it can today. Ultraviolet light can cause RNA to polymerize while at the same time breaking down other types of organic molecules that could have the potential of catalyzing the break down of RNA (ribonucleases), suggesting that RNA may have been a relatively common substance on early earth. This aspect of the theory is still untested and is based on a constant concentration of sugar-phosphate molecules.

[/ QUOTE ]

PS--I was only a chem/mo-bio minor. Anyone with greater expertise care to comment on why acidic nucleotides are the only genetic material? Actually, though, I did write a paper on Erwin Schodinger's 1940(ish) book "What is Life?". In that work he argues that the genetic material has to be some sort of "aperiodic crystal," which was kinda-sorta right, and almost everyone before Watson and Crick thought that the genetic material had to be a protein (basically because proteins have complex structure and are quite common). On the other hand, I don't know of any proteins that serve as genetic material--the bonds are too strong and they lack that ready-to-code and mutate form of RNA/DNA. Maybe RNA/DNA type molecules are pretty special. Maybe not. Dunno. I wonder if one could do an artificial life-type computer experiment where genetic materials "spontaneously" comes on the scene.

[aeest400]

This book seems to discuss the relevant issues and ends with a chapter on the possibility of extraterrestrial life.

http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0691009783/104-2241292-0250333?v=glance&amp;n=283155

[aeest400]

Here's another book on the orgin of life. (From the Univ. of CA Press) http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0520233...ce&amp;n=283155 (http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0520233913/ref=reg_hu-wl_mrai-recs/104-2241292-0250333?%5Fencoding=UTF8&amp;v=glance&amp;n=283155)

Below is a quote from the only review, which suggests the book adopts the line I'm taking, at least in a general sense.

[ QUOTE ]
This book just slayed me. A series of beautifully-written and well-supported essays covers, very quickly, the turn-of-the-millennium status of research on the subject of how life got started at the very, very beginning. How did 'pre-biotic' molecules ever get started replicating themselves, eventually turning into 'biotic' molecules? The answers aren't all in, but there's some really exciting work going on; scientists are relentlessly chipping away at the problem and they have made a surprising amount of progress. You know, these days the creationists are getting a lot of press. And they keep hammering on the idea that the pre-biotic genesis of life is simply impossible; it had to require some sort of divine intervention. This is a lie. Take astronomer Fred Hoyle's famous simile -- that the accidental genesis of life would be like a tornado ripping through a junkyard and assembling a 747. While I read 'Life's Origin', I thought often of Hoyle and how much I'd like to throttle him. The origin of life requires NOTHING like the accidental assembly of a jet aircraft. It requires something much more like the lifting of two magnets into the air, so they can snap together, each magnet's north pole snapping to the other's south. Molecules have natural affinities. They were 'born' to snap together. 99.9% of all the matter in the universe is either carbon, hydrogen, oxygen, or nitrogen: the stuff of life. Once the Earth had cooled down from its fiery birth, life couldn't wait to get started. And once it got started, it was by its very nature almost unstoppable. This is not an easy book. It's written for a lay audience (and there's a helpful glossary at the back), but there's a ton of orgo in it, so if you're not a chemist you had best be a quick study: the kind of layperson who, having once heard (for example) the word 'racemic' defined, can use it in a coherent sentence the following day. If you're that kind of smart, you will get a real kick out of this book. This crazy world is more beautiful -- life is more strange and fantastic and marvelous, than we ever suspected. Read and enjoy..

[/ QUOTE ]

[chezlaw]

[ QUOTE ]
Interesting thing I just thought of:


The "abiogenesis isnt that unlikely" hypothesis seems to predict multiple incidences of abiogenesis on our planet, no?


I mean, given the universiality of the genetic code we assume that all life evolved from a single ancestor, but if abiogenesis isnt that unlikely, shouldnt it have happened several times, leading to organisms with a different genetic substance that DNA?


I guess you could argue that for some reason DNA species are more fit that species that use something other than DNA, but I find that kind of hard to believe. I mean, there has to be a bunch of chemicals that can do DNA's job, no?

[/ QUOTE ]
It could be that one of the conditions for abiogeneses being likely is it not already having taken off.

Maybe its like trying to light an already lit fire.

chez

[five4suited]

You seem to be saying that it's so unlikely that it's possible that earth is the only planet in the universe with intelligent life. If it's that unlikely, and it happened here, why wouldn't it happen again? Unless it's more likely, in which case it would probably have happened again.

[five4suited]

[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
General question to all:

Do you think the following things exist on a planet other than earth:

- A being so like you that it could fool your family into thinking it was you

- A being so like you that if could fool a casual friend into thinking it was you BASED ON LOOKS ALONE (ie. personality doesnt need to match)

- A group of animals so similar to what we call alligators that they are capable of interbreeding with our alligators

- A group of animals so similar to our alligators that most experts cannot detect a difference, but underlying genetic code prevents mating



Now, keep in mind that the probability of all of these events in non-0, and the universe is really large.

[/ QUOTE ]

I'd say yes to all of these.

[/ QUOTE ]

string theory, lots of dimensions, bizarro five4suited! He plays high stakes NL.

[CallMeIshmael]

[ QUOTE ]
You seem to be saying that it's so unlikely that it's possible that earth is the only planet in the universe with intelligent life.

[/ QUOTE ]

No Im not.

Im saying that its POSSIBLE that the evolution of intelligence is so unlikely that despite the large number of planets it has only happened once. I have no way of estimating how likely that possibility is, thus I have to, to a certain extent, remain agnostic about other intelligence.


[ QUOTE ]
If it's that unlikely, and it happened here, why wouldn't it happen again? Unless it's more likely, in which case it would probably have happened again.

[/ QUOTE ]

This argument has already been covered in the thread.

[madnak]

[ QUOTE ]
Once the Earth had cooled down from its fiery birth, life couldn't wait to get started.

[/ QUOTE ]

It sure waited a long time, given that it "couldn't wait."

[aeest400]

God was too busy creating life on other planets in the universe. [This is know to scientists as the "Genesis Gap," one of the few remaining unsolved mysteries of Christian cosmology. Obv.]

[Stu Pidasso]

[ QUOTE ]
The "abiogenesis isnt that unlikely" hypothesis seems to predict multiple incidences of abiogenesis on our planet, no?

I mean, given the universiality of the genetic code we assume that all life evolved from a single ancestor, but if abiogenesis isnt that unlikely, shouldnt it have happened several times, leading to organisms with a different genetic substance that DNA?


[/ QUOTE ]

Why bother with a different genetic substance. Shouldn't we observe abiogenesis occuring today using the same nucleic acids?

Stu

[CallMeIshmael]

[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
The "abiogenesis isnt that unlikely" hypothesis seems to predict multiple incidences of abiogenesis on our planet, no?

I mean, given the universiality of the genetic code we assume that all life evolved from a single ancestor, but if abiogenesis isnt that unlikely, shouldnt it have happened several times, leading to organisms with a different genetic substance that DNA?


[/ QUOTE ]

Why bother with a different genetic substance. Shouldn't we observe abiogenesis occuring today using the same nucleic acids?

Stu

[/ QUOTE ]

But, if it did, how could we identify it?

[aeest400]

[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
The "abiogenesis isnt that unlikely" hypothesis seems to predict multiple incidences of abiogenesis on our planet, no?

I mean, given the universiality of the genetic code we assume that all life evolved from a single ancestor, but if abiogenesis isnt that unlikely, shouldnt it have happened several times, leading to organisms with a different genetic substance that DNA?


[/ QUOTE ]

Why bother with a different genetic substance. Shouldn't we observe abiogenesis occuring today using the same nucleic acids?

Stu

[/ QUOTE ]

Who says it isn't?
But it's kinda hard to tell (i.e., impossible) where RNA "in the wild" comes from, replication or (ack) abiogenisis. If I'm not mistaken, most of the biomass on earth is bacteria, much of it uncategorized. Is it recently evolvd or stuff that's been around for 4 billion years?

[Stu Pidasso]

[ QUOTE ]
Who says it isn't?
But it's kinda hard to tell (i.e., impossible) where RNA "in the wild" comes from, replication or (ack) abiogenisis.

[/ QUOTE ]

Why is it hard to tell. We observe replication, but we do not observe abiogenesis. It seems that replication is the simplest explaination.

Stu

[Stu Pidasso]

[ QUOTE ]
But, if it did, how could we identify it?

[/ QUOTE ]

Sequence the DNA. I believe there is a process of dating a genetic sequence by counting the number of mutations.

Stu

[Andrew Karpinski]

[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
The "abiogenesis isnt that unlikely" hypothesis seems to predict multiple incidences of abiogenesis on our planet, no?

I mean, given the universiality of the genetic code we assume that all life evolved from a single ancestor, but if abiogenesis isnt that unlikely, shouldnt it have happened several times, leading to organisms with a different genetic substance that DNA?


[/ QUOTE ]

Why bother with a different genetic substance. Shouldn't we observe abiogenesis occuring today using the same nucleic acids?

Stu

[/ QUOTE ]

Conditions on the earth are very different today then they were back then, in particular the inclusion of our atmosphere blocking out cosmic rays and the fact that we're not covered in a gooey soup of life making material may play into this as well.

[aeest400]

[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
But, if it did, how could we identify it?

[/ QUOTE ]

Sequence the DNA. I believe there is a process of dating a genetic sequence by counting the number of mutations.

Stu

[/ QUOTE ]

On the account I'm proposing, early life would essentially amount to (something like) relatively small segments of RNA. If you scooped up some pond scum, there would be tons of such segments. We do not have the capability to tell which RNA came from organisms and which was generated "spontaneously." We could surely sequence all of it, but this would tell us nothing without some "index" of which organisms posses which sequences along their entire genome. Further, more DNA (and presumably RNA), is "junk DNA" with no know role in replication and, even if all sequences were known for all living things we know of, there are tons of organisms, e.g., bacteria and viruses that have not been discovered or catalogued, much less sequenced. So, as I said, you can't separate the wheat from the chaff.

That said, I don't know of any RNA being spontaneously created in a lab. It may be an unlikely phenomenon. However, one couldn't tell this by the looking at some sample of earth contianing RNA.

[ChromePony]

Man I just wrote a 15 page paper on this for my astrobiology class...I wish I had gotten here sooner.

You guys have probably covered everything by now.

[Stu Pidasso]

[ QUOTE ]
Conditions on the earth are very different today then they were back then, in particular the inclusion of our atmosphere blocking out cosmic rays and the fact that we're not covered in a gooey soup of life making material may play into this as well.

[/ QUOTE ]

Are you saying that conditions today are not conducive to abiogenesis? I find that hard to believe. In our current environment, biochemicals which make up living tissue have no difficulty being organized in such a way that the end result is a living organism.

Stu

[Stu Pidasso]

[ QUOTE ]
That said, I don't know of any RNA being spontaneously created in a lab. It may be an unlikely phenomenon. However, one couldn't tell this by the looking at some sample of earth contianing RNA.

[/ QUOTE ]

The evidence indicates all living organism on this planet have a common ancestor. If abiogenesis occurred on this planet, it happened only once in the last 4.5 billion years. If it happened more than once we should see organism which are completely unrelated.

Stu

[Stu Pidasso]

[ QUOTE ]
<font color="blue"> Even in a universe as large as ours, there are certainly events which occurred that are completely unique </font> .

Other than the big bang itself, can you name one?

[/ QUOTE ]

This is unique
http://flatrock.org.nz/topics/science/assets/eagle_nebula.jpg

If the Universe were of infinite size and contained an infinite amount of mass, you would see an infinite amount of structures which are completely identical to this one pictured.

However in our finite universe with its finite amount of mass, the probability of finding a structure that is completely identical to this one is essentially 0.

Stu

[chezlaw]

[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
<font color="blue"> Even in a universe as large as ours, there are certainly events which occurred that are completely unique </font> .

Other than the big bang itself, can you name one?

[/ QUOTE ]

This is unique
http://flatrock.org.nz/topics/science/assets/eagle_nebula.jpg

If the Universe were of infinite size and contained an infinite amount of mass, you would see an infinite amount of structures which are completely identical to this one pictured.

However in our finite universe with its finite amount of mass, the probability of finding a structure that is completely identical to this one is essentially 0.

Stu

[/ QUOTE ]
and the analogy is that life elsewhere wont be idential to life here. there are of course lots of similar nebula type things.

Unique but not special.

chez

[bunny]

[ QUOTE ]
If the Universe were of infinite size and contained an infinite amount of mass, you would see an infinite amount of structures which are completely identical to this one pictured.

[/ QUOTE ]
People often say this but I dont think it is true. The universe can be infinite but non-repeating (I may be assuming it is not totally random).

[Andrew Karpinski]

[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
If the Universe were of infinite size and contained an infinite amount of mass, you would see an infinite amount of structures which are completely identical to this one pictured.

[/ QUOTE ]
People often say this but I dont think it is true. The universe can be infinite but non-repeating (I may be assuming it is not totally random).

[/ QUOTE ]

Given an infinite try at a .00001% chance how many times does that .00001% chance happen? Does it matter how many zero's are in place?

[madnak]

An infinite universe may still have a 0% chance of a certain outcome.

Think of a sequence of ten digits. There is an irrational number (an infinite number of them, in fact) that doesn't contain that sequence of digits in its decimal representation, despite an infinite number of non-repeating digits.

[Lestat]

<font color="blue"> An infinite universe may still have a 0% chance of a certain outcome. </font>

Only if such an outcome is impossible. Clearly, life is possible.

[madnak]

Not true. A given outcome could happen exactly n times, where n is arbitrary, even in a non-repeating universe.

[FortunaMaximus]

How do we define infinity here for this discussion? Infinity isn't an absolute. There are infinite ways to get to infinity. (1, 2, 3... or 2, 4, 6... or.. you name it)


[ QUOTE ]
A given outcome could happen exactly n times, where n is arbitrary, even in a non-repeating universe.

[/ QUOTE ]

Isn't space-time the growth medium here? It hasn't happened yet but in a encompassing infinity, it WILL happen eventually, somewhere, somewhen?

An pre-existing infinity or something that grows without finite bounds?

Fermi's Paradox?

We assume we're the pinnacle of intelligence as such, and that we can map out the possible endpoint of our development as a species.

I think life's possible. Very improbable.

The development of heavier elements in the early Universe onwards to what we have now, this tells me that matter increases in complexity structurally. This makes life an emergent process of organizational complexity.

A bit more on Fermi's Paradox. It doesn't account for a developmentally ahead species keeping at bay until we achieve some stage of maturity (Very ST Prime Directive, I know, but it's a nice philosophy.)

In the end, I hope there is, and it's benevolent, or we are by the time we encounter them. Human pride allows me to hope for nothing less than this.

[madnak]

[ QUOTE ]
Isn't space-time the growth medium here? It hasn't happened yet but in a encompassing infinity, it WILL happen eventually, somewhere, somewhen?

[/ QUOTE ]

I'm thinking in terms of a hypothetical reality in which the universe isn't bounded in any finite way. And I'm not thinking of life, either. But the assumption that an infinite universe necessarily implies life is faulty.

[FortunaMaximus]

Posit: If it emerges once somewhere, it can emerge elsewhere. That does not imply that it will, just that the probability's there.

You can have infinite growth without life emerging, I don't disagree. Increased complexity may not be a prerequiste for awareness.

Does information require an observer or observers?

Patterns don't necessarily repeat in infinity, nor does an pattern emerge because the possibility is there. I tend to see infinity as constant positive or negative growth. This isn't an either/or, there's room for oscillation if the overall (information? data?) never approaches zero.

I keep thinking of neverborn situations, the grandfather paradox. Time has to be weirder than that. I'm not advocating multiverses here necessarily. Perhaps a variation of Heisenberg's cat, only this time it's a Yellow Pages, an infinite volume. This would be self-contained, but you wouldn't know what was on the page you flipped to. Nor would you know if it was there next time, but it's self-contained. Maybe it's not a strong enough symbolic definition to bring across what I'm trying to describe here.

Neh, I think I'm disgressing with the last part. This made me think tho. Thanks.

Edited for typo.

[madnak]

[ QUOTE ]
Posit: If it emerges once somewhere, it can emerge elsewhere. That does not imply that it will, just that the probability's there.

[/ QUOTE ]

That depends on what you mean by probability. It's a delicate subject and not as clear as it seems. For instance, if the universe is deterministic there's no such thing as probability in the first place, only the illusion of probability. If quantum randomness is really random, on the other hand, then an infinite universe may yield every outcome; but that assumes these "outcomes" can be isolated and enumerated (at least in theory), and that they're discrete. If we're talking about infinity at a "small" level and at a "large" level, it gets really complicated. And if we start talking about God it all goes to hell (no pun intended).

There's nothing logical to preclude the existence, however, of a non-repeating universe in which a particular element appears only once through all time and space.

[ QUOTE ]
You can have infinite growth without life emerging, I don't disagree. Increased complexity may not be a prerequiste for awareness.

Does information require an observer or observers?

Patterns don't necessarily repeat in infinity, nor does an pattern emerge because the possibility is there. I tend to see infinity as constant positive or negative growth. This isn't an either/or, there's room for oscillation if the overall (information? data?) never approaches zero.

I keep thinking of neverborn situations, the grandfather paradox. Time has to be weirder than that. I'm not advocating multiverses here necessarily. Perhaps a variation of Heisenberg's cat, only this time it's a Yellow Pages, an infinite volume. This would be self-contained, but you wouldn't know what was on the page you flipped to. Nor would you know if it was there next time, but it's self-contained. Maybe it's not a strong enough symbolic definition to bring across what I'm trying to describe here.

Neh, I think I'm disgressing with the last part. This made me think tho. Thanks.

Edited for typo.

[/ QUOTE ]

This is getting too broad for me. We could start a new thread on any one of these questions without scratching the surface.

[FortunaMaximus]

[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
Posit: If it emerges once somewhere, it can emerge elsewhere. That does not imply that it will, just that the probability's there.

[/ QUOTE ]

That depends on what you mean by probability. It's a delicate subject and not as clear as it seems. For instance, if the universe is deterministic there's no such thing as probability in the first place, only the illusion of probability. If quantum randomness is really random, on the other hand, then an infinite universe may yield every outcome; but that assumes these "outcomes" can be isolated and enumerated (at least in theory), and that they're discrete. If we're talking about infinity at a "small" level and at a "large" level, it gets really complicated. And if we start talking about God it all goes to hell (no pun intended).

There's nothing logical to preclude the existence, however, of a non-repeating universe in which a particular element appears only once through all time and space.

[/ QUOTE ]

Wrong word, maybe. Potentiality instead of probability, for defining capacity instead of the likelihood of occurence? Deterministic capacity is probably self-enclosed by default. I don't know, and that's the point.

Yeah, the rest of the post opened too many questions to stay coherently within a single discussion.

As for the God question? I default to the Oldest joke: There is free will, it's just predestined.

I love trying to define infinities. I never quite succeed. But taking the effort to try seems to bring something tangible to existence, for me.

[CallMeIshmael]

[ QUOTE ]
<font color="blue"> An infinite universe may still have a 0% chance of a certain outcome. </font>

Only if such an outcome is impossible. Clearly, life is possible.

[/ QUOTE ]


This isnt an area where I can claim I have that much knowledge, but I believe Madnak is correct.

This all stems from the fact that a possible event can still have 0 probability. (ie. picking the number 6, from a set of all natural numbers)



EDIT: I can pick any number. And you can continue to guess it. And, even though it is possible for you to pick it, you can continue to guess incorectly for an infinite time span.

[Lestat]

Of course, I see what you're saying. odds of 10^60 to 1 are improbable given only 10^30 chances. It's just that I think of the universe as more infinite than that. If we are talking 10^a google googles, nothing is so much a longshot that it couldn't happen twice.

[colgin]

[ QUOTE ]
Now, in my opinion, this is far too pessimistic. I think it is much more likely that the universe and our galaxy is teeming with life. But I think it absolutely absurd that intelligent life doesn't exist elsewhere.

[/ QUOTE ]

This nicely sums up my thoughts on the matter.

[chezlaw]

[ QUOTE ]
Of course, I see what you're saying. odds of 10^60 to 1 are improbable given only 10^30 chances. It's just that I think of the universe as more infinite than that. If we are talking 10^a google googles, nothing is so much a longshot that it couldn't happen twice.

[/ QUOTE ]
Also self-replicating systems are attractors in dynamical systems and don't easily compare with picking numbers at random from an infinite set.

chez

[CallMeIshmael]

FWIW, I think the following comments are slightly misguided:

[ QUOTE ]
Also self-replicating systems are attractors in dynamical systems and don't easily compare with picking numbers at random from an infinite set.

[/ QUOTE ]

[ QUOTE ]
Don't forget that each planet on which a certain range of conditions (e.g., liquid water, solid carbon) gets A LOT of deals. Hitting the lotto is more probably when you play every day (or millions of times every second).

[/ QUOTE ]



When comparisons are made to lottos or random numbers (or at least when Im using that comparison) Im not talking about the probability of going from nothing to life, Im talking about the probability of a given planet having the requirements (atmosphere, temp, etc) needed to be a planet that can evolve intelligent life (whatever those requirements are).

In this sense, this can be compared to a one shot lotto or picking a number at random from a large set.

[chezlaw]

[ QUOTE ]
FWIW, I think the following comments are slightly misguided:

[ QUOTE ]
Also self-replicating systems are attractors in dynamical systems and don't easily compare with picking numbers at random from an infinite set.

[/ QUOTE ]

[ QUOTE ]
Don't forget that each planet on which a certain range of conditions (e.g., liquid water, solid carbon) gets A LOT of deals. Hitting the lotto is more probably when you play every day (or millions of times every second).

[/ QUOTE ]



When comparisons are made to lottos or random numbers (or at least when Im using that comparison) Im not talking about the probability of going from nothing to life, Im talking about the probability of a given planet having the requirements (atmosphere, temp, etc) needed to be a planet that can evolve intelligent life (whatever those requirements are).

In this sense, this can be compared to a one shot lotto or picking a number at random from a large set.

[/ QUOTE ]
I think there's a dnager that your being biased by the requirements for earth life.

Self-replicating systems only require conditions of low-entropy and some balance between stability and change.

chez

[CallMeIshmael]

[ QUOTE ]
I think there's a dnager that your being biased by the requirements for earth life.

Self-replicating systems only require conditions of low-entropy and some balance between stability and change.

chez

[/ QUOTE ]


I will admit that its difficult to not let our observartions about earth life greatly bias our ideas about what requirements there are for intelligence to evolve.

But, at the same time, Im not sure how much bias there can be in the statement "I dont think I can give a reasonable estimate for the probability of life evolving on a random planet," which has been my themse throughout this thread.

[chezlaw]

[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
I think there's a dnager that your being biased by the requirements for earth life.

Self-replicating systems only require conditions of low-entropy and some balance between stability and change.

chez

[/ QUOTE ]


I will admit that its difficult to not let our observartions about earth life greatly bias our ideas about what requirements there are for intelligence to evolve.

But, at the same time, Im not sure how much bias there can be in the statement "I dont think I can give a reasonable estimate for the probability of life evolving on a random planet," which has been my themse throughout this thread.

[/ QUOTE ]
I don't disagree with your theme, its not possible to make a reasonable estimate of the probability. However it is reasonable to belive its unlikely to be vanishingly small.

chez

[CallMeIshmael]

[ QUOTE ]
I don't disagree with your theme, its not possible to make a reasonable estimate of the probability. However it is reasonable to belive its unlikely to be vanishingly small.

chez

[/ QUOTE ]


I can agree with this.


Again, Ill say I agree that there probably is life, but I like the way you've said it a lot more than the "the universe is big, it hapenned once..." argument.

[FortunaMaximus]

We shouldn't make the assumption, either, that life needs a certain combination of elements and enviroments to arise. It only looks that way because we effectively have a sample size of one. It's a very, very diverse sample, I'll grant. But in a Universe with conditions ranging from a flicker above absolute zero onwards to the heat extreme, I can't say I'm taking much solace from desert or hydrothermal life as a basis for emerging from hardship. It's only a perceptual hardship, it may very well be paradise for the life that exists on these scales and locations.

The current Universe is large enough as is, that our initial conditions can be replicated elsewhere to shockingly accurate parameters, if we want to continue the hydrogen-oxygen-carbon bias. And we're a several billion year old process in a universe commonly held to be thrice as old. There are only so many elements to work with, after all.

I think once we reach the bounds of our Solar System, we'll have a better idea of where we stand. Venus, the Jovian, and the other gas giants, and their satellites might surprise us eventually.

[godBoy]

Hi MidGe,

This ego you love to talk about, I think this self worth has been the sole reason for many of humans to choose life.. And the opposite, a sense of worthlesness and meaningless has been the sole reason for many suicides..

I'll take the ego, I'm yet to hear a good explanation as to why seeing this planet as special is a bad thing.

[MidGe]

[ QUOTE ]
I'll take the ego, I'm yet to hear a good explanation as to why seeing this planet as special is a bad thing.

[/ QUOTE ]

Incorrect assumptions give raise to false conclusions and those in turn result in less than optimal behaviour.

[godBoy]

Are you saying that sometimes the optimal behaviour would be suicide?
I'm under the impression that this is never desirable.
Isn't it possible that even false conclusions could give a positive result in the standard of living for a human being?

[bunny]

[ QUOTE ]
Of course, I see what you're saying. odds of 10^60 to 1 are improbable given only 10^30 chances. It's just that I think of the universe as more infinite than that. If we are talking 10^a google googles, nothing is so much a longshot that it couldn't happen twice.

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If it's 10^a google googles we are talking about you can just make the odds one over a google times that.

[bunny]

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If the Universe were of infinite size and contained an infinite amount of mass, you would see an infinite amount of structures which are completely identical to this one pictured.

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People often say this but I dont think it is true. The universe can be infinite but non-repeating (I may be assuming it is not totally random).

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Given an infinite try at a .00001% chance how many times does that .00001% chance happen? Does it matter how many zero's are in place?

[/ QUOTE ]
Madnak has expressed my view fairly well - as another example though consider the infinite decimal expansion 0.123456789011223344556677889900111222... It is goes on forever, all digits occur with the same probability yet the "object" 123 only exists once.

As I mentioned in my initial post, it may be that I am assuming the universe is not totally random and it is the imposition of rules that means repetition is not inevitable. Nonetheless, I think there is something to be proved if you want to claim an infinite universe must contain an infinite number of earths (for example).

[Andrew Karpinski]

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[ QUOTE ]
Of course, I see what you're saying. odds of 10^60 to 1 are improbable given only 10^30 chances. It's just that I think of the universe as more infinite than that. If we are talking 10^a google googles, nothing is so much a longshot that it couldn't happen twice.

[/ QUOTE ]
If it's 10^a google googles we are talking about you can just make the odds one over a google times that.

[/ QUOTE ]

But so long as their are finite odds, and infinite chances, they will happen infinite times, no?

[CallMeIshmael]

[ QUOTE ]
We shouldn't make the assumption, either, that life needs a certain combination of elements and enviroments to arise.

[/ QUOTE ]

Yes we should.

We know enough the moon to say that there isnt life up there.

It seems (though Im not knowledgeable on the subject) that most scientists think there isnt life on other planets in out solar system (with mars perhaps being an exception)


It seems that the most reasonable explanation is that life cant evolve on those planets.

[Andrew Karpinski]

CMI : There is some speculation that their may be life under Europa's (one of jupiters moons, I believe) frozen seas. Note, I did recently read an Arther C.Clark novel which talked about that, so this my be influencing my thoughts on the matter.

[FlFishOn]

"There is some speculation that their may be life under Europa's (one of jupiters moons, I believe) frozen seas. "

There exists an entire genre (of fiction) devoted to similar speculation.

[FortunaMaximus]

2010, right? It's a good book.

I admit, I'm a Clarke adherent. His philosophies on the Universe, certainly large portions of the Rama series, just kick serious ass.

[FortunaMaximus]

[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
We shouldn't make the assumption, either, that life needs a certain combination of elements and enviroments to arise.

[/ QUOTE ]

Yes we should.

We know enough the moon to say that there isnt life up there.

It seems (though Im not knowledgeable on the subject) that most scientists think there isnt life on other planets in out solar system (with mars perhaps being an exception)


It seems that the most reasonable explanation is that life cant evolve on those planets.

[/ QUOTE ]

The moon's a piece of rock. It's sterilized by radiation constantly. It'd be a hydroponic farmer's paradise. 2 weeks of light and 2 weeks of night. Nice.

So's Mars at this point. It probably had liquid before.

Life arises from organic soup, or at least it did here.

You can't draw a beaker of methane and expect it to sprout life spontatneously.

Europa's an organic soup under all that ice. So's Titan under all that smog.

There's constant electrical processes inside Jupiter. Our brains work effectively using bioelectrics. It's a thought.

Do certain combinations (hydrogen-carbon-oxygen) set definite conditions or can life emerge out of different elements? Boron or silicon instead of carbon, for instance? That's the question I ask.

[CallMeIshmael]

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Do certain combinations (hydrogen-carbon-oxygen) set definite conditions or can life emerge out of different elements? Boron or silicon instead of carbon, for instance? That's the question I ask.

[/ QUOTE ]

Ohh, I agree then. It seems entirely possible that other elements lead to life. For example, silicon replacing carbon seems like a reasonable possibility for obv. reasons.

When you said:

"We shouldn't make the assumption, either, that life needs a certain combination of elements and enviroments to arise"

I was confused by what you meant.

[FortunaMaximus]

Yeah, and that's why I clarified my thought processes here.

As I said earlier, we'll have to find out for ourselves, and certainly as our exploration abilities evolve, so will our moral sense. If we find life, even unicellular life, in any other place in the System, we're going to deal with an interesting dilemma, I think. As we expand, we'll need space. There's certainly going to be conflict, whether we should colonize those places or allow this life, no matter how basic compared to us, a natural chance to evolve on its own, to have a chance to develop intelligence.

[Rduke55]

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and almost everyone before Watson and Crick thought that the genetic material had to be a protein (basically because proteins have complex structure and are quite common).

[/ QUOTE ]

I have to be a nit here. Mostly because Watson and Crick's discovery is overrated (and not entirely their own).
It was accepted that nucleic acids carried genetic information before Watson and Crick's time.
Avery's work (early 1940's) is the first to pop into mind but there were many others (notably Pauling and Chargaff). By the late 40's it was nearly universally accepted that nucleic acids were the players here.

[bunny]

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Of course, I see what you're saying. odds of 10^60 to 1 are improbable given only 10^30 chances. It's just that I think of the universe as more infinite than that. If we are talking 10^a google googles, nothing is so much a longshot that it couldn't happen twice.

[/ QUOTE ]
If it's 10^a google googles we are talking about you can just make the odds one over a google times that.

[/ QUOTE ]

But so long as their are finite odds, and infinite chances, they will happen infinite times, no?

[/ QUOTE ]
In this case the event will occur an infinite number of times yes - I dont think this is a good statement of the situation we are discussing though.

[Andrew Karpinski]

bunny, if the universe is infinite, wouldn't anything that can happen, happen infinite times?

[Lestat]

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bunny, if the universe is infinite, wouldn't anything that can happen, happen infinite times?

[/ QUOTE ]

I'll let bunny give the correct answer, but I think the answer is yes. However, I also think there's some question as to whether the universe is truly infinite.

Regardless, my point in this thread is that the universe is at least big enough to where the possibility that life exists elsewhere should at least be taken seriously. That life has occured once is (in my mind), significant. And what is extremely rare by human standards does not necessarily make it improbable in a universal sense.

We've only had radio technology for what? 100 or so years? That's not even a blink of an eye in cosmo terms. Even if life were teeming elsewhere it would be an incredible coincidence to have heard from someone so soon. Remember, first, they'd have to be within 100 year radio range. Then they'd had to have had the same technology at the exact same time we do. If this is off just a little bit, we miss them. Their radio waves could've passed us and now they're exinct. Or maybe they haven't developed the technology yet. Anyone else, wouldn't be within 100 year range.

The bottom line is it should come as no surprise that we haven't heard from anyone yet. And this has nothing to do with how probable life is elsewhere. It's truly mind numbing how some of the theists here put forth such ridiculous notions and suggest that we would've heard from someone by now. That's crazy.

[FortunaMaximus]

This might be interesting. It defines types of civilizations by its capability to harness power.

Kardashev Scale (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kardashev_scale)

[Andrew Karpinski]

FWIW I believe the universe to be finite.

[CallMeIshmael]

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bunny, if the universe is infinite, wouldn't anything that can happen, happen infinite times?

[/ QUOTE ]

No.

For starters, it is impossible conceptually. Many things define the earth.

No only what is on the planet, but the earth wouldnt be the same without the moon. Nor would it be the same without the solar system. But, the solar system wouldnt be the same without the galaxy being the same. But the galaxy wouldnt be the same without all neighbouring galaxies being the same...

For the most part, if somehow the solar system were replicated somewhere else, most humans would not know a difference. BUT, astronomers would make different observations, and thus it wouldnt be exactly the same.

For the earth to be the same, we would need to be able to "drive" at lightspeed for 1000s of years in all directions and have everything be the same.



Beyond that, the statement presupposes that the probability is finite. For example, if something has probability 1/1000000, then if you repeat the trial infinite times, yes, it happens infinitely.

But, we dont know if there arent an infinite number of possibilities. As has already been said: if every planet were a number, we could fill an infinite universe without ever using the same planet twice. Since a planets identity relies (to a very small extent) on its exact position in the universe, I suspect that there are an infinite number of planets that can be created.

[bunny]

I dont think this is necessarily true if the universe is not random (if an infinite amount of matter is randomly distributed across the infinite universe then yes I think it is true - but given it obeys laws which restrict how it is distributed, I would ask for proof rather than just accepting the claim).

Mathematical examples arent ideal but I think they make the point I am alluding to: In the infinite, non-repeating number 0.01001100011100001111... etc, it is possible for three zeros to occur in a row with a one on either side, yet it only happens once in the infinite sequence, this is due to the digits not occurring at random but rather according to an algorithm. Clearly the algorithm governing how matter is distributed is more complicated than this, but I think the point is the same.

I would stress that it may be true, I'm not sure - but I would like to see it argued before I would accept it.

[bunny]

[ QUOTE ]
Regardless, my point in this thread is that the universe is at least big enough to where the possibility that life exists elsewhere should at least be taken seriously. That life has occured once is (in my mind), significant. And what is extremely rare by human standards does not necessarily make it improbable in a universal sense.

We've only had radio technology for what? 100 or so years? That's not even a blink of an eye in cosmo terms. Even if life were teeming elsewhere it would be an incredible coincidence to have heard from someone so soon. Remember, first, they'd have to be within 100 year radio range. Then they'd had to have had the same technology at the exact same time we do. If this is off just a little bit, we miss them. Their radio waves could've passed us and now they're exinct. Or maybe they haven't developed the technology yet. Anyone else, wouldn't be within 100 year range.

The bottom line is it should come as no surprise that we haven't heard from anyone yet. And this has nothing to do with how probable life is elsewhere. It's truly mind numbing how some of the theists here put forth such ridiculous notions and suggest that we would've heard from someone by now. That's crazy.

[/ QUOTE ]
There have been some attempts to model how likely it would be that life had occurred elsewhere and not reached us yet. In my view it is dubious science at best, nonetheless the most worked out model I have heard of suggests it does not take long (on a galactic timescale) for an expansionist civilization to reach every corner of the galaxy. In other words, there is a puzzle in trying to answer "If life exists elsewhere, why havent we seen it?"

There are many ways to answer of course - one of the fundamental assumptions in the model is that most civilisations will try and expand beyond their solar systems if they can - who can say how true that is?

It has been mentioned before, but imo there is a really good survey of the possible answers as well as many of the issues can be found in Where Is Everybody? By Stephen Webb.

[aeest400]

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and almost everyone before Watson and Crick thought that the genetic material had to be a protein (basically because proteins have complex structure and are quite common).

[/ QUOTE ]

I have to be a nit here. Mostly because Watson and Crick's discovery is overrated (and not entirely their own).
It was accepted that nucleic acids carried genetic information before Watson and Crick's time.
Avery's work (early 1940's) is the first to pop into mind but there were many others (notably Pauling and Chargaff). By the late 40's it was nearly universally accepted that nucleic acids were the players here.

[/ QUOTE ]


I have to nit your nit. There were a few groups around 1950 that believed DNA was the genetic material, but this view was by no means widespread. I agree that Watson's DNA work is/was overrated, but it caused such a stir because the discovery of the structure of DNA so strongly suggested its hereditary role.

see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/James_D._Watson :

In 1949 Watson took a course with Felix Haurowitz that included the conventional view of that time: that proteins were genes and able to replicate themselves. The other major molecular component of chromosomes, DNA, was thought by many to be a "stupid tetranucleotide", serving only a structural role to support the proteins. However, even at this early time, Watson, under the influence of the Phage Group, was aware of the work of Oswald Avery which suggested that DNA was the genetic molecule. Watson's research project involved using X-rays to inactivate bacterial viruses ("phage").[1] He gained his Ph.D. in Zoology at Indiana University in 1950. Watson then went to Europe for postdoctoral research, first heading to the laboratory of biochemist Herman Kalckar in Copenhagen who was interested in nucleic acids and had developed an interest in phage as an experimental system.


Bob Olby's book "The Path to the Double Helix" is the best history on the subject.

[siegfriedandroy]

yes, i seriously believe there isnt intel life. not really, but i seriously dont believe its obvious one way or the other. to think otherwise imo is quite foolish

[siegfriedandroy]

ishmael, when and why did u adopt darwin's evolutionary hypothesis? if u were born on an island in the 16th century, w/o access to 'modern' thought, what do you think u would intuitively believe about origins?

[LadyWrestler]

IMO, all theists believe in life elsewhere that is more intelligent than us. Most atheists do not. The breakdown might not be 100% in the athiest camp, but it must be pretty close to that. As for intelligent life elsewhere that is not as intelligent as us, theists and athiests would probably break out about the same on that issue...50-50 maybe?