How much intelligent life is there?

[choxorn]

*Notices my 6-months dead thread on front page*

WHO DARES NECRO ME FROM MY SLUMBER IN THE LONG-FORGOTTEN REALMS OF CIVFANATICA? YOU SHOULD NOT INCUR THE WRATH OF THE THREADS OF THE DEAD!

Anyway, what were we talking about again?

 

[7ronin]

*Notices my 6-months dead thread on front page*

WHO DARES NECRO ME FROM MY SLUMBER IN THE LONG-FORGOTTEN REALMS OF CIVFANATICA? YOU SHOULD NOT INCUR THE WRATH OF THE THREADS OF THE DEAD!

Go back to sleep. It's just your SETI alarm going off.

 

[emzie]

IMO it would be statistically unlikely for life to only emerge in one place, out of all the places that exist. There must be more of it out there.

Intelligent life? It would be weird if it only arose here - I'd call that a miracle. Heck, there's probably bacon out there somewhere too - the Universe is insanely huge.

By the same reasoning your own life is a miracle. It's as if you're saying "wow, what were the odds my parents would meet, and that they'd have sex and I'd be conceived?"

Our existence only speaks to the sequence of events that lead to us and doesn't speak towards anything else anywhere else.

 

[SS-18 ICBM]

*Notices my 6-months dead thread on front page*

FWIW, it's a worthwhile necro.

 

[Mirc]

(long post)

It's about as good a strategy as throwing scissors I guess...

I really don't see any compelling reason why to guess one way over the other.

That's what I've been dying to say, but was way too lazy to post. I entirely agree!

 

[Perfection]

IMO it would be statistically unlikely for life to only emerge in one place, out of all the places that exist. There must be more of it out there.

Is this based on your old set of ass numbers (debunked here and here) or do you have a new set? If they're they old set, please reply to my objections, if they're new please tell me your statistics so I can ridicule understand your reasoning.

Intelligent life? It would be weird if it only arose here - I'd call that a miracle.

I don't see why intelligent life having a low probability of arising on any given system is miraculously weird.

Heck, there's probably bacon out there somewhere too - the Universe is insanely huge.

The (observable) universe is certainly huge by everyday standards, but that doesn't mean you can treat it as if it were infinite when comparing it to an unkown like the the prbabolity of life developing around an arbitrary star.

 

[Riffraff]

You're missing the potential of a Goldilocks type condition, where too much one way or another might prevent life from occurring. Just because the values aren't extreme, doesn't mean that these aren't special. For example, being at the center of the galaxy would mean the solar system is more likely to brush close to another solar system, with disastrous results to worlds that might have otherwise harbored intelligent life, whereas the outskirts might not contain sufficient heavy elements to make planets; it's not implausible that only systems not too close nor too far from the center can spawn intelligent life (or life at all). There could be many many of these parameters that need to be just right for life (or intelligence) to occur. They might each be fairly typical bulk parameters, but the worlds that can support life (or intelligence), might require a very special kind of typical!

However, that's not the full story! That something really really special need not be anything astronomical! It could be that life itself is really really special and rare, even if brute astronomical conditions are common. It may be that worlds of many, sizes and shapes, in a variety of orbits around a variety of stars in a multitude of areas in plenty of galaxies might all be about as likely to have had life as Earth. It's just that that probability is very small that life would develop in the first place.

So in the end I don't believe you can assume that life (or intelligence) is common.

First paragraph: Valid point, but you will never reach numbers even close to 10e-21 by multiplying relatively normal parameters, even if you have many of them (and I couldn't even come up a with a handful)

Concerning the second paragraph, I must say I have no idea about the actual 'creation' of life, but:

• On Earth it spawned everywhere, with complete ease - over a temperature range of about 100°C
• The universe is very isotropic. It looks rougly the same in every direction we look. We can even measure that with CMB radiation which only varies by a part in 10000
• We have nothing close to a process which could somehow be restricted to our planet only (even stuff like freak meteor collisions can't be considered coincidences if you have enough meteorites and enough planets)

So if you tally it up, you end with some indications for an abundance of life throughout the universe against nothing really...

That's why I say, our starting point should be that we are one of many species - up until we find contradicting evidence.

 

[emzie]

On Earth it spawned everywhere, with complete ease - over a temperature range of about 100°C

It didn't spawn everywhere, it spread everywhere. Huge difference. All we know is abiogenesis happened once.

So if you tally it up, you end with some indications for an abundance of life throughout the universe against nothing really...

We have nothing to tally up! Our existence says nothing to how rare or common life is!

That's why I say, our starting point should be that we are one of many species - up until we find contradicting evidence.

We're never going to find contradicting evidence. Either we find evidence that life elsewhere does or did exist, or we find nothing and finding nothing isn't disproof of the idea. The proposition is as disprovable as God or the tea pot.

 

[Riffraff]

It didn't spawn everywhere, it spread everywhere. Huge difference. All we know is abiogenesis happened once.

Yes of course, you're right. Although assuming we all stem from a single fluke reaction is very counter intuitive if you look at other natural processes.

We have nothing to tally up! Our existence says nothing to how rare or common life is!

I have no idea how you could reach such a conclusion.

 

[LucyDuke]

I have no idea how you could reach such a conclusion.

Suppose you visited a graveyard and there was a frog sitting on one of the tombstones. Does that frog being there make it more or less likely that there will be a frog on another tombstone anywhere else in the world?

 

[emzie]

Yes of course, you're right. Although assuming we all stem from a single fluke reaction is very counter intuitive if you look at other natural processes.

I don't think that. The idea that there were a bunch of molecules that rearranged into a cell is ludicrous. I think everything stems from a long reaction of inorganic compounds that took on aspects of what we think of as life.

As an example of something more primitive than a cell, think of a virus. It's not considered alive, it's merely a code sequence (either RNA or DNA) protected by layer of protein or lipid.

I have no idea how you could reach such a conclusion.

If the odds against life were a trillion-to-one, we're here, so obviously we're that one. If the odds were 10-to-1 we're still that one.

As I said to Warpus, it's as if you thought of yourself as being super lucky that the specific sperm that fertilized the egg was the one that would grow into you; it's like thinking yourself lucky for being born German instead of Indian. You could not have been born anything else, as your person is the result of the preceding actions.

 

[LucyDuke]

As I said to Warpus, it's as if you thought of yourself as being super lucky that the specific sperm that fertilized the egg was the one that would grow into you; it's like thinking yourself lucky for being born German instead of Indian. You could not have been born anything else, as your person is the result of the preceding actions.

There's nothing unlikely about any given person being a person. Sure, long odds that I'd have mom's nose and dad's feet and be born on a Saturday in Providence, but not that my parents screwing would result in a kid. Your analogy's got bad odds for life like us on Earth but no odds for life of some sort in an unspecified place.

 

[emzie]

There's nothing unlikely about any given person being a person. Sure, long odds that I'd have mom's nose and dad's feet and be born on a Saturday in Providence, but not that my parents screwing would result in a kid. Your analogy's got bad odds for life like us on Earth but no odds for life of some sort in an unspecified place.

It wasn't an analogy to life being elsewhere. I was pointing out that it's fallacious to think, "I'm here, thus my chances of being here must not have been bad."

 

[Leonel]

*Notices my 6-months dead thread on front page*

WHO DARES NECRO ME FROM MY SLUMBER IN THE LONG-FORGOTTEN REALMS OF CIVFANATICA? YOU SHOULD NOT INCUR THE WRATH OF THE THREADS OF THE DEAD!

Anyway, what were we talking about again?

That reminds me of an interesting John Carpenter movie based on a continent that ended with those same last letters. It ended badly for all involved though.

 

[LucyDuke]

Ah, okay. I'm just distracted by the analogy.

 

[Riffraff]

Suppose you visited a graveyard and there was a frog sitting on one of the tombstones. Does that frog being there make it more or less likely that there will be a frog on another tombstone anywhere else in the world?

more likely because you know that frogs exist.

 

[emzie]

more likely because you know that frogs exist.

Well, our existence certainly an excellent proof of concept. But again that says nothing to the odds.

 

[Kerozine]

I thought 13375p34k died a long time ago?

 

[Huayna Capac357]

\/\/|-|47 4.-3 '/0|_| 7411<1|\|6 480|_|7?

(What are you talking about)

 

[SS-18 ICBM]

The geeks who use it are still alive, though.