Life is not improbable.

[archangle]

right.

You don't need "their God". Because they don't understand that their god is as natural as they are. "in his image". But why would they listen.

Tor, life (as we know it) s was going to start at the moment of the big gang bang.

But can you have anything the universe does not have?

[Rampant.A.I.]

I just want to know how we've arrived at a statistical measurement of the probability of life occurring from a sample size of one.

[Heywood]

That is why mathematicians and physicists say it is beyond reasonable doubt that life exists elsewhere in the universe.

Which flabbergast me because without knowing the probability of abiogenesis happening if the conditions are right and not knowing how often right conditions come along this is a stupid claim to make.

It is like saying, " I don't know the probability of winning the powerball jackpot, but because millions of tickets are sold...surely someone will win it this drawing".

I suspect there is life elsewhere in the observable universe. But I realize that it is very possible there is only one instance of it and earth is it.

If life originating requires a series of highly improbable parlays it could easily whittle down the odds down so much that it becomes improbable life exists anywhere else.

These physicist and mathematicians who make claims like this would be horrible gamblers.

---

I just want to know how we've arrived at a statistical measurement of the probability of life occurring from a sample size of one.

Rampant, you've smacked that nail right on the head.

[Chas]

If you have an infinite number of trials, by definition you'll exhaust every possibility.

Negative Esquilax.

Some infinities can be insufficient.

Imagine a circle. Now imagine an infinite number of rays originating at the center of the circle and passing thru every point that makes up the perimeter. At the perimeter those rays, as they pass thru each point which makes up the circle are "touching each other". However once they go beyond the perimeter those rays continue to diverge. The farther away from the perimeter the more diverged from each other those rays become. So far so good?

Now draw a larger circle around the first one. There are an infinite number of rays coming from the smaller circle but that infinite number of rays is insufficient to go thru every point that makes up the perimeter of the larger circle. In that space between the divergent rays will exist points that make up the larger circle that have no rays going thru them.

You would think that because you have an infinite number of rays...you would have enough to go thru all the points that make up the larger circle....but you do not.

You don't seem to know the difference between countable and uncountable infinities.

It is assumed that when talking about white balls/red balls, we are talking about countable infinities, the infinity of the natural numbers.

The infinity you are talking about with the rays is an uncountable infinity, the infinity of the continuum. That infinity is larger.

[Heywood]

Negative Esquilax.

Some infinities can be insufficient.

Imagine a circle. Now imagine an infinite number of rays originating at the center of the circle and passing thru every point that makes up the perimeter. At the perimeter those rays, as they pass thru each point which makes up the circle are "touching each other". However once they go beyond the perimeter those rays continue to diverge. The farther away from the perimeter the more diverged from each other those rays become. So far so good?

Now draw a larger circle around the first one. There are an infinite number of rays coming from the smaller circle but that infinite number of rays is insufficient to go thru every point that makes up the perimeter of the larger circle. In that space between the divergent rays will exist points that make up the larger circle that have no rays going thru them.

You would think that because you have an infinite number of rays...you would have enough to go thru all the points that make up the larger circle....but you do not.

You don't seem to know the difference between countable and uncountable infinities.

It is assumed that when talking about white balls/red balls, we are talking about countable infinities, the infinity of the natural numbers.

The infinity you are talking about with the rays is an uncountable infinity, the infinity of the continuum. That infinity is larger.

pay attention mash potato brains...were way beyond marbles....were talking about magical dice now.

[Confused Ape]

No, but we're the only species ever to escape the bounds of our own world. I'd say that puts us above the rest.

NASA - Microbial Creatures In Space

Millions of little organisms went with us.

Microbes Survive A Year And A Half In Space

Bacteria collected from rocks taken from the cliffs at the tiny English fishing village of Beer in Devon, have survived on the outside surface of the International Space Station for 553 days. The bacteria, known as OU-20, resemble cyanobacteria called Gloeocapsa.

The survival of so many of the bacteria in such a hostile environment with no oxygen adds weight to the hypothesis that microbes carried in meteors and meteorites could seed life on other planets or moons.

The Panspermia Theory hasn't been proved yet but Stephen Hawking thinks it's a possibility.

Ruminations on other worlds - Absent Hawking still shares views on alien life at Origins Symposium

Hawking also talked about what humans may find when venturing into space, such as the possibility of alien life through the theory of panspermia, which says that life in the form of DNA particles can be transmitted through space to habitable places.

“Life could spread from planet to planet or from stellar system to stellar system, carried on meteors,” he said.

If this is true it means that life, even if only in the form of DNA particles, has been travelling around the universe long before humans invented spacecraft and it will continue to travel even if we become extinct.

[Esquilax]

pay attention mash potato brains...were way beyond marbles....were talking about magical dice now.

Yes, you've switched analogies because the first one- though it was more accurate to what we're discussing in this thread- wasn't getting you anywhere. I noticed.

Not that spatial infinities are the same as quantifiable ones, but if you had an infinite number of rays emerging to touch every point in the initial circle's perimeter, then what that would look like is a solid circle expanding out from the initial one, anyway. If there's a space where the lines weren't touching the perimeter, which you would need for this analogy to work, it could hardly be said to be touching every point, now could it?

[downbeatplumb]

Which flabbergast me because without knowing the probability of abiogenesis happening if the conditions are right and not knowing how often right conditions come along this is a stupid claim to make

we know it happened at least once so it gives us a start.

If life originating requires a series of highly improbable parlays it could easily whittle down the odds down so much that it becomes improbable life exists anywhere else.

The universe is vast and there are a large number of planets and comets and moons that could support life so there are lots of chances.

These physicist and mathematicians who make claims like this would be horrible gamblers.

And yet you believe in an unproven illogical entity.

I just want to know how we've arrived at a statistical measurement of the probability of life occurring from a sample size of one.

If something happens once it increases the likely hood that given similar circumstances it could happen again.

[cromwell]

[quote='cromwell' pid='647163' dateline='1397004519']
That is why mathematicians and physicists say it is beyond reasonable doubt that life exists elsewhere in the universe.

Which flabbergast me because without knowing the probability of abiogenesis happening if the conditions are right and not knowing how often right conditions come along this is a stupid claim to make.

It is like saying, " I don't know the probability of winning the powerball jackpot, but because millions of tickets are sold...surely someone will win it this drawing".

I suspect there is life elsewhere in the observable universe. But I realize that it is very possible there is only one instance of it and earth is it.

If life originating requires a series of highly improbable parlays it could easily whittle down the odds down so much that it becomes improbable life exists anywhere else.

These physicist and mathematicians who make claims like this would be horrible gamblers.

---

Not as stupid a claim to make as god exists.

[archangle]

I just want to know how we've arrived at a statistical measurement of the probability of life occurring from a sample size of one.

real simple.
Look at the PT.
Look at life as we know it.

Look at where "carbon" and 'water" are formed. Look at the temperatures they can interact with each other and "stuff" around them.

These interactions are less than 10% of the known universe.

Your sample size of one does not fit observation. Even at the most basic level of "how do we know". There is more than one "place" these interactions can take place.