(May 10, 2019 at 4:47 pm)Anomalocaris Wrote:(May 10, 2019 at 2:43 pm)vulcanlogician Wrote: @polymath257 expressed similar concerns about the "prisoner" thought experiment. To me (at least at first blush) the thought experiment seems to adequately show the possibility that fast abiogenesis on earth could be a fluke. What am I missing?
Both of you suggest that the window of time is somehow artificial. As I see it, it is not. Let's say that with our star there is a "window" of, say 8 billion years after the earth cooled for life to arise. After all, isn't our sun going to heat up enough to evaporate the oceans? And let's also posit that (for all we know) the chance of amino acids arranging in a fashion that they begin self replication is only likely to occur once every 20 billion years (r something).
To me, all the thought experiment is trying to say is: maybe we got lucky. Until we get more data, this is a possibility worth considering.
Anything is possible. Science is not done by assuming everything that might be possible are all equally possible and worth considering. Rather it is done by using evidence to separate the probable from all that is merely possible. Those who pushes the possible as being equal to the probable are either ignorant or hucksters. Those who do so by using apparently crafted fraudulent analogies, like this guy, are more likely hucksters.
Again, the odds of humans being the only life that thinks at our level being the only intelligent life in our universe is unlikely knowing that there are stars that produce the same atoms that make up our solar system.
Again, though, that is not saying we will find life like ours, especially not when we are so focused on fighting each other and global corporate greed. It is just to say the universe is big.
We should "In theory" expect to see intelligent life like us, if we could visit every planet in the universe of similar composition.
I don't think we will though, because of the size of the universe and the odds of stumbling on intelligent communication. I do think though, we will within a century prove that microbial life can exist in harsh environments within our solar system.
