Alien life in our galaxy ‘far more likely than first thought’

[ChrLzs]

15 hours ago, Mr Walker said:

Two points it only has to happen once (given that the process is able to continue)

 The ENTIRE point of this discussion was in regard to the probability / rarity of life, which that does NOT address. 

15 hours ago, Mr Walker said:

Second, it happened here,  thus it CAN happen anywhere with similar conditions (and indeed it might happen in a different way under different conditions producing non- carbon based life forms )

The ENTIRE point of this discussion was in regard to the probability / rarity of life, which that does NOT address.

The simple fact is that EVERY observation we have made to date indicates life is extremely, incredibly rare.  Even in it's most basic form.  I think most people posting here GET that..  It's not rocket science, just ordinary science and simple logic.

 

Answer me this, of your claimed "10,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000 planets", how many have roughly the right conditions and chemicals, how many of those sprouted basic life, how many of those left the ocean, how many of those gained sentience, how many developed technology or communications, how many developed space travel (let alone interstellar...)

Or to use the sort of analogy that seems to float your dinghy, on how many of those do you expect to see the chimpanzee-produced works of Shakespeare?  Do you need some think music.....?

The things is, large numbers work both ways, in term of guesstimates and also chains of probabilities.

 

15 hours ago, Mr Walker said:

Other life may have begun and died out.

Given it left absolutely no trace, it might as well not exist, right...?  Wasn't this thread about technological, or communicative, or sentient, or even just anything beyond single cell life?

15 hours ago, Mr Walker said:

This is the LAST universal common ancestor of life on earth, not necessarily the first  

AGAIN, completely irrelevant to the point being made.  Do you honestly not comprehend the discussion?

Why waste the forum's time on offtopic dreck?

 

 

[Mr Walker]

3 hours ago, ChrLzs said:

 The ENTIRE point of this discussion was in regard to the probability / rarity of life, which that does NOT address. 

The ENTIRE point of this discussion was in regard to the probability / rarity of life, which that does NOT address.

The simple fact is that EVERY observation we have made to date indicates life is extremely, incredibly rare.  Even in it's most basic form.  I think most people posting here GET that..  It's not rocket science, just ordinary science and simple logic.

 

Answer me this, of your claimed "10,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000 planets", how many have roughly the right conditions and chemicals, how many of those sprouted basic life, how many of those left the ocean, how many of those gained sentience, how many developed technology or communications, how many developed space travel (let alone interstellar...)

Or to use the sort of analogy that seems to float your dinghy, on how many of those do you expect to see the chimpanzee-produced works of Shakespeare?  Do you need some think music.....?

The things is, large numbers work both ways, in term of guesstimates and also chains of probabilities.

Given it left absolutely no trace, it might as well not exist, right...?  Wasn't this thread about technological, or communicative, or sentient, or even just anything beyond single cell life?

AGAIN, completely irrelevant to the point being made.  Do you honestly not comprehend the discussion?

Why waste the forum's time on offtopic dreck?

 

 

My points are not irrelevant, the y go directly to the statistical probability of life on other planets Ie it happened here, so we know it can.

It only has to happen once on any planet, but it is possible it could occur several times  

Which is more probable ,  that we are the only planet to harbour life, or that  there are millions of them?  

Who said anything specifically  about that many planets?  not me.

But 

quote 

October 29, 2020, Mountain View, CA – Thanks to new research using data from the Kepler space telescope, it’s estimated that there could be as many as 300 million potentially habitable planets in our galaxy. Some could even be pretty close, with several likely within 30 light-years of our Sun. The findings will be published in The Astronomical Journal, and research was a collaboration of scientists from NASA, the SETI Institute, and other organizations worldwide.

https://www.seti.org/press-release/how-many-habitable-planets-are-out-there

Now, that is just an estimate, based on current known  numbers and extrapolation 

NASA estimates that about half of sun like solar systems might have "habitable' planets   

about 4500 exo planets have already been discovered 

Im not sure how many are "goldilocks planets " but quite a few of them have  also been discovered 

No. not right.

if it existed that  is important, even if so far we have found no trace of it 

sentience is a current product of an evolutionary chain 

some chains might not reach  sentience while  some might exceed our understanding of it 

However LIFE is required for sentience to evolve 

if life is common, then sentience will also be relatively common    If life is rare then sentience will be statistically rarer  

it will be interesting to see if life evolved on mars, only to be cut short by it's loss of atmosphere and oceans  

That will give us a better understanding  of just how unique, or rare, or common, life is.   

 

 

 

[ChrLzs]

3 minutes ago, Mr Walker said:

My points are not irrelevant, the y go directly to the statistical probability of life on other planets Ie it happened here, so we know it can.

It only has to happen once on any planet, but it is possible it could occur several times  

Which is more probable ,  that we are the only planet to harbour life, or that  there are millions of them?

What a load of idiotic drivel. "we know it can" is not going directly to the topic, it is handwaving bulldung.

I repeat it has only happened once.  There is NO, ZERO, BUPKUS evidence of anything else, and you didn't answer the basic question.  Avoiding the monkeys, doesn't make them go away, nor does it make it more probable that they'll accidentally type up Shakespeare's output.

In future if you have that little to say, don't post.  For now, you're back on ignore - these long-winded, offtopic postings are a total waste of time, other than to satisfy yourself how clever you think you sound when you read them back, over and over...

[ChrLzs]

Now, does anyone else have anything concrete?  Or would you like to answer the points I raised above, the one's MW couldn't?

[psyche101]

51 minutes ago, ChrLzs said:

Now, does anyone else have anything concrete?  Or would you like to answer the points I raised above, the one's MW couldn't?

[Mr Walker]

6 hours ago, ChrLzs said:

What a load of idiotic drivel. "we know it can" is not going directly to the topic, it is handwaving bulldung.

I repeat it has only happened once.  There is NO, ZERO, BUPKUS evidence of anything else, and you didn't answer the basic question.  Avoiding the monkeys, doesn't make them go away, nor does it make it more probable that they'll accidentally type up Shakespeare's output.

In future if you have that little to say, don't post.  For now, you're back on ignore - these long-winded, offtopic postings are a total waste of time, other than to satisfy yourself how clever you think you sound when you read them back, over and over...

I see you haven't changed at all

Life on earth proves that life is possible given certain conditions  It illustrates one evolutionary path from non life to simple life  md  form simple life to complex sentient beings, and it continues on 

This shows that life is possible on  planets with similar conditions 

Do you really not get this or is your anger at me  just blinding you 

Your type writer /monkey analogy is not relevant to this question 

Humans are the type writing (computer operating ) primates on our evolutionary path

Other planets may produce similar  (or entirely different) evolutionary paths   once life begins 

Its almost certainly inevitable, however, that eventually some life form will evolve self  aware intelligence and then advanced technology and  typewrites.

 indeed somewhere on some other planet it is probable that a being  is arguing for or against the possibility of life on other planets  Possibly even on a sort of machine like a typewriter 

Why?  because it happened here and we are not special or unique. 

However its not simply an accident as in the monkey analogy We are as we are, with the skills we possess as a result of millions of years of evolution  

Given that you have no logical rebuttal to any of the points I made, your retreat into ignoring is probably your best strategy 

You wont be challenged to think  or give logical replies if you have me on ignore   

Ps I never read back over anything I write  Why would I ?

[Mr Walker]

7 hours ago, ChrLzs said:

Now, does anyone else have anything concrete?  Or would you like to answer the points I raised above, the one's MW couldn't?

What "points" were those?  

I saw only a personal belief about life on other planets with no scientific backing to support it   

[Mr Walker]

On 9/19/2021 at 6:58 PM, ChrLzs said:

So, you get your chemical soup and apply various environmental conditions, bombard it with various levels and types of radiation..

You don't think many, many scientists have been and are trying that?  And how many times has life begun in their test tubes to date?

In fact, how many times has it happened successfully here on earth, where those processes on a wider scale have been happening over the billions of years?

I'm glad you asked.  Only once, at one instant and in one place.  Look up 'Last Universal Common Ancestor' - LUCA.

How long have scientists had the knowledge or technology to seriously attempt to construct life from  non-life ?

Not long at all, and  obviously not  long enough. 

Because it is possible  naturally,  it will eventually be done  artificially   

[astrobeing]

On 9/22/2021 at 3:41 AM, Mr Walker said:

Life on earth proves that life is possible given certain conditions  It illustrates one evolutionary path from non life to simple life  md  form simple life to complex sentient beings, and it continues on 

This shows that life is possible on  planets with similar conditions

Life on Earth didn't arise from conditions. It arose from a series of extremely improbable events within extremely unusual conditions.

Saying something is possible isn't saying much. Nearly all possible things never happen. Almost all things that do happen only happen once.

[Mr Walker]

9 hours ago, astrobeing said:

Life on Earth didn't arise from conditions. It arose from a series of extremely improbable events within extremely unusual conditions.

Saying something is possible isn't saying much. Nearly all possible things never happen. Almost all things that do happen only happen once.

Who says those conditions are unusual ?

The y might be repeated millions of times around the galaxy. 

Who says that other conditions might not be conducive to other life forms which could then evolve as we did  but producing different life forms 

Of course life arose from the conditions which existed  before life did.

That is the only way life CAN come into being and evolve 

We KNOW that life began and evolved on earth, thus we KNOW it happened once. 

if it happened once, the probability is that it happened many times,  and it is 100% certain that it can possibly happen, because it already has/did 

[ThereWeAreThen]

On 9/21/2021 at 8:48 AM, Mr Walker said:

An alien species doesn't have to be much older or more technologically advanced than us to make it almost incomprehensible to us 

eg Take a human from 10000 years ago and bring him to the middle of a modern city and watch what happens.  Heck take one from 500 years ago and observe 

Take a human from  today, and place him/her 500 years in the future.

They would be lost   and  unable to function, just as a  person from  500 years ago could not function in a modern society  until they learned how to do things. 

We are alot more technologically advance than 10,000 years ago....heck even 500 years ago..

[Mr Walker]

12 hours ago, ThereWeAreThen said:

We are alot more technologically advance than 10,000 years ago....heck even 500 years ago..

Yes that is my point.

Put someone from 500 years ago into a modern home and see how they function. It would be the same, putting us into a home 500 years into the future. 

So, an alien species only 1000 years "older then us" would have technologies which appear as magic to us. 

I doubt for, example, that they the y would be using material  space ships for transport,    but rather matter transmission, or something so advanced that we haven't even thought of it yet   

I doubt that their technology would require physical manipulation to operate it.

It would all be controlled by thought, or something even more advanced. 

Edited September 26, 2021 by Mr Walker

[+Nuclear Wessel]

14 hours ago, Mr Walker said:

if it happened once, the probability is that it happened many times,

Perhaps it happened many times, but we only have evidence of it happening once, under very specific conditions.

There is no such "probability" that it happened many times. We may very well be alone in the universe.

[Phantom309]

14 hours ago, Mr Walker said:

Who says those conditions are unusual ?

The y might be repeated millions of times around the galaxy. 

Who says that other conditions might not be conducive to other life forms which could then evolve as we did  but producing different life forms 

Of course life arose from the conditions which existed  before life did.

That is the only way life CAN come into being and evolve 

We KNOW that life began and evolved on earth, thus we KNOW it happened once. 

if it happened once, the probability is that it happened many times,  and it is 100% certain that it can possibly happen, because it already has/did 

 Astrophysicist Seth Shostak observed the universe is about 14 billion years old.

 And the earth and our solar system is about 4 billion years old....Shostak noted we are essentially the "new kids on the block".

 So this opens up the possibility other civilizations could have come and gone many times over before we even popped into existence on our little rocky and watery planet.

[ChrLzs]

1 hour ago, Phantom309 said:

 Astrophysicist Seth Shostak observed the universe is about 14 billion years old.

 And the earth and our solar system is about 4 billion years old....Shostak noted we are essentially the "new kids on the block".

 So this opens up the possibility other civilizations could have come and gone many times over before we even popped into existence on our little rocky and watery planet.

There's more to it..  Life on earth actually began over 3 billion years ago.  As we have nothing to compare it to, one can only assume that evolution of carbon-based life takes about that long to get to a technological level, given a whole pile of happenstance, eg the right initial conditions, the right chemicals and radiation, maybe a lightning strike or two, etc ad infinitum - all culminating in some monkeys discovering the concept of weapons, and then developing communications.

Note that ALL the other species went down different paths to 'success'.

So, 3 billion years, and just one single final branch of our tree of life that developed sentience and technology.  And that 3 billion years is just a third to a quarter of the entire life of the observable Universe... so I have my doubts about the 'coming and going many times' business..  It takes time for solar systems to form and planets to coalesce and solidify and settle into a reasonable stable orbit, thence to become potentially able to support life.  And as another example of everything having to be 'right', life is going to more easily arise in a liquid environment, so there will need to be an incentive to leave the 'water' - in our case we had a suitable moon (tides)... 

On and on it goes.. it's a VERY long checklist that ends in our kind of life...

Edited September 27, 2021 by ChrLzs

[jmccr8]

2 hours ago, Mr Walker said:

Yes that is my point.

Put someone from 500 years ago into a modern home and see how they function. It would be the same, putting us into a home 500 years into the future. 

Hi Walker

I wouldn't say it wouldn't be a wow moment that could not be recovered from given that we as a species are adaptable because they have the same capacity for intellect and have exposure. Most city kids have never driven a combine, tractor, swather, etc that does not mean that they cannot learn to operate them, I was born into this world knowing nothing and had to learn everything just like humans have for the last couple of hundred thousand years. People in the future 500 years just like now that understand a great many languages just like we do for most from the last 2000 years so I think that some transitions would be quicker than others. Intelligence is not just about knowledge accrued by humans, it is the means by which knowledge is accrued, it is what we are.

[Golden Duck]

6 hours ago, jmccr8 said:

Hi Walker

I wouldn't say it wouldn't be a wow moment that could not be recovered from given that we as a species are adaptable because they have the same capacity for intellect and have exposure. Most city kids have never driven a combine, tractor, swather, etc that does not mean that they cannot learn to operate them, I was born into this world knowing nothing and had to learn everything just like humans have for the last couple of hundred thousand years. People in the future 500 years just like now that understand a great many languages just like we do for most from the last 2000 years so I think that some transitions would be quicker than others. Intelligence is not just about knowledge accrued by humans, it is the means by which knowledge is accrued, it is what we are.

A genius from any time would still be a genius at any time.

[Mr Walker]

14 hours ago, Nuclear Wessel said:

Perhaps it happened many times, but we only have evidence of it happening once, under very specific conditions.

There is no such "probability" that it happened many times. We may very well be alone in the universe.

And that is all the evidence  we need to know it is possible.

Thus NASA now predicts that up to 50% of "habitable" planets in the galaxy will have  some form of life on them 

The probability  comes from two things 

A growing appreciation of how many goldilocks planets there are, and an understanding  that,  given the right conditions, life is almost inevitable over time (intelligent /self aware life may be less common, but probably is also an almost inevitable product of evolution.

It is a kind of false pride which makes humans think we are unique or special. 

The tipping point will be Mars

if we find evidence of current or past life on mars  it will become almost certain that many planets evolved life. 

[Mr Walker]

12 hours ago, jmccr8 said:

Hi Walker

I wouldn't say it wouldn't be a wow moment that could not be recovered from given that we as a species are adaptable because they have the same capacity for intellect and have exposure. Most city kids have never driven a combine, tractor, swather, etc that does not mean that they cannot learn to operate them, I was born into this world knowing nothing and had to learn everything just like humans have for the last couple of hundred thousand years. People in the future 500 years just like now that understand a great many languages just like we do for most from the last 2000 years so I think that some transitions would be quicker than others. Intelligence is not just about knowledge accrued by humans, it is the means by which knowledge is accrued, it is what we are.

Oh yes, because humans have the same innate intelligence now, in the past, and in the future, an individual could learn, adapt and be taught  But it would be hard fort hem to work out anything without  instruction eg imagine a  person from  200 years ago figuring out the y had to say  "Put  the lights on, Siri"   in order to illuminate  a room   or for us to work out we only had to think the same words to have the same effect in a house of the future  (IF our minds had been   "read into" the computer controlling the lighting so tha t only the owners of the house could operate it ) Humans cant even earn to speak without other humans to teach them how to, and every thing we learn is mostly learned from  others, although personal experimentation does help 

[jmccr8]

3 hours ago, Mr Walker said:

Oh yes, because humans have the same innate intelligence now, in the past, and in the future, an individual could learn, adapt and be taught  But it would be hard fort hem to work out anything without  instruction eg imagine a  person from  200 years ago figuring out the y had to say  "Put  the lights on, Siri"   in order to illuminate  a room   or for us to work out we only had to think the same words to have the same effect in a house of the future  (IF our minds had been   "read into" the computer controlling the lighting so tha t only the owners of the house could operate it ) Humans cant even earn to speak without other humans to teach them how to, and every thing we learn is mostly learned from  others, although personal experimentation does help 

Hi Walker

Not sure what you are saying, someone from 200 years ago would not be speaking a lost language and Siri is available all over the world to people that speak every language on this planet. The 200 year old person not much unlike your 500 year old person already knows how to speak and likely has enough life experience to work out how some things work just through observation. I have never used Siri or Alexa and have both in my home but do know that if I saw someone flip a switch on a wall and lights came on then it wouldn't be to hard to figure out. The way you word things makes it sound like because they have not had the experience of growing up in this time that they are not intelligent to survive in it which I think is a weak position.

[Mr Walker]

4 hours ago, jmccr8 said:

Hi Walker

Not sure what you are saying, someone from 200 years ago would not be speaking a lost language and Siri is available all over the world to people that speak every language on this planet. The 200 year old person not much unlike your 500 year old person already knows how to speak and likely has enough life experience to work out how some things work just through observation. I have never used Siri or Alexa and have both in my home but do know that if I saw someone flip a switch on a wall and lights came on then it wouldn't be to hard to figure out. The way you word things makes it sound like because they have not had the experience of growing up in this time that they are not intelligent to survive in it which I think is a weak position.

But the person would not KNOW to speak a command aloud, until told this was what one did. 

Likewise for most things, including how to turn on lights the old fashioned way 

Nothing to do with intelligence.

All to do with KNOWLEDGE 

You or i might survive in Sherwood forest 1000 years ago but most modern humans could not.  Could the y make a bow  shoot an arrow accurately  or even set snares 

Once TAUGHT a person can survive in most times and places  But many things cant be learned without a teacher  

To go back to my original point.

WHO was there to teach peole not to believe in gods and what evidences could they provide that gods did not exist  

How many humans could  learn to live in an era 500 years separate from m their own without anyone a t all to teach them  

Intelligence wouldn't help  more than a small amount, and only for some of the most intelligent individuals. 

Going backwards is not so hard  I have the skills to survive in a primitive society including even making gunpowder from raw materials  found naturally   but put me a 1000 years in the future, where  houses are energy forms and matter transmission is your transport and food supply,  but all of this is linked to  subdermal chips  or brain modifications which identify you, and allow you to operate the  technology t  OR technogly is even more advanced, to the point where I can't even recognise it's existence or use 

yep a person might learn to flip a switch by observation but what would happen when a fuse blew or a circuit breaker tripped and the y had not observed the procedure  

If you were sent 1000 years back in the past, would you be aware that it was a crime in many places  to leave your own village, or to marry without the lords consent,  or even cut down a  tree  

[jmccr8]

1 hour ago, Mr Walker said:

But the person would not KNOW to speak a command aloud, until told this was what one did. 

Likewise for most things, including how to turn on lights the old fashioned way 

Hi Walker

What part of we all have to learn how to do things escapes you?

If a person speaks a language then they will be easily taught.

1 hour ago, Mr Walker said:

You or i might survive in Sherwood forest 1000 years ago but most modern humans could not.  Could the y make a bow  shoot an arrow accurately  or even set snares 

We are discussing people from the past going to the future.

1 hour ago, Mr Walker said:

WHO was there to teach peole not to believe in gods and what evidences could they provide that gods did not exist  

No one has to teach anyone not to believe in god as one can reason it out for themselves

1 hour ago, Mr Walker said:

Going backwards is not so hard  I have the skills to survive in a primitive society including even making gunpowder from raw materials  found naturally   but put me a 1000 years in the future, where  houses are energy forms and matter transmission is your transport and food supply,  but all of this is linked to  subdermal chips  or brain modifications which identify you, and allow you to operate the  technology t  OR technogly is even more advanced, to the point where I can't even recognise it's existence or use 

yep a person might learn to flip a switch by observation but what would happen when a fuse blew or a circuit breaker tripped and the y had not observed the procedure  

If you were sent 1000 years back in the past, would you be aware that it was a crime in many places  to leave your own village, or to marry without the lords consent,  or even cut down a  tree  

Which has absolutely nothing to do with what we are talking about.

[ChrLzs]

On 9/28/2021 at 5:20 AM, jmccr8 said:

Hi Walker

Not sure what you are saying

Could this be the most repeated sentiment on UM? 

That and the goalpost shifts... are why the Ignore function exists.

.. just sayin'..

[Nobu]

It’s interesting…

im not going into the numbers because it would bore 90 percent of you and 9 percent would argue with a dead raccoon. BUT….

life is either very very very common- so common it’s scary. Or very very very very rare which is more scary.

that’s what a constant called “infinity” does with space.

[ChrLzs]

2 hours ago, Nobu said:

9 percent would argue with a dead raccoon

Huh.  Would not.