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Is Life Special Just Because It’s Rare?

nautil.us

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Re: Is Life Special Just Because It’s Rare?

#31

Post by jqm »

I always find these type of questions specious and entirely dependent on frame of reference for both question and response.

Our language and conceptions evolved specifically to do important things like inform companions under which trees the most delicious nuts could be found and remember where the hidden tiger was sleeping.

"Special" and "Rare" in these primitive contexts (which is all we really have right now) don't mean anything objectively nor on a cosmic scale (of which we know very little incidentally). So the whole question is just.... off.

Re: Is Life Special Just Because It’s Rare?

#32

Post by philh »

rnovak wrote: post #30
philh wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That definition is meaningless without a distance metric (for "different") or a scoring function (for "better, greater"). And some reference point for "usual" - are we comparing this snowflake to all the other snowflakes? To a grain of sand?[1] To every other subset of atoms in the universe? In the context of this article, I'm pretty sure "special" is intended to mean things like "valuable [to humans]" and "worth pre…

First off, random !== unique, not even close, ESPECIALLY for things with discrete properties. We know from the pigeon-hole principal, that from enough instances, something will be repeated. So, unique it is not. In your card example, there are 52! (factorial) permutations, but if you shuffle a deck of cards (52! + 1) times, you will have repeated at least one permutation at least once. It's been proven, you can't avo…

You're never going to shuffle a deck of cards 52!+1 times. It's unique within the extent of this physical universe. If that's not the universe of discourse, you're going to need to specify what is.

Of course life is special. But it's not special just because it's rare. I don't know why it's special, but I do know that's not it. And I know that whether or not life is random, even if it would be repeated in a universe with infinite time, it would remain special.

If your definition of "special" relies upon subtle facts about the universe that may not ever be knowable... I'm going back to "that's really weird".

Similarly, I know that special and valuable aren't the same thing. But I don't have a good definition of special (you gave a bad one), so I was attempting to point at the sort of things that correlate with it.

Re: Is Life Special Just Because It’s Rare?

#33

Post by Retra »

the_economist wrote: post #6

Life is special because it's complex. Modern human society on Earth is the most complex thing in the history of the known universe. Complex things, though, tend to be very fragile. (paraphrased from David Christian's "Big History" Great Courses lecture)

I'd add to that in that we are not only complex, but complex in a way that makes us the sole bastion of models of relevance in the universe, and that this capability is relatively fragile.

Re: Is Life Special Just Because It’s Rare?

#34

Post by chongli »

philh wrote: post #8

Of course not. Shuffle a deck of cards. If you did it properly, the new arrangement is unique. No deck of cards has ever been arranged like that before, and none will ever again, unless you deliberately preserve it. I just drew a scribble on a post-it note. Nobody else has a scribble quite like it, or ever will again, after I throw it away. Every time a snowflake melts, something beautiful and unique is lost forever.…

If you did it properly

In this case, you've just wiped out your whole statement with weasel words. What does it mean to shuffle a deck properly?

Re: Is Life Special Just Because It’s Rare?

#35

Post by lhorie »

chongli wrote: post #34
philh wrote: post #8

Of course not. Shuffle a deck of cards. If you did it properly, the new arrangement is unique. No deck of cards has ever been arranged like that before, and none will ever again, unless you deliberately preserve it. I just drew a scribble on a post-it note. Nobody else has a scribble quite like it, or ever will again, after I throw it away. Every time a snowflake melts, something beautiful and unique is lost forever.…

If you did it properly In this case, you've just wiped out your whole statement with weasel words. What does it mean to shuffle a deck properly ?

I'd think he means a fair shuffle, as opposed to, say, a faro shuffle (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Faro_shuffle)

Re: Is Life Special Just Because It’s Rare?

#36

Post by baobabaobab »

TeMPOraL wrote: post #5
amelius wrote: post #2

The trick lies in the fact that life forms have no obvious boundary. The fact that two creatures are two creatures, and not just a single creature is something that is just endowed to them by us humans. If one of the creatures dies, does it really die, or does the combination of the two creatures just loses half of its brain cells? That second view is just as valid. Hence, in that second view, nothing really ever die…

This way we could say the entire universe is just a big chemical reaction. It wouldn't even be an incorrect view. It just wouldn't be useful for anything. This is the real value of models and concepts we use - not their grand philosophical sense, but how useful they are. We set up boundaries between creatures, define concepts like life and death because they allow us to understand and predict the world better. It's u…

>This way we could say the entire universe is just a big chemical reaction. It wouldn't even be an incorrect view. It just wouldn't be useful for anything.

It's a world view, I wouldn't jump to the conclusion that it's useless. Religions are world views, and they have certainly been put to use.

If it's true, does it even matter if it's useful? Maybe truth is more important than utility.

Re: Is Life Special Just Because It’s Rare?

#37

Post by rnovak »

philh wrote: post #32
rnovak wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

First off, random !== unique, not even close, ESPECIALLY for things with discrete properties. We know from the pigeon-hole principal, that from enough instances, something will be repeated. So, unique it is not. In your card example, there are 52! (factorial) permutations, but if you shuffle a deck of cards (52! + 1) times, you will have repeated at least one permutation at least once. It's been proven, you can't avo…

You're never going to shuffle a deck of cards 52!+1 times. It's unique within the extent of this physical universe. If that's not the universe of discourse, you're going to need to specify what is. Of course life is special. But it's not special just because it's rare . I don't know why it's special, but I do know that's not it. And I know that whether or not life is random, even if it would be repeated in a universe…

While I agree somewhat with what you're saying, I'd like to ask something about the playing card example.

In a deck of cards, if you consider any ordering without any meaning added, then it is literally just 1/52!.

however, what if you started ascribing meaning to the different cards?

Would it be special then if your shuffeling resulted in all face-cards being grouped together? What about if all like-numbers were grouped together (i.e. all 1's, all 2's, all 3's) and so-on?

What about the case when the cards get shuffled and end up in ascending/descending order? i.e. {1H, 2H ... KH, 1S, 2S, ...}. There are only 4 such permuations possible, making it an infinitesimal chance that you arrive at that specific ordering.

Couldn't that be viewed as special? I guess in this case, I'm saying that the tuple of {Meaning, Uniqueness} is indeed special, not just uniqueness alone.

Re: Is Life Special Just Because It’s Rare?

#38

Post by TeMPOraL »

baobabaobab wrote: post #36
TeMPOraL wrote: post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This way we could say the entire universe is just a big chemical reaction. It wouldn't even be an incorrect view. It just wouldn't be useful for anything. This is the real value of models and concepts we use - not their grand philosophical sense, but how useful they are. We set up boundaries between creatures, define concepts like life and death because they allow us to understand and predict the world better. It's u…

>This way we could say the entire universe is just a big chemical reaction. It wouldn't even be an incorrect view. It just wouldn't be useful for anything. It's a world view, I wouldn't jump to the conclusion that it's useless. Religions are world views, and they have certainly been put to use. If it's true, does it even matter if it's useful? Maybe truth is more important than utility.

There is no meaning in asking whether it's true or not, because "chemical reaction" is a model we create, a map describing territory. In no way is the "universe is a big chemical reaction" more 'true' than "universe is composed of stars, stars have planets around, at least one planet has life on it" than Pale Blue Dot is more 'true' than Google Maps. Different maps, same territory, and the only thing that matters is which one is more useful for given purpose.
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