231–240 of 353 posts
Earlier quoted context omitted.
"Why couldn't life evolve multiple times in a simulation?" Because the Grad Students don't want it to, and act to prevent it? :-)
Why would they bother making a sim that big if it was empty? Even No Man's Sky is full of cookie cutter creatures.
You just fiddle with the render distance so the sims think it's that big.
Yeah, this is where I've landed on Fermi. It's very likely life exists elsewhere - possibly even on moons in our solar system. And it's somewhat likely intelligent life exists in other solar systems. But physics is such that it is much less likely two intelligences will be able to talk to eachother much less reach eachother. To quote Douglas Adams: Space is really big. You just won't believe how vastly hugely mind-bo…
How can you support this statement? It requires that Origin of Life is sufficiently probable, and we cannot conclude that from the known evidence (that life originated early on Earth is not sufficient, as we don't know how long the conditions suitable for OoL persist in a new solar system.)
Earlier quoted context omitted.
I gather you're getting all triumphant there: "Hah! A contradiction! So there." Not really, sorry. "Probability" as in "something you can assign an exact number between 0 and 1 to." "Probably" as in "I dunno, maybe."
No, he was rightly pointing out that your "there probably is" statement was bullshit, not supportable from the evidence.
Two different things. You can't prove there aren't, and I can't prove there are.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Well said. The "Drake Equation" is complete and utter garbage. There is no such thing as a "probability" of any of those terms, in the way we normally understand probability, i.e. dice or card games. That said, there probably are intelligent civilizations somewhere in the universe, but we have that pesky problem of distance and the speed of light, as you said. People like to imagine that eventually civilizations find…
>There is no such thing as a "probability" of any of those terms, in the way we normally understand probability, i.e. dice or card games. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bayesian_probability
On this one, I'm neither. There is no way to put a number on it.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Above statements are proving my point. Despite its many flaws human civilization is stronger than ever and is on the verge of expanding beyond the home planet.
> Above statements are proving my point. I don't really see how. > human civilization is stronger than ever I don't really see how. > on the verge of expanding beyond the home planet I don't really see how.
In my opinion, the excitement occasioned by the discovery of so many exoplanets has clouded our collective judgement on the Fermi Paradox, leading the overwhelmingly most probable resolution to be underemphasized. Namely: there is no life out there. Not due to baroque mechanisms such as techno-self-destruction but just due to its sheer unlikeliness. As large as the number of stars in the observable universe is (let’s…
I think the probability of there being other life is much closer to 100%. There just has to be. Our universe offers way to much of the correct “stuff” that can create life that it just has to exist elsewhere. Why haven’t we seen it? Well that is one of life’s great mysteries. But the idea we are all alone in this giant thing called the universe… it just doesn’t feel right. The more we learn about things the more we r…
When you find yourself waving your hands vaguely and saying "it just has to be" that's a red flag that you're fooling yourself.
No, there's nothing about the situation that requires life "has to be" out there.
In my opinion, the excitement occasioned by the discovery of so many exoplanets has clouded our collective judgement on the Fermi Paradox, leading the overwhelmingly most probable resolution to be underemphasized. Namely: there is no life out there. Not due to baroque mechanisms such as techno-self-destruction but just due to its sheer unlikeliness. As large as the number of stars in the observable universe is (let’s…
If you look at the wikipedia's list of 100 nearest stars, only 4 are single main sequence stars: Tau ceti, Sigma Draconis, 82 G. Eridani, Delta Pavonis. All other are either binary stars with unpredictable orbits or flare stars. Stars where civilizations can quietly mature are rare.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
I gather you're getting all triumphant there: "Hah! A contradiction! So there." Not really, sorry. "Probability" as in "something you can assign an exact number between 0 and 1 to." "Probably" as in "I dunno, maybe."
No, he was rightly pointing out that your "there probably is" statement was bullshit, not supportable from the evidence.
To say "there's probably life out there", in a vague, speculative sense of probably, is a different sort of thing.
In my opinion, the excitement occasioned by the discovery of so many exoplanets has clouded our collective judgement on the Fermi Paradox, leading the overwhelmingly most probable resolution to be underemphasized. Namely: there is no life out there. Not due to baroque mechanisms such as techno-self-destruction but just due to its sheer unlikeliness. As large as the number of stars in the observable universe is (let’s…
Then you need to explain how life on Earth started a short period after it cooled down. Yes, it took a long time for complex life forms to emerge but life itself started right off the bat.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
It routinely bothers me a bit that, IME, most IRL discussions of the Fermi paradox tend to omit this rather simple explanation. Half the time it's brought up, FTL is offered as the solution. Which as best we can tell is fundamentally impossible. That squishy or otherwise organic bodies are generally unable to travel interstellar distances has always seemed to me to be the simplest solution. Assuming intelligent life…
It routinely bothers me a bit that, IME, most IRL discussions of the Fermi Paradox settle on this rather simple explanation when the whole idea was that this "simple explanation" was extremely unlikely, pushing speculation to more complicated and interesting hypotheses. Emergence of life on Earth took 13.7 billion years, galactic colonization should only take millions of years. We should not expect to find the galaxy…
13.7 billion years? Isn't that the age of the universe, and didn't life emerge on Earth only after about a billion years?