Why Earth's History Appears So Miraculous

Post by akvadrako » Sat, Mar 17, 2018, 9:11 AM UTC

kldavis4 wrote: post #16

simonh wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Many worlds is an interpretation of quantum uncertainly, but what we seem to be talking about here are multiverse theories. One of these, M-Theory is an extension of string theory and is the only theory known to elegantly unify quantum mechanics with general relativity's gravitational force in a mathematically consistent way. It’s not supported by experimental evidence yet, but I’d hardly characterise it as no differ…

Actually, I _am_ referring to 'many worlds' (at least according to the technical explanation in this article: http://blogs.discovermagazine.com/cosmicvariance/2011/05/26/... ) and not a multiverse. And yes, there is some hope that there will be some testable empirical evidence at some point, but if in the end it turns out that there are not 'many worlds', then I don't see that big a difference. I'd love it if there w…

Post by wellboy » Sat, Mar 17, 2018, 10:21 AM UTC

danieltillett wrote: post #40

mikeytown2 wrote: post #34

Makes me think about the Fermi paradox [1] and Great Filters [2]. But for all we know the universe could be full of life at chimpanzee intelligence; no way to know unless we send probes [3] or seriously up our telescopes [4]. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fermi_paradox [2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_Filter [3] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Breakthrough_Starshot [4] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/FOCAL_(sp…

The Fermi paradox is unlikely to be answered by something making it very unlikely for our chimp level ancestors jumping to human level. The number of Homo species on the planet that co-evolved to human level intelligence suggests this is not extremely difficult. What is a huge filter is the requirement of a stable climate over million of years. The key to this is the Moon which keeps the Earth's axis of rotation from…

Post by danieltillett » Sat, Mar 17, 2018, 10:37 AM UTC

wellboy wrote: post #43

danieltillett wrote: post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The Fermi paradox is unlikely to be answered by something making it very unlikely for our chimp level ancestors jumping to human level. The number of Homo species on the planet that co-evolved to human level intelligence suggests this is not extremely difficult. What is a huge filter is the requirement of a stable climate over million of years. The key to this is the Moon which keeps the Earth's axis of rotation from…

Why is the moon so unlikely when many planets in the solar system have 1 moon or more.

Post by eulo__ » Sat, Mar 17, 2018, 11:05 AM UTC

natecavanaugh wrote: post #36

mikeytown2 wrote: post #34

Makes me think about the Fermi paradox [1] and Great Filters [2]. But for all we know the universe could be full of life at chimpanzee intelligence; no way to know unless we send probes [3] or seriously up our telescopes [4]. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fermi_paradox [2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_Filter [3] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Breakthrough_Starshot [4] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/FOCAL_(sp…

This is one is my favorite comments of all time, simply because while I was familiar with the Fermi Paradox, the rest of the links were new and unexpected. Thank you!

Post by yters » Sat, Mar 17, 2018, 11:25 AM UTC

ubernostrum wrote: post #42

yters wrote: post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The anthropic principle doesn't make our universe any less surprising. It's like saying "of course I survived that catastrophic accident, otherwise I wouldn't be observing the fact I survived the accident."

I'll leave this old comment of mine here, since it's relevant: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10070140