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NASA Rover Finds Active and Ancient Organic Chemistry on Mars
51–60 of 107 posts
Re: NASA Rover Finds Active and Ancient Organic Chemistry on Mars
#52Earlier quoted context omitted.
The important thing to realize about the Fermi Paradox is that all generalizations about behavior fail automatically as explanatory theories. It only takes one small group within one species to generate a self-replicating probe, at which point all of the galaxy is visited in a few million years. A solution to the Fermi Paradox has to explain why that event has never happened despite the fact that some element of our…
> It only takes one small group within one species to generate a self-replicating probe And what would that probe look like? For it to be a useful to the sending civilization, it needs to go out, replicate, and send information back. The first two are easy. Send out lots of meteorites with bacteria on them. The third is not so easy. Creating a self-replicating machine which can then transmit back across interstellar…
>>And what would that probe look like?
And more importantly why would anyone send anything to anywhere?
I never understand the argument people make about probes spreading across galaxies. If we assume they are at least as intelligent as we are, then purposelessly wandering in the universe would be least of their goals.
I can understand if probes have military goals. Like for example to evaluate threats to them. But like us here on earth, and with their technology would be carried out at a technical sophistication we have no remote capabilities of detecting currently.
Re: NASA Rover Finds Active and Ancient Organic Chemistry on Mars
#53Earlier quoted context omitted.
It may be comforting that considering the Great Filter theory ( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_Filter ) finding life on mars might actually be bad news.
Great filter theory is nonsense. The period between intelligent life evolving and it taking over the universe at near the speed of light is so short, in cosmic time, that any civilization anywhere should expect to see an empty universe (in their light cone).
Before reading Power, Sex, and Suicide, I may have agreed.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Power,_Sex,_Suicide
It is a possibility that there is a relatively small window where single celled life has the opportunity to become multicellular life. As one amazon review summed it:
'After the origin of life, the next big step on the way to us was the origin of eukaryotes. These are all the organisms - including people, trees, mushrooms, and slime molds - who package most of our DNA into chromosomes in cell nuclei. Mitochondria, the "powerhouses" of eukaryotes, are descended from bacteria which took to living in a very close relationship with another type of one-celled organism; in fact they came to live inside the other. Nick Lane argues that this merger must have preceded the formation of the nuclear membrane.' *
The great filter is stronger and weaker in argument depending on where you place the filter, but the idea in general remains the same.
*more info here but less than the book, via an article in new scientist by the author: http://ronbarak.tumblr.com/post/25996121029/life-is-it-inevi...
Re: NASA Rover Finds Active and Ancient Organic Chemistry on Mars
#54Earlier quoted context omitted.
The great filter theory is subject to our own filter bubble. As I see it, there are other possibilities - Intelligent life doesn't want to be found - at least by us. Intelligent life tends towards simulation, rather than expansion. Further to the above, we are the only intelligent life in the simulation in which we reside. Intelligent life is far more of an aberration than we realise. Intelligent life is actually ver…
The important thing to realize about the Fermi Paradox is that all generalizations about behavior fail automatically as explanatory theories. It only takes one small group within one species to generate a self-replicating probe, at which point all of the galaxy is visited in a few million years. A solution to the Fermi Paradox has to explain why that event has never happened despite the fact that some element of our…
The whole Fermi Paradox thing bugs me too, but in a different way. It assumes we have the capability of detecting the presence of other intelligent life.
The largest radio telescope we have (the 305 meter diameter Arecibo) would need to have it's sensitivity increased by around two orders of magnitude JUST to pick up our TV/FM/AM signals from outside the solar system. If we move into the narrowband signals then, depending on the source-strength, it could pick up signals at up to a few thousand light years... if it happened to be pointed in exactly the right direction at exactly the right time. So, our most sensitive instrument is only capable of measuring a fraction of a percent of a fraction of a percent of the galaxy.
I just straight-up don't believe that we're even remotely approaching the capability of asserting that the galaxy is sterile of higher life that's constantly dumping EM noise... and that's without assuming they've found ways to transmit data that we're ignorant of or that we've seen it and just haven't noticed it.
--
The other thing (and I feel a bit like a religious person saying this) is that we have exactly zero basis for asserting that the type of machine you're talking about haven't been here. Given that if one of these machines came here, and stayed, the Earth itself would annihilate all traces of it (especially on the surface) within short order we shouldn't necessarily expect to find evidence of a visit.
Taken to the extreme, you could even reason that all life on Earth could be the product of one of these machines.
Re: NASA Rover Finds Active and Ancient Organic Chemistry on Mars
#55Earlier quoted context omitted.
> It only takes one small group within one species to generate a self-replicating probe And what would that probe look like? For it to be a useful to the sending civilization, it needs to go out, replicate, and send information back. The first two are easy. Send out lots of meteorites with bacteria on them. The third is not so easy. Creating a self-replicating machine which can then transmit back across interstellar…
>>And what would that probe look like? And more importantly why would anyone send anything to anywhere? I never understand the argument people make about probes spreading across galaxies. If we assume they are at least as intelligent as we are, then purposelessly wandering in the universe would be least of their goals. I can understand if probes have military goals. Like for example to evaluate threats to them. But l…
> And more importantly why would anyone send anything to anywhere?
You're assuming everyone is rational. For instance, if I were a future billionaire I'd totally do it... knowing I'd never see even a glimmer of return on the investment... just cause.
Re: NASA Rover Finds Active and Ancient Organic Chemistry on Mars
#56For those eager to read ahead, they are very, very careful in this article not to imply in any way that this is definitely from any sort of living sources. > Organic molecules, which contain carbon and usually hydrogen, are chemical building blocks of life, although they can exist without the presence of life. Curiosity's findings from analyzing samples of atmosphere and rock powder do not reveal whether Mars has eve…
It may be comforting that considering the Great Filter theory ( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_Filter ) finding life on mars might actually be bad news.
Only if it's independently evolved, if it's a fork of life on Earth then it doesn't tell us anything about the probability of life elsewhere.
The great filter is very likely the evolution of multicelluar life and animals, which are unlikely to be found on mars. If we found living animals on mars I would be very concerned about the future of the human race.
Re: NASA Rover Finds Active and Ancient Organic Chemistry on Mars
#57For those eager to read ahead, they are very, very careful in this article not to imply in any way that this is definitely from any sort of living sources. > Organic molecules, which contain carbon and usually hydrogen, are chemical building blocks of life, although they can exist without the presence of life. Curiosity's findings from analyzing samples of atmosphere and rock powder do not reveal whether Mars has eve…
It may be comforting that considering the Great Filter theory ( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_Filter ) finding life on mars might actually be bad news.
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Re: NASA Rover Finds Active and Ancient Organic Chemistry on Mars
#58If life is discovered on mars, would we be allowed to colonize it?
Re: NASA Rover Finds Active and Ancient Organic Chemistry on Mars
#59Earlier quoted context omitted.
Great filter theory is nonsense. The period between intelligent life evolving and it taking over the universe at near the speed of light is so short, in cosmic time, that any civilization anywhere should expect to see an empty universe (in their light cone).
Before reading Power, Sex, and Suicide, I may have agreed. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Power,_Sex,_Suicide It is a possibility that there is a relatively small window where single celled life has the opportunity to become multicellular life. As one amazon review summed it: 'After the origin of life, the next big step on the way to us was the origin of eukaryotes. These are all the organisms - including people, trees…
I'm not sure what aspect of my post you are arguing against? I guess there could be different definitions at play here, but I was talking about a hypothetical developmental stage where most civilizations destroy themselves. E.g. nuclear war, climate change, etc.
Regarding how common life is in the universe, I wasn't talking about non-intelligent life. I fully expect that we will find signs of such life elsewhere in the cosmos in the next hundred years, either on Mars, Europa, Titan, Enceladus, or perhaps in the atmospheric spectra of some extra-solar planet.
No, I was talking about intelligent life, which if iot exists has a very short gestational period before transforming into lasting intelligence(s) expanding into the universe at close to physical limits. In particular the window between development of technology detectable from distant observation (e.g. radio) and a runaway singularity pushing that civilization's expansion rate to light speed limits is so small that regardless of the prevalence of intelligent life in the universe, we should expect to see an empty sky. Why? Because for most of the history of the cosmos we see an empty sky in our light cone. Then suddenly the most distant stars start to go dim with strangely shifted spectra, in an expanding wave that flows through visible star systems at >0.9c until it hits us, and ... well who knows what happens then.
The Fermi paradox is: "if there are so many intelligences, why can't we see them?" The transhumanist response is: "if we could see them, we'd be dead." By the anthropic principle we can only expect to exist in the time period where we are alive, not dead, so we should expect with very high probability to see an empty sky, and with very low probability the coming onslaught of darkness.
Re: NASA Rover Finds Active and Ancient Organic Chemistry on Mars
#60Earlier quoted context omitted.
Great filter theory is nonsense. The period between intelligent life evolving and it taking over the universe at near the speed of light is so short, in cosmic time, that any civilization anywhere should expect to see an empty universe (in their light cone).
Before reading Power, Sex, and Suicide, I may have agreed. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Power,_Sex,_Suicide It is a possibility that there is a relatively small window where single celled life has the opportunity to become multicellular life. As one amazon review summed it: 'After the origin of life, the next big step on the way to us was the origin of eukaryotes. These are all the organisms - including people, trees…
Power, Sex, and Suicide is one of the best books that has ever been written for the educated lay audience on biology. Great topics—the origin of life, sex, maad biochemistry. Seriously, if you're interested in biology and you have a decent background, read this fucking book.