Science How This Decade of Archaeology Changed What We Know About Human Origins

This is the second time I've seen you write the part in bold and I've laughed both times. Before I engage and respond to the rest of what you've written I have to ask, are you actually serious?

 

At least with what we currently know about "life", I think there's a very, very small chance of there being life anywhere else. Especially to the level of "evolution" that we have on Earth. Though I don't have any envelopes to scratch out some random guesses. Even with as much as we know though, I'm pretty sure there's a lot we don't know, could be life on the moon I just haven't seen it. There are possibilities that there are other things we could consider alive that isn't carbon-based, and have different "rules" to what keeps them alive, no idea.

 

Considering the size of the Cosmos, I gotta believe there's a lot of life out there other than ourselves.

 

I think we're pretty arrogant thinking that our senses detect everything in the universe....or that our idea of the universe is surrounded with some wall and we're the civilized center of it all. Humans still haven't fully discovered the ocean's mysteries and we think we know there's no life outside our bubble...we think we've discovered where no life exists so far. It's called the Washington DC zone

 

Your guess is as good as mine, not better, not worse. The fact is there's a lot we don't even know about the planet we're on, there's a lot we don't know about what exists or doesn't exist out there either.

 

Some estimate that there may be over 100,000,000,000 solar systems.

 

I'm an engineer so I'm always serious.
Was that supposed to be a serious question?

 

That's only ten to the 11th power. You can't even calculate how small the magnitude of possibility of life existing on that paltry number of solar systems.

 

What?

 

...it's an ongoing question Lanny...in quantum physics everything is possible...and science is an on going process of elimination that is based on those questions...when we learn through scientific method that something does get answered, the questions don't stop. As an engineer I'm sure you're satisfied with finite solutions. My opinion is that given enough time even those become questioned. We work with the tools we have but we just may not have good enough tools yet to see many possibilities

 

I've just never encountered someone who actually seems to think they've solved the probability of life elsewhere in the universe on an envelope before. It's quite fascinating.

 

Like me, Einstein questioned quantum physics.
Are our tools inadequate to give a good idea? Yes but we can get a rough idea.
Since I came up with my back of the envelope improbability of life existing elsewhere I've learned of a couple more highly unlikely possibility factors of life existing elsewhere.

 

Yeah, who would that be? Because I know you're not talking about me since I never made any such claim. My only claim is that I had a rough idea. An exact idea? Never ever said that or meant to even imply it. If you are talking about me then I'd like to know where you got that implication.

 

I got that implication when you typed, "I once did a back of the envelope calculation and came up with a chance for our existence albeit a small one but virtually no chance for life to exist anywhere else." I don't see "rough idea" or anything similar in that statement.

At any rate, coming up with a "rough idea" about the probability of life in the universe on an envelope is very impressive! When do you get your nobel prize?

 

What do you think "Back of the Envelope" means? It's a kind of rough calculation done on scratch paper such as the BACK of an envelope.

Edit:
If your not sure or don't know what Back of the Envelope means, just ask.

 

Forget the fact we don’t even know how big the universe is… The smartest minds have yet to even figure out what over 95% of the knowable universe is (what they call dark matter/dark energy). That’s the extent of our current ignorance. So whether you want to extrapolate rough probabilities on a sheet of paper or on a supercomputer, the numbers you're inputting are so astronomically flawed that it renders the whole process, and results, pointless.

No, our planet is the result of a lot of randomness and chaos, something that exists virtually everywhere. Our existence isn’t luck, it just is. What we call “life” is an inevitable yet wholly insignificant byproduct from the creation of our universe and the resulting laws of physics and chemistry that govern the cosmos.

How can you think our existence is simultaneously the result of a lot of luck AND divine intervention? That is a hilarious contradiction. At any rate, I’ll pretend you didn’t mention divine intervention and will proceed as though you’re capable of rational thought.

I see, and how many solar systems have you heard of?

Because astronomers are quick to point out that they’re finding these larger gas giants and the “super-earths” you’re referring to because they are much easier to detect given their size and/or proximity to the star. It’s not a coincidence that 85% of the planets discovered are so close to the sun they’re tidally locked given the methods scientists are using.

As an example of how hard it is to detect planets further from the sun, there is now significant proof that there’s a planet nine in our very own solar system, waaay out beyond the orbit of Neptune in a highly elliptical orbit. Because of the distance/darkness they’ve yet to find it, they only see its effects. And that’s in our own solar system.

Going off memory I think they’ve discovered about 4,000 exo-planets. A very conservative estimate is that there are 100 billion planets in the galaxy alone. A very conservative estimate is that there are 100 billion galaxies in the known universe.

Taking the 4,000 planets (which are almost all very large and close to their stars as I’ve mentioned) that have been discovered and trying to extrapolate the probability of life in the universe from that is like scooping one of the 352 quintillion gallons of ocean water off the surface, not seeing any fish in it, and declaring that the probability of there being fish anywhere on earth is virtually zero. It’s so nonsensical it’s funny.

Again, that phrase presupposes that we were the goal of the universe to begin with. It also presupposes that the exact chain of events of our solar system are the only way to arrive at “life”.

I fail to see how this is in anyway rare? Nebulae extend light years and give birth to countless stars and mix with other interstellar gas clouds and innumerable rocky and icy bodies. Our sun is one of hundreds of billions of stars in the Milky Way alone that are third generation. Our sun isn’t even an extreme population 1 star which are the most metal rich. The sun is an intermediate Population 1 star. There may be even sixth generation stars in the Milky Way. Even conservatively, there are several billions of stars just like our own in the Milky Way alone.

The estimates I’ve seen say about 1 in 5 stars like our sun have at least one earth-sized planet in the habitable zone. There are 200 billion stars in our galaxy.

That said, many believe that even within our own solar system, the best candidates for life aren’t the planets, but the moons around planets, which are often far outside the goldilocks zone. Europa and Enceladus are the best candidates.

The three basic ingredients for life (as we know it) are liquid water, organic compounds and energy. Enceladus for example seems to have all three. An internal ocean, much deeper than our own, an energy source, not from the sun but likely from tidal heating, and ejected plumes that Cassini went through show that there are actually carbon-bearing molecules and complex organic compounds as well.

An even bigger trip is Pluto. It should just be a cold dead rock yet it’s got active geology, ice volcanoes, fast-moving glaciers, mountain ranges as big as the Rockies, etc. The active geology is driven by heat, however its too small to have retained any heat, it’s much too far from the sun, and it wouldn’t have tidal heating, so how? There’s good evidence that pluto has a deep subterranean ocean, and over time as the planet cools, the water must be freezing and as it freezes it releases a form of energy called latent heat. And that release of energy could be what is powering active geology.

When New Horizons passed by Pluto, the probe turned to take a photo of Pluto backlit against the sun. Scientists hoped to capture the unmistakable haze of organic chemistry. And they saw that atmosphere, a blue ring of nitrogen gas, just like we see on earth. That ring is basically manufacturing complex organic materials from the simpler building blocks in the atmosphere of Pluto, like carbon monoxide, methane, and nitrogen, which are then being broken apart in the faint sunlight and reassembled in these hazes into organic molecules.

There are actually areas on Pluto that are reddish-brown which is actually organics. If that organic chemistry is getting cycled down by the active geology, over time they could be transported to the area where ice melts and meets liquid water. And the chemical evolution of those organics molecules could continue there driven by Pluto’s heat.

That doesn’t mean life is on Pluto, but think about that. The three essential ingredients for life are found in so many places under such different circumstances in just our solar system (You'll notice I haven't even brought up Mars yet). This is notable because of panspermia. With all three ingredients being this common, think of the countless meteoroids, asteroids, comets, dust particles and even entire planets and moons that have been set free from the gravity of their original star and now drift randomly to every corner of the galaxy ready to seed whatever body they eventually run into over the course of billions of years.

 

I love that in two paragraphs you defeat your own arguments.

One paragraph were ignorant of everything, we dont know 95% of whats out there.
The next one, Ive figured out the universe and how how everything came to be.

Forget the fact we don’t even know how big the universe is… The smartest minds have yet to even figure out what over 95% of the knowable universe is (what they call dark matter/dark energy).

No, our planet is the result of a lot of randomness and chaos, something that exists virtually everywhere. Our existence isn’t luck, it just is. What we call “life” is an inevitable yet wholly insignificant byproduct from the creation of our universe andtheresulting laws of physics and chemistry that govern the cosmos.

You also leave to little to no proof of the significance of life, other then you said so.

You say life is insignificant, do you vote that way? Do you feel your friends and family are all insignificant?

 

I can not argue against modal logic. I find it compelling.

https://www.express.co.uk/news/science/756870/proof-of-god-kurt-godel

 

If someone tries hard enough and googles enough they'll eventually find some obscure item to justify or bolster their stance on just about anything.

 

Im not sure one can scientifically prove the existence of the supernatural, but I can say that I dont think there is much logic to trying to claim an understanding of all the working’s of it, if there was a God, or something outside of natural events that caused whatever we came to or not, and our individual minds are all so small, and so flawed we are all just trying to find a frame of reference so that things makes sense to us.