Why everyone should stop folding and go SETI

[Paul]

Researchers predict there are 70 Sextillion Stars in the visible universe. ASSUMING ONLY 2 Planets per star which is a VERY VERY VERY generous estimate, there are over 140 sextillion plants in the universe.


Anyone who says that there is not intelligent life other than us in the universe is just plain narrowminded or a huge religious fanatic. It's not even an opinion basically, given the odd's against the fact are infinite basically.

 

[DemoCoder]

Researchers predict there are 70 Sextillion Stars in the visible universe. ASSUMING ONLY 2 Planets per star which is a VERY VERY VERY generous estimate, there are over 140 sextillion plants in the universe.


Anyone who says that there is not intelligent life other than us in the universe is just plain narrowminded or a huge religious fanatic. It's not even an opinion basically, given the odd's against the fact are infinite basically.

Ah, argument by handwave.

#1 not all stars have planets
#2 not all planets are even remotely capable of supporting life
#3 life != intelligent life
#4 ... this list goes on


The number .1010010001000010000010000001... is transcendental. It is infinite, never repeats a sequence. There are an infinite number of patterns within this number.

Yet, it does not contain "every possibility". Quite easily, you can see, '11' never occurs. Nor does 2, 3, 4,5,6,7,8,9 or any sequence with any of those patterns.


Even if there were 10^22 planets as you suggest, and even if ALL of them were earth-like in composition with similar stars, you're talking about probabilities for forming basic self replicating molecules that could range from 10^40 to 10^500.

Do you comprehend that if the chance of the first self replicating molecule forming out of a primordial soup is 1 in 10^40, and let's say we allow a reaction every millisecond, and a universe on the order of 15 billion years, the probability of life starting is still 40-(15+22)= 3 or one in one thousand over the entire universe!

We have discovered no laws that tell us that the simplist self replicating molecules will "commonly arise" if conditions are right. For all we know, it's just the probability of picking 100 atoms at random and combining them in precisely the right order and structure.


Sure, a sextillion sounds like alot, but people have real trouble reasoning about large numbers, and it is not a "certainty" that the universe is full of separately evolved life, unless you believe in a creator who screws up the probabilities by interfering with the laws of physics and seeding life throughout the universe.

 

[Humus]

Researchers predict there are 70 Sextillion Stars in the visible universe. ASSUMING ONLY 2 Planets per star which is a VERY VERY VERY generous estimate, there are over 140 sextillion plants in the universe.


Anyone who says that there is not intelligent life other than us in the universe is just plain narrowminded or a huge religious fanatic. It's not even an opinion basically, given the odd's against the fact are infinite basically.

Yay for generalisations!

What are the odds of life occuring then? I've read numbers such as 1 in 10^113 for even the simplest protein molecule under ideal conditions, which then are very likely to get destroyed again quickly due to radition unless it immediately fell into water or something else protecting it. For a full semi-living thing I've seen numbers such as 1 in 10^40,000.

As for two planets / star being generous, I don't think so. Looking at the closest stars except the sun it seems our solar system is indeed pretty unique. Most other stars either don't have planets at all or have one. Very few have two or more.

I'm not a religious nut, I'd rather call me agnostic, but I see the belief in aliens as just another form of religion. As long as we have no proof the guy believing in alien life is no less religious than he who believes in God.

 

[Silent_One]

Do you comprehend that if the chance of the first self replicating molecule forming out of a primordial soup is 1 in 10^40, and let's say we allow a reaction every millisecond, and a universe on the order of 15 billion years, the probability of life starting is still 40-(15+22)= 3 or one in one thousand over the entire universe!

DC,
Where do you come up with "we allow a reaction every millisecond"? A primordial soup would have trillions (sextillions?) of molecules with billions (trillions) of reactions, No?

 

[Silent_One]

Humas wrote:

Looking at the closest stars except the sun it seems our solar system is indeed pretty unique. Most other stars either don't have planets at all or have one. Very few have two or more.

Actually looking at the closest stars (within 100 light years or so...)there are quite a few stars with planets. Beyond that distance we can't tell yet.

 

[DemoCoder]

Everyone should read the Anthropic Principal, which details exactly many of the "strange coincidences" in the laws of physics, which if modified in the slightest way, make it impossible for us to exist.

Moreover, they cover the cosmology of stars and solar systems which makes solar systems like ours a rare treasure.



You can look at the fact we exist in two ways:

1) we are very improbable, there is a supernatural power influencing the odds
2) we just got lucky

3) selection bias. There are an uncountable number of universes in existence, either in parallel, or before us. None of those had life. Ours has life. We notice we seem to be very improbable, therefore we conclude #1 or #2, because we can't see the 10^googleplex failures to create life in other universes.

Imagine you are about to be executed on a firing squad. 999,999,999 people before you are killed. There are 100 people in the firing squad, and sometimes some of their rifles jam. But when your turn comes and the guy says "fire", all 100 rifles jam. You are saved.

Afterwards, you are led to question why you in particular were saved. Was there something special about me? Did someone intervene on my behalf? Do I have karma? Luck?

Selection bias. We observe that we evolved, and perhaps the laws of nature seem tailored made for our existence, but the universe seems empty of life. -- because in universes where observers did not evolve, no one was there to ask the question, and we are unable to observe those universes or peer beyond the big bang.

 

[DemoCoder]

Do you comprehend that if the chance of the first self replicating molecule forming out of a primordial soup is 1 in 10^40, and let's say we allow a reaction every millisecond, and a universe on the order of 15 billion years, the probability of life starting is still 40-(15+22)= 3 or one in one thousand over the entire universe!

DC,
Where do you come up with "we allow a reaction every millisecond"? A primordial soup would have trillions (sextillions?) of molecules with billions (trillions) of reactions, No?

Sure, tack on another 9-15 exponents. I lowballed the probability to not seem controversial. If you want a real estimate, people in the abiogenesis field assume even the simplist self replicating molecules would require over a google in coin toss probability models. I've seen estimates up to 10^500 for simple RNA.

Point is, we are dealing with huge numbers, so simply appealing to the large number of stars or particles in the universe is quite irrelevent. The probabilities easily exceeed the product of the age of the universe in femtoseconds times the number of particles in the known universe.


Imagine generating random computer software, say C programs, until you got the first self replicating one that compiles and runs without crashing or terminating. Now imagine something unimaginably more unlikely.

 

[DemoCoder]

Humas wrote:

Looking at the closest stars except the sun it seems our solar system is indeed pretty unique. Most other stars either don't have planets at all or have one. Very few have two or more.

Actually looking at the closest stars (within 100 light years or so...)there are quite a few stars with planets. Beyond that distance we can't tell yet.

Yes, but they are gas giants or orbiting the wrong kind of stars. And even if they were the right kind of stars, you need sufficient amounts of carbon, oxygen, nitrogen, and other higher elements (besides helium or hydrogen), and these only exist if you've had a few supernovas in the areas spreading such material.

And even if you have the right kind of star, life has to start at the right time. Early or late in the stars life, and it's too inhospitable. There is a "window" in the typical Sun-like star's main sequence where the right environment can exist.

Imagine the trajedy on Earth if life didn't start for another 4 billion years. Right when the first self replicating molecule starts up, the Sun starts to incinerate the planet.


Estimates have been done on the number of main-sequence Sun-like stars in the universe combined with probability of supernovas, and those just compound the already unlikely probability of abiogenesis.

 

[Hyp-X]

IIRC general-relativity says that matter can not be accelerated to the speed of light. It does not say that matter cannot go faster than the speed of light, just not the speed of light.

That's what I remember as well.

So accelerating matter from a speed slower than light to a speed faster than light is impossible.

Unless you can "skip" the speed of light.
There are so many things that are proven to be non-continous that I wouldn't be surprised if there was a way for this.

 

[Paul]

1) The number of galaxies. Some 100 billion galaxies are visible to modern telescopes and the total number in the universe is believed to exceed this number, but we will be conservative.

that's 100,000,000,000.

2) The number of stars in an average galaxy. As many as hundreds of billions. Lets call it just 100 billion.

that's 100,000,000,000.

The number of stars in the universe.

So the total number of stars in the universe is roughly 100 billion x 100 billion.

that's 10,000,000,000,000,000,000,000 stars, 10 thousand, billion, billion. And thats a conservative estimate.

3) The number of stars that have planetary systems. So far only around 50 have been discovered so we have very little data to work on for this estimate. Current technology dictates that a star needs to be to close to us for a planet to be detected, usually by the stars 'wobble'. Even so most cosmologists believe that planetary formation around a star is quite common place. For the sake of argument let us say it is not and rate it at only one in a million and only one planet in each system, as we want a conservative estimate, not an exaggerated one. That calculation results in

10,000,000,000,000,000 planets in the universe. Ten million, billion

4) The number of Earth like planets. Let's assume that this is very rare among planets. Only 1 in a million, and this is also being very conservative in as much that we are assuming here that only Earth like planets are suitable for the formation of life. Simple division results in:

10,000,000,000 planets in the universe capable of producing life. Ten billion.

http://www.thekeyboard.org.uk/Is there extraterrestrial life

Out of around ten million billion planets(estimate) out in the universe your saying that none have intelligent life? The odd's are overwhelming here. To say that it was nothing but basically a freak accident that we are here is just nonsense. We are probably just one of many species in the universe that was born and matured via evolution and will eventually go extinct.

 

[zidane1strife]

Benefits of finding aliens:
We will never get sick again.
We will have warp technology. (The Vulcans might share with us)
New and improved ways of hiding WMD.
We may evolve.

Benefits of folding:
We will never get sick again.
We will have warp technology. (The Vulcans might share with us)
New and improved ways of hiding WMD.
We may evolve.

There is one choice all civilitations must one day make... accept the future, or deny themselves existence...

No, it is very likely that we are unique in the universe. It took billions of years before the first life could develop, and in an expanding universe, size == age, therefore, the universe is super huge, but it is empty of life.

Well, the big brain is quite expensive, and highly dev. it appears not to be a frequently occuring event in nature, look at earth's history for an example... without gm, the primitive drives would eventually destroy such beings...
I liked Stephen Hawking's lecture... seeing as many of his views concur with mine... it is quite refreshing...
http://www.hawking.org.uk/lectures/life.html(good read.)

May be we will find something else which can reach anywhere in the UNIVERSE in a second????

It's my belief that once we've learned more about the nature of reality, the laws shall be bent... and they shall break...

The universe is most likely finite.

Do you mean this configuration?

You can pass waveforms or information at rates higher than speed, but you can't pass matter faster than light.

matter is information.

(unless it was from one of the nearby solar systems, which isn't likely).

heheh, nasa... in less than 30yrs... will... show us... beholdeth TPF...

But don't quote me on any of this..

Indeed let me quote someone else instead...

And our galaxy itself is just one of billions of galaxies, in a universe that is infinite and expanding.--Stephen Hawking

I concur.

Indeed, fantasy... reality... they're just separated by... heheh " along time ago... in a galaxy far far away."... GL did not lie...

GL did not lie...

A great man once said that the greatest science is indistinguishable from magic...

 

[DemoCoder]

You can't transmit information faster than the speed of light, period. Compression doesn't count. The previous experiments with regard to sending actual information FTL utilized the fact that the exact character of the information was known ahead of time.


Imagine I am transmitting an MP3 file at light speed, and you hear "Dun dun dun...Oh baby baby, how was I supposed to know?" You might instantly generate the rest of Britney Spear's song. Wow, FTL transmission.

 

[zidane1strife]

You can't transmit information faster than the speed of light, period. Compression doesn't count. The previous experiments with regard to sending actual information FTL utilized the fact that the exact character of the information was known ahead of time.

We shall see... causality...

 

[Gump]

Probability of SETI 'Contact' Signal - ~1 in 10^339

That's a fun one to start with

Probability estimate of a single protein molecule being arranged by chance - 1 in 10^161

Probability estimate of the mininum set of the required 239 protein molecules for the smallest theoretical life - 1 in 10^119,879

Probability estimate that the Universe has a life (as we know it) supporting planet - 1 in 10^161

Probability estimate that the parameters of the Universe are life-supporting - 1 in 10^99

William Dembski's proposal as a Universal probability bound - 1 in 10^150 (10^80 particles in universe x 10^45 state transitions (Planck time) x 10^25 seconds in Universe)

Estimated number of sub-atomic particles in the entire Universe - ~1 in 10^84

and to finish:

French mathematican Emile Borel's proposal as a Universal probability bound below which chance could definitely be precluded - 1 in 10^50

 

[Bigus Dickus]

Man, DC and Humus - you guys sound like a couple of creationists spouting off these abiogenesis and "simplest possible life" probabilities. You chastize someone for "handwaving" yet you two are doing the same thing. Yes... of course the odds of the "simplest possible protein" forming by chance are next to nil, but who says we need RNA or a protein to get the party started (despite what Behe would have you believe)?

All of those enormous numbers you guys are throwing around neglect one extremely important ingredient... evolution. Evolution is capable of working at a level far more basic than most people would ever imagine. For instance, a simple chemical compound that is easily absorbed into a semi-crystalline clay and has the property of enhancing either the rate of growth or uniformity of the crystalline pattern forms the basis for natural selection to begin working. The mechanisms of evolution work on a far wider variety of systems than people tend to think.

"Life" is such an ambiguous, vague, impossible to define term that for the purposes of this discussion it is all but useless. But if I must, I would accept the lowest form of replicating organized patterns as some rudimentary basis for life.

On those terms, the probability of another planet in just the observable universe (the part we are really concerned with) is almost exactly 1.0. The probability of life existing somewhere in a form that would be recognizable to us as "alive" is likely just a minute amount less than 1.0, and the probability of intelligent life having existed at some point or existing currently (whatever that means ) is still rather high.

The chance that we will ever discover such intelligent life is next to nothing.


Other random thoughts...

Information can't be transmitted faster than light locally. Bell's inequality/EPR paradox doesn't actually transmit any information.

Global FTL travel is certainly permitted by Relativity.

Current observations of the state of the universe suggest an open, not closed, universe. Trying to imagine a finite but open (unbounded?) universe is next to impossible, and in fact it may be a logical impossibility for such a universe to exist. Perhaps the universe is infinite in space but finite in mass, though that isn't a very "tidy" picture. Many people now think the universe actually is "conventionally" infinite.

There is also the various incarnations of the multiverse to consider, in which it is a certainty (probability 1.0) that intelligent life other than on Earth exists. In fact, if the quantum multiverse is a reality then in one of the existing universes the probability of humans communicating meaningfully with an intelligent species who also likes fast sports cars and curvacious women is 1.0.

 

[K.I.L.E.R]

Thank you Bigus Penus.
Sorry, couldn't control myself.

The last paragraph was basically the point I was trying to get across.

From now on, Bigus Dickus talks for me.

 

[DemoCoder]

BD, I am a life long atheist and routinely argue FOR abiogenesis. The fact that I believe life is extremely unlikely to develop elsewhere does not make me a "creationist". I already explained the selection bias inherent in our trying to judge whether our existence is a fluke or accident of chance, because we have no way of knowing how long and how many universes came and went before this one came into existence.

But your belief in probability 1.0 that other intelligent species exist borders on UFO-nut-case-ology. We simply don't have any other information, other than the fact that we don't observe life on any other planet except earth, we do not even observe the simplist self replicating molecules on mars, on asteroids, or on cometary dust. If it's so probable, why haven't we observed it yet? We also did not observe the evolution of intelligent at our level more than once.


Extrordinary claims require extrordinary evidence. You can throw around numbers like the number of (theoretically earth-like planets) which use probability arguments, but the fact remains, using the same arguments, we can show that simple self replicating molecules are still too rare. You would have us believe they are quite common. The burden of proof is on you.




The multiverse is irrelevent also, since we are interested in the question of whether life exists in THIS universe, not whether it exists in other possible universes. What is the probability that out of all the universes (those without life, those with exactly one intelligent species, and those with N intelligent species) we find we just happen to exist in one with multiple intelligent species?

I am aware of the "self replication started in mineral clay" scenario, as well as several other theories, but many of them have been refuted by their own proposers. The mineral clay hypothesis has been shot down several times.

The fact that I might agree that no current theory of abiogenesis "works" doesn't mean I am pro-creationist. I just think we haven't discovered a plausible theory that fits data and experiment yet.

On the other hand, those who belief in a universe teaming with life are taking a leap of faith that also isn't justified.

I remain skeptical.

 

[K.I.L.E.R]

Wheather you are skeptical or a believer it makes no difference as no one is 100% sure nor can anyone offer undeniable proof (something that can't be argued against) outside of theories.

Can any of you say 100% with pure confidence that there is absolutely no life other than us in the entire universe and provide undeniable evidence of this? And Vice versa.

 

[DemoCoder]

No, nor can I prove that there isn't I God. But I believe the burden of proof is on those making the assertions.


Anyone claiming ETs, Gods, spirits, or any other non-observable will need to supply extraordinary evidence to back it up.

With regards to the question of life on other planets, and God, although I can disprove neither, I am a skeptic until convinced otherwise.

People in this forum are just way too accepting of "common sense" mythology, be it the paranormal, or the extraordinary. I wouldn't be surprised to find that not only do a majority of people believe in ET civilizations, but believe in the even more ridiculous idea that they have already visited us.

 

[Fred]

To be frank, while I think God theories are a tright hard to believe, that there is intelligent life on another planet doesn't strike me as wholly implausable.

I hate anthropic arguments, they keep popping out in physics these days, and no serious scientist really trusts them deep down.

These probability numbers referenced above for Abiogenesis (sp, im drunk) make no reference to volume, or time. I suspect they are also incorrect, the amount of pathways to form life is probably much higher, even if they are not we have immense numbers of galaxies/life capable planets/ and conditions whereby such a thing *could* happen. The exact equations (drake eqn) include numbers that have error bars on the order of the actual eqn itself.

This reminds me a bit about the hierarchy problem in particle physics. We have immense numbers (eg 18 orders of magnitude decimal places) that have to cancel exactly in order for our theory to work (eg for life to actually exist). We know they do, since we are here, and see it happen. Ultimately what has to give, is not the acceptance of the fact under current theory, but rather the actual theory itself. It has to be *Wrong*!