tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5880610.post8241594518183472733..comments2024-01-13T18:57:18.243-05:00Comments on Information Processing: Evolution, Design and the Fermi ParadoxSteve Hsuhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02428333897272913660noreply@blogger.comBlogger30125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5880610.post-3037896358116829712009-11-05T11:57:35.262-05:002009-11-05T11:57:35.262-05:00This article--Stars May be Cosmic Road Signs to In...This article--<a href="http://www.space.com/scienceastronomy/091105-am-intelligent-aliens.html" rel="nofollow">Stars May be Cosmic Road Signs to Intelligent Aliens </a>--reminded me of your post.Edwardhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/04295927435118827266noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5880610.post-30525549605425868992009-10-24T23:22:26.464-04:002009-10-24T23:22:26.464-04:00PS: I've listened to this kind of argument—per...PS: I've listened to this kind of argument—perhaps one should just say <em>assertion</em>—for a long time, and I've concluded that unless one is willing to define "design" as an activity of the sort practiced by the designers we actually know (ie, ourselves) then we should avoid appeals to design as an explanation.<br /><br />If we honestly examine our own efforts as designers, CWhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/15671404306768077552noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5880610.post-18249769068503361432009-10-24T23:03:25.672-04:002009-10-24T23:03:25.672-04:00Strongly suggests it to who, and why?Strongly suggests it to who, and why?CWhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/15671404306768077552noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5880610.post-28342186891946227402009-10-24T15:08:07.953-04:002009-10-24T15:08:07.953-04:00"improbability does not imply design or inter..."improbability does not imply design or intervention"<br /><br />Well, no. But it does strongly suggest it, which is all that should be expected. See page 5 of this book about the argument from design:<br /><br />"http://books.google.com/books?id=0TSqizxUv-YC&dq=raymond+smullyan+who+knows&printsec=frontcover&source=bn&hl=en&ei=H0_jSrPDDon-sQO-ktCwBA&sa=X&Donald Pretarihttps://www.blogger.com/profile/14493535232127084725noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5880610.post-62547104927268132832009-10-23T20:51:33.057-04:002009-10-23T20:51:33.057-04:00Steve does not know what he means when he uses &qu...Steve does not know what he means when he uses "improbable" in the above.Ian Smithhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/06837467954881003505noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5880610.post-7514289634998421562009-10-23T12:47:06.736-04:002009-10-23T12:47:06.736-04:00Prof. Hsu:
I'm curious about your subhead. W...Prof. Hsu:<br /><br />I'm curious about your subhead. What do you mean by, "Pessimism of the Intellect, Optimism of the Will?"TMShttps://www.blogger.com/profile/07654673878708922180noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5880610.post-75516308606968616602009-10-23T12:00:46.417-04:002009-10-23T12:00:46.417-04:00"What I think is quite hard to grasp is that ..."What I think is quite hard to grasp is that the first replicators appeared almost as fast as it was possible (that 100My figure), but they appeared only once."<br /><br />Well, RNA/DNA is universal, but a whole host of other cellular machinery appears to have appeared at least twice - once in bacteria and once in Archaea. Also, as another commentator pointed out, it may have happened Markhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/16112093984435209050noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5880610.post-21419459544206523732009-10-23T10:43:49.234-04:002009-10-23T10:43:49.234-04:00Here's the thing:
The optimality of the genet...Here's the thing:<br /><br />The optimality of the genetic code is puzzling.<br /><br />Its fault-tolerent arangement is tough to ascribe to luck.<br /><br />By some metrics, it is a million to one lucky roll of the dice.<br /><br />It had to settle on this coding early. In fact, the progenitor species, right?<br /><br />Do you buy million-to-one?<br /><br />Is there not room for the Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5880610.post-27182011517118978902009-10-23T04:54:22.243-04:002009-10-23T04:54:22.243-04:00"The probability of life arising..."
Wh..."The probability of life arising..."<br /><br />What does that mean? Really?<br /><br />You're just putting words together. You're not actually saying anything. Do "colorless green dreams sleep furiously"?<br /><br />Probability is a model only. It is only a tool. It is not the reality.<br /><br />The only exception, or supposed exception, to this is quantun mechanics,Ian Smithhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/06837467954881003505noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5880610.post-46806086013945795052009-10-22T23:33:26.352-04:002009-10-22T23:33:26.352-04:00Isn't the speed of light by itself enough to s...<i>Isn't the speed of light by itself enough to solve the Fermi paradox. The amount of time and energy required to travel to the nearest star, let alone another Galaxy, are both, well, astronomical.</i><br /><br />Age of the Universe is even more astronomical. <br /><br />It's been calculated that a single technological civilization with sufficient desire to expand could colonize the Namelesshttps://www.blogger.com/profile/12572983451955998231noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5880610.post-90197288715790665292009-10-22T22:26:59.416-04:002009-10-22T22:26:59.416-04:005Gyr is not the evolution time scale; it's the...5Gyr is not the evolution time scale; it's the global geological/chemical time scale. Evolution time scale is 2% to 20% of that. Whenever conditions become ready for life to take a major step, evolution does the job in a ~100MYr. Three times it has done it already.<br /><br />The first time, as soon as the Earth formed a crust, the first cellullar life appeared. There was negligible time gap.zzzhouhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/07194033996098732216noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5880610.post-78790311860722006032009-10-22T21:41:22.062-04:002009-10-22T21:41:22.062-04:00Some thoughts & links (sorry for my somewhat b...Some thoughts & links (sorry for my somewhat broken English):<br /><br />The biosphere is expected to become uninhabitable <a href="http://www.geosc.psu.edu/~kasting/PersonalPage/Pdf/Nature360_92.pdf" rel="nofollow">in 1-2 Ga</a> (see also this <a href="http://www.geosc.psu.edu/~kasting/Habitable_planet_book/Document%20with%20figures%20included/Ch%201-15_final_with_figures.doc" rel="nofollow"Mariano M. Chouzahttps://www.blogger.com/profile/09941320226644229083noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5880610.post-89619279643459788442009-10-22T18:34:02.560-04:002009-10-22T18:34:02.560-04:00"Isn't the speed of light by itself enoug..."Isn't the speed of light by itself enough to solve the Fermi paradox. ... "<br /><br />Robots.Steve Hsuhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/02428333897272913660noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5880610.post-24082525405834284982009-10-22T18:20:51.738-04:002009-10-22T18:20:51.738-04:00Isn't the speed of light by itself enough to s...Isn't the speed of light by itself enough to solve the Fermi paradox. The amount of time and energy required to travel to the nearest star, let alone another Galaxy, are both, well, astronomical.Luke Leahttps://www.blogger.com/profile/11290760894780619646noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5880610.post-36610807104091158632009-10-22T18:01:46.589-04:002009-10-22T18:01:46.589-04:00The use of "probability" here is meaning...The use of "probability" here is meaningless. <br /><br />The use of "complex life" here is meaningless.<br /><br />Once there is a single cell the rest is easy. At the level of the cell humans aren't much more complex than paramecia. <br /><br />I'm waiting for the first total synthesis of a cell. There's no money for it though I'm sure.Ian Smithhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/06837467954881003505noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5880610.post-49074558883593705672009-10-22T17:30:56.773-04:002009-10-22T17:30:56.773-04:00"SD Scientist: Early on, there weren't ma..."SD Scientist: Early on, there weren't many heavy elements around, so those first stars didn't have rocky planets. Only after the first generation of stars went supernova was there enough iron and carbon and oxygen for life."<br /><br />That is a good point - however, we didn't have to wait 10 GYr for that. Only the heaviest stars go supernova, and those have relatively Namelesshttps://www.blogger.com/profile/12572983451955998231noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5880610.post-53658936853879442262009-10-22T15:01:24.214-04:002009-10-22T15:01:24.214-04:00"But they appeared only once"
Or they a..."But they appeared only once"<br /><br />Or they appeared a billion times and complex DNA-based life eats the simple replicators for breakfast every time.<br /><br />Support for the argument? Well, we know that's what happened to whatever the original replicators were. Nothing like that is with us anymore. At one point they should have covered the globe.Thrashttps://www.blogger.com/profile/06536525467048363111noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5880610.post-27306917081388922722009-10-22T14:58:25.256-04:002009-10-22T14:58:25.256-04:00"What is your 99% confidence interval for T?&..."What is your 99% confidence interval for T?"<br /><br />It depends on your definition of "Earth-like conditions" of course.<br /><br />We have three pieces of real evidence:<br /><br />1) The fossil record, as discussed above.<br /><br />2) Our biochemical knowledge of life and ourselves.<br /><br />3) The fact that we haven't found life elsewhere yet.<br /><br />Two is Thrashttps://www.blogger.com/profile/06536525467048363111noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5880610.post-25205540506691773652009-10-22T12:34:44.934-04:002009-10-22T12:34:44.934-04:00What I think is quite hard to grasp is that the fi...What I think is quite hard to grasp is that the first replicators appeared almost as fast as it was possible (that 100My figure), but they appeared only once. Or, at least modern DNA based replicators appeared only once (we'd know if there were other families of RNA compilers, our encoding is quite "arbitrary").<br /><br />Now, that could be solved by panspermy, that's why I Marcoshttps://www.blogger.com/profile/11822417314224471848noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5880610.post-78625217179214465622009-10-22T12:02:24.811-04:002009-10-22T12:02:24.811-04:00"We could probably come up with some kind of ..."We could probably come up with some kind of dimensional handwaving argument to justify this number, just like we can use dimensional arguments to calculate characteristic dimensions and velocities of carbon-based intelligent lifeforms."<br /><br />Uh, no, we can't.<br /><br />"In any case, I don't think the position is necessarily borne out by the geologic record. The Steve Hsuhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/02428333897272913660noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5880610.post-71160379204409703622009-10-22T11:59:08.579-04:002009-10-22T11:59:08.579-04:00I will go on to say that estimating the probabilit...I will go on to say that estimating the probability of life appearing is extremely hard. Even if we knew all of the rules governing our universe, it would still be at least NP hard and the question is undecidable if you ask it for all possible (computable) universes since it amounts to solving the halting problem.Carson C. Chowhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/08464737817585277975noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5880610.post-12207387673053838252009-10-22T10:21:42.309-04:002009-10-22T10:21:42.309-04:00To be fair, Godel didn't believe in evolution....To be fair, Godel didn't believe in evolution. And your argument doesn't make the majority of Earth-like planets "devoid of life", but instead devoid of complex life.<br /><br />In any case, I don't think the position is necessarily borne out by the geologic record. The Cambrian explosion of complex life happened just about as soon as it could -- after the anaerobic Thrashttps://www.blogger.com/profile/06536525467048363111noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5880610.post-68662543662727282632009-10-22T09:35:43.418-04:002009-10-22T09:35:43.418-04:005 Gyr is remarkably close to the 10 Gyr lifetime o...<i>5 Gyr is remarkably close to the 10 Gyr lifetime of main sequence stars...</i><br />Ha! Only a physicist would call a 5,000,000,000 year difference "close"!DBhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/06742754700763907691noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5880610.post-50960584372147239752009-10-22T09:24:03.135-04:002009-10-22T09:24:03.135-04:00SD Scientist: Early on, there weren't many hea...SD Scientist: Early on, there weren't many heavy elements around, so those first stars didn't have rocky planets. Only after the first generation of stars went supernova was there enough iron and carbon and oxygen for life.DBhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/06742754700763907691noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5880610.post-41375444502781338372009-10-22T08:45:44.025-04:002009-10-22T08:45:44.025-04:00A further thought. Even if T >> 5 GYr, the f...A further thought. Even if T >> 5 GYr, the first intelligent civilization to emerge would be likely to do that on a star that formed shortly after the Big Bang. It is highly unlikely and it requires severe fine-tuning to explain (without resorting to singularity & such) why we're apparently first civilization in the neighborhood, and yet we're on a relatively young star, and Namelesshttps://www.blogger.com/profile/12572983451955998231noreply@blogger.com