Why do so many otherwise "logical" people say that

There are ways to estimate probability of something happening other than raw statistical measurement. In this case, the estimates are based on a detailed understanding of biology and biochemistry.

People who describe themselves as logical are usually not very logical.

Also, the average person's opinion on whether there's life out there is worthless. In fact, so is every expert's opinion. Until we know exactly how life appeared on Earth, which we don't yet know, we can't say how likely it is that it appeared on other planets.

>>8911561
No one understands biology and biochemistry to the point of knowing how to create new life from no life.

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>>8911553
>Given the data that we have no one can make that statement. No one knows how rare life is to create, we only know of 1 example of it ever occurring so far.

Shit, it's not like we are physically made of 3 out of 4 most abundant substances in the fucking universe or anything, and the sheer retarded number of confirmed terrestrial planets also doesn't matter.
You weren't there, right?
Could be God or sumtin...

>>8911581
None of what you said matters.

Why don't you try to extrapolate and put a percentage on it?

Once you attempt to you'll realize that eventually you'll have to make some guesses or you'll make no progress in your estimation, but your guesses will make your estimation invalid.

Let's say there's a planets, b are similar to earth, c have the materials that make up life on Earth.

None of those are relevant unless we know x, how common life is to create.

But go ahead, try to explain how you can logically deduce a percentage of life occurring on other planets, I'll wait.

>>8911598
50%

It's just a game of probability

also we're going to have to define "life"

self-animated material, or just carbon based forms of it like Earth?

>>8911598
>but your guesses will make your estimation invalid
Nigga, what do you think an estimate IS? "guess" is not the same as "pull numbers out of your ass".

>>8911609
>self-animated material
What does this even mean?

>>8911610
Still waiting for a percentage and an explanation of how you got there.

An estimate would require something to estimate from. If you flip a coin and it lands on heads once, the logical conclusion would be that it lands on heads 100% of the time. Do you see how ridiculous it is to estimate like this?

>our current understanding of the universe is that it is infinite
>as such, there would be infinite planets
>we know that at least one planet contains life as we understand life
>we have a subset larger than zero of an infinite set
>since the set is infinite, the subset must also be
>there are infinite planets with life

;)

>>8911616
are you retarded, son?

>>8911617
I would agree with this if we actually knew the universe was infinite with infinite matter, but we don't. There is a limited amount of energy in the big bang, even if the space is infinite, it is irrelevant.

>>8911617
I like this one

>>8911618
Not an argument.

>>8911619
I added that blinkey face since Poe's law states that you should, or someone might take you seriously.

With my serious face, I think the very notion of aliens is an hopeless endeavor. The distances in space and time are simply too huge.

>>8911553
Why do so many otherwise "logical" people assume that "life on other planets" means intelligent ayyliums? "Life" only has to be something as simple as bacteria, and maybe even less than that. It basically just has to grow and reproduce.

>>8911625
I agree with this, however it's not an argument against OP if that's what it was intended to be.

>>8911616
>Still waiting for a percentage and an explanation of how you got there.
You are not going to get any, for I am not a biologist.

>If you flip a coin and it lands on heads once, the logical conclusion would be that it lands on heads 100% of the time. Do you see how ridiculous it is to estimate like this?
Did you read >>8911561 at all? Because that's exactly how I said this does NOT work.

>>8911670
>the estimates are based on a detailed understanding of biology and biochemistry
>I am not a biologist

>>8911553

100% of earth like planets we've visited have life, those odds are pretty good

>>8911691
>100% of coins flipped only once land on that side every time

>>8911678
Yup, you heard correctly. Apparently a person can understand how biologists do things without being one themselves. Amazing, right?

>>8911573
>No one understands biology and biochemistry to the point of knowing how to create new life from no life.
you don't

>>8911930
I know.

>>8911614
it means chemical reactions giving rise to macro organisms that interact with their environments, presumably to reproduce copies of themselves.

>>8911553
>Why do so many otherwise "logical" people say that it's likely there is life on other planets?
>>8911617
/thread
Doesn't matter if the universe is or isn't infinite, our current accepted evidence says it is and based on that we can argue that almost surely life exists somewhere else in the universe, until some other evidence comes and we understand that the universe is not infinite anymore. But until then, the universe is infinite for all intents and purposes, and somewhere else life is likely to be.

>>8911982
Infinite space and infinite matter are different things. There's nothing to suggest there is infinite matter. The big bang was finite.
>almost surely
>likely
You obviously don't even understand infinite yourself so why are you talking about it?

>>8911553
Organic molecules form in a vacuum. Life is likely. Intelligent life less so. Intelligent life ever existing close enough in time and space to make contact with us, much much less so. But life as we define it is almost certainly elsewhere.

>>8912051
It looks like you are the one that doesn't know what you are talking about.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cosmological_principle
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Almost_surely
All of these are accepted scientific ideas, and that's why logical people believe in them. Some may even disagree on some, but that is a deviation of the scientific consensus and it's nothing but a belief until proved otherwise.

because pilots and astronauts see ufos all the damn time
because ufos are caught on radar traveling at excessive speeds
>and if you don't care about any of that
because the universe is big
because we exist
because even within our own solar system multiple planets possess water
did I mention how big and old the universe is? pretty sure I did

>>8912120
How do you arrive at almost certainly when you don't know the probability of life occurring?

>>8912120
Once life evolves and leaves the planet, timescales don't matter. It will expand via alleopatric speciation. The argument that it's impossible they are already here is actually rather illogical.

>>8912188
Why do you keep posting the same question when the answer has been posted over and over?

The universe is INFINITE.

This discussion is over.

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If aliens don't real, then how do you explain pic related?

Surprised nobody mentioned Drake's equation. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Drake_equation

it's completely trivial and useless, but still

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there's some crazy shit out there. I can sense it

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=XURasVfPyFk

>>8912205
For low tier structural engineers, pyramids are simply the only thing that will remain after a few thousand years.

>>8911553
Life as we know it is made of some the must common elements in the universe.
We have found thousands of earth like planets and we know they're pretty much around every star in the galaxy.
We have found organic materials in multiple places in our solar system alone.

Sure it's not 100% definite PROOF, but if we really are the only life in the universe, it'd find it vastly more shocking than if we aren't.

>>8912188
Much more easily than you arrive at "you cannot say anything about it logically" when the chemical conditions necessary for life are incredibly abundant in an infinite universe.

>>8911553
Because "logical" understand that it's mathematical heavily improbable that life doesn't exist

>>8911553
logical people don't shitpost about ayy lmaos or spend their time talking about unfalsifiable bullshit

It's completely logical that there is life on other planets. It's difficult to comprehend the numbers you're playing with, but reason and logic easily point to ET.

>500 billion stars in the galaxy
>planets orbiting at least 75% of stars
>at least 100 billion galaxies (probably many more)
>billions of years of existence

Even if there isn't life in the universe somewhere else right now, there probably was a billion years ago, or two billion, or seven billion.

It's like when faggots tell me .9 repeating isn't 1.

>>8912289
Can you formalize this mathematically?

>>8911553
The fact we exist means life is possible meaning alien life must exist somewhere in this 92 billion light years expanse of existence.

>>8912301
None of that is relevant when you don't know the probability for life though. You cannot draw probability from a single occurrence. All the numbers you said are irrelevant until you have an idea of probability of life. It maybe be a extremely uncommon thing, and maybe it's difficult for you to comprehend how uncommon something can be.

Example: What is the probability that the universe will be in the exact same state it is now? Basically 0 chance of it ever happening again, however it did happen once. You can't just assume life is common just because it happened once, we don't know the exact cause of life or would be able to recreate it in a lab.

>>8912333
Not that guy but, we have found organic materials in other parts of our solar system alone.

Life as we know it is made of some the most common elements in the universe.

Take that plus the vast scale of the universe, don't you think it's a bit of a stretch, with all of these factors, to just assume only a single, extremely common type of rock developed life?

>>8912205
>"Hey, Cheif Engineer Ooga"
>"Yes, God Emperor Booga?"
>"I want upsies"
>"Alright, we'll build you a big staircase so you can go more upsies than anyone else"
>"But staircase that big fall down"
>"Alright, we build four staircases next to each other so that they can't fall down"
>"Ok"

>>8911553
I think it is is entirely possible even when you consider how precise and complex the conditions for life have to be due to how vast the universe is. Of coarse if it does exist; most would be very low level life.

I'm sure that sentient life even exists somewhere on some planet or moon. It's even possible that sentient life advanced enough to form some form of space travel is also out there.

I don't believe we have ever been visited or ever will though.

>>8912359
Yes it's stupid to assume that, but it's equally stupid to assume life exists elsewhere. You are thinking about it illogically.

The most convincing evidence for the non-existence of aliens is the fact that they haven't yet probed my anus.

>>8912395
Of course it's possible, we exist. My issue is when people say it's probable without thinking about it logically. The vastness of the universe doesn't matter.

>>8911553
The emergence of life seems to be a consequence of synergy given the right boundary conditions. I'm not claiming to have any theoretical evidence but it seems likely that it would emerge more than once given a really, really big universe. Another case of rationally obtained truth, empiricism BTFO.
>>8911573
>create
>life
Lmao no. Life is an emergent property of dynamical systems. We understand abiogenesis enough to understand how life emerges.
>>8911609
I philosophize about that a lot
I'd define life as a system of constraints that produce a mind sensu biosemiosis capable of interpreting and acting within its environment in order to maintain the conditions for life.

OP, you're absolutely right, but you're wasting your time. These people get their pants in a knot whenever anyone challenges the fedora religion

>>8912178
Once my friend was telling me about his aunt's friend who was a pilot and saw an alien in a cockpit on a ufo look right at him when he was flying. His gf then starts freaking out and covering her ears while yelling " I don't believe in that stuff it's not in the bible". This was somebody who was a hard drug addict that regularly had premarital sex and never went to church or knew anything about her claimed religion.

>>8912406
Why is illogical? I look at the factors we know probably has an effect on the emergence of life and if you accept these factors it's pretty logical to assume there's life elsewhere.

>>8912507
Even with the same conditions Earth had when life emerged we don't know how common it is for life to emerge, so you can't extrapolate. You can say things like "life is more likely to exist with these conditions" but you can't say how likely, just relatively likely.

>>8912529
Your argument boils down "but we can't be COMPLETELY SURE so we can't assume ANYTHING"

We can't be completely sure of anything. All we can do is extrapolate the data we have and try to make predictions from that, even if there's a lot we don't know.

So far, the data we have seem to indicate that at least simple life should be somewhat common in the universe. There's a shit ton of data we don't have but until that data is obtained, I'm personally sticking to this conclusion.

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>>8911553
1) There's a lot of other planets. Like trillions upon trillions upon trillions of them - cuz there's a whole lotta other galaxies (trillions upon trillions of them), and all observations indicate that planets seem to be the rule for stars, rather than the exception.

2) We've some vague ideas as to the requirements for life. We know that those requirements not only can occur elsewhere, but are more likely to occur more often, and recur more often, in other solar systems. (Short lived yellow dwarves are not the best stars for this around. Red dwarves are, and they are much more common, as well as more likely to have rocky planets.)

3) We're kinda out in the sticks of our own galaxy. There's a lot more potential life sustaining stars towards the core than out here on the rim.

4) The only thing unique about our solar system, is that we are in it. There's nothing otherwise terribly unusual about this solar system.

Ergo, regardless of how rare it might be, there's almost certainly life on other planets. That's the only "logical" conclusion you can come to with the data we have.

Now there's a question as to whether there is any other life in our galaxy, but all the data we do have points to that being quite likely as well.

Intelligent life, as we would recognize it, is quite another bag of dildos however. We maybe the only such in this galaxy, at least. In which case, we may never encounter any such, assuming FTL isn't a thing, which it probably isn't. But when you bring civilizations into the mix, there's a whole lot more unknowns.

I mean we can't say anything with 100% certainty, we don't even know why the damn corona is so hot or what exactly ~90% of the universe is made out of... But given what we do know about so many aspects surrounding this, you can say there is life on other planets with as much certainty as you can make any other unverified claim in science.

>>8912552
What data do we have that indicates life is common?

>>8912558
Earth like planets are extremely common and can be found around most stars.

There's a shit ton of stars out there.

Organic material has been found all over our solar system, indicating it's somewhat common.

Water is pretty common.

We have found loads of planets capable of holding liquid water.

^^All of these are things we know are necessary for the formation of life as we know it.

And most importantly, nothing indicates that our little rock is somehow special in the universe.

Following the mediocrity principle, life should be at least somewhat common.

>>8912558
Not him, but none - but we have some vague ideas of what circumstances are probably required for it to occur, and somewhat less vague ideas as to what conditions are required for it to be maintained, and further we know these circumstances occur elsewhere, in some cases, likely for longer and even more favorably.

Life isn't made up of any materials that aren't common throughout the universe and the circumstances required to sustain it, aren't terribly unique.

More importantly, there's so many worlds out there, that even if life is so rare that it only occurs on, to use layman span, on "0.00000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000001%" of solar systems, then there'd still be billions and billions of solar systems sustaining life out there.

There's just no logical way, given the data we have, to claim that there's no other life in the universe, regardless of how stingy you are with the rarity. There almost certainly is - unless there's some magic involved making it unique to this planet.

>>8912574
>Organic material has been found all over our solar system, indicating it's somewhat common.
>Water is pretty common.
>We have found loads of planets capable of holding liquid water
And what is the probability of life forming on a planet that has water and organic material? That is the key point. It may be so low that it makes the number of earthlike planets in the universe virtually irrelevant when predicting the probability of alien life.

>>8912556
>regardless of how rare it might be, there's almost certainly life on other planets
No, this is not a logical statement. The probability can be so low that it's basically 0, it can also be so high that it's basically 1.
Please reread the part I quoted and tell me how that's logical.

>>8912574
All of these things answer the question "What data do we have that indicates other livable planets are common" and not the question "What data do we have that indicates life is common".

>>8912582
>More importantly, there's so many worlds out there, that even if life is so rare that it only occurs on, to use layman span, on "0.00000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000001%" of solar systems, then there'd still be billions and billions of solar systems sustaining life out there.
This is just factually wrong "given the data we have". You clearly don't understand powers of 10.

>>8912600
0 is not rare.
0 is non-existent.

"Basically 0", is still a fuckload, when you're counting planets in the universe.

If it can happen anywhere else AT ALL, there are so many planets under similar circumstances that it's going to happen countless times.

Even if life was made of some extremely rare element, odds are, there'd still be some out there, somewhere. As life is made up of extremely common elements, it's more likely that there's a whole lot of it out there.

>>8912610
You're right, it'd be several magnitudes of trillions of life sustaining planets, not billions.

Universe is big, yo.

>>8912613
I cannot respond to someone who's saying factually incorrect statements. You don't understand how probability works or maybe you can't fathom really big numbers? And you also just keep saying the universe is big, without actually knowing anything about how big it is. The size is irrelevant, if there's a finite amount of matter, you can easily think of a probability where life becomes basically 0 elsewhere in the universe. Since we don't know the probability, you can't say if it's common or not.

>>8912597
>>8912606
We have no idea about how much life there actually is but that's completely besides the point. If we don't know anything about a certain variable, it should be ignored. The variables we do have however points to life being common. Of course it's a big stretch but the alternative, that life is extremely rare and we're somehow special, is an even bigger stretch so I hold on to the most likely scenario until actual evidence proves otherwise.

>>8911553
People respect the possibility of aliens yet disrespect the notion of God. Hypocrisy is a part of humanity from what I can tell as well as contradictions.

>>8912628
>The variables we do have however points to life being common
What are these variables that points to life being common? Are you confusing this point with "livable planets" again?

>>8912625
We know something of the circumstances that are required for it to happen in regards to the various life origin theories we have. We have even more data regarding what it takes to sustain it. And we data regarding how common those circumstances are in the universe.

Finite though it maybe, there is a LOT of matter, there are a LOT of planets like ours. So many, that there are countless number of planets under effectively identical circumstances. There is simply no reasonable possibility small enough that you could reasonably place on it, for there not to be countless worlds with life on them. The best you could possibly do, is make it small enough that there might not be any other life in this galaxy, and even that would be being pretty dishonest, and you're still left with countless other galaxies.

I mean, yeah, you can take all that out of the picture, ignore it all, along with reason, and just state by pure decree "the chance is zero", but that isn't exactly logical.

>>8912631
How many livable planets there are is directly proportional to how much life there is, no matter the chance of life actually developing. Literally no matter what number you give on the chance of life, it's still true that if a set has 100 livable planets, it's twice as likely to develop life than a set of 50 planets.

However, no one can give me a number on that right now. We do know that there's a fuck huge ton of livable planets out there though, and relatively densely to, so there is proportionally a fuck huge bigger chance that there's life out there. Until you give me an actual number, I will conclude that life should be common.

>>8912662
You just keep saying what's reasonable, but you have no actual data for what's reasonable and what's not. Also I never said that the chance is zero, my entire point so far has been that you cannot logically state whether it's probable or not probable, just that it's possible.

> The best you could possibly do, is make it small enough that there might not be any other life in this galaxy, and even that would be being pretty dishonest, and you're still left with countless other galaxies.

This is a good example of your stupidity, you're just randomly making up numbers here. You have no idea what you're talking about.

Life is improbable and animal life is absurdly improbable, it took a billion years before the first eukaryotes emerged, it was a mere accident, it might never have happened.

>>8912681
If there are 50 planets with x% chance of occurrence and 100 planets with x% chance of occurrence, you still cannot say anything about it being probable or not. x is still undefined. Your logic doesn't make sense, the more planets the more probable life is, sure, relative to less planets it's more probable, but that's completely irrelevant until x is defined.

>>8912694
Not that guy but you're making up numbers to. You're assuming there's some grand mechanism that almost completely prevents life from developing, even when all the conditions are right for it. You're assuming that the development of life is so astronomically improbable that we are the only ones so far. Your number is just as much of an asspull as any other.

Besides, we have no evidence of such a mechanism existing so the argument is irrelevant anyway.

>>8912714
Literally in the post you quoted:
>my entire point so far has been that you cannot logically state whether it's probable or not probable, just that it's possible

>>8912662
So you are an expert at calculating probabilities? The size of the universe is dwarfed by seemingly simple things. The number of legal chess positions is greater than the number of elementary particles in the universe. I don't see how you can criticize someone for not being awed by the size of the universe when compared to the complexity of forming life. We have no computers that can simulate atoms in a way that allows us to discover the probability of life occurring, so how can you so easily dismiss the complexity required to form life?

>>8911553
I somewhat agree with you OP.
To say there's certainly life without any evidence because "We just haven't found where it is" is religious thinking.

Yes our core components are uncommon but we have no idea what triggered our abiogenesis and that event might be incredibly rare or impossible in the other areas that fit our required composite element makeup.

Looking for evidence is fine, just baselessly asserting there is is fine as long as you don't shit on religion for doing the same thing, otherwise it's hypocrtiical.

>>8912711
>If there are 50 planets with x% chance of occurrence and 100 planets with x% chance of occurrence, you still cannot say anything about it being probable or not.
Yes I can. I can say one is more probable than the other.

You're under this weird idea that unless you have every single variable clearly defined, you can't make any useful assumptions or conclusions. If this logic was true, science would've never happened and even banging rocks together would've been to advanced for us.

Science works with unknown variables constantly. We have to. And the way we do that is be following the variables we do have and see what conclusions we can draw from those.

Right now we don't have a lot of variables defined as to how common life should be. My point is that the variables we DO have points towards life being common.

>>8911553
>Why do so many otherwise "logical" people say that it's likely there is life on other planets?
too many brainlets on this planet.
>>8911561
point proven.

>>8911553
>Given the data that we have

Induction problem there, brainlet.

>>8912694
>you cannot logically state whether it's probable or not probable, just that it's possible.
That's all OP asked for.

If it's possible, at all, there's more than enough planets out there to make it a statistical inevitability.

If you want numbers, fine, we know there's about 100 billion stars, just in our galaxy (which is kinda on the small side). So far as we can tell, most of those stars have planets, averaging around a dozen. Kornreich's most conservative estimate gave us 10 trillion galaxies in the observable universe, and then Hubble bumped that number to perhaps a billion trillion. On top of that, the CMB suggests there are 90 times more galaxies than which we can see within the observable universe.

So we have... A nigh infinite number of galaxies, each containing hundreds of billions of stars. Even if each star only had 1 world around it, you'd be looking at an effectively limitless number of worlds, just like ours, and if only one in a tiny fraction of a trillion of those had life, you'd still be looking at a countless number of worlds with life.

It doesn't much matter how rare you make it, there's just that many damned planets out there - any possibility at all makes it inevitable.

And given that there's nothing at all unusual about this solar system, beyond the fact that we're here, and how common the materials involved are, all indications are that life isn't rare at all.

I mean, if you wanna discuss the likelihood that there is someone with your exact genetic make up, down to the last bit of DNA coding, then we can discuss possibly likelihoods of something not existing in the universe - but even then, there are just so many worlds around, that even that, isn't an entirely null possibility.

Probably because of the sheer size of the universe alone? Probably I dunno, could be wrong.

>>8912744
>Yes I can. I can say one is more probable than the other.
I literally said that in the next sentence.
>Science works with unknown variables constantly.
Please answer this question:
x * 100 = ?

>>8912723
The evidence we DO have points to it being probable. You're dismissing evidence on the grounds that there're still things we don't know.

Of course there is, no one is arguing against that, there's a shit ton of evidence we don't have. That doesn't mean you can just dismiss the evidence we do have already.

If an ancient Greek astronomer came to the conclusion that the earth was round, would you dismiss his conclusion on the grounds that he didn't discover heliocentrims in the process or didn't get the circumference of the earth completely right?

The probability of other life in the universe is >0

The universe is enormously huge, tending to infinity

Therefore the probability of at least one extraterriestal species to exist tends to one.

>>8912753
>nigh infinite
This phrase basically sums up you're entire ignorance of probabilities. Anything that's finite is not "nigh infinite". If it's finite the unknown probability can make the chances very high or very low, we don't know. You can't possibly fathom a probability that's extremely low, but there is no proof that it would be high or low. No one has figured out how to create life yet.

>>8912772
I agree with this hypothetical, however it is only a hypothetical that the universe is infinite. As soon as it becomes finite, no matter how big, the probability becomes undefined. Do you agree?

>>8911553
how could they deduce atomic bombs could exist if there didnt exist any at the time? extrapolating from 0 atomic bombs you get get """logically""" 0 atomic bombs.

calculate the number of atomic bombs in zero atomic bombs. ill wait......

>>8912783
Right, but even if theres finite space, the space changes over time (shit moves,explodes and so on), if you let infinite time then the argument still stands

>>8912787
No one said aliens couldn't exist.

>>8912788
Unless you consider this:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Heat_death_of_the_universe

>>8912774
How about you define a mechanism that would make life so rare that out of the trillions of trillions of potentially habitable planets, only one actually developed life, based entirely on our current level of understanding?

While you work on that, I'll live with the evidence we do have.

>>8912795
You seem to be not understanding the point again. I never said it's probable or not probable, just that we can't make a statement on the probability aside from that it's greater than 0.

>>8912790
i see your neocortex has a hard ceiling on the number of levels of abstraction it can handle. pity.

>>8912774
>No one has figured out how to create life yet.
Actually, that's been done to various degrees quite a few times and quite a few different ways, the debate is more towards as to which way life actually occurred here, of which we have several different possibilities.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Abiogenesis

Suffice to say, there's more than enough worlds for any or all of those possibilities to have happened more times than you could hope to count.

>but there is no proof that it would be high or low
Again, it doesn't matter. Any chance, at all, and it's out there. There's just too many opportunities for the same shit, or even some shit close enough resulting in the same shit, for it to happen for it not to be a statistical inevitability.

It is thus logical to declare there is life elsewhere in the universe, and wholly illogical to assume otherwise.

Barring, again, magic being involved, nullifying
logic and statistics.

>>8912783
>As soon as it becomes finite, no matter how big, the probability becomes undefined.
The possibility exists, and though finite, the universe is more than large enough to make it a statistical inevitability.

>>8912797
The evidence does say it's probable.

Give me counter evidence that proves it should be improbable instead of raving on about possible evidence that could make it improbable which may or may not actually exist.

>>8912799
>Any chance, at all, and it's out there.
This is your gap in logic. Why do people have hard time imagining extreme numbers? There's infinite of them.

>>8912805
How can you be this dumb? The evidence doesn't exist that it's improbable, much the same way it doesn't exist that it's probable. I never once claimed it was or wasn't probable. It's like you're intentionally interpreting my posts wrong.

>>8912806
>Why do people have hard time imagining extreme numbers?
Because there's no evidence that the number is so extreme as you suggest it could be.

>>8912813
There's no evidence about the number at all about it being greater than 0.

>>8912788
Matter only has so much time left in which it can exist and interact, due to universal expansion and entropy. Further, you can only go back so far before life as we know it is next to impossible.

But, although the universe isn't infinite, it's more than big enough, and been cool long enough, for it to be inevitable that life has occurred elsewhere a ridiculous number of times.

If there was something unusual about the makeup of life or our solar system, maybe you could argue otherwise, but these same circumstances have been and are present in so many different places, that it's much more logical to assume it's happened elsewhere than that it hasn't.

>>8912816
except about it being greater than 0*

>>8912817
The problem is you don't actually know the exact circumstances that created life because we cannot recreate it ourselves. We can estimate certain variables about the Earth, and say these variables exist elsewhere, but until we know how to create life, we cannot say how probable it is.

>>8912809
>much the same way it doesn't exist that it's probable.
Have you been reading the thread? There's tons of evidence that life should be common, just read the thread through. You keep hanging onto "muh unknown variables" without any logic or consideration.

>>8912826
So far people have only commented about how common life sustaining planets are.

>>8912799
>Again, it doesn't matter. Any chance, at all, and it's out there.


Depends on the odds of life arising on a "suitable" planet.

If the Universe is finite, there are X number of "Suitable" planets, however" suitable" is defined.

We have no idea how likely life is to arise on such a planet.

Maybe it is one in ..0000000000X -- and life is fairly widely scattered all through the universe.

Maybe tt's almost X in X, and life will be most everywhere we look.

But maybe it is one in X0000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000. In which case we're probably it.

We have no data on which to base an estimate, other then the chance is greater than zero because it happened here.

>>8912832
And that directly correlates to how common life should be. How are you missing that fact?

>>8912824
Except we can do all of that, in multiple ways, and we know something of the size of the universe and the likelihood of the chemical requirements for biogenesis of coming together again elsewhere. The number of opportunities for such happening, throughout the entire universe, are far so large that the odds of one or more of them not having happened are statistically null.

We seem to live in a universe in which everything which exists, exists in vast numbers. If you find one of something, anything, you will find gorillions. I see no reason to assume life would be the one exception.

>>8912837
It definitely correlates, however it is still undefined. I've already said as much.

>>8912839
Except you're just making things up now. No one has ever successfully created life from non-life, and no one has ever discovered life that wasn't the same origin as us.

>>8912835
>But maybe it is one in X0000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000.
This is so absurdly low a chance, I honestly can't take you seriously if you consider that a possibility. Whatever explanation there is for this would have to be straight up magic

>>8912847
>This is so absurdly low a chance
Based on what?

>>8912835
Again, we do have theories as to how life might come about, as well as how it may have come about here. We have various ideas as to how likely it is for these chemical circumstances to happen. We know that the number of worlds like our own, in the universe as a whole, is so huge that the stale odds you have there would have to have a far more 0's than you could put in a single post before you'd get out of the realm of the life existing elsewhere being a statistical inevitability. You'd similarly, need a 1 followed by more 0's than you could fit in a hundred 4chan posts before you'd have a number large enough to list the number of planets that are likely to have developed under nearly identical circumstances to ours.

There's just too many places and ways where these same chemical interactions could have occurred, for them not to have done so. It would be a null possibility.

I suspect OP is a closet christfag.

>>8912848
Based on the fact it's so fucking low. Seriously, do you even realise how ridiculously low that number is? Can you conceive how low the probability would have to be for us to be the only living thing in the observable universe?

>>8912854
>You'd similarly, need a 1 followed by more 0's than you could fit in a hundred 4chan posts before you'd have a number large enough to list the number of planets that are likely to have developed under nearly identical circumstances to ours.
A simple google search tells us there is an estimated 1,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000 planets, so no, you're wrong.

>>8912845
We create biological materials from scratch in laboratories all the damned time, and we've even found RNA on asteroids. About the only thing we haven't done is created multi-cellular life from scratch, but everything points towards the fact that which we have created would lead to that end given sufficient time and opportunity to do so.

>>8912858
I can, it seems some people here can't.

>>8912854
Not the idiot your arguing with but you could actually write that number of zeros in a 4chan post if you count just the observable universe.

I'd still be so comsologically huge, utterly beyond our comprehension, but you could do it.

>>8912847
Even so, given the number of planets involved, you'd have to add a lot more zeros to that before life in the universe ceased to be a statistical inevitability. (And at 2000 zeroes per post, every two minutes, you'd have to add posts for most of the rest of your life.)

>>8912839
Care to provide a source for your claims, or maybe admit that you are making stuff up?

>>8912867
I ask again, can you think of any mechanism that'd make life this unlikely?

>>8912869
You honestly have no idea how big the universe is do you? Please google it before posting again, I'm begging you.

>>8912875
There is no proof either way, you are really bad at logic, please stop posting.

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>>8912417
>I'd define life as a system of constraints that produce a mind sensu biosemiosis capable of interpreting and acting within its environment in order to maintain the conditions for life.

>>8912880
We have thought of possible mechanism that would make life at least somewhat common.

There's no known mechanism that'd make it rare.

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Post 1/2
>>8912597
The question is, given the existence of these relevant materials on a planet in necessary quantities, is the step from no single cell organisms to single cell organisms something that can occur on other planets? That is to ask, is there some reason that the step from no single cell organisms to single cell organisms is unique to our planet?

I don't think there is any reason to think that that step is unique to our giant spaceball. If it was unique, then there is a 0% chance of other carbon based life.

Now, more importantly, suppose that step is not unique. Now there are two more cases. Suppose the universe is infinite. Then there are an infinite number of planets exactly like ours because every arrangement of matter occurs an infinite number of times. In fact, there are an infinite number of me and an infinite subset of them can actually grow a full beard.

Now the alternative, the universe is finite and the appearance of single cell organisms is nonzero. Since we can only see a finite amount of space, it seems irresponsible to assume that such a mind-boggling quantity of space such as infinite space exists. And even if there was infinite space, it's looking like FTL travel is only going to be a thing in mass effect. So we're probably only really interested in the space that we can see anyways. So now we're back at the main question I think. But, we don't know what conditions are necessary for the step from no single cell organisms to some exist. Without knowing that and the number of planets that satisfy our other prerequisites, it's pretty hard to come up with a concrete estimate, let alone the actual probability.

Post 2/2

My gut says life probably exists, but I generally don't rely on my gut for calculations. I think the other train of thought that I've seen in this thread is that an imperial fuckton of planets that could possibly support life exist and that there is no reason to think that the appearance of life is unique or even rare. So therefore life probably exists elsewhere. But this is wrong because there could be a 10^-10000000000000% of life occurring and 2*10^10000000000000 planets that could support life and it would still be possible for there to be no other life in the universe.

Tl;dr: We don't know the likelihood of life occurring on a planet that could support life. We don't know enough to say that earth isn't unique for spawning life. We therefore can't calculate the probability of other life existing. Although, we can estimate the probability. It's just probably an incredibly terrible estimate.

>>8912897
>>8912900
This.

>>8912630
>really makes me think....

>>8912900
>he doesnt trust his gut

Intellectual cowardice, science is made by those who walk in the dark.

>>8912915
This.

ITT: People who know math and people who are fans of Neil DeGrasse Tyson

>>8912900
>there could be a 10^-10000000000000% of life occurring
The entire argument that we are the only life out there relies on this single premise, which is what everyone in this thread is disputing.

To accept this, you'd have to assume that there's some grand physical phenomena that could produce such a low probability. An assumption that's to wild for most people to accept.

Every model we've come up with that explains abiogenesis predicts no such grand filter should exist.

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>>8912925
Ho-ho, reread what I said. I never said that I didn't trust my gut. I merely said that I don't rely on it for calculations.

>>8912945
Firstly, nobody here has said we're the only life that exists. Literally nobody, you keep arguing against that but nobody has said that.

Secondly, no theory has been able to produce life from non-life yet.

>>8912630
>People respect the possibility of aliens yet disrespect the notion of God

Are you referring to the general science community?

>>8912961
>https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Abiogenesis

>>8912971
>no theory has been able to produce life from non-life yet

>>8912973
>>8912961
What exactly would you define as life? Perhaps that's part of the problem.

>>8912961
You're missing the point.

We know what you're trying to argue, that it's illogical to assume life is common. We're disputing this on the grounds that if it isn't common it must be rare and it's illogical to assume it would be rare.

>>8912985
There's no proof either way, it's illogical to assume it's common as well.

agnostic af

>>8912961
I think I understand your problem. You don't think we can make any predictions about the abundence of life because we haven't directly observed it. Am I right?

>>8912988
There's plenty of reason to assume that and you'd know if you actually read the threat.

>>8912945
Okay, you're pretty much right. But what we're arguing in this thread is mostly just the misuse of words. We have no idea the probability of life on other planets. We just don't know enough.

What you're saying is that according to theoretical models that we're not certain even accurately represent abiogenisis, life probably exists elsewhere. Mostly due to similarities between models or something to that effect.

What we're saying is that you haven't ruled out the possibility of some strange physical phenomenon causing such an insanely low probability. You do not know enough to calculate the probability. You know enough to estimate a probability to some degree of accuracy between absurdly inaccurate and spot on. Which is cool. Just use the right goddam words and we don't need to sit here and fail to even argue what we mean.

When we have a model and we're certain it accurately models abiogenisis, then you can say life probably exists on other planets because we know how this shit works now. But we don't so we can't yet.

I really want to emphasize the distinction between probability and an estimation of probability. Probability based on physical laws is essentially irrefutable. An estimation of probability is not guaranteed to be accurate and is just the best you could do because you didn't understand the underlying phenomena fully.

>>8913000
We don't have to observe it first hand, but finding life that evolved from a separate starting point would be enough to draw conclusions from. The point is we only have one source, and we are observing it because it happened, we are the result of it, not necessarily because it's common. We can't say anything about the commonness of living organisms being created from non-living organisms.

People rarely ever look at the chemical analogue to this, but I think it's worth taking into consideration.

Let's say you have a large ocean, comprised of mostly water, since it is a substance made up of some of the most stable atoms that can arise from fission and fusion, thus making Oxygen and Hydrogen so abundant. Now let's say, from a statistical entropic perspective that those other atoms that have similar abundance due to stable weights and electronegativities that cause them to have lower energy states and are thus more abundant from fusion and fission, like carbon, phosphorous, nitrogen, oxygen, etc. are all bumping around in this ocean.

Hydrocarbons can be spontaneously generated through catalyzing metals that occur naturally, along with the acid-base reactions that can occur very easily in such a hydrous environment, with oxygen, phosphorous, metal, and sulfurous species losing and gaining protons fairly easily.

Through this random process, lipids, which are relatively non-reactive species, can form, and will clump together due to the relative hydrophobicity that's unlike the rest of the solution they're around in. Eventually, it's possible that molecules that can self-catalyze (i.e. help process copies of themselves) can occur, especially if one considers the stabilization of processes by these randomly occurring lipid sacks.

Then, by the simple process it represents, something that catalyzes the creation of itself, given the materials, will create more things that catalyze itself, increasing the relative concentration of that molecule within the solution. If, by chance, something strikes it, and allows a slightly separate form of it to self-catalyze, that will also occur. If that slightly separate form contains some functional group that can rip apart the prior version, then the equilibrium would shift towards the new version- this population change would be 'evolution'.

It's by no means difficult to imagine this process happening anywhere.

>>8913029

To add to this, it's not impossible to develop a statistical model for the likelihood of this occurring given certain astro-environmental conditions. The missing link is essentially what the first biomolecules were exactly, which could be discovered in our lifetime.

>>8913018
>What we're saying is that you haven't ruled out the possibility of some strange physical phenomenon causing such an insanely low probability.
No we haven't, and we don't have to.

Literally no one disputes what you're saying. We can't know for sure and wont until we get more data points or get a more robust understanding of abiogenesis. Are our current theories flawed? Most definitely.

That does not mean we can't make meaningful theories. Our current theories have problems but until better ones come along, we're sticking with them. Our problem is your "we can't know nothin" attitude.

Once you come up with a well defined theory that actually explains abiogenesis better, we will accept it. But until that day, we're sticking with what we have.

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>>8913029
I wish I had taken more chemistry so I could fully appreciate this. It's a pretty interesting perspective.

>>8911617
>>8911619
>>8911622
>>8911982
Except the universe isn't infinite and this is known.

>>8912630
Retard detected. We exist. We have travelled into space. We know that the possibility of finding life, even space-travelling life exists because WE have done it. We are the evidence that it is possible.

Your favourite god has zero evidence. The thousands of other gods created, which you don't believe in, are also supported by zero evidence.

No hypocrisy. Just logical reasoning.

>>8912997
Not sitting on fence about goblins.

Sitting on fence about something VASTLY more ridiculous.

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The universe rarely does anything once. The fact that we exists means that the universe probably has life somewhere else as well.
It's more likely that multiple planets with life exist or no life exists than just one planet having life on it existing because for that to happen that means the chances of life existing have to be near equal to the amount of planets that exist and it's probably not close to that. So even without knowing the chances of life existing I can safely say that it is more likely that life exists more than once than just once.
That is the same logic that let us assume other stars have planets around them because our sun is a star and has a planet around it. Even though we didn't know how likely planets are for a star we knew that the chances of it happening exactly one were less likely than it happening multiple times.

>>8911553
>Given the data that we have
You are confusing two different aspects of our mind: scientific method and curiosity.

I think it's reasonable to assume there's life outside our planet, there's also no way in proving otherwise in the lifespan of our solar system.

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>>8913068
You can't ad hominem outside of /b

>>8911617
that just means there are -1/12 total life sustaining planets

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>>8913140

>>8913140
LUL

>>8911609
>non-carbon based life form meme
wew fucking lad

>>8913068
What if "God" is the other life we find in space?

>>8912816
You're the evidence you fucking dunce.

>>8913048
What are you disputing here? I'm mostly just saying that we don't know the underlying physical phenomenon well enough to say that the probability is X. We can estimate according to these models that the probability appears to be Y. Which is a bit different.

For example, you can say given a deck of freshly shuffled 52 playing cards without the jokers, the odds of drawing anything but a red 3 is 50/52. It's irrefutable. The question of "what is the probability of life on other planets?" is more like "what are the odds of drawing the joker?" but you don't know if the joker has been removed from the deck or even how many cards are in the deck currently. You might say it looks like there are probably 54 cards in the deck but you can't calculate the theoretical probability with complete certainty with that data. The best you could do is say it's probably 2/54 for drawing the joker. Which could be wrong. It could be completely wrong. But, the best guess is 2/54.

>>8912864
So then you agree that the chances for life are at an absolute minimum, 1 out of 1,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000 aka greater than 0 like this retard has been preaching?

It's pretty interesting that he is taking such an absolute stance while simultaneously putting down everyone of the opposite opinion.

>>8913050
Retarded choice, obvious answer is bottom to gain an extra penis

>>8913166
You're literally not arguing anything we don't already know

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>>8913177

>>8911553
You're leaving out that life didn't take billions or even hundreds of millions of years to begin on Earth after it formed. Life began on Earth while the late heavy bombardment was still happening, which essentially means life on Earth began as soon as bodies of liquid water started to form that could persist for a long enough time. It began so early that many scientists believe it probably started multiple times during the late heavy bombardment and was wiped out again over and over until finally the impacts stopped being so large and frequent that life could continue to survive.

Given this information we can assume that any planet with a rocky crust and sufficient water to form persistent lakes/seas/oceans will also have life arise in a short amount of time. That simply leaves us with figuring out the number of objects in the universe with persistent liquid water in contact with rock, as well as an available source of energy (hydrothermal, chemical, solar), in order to figure out a general probability for life elsewhere in the universe.

The implications of the starting of life on Earth so soon after its formation means that Mars and Venus probably had life shortly after their formations as well, even if it didn't survive to this day, as Mars lost its atmosphere and Venus became literally hell. Likewise, Europa and Enceladus probably have life, as they contain vast amounts of liquid water in contact with rock supplied with geothermal and chemical energy, and have had those environments persistently for billions of years.

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>>8913186
yes

>>8913182
Then what were you trying to disagree about? It was rather unclear.

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>>8913197
Me too

>>8913197
>>8913211
I wonder how many people in america are suicidal but the only thing holding them back is apathy.

Like, if we had easy, painless, and instant suicide booths like on Futurama, I wonder if they would see a lot of use

I know that "i want to die" is just a dank maymay these days but it's so common it kind of makes you think, like there's this strong undercurrent of suicide idealism in millennials

>>8913200
What I'm saying is that if we have a best aproximation of something we should use it, even if it's not perfect. You can only base conclusions on things you already and not following a well reasoned conclusion because we don't know absolutely everything is dumb and unhelpful.

>>8913228
That's why jesus makes so much sense. We literally have a book, written by god himself, telling us how true the whole thing is.

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>>8913216
I'd be the first one in those boths. If they were conveniently located.

I don't really think it's as prevalent as you'd expect. At least from the people that I know, they seem like a sample that this thinking would be prevalent in. Substance using but pretty intelligent. Dissatisfied by the state of things but too apathetic to do anything. Constantly failing just enough to consistently be disappointed but not enough to cause a huge upset. Wasted potential, yet somehow they're still happy about being alive, even if they're consistently disappointed.

I bet the booths would be mostly populated by the people that had something bad happen and they feel like they have no way out. Like the I just caught my wife cheating or the somebody look at me I'm sad types. Maybe people in debt as well. The impulsive suiciders.

>>8913228
I agree. Just make sure that you mention it's an approximation and not the theoretical probability because we can't calculate that.

I'm sure the approximations are actually pretty good. It's just possible that they're not.

>>8913166
What do you think a probability IS? A probability is *exactly* a quantified version of a best guess. It is a quantitative measure of how strongly we think something of which we are uncertain, AKA exactly how uncertain we are on a topic.

>I'm mostly just saying that we don't know the underlying physical phenomenon well enough to say that the probability is X. We can estimate according to these models that the probability appears to be Y. Which is a bit different.
No, that is *exactly the same*.

>You might say it looks like there are probably 54 cards in the deck but you can't calculate the theoretical probability with complete certainty with that data. The best you could do is say it's probably 2/54 for drawing the joker. Which could be wrong. It could be completely wrong. But, the best guess is 2/54.
Yes. And we call this best guess "probability". That is what the word means.

Yes, occasionally if you are lucky you can derive a probability from nothing but very convincing first principles. In most situations outside math textbooks, things aren't so clean, and probabilities are based on imperfect interpretations of imperfect understanding and imperfect data, such as estimates as to the size of a deck of cards; and people can argue about your techniques and understanding and interpretation, and disagree about your probability. This is all good and proper, and does not mean you are not dealing with probabilities.

>>8911625
This.
I have no idea if life exists, if it's abundant, the conditions required for it to arise, etc. But if it was ever found we can assume that it's likely going to be microorganisms and not much else. If we do some baseless speculation, you could come to the conclusion that life akin to ourselves can only arise in a similar set up - after initial complex organism development (which also seems highly unlikely) then you need a highly social species, multiple factors leading to increased brain development (language, motor ability, environment mental mapping), resulting societal structures that accommodate specialisation and technological/social/cultural development. Even then, it's unlikely.

Why does everyone assume a species akin to our modern selves is the 'natural' and only conclusion to life?

It seems likely that to get something akin to us you have to have a very specific instance of life and even more specific development.

>>8913140
top kek

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>>8911553
People say god is real

>>8913158
What if god is my dick? Really makes you think...

>>8911553
Based on the laws of infinite, if we assume the universe is infinitely big, there will be an infinite number of habitable planets that we would discover if we lived long enough. In terms of probability by use of current data (the earth being one planet out of trillions), it would be absurdly unlikely that the earth is the only planet out there with intelligent life.

You're absolutely correct OP, I've been having this exact argument with people for years and it's like banging your head against a brick wall. They just keep repeating
>"b..but there's lots of planets!"

I don't know why people have such a mental block on this. Not enough consideration of the anthropic principle if you ask me

Drake equation? Although it seems like a very vague equation.

It also isn't logical to believe gravity will continue to exist tomorrow, there's nothing certain about it.

>>8913604
and very old and redundant

>>8911553

Space pussy, really.

>>8913158
If it wants our spaceship then it is no god.

>>8913544
>absurdly unlikely
seems you don't understand infinite yourself

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https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mediocrity_principle

Here's the answer OP

>>8911598
>none of what you said matters
no u

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There are enough galaxies and stars and planets that is impossible to truly comprehend the vastness of our universe. Even if planets like Earth are 1 in a million and intelligent life is also 1 in a million, we wouldn't be the only intelligent life in the Milky Way. It's estimated that the Milky Way has roughly 100 billion planets. If we are alone, it means that either the creationists or the simulated reality memesters are right.

>>8915625
Unfortunately we don't know if life developing on a planet is 1 in a million, so it's still undefined.

>>8915647

True, which is why it would be a big deal if we discovered life on Enceladus or Europa. If our system had multiple worlds with life, that would >imply the universe is teeming with life.

>>8915671
I agree.

>>8915625
What if the chance of life spontaneously arising is not 1 in a million? What if it's 1 in a quadrillion? What if it's 1 in a googolplex and the universe has expanded and contracted untold trillions of times before it eventually happened and we find ourselves here where it did?

There is no way to distinguish between any of those possibilities with the information we have.

>>8911553
What's to say there isn't life on other planets? It's merely speculation, as we still don't have definite proof to support either claim.