Whatever they are, the crucial part leading to the "therefore God" conclusion is that at some point odds must turn from "unlikely" to "impossible". That would imply a categorical change. Nobody, to my knowledge, has yet identified the location of that point. Until someone does, odds - no matter how huge - cannot metamorphose from "(incredibly extremely) unlikely" to "impossible". The "therefore God" conclusion thus ironically rests on an appeal to incredulity.Rum wrote:Steps required:
1. The chemistry for DNA to develop.
2. Evolution by natural selection to develop.
3. Self aware human beings (with language [seems to be the key] ability to develop.
4. Above beings to develop capitalism based entertainment systems in which to postulate future cosmic human endeavour in the course of offering entertainment diversion the Star Treek franchise.
5. Sad twat invents enemy alien language.
I mean - what are the odds?
I just got the life on earth 'odds' thing!
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Re: I just got the life on earth 'odds' thing!
I am, somehow, less interested in the weight and convolutions of Einstein’s brain than in the near certainty that people of equal talent have lived and died in cotton fields and sweatshops. - Stephen J. Gould
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Re: I just got the life on earth 'odds' thing!
After 800, 000, 000 years of the planetGawdzilla wrote:
Life would only take one second or so to get started
3,500,000,000 years of life on Earth (mimimum) X 365 =
1,277,500,000,000 days X 24 =
30,660,000,000 hours X 60 =
1,839,600,000,000,000 minutes X 60 =
110,376,000,000,000 seconds
doing nothing much in order to get to that
first self replicating cell dividing bit of germ
floating on the surface of the primordial sludge
A MIND IS LIKE A PARACHUTE : IT DOES NOT WORK UNLESS IT IS OPEN
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Re: I just got the life on earth 'odds' thing!
All those numbers are pretty meaningless. Once you have a mechanism with all the steps required you can do all the calculating. Papers like this will eventually show some route:
http://arxiv.org/ftp/arxiv/papers/0904/0904.0402.pdf
http://arxiv.org/ftp/arxiv/papers/0904/0904.0402.pdf
- Gawdzilla Sama
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Re: I just got the life on earth 'odds' thing!
My post represent opportunities for life to occur.
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Re: I just got the life on earth 'odds' thing!
Evolution by natural selection isn't something that develops.... it's just a consequence of the imperfect copying process of self-replicating molecules (and organisms).Rum wrote:Steps required:
1. The chemistry for DNA to develop.
2. Evolution by natural selection to develop.
3. Self aware human beings (with language [seems to be the key] ability to develop.
4. Above beings to develop capitalism based entertainment systems in which to postulate future cosmic human endeavour in the course of offering entertainment diversion the Star Treek franchise.
5. Sad twat invents enemy alien language.
I mean - what are the odds?
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Re: I just got the life on earth 'odds' thing!
We don't know what the odds of our particular flavour of life developing are. We don't know what the odds of any type of life developing are. We only have one data-point. Find other life in the solar system, even fossilised, and the odds just got a lot better. And it seems that life developed on the Earth within 500 million years of its formation - or just about as soon as it was physically possible for life to develop.
The odds probably aren't as bad as one might think...
The odds probably aren't as bad as one might think...
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Re: I just got the life on earth 'odds' thing!
And, in the entire Multiverse, only a handful of Universes have the physical parameters that allow life to evolve...
And we are inhabiting one!
Freaky, or what!
And we are inhabiting one!
Freaky, or what!
Nurse, where the fuck's my cardigan?
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Re: I just got the life on earth 'odds' thing!
No it either happens or it doesn't. But I wonder on how many planets and in how many little pools of sludge chemistry did that, only to be blasted to kingdom come by a volcano or passing meteorite.Pappa wrote:Evolution by natural selection isn't something that develops.... it's just a consequence of the imperfect copying process of self-replicating molecules (and organisms).Rum wrote:Steps required:
1. The chemistry for DNA to develop.
2. Evolution by natural selection to develop.
3. Self aware human beings (with language [seems to be the key] ability to develop.
4. Above beings to develop capitalism based entertainment systems in which to postulate future cosmic human endeavour in the course of offering entertainment diversion the Star Treek franchise.
5. Sad twat invents enemy alien language.
I mean - what are the odds?
My main point (in the OP) was that a lottery winner has the evidence in front of them (i.e. the winning ticket!) that hugely improbable things happen, so even if it turns out that life is very very rare as we know it, we know it has happened at the very least once, no matter if the odds are vanishingly small.
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Re: I just got the life on earth 'odds' thing!
The odds that life developed are precisely 1.
No matter how wooists want to slice it the odds that life, or even particular and specific examples of life, developed remain precisely 1.
No matter how wooists want to slice it the odds that life, or even particular and specific examples of life, developed remain precisely 1.
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Re: I just got the life on earth 'odds' thing!
Yes, and then the theists say that they are so small as to make the emergence of life impossible unless created by a supernatural, omniscient, omnipotent being. Therefore god.Rum wrote:My main point (in the OP) was that a lottery winner has the evidence in front of them (i.e. the winning ticket!) that hugely improbable things happen, so even if it turns out that life is very very rare as we know it, we know it has happened at the very least once, no matter if the odds are vanishingly small.
I am, somehow, less interested in the weight and convolutions of Einstein’s brain than in the near certainty that people of equal talent have lived and died in cotton fields and sweatshops. - Stephen J. Gould
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Re: I just got the life on earth 'odds' thing!
Nope. If we didn't have the right conditions here, we wouldn't be here. It's like firing an arrow at a wall with a small hole in it. If you don't hit the hole, the arrow doesn't go through. An entire army could fire arrows at the wall, and most of them would fail to go through. There would be nothing special about the arrow that does, it would just be the one that had conditions favorable to making it through.JimC wrote:And, in the entire Multiverse, only a handful of Universes have the physical parameters that allow life to evolve...
And we are inhabiting one!
Freaky, or what!
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Re: I just got the life on earth 'odds' thing!
Gawdzilla wrote:Nope. If we didn't have the right conditions here, we wouldn't be here. It's like firing an arrow at a wall with a small hole in it. If you don't hit the hole, the arrow doesn't go through. An entire army could fire arrows at the wall, and most of them would fail to go through. There would be nothing special about the arrow that does, it would just be the one that had conditions favorable to making it through.JimC wrote:And, in the entire Multiverse, only a handful of Universes have the physical parameters that allow life to evolve...
And we are inhabiting one!
Freaky, or what!

Nurse, where the fuck's my cardigan?
And my gin!
And my gin!
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Re: I just got the life on earth 'odds' thing!
What are the odds that any given multiverse would contain at least one universe that contained at least one galaxy that contained at least one star that had at least one planet orbiting it that is capable of giving rise to and supporting life?JimC wrote:And, in the entire Multiverse, only a handful of Universes have the physical parameters that allow life to evolve...
And we are inhabiting one!
Freaky, or what!
What I've found with a few discussions I've had lately is this self-satisfaction that people express with their proffessed open mindedness. In realty it ammounts to wilful ignorance and intellectual cowardice as they are choosing to not form any sort of opinion on a particular topic. Basically "I don't know and I'm not going to look at any evidence because I'm quite happy on this fence."
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-Mr P
The Net is best considered analogous to communication with disincarnate intelligences. As any neophyte would tell you. Do not invoke that which you have no facility to banish.
Audley Strange
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Re: I just got the life on earth 'odds' thing!
I am being an old fuddy-duddy, and assuming only one Multiverse...Robert_S wrote:What are the odds that any given multiverse would contain at least one universe that contained at least one galaxy that contained at least one star that had at least one planet orbiting it that is capable of giving rise to and supporting life?JimC wrote:And, in the entire Multiverse, only a handful of Universes have the physical parameters that allow life to evolve...
And we are inhabiting one!
Freaky, or what!
If an unlimited number of universes can "bud off" from it, then the odds would approach certainty, I would think...
Nurse, where the fuck's my cardigan?
And my gin!
And my gin!
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