infinite monkey theorem

[joshua 1 9]

Blind response

I think you mean 10 to the 500th power. 10:500 means a 1 in 50 chance.

As to where those failed attempts would be I have no clue. there could be multiple universes or just one that keeps repeating until something falls into place. No way to tell.

The evidence we have would point toward a universe that keeps fine tuning itself until it gets it right. The multiple universe theory is needed to sustain other theorys they have.

 

[joshua 1 9]

What kind of reply is that? You're supposed to malign my intellect, insinuate ugly things about my motives, and refuse ever to acknowledge error, all while sidestepping the issue at hand. It's like you're not even trying to fit in here.

 

[joshua 1 9]

The entire universe is full of stars that look like failed attempts to produce a planet with life on it...

Really?

 

[joshua 1 9]

What theory would that be?

And my point remains: even if there are an infinite amount of universes... how would you know? You live in this universe and have no access to any of those other universes.



First of all, assuming here for a moment that there are indeed an infinite number of universes, what exactly makes you call the infinite (minus this one universe) number of universes to be "failed" ones?

Are all the others "failed" just because you happen to exist in this one?
What standards are you using to label all those universes (an infinite number of them, even) "failed"?



"where" is a place in space. Space is an integral part of a space-time continuum. A universe.

When you step "outside" of a space-time continuum, the word "where" (as well as the word "when" for that matter), becomes a meaningless word.

We are talking about the infinite monkey theorem. So the monkey is going to churn out many many many failed universes before they are able to finally produce a functional universe according to the random theory. I just wonder who is going to clean up the monkey mess from all the failed attempts.

 

[quatona]

Really?

Not sure why you are asking.
Does an uninhabited star look like a successful attempt at producing a star with life it, to you?

 

[Belk]

The evidence we have would point toward a universe that keeps fine tuning itself until it gets it right. The multiple universe theory is needed to sustain other theorys they have.

I would agree. Though that is with the stipulation that we have no knowledge of how we would obtain evidence of multiple universes.

 

[Belk]

Not sure why you are asking.
Does an uninhabited star look like a successful attempt at producing a star with life it, to you?

Planets with life on them. A bit soon to say since we have explored exactly three of them and only one completely.

 

[joshua 1 9]

Planets with life on them. A bit soon to say since we have explored exactly three of them and only one completely.

We are looking at the known odds of there being life on other planets. People do not seem to question the ability of Las Vegas to control the odds. Why do they question that a MIT graduate can calculate the odds of finding life on other planets?

http://www.science20.com/news_relea...obability_of_life_on_other_earth_like_planets

 

[Belk]

We are looking at the known odds of there being life on other planets. People do not seem to question the ability of Las Vegas to control the odds. Why do they question that a MIT graduate can calculate the odds of finding life on other planets?

http://www.science20.com/news_relea...obability_of_life_on_other_earth_like_planets

Well, statistics is a fine art that is not exact. The probability is based on assumptions that could be wrong. However I think if it is off it is not far off. Like most of science it is a process of refining what we are able to detect to ever greater precision.

 

[ecco]

ecco:

So, if your answer is that god made no failed universes, that still leaves:
A. God made other good universes.
-or-
B. God did nothing for 99.999999999+% of his eternal existence.
I await your response.​

There is no number that you can assign to what is eternal.

I didn't assign any number to eternity. I used a very small number to try to get across the point that (as one option) god did nothing for most of his eternal existence.

Outside of the Mulitverse theory I don't give much thoughts to other universes.

I understand. However, I was trying to get your opinion as to whether god did nothing or whether he (as a second option) created other universes.

It shouldn't be too hard to actually address the question. There are only 3 options.

1. God did nothing for most of his eternal existence
2. God created other good universes before ours
3. Have no opinion

 

[Anonymous]

Of my entire post, you only responded, cryptically, to the first line. Please respond to:
I'll leave it to you to decide if god just did nothing or if god made other universes, failed, successful or otherwise.

The entire post (for the third time)...

Common christian belief is that "God is Eternal"
Common christian belief is that "God created the universe between 6000 years ago and 13+ billion years ago"

For the sake of discussion let's use the max...13+ Billion.
For the sake of discussion let's say that Eternity = Infinity.

For ease of discussion let's represent:
EternityInfinity as EI
Maximum age of our Universe as AU

Therefore, God created the (known) universe no more than AU years ago.

Apparently God did other things or no things for EI - AU (EI minus AU) years.

That's a verrrrrrrry long time. Almost as long as Eternity.

I'll leave it to you to decide if god just did nothing or if god made other universes, failed, successful or otherwise.​

Do we have any evidence that AU /= EI? As far as I am aware our current knowledge would treat them as one and the same since time exits because of space.

 

[EverettInterpretation]

We are looking at the known odds of there being life on other planets. People do not seem to question the ability of Las Vegas to control the odds. Why do they question that a MIT graduate can calculate the odds of finding life on other planets?

http://www.science20.com/news_relea...obability_of_life_on_other_earth_like_planets

--------------------------------------------------------------------------

Not really.

We are looking at what Prof Watson thinks the odds are, not what he knows the odds are.

As we can see here, in his actual science paper.

http://online.liebertpub.com/doi/abs/10.1089/ast.2006.0115?journalCode=ast

He does not know what the odds are.

You'd agree, Joshua?

Thanks,

E.I.

 

[EverettInterpretation]

Here it is in b & w, Joshua.

Structurally complex life and intelligence evolved late on Earth; models for the evolution of global temperature suggest that, due to the increasing solar luminosity, the future life span of the (eukaryote) biosphere will be “only” about another billion years, a short time compared to the ∼4 Ga since life began. A simple stochastic model (Carter, 1983) suggests that this timing might be governed by the necessity to pass a small number, n, of very difficult evolutionary steps, with n < 10 and a best guess ofn = 4, in order for intelligent observers like ourselves to evolve. Here I extend the model analysis to derive probability distributions for each step. Past steps should tend to be evenly spaced through Earth's history, and this is consistent with identification of the steps with some of the major transitions in the evolution of life on Earth. A complementary approach, identifying the critical steps with major reorganizations in Earth's biogeochemical cycles, suggests that the Archean-Proterozoic and Proterozoic-Phanerozoic transitions might be identified with critical steps. The success of the model lends support to a “Rare Earth” hypothesis (Ward and Brownlee, 2000): structurally complex life is separated from prokaryotes by several very unlikely steps and, hence, will be much less common than prokaryotes. Intelligence is one further unlikely step, so it is much less common still. Astrobiology 8, 175–185.

Or rather in red.

Watson makes a best guess of 4 difficult evolutionary steps in his model.

If he's guessing the odds, he cannot know them.

Yes?

 

[joshua 1 9]

--------------------------------------------------------------------------

Not really.

We are looking at what Prof Watson thinks the odds are, not what he knows the odds are.

As we can see here, in his actual science paper.

http://online.liebertpub.com/doi/abs/10.1089/ast.2006.0115?journalCode=ast

He does not know what the odds are.

You'd agree, Joshua?

Thanks,

E.I.

If there is life in the universe anywhere near to what we find here on earth then it is few and far in-between.

 

[AnotherAtheist]

We are looking at the known odds of there being life on other planets. People do not seem to question the ability of Las Vegas to control the odds. Why do they question that a MIT graduate can calculate the odds of finding life on other planets?

http://www.science20.com/news_relea...obability_of_life_on_other_earth_like_planets

How accurately we can calculate odds depends on how well we understand the processes/things we are calculating odds for. In Las Vegas, they have a very good understanding and full details of their games, and hence they can calculate the odds very accurately.

We don't know how likely it is that a rocky planet in the goldilocks zone will develop life, among other uncertainties. We don't know the difficulty of the evolutionay steps listed in the article. Hence, we can't come up with an estimate of the probability of there being advanced life out there that we can have good confidence in. It's still worthwhile IMHO making estimates from the information that we have, but we have to remember that they are based on limited information.

If there is life in the universe anywhere near to what we find here on earth then it is few and far in-between.

It appears that this might be the case. One question is why we haven't identified alien electromagnetic communications. However, one theory for that is that society quickly evolves to not use broadcast communications, but wired communications and satellites that don't radiate into space.

 

[DogmaHunter]

We are talking about the infinite monkey theorem. So the monkey is going to churn out many many many failed universes before they are able to finally produce a functional universe according to the random theory. I just wonder who is going to clean up the monkey mess from all the failed attempts.

Instead of just repeating your OP, could you perhaps answer my questions?

What standard are you using to label a universe as "failed"?
Is a "succesfull" universe simply a universe in which YOU exist?

 

[joshua 1 9]

How accurately we can calculate odds depends on how well we understand the processes/things we are calculating odds for. In Las Vegas, they have a very good understanding and full details of their games, and hence they can calculate the odds very accurately.

We don't know how likely it is that a rocky planet in the goldilocks zone will develop life, among other uncertainties. We don't know the difficulty of the evolutionay steps listed in the article. Hence, we can't come up with an estimate of the probability of there being advanced life out there that we can have good confidence in. It's still worthwhile IMHO making estimates from the information that we have, but we have to remember that they are based on limited information.



It appears that this might be the case. One question is why we haven't identified alien electromagnetic communications. However, one theory for that is that society quickly evolves to not use broadcast communications, but wired communications and satellites that don't radiate into space.

In Las Vegas it is extremely important that the roulette wheel they use is very well made. If there is a glitch anywhere in the wheel so that it lands on one number more often then people can take advantage of that weakness to increase their chance of winning. The other planets have an effect on the Earth from time to time when they come close enough so their gravitational field can effect us. This creates a wobble and I do not know how well science is able to predict that. So the universe can be difficult to predict because of factors we may not always understand.

In this case very rough numbers are more then adequate because the real factor is how many different things there are that makes Life on Earth so unique. We are second generation, so we are made up of elements that were produced in a star that exploded. Which really takes us to what most everyone considers to be the biggest factor of all is the timing. Even IF you can find identical conditions on another planet in the Universe just the timing alone would have to be exact. That is the solar system would have to be almost identical to our AND the age would have to be almost Identical to the age of our Solar System. There are many many other factors to take into consideration and the people who say that life on earth can be duplicated elsewhere are simply not taking into account all of the many vast variables that they need to consider. Its possible but just not very likely. Of couse it is a LOT more possible if there is a "intelligent design" it is a LOT less likely if your going by random process as your design.

People like Stephen Hawking pretty much shoot themselves in the foot. They want to believe in Aliens but the only Aliens they have are the Demons that plague them. Their theory of random chance simply would not produce the Aliens on other planets that they claim to believe in. They need to use the multi universe theory to be looking in other dimensions if they want to find their "Alien" life. Dimensions that they claim exists even though they are outside of our ability to be able to detect using the vast amount of scientific equipment that technology makes available.

 

[joshua 1 9]

Instead of just repeating your OP, could you perhaps answer my questions?

What standard are you using to label a universe as "failed"?
Is a "succesfull" universe simply a universe in which YOU exist?

Failed means unable to reproduce or sustain itself. Some life here on earth are able to clone themselves and as a result they can live forever. That is they split or divide into two identical copies of itself or even multiple identical copies of itself. As long as the conditions continue to be optimal. Most mass extinctions result when the conditions needed to support life change. A recombination is needed in order to produce generations.

 

[DogmaHunter]

Failed means unable to reproduce or sustain itself.

So what makes you think that other universe are incapable of sustaining themselves?

As for "reproduce", that's kind of a weird thing to say about a universe...
If that is an integral part of "failing", then this universe is also a "failed" universe, since it doesn't reproduce itself.

Some life here on earth are able to clone themselves and as a result they can live forever. That is they split or divide into two identical copies of itself or even multiple identical copies of itself. As long as the conditions continue to be optimal. Most mass extinctions result when the conditions needed to support life change. A recombination is needed in order to produce generations.

Now, you are talking about living things and not about universes.

If you are going to jump all around like this, discussion is futile.

 

[EverettInterpretation]

If there is life in the universe anywhere near to what we find here on earth then it is few and far in-between.

You can't really say that, Joshua.
You can believe that this is so, but you can't make a definitive claim to know this. There is a considerable difference between believing that something is so and knowing that it is so. Nobody can definitively say that they know this is so. Not you. Not me. Not Schroeder, not Watson and not Hawking. Nobody can put definitive numbers on the distances involved or the likelihood of such life occurring elsewhere. Which is why we are stuck using probability-based models and guesswork.

We have no definitive knowledge of these things.

Now, you'd be doing that fact justice by conceding that we have no definitive knowledge of these things.
So perhaps you'd like to revise your above claim accordingly?

Thanks,

E.I.