Life on Earth...

[Neogaia777]

Did we need the exact, and I mean the exact, "exact", conditions, that we had on earth, or this solar system, when life came about in the first place, for life to come about in this solar system or on this planet, in the first place...?

Or for "intelligent life" or life like us to come about in time, in the first place...?

God Bless!

Oh, and on a side note: Do you believe that intelligent life, kind of like us, existed in the past here on earth before us...? Or not...?

God Bless!

 

[Shemjaza]

Did we need the exact, and I mean the exact, "exact", conditions, that we had on earth, or this solar system, when life came about in the first place, for life to come about in this solar system or on this planet, in the first place...?

Or for "intelligent life" or life like us to come about in time, in the first place...?

God Bless!

Oh, and on a side note: Do you believe that intelligent life, kind of like us, existed in the past here on earth before us...? Or not...?

God Bless!

I don't think we have enough evidence to make any major assumptions about this. But I don't think "exact" is a reasonable assumption, but "pretty similar" might be.

We have exactly one example of life arising and exactly one example of an intelligent technological species.

Personally, given how diverse environments simple life can live in I suspect that life starting might be a whole lot easier then the step to technological intelligence.

 

[Neogaia777]

I don't think we have enough evidence to make any major assumptions about this. But I don't think "exact" is a reasonable assumption, but "pretty similar" might be.

If it's only pretty similar, then do you think there is, or ever was in the past, (in this universe) other (supposedly intelligent) life like us elsewhere in it...?

God Bless!

 

[Halbhh]

Did we need the exact, and I mean the exact, "exact", conditions, that we had on earth, or this solar system, when life came about in the first place, for life to come about in this solar system or on this planet, in the first place...?

Or for "intelligent life" or life like us to come about in time, in the first place...?

God Bless!

Oh, and on a side note: Do you believe that intelligent life, kind of like us, existed in the past here on earth before us...? Or not...?

God Bless!

Yes.

From many thousands (it's an almost compulsive hobby of mine) of astrophysics articles, there are a lot of very exact circumstances we have here on our world that are unusual, and vastly so when taken together as a group, that allowed Earth to be a very good home for an advanced species like us.

Most stars flare much worse than our sun does, and the flares typically emit huge amounts of x-rays and UV, which will eliminate life as we know it unless the habitat is shielded against these, which requires a significant atmosphere -- but not too much -- and also a significant magnetic field to help maintain that atmosphere (and even water vapor the planet has) it against ordinary solar wind over time.

For example in our own Solar System Venus shows what happens with too much atmosphere of the wrong kind, making it far hotter than it's distance from the sun would have made Earth at that distance.

Mars in contrast has lost it's water it once had because it has too little magnetic field to shield it's atmosphere form ordinary solar wind, which helped destroy Mars's water it evidently once had in surface abundance, desiccating the surface.

Next, ordinarily asteroids would bombard a planet like ours continuing on over time, some of them big enough to sterilize all life from a planet.

Baam! Life over.

Not for Earth. (though interestingly we had a big enough asteroid impact about 66m years ago to help clear out ecological niches and drive forward evolution in favor of mammals, like us and most food animals we use.)

Lucky for us -- in our system the presence of Jupiter helps reduce the amount of asteroids that come towards Earth.

But a large gas giant like Jupiter would normally tug on a small planet like Earth in a way to gradually change it's orbit over time, removing it from the habitable zone.

Except that in our solar system the presence of the other 3 gas giants -- Saturn, Uranus, and Neptune -- combine together to cancel out this effect.

This perfect configuration of planets therefore causes Earth's orbit to remain stable without migrating over vast time stretches!

That's a remarkable and rare advantage.

So far I've highlighted several special advantages we have in our solar system for life as we know it, and there are more, but it's enough already to see we cannot expect to find truly Earth like worlds out there in abundance. The typical popular science headline trumpeting 'Earth like' worlds is actually hopeful imagination based on insufficient awareness of findings in astrophysics. There might be some, but they will not be at all common, but extremely rare is my best understanding.

 

[Neogaia777]

Yes.

From many thousands (it's an almost compulsive hobby of mine) of astrophysics articles, there are a lot of very exact circumstances that are unusual, and vastly so together as a group, that allowed Earth to be a very good home for an advanced species like us.

Most stars flare much worse than our sun does, and the flares typically emit huge amounts of x-rays and UV, which will eliminate life as we know it unless the habitat is shielded against these, which requires a significant atmosphere -- but not too much -- and also a significant magnetic field to help maintain that atmosphere (and even water vapor the planet has) it against ordinary solar wind over time.

For example in our own Solar System Venus shows what happens with too much atmosphere of the wrong kind, making it far hotter than it's distance from the sun would have made Earth at that distance.

Mars in contrast has lost it's water it once had because it has too little magnetic field to shield it's atmosphere form ordinary solar wind, which helped destroy Mars's water it evidently once had in surface abundance, desiccating the surface.

Next, ordinarily asteroids would bombard a planet like ours continuing on over time, some of them big enough to sterilize all life from a planet.

Baam! Life over.

Not for Earth. (though interestingly we had a big enough asteroid impact about 66m years ago to help clear out ecological niches and drive forward evolution in favor of mammals, like us and most food animals we use.)

Lucky for us -- in our system the presence of Jupiter helps reduce the amount of asteroids that come towards Earth.

But a large gas giant like Jupiter would normally tug on a small planet like Earth in a way to gradually change it's orbit over time, removing it from the habitable zone.

Except that in our solar system the presence of the other 3 gas giants -- Saturn, Uranus, and Neptune -- combine together to cancel out this effect.

This perfect configuration of planets therefore causes Earth's orbit to remain stable without migrating over vast time stretches!

That's a remarkable and rare advantage.

So far I've highlighted several special advantages we have in our solar system for life as we know it, and there are more, but it's enough already to see we cannot expect to find truly Earth like worlds out there in abundance. The typical popular science headline trumpeting 'Earth like' worlds is actually hopeful imagination based on insufficient awareness of findings in astrophysics. There might be some, but they will not be at all common, but extremely rare is my best understanding.

Just how rare do you think it is though...?

Cause we have over two trillion Galaxies out there, in the "known" or observable universe that we can see, and each Galaxy has on average 200 billion star systems or solar systems...?

So, how rare is it...? And is it so rare, that we are the only one or ones in "all of it", or not...?

God Bless!

 

[Shemjaza]

Yes.

From many thousands (it's an almost compulsive hobby of mine) of astrophysics articles, there are a lot of very exact circumstances we have here on our world that are unusual, and vastly so when taken together as a group, that allowed Earth to be a very good home for an advanced species like us.

Most stars flare much worse than our sun does, and the flares typically emit huge amounts of x-rays and UV, which will eliminate life as we know it unless the habitat is shielded against these, which requires a significant atmosphere -- but not too much -- and also a significant magnetic field to help maintain that atmosphere (and even water vapor the planet has) it against ordinary solar wind over time.

For example in our own Solar System Venus shows what happens with too much atmosphere of the wrong kind, making it far hotter than it's distance from the sun would have made Earth at that distance.

Mars in contrast has lost it's water it once had because it has too little magnetic field to shield it's atmosphere form ordinary solar wind, which helped destroy Mars's water it evidently once had in surface abundance, desiccating the surface.

Next, ordinarily asteroids would bombard a planet like ours continuing on over time, some of them big enough to sterilize all life from a planet.

Baam! Life over.

Not for Earth. (though interestingly we had a big enough asteroid impact about 66m years ago to help clear out ecological niches and drive forward evolution in favor of mammals, like us and most food animals we use.)

Lucky for us -- in our system the presence of Jupiter helps reduce the amount of asteroids that come towards Earth.

But a large gas giant like Jupiter would normally tug on a small planet like Earth in a way to gradually change it's orbit over time, removing it from the habitable zone.

Except that in our solar system the presence of the other 3 gas giants -- Saturn, Uranus, and Neptune -- combine together to cancel out this effect.

This perfect configuration of planets therefore causes Earth's orbit to remain stable without migrating over vast time stretches!

That's a remarkable and rare advantage.

So far I've highlighted several special advantages we have in our solar system for life as we know it, and there are more, but it's enough already to see we cannot expect to find truly Earth like worlds out there in abundance. The typical popular science headline trumpeting 'Earth like' worlds is actually hopeful imagination based on insufficient awareness of findings in astrophysics. There might be some, but they will not be at all common, but extremely rare is my best understanding.

There's a whole lot that's special about Earth and the Solar system that we need for life to have happened. But the shear scale of the universe breaks down almost any "possible" situation into almost inevitable some where and some when.

That said, it also wouldn't shock me if humanity was alone as an intelligent species in our galaxy, or even the entire local group.

 

[Halbhh]

Just how rare do you think it is though...?

Cause we have over two trillion Galaxies out there, in the "known" or observable universe that we can see, and each Galaxy has on average 200 billion star systems or solar systems...?

So, how rare is it...? And is it so rare, that we are the only one or ones in "all of it", or not...?

God Bless!

Whether there are other planets truly like Earth, with stable habitats -- and there are several more key things I've not mentioned; here's another nice boon we have -- having enough water, but not too much, so that there can be both water bodies and dry land, a huge advantage to life as we know it; here's another -- having a moon that causes tides, but tides that are not too large; the list goes on.... Guessing the number of truly Earth like worlds would be quite an undertaking. Could we even do a good guessing how common it is to have a moon like ours? I'm not sure. Tiny moons are common. Bigger ones like our are not, but just how uncommon? I'm not sure that is something we can even estimate yet. I'd be unsurprised to learn Earth is pretty unique in our Galaxy, but this involves some guessing, that a moon like ours is pretty uncommon. It arose from a just-right collision with another planet it seems -- Theia (planet) - Wikipedia (and what effect did this have on helping Earth have such a nice magnetic field?)

 

[Shemjaza]

If it's only pretty similar, then do you think there is, or ever was in the past, (in this universe) other (supposedly intelligent) life like us elsewhere in it...?

God Bless!

Possible. I've never seen evidence for it though.

An expansionist space faring species that used Dyson Swarms for living space and power generation could envelop a galaxy in only a couple of million years and that would be visible from many thousands of light years away.

As the universe has gotten older, it has got safer for life and will continue to do so for billions of years.

Humans could just be extremely early and lucky.

 

[Neogaia777]

Whether there are other planets truly like Earth, with stable habitats -- and there are several more key things I've not mentioned; here's another nice boon we have -- having enough water, but not too much, so that there can be both water bodies and dry land, a huge advantage to life as we know it; here's another -- having a moon that causes tides, but tides that are not too large; the list goes on.... Guessing the number of truly Earth like worlds would be quite an undertaking. Could we even do a good guessing how common it is to have a moon like ours? I'm not sure. Tiny moons are common. Bigger ones like our are not, but just how uncommon? I'm not sure that is something we can even estimate yet. I'd be unsurprised to learn Earth is pretty unique in our Galaxy, but this involves some guessing, that a moon like ours is pretty uncommon. It arose from a just-right collision with another planet it seems -- Theia (planet) - Wikipedia (and what effect did this have on helping Earth have such a nice magnetic field?)

If earth, or other planets like earth are very highly uncommon, but not impossibly rare, are the rest of the planets "ours for the taking or making" basically, (inhabiting, ect), that might not have intelligent life on them or even the possibility of such by itself, but might have survivable conditions for us and what we have now, or what we know now, and/or the way we are now, or not, or what...? And are they meant for us for that purpose or not...?

God Bless!

 

[Halbhh]

If earth, or other planets like earth are very highly uncommon, but not impossibly rare, are the rest of the planets "ours for the taking or making" basically, (inhabiting, ect), that might not have intelligent life on them or even the possibility of such by itself, but might have survivable conditions for us and what we have now, or what we know now, and/or the way we are now, or not, or what...? And are they meant for us for that purpose or not...?

God Bless!

Since you are only asking for my speculation, 2 things come to mind right off -- we don't yet have any sound theory (with support) that we could ever travel to other stars in any speed except a 'generation ship' kind of speed (and even that's a very optimistic view of our continued progress); the science speculations about wormholes and ftl and such are actually very out-there speculations. So, therefore it seems unlikely we could technically be able to travel to a even a lucky find of a semi-ok looking planet say 40 light years away (and that's a very extremely optimistic idea there is one so close!), in less than many hundreds of years, for instance 400 years, being optimistic. The 2nd opinion I have is that some dramatic prophecies in the Bible that are not yet fulfilled will come to fruition before hundreds more years.

 

[Shemjaza]

If earth, or other planets like earth are very highly uncommon, but not impossibly rare, are the rest of the planets "ours for the taking or making" basically, (inhabiting, ect), that might not have intelligent life on them or even the possibility of such by itself, but might have survivable conditions for us and what we have now, or what we know now, and/or the way we are now, or not, or what...? And are they meant for us for that purpose or not...?

God Bless!

A species with the technology to travel to other planets/stars is much better equipped to both live there or adapt it to their needs then any hypothetical natural life forms.

With very little extra technology we could set up permanent living space in space stations or Mars and Luna bases... and those are places I'd very much doubt we'd find life.

 

[Shemjaza]

Since you are only asking for my speculation, 2 things come to mind right off -- we don't yet have any sound theory (with support) that we could ever travel to other stars in any speed except a 'generation ship' kind of speed (and even that's a very optimistic view of our continued progress); the science speculations about wormholes and ftl and such are actually very out-there speculations. So, therefore it seems unlikely we could technically be able to travel to a even a lucky find of a semi-ok looking planet say 40 light years away (and that's a very extremely optimistic idea there is one so close!), in less than many hundreds of years, for instance 400 years, being optimistic. The 2nd opinion I have is that some dramatic prophecies in the Bible that are not yet fulfilled will come to fruition before hundreds more years.

If you can make a ship to travel between the stars you can trivially make space stations or planetary colonies in our system.

 

[Romans 8]

I spent much wasted time on the topic of aliens. There are no such thing as aliens nor flying saucers, nor life on other planets. Demons are masquerading as aliens, just another trick they pull.

 

[Neogaia777]

I hate to post this and bail, but I can't be on here doing this very long tonight or for now, I was going to just start it then go to bed and check it tomorrow or something, which is what I'm going to have to do right now, for now...

Thank You all for your replies, I'm going to check in on this tomorrow though, K...?

Goodnight,

God Bless!

 

[Halbhh]

A species with the technology to travel to other planets/stars is much better equipped to both live there or adapt it to their needs then any hypothetical natural life forms.

With very little extra technology we could set up permanent living space in space stations or Mars and Luna bases... and those are places I'd very much doubt we'd find life.

Yes. This reminds me of one more barrier to advanced intelligent civilization -- what it takes to make such advanced technology -- perhaps the most profound barrier of all. They have to manage not to destroy themselves.

That's not as easy as we might think, because it's not just today, but also in the past, one has to consider what allows civilization to arise, and then after arising continue instead of causing extinction through overpopulating or nuclear war.

Right now we know there is danger of overpopulation, possible new diseases that could collapse civilization, and finally of nuclear war.

Those are the modern dangers, but my thoughts are drawn further back in time to when we were in ancient times a species of internecine war.

What causes an ascendancy, even partial, of the saving quality of respecting the Rule of Law, instead of simply the Law of the Jungle, for a species? I think evolution pushes towards survival by taking territory and eliminating the competition. Not towards the Rule of Law at all. The king or warlord hasn't any advantage of being subject to Law (Rule of Law), but instead his advantage is to make the laws (thus really instead the Law of might makes right, the law of the jungle).

 

[Shemjaza]

Yes. This reminds me of one more barrier to advanced intelligent civilization -- what it takes to make such advanced technology -- perhaps the most profound barrier of all. They have to manage not to destroy themselves.

That's not as easy as we might think, because it's not just today, but also in the past, one has to consider what allows civilization to arise, and then after arising continue instead of causing extinction through overpopulating or nuclear war.

Right now we know there is danger of overpopulation, possible new diseases that could collapse civilization, and finally of nuclear war.

Those are the modern dangers, but my thoughts are drawn further back in time to when we were in ancient times a species of internecine war.

What causes an ascendancy, even partial, of the saving quality of respecting the Rule of Law, instead of simply the Law of the Jungle, for a species? I think evolution pushes towards survival by taking territory and eliminating the competition. Not towards the Rule of Law at all. The king or warlord hasn't any advantage of being subject to Law (Rule of Law), but instead his advantage is to make the laws (thus really instead the Law of might makes right, the law of the jungle).

Hardly universal (just look at history), but societies who take care of their populations tend to thrive compared to more top heavy or selfish societies on a similar technological level.

If people develop a sense of empathy for their fellow citizens it can help them feel that way towards foreigners and strangers as well.

 

[Kylie]

Did we need the exact, and I mean the exact, "exact", conditions, that we had on earth, or this solar system, when life came about in the first place, for life to come about in this solar system or on this planet, in the first place...?

Or for "intelligent life" or life like us to come about in time, in the first place...?

God Bless!

Oh, and on a side note: Do you believe that intelligent life, kind of like us, existed in the past here on earth before us...? Or not...?

God Bless!

No.

This is, I suspect, the Lottery Fallacy.

If you win the lottery, do you think that nobody would have won if you had not entered? Of course not. Things would have been different - somebody else would have won - it just wouldn't have been you.

If conditions had been a bit different on Earth, life would be different, yes, but it's likely that there would still be life (assuming that conditions weren't TOO different). The greater the difference in conditions, the less likely life would have been, of course. But, just as in the lottery where any specific person is very unlikely to win the prize, it's certain that SOMEONE is going to win, the chances are good that life will arise SOMEWHERE.

 

[SelfSim]

Did we need the exact, and I mean the exact, "exact", conditions, that we had on earth, or this solar system, when life came about in the first place, for life to come about in this solar system or on this planet, in the first place...?

Unknown.
We have not yet ruled out life elsewhere in the Solar System, so the sensitivity of emergent life to Earth's environmental history, is unknown.

Oh, and on a side note: Do you believe that intelligent life, kind of like us, existed in the past here on earth before us...? Or not...?

There's no objective evidence of that.
To date, what is believed or otherwise, hasn't changed the state of that lack of evidence.

 

[Neogaia777]

No.

This is, I suspect, the Lottery Fallacy.

If you win the lottery, do you think that nobody would have won if you had not entered? Of course not. Things would have been different - somebody else would have won - it just wouldn't have been you.

If conditions had been a bit different on Earth, life would be different, yes, but it's likely that there would still be life (assuming that conditions weren't TOO different). The greater the difference in conditions, the less likely life would have been, of course. But, just as in the lottery where any specific person is very unlikely to win the prize, it's certain that SOMEONE is going to win, the chances are good that life will arise SOMEWHERE.

Yeah, and, it arose here, so what does that mean...? (and I'd like to know your point as well)...

Is that you think everything was random, or is random chance maybe...?

God Bless!

 

[SelfSim]

... If you win the lottery, do you think that nobody would have won if you had not entered? Of course not. Things would have been different - somebody else would have won - it just wouldn't have been you.

Depends on the assumed rules of said 'lottery'.

If conditions had been a bit different on Earth, life would be different, yes, but it's likely that there would still be life (assuming that conditions weren't TOO different). The greater the difference in conditions, the less likely life would have been, of course. But, just as in the lottery where any specific person is very unlikely to win the prize, it's certain that SOMEONE is going to win, the chances are good that life will arise SOMEWHERE.

Except we don't have a clue as to what those chances are in the actual case of life emerging here on Earth.