New video by Anton Petrov reviewing a new paper analyzing how statistically typical our solar system is compared to other star systems. Before we started discovering exoplanets, scientists,...
New video by Anton Petrov reviewing a new paper analyzing how statistically typical our solar system is compared to other star systems. Before we started discovering exoplanets, scientists, operating on the Copernican principle, tended to assume that most systems would have arrangements similar to our own. But it seems now that our system may be very, very unusual, and this has some very obvious implications for the Fermi Paradox and a potential solution to it, the Rare Earth Hypothesis:
On one hand, I am tempted to say: "these preconditions to life that the Rare Earth theory proposes are valid only if we don't consider life existing in a different form than we know" But if I view...
On one hand, I am tempted to say: "these preconditions to life that the Rare Earth theory proposes are valid only if we don't consider life existing in a different form than we know"
But if I view life as a physical phenomenon that behaves consistently across the observable universe (no different than gravity or the strong nuclear force, let's say) then it does seem plausible for it to exist only in one form, subject to specific conditions.
On the other hand, this theory strikes me as them looking at a platypus and saying "it's a mammal, therefore it must have come from a womb". Basically, inferring some necessary preconditions, simply based on our current experience, that in the end turn out to be false.
In any case, it's interesting stuff; but due to the difficulty of obtaining evidence, I would view this subject as more philosophical than practical. As a side note, reading through all the preconditions necessary for current life on Earth reminds me just how unlikely & absurd it is for me to be conscious right now.
Well said! I love discussing these types of theories because they’re thought-provoking, but it’s really all conjecture. N = 1 on all these theories. Life on earth. We can make intelligent guesses,...
Well said! I love discussing these types of theories because they’re thought-provoking, but it’s really all conjecture. N = 1 on all these theories. Life on earth. We can make intelligent guesses, but we have no idea what is actually out there and what it looks like.
The incomprehensible distances of a universal scale make even math based theories like the Drake equation little more than thought experiments. Still, it is amazing we’ve learned what we have, and I’ll always be interested in hearing/discussing theories.
It’s funny you mention that last point, because especially lately I’ve been unable to shake this deep sense of how overwhelmingly absurd existence and consciousness is. I’ll be doing something random like washing dishes then suddenly get hit. I’ll hold out my hands in front of me and just think “what the fuck.” It’s so bizarre this experience all somehow happened — reality, my own conscious mind, everything. Absurd all the way down.
When we detect things we use the wavelengths given off by certain elements so we guess that measuring x wl = y element and that matches up with what we have on earth. So by extension the building...
When we detect things we use the wavelengths given off by certain elements so we guess that measuring x wl = y element and that matches up with what we have on earth.
So by extension the building blocks are the same all over the universe so it’s not hard to imagine the same way life happens here is how it must happen in other places.
Maybe the only life forms possible in this configuration of the universe is “carbon based”
The idea that we can see all this stuff https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Astrochemistry makes me think that we may be one of few separated by the vastness of space and time and may never cross paths. It’s still pretty magical that little chimp organisms like us have figured out as much as we have so far.
Life as we know it occurred because of the solar system being the way it is giving rise to Earth with its moon precisely the way it is. Everything from the sun to jupiter to Mars contributed in...
Life as we know it occurred because of the solar system being the way it is giving rise to Earth with its moon precisely the way it is. Everything from the sun to jupiter to Mars contributed in very real measurable ways to life forming the way it did on this planet.
Life is common, but intelligent life isn't a termination point nor is it even a requirement. It's a perk of a stable planet after some chance ELEs reset things in our favor.
The rare earth hypothesis is the one I back hard because after so many millions of years on this rock there's just us for a fraction of time that only recently figured out how to make buildings taller than 3 stories.
We needed to evolve this way in order to manipulate tools to manipulate the resources here in order to build, write, and everything else.
There may be an Einstein level whale out there somewhere but a whole lot of good that'll do in terms of building and communicating back to us.
There may be a Stephen hawking wolf out there, but again, it won't be going into space any time soon.
Sci fi intelligent fungus across the planet somewhere? Great, tell me how it'll manipulate the electromagnetic spectrum.
As an aside, saying "but you don't know it can't do that" isn't a very good argument because while I can't make that claim, you or whoever don't even have to bother explaining it either.
Rare earth is why we're alone. Second to that would be the laws of physics are pretty absolute across the universe and no one can get around them.
I agree with the rare earth theory when explaining why we, specifically, are here on Earth. And it does seem like the most viable theory so far for explaining the seeming lack of observable life...
I agree with the rare earth theory when explaining why we, specifically, are here on Earth. And it does seem like the most viable theory so far for explaining the seeming lack of observable life in the Universe.
But the base logic behind it isn't different than affirming "the Sun will rise tomorrow because it has always risen in the past". This knowledge is based on what we as a species have observed empirically, using our intelligence.
And indeed, there will come a time when the Sun will stop rising, by virtue of not existing anymore. We can also predict this.
But witnessing this future event will come as a shock to the Stephen Hawking Wolf, simply because he has not discovered astronomy and the laws of physics. And he may never discover it. Therefore, I can ask: what haven't we discovered yet?
Saying that we have discovered all there is places us at the end-post of evolution, the goal towards which all life marches on. I think you can see that this sounds arrogant and does not foster innovation.
The alternative then is that there is some undiscovered knowledge out there, currently inaccessible to us. We will either discover it just as we have done in the past, while invalidating some previously held "final knowledge", or it will forever remain inaccessible to us, just as astronomy remains inaccessible to a wolf.
In conclusion, "but you don't know it can't do that" should not be interpreted as a refutation of whatever subject, but as an encouragment towards keeping an open mind and not being dogmatic about our currently held collective knowledge. This knowledge is a tool for exploration; it has proven itself reliable and accurate so far, and I do believe that the scientific method & its self-correcting capabilities will remain the way to push forward into the unknown.
But you should not forget that plenty of smart people have lived and died while knowing as an absolute fact that the Sun revolves around the Earth, that germs do not exist, that space & time are separate, and so on.
I think you're saying that I'm saying we know everything there is to know about life and evolution. That I'm not accepting wild and unknown things. This isn't true. I want to be clear that...
Saying that we have discovered all there is places us at the end-post of evolution, the goal towards which all life marches on. I think you can see that this sounds arrogant and does not foster innovation.
I think you're saying that I'm saying we know everything there is to know about life and evolution. That I'm not accepting wild and unknown things. This isn't true. I want to be clear that intelligent bipedal life is a fluke and a perk. Life with stomachs like ours and thumbs and speech and memory and stamina is a fluke and we're lucky to be alive.
Out of a planet of millions of different species we have exactly one sample of something that can see things outside our planet.
By saying we are the only things that can do this it's not saying nothing else can ever, I welcome someone to explain to me another type of creature that could go into space without using human like tools. I can't think of a creature, but maybe you can.
But you should not forget that plenty of smart people have lived and died while knowing as an absolute fact that the Sun revolves around the Earth, that germs do not exist, that space & time are separate, and so on.
This always comes up as well especially when the claim that we won't circumvent the laws of physics is made. A false comparison is made between how man didn't think he could fly to how man can't go faster than the speed of light.
Not knowing how the laws work and being ignorant of the science only to then discover the math errors and the laws is not the same as knowing the math and the laws and then breaking them.
Not flying was ignorance of how flight worked, something always available to us but we just didn't know how. Not going faster than light is not because we're ignorant, it's because no natural phenomenon anywhere has been observed to go faster than light unless we slow light down. We have a sample size of 0 on things violating this principle and a mountain of math proven the planet over telling us tie speed of light is final.
This doesn't mean there's a discovery out there waiting for us to find it on some planet with some rare material that will allow us to break pretty hard law of physics. It means we should be looking to abide by the law and still travel, or sidestep the law and cheat.
But breaking that law isn't a thing that can even be conceived mathematically. Flight was proven many times over, we just didn't do it yet.
Human life is absolutely unique. We are precious. This planet and this solar system is precious. There's probably others like it or even exotic versions of it but they are far and few. Intelligent space faring life is extremely rare but life in general is absolutely common and is probably everywhere.
New video by Anton Petrov reviewing a new paper analyzing how statistically typical our solar system is compared to other star systems. Before we started discovering exoplanets, scientists, operating on the Copernican principle, tended to assume that most systems would have arrangements similar to our own. But it seems now that our system may be very, very unusual, and this has some very obvious implications for the Fermi Paradox and a potential solution to it, the Rare Earth Hypothesis:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rare_Earth_hypothesis
On one hand, I am tempted to say: "these preconditions to life that the Rare Earth theory proposes are valid only if we don't consider life existing in a different form than we know"
But if I view life as a physical phenomenon that behaves consistently across the observable universe (no different than gravity or the strong nuclear force, let's say) then it does seem plausible for it to exist only in one form, subject to specific conditions.
On the other hand, this theory strikes me as them looking at a platypus and saying "it's a mammal, therefore it must have come from a womb". Basically, inferring some necessary preconditions, simply based on our current experience, that in the end turn out to be false.
In any case, it's interesting stuff; but due to the difficulty of obtaining evidence, I would view this subject as more philosophical than practical. As a side note, reading through all the preconditions necessary for current life on Earth reminds me just how unlikely & absurd it is for me to be conscious right now.
Well said! I love discussing these types of theories because they’re thought-provoking, but it’s really all conjecture. N = 1 on all these theories. Life on earth. We can make intelligent guesses, but we have no idea what is actually out there and what it looks like.
The incomprehensible distances of a universal scale make even math based theories like the Drake equation little more than thought experiments. Still, it is amazing we’ve learned what we have, and I’ll always be interested in hearing/discussing theories.
It’s funny you mention that last point, because especially lately I’ve been unable to shake this deep sense of how overwhelmingly absurd existence and consciousness is. I’ll be doing something random like washing dishes then suddenly get hit. I’ll hold out my hands in front of me and just think “what the fuck.” It’s so bizarre this experience all somehow happened — reality, my own conscious mind, everything. Absurd all the way down.
When we detect things we use the wavelengths given off by certain elements so we guess that measuring x wl = y element and that matches up with what we have on earth.
So by extension the building blocks are the same all over the universe so it’s not hard to imagine the same way life happens here is how it must happen in other places.
Maybe the only life forms possible in this configuration of the universe is “carbon based”
The idea that we can see all this stuff https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Astrochemistry makes me think that we may be one of few separated by the vastness of space and time and may never cross paths. It’s still pretty magical that little chimp organisms like us have figured out as much as we have so far.
Life as we know it occurred because of the solar system being the way it is giving rise to Earth with its moon precisely the way it is. Everything from the sun to jupiter to Mars contributed in very real measurable ways to life forming the way it did on this planet.
Life is common, but intelligent life isn't a termination point nor is it even a requirement. It's a perk of a stable planet after some chance ELEs reset things in our favor.
The rare earth hypothesis is the one I back hard because after so many millions of years on this rock there's just us for a fraction of time that only recently figured out how to make buildings taller than 3 stories.
We needed to evolve this way in order to manipulate tools to manipulate the resources here in order to build, write, and everything else.
There may be an Einstein level whale out there somewhere but a whole lot of good that'll do in terms of building and communicating back to us.
There may be a Stephen hawking wolf out there, but again, it won't be going into space any time soon.
Sci fi intelligent fungus across the planet somewhere? Great, tell me how it'll manipulate the electromagnetic spectrum.
As an aside, saying "but you don't know it can't do that" isn't a very good argument because while I can't make that claim, you or whoever don't even have to bother explaining it either.
Rare earth is why we're alone. Second to that would be the laws of physics are pretty absolute across the universe and no one can get around them.
I agree with the rare earth theory when explaining why we, specifically, are here on Earth. And it does seem like the most viable theory so far for explaining the seeming lack of observable life in the Universe.
But the base logic behind it isn't different than affirming "the Sun will rise tomorrow because it has always risen in the past". This knowledge is based on what we as a species have observed empirically, using our intelligence.
And indeed, there will come a time when the Sun will stop rising, by virtue of not existing anymore. We can also predict this.
But witnessing this future event will come as a shock to the Stephen Hawking Wolf, simply because he has not discovered astronomy and the laws of physics. And he may never discover it. Therefore, I can ask: what haven't we discovered yet?
Saying that we have discovered all there is places us at the end-post of evolution, the goal towards which all life marches on. I think you can see that this sounds arrogant and does not foster innovation.
The alternative then is that there is some undiscovered knowledge out there, currently inaccessible to us. We will either discover it just as we have done in the past, while invalidating some previously held "final knowledge", or it will forever remain inaccessible to us, just as astronomy remains inaccessible to a wolf.
In conclusion, "but you don't know it can't do that" should not be interpreted as a refutation of whatever subject, but as an encouragment towards keeping an open mind and not being dogmatic about our currently held collective knowledge. This knowledge is a tool for exploration; it has proven itself reliable and accurate so far, and I do believe that the scientific method & its self-correcting capabilities will remain the way to push forward into the unknown.
But you should not forget that plenty of smart people have lived and died while knowing as an absolute fact that the Sun revolves around the Earth, that germs do not exist, that space & time are separate, and so on.
I think you're saying that I'm saying we know everything there is to know about life and evolution. That I'm not accepting wild and unknown things. This isn't true. I want to be clear that intelligent bipedal life is a fluke and a perk. Life with stomachs like ours and thumbs and speech and memory and stamina is a fluke and we're lucky to be alive.
Out of a planet of millions of different species we have exactly one sample of something that can see things outside our planet.
By saying we are the only things that can do this it's not saying nothing else can ever, I welcome someone to explain to me another type of creature that could go into space without using human like tools. I can't think of a creature, but maybe you can.
This always comes up as well especially when the claim that we won't circumvent the laws of physics is made. A false comparison is made between how man didn't think he could fly to how man can't go faster than the speed of light.
Not knowing how the laws work and being ignorant of the science only to then discover the math errors and the laws is not the same as knowing the math and the laws and then breaking them.
Not flying was ignorance of how flight worked, something always available to us but we just didn't know how. Not going faster than light is not because we're ignorant, it's because no natural phenomenon anywhere has been observed to go faster than light unless we slow light down. We have a sample size of 0 on things violating this principle and a mountain of math proven the planet over telling us tie speed of light is final.
This doesn't mean there's a discovery out there waiting for us to find it on some planet with some rare material that will allow us to break pretty hard law of physics. It means we should be looking to abide by the law and still travel, or sidestep the law and cheat.
But breaking that law isn't a thing that can even be conceived mathematically. Flight was proven many times over, we just didn't do it yet.
Human life is absolutely unique. We are precious. This planet and this solar system is precious. There's probably others like it or even exotic versions of it but they are far and few. Intelligent space faring life is extremely rare but life in general is absolutely common and is probably everywhere.
The source article: https://arxiv.org/abs/2301.02374
Super interesting, I wouldn’t have found this otherwise!