Ok, ONE of the important unsolved scientific questions. Do you disagree with that?

I already know masque's view. Wow!

Got this from masque:



Will try to really go into all of your ideas itt. Hoping to also hear from Bruce.

Fair first responses, before getting to the nitti gritty.

Thanks for not sending this to the debunking thread.

It will deliver.

Yes, the heavy elements probably have to be enriched through supernovae, and maybe neutron stars collisions. We are apparently a third generation star system. One of the questions still is if we are THE first with life. I repeatedly bang my head against that we have just one example. The "believe" ratio is too high, in either direction.

IIRC theoretically the first stars would have gone supernova less than 1/2 a billion years after the big bang, giving all of the building blocks quite a while ago.

Worrying about whether we were first or not seems a bit silly to me. How it occurred is a more interesting question.

1. what happened w/ masque? he's not posting anymore? i'm semi-new to SMP (i used to post here a bunch, then took a break, now i'm more active again and obv during my break i missed some drama)

2. there's some silliness in this thread for sure lol. but as zeno said, that's allowed though discouraged.

3. in terms of my views wrt the topic of this thread, i'm definitely w/ the abiogenesis folks with the building blocks either generated here over time via bombardment followed by the primordial soup amino acids forming followed by some "spark" (lightning, another asteroid hit, a volcano erupting and lava hitting the primordial soup such that the outskirts of it felt the heat in just the right way and joined to form proteins/rna). the organic building blocks appear to have, or rather most likely did, come from comets/asteroids that pelted our planet in the early period. then that organic stuff became goop in the warm water (water having also been brought by asteroids that contained much ice that turned to water in our warm world) and finally as i said before, some "spark" generated the first truly living stuff.

those who actually think about this stuff/contributed meaningfully-> what are your thoughts re: the great filter. we haven't seen life in any form yet anywhere in our solar system; however, it seems that there's ample opportunity for it to exist (on the icey/watery moons of our gaseous giants, for example, or underneath the surface of mars). there's a HUUUUGE difference in the probability of life existing elsewhere in the universe if we're the ONLY planet w/ life in our solar system or there's even 1 more planet w/ life in our solar system. if we're the only one, there could have been some great filter that's behind us that wiped out everything on other worlds except us. if it's ahead of us, AND we're the only life forms of any kind in our solar system, then there's some other reason as to why...

there's so much needed for life to have come to pass AND THEN STAY IN EXISTENCE that even w/ the huge number of suitable planets in our universe that could support life, that probability (the odds against life) may be so long as to outnumber the total number of suitable planets even though we've overcome those long odds.

it's interesting to think about as well.

A bit, yes. Mostly interesting from a probability of life evolving standpoint. One time tells it's likely not very probable. Five times would tell a different story. The one time also contains more of that awful anthropic possibility, that is, maybe many universes evolving until hitting intelligence. IDA maybe developing in only 1 of 10 (or something) universes.

The non-silly thing with not being the first would also be to have the possibility of research of extraterrestrial life. If we are the first that possibility disappears, worrisome in a way, a bit barren, excluding us from some perspective. Then we have to do it only in the lab, not quite the same thing though.

Goalpost shifting, if you will allow. More interesting is alone vs. not alone question.* Presumably life emerged somewhere first, then maybe other places or maybe traveled to other places.

It is impossible for us to discover that earth is the only place that life exists. Simply too much universe to search. We don't have to worry about that worrisome sort of thing happening to us. I don't think that it (alone, first, 23rd, multitudes from one abiogenesis event with traveling, multiple occurrences of abiogenesis, ect.) has any important philosophical implications either way.

*you can't have a conversation with cyanobacteria either way, so maybe even that isn't particularly interesting to most folk.

Yes, it may have been hyped up a bit. Let's put it this way: having to choose, would you rather 1. know if there is life elsewhere in the universe, or 2. know how life emerged on earth. I clearly choose 2. So being true to the OP that way. 1. and and 2. can be interconnected, but only partly. And 1. is still very interesting. And will not get its final answer if we don't learn to "travel" faster than light.

I prefer 5, how to make a decent hollandaise sauce.

1 won't get you to whether there is other life except by accident unless life is extremely common.

What is "extremely common" in this context btw? I'm very glad they are scanning for for example oxygen on the exoplanets, slowly cutting down probability of life until maybe hitting. This process has already excluded the Martians, that's something!

By, "extremely common" I mean "just about anywhere you look."

We haven't searched all of Mars as of yet. Keep in mind that we just pushed back the earliest date for which there is evidence of life on earth, and we've taken a lot more time searching earth.

Was primarily talking about this:



M. Dudouyt’s vision of the Martians from the 1917 edition of War of the Worlds

That is, the classic macroscopic life envisioned to be on Mars. We need to still remember those times.

But fairly enough, maybe they existed once, and buried their dead, out of sight? We need to dig deep.

To continue on the theme, about the "what could be true" regarding life on Mars. Of course we can prove nothing with 100% certainty, I think ultimately there will always be a "yes, but" possibility for at least close to everything. It's about probabilities.

Let's say a guy with the same genotype as plaaynde lived 100 years ago, having some secular education under the belt. I'm trying to imagine how probable I then would have thought life on Mars is. Maybe my estimation would have been 70% probability for life?

Today plaaynde thinks the probability for that life ever existed on Mars is less than 1%.

So having to choose "yes/no" I say "no". Given some more time I say "probably not". And above you have the one/two row answer.

So the "life on Mars" issue has moved to the margins of my view of the world. It will have to prove itself for coming back. That's how plaaynde ticks in many questions, trying to be as realist as possible.

Well put!

Earliest life isn't going to be highly complex multicellular organisms.

Almost sure

If not thinking it was that bearded guy in the rocking chair who did it. He allegedly has a preference for macroscopic life, especially the naked ape.

masque?

So, where are they (for using a classic argument)? Say life is just waiting for an opportunity to emerge: where is the highly reactive oxygen on the exoplanets? And the real UFOs / the electromagnethic signals?

I think it's difficult to detect and get the spectrum of Earth-sized planets. However, this is likely to be the first firm indication we will get of extra-terrestrial life.

Still, both Mars and Ice moons like Europa are likely to have life with no unstable atmospheric gases. Although in the case of Mars, if life developed then there was likely atmospheric ozone at some point.

I think I covered that

Still, I am a "the great filter is still before us" man. So lack of UFOs and electromagnetic signals just tells us something about technological life density and the extent that space faring life goes in for bugging neighbours with UFOs.

Space is large, speed of light is slow.

This might be exactly right, when cutting out the bollocks. Excellent short answer, imo!

From masque's PM in September: Something to think about.

Why do I have the feeling that this thread is sounding more and more like a monologue? Just kidding...

On a serious note, to me nobody knows the answer of this question and probably never will. But I also think is equally important the question how did the living materia become a materia that thinks. In my opinion their origin is extraterrestrial. My thoughts on this matter match with those of MakingMoves.

"The universe is a pretty big place. If it's just us, seems like an awful waste of space".

Carl Sagan, Contact