The big question about life on other planets: 1000000000000000000000 planets in the universe

[FA_Q2]

Science has been unable to establish what life came from ergo we do not know. That does not mean abiogenesis is fact, it means that we do not know.

But we do know a few things. We know there was once no life, then there was. So, we know life formed. And that's all we need to know in order to know that abiogensis is a fact. Life formed by some sort of process that follows all the same laws as every other process. Star formation, volcano formation, hurricane formation.... And formation of life. "Abiogensis" is just the name given the process. It's not any less a fact than is hurricane formation. "Hurrigenesis"...

That is the most likely but is not all encompassing.

Life may have been seeded by another form of life. Life may have come from an extra solar meteorite. Perhaps there are extra dimensional beings involved and of course there is always the god did it excuse.

Each may be more unlikely than the last and certainly not a complete list but that does not equate to us KNOWING anything. It strongly suggests such but that is not the same thing as a fact. Abiogenesis is still a guess because science has been unable to establish any real framework as to how it works. We do not even understand what original life looked like as it is now believed that DNA was not the starting point of life.

The same thing goes for humans being nothing but deterministic systems, another claim of hard fact that you made. While I ascribe to both Abiogenesis and determinism as physics strongly points to that direction there is still absolutely zero understanding of what consciousness is or how it arises strictly from deterministic systems. Science is very specific here and that is what makes it so damn effective - the answer I do not know is an acceptable one and the fact is that we do not know if either of those contention are, indeed, accurate. The problem that arises with religions views often times is the assertion that it is known, God did it and that is that. Science does not need to go down that same silly road. We do not know if life arose form non life and we do not know that we are strictly deterministic machines. Physics has shown that those are both extremely likely and scientists are working to prove those two hypotheses right now. Abiogenesis has proven to be very difficult as we do not even understand what original form life may have taken on. Consciousness is currently beyond our grasp as we have no understanding there but current research into AI may very well shed some light in that arena.

Abiogenesis is a fact. Once the universe had no life. Now it does. You simply can't get around those facts without resorting to magic. The fact that we don't know how something occurred doesn't mean you get to claim that God did it.

Again, that is not known. That is supposed.

That you KNOW something without actual evidence is resorting to 'god' no matter what that particular god is.

 

[FA_Q2]

there is still absolutely zero understanding of what consciousness is or how it arises strictly from deterministic systems

That is not reason to believe it may not be deterministic. We don't look at things we dont fully understand and say they might not be deterministic. That's god of the gaps.

Yes, we actually do. More correctly, we say that we do not know what they are. Right now physics has no reason to see it as anything but deterministic but physics is also unable to even begin to explain it.

Why is unknown such a difficult concept?

 

[RWS]

We don't kill over stuff we don't know. Unlike religions, who kill and rape and abduct children, because they were told to.

 

[RWS]

Science doesn't act on the unknown.

Only zealots do.

 

[bripat9643]

Science has been unable to establish what life came from ergo we do not know. That does not mean abiogenesis is fact, it means that we do not know.

But we do know a few things. We know there was once no life, then there was. So, we know life formed. And that's all we need to know in order to know that abiogensis is a fact. Life formed by some sort of process that follows all the same laws as every other process. Star formation, volcano formation, hurricane formation.... And formation of life. "Abiogensis" is just the name given the process. It's not any less a fact than is hurricane formation. "Hurrigenesis"...

That is the most likely but is not all encompassing.

Life may have been seeded by another form of life. Life may have come from an extra solar meteorite. Perhaps there are extra dimensional beings involved and of course there is always the god did it excuse.

Each may be more unlikely than the last and certainly not a complete list but that does not equate to us KNOWING anything. It strongly suggests such but that is not the same thing as a fact. Abiogenesis is still a guess because science has been unable to establish any real framework as to how it works. We do not even understand what original life looked like as it is now believed that DNA was not the starting point of life.

The same thing goes for humans being nothing but deterministic systems, another claim of hard fact that you made. While I ascribe to both Abiogenesis and determinism as physics strongly points to that direction there is still absolutely zero understanding of what consciousness is or how it arises strictly from deterministic systems. Science is very specific here and that is what makes it so damn effective - the answer I do not know is an acceptable one and the fact is that we do not know if either of those contention are, indeed, accurate. The problem that arises with religions views often times is the assertion that it is known, God did it and that is that. Science does not need to go down that same silly road. We do not know if life arose form non life and we do not know that we are strictly deterministic machines. Physics has shown that those are both extremely likely and scientists are working to prove those two hypotheses right now. Abiogenesis has proven to be very difficult as we do not even understand what original form life may have taken on. Consciousness is currently beyond our grasp as we have no understanding there but current research into AI may very well shed some light in that arena.

Abiogenesis is a fact. Once the universe had no life. Now it does. You simply can't get around those facts without resorting to magic. The fact that we don't know how something occurred doesn't mean you get to claim that God did it.

Again, that is not known. That is supposed.

That you KNOW something without actual evidence is resorting to 'god' no matter what that particular god is.

Wrong. It's not supposed. The alternative is magic, and we know that didn't happen. We have tons of evidence.

 

[bripat9643]

there is still absolutely zero understanding of what consciousness is or how it arises strictly from deterministic systems

That is not reason to believe it may not be deterministic. We don't look at things we dont fully understand and say they might not be deterministic. That's god of the gaps.

Yes, we actually do. More correctly, we say that we do not know what they are. Right now physics has no reason to see it as anything but deterministic but physics is also unable to even begin to explain it.

Why is unknown such a difficult concept?

No, only fools and ignoramuses do that.

Not knowing doesn't give you the authority to propose magic as a possible explanation.

 

[FA_Q2]

there is still absolutely zero understanding of what consciousness is or how it arises strictly from deterministic systems

That is not reason to believe it may not be deterministic. We don't look at things we dont fully understand and say they might not be deterministic. That's god of the gaps.

Yes, we actually do. More correctly, we say that we do not know what they are. Right now physics has no reason to see it as anything but deterministic but physics is also unable to even begin to explain it.

Why is unknown such a difficult concept?

No, only fools and ignoramuses do that.

Not knowing doesn't give you the authority to propose magic as a possible explanation.

I never proposed magic.

 

[bripat9643]

there is still absolutely zero understanding of what consciousness is or how it arises strictly from deterministic systems

That is not reason to believe it may not be deterministic. We don't look at things we dont fully understand and say they might not be deterministic. That's god of the gaps.

Yes, we actually do. More correctly, we say that we do not know what they are. Right now physics has no reason to see it as anything but deterministic but physics is also unable to even begin to explain it.

Why is unknown such a difficult concept?

No, only fools and ignoramuses do that.

Not knowing doesn't give you the authority to propose magic as a possible explanation.

I never proposed magic.

Sure you have. Every time you propose a creator, you're proposing magic.

 

[Fort Fun Indiana]

No, you are back to it is unknown.

Not so. That life had to form somewhere, sometime, even if it came here via panspermia. That process of formation is called abiogenesis.

 

[Fort Fun Indiana]

Again, that is not known. That is supposed.

Nonsense. Of course it is known that once there was no life as we know it, as we know there was once no atoms.

 

[Fort Fun Indiana]

Yes, we actually do. More correctly, we say that we do not know what they are.

More nonsense. You cannot name a single example of this. Even when we don't know exactly how something happened, we do know it happened in the same, deterministoc universe in which everythi gnelse happens.

 

[sealybobo]

This, according to some estimate, give or take quite a few zeroes I'm sure. A deeper philosophical question which goes beyond theology, though it certainly entangles it.

So, this number again, 1000000000000000000000 planets! According to The Institute of Astronomy at University of Cambridge. How many solar systems are there? | Institute of Astronomy

Putting the exact estimation aside. We would have to take a massive leap of faith to think that not only is there NOT other life in the universe, but, also of such existences, that there aren't many far more advanced than us.

Imagine a planet the size of Jupiter, 100's of billions of citizens. Imagine them not having our reptilian instincts of rage and violence, or developing weapons of war to be used against each other. Consider if they had the average brain power 250x that of our smartest humans, and existed for much longer, maybe lived on average 10000 years.

What would be the end result? Is there any religion that makes any consideration for this possibility (outside, I think Scientology)? It really is a daunting concept. We could be the most advanced by far, we might be Gods great creation. It would hardly seem we could be alone though based on the odds and even plain randomness.

See that's the problem. We look at other stars and what do we see? We see the big planets surrounding them.

So if there is intelligent life on another star, are we sure we have the ability to see them?

If they were looking at us would they see earth? They'd see Jupiter and Saturn for sure. Maybe they'd see Uranus and Neptune. But they would not even realize Earth is there.

 

[bripat9643]

This, according to some estimate, give or take quite a few zeroes I'm sure. A deeper philosophical question which goes beyond theology, though it certainly entangles it.

So, this number again, 1000000000000000000000 planets! According to The Institute of Astronomy at University of Cambridge. How many solar systems are there? | Institute of Astronomy

Putting the exact estimation aside. We would have to take a massive leap of faith to think that not only is there NOT other life in the universe, but, also of such existences, that there aren't many far more advanced than us.

Imagine a planet the size of Jupiter, 100's of billions of citizens. Imagine them not having our reptilian instincts of rage and violence, or developing weapons of war to be used against each other. Consider if they had the average brain power 250x that of our smartest humans, and existed for much longer, maybe lived on average 10000 years.

What would be the end result? Is there any religion that makes any consideration for this possibility (outside, I think Scientology)? It really is a daunting concept. We could be the most advanced by far, we might be Gods great creation. It would hardly seem we could be alone though based on the odds and even plain randomness.

See that's the problem. We look at other stars and what do we see? We see the big planets surrounding them.

So if there is intelligent life on another star, are we sure we have the ability to see them?

If they were looking at us would they see earth? They'd see Jupiter and Saturn for sure. Maybe they'd see Uranus and Neptune. But they would not even realize Earth is there.

So what if we can't detect the planets that are likely to have life? That's just a limitation on our tools that has no impact on anything being discussed in this thread. Even so, we have already detected numerous planets that are well within the appropriate size range. After we launch the Web space telescope, our ability to examine such planets will increase by many orders of magnitude.

 

[RWS]

Yes we can detect planets that have the ingredients for life, by using light.

It should be obvious that life is abundant in the universe. What I want to learn is their observation of God, if there is one, but I really want to know their culture.

Do they like Beethoven or Beatle music? What arts do they have that would impress us? Or that we could recognize? That's serious questions.

 

[RWS]

If I ever get abducted, all I want to know is their culture.

 

[Grumblenuts]

I was reading some place where they're making plans to land on Europa.

The key is to spin slowly as you descend. It then naturally coils beneath you

 

[sealybobo]

This, according to some estimate, give or take quite a few zeroes I'm sure. A deeper philosophical question which goes beyond theology, though it certainly entangles it.

So, this number again, 1000000000000000000000 planets! According to The Institute of Astronomy at University of Cambridge. How many solar systems are there? | Institute of Astronomy

Putting the exact estimation aside. We would have to take a massive leap of faith to think that not only is there NOT other life in the universe, but, also of such existences, that there aren't many far more advanced than us.

Imagine a planet the size of Jupiter, 100's of billions of citizens. Imagine them not having our reptilian instincts of rage and violence, or developing weapons of war to be used against each other. Consider if they had the average brain power 250x that of our smartest humans, and existed for much longer, maybe lived on average 10000 years.

What would be the end result? Is there any religion that makes any consideration for this possibility (outside, I think Scientology)? It really is a daunting concept. We could be the most advanced by far, we might be Gods great creation. It would hardly seem we could be alone though based on the odds and even plain randomness.

See that's the problem. We look at other stars and what do we see? We see the big planets surrounding them.

So if there is intelligent life on another star, are we sure we have the ability to see them?

If they were looking at us would they see earth? They'd see Jupiter and Saturn for sure. Maybe they'd see Uranus and Neptune. But they would not even realize Earth is there.

So what if we can't detect the planets that are likely to have life? That's just a limitation on our tools that has no impact on anything being discussed in this thread. Even so, we have already detected numerous planets that are well within the appropriate size range. After we launch the Web space telescope, our ability to examine such planets will increase by many orders of magnitude.

I'm not disagreeing with you. I'm saying that the people who say there is no life elsewhere because we can't see it don't understand that it might be the reason we can't see them is because like us they are hidden on a tiny rock 3rd from the sun.

On How the Universe Works they talk about all the hell worlds we see. Yea, just like another civilization would look at our solar system and see Jupiter and Saturn. Both would look like hell to them too.

We have detected numerous planets within the size range and distance to their star and we think they have water on them? But how much do we actually know for sure. I mean, pre web space telescope? I think the scientists all agree we haven't found any planets that have life on them yet. But I sort of don't think they have all the facts in order to determine that. In fact I'm suggesting they might be missing planets that are small like earth that have life on them.

But I don't tend to disagree with the scientists. If they say they know there is no life circling another star, I'll go with that for now. Because maybe they have answers to my questions and I just don't know how they came to their conclusions. And I'm sure if I've asked these questions, they already have too and they've worked though them.

But I believe they are looking at stars and they can't possibly know for sure no life is circling those other stars. They think there isn't but what the hell do they know?

 

[sealybobo]

Yes we can detect planets that have the ingredients for life, by using light.

It should be obvious that life is abundant in the universe. What I want to learn is their observation of God, if there is one, but I really want to know their culture.

Do they like Beethoven or Beatle music? What arts do they have that would impress us? Or that we could recognize? That's serious questions.

And do they taste like chicken?

 

[james bond]

Atheists and their scientists are usually wrong . I just read this page and the previous page to see where this thread has gone. We're probably doomed to die on Earth due to an extinction event. If you want to believe that a large asteroid will do it, then that's fine. It's moot if we're all dead.

 

[sealybobo]

Atheists and their scientists are usually wrong . I just read this page and the previous page to see where this thread has gone. We're probably doomed to die on Earth due to an extinction event. If you want to believe that a large asteroid will do it, then that's fine. It's moot if we're all dead.

We are usually wrong? Then creationists are always wrong. At least we admit when we don't know something.