“As far as the laws of mathematics refer to reality, they are not certain, and as far as they are certain, they do not refer to reality.”
-Albert Einstein
-Albert Einstein
but I have a hard time accepting that theres a mathematical equation that would prove life does not exist outside of our planet.
All we now know is that life does exist here and nowhere else based on the evidence we have.
I'm sticking with my guns that it will be proven sooner rather than later, but it wont be intelligent life as we think of it. Yet anyway.
If you identify with the theory of evolution it is a logical conclusion to believe that if life exists on other planets within our close family, it exists everywhere in some form or another.
Microbial life, if it has not already been found and hidden from us, will be identified within this solar system in our lifetimes.
If you identify with the theory of evolution it is a logical conclusion to believe that if life exists on other planets within our close family, it exists everywhere in some form or another.
Your analogy is faulty, either there is ONLY what we see, hear, feel, taste, etc... or there is a fuzzy fantastical where anything is possible. I.E. the flying spaghetti monster created the universe and all that is within it by the power of his excellent sauce.
That is where the discussion has strayed at this point if we are arguing from nothingness towards what is known. I agree that human knowledge is frail and limited at best, but it is after all all that we have to work with in this discussion and as such we are immensely limited.
But it still remains that some theories are indeed better than others, and life existing out there somewhere does not qualify as one of the better human theories for a number of reasons. Notwithstanding that of both reason and logic which dictate based upon what we know that life is indeed unique to our terrestrial ball.
Because we have and will continue to have no evidence to the contrary. Because we are certainly not doing very much to find life elsewhere. As if we actually could do something meaningful on that front.
I mean are we alone in the universe? Do you believe there are other forms of life elsewhere in the universe? ....
That's a cool belief, but it is simply a belief my friend.
But my point is if you are talking about what we know then you must exclude the existence of life anywhere except here. Because we have and will continue to have no evidence to the contrary. Because we are certainly not doing very much to find life elsewhere. As if we actually could do something meaningful on that front.
Fermi's Paradox comes to mind. But I don't think it's a certainty that there is life elsewhere in the universe. There's an assumption that life is kind of like Sea Monkeys™ - just add water. But the problem is that science does not know how life can form from inanimate objects. There's speculation, and experiments that yield what's thought to be building blocks of life, but part of the problem is that these building blocks are used by existing life rather than being components for life from scratch. There are various problems that have to be solved. Self-replicating chemicals are one; a self-replicating barrier to seal the chemicals in from the outside environment is another, and on and on with each component of the simplest, viable, form of life.
If all this is random, each is influenced by chance. You have the odds of self-replicating chemicals times the odds of a self replicating membrane times the odds of every single component involved in the simplest organism. Right of the bat, we don't have a handle on the odds because we don't know what initial conditions are required. Deep sea smoker? Along a slightly radioactive shoreline (completely serious - no images of big single cell critters going "Amoeba smash!")? In an ice pack? We don't know. And because we don't know the initial steps or what exactly has to be done, we can't calculate the odds of life coming about and not going extinct almost immediately.
Instead, there's hand-waving. Life formed here, it goes, so why not elsewhere? The same physical laws here are elsewhere, and there's life here, so why not life under similar conditions? The reasoning goes that Earth isn't a special case.
Except ... what if it is? What if the odds of life forming from base chemicals are so high that it's a rare event? What if that life managing not to quickly go extinct is even higher? If we look at Earth's natural history, it seems that there were several bottlenecks, including a possible gamma ray burst. What if Earth not only won in the Casino of Life, but broke the bank?
All of a sudden, the idea that we might be alone isn't so far-fetched. There are likely billions of planets, moons, and what have you that could support life, but what if the odds against life are so high as to make that practically meaningless?
Now, I don't know that we are alone, but I don't take it as a given that we aren't.
That's a cool belief, but it is simply a belief my friend.
I am still awaiting evidence of intelligent life on this planet.
I mean are we alone in the universe? Do you believe there are other forms of life elsewhere in the universe?