If life is normal... (Crossposted)

It occurred to me the other evening, that the universe is supposed to be
~14 billion years old. Life on Earth is supposed to be ~3.5 billion years
old. Human life is 1 million years.

At one time, people thought that they, and the Earth, were at the center
of the universe. However that perception changed to one in which the Sun is
the center of the Universe. And from there, the Sun became the center of the
Solar System, which became another part of the Milky Way, which became
another part of the known Universe. Instead of being at the center of
everything, we were in the middle of nowhere and were simply average.

A common conception of evolution put us at the head of the list of
species ('Created in the image of God'). As if the object of evolution is to
produce us and our kind. Now this is known to be false. We are just another
species competing for ground on this here green earth.

It seems that one of the results of Scientific progress is to disabuse
us of an infantile concept of ourselves as being the center of everything
and replace it with another conception in which we are merely average.

If this interpretation is correct then given the age of the Universe and
the variation about an average (say, our Earth's age) that would be expected
(this is essentially a guess), what possibilities might exist regarding life
in our Universe? In other words if we were to assume that we are not unique
what might be the actual age of life? Is it reasonable to guess, merely on
the basis of our (supposed) averageness that it could be much greater than
our own?

John Leonard

Just a simple ---- YES!


"John Leonard" wrote in message
...
It occurred to me the other evening, that the universe is supposed to be
~14 billion years old. Life on Earth is supposed to be ~3.5 billion years
old. Human life is 1 million years.

At one time, people thought that they, and the Earth, were at the center
of the universe. However that perception changed to one in which the Sun is
the center of the Universe. And from there, the Sun became the center of the
Solar System, which became another part of the Milky Way, which became
another part of the known Universe. Instead of being at the center of
everything, we were in the middle of nowhere and were simply average.

A common conception of evolution put us at the head of the list of
species ('Created in the image of God'). As if the object of evolution is to
produce us and our kind. Now this is known to be false. We are just another
species competing for ground on this here green earth.

It seems that one of the results of Scientific progress is to disabuse
us of an infantile concept of ourselves as being the center of everything
and replace it with another conception in which we are merely average.

If this interpretation is correct then given the age of the Universe and
the variation about an average (say, our Earth's age) that would be expected
(this is essentially a guess), what possibilities might exist regarding life
in our Universe? In other words if we were to assume that we are not unique
what might be the actual age of life? Is it reasonable to guess, merely on
the basis of our (supposed) averageness that it could be much greater than
our own?

John Leonard

Just a simple ---- YES!


"John Leonard" wrote in message
...
It occurred to me the other evening, that the universe is supposed to be
~14 billion years old. Life on Earth is supposed to be ~3.5 billion years
old. Human life is 1 million years.

At one time, people thought that they, and the Earth, were at the center
of the universe. However that perception changed to one in which the Sun is
the center of the Universe. And from there, the Sun became the center of the
Solar System, which became another part of the Milky Way, which became
another part of the known Universe. Instead of being at the center of
everything, we were in the middle of nowhere and were simply average.

A common conception of evolution put us at the head of the list of
species ('Created in the image of God'). As if the object of evolution is to
produce us and our kind. Now this is known to be false. We are just another
species competing for ground on this here green earth.

It seems that one of the results of Scientific progress is to disabuse
us of an infantile concept of ourselves as being the center of everything
and replace it with another conception in which we are merely average.

If this interpretation is correct then given the age of the Universe and
the variation about an average (say, our Earth's age) that would be expected
(this is essentially a guess), what possibilities might exist regarding life
in our Universe? In other words if we were to assume that we are not unique
what might be the actual age of life? Is it reasonable to guess, merely on
the basis of our (supposed) averageness that it could be much greater than
our own?

John Leonard

Yes.

And may I recommend a couple Carl Sagan books to you?
Pale Blue Dot
Demon Haunted World

Yes.

And may I recommend a couple Carl Sagan books to you?
Pale Blue Dot
Demon Haunted World

"Matt Giwer" wrote in message
m...

Do not bother working up a sweat over a billion years when a mere 100
is unimaginable.


In other words, it is unimaginable that life may have begun as much as 100
years earlier than life on Earth? (It didn't have to occur on a planet
opposite our sun).

John Leonard

"Matt Giwer" wrote in message
m...

Do not bother working up a sweat over a billion years when a mere 100
is unimaginable.


In other words, it is unimaginable that life may have begun as much as 100
years earlier than life on Earth? (It didn't have to occur on a planet
opposite our sun).

John Leonard

[Note Followup-To:.]

"JL" == John Leonard writes:

JL It occurred to me the other evening, that the universe is supposed
JL to be ~14 billion years old. Life on Earth is supposed to be ~3.5
JL billion years old. Human life is 1 million years.
[...]
JL It seems that one of the results of Scientific progress is to
JL disabuse us of an infantile concept of ourselves as being the
JL center of everything and replace it with another conception in
JL which we are merely average.

JL If this interpretation is correct then given the age of the
JL Universe and the variation about an average (say, our Earth's age)
JL that would be expected (...), what possibilities might exist
JL regarding life in our Universe? In other words if we were to
JL assume that we are not unique what might be the actual age of
JL life? Is it reasonable to guess, merely on the basis of our
JL (...) averageness that it could be much greater than our own?

Yes. There has been a fair amount of speculation about this point.
The difficulty is that, with only one sample to study (us), it's
difficult to reach any definitive conclusions.

There seems to be widespread agreement among at least astronomers that
life originates easily and is widespread. (The ubiquity of
*intelligent* life is far less agreed-upon.)

Livio (1999, URL:
http://adsabs.harvard.edu/cgi-bin/np...pJ...511..429L
argues that it actually takes some time for the amount of "metals"
(i.e., elements heavier than helium) to build up to a point at which
life can arise. Lineweaver & Davis (2002,
URL:http://xxx.lanl.gov/abs/astro-ph/0209385) try to do a
statistical analysis, but, again, they are hampered by the fact that
they have a sample of one.

--
Lt. Lazio, HTML police | e-mail:
No means no, stop rape. | http://patriot.net/%7Ejlazio/
sci.astro FAQ at http://sciastro.astronomy.net/sci.astro.html

Anthony Cerrato wrote:
"John Leonard" wrote in
message ...

"Matt Giwer" wrote in message
. com...

Do not bother working up a sweat over a billion years when a mere 100
is unimaginable.

In other words, it is unimaginable that life may have begun as much as 100
years earlier than life on Earth? (It didn't have to occur on a planet
opposite our sun).

John Leonard

John; I'm not sure exactly what Matt is getting at here, but
I must admit your original question is a bit confusing.

I find speculation on "advanced alien civilizations" only suitable for
science fiction not for rational speculation. There is still some
interest in what Verne and Wells predicted but if you look at the early
material talking about what they predicted and compare that to what we
would say about it today.

Anyway everyone speculating a century ago missed the major features of
today. And the "hits" are mostly stretching generalities.

Let me not remake and old issue of mine. Lets just agree that two
centuries of technology is totally unimaginable.

With any of those advanced civilization a mere two centuries difference
in progress is advanced beyond imagination. When talking time frames of
just our generation stars starting some 6 billion years ago (pick a
number, I am not current on this) 200 years is well in the noise and
also sufficiently advanced enough to be magic in Clarke's terms. If it a
million years to be sufficiently advances there are 6000 million years
for our metal heavy solar systems.

People who spend a lot of time thinking about space just barely have a
grasp of the distances involved. But very few appear to have a grasp of
the time involved in terms of progress.

To the Drake equation add a term or two for civilizations who maintain
an interest in expansion and/or communication and/or exploration for
more than enough million years to frustrate Fermi's "Where are they?"
question.

The temptation here is to try to imagine when in fact it is
unimaginable the future in such trivially small fraction of the smallest
time frame of metal rich stars to which we can limit consideration. And
trivial arguments can make these six billion years to small.

Some day I will write this up in a coherent fashion, maybe, likely not.
It is one of those things once you see it, it becomes to trivial to
explain.

--
Bush said God told him to strike Al Qaida.
God is an idiot.
-- The Iron Webmaster, 2749

Anthony Cerrato wrote:
"John Leonard" wrote in
message ...

"Matt Giwer" wrote in message
. com...

Do not bother working up a sweat over a billion years when a mere 100
is unimaginable.

In other words, it is unimaginable that life may have begun as much as 100
years earlier than life on Earth? (It didn't have to occur on a planet
opposite our sun).

John Leonard

John; I'm not sure exactly what Matt is getting at here, but
I must admit your original question is a bit confusing.

I find speculation on "advanced alien civilizations" only suitable for
science fiction not for rational speculation. There is still some
interest in what Verne and Wells predicted but if you look at the early
material talking about what they predicted and compare that to what we
would say about it today.

Anyway everyone speculating a century ago missed the major features of
today. And the "hits" are mostly stretching generalities.

Let me not remake and old issue of mine. Lets just agree that two
centuries of technology is totally unimaginable.

With any of those advanced civilization a mere two centuries difference
in progress is advanced beyond imagination. When talking time frames of
just our generation stars starting some 6 billion years ago (pick a
number, I am not current on this) 200 years is well in the noise and
also sufficiently advanced enough to be magic in Clarke's terms. If it a
million years to be sufficiently advances there are 6000 million years
for our metal heavy solar systems.

People who spend a lot of time thinking about space just barely have a
grasp of the distances involved. But very few appear to have a grasp of
the time involved in terms of progress.

To the Drake equation add a term or two for civilizations who maintain
an interest in expansion and/or communication and/or exploration for
more than enough million years to frustrate Fermi's "Where are they?"
question.

The temptation here is to try to imagine when in fact it is
unimaginable the future in such trivially small fraction of the smallest
time frame of metal rich stars to which we can limit consideration. And
trivial arguments can make these six billion years to small.

Some day I will write this up in a coherent fashion, maybe, likely not.
It is one of those things once you see it, it becomes to trivial to
explain.

--
Bush said God told him to strike Al Qaida.
God is an idiot.
-- The Iron Webmaster, 2749