The significance to me, is that if Earth were recreated, with minimal differences, 8500 trillion(sorry I misassigned labels in the last post) times, it would very likely produce life more than once. In my opinion, it would produce life on many of the recreated versions.
Yeah I missed the fact that “n” is an exponent. I’ve been out of math class for a while, forgive me.
I am confused when you say the winning number has “n” digits in it. By this logic, “n” simply requires more digits than there are in one trillion, to give me no chance of winning. Also confused by “n/3 business days.” Is that supposed to mean “n” is divided by a 9 digit number? Because that’s what I assumed.
1^22 is supposed to mean 1 E22. The same way it shows up on a graphing calculator. Therefore, if n=22, I would be guaranteed to lose because 10^22 divided by a 9 digit number = a number greater than one trillion.
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To repeat, I cannot make your odds zero. If you don’t understand why, then most likely your understanding of probability theory is inadequate to understand my point.
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Apparently I do not understand. Please enlighten me.
No, I do not know what “n” is, but given the initial conditions I believe 10^n would be a lot less than 8500 trillion.
n= a subjective opinion that neither you or I will ever definitively prove is great or small in this discussion. Therefore, if a third party, let’s say God, is the one who gives “n” for your “deal,” which is only fair, then it is technically a suckers bet for both you and I. Although it is more a suckers bet for you because you stand to lose a lot more, and well, I believe the numbers are in my favor.
Yes, except with the method you have chosen to select the random numbers, getting a zero is impossible. That being said, it is impossible for me to win.
Yes, I’m aware of that. What I was confused by is that you said that we would only do this for 3 business days. That would generate only 9 numbers. So I took that to mean that you would divide “n” by that 9 digit number when you typed “n/3 business days.” Was that supposed to just be an example?
There are no better numbers or math to show you than what I already have. At least, none that I know of.
I’m going to try and make my case again, and show you that there really is no fatal flaw in my belief as you say. Or better yet, I’m going to let the great Stephen Hawking make it for me.
Here’s what he has to say about life in the universe:
Here he is essentially reiterating the point I made to you earlier. Below is his conclusion on life in the universe.
Okay, so my point is that there is no fatal flaw in believing there is life out there somewhere in the universe. Stephen Hawking even says he prefers that possibility. The only fatal flaw I could make in any of this, is taking that deal with you and letting you decide “n.” Your lottery would be the suckers bet, not the bet that there is life elsewhere in the universe.
So, anyways, I have shown you some math. Why don’t you show me your math that makes you so confident?
I don’t quite understand the argument that Earth is the 1-in-a-trillion exception to the impossibility of life.
It falls under the same category of those who argued the sun revolves around us, the Milky Way is the only galaxy, etc. Why should we be in any way “exceptional” when our universe has made it quite clear we are not.
My apologies, let’s choose a random digit by summing the digits of each index and taking the last digit of the resulting sum. That gives a roughly 1 in 10 chance of getting a zero, agreed?
No, we would do it for n/3 business days. Thus, if we need 21 digits, we get 3 digits per day for 7 business days. 21/3 = 7. Makes sense?
Then there is no mathematical basis for your conclusion and the fact(?) that there are billions of Earth-like planets is a red herring.
There are too many unknowns to answer this question. Perhaps it was blind chance. Perhaps for reasons which we do not understand the probability of life developing was highest in the first billion years of the Earth’s existence.
There is not. The question I have raised is what one should make of that fact(?) that there are billions of Earth-like planets.
I don’t understand that argument either. I especially don’t understand how Brazil84 is trying to convince me that I would have to be a sucker to believe in other life in the universe. Brazil84 does make the valid point that we don’t know what the exact probability of life occurring is, but what we do know, suggests that the probability is relatively high.
You can choose to think of it that way, but when accompanied by the other information we have, it helps to make a compelling argument. I mean how many planets in our own solar system do we know have never supported life? None.
That is a great question to ask. I guess we will have to wait and see what happens with The Mars One Project before this discussion can really go any further. And just to be clear, it is believed there are 500 Quintilian Earth-sized planets out there. That’s a 5 with 20 zeros after it. Anything beyond that is just speculation, but out of all of those, do you think we are the only planet that has ever had life on it?
Exactly. They are keeping clean air in, thus keeping contaminants out. Of course to maintain the negative pressure new air must be filtered in, but I’m sure that that new air also goes through a treatment process.
Not unless you can show the math. Please show me the equation where some variable has a value in the billions and the resulting probability of life elsewhere is high. Otherwise it’s just speculation.
I don’t know. Because I don’t know how small the probability of life developing is.
He’s not saying you HAVE to be a sucker. He’s saying that having a pretty good idea of one of the numbers in the equation–the number of planets in our galaxy that are in a band of temperatures where liquid water could exist–is useless for determining how many planets in our galaxy have life in them.
It could very well be that almost all planets with liquid water have life in them. Such a result would not surprise me. It probably wouldn’t surprise him. But it might be that the existence of life on Earth is the result of such a crazy chain of unlikely coincidences that Earth is the only place in the observable where life exists. The oft-mentioned tornado through a junkyard assembling a working 747 through random chance is appropriate.
We just don’t know how life arose on Earth, or if such origin is common or rare or mind-bogglingly rare, or double-secret-squared-mind-bogglingly rare. If life is so rare that only one in a quintillion planets with liquid water develops life, then the justified assumption that there are 10 billion planets in our galaxy where liquid water could exist means that the odds of life on a single planet in a galaxy like ours is 1 in 100 million. Where did I get the 1 in 1 quintillion number? I made it up, just like I could make up the number 99 in 100, which would mean any planet with liquid water is almost guaranteed to have life.
So yes, there are lots of planets in our galaxy, and lots of galaxies in the observable universe. That doesn’t tell us how many planets have life, because we have a sample size of 1, and since we are living creatures from that planet that sample is biased. We can’t draw conclusions about the likelihood of life forming from that sample, because if life didn’t arise from the Earth sample we wouldn’t be here to take the sample.
If we can take just one other sample, find one instance of extraterrestrial life, then we can get a fairly good estimate of how common life is using Bayesian reasoning. But the sample from Earth is biased and we have to discard it. Of course, one problem, if we find life on, say, Mars, and it turns out that Earth life and Mars life are so closely related that they must have had a common origin, that throws things off. Maybe a meteor from Mars contaminated Earth with life, or vice versa. But if life on Mars is totally unlike life on Earth, that would be extremely strong evidence that life is very common in the galaxy.
Likewise, if we start surveying planets with liquid water and we find they don’t have life, then that starts to show evidence that life is not common. But so far the only planet with liquid water that we’ve surveyed for life is Earth, and the Earth sample is biased.
So the existence of billions of watery planets doesn’t tell us how common life is. We just don’t know. If you put a gun to my head I’d guess it’s pretty common, at least bacterial grade life. But I wouldn’t be surprised to find that I’m wrong, or that I’m right, since we don’t have enough evidence to make a good estimate either way.
Yes, I’m not surprised you perceive it as “obnoxious” when I point out the flaw in your argument.
By the way, I basically agree with Lemur866. I’m not saying that there isn’t life elsewhere, I’m saying that there isn’t enough data to get a handle on the question. And that getting more information about the number of other planets doesn’t help the situation. Because that’s only one piece of the puzzle.
And I would say the same thing to Phil Larson that I said to you:
It’s obnoxious because it’s the 4th time in a row you have asked me to show you the math, not because of the point you are making. So it’s not what you’re doing, it’s the way you’re doing it.
Thank you for narrowing down my belief to a guess. I suppose the information I have provided is most valuable, because it does not suggest that life does not exist in the universe. So as long as more information is being found that does not suggest that life is universally rare or non-existent, I will continue to maintain my belief.
And I would say the same thing to Phil Larson that I said to you:
One could say that you are the one who is being obnoxious by making the same flawed argument to me repeatedly. Let’s do this: Stop making the argument to me and I will stop pointing out the flaw.
I feel as though you were deliberately trying to be instigative by repeatedly asking me for a mathematical equation that proves the probability of life elsewhere in the universe. We both know there is no such equation in existence that is complete.
I was just sharing information that is congruent with my belief. I’ll also add that every time I posted new information, it was from a new source, and uniquely significant in its own right.
You, on the other hand, were simply asking a loaded question over and over again.
In “Power, Sex, and Suicide,” Nick Lane presents a carefully detailed argument that the development of eukaryotic cells (from bacteria and probably archeabacteria) was extremely unlikely, and so while life elsewhere may be common, complex life might be.
We definitely can’t compute the odds; the best we can do is hazard a guess. For the galaxy, we have the Drake equation. But for the universe, we don’t even know how big it is, or whether it’s infinite.
It is interesting that the first signs of life developed very, very early on the planet, once the conditions stabilized enough. That’s a clue that origins (which we don’t even have a good hypothesis for) might be reasonably likely. But with just one datapoint, there’s only so much we can say, and it’s not much.
I’ll go on a limb and say, if the universe is infinite, then I think the probability of intelligent life elsewhere is 1. Other than that, we really can’t do more than hazard a guess.