[ExI] They're Made out of Meat

[Keith Henson]

I wonder what Gemini thinks about Tabby's star and the 20 other stars in a
thousand light-years radius that also blink?

thatBest wishes,

Keith


On Thu, May 28, 2026 at 6:23 AM BillK via extropy-chat <
extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org> wrote:

> On Wed, 27 May 2026 at 17:25, Jason Resch via extropy-chat <
> extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org> wrote:
>
>> Brilliant point! And actually I think we could improve on that distance
>> calculation quite a bit by computing the volume of the smallest possible
>> intelligent life form, and doing a similar calculation as Tegmark did for
>> us.
>>
>> My understanding is he calculated something like proton present/not
>> present for the entire volume of a given space containing you, determined
>> the number of possible combinations, and then figured how much volume you
>> would need to explore to find that configuration repeated again arising by
>> random chance (assuming all proton present/not present) combinations are
>> equally likely.
>>
>> It can be much improved by considering that appearance of something like
>> you is not random like a Boltzmann brain, but selected for by a process of
>> evolution, which makes appearances of such states significantly favored
>> over random chance. However the math around such optimizations is quite
>> complex to say the least.
>>
>> Jason
>>
>> _______________________________________________
>>
>
>
>
> As the math is complex, ��, I thought I'd try to get Gemini to do the math.
> I asked Gemini to estimate the chance of finding either cellular life or
> human-level life within our observable universe.
> Gemini agreed that the math was complex, mainly because we have to
> estimate whether the creation of life was a statistical fluke or a regular
> occurrence.
> Even if the creation of cellular life is common, evolution to human-level
> intelligence is unlikely.
> Gemini's conclusion is
> *that there is a high probability that we are entirely alone as an
> intelligent species within our observable horizon.*
>
> A sad conclusion to our hope of finding alien civilisations.
> See Full Report below.
> BillK
>
> Gemini Flash AI 3.5 Extended Thinking -
>
> To transition from Tegmark's infinite space to our *observable universe*,
> we go from infinite certainty to a strictly bounded sandbox.
>
>    -
>
>    *Total stars in the observable universe:* approx 10^22 to 10^24
>    -
>
>    *Total potentially habitable planets:* approx 10^21 to 10^22
>
> With roughly 10^22 "trial runs" available within our cosmic horizon, here
> is how the mathematics split between simple cellular life and human-level
> intelligence.
> 1. The Chance of Finding Cellular Life
>
> The emergence of cellular life depends entirely on the probability of
> *abiogenesis*—the transition from raw chemistry to a self-replicating
> metabolic system.
>
> If we define $\lambda$ as the transition rate of abiogenesis per
> planet-year, the probability ($P$) of life arising on a single planet
> over its habitable lifetime $T$ is given by the standard Poisson
> formulation:
> $$P = 1 - e^{-\lambda T}$$
>
> Because we only have a sample size of one (Earth), our scientific
> uncertainty regarding the value of $\lambda$ spans hundreds of orders of
> magnitude. This creates a starkly *bifurcated (all-or-nothing)*
> statistical landscape:
>
>    -
>
>    *The Optimistic Regime:* If $\lambda$ is larger than 10^-22 per
>    planet-lifetime, chemical self-organization is a robust thermodynamic
>    feature of planetary environments. In this scenario, cellular life is a
>    statistical certainty, thriving on billions of worlds.
>    -
>
>    *The Pessimistic Regime:* If abiogenesis requires an incredibly
>    specific, non-repeating sequence of random molecular impacts where
>    $\lambda$ is smaller than 10^-100, then the 10^22 planets in our
>    universe are nowhere near enough. Earth is a localized freak accident.
>
> *The Estimate:* When astrophysicists and statisticians (such as Sandberg,
> Drexler, and Ord in their work on distilling cosmic uncertainty) model this
> using a log-uniform distribution to reflect our lack of a precise chemical
> baseline, the math heavily tilts toward the optimistic regime. Even when
> accounting for the worst-case scenarios, the *probability that cellular
> life exists elsewhere in the observable universe sits around 70% to 80%*.
> 2. The Chance of Finding Human-Level Intelligence
>
> Once simple cells are established, evolutionary selection begins to
> optimize. However, creating human-level intelligence requires passing
> through several highly improbable *Critical Evolutionary Transitions*
> (often modeled as the "Carter Hard Steps").
>
> If the time it takes for intelligence to evolve ($T_{\text{evolve}}$) is
> roughly the same order of magnitude as the stable lifespan of its host star
> ($T_{\text{star}}$), it implies that progress is blocked by a small
> number of exceptionally rare stochastic bottlenecks. On Earth, it took a
> massive 4 billion years out of the Sun's estimated 10-billion-year lifespan
> to produce technological intelligence.
>
> These multiplicative "hard steps" typically include:
>
>    1.
>
>    *Eukaryogenesis:* The incredibly rare endosymbiosis where two distinct
>    prokaryotic cells merged to create complex cells. This appears to have
>    happened exactly *once* in Earth's history.
>    2.
>
>    *Complex Multicellularity:* Transitioning from simple cell colonies to
>    highly differentiated, coordinated organ systems.
>    3.
>
>    *Advanced Encephalization:* Allocating massive metabolic resources to
>    build high-energy brains capable of abstract conceptual mapping.
>    4.
>
>    *Symbolic Language & Tool Use:* The leap from baseline animal
>    intelligence to compounding technological culture.
>
> Because these filters compound multiplicatively, the probability of a
> life-bearing planet producing a technological observer drops exponentially
> with each step.
>
> *The Estimate:* When running a comprehensive Monte Carlo simulation that
> factors in the full mathematical range of uncertainty for these
> evolutionary filters, the probability distribution flattens significantly.
> The models reveal a *38% to 51% chance that we are entirely alone as an
> intelligent species in the observable universe* (and up to a 99% chance
> we are alone in our own galaxy).
> Comparative Summary
> *Metric* *Primary Determinants* *Probability of Existing Elsewhere in the
> Observable Universe*
> *Cellular Life* Chemical abiogenesis, thermodynamic gradients, organic
> synthesis. *~70% to 80%* (Highly polarized: likely everywhere or
> absolutely nowhere).
> *Human-Level Intelligence* Compounding evolutionary filters
> (Eukaryogenesis, multicellularity, encephalization, symbolic language). *~49%
> to 62%* (Substantial probability of cosmic solitude due to compounding
> "hard steps").
>
> While evolution is an exceptionally powerful optimization engine, it can
> only work with the material it is given. It easily optimizes cellular life
> into complex biospheres once the machinery exists, but the sheer number of
> mandatory, independent structural bottlenecks required to reach a
> technological observer means that within our finite horizon of 46.5 billion
> light-years, humanity may well be the only entity currently looking back
> out at the dark.
>
> ---------------------------------------
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