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</o:shapelayout></xml><![endif]--></head><body lang=EN-US link=blue vlink=purple><div class=WordSection1><p class=MsoNormal><span style='font-size:11.0pt;font-family:"Calibri","sans-serif";color:#1F497D'><o:p> </o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal><span style='font-size:11.0pt;font-family:"Calibri","sans-serif";color:#1F497D'><o:p> </o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal><b><span style='font-size:10.0pt;font-family:"Tahoma","sans-serif"'>>…</span></b><span style='font-size:10.0pt;font-family:"Tahoma","sans-serif"'> <b>On Behalf Of </b>John Clark<br><b>Subject:</b> Re: [ExI] kepler study says 8.8e9 earthlike planets<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal><o:p> </o:p></p><div><p class=MsoNormal>On Tue, Nov 5, 2013 at 1:06 AM, spike <<a href="mailto:spike66@att.net" target="_blank">spike66@att.net</a>> wrote:<o:p></o:p></p><div><div><blockquote style='border:none;border-left:solid #CCCCCC 1.0pt;padding:0in 0in 0in 6.0pt;margin-left:4.8pt;margin-right:0in'><p class=MsoNormal><o:p> </o:p></p><p class=MsoNormal>> OK now I am more puzzled than ever. NASA says there are about 8.8 billion Goldilocks planets in the Milky Way alone:<br><a href="http://news.yahoo.com/study-8-8-billion-earth-size-just-planets-212232920.html%20%20">http://news.yahoo.com/study-8-8-billion-earth-size-just-planets-212232920.html </a><o:p></o:p></p></blockquote><p class=MsoNormal style='margin-bottom:12.0pt'> <br><span style='color:#1F497D'>>…</span>Well, 8.8*10^9 is a big number but that alone doesn't tell you anything, the real question is if chemistry and biology can generate numbers as big or bigger that can counteract astronomy's numbers. A chain of 20 amino acids is too short to be considered a protein, but there are 20 different types of amino acids in earthly life so there are 1.05*10^26 different ways to make such a little chain. So already we have a number ten million billion times larger than 8.8*10^9<span style='color:#1F497D'>…<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal style='margin-bottom:12.0pt'><span style='color:#1F497D'>Ja, but when we see these kinds of comparisons, we immediately recognize that the 8.8 e9 is this galaxy alone, so tack on about 10 more OOMs, then recognize something even more important: the use of a planet as a unit of measure is irrelevant. The radius of the earth is about 6E6 meters, so surface area is about 1e14 m^2 or about 1e20 mm^2 or 1e26 square microns, so we must ask ourselves how much real estate the first organism needed to evolve. We don’t know. My intuition is screaming there is something wrong with our whole picture here, even after I divide thru by Fa and set Fa arbitrarily large. We are still missing something. <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal style='margin-bottom:12.0pt'><span style='color:#1F497D'>This feels to me like an investigation in the rocket science biz 15 yrs ago where we had where we listed 20 scenarios and tested them all. We still didn’t have the right answer up there, but I watched as one guy after another picked a favorite theory and defended it like it was his own cub from any and all counter-evidence or anomalous observations. We kept thinking, eventually found the right answer.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal style='margin-bottom:12.0pt'><span style='color:#1F497D'>>…</span> And even bacteria are "astronomically" more complex than such a simple 20 element peptide chain<span style='color:#1F497D'>…<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal style='margin-bottom:12.0pt'><span style='color:#1F497D'>John keep in mind that this argument ignores the possibility that the simplest possible life form is as complex as the simplest lifeform currently on earth. The simplest car on the road today is vastly more complex than the model T. There might be some model T equivalent in the biological world, but we have never seen it because it is long since extinct and left not a trace. <o:p></o:p></span></p></div><div><p class=MsoNormal style='margin-bottom:12.0pt'><span style='color:#1F497D'>>…</span>Or maybe the reason we don't see ET is that some principle puts a lid on how smart something can be and how much cosmic engineering that can be done by it, my best guess on why that could be is that having access to your emotional control panel might lead to positive feedback and mental instability. I hope that's not the answer, I hope the answer is just that the numbers from biology are bigger than the numbers from astronomy. <span style='color:#1F497D'>…</span>John K Clark <span style='color:#1F497D'><o:p></o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal style='margin-bottom:12.0pt'><span style='font-size:11.0pt;font-family:"Calibri","sans-serif";color:#1F497D'>This one sounds more plausible to me, and it does cause worry. I tend to see everything thru the lens of controls engineering (we control freaks are like that.) Just like everything else, there are positive and negative feedback loops on intelligence. It is possible that at some point, the negative feedback loops dominate. Singularity theory is dependent on the notion of positive feedback loops crush every negative loop, or as we controls guys like to say, there are poles in the right half plane. I hope that is true, but it might be wrong. <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal style='margin-bottom:12.0pt'><span style='font-size:11.0pt;font-family:"Calibri","sans-serif";color:#1F497D'>If evolution can somehow kickstart life and result in something as awesome as this, then I have high hopes:<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal style='margin-bottom:12.0pt'><span style='font-size:11.0pt;font-family:"Calibri","sans-serif";color:#1F497D'><a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uPTO3L2rSjI">http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uPTO3L2rSjI</a><o:p></o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal style='margin-bottom:12.0pt'><span style='font-size:11.0pt;font-family:"Calibri","sans-serif";color:#1F497D'>But if negative feedback loops eventually dominate our intelligence model, then all we are is dust in the wind.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal style='margin-bottom:12.0pt'><span style='font-size:11.0pt;font-family:"Calibri","sans-serif";color:#1F497D'>spike<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal style='margin-bottom:12.0pt'><span style='font-size:11.0pt;font-family:"Calibri","sans-serif";color:#1F497D'><o:p> </o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal style='margin-bottom:12.0pt'><span style='font-size:11.0pt;font-family:"Calibri","sans-serif";color:#1F497D'><o:p> </o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal style='margin-bottom:12.0pt'> <br><br><br><br><br><o:p></o:p></p></div><p class=MsoNormal><o:p> </o:p></p></div></div></div></body></html>