[ExI] kepler study says 8.8e9 earthlike planets

[John Clark]

On Sat, Nov 9, 2013 at 10:54 PM, Andrew Mckee <andymck35 at gmail.com> wrote:

> Although perhaps I should add that it's a bit complicated, there was
> mention of plasma streams forming double layers which induce nearby
> streams into forming tightly bound spirals, in the center of which
> something called Z-pinching occurs, which I presume is where plasma
> densities are increased and intense electric currents do their thing.
>

Even if significant fusion does occur in the sun's corona, which seems
extremely unlikely, I don't see what that would have to do with the origin
on life on Earth.

 >> That's not the problem, the problem is that the gap between simple
>> organic
>> molecules and the simplest one celled organism known is astronomical. And
>> it is entirely possible that the word " astronomical" is far too weak a
>> word to describe that gap, if so then you need to look no further to
>> explain why the universe doesn't look like it's been engineered.
>>
>
> > Well I could be wrong, but seems to me biology has only recently got its
> second wind, so along with the synthetic bio-tech industry maybe in a
> decade or two they will have made more than a few discoveries that reveal a
> lot about some of the nifty shortcuts nature used in the beginning to get
> the job done.
>

The observable universe is FAR too small and has existed for FAR too short
a time for a living cell to have been created randomly anywhere, so there
must be physical processes currently unknown that brings those odds way way
way down. That much is clear, what is not clear is if the odds are brought
down to the astronomical level, in which case it would be reasonable to
expect that life happened once in the universe, or if the odds are brought
down so low that life is common. Equally unknown is the likelihood that
life will advance to the multicellular organism stage or the likelihood
that one of those organisms will develop technology.

> Maybe it really is just that our lucky numbers came up ahead of anybody
> else in the observable universe. A scary thought to be sure, but what are
> the alternative explanations we can live with? at least till humans (or
> trans- or post-humans) start launching star-ships out into the universe and
> actively start looking for the answers.


If there were a billion or even a million year old technological
civilization in the galaxy that had not descended into navel gazing and
lotus eating I don't think you'd need a star-ship to find it because it
would be immediately obvious to anyone who looked at the night sky.

  John K Clark
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