Fermi Paradox

[PB666]

19 minutes ago, magnemoe said:

Well if you prefer the outer solar system, why go interstelar at all? 
It should be enough resources there for an long time, closer in you have the partial dyson swarm and low lightspeed delay. Think that the outer system is a bit too much water and not enough other stuff compared to the belt then you factor in the distances, on the other hand taxes are lower

One thing who might be valuable on planets with advanced life would probably be the life itself, the most valuable the Spanians looted in America was the potato. 
Just vanity items like pets or decorative plants could be very valuable if you have an large and rich population.
The genes themselves might also be very valuable here as bulding blocks or ideas.

Another reason might be infotainment, the science program is financed by the media generated, here something like Earth would be an killer, one interesting thing about us is that we are in the middle between stone age and long term stability. 
 

Of course you spread to the stars so that you can create your interstellar consortium, then confederation,  . . . . . . . Next thing you know your a video game.

 

[rtxoff]

Somehow i still don't know what this thread is about?

[KerikBalm]

its about why we haven't detected any alien life, despite the plethora of planets around us (even within a 100 light year readius)

[Aethon]

On 6/2/2016 at 4:54 AM, magnemoe said:

 
You can not detect broadcasts from lots of lightyears away no matter the equipment, 

 

This isn't true.  We can detect the cosmic microwave background radiation from over 13 billion light years away.  

It doesn't matter how great the distance is, signals can be detected as long as you have a big enough antenna.  Now some signals may require an antenna so big that it's not cost effective to build, but it's still theoretically possible.

[Aethon]

On 6/2/2016 at 7:57 AM, PB666 said:

The current timing now is between 3.5 and 4.2 billion years ago, which means the interval between the first archae and first complex is on the order 2.5 to 3.6 billion years. What this either tells us is that life did not evolve easily or that most life was low level junk, possibly as life on other planets, and only one life form had the qualities to proceed onward as earths conditions became more favorable. 

 

The more I study the question of when life first appeared on Earth the more I become convinced that life began long before Earth formed and was transported here via lithopanspermia, possibly from one of Sols' thousands of sister stars in Earths' birth cluster, where the velocity of interstellar debris was much lower, allowing greater survivability of interstellar meteoric debris.  

To transition from a molten ball of lava, to a place possessing comparably complex archaea in a few hundred million years is hard to accept.  Where did these early life forms get their genes?

If we trace our way back through the time it took to increase genetic diversity from the first fossilized evidence we have here of life, to the formation of more complex organisms, and extrapolate that back to the formation of the first genes, It seems to me there just wasn't enough time for this to happen on Earth.  

http://cosmology.com/SearchForLife105.html

 

Genetic Gradualism and the ExtraTerrestrial Origin of Life
Alexei A. Sharov, Ph.D., 
Genetics Laboratory, National Institute on Aging, Baltimore, USA

---

Abstract

The principle of gradualism provides insights into the mechanisms and timing of the origin of life. It assumes that complex systems originate only from systems of comparable or higher functional complexity; therefore, life started from very simple systems, and complexity increased gradually through evolution. Life did not start from nucleic acids because nucleotides were not available in sufficient quantities as resources. The simplest hereditary system requires autocatalysis which is functionally linked with local environment. According to the "coenzyme world" scenario, life started from non-polymeric coenzyme-like molecules (CLMs) that performed hereditary functions before the emergence of nucleic acids. These molecules multiplied via autocatalysis and modified (i.e., encoded) the properties of their local environment. Dependency on the local environment later promoted the cooperation between multiple autocatalytic systems, which in turn increased the functional complexity and evolutionary potential. Polymerization of CLMs and development of template-based synthesis is a possible evolutionary path towards the emergence of nucleic acids. Genome complexity increased slowly during the evolution of life, which is consistent with the principle of gradualism. Backward projection of this rate indicates that life started long before the formation of Earth, and the transition from coenzyme world to RNA world happened on another planet over 10 billion years ago.

 

 

Edited June 5, 2016 by Aethon

[PB666]

You can convince yourself of anything you like, so people beleive god put life on earth, some people believe the bear in Ursa brought life to Earth. I don't subscribe to mythical speculations, i am aware how life evolved after it got established and fine for me. 

i will note that your belief is leading because it allows support of your other belief that life is widespread locally, again its guessing without a smeg of evidence. I avoid subscription to leading beliefs. 

Mythology is a wonderful thing, theres even a science about that, but mythological depictions are not science. 

[Aethon]

Scientists say there are 300 billion stars in our galaxy ( I say there are many more than that ).  Scientists say there are 300 billion observable galaxies in the universe ( I say there are many more than that ).  To say that out of that vast number of stars, this is the only one on which something interesting is happening sounds like mythology to me.

Sorry, pay wall.

http://online.liebertpub.com/doi/abs/10.1089/ast.2015.1418?journalCode=ast

In this article, we address the cosmic frequency of technological species. Recent advances in exoplanet studies provide strong constraints on all astrophysical terms in the Drake equation. Using these and modifying the form and intent of the Drake equation, we set a firm lower bound on the probability that one or more technological species have evolved anywhere and at any time in the history of the observable Universe. We find that as long as the probability that a habitable zone planet develops a technological species is larger than ∼10⁻²⁴, humanity is not the only time technological intelligence has evolved. This constraint has important scientific and philosophical consequences. 

 

https://www.inverse.com/article/14957-drake-equation-revision-hugely-ups-odds-intelligent-extraterrestrial-life-exists

[Green Baron]

Pls. let me add to @PB666 that putting the coat of "science" around unprovable assumptions (probability of life, forming of civilizations, Drake equation) and putting these as "facts" and basis for further statements is, from a scientific viewpoint, misleading. That may have a philosophical value or maybe a sense of mission is involved, scientific insight is limited or even negative.

The Drake equation cannot be used to calculate an actual number of communicating civilizations, the factors involved are arbitrary, unknown estimations. It's a playground, nice for discussions. And it can be used to lure patrons into donations for search programs, and that's probably what it was meant to be, less scientific more political.

Sorry, i meant no disrespect, i know it's sometimes difficult to not being taken in by all that "information" at our fingertips ...

Peace :-)

 

Edited June 4, 2016 by Green Baron

[KerikBalm]

That sharov paper is absolutely terrible....

It should not be cited for anything... it was basically a pay to publish journal

[PB666]

1 hour ago, Aethon said:

Scientists say there are 300 billion stars in our galaxy ( I say there are many more than that ).  Scientists say there are 300 billion observable galaxies in the universe ( I say there are many more than that ).  To say that out of that vast number of stars, this is the only one on which something interesting is happening sounds like mythology to me.

Sorry, pay wall.

http://online.liebertpub.com/doi/abs/10.1089/ast.2015.1418?journalCode=ast

In this article, we address the cosmic frequency of technological species. Recent advances in exoplanet studies provide strong constraints on all astrophysical terms in the Drake equation. Using these and modifying the form and intent of the Drake equation, we set a firm lower bound on the probability that one or more technological species have evolved anywhere and at any time in the history of the observable Universe. We find that as long as the probability that a habitable zone planet develops a technological species is larger than ∼10⁻²⁴, humanity is not the only time technological intelligence has evolved. This constraint has important scientific and philosophical consequences. 

 

https://www.inverse.com/article/14957-drake-equation-revision-hugely-ups-odds-intelligent-extraterrestrial-life-exists

The fallacy of the false dichotomy, and thats where we know the propoganda game is being played. Seriously who do you think is dumb enoughbto fall for the above clabbor? 

1. Assuming our galaxy started forning about 2 to3 billion years after the universe formed, and our earths material is about 6 billion years from the time it was scattered into the void that formed our star. So from that 13.7 billion we subtract 9 leaving 4. That assumes there star formation at the center of the galaxy and spread succesively out with at least 1 generation of star formation. Since our region is depopulated of stars it was probably on of the last to go through blue then 2nd gwneration star formation. Therefore a maximum likeli hood estimate of the time to density appropriate form formation of elements in sufficient quantities to create life is about 8 billions years post big-band in areas ofvthe galaxy with our star density. 

2. The false dichotomy. You assume that if life formed somewhere in the galaxy that it could commute anywhere else in the galaxy within a few billion years. That is mythology. Life can arise all over the galaxy and may never reach earth because. 1. The unlikeli hood that life will leave its bioneogenesis planet. 2. because of the gravity well within the star 3. Because of the temperatures and pressures required to get life off a planet and into deep space at velocities sufficient to reach a destination before cosmic radiation essential scrambles it to nonsense. 

3. I have never said life does not exist elsewhere in the galaxy, i presented a range were many lifes could exist, but i also have open the possibility there is only one, or rather more likely that Earth is one of the older biospheres. If Earth is one of the older non-sterile biospheres then it makes no sense about seeding it from elsewhere. I should point out that intelligent life has to be within communication distance of us is no more than a guess, mythos.

4. Somewhere in our galaxy had to be the first, there is no reason Earth could not have been that first.

5. What I said, based upon the observed, is that life could be rare enough that communication of life information such as intelligence or living material may occur at minute distaces on the galactic scale, with few exceptions few and far between. So that even if you are correct is some infrequent instances, it does not mean you are correct in most or all instances. And logically speaking in at least one instance in our galaxy you must have been wrong. 

[Aethon]

Hey I agree this is nothing more than flimsy speculation, but I (and many others) just don't see how you go from the Earth being a molten ball of lava, pummeled by the late heavy bombardment, and a few hundred million years later magic happens and you have these organisms that are far more complex than genes and auto catalytic lipid bubbles or whatever should be the first logical steps in the tree of life.

2 hours ago, PB666 said:

formation of elements in sufficient quantities to create life

 I'm not saying the elements were there that early to form life, but possibly the precursors of what would become life.

2 hours ago, PB666 said:

that it could commute anywhere else in the galaxy within a few billion years.

Soon after the big bang, when the distance across the universe was much smaller, there was a time when the temperature of the entire universe was right around room temperature.  I'm speculating that perhaps the earliest components of whatever separates life from non life began then.

The first evidence we have of life seems to me way to complex to have formed here in the short period of time between molten Earth and the fossilized life record we have. 

Earth didn't form in isolation, but in a cluster of thousands of nearby stars.

Or perhaps life was formed before the late heavy bombardment and was knocked into orbit clinging to rocks by the LHB only to be returned to Earth by orbital decay after the cessation of the LHB, again just a thought experiment.

2 hours ago, PB666 said:

. Somewhere in our galaxy had to be the first, there is no reason Earth could not have been that first.

 

I find this highly unlikely.  Copernicus taught us that we are in no way special in the universe.

2 hours ago, PB666 said:

 Seriously who do you think is dumb enoughbto fall for the above clabbor? 

 

 

And could you cut the name calling.  I've patiently read through your thousands of posts, some of which are pretty out there, without once insinuating you were dumb.

@KerikBalm

Did you even read the paper?

Edited June 5, 2016 by Aethon

[PB666]

2 hours ago, Aethon said:

Hey I agree this is nothing more than flimsy speculation, but I (and many others) just don't see how you go from the Earth being a molten ball of lava, pummeled by the late heavy bombardment, and a few hundred million years later magic happens and you have these organisms that are far more complex than genes and auto catalytic lipid bubbles or whatever should be the first logical steps in the tree of life.

 I'm not saying the elements were there that early to form life, but possibly the precursors of what would become life.

Soon after the big bang, when the distance across the universe was much smaller, there was a time when the temperature of the entire universe was right around room temperature.  I'm speculating that perhaps the earliest components of whatever separates life from non life began then.

The first evidence we have of life seems to me way to complex to have formed here in the short period of time between molten Earth and the fossilized life record we have. 

Earth didn't form in isolation, but in a cluster of thousands of nearby stars.

Or perhaps life was formed before the late heavy bombardment and was knocked into orbit clinging to rocks by the LHB only to be returned to Earth by orbital decay after the cessation of the LHB, again just a thought experiment.

I find this highly unlikely.  Copernicus taught us that we are in no way special in the universe.

 

And could you cut the name calling.  I've patiently read through your thousands of posts, some of which are pretty out there, without once insinuating you were dumb.

@KerikBalm

Did you even read the paper?

i will, point out propoganda when i see it, when you use propoganda you are insulting others, just more coyly. 

There are firsts, in comoving space time there are going to be alot of first lifes in those regions. 

From a biochemist every molecule is a potential starting material. Water, ammoniua, sodium ions, magnesium ions, etc. There is nothing special about glycine forming in space, or formaldehyde. There are also alot of things in space that are toxic to life. in science you aren't allow to cherry pick out a few starting materials as life and ignore the fact that hydrogen and hydride ions, formadehyde and things like this are toxic. 

Life is hundreds of steps beyond glycine. Every species you know uses at least 19 amino acids, some of those can only be made by bacteria. Every species uses some form of hexose sugar and a ribose sugar, Every species uses RNA or DNA as the heritable material and all have some form of DNa protein aggregate. The simplist genome we know of that is not an onligate parasite is around 1 million nucleotides, thats not a nucleotide, thats a polymer that has a molecular weight in the 100s of millions. 

[Aethon]

I assume you mean propaganda.  I'm not sure how me giving my opinion can be construed as propaganda, nor am I sure where you're hostility towards me is coming from.  At no point have I attempted to insult anyone.  I've been nothing but respectful to you even though your poor typing and command of English makes many of your posts difficult to comprehend, but I'm beginning to understand why your threads receive few comments.

[PB666]

43 minutes ago, Aethon said:

I assume you mean propaganda.  I'm not sure how me giving my opinion can be construed as propaganda, nor am I sure where you're hostility towards me is coming from.  At no point have I attempted to insult anyone.  I've been nothing but respectful to you even though your poor typing and command of English makes many of your posts difficult to comprehend, but I'm beginning to understand why your threads receive few comments.

False dichotomies are just that false, untruths, propoganda. I never said that you had to believe in bioneogenesis, namely because i am not certain that life arose on earth, it may have arisen on mars and been asteroided to Earth. One of many option that we have virtually no data about, so instead of propogating a false dichotomy at you i said, stop guessing. 

[KerikBalm]

8 hours ago, Aethon said:

@KerikBalm

Did you even read the paper?

Yes, I've dealt with ignorant citation of sharov's papers before in a little edit war on wikipedia.

Let me see if I can find what I wrote in the discussion section and C&P here so I don't have to waste my time writing it over again

One guy was spewing Sharov's garbage over multiple wikipedia pages... here was the talk section for one of them, give it a read, its a large section to copy and paste, and I'm *not* going to make the same arguments all over again:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Talk:Abiogenesis/Archive_5#Primitive_extraterrestrial_life

In short, his datapoints are completely arbitrary, and entirely unrepresentative of the time periods he assigns to them.

 

5 hours ago, PB666 said:

Life is hundreds of steps beyond glycine.

I would say life is many steps before glycine, as I subscribe to an RNA first hypothesis...

Edited June 5, 2016 by KerikBalm

[Green Baron]

Speculatoin, speculation.

More serious speculation: ~600 My may well be enough for the forming of microbial life, from the condensation of the oceans at the time of the solidification of the crust to the first fossil records just before 3.8 by. It may well have been accelerated through a second period of asteroid impacts, known as late heavy bombardment mentioned before, roughly 4.1 to 3.9 by. http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/v459/n7245/full/nature08015.html

Life forming on earth was a process, supported by the conditions, and the early stages yet have to be investigated. The reason that there is no evidence from the first few hundred my is simply that nothing (or very little) is left, it's not that there was nothing on the way to life and then all of a sudden it's there. That's probably your misunderstanding, @Aethon, oceanic crust since then has been reworked many times (doesn't get older than ~210my), continental crust is weathered away or buried under sediments. But oldest zircons from ~4.3 by support the assumption that the conditions on early earth were not too bad (pls. search science and nature magazines, the papers in there went through a process of peer review before they are published).

 

There is no need for the introduction of aliens that brought life to earth, there is no magic involved, that is, and now i put my opinion clear, creationist propaganda under the coat of science.

 

Oops, out of coffee error ...

Nice sunday !

[PB666]

1 hour ago, KerikBalm said:

Yes, I've dealt with ignorant citation of sharov's papers before in a little edit war on wikipedia.

Let me see if I can find what I wrote in the discussion section and C&P here so I don't have to waste my time writing it over again

One guy was spewing Sharov's garbage over multiple wikipedia pages... here was the talk section for one of them, give it a read, its a large section to copy and paste, and I'm *not* going to make the same arguments all over again:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Talk:Abiogenesis/Archive_5#Primitive_extraterrestrial_life

In short, his datapoints are completely arbitrary, and entirely unrepresentative of the time periods he assigns to them.

 

I would say life is many steps before glycine, as I subscribe to an RNA first hypothesis...

Glycine is one of the hyped up components fould in space. 

[KerikBalm]

yes, but it may not have played any role in the formation of life.... life may have come first, and then started using glycine later.

Sure, it certainly existed before life... but its biological relevance may post-date the appearance of life.

[PB666]

4 hours ago, KerikBalm said:

yes, but it may not have played any role in the formation of life.... life may have come first, and then started using glycine later.

Sure, it certainly existed before life... but its biological relevance may post-date the appearance of life.

Unilkely, you are talking about prebiotic conditions, those prior to encapsulation. RNA is one of the most labile substances on earth, that is a likely consequence of the first cells excreating the enzyme RNAse to clean up the competition. 

[KerikBalm]

pre-biotic, or pre-cellular?

RNA can perform all the functions life requires. It can catalyze various reactions, it can catalyze its own polymerization in a template directed fashion. Its an excellent candidate for the first self replicating molecule, an it would start to evolve... I'd call it life at that point, at least for the purposes of discussing the start of life on Earth.

Glycine doesn't enter into that... glycine would come later when RNA started catalyzing polmerization of amino acids that would eventually supplant almost all of RNA's catalytic roles (while we've made RNA polymerase ribozymes in the lab, all RNA polymerases found so far in life are proteins... self splicing introns and the catalytic core of the ribozome appear to be alle that's left)...

but we're digressing quite far... we both agree that the presence of glycine doesn't really indicate much about how common life is.

[PB666]

26 minutes ago, KerikBalm said:

pre-biotic, or pre-cellular?

RNA can perform all the functions life requires. It can catalyze various reactions, it can catalyze its own polymerization in a template directed fashion. Its an excellent candidate for the first self replicating molecule, an it would start to evolve... I'd call it life at that point, at least for the purposes of discussing the start of life on Earth.

Glycine doesn't enter into that... glycine would come later when RNA started catalyzing polmerization of amino acids that would eventually supplant almost all of RNA's catalytic roles (while we've made RNA polymerase ribozymes in the lab, all RNA polymerases found so far in life are proteins... self splicing introns and the catalytic core of the ribozome appear to be alle that's left)...

but we're digressing quite far... we both agree that the presence of glycine doesn't really indicate much about how common life is.

But cannot make the enzymes that make the lipid bilayer membrane that contains itself.

Second, you are guessing, its just about as bad as Aetheon and his bias. Nothing has changed, noone has created life from the sterile chaotic culture in a laboratory. The error of disbelief in science is the creation of the overstated case.

There is a concept of coevolution, most commonly supported by the ubiquitous nature of ribosomes in both major divisions of microbes. There is some disaggreement of codon usage, but RNA and protein functions are interlaced. This is something that has to happen before lipid bilayers can be synthesized. Thus the idea of RNA first or protein first is another false dichotomy. 

[KerikBalm]

you seem to be talking post-cell, whereas I'm talking about evolving self replicating molecules that pre-date cellular life.

and I'm not saying its a certainty.

I'm just saying there are plausible explanation for how the road to life got started that don't involve glycine... so we shouldn't get all excisted when we see glycine all over the place.

 

"Second, you are guessing, its just about as bad as Aetheon and his bias. Nothing has changed, noone has created life from the sterile chaotic culture in a laboratory. The error of disbelief in science is the creation of the overstated case. "

You are guessing as well when you bring up bilayers and such. We don't know what order things happened... We don't know if the first replicating nucleic acid sequences had proteins associated with them or not.

We can't even agree what life is, or when pre-biotic chemistry could be said to cross the line and become life. Did the the bilayer come first encapsulating important metabolic reactions, did nucleic acid enzymes come first? did a DNA/RNA polymerase come before encapsulated in a bilayer?

We don't know, and this all started because your statement about glycine implied an order that we are entirely unsure of.

Edited June 5, 2016 by KerikBalm

[Green Baron]

trying to get back to the Fermi Paradox:

- the chemical basis for life(tm) is not rare in the universe (do we agree on that ?)

- the emergence of microbial life is no big deal, given a few hundred million years and reasonable conditions (liquid water, not too hard radiation, stable environment) (agreed ?)

- the further development of ecosystems is another thing: it took the earth >3 billion years from microbes to the ediacaran. What about nearby radiation events like supernovae, gamma ray bursts ? A highly active sun ? Would they reset the process ? I don't know, probably not. Our neighbor stars have a similar history as the sun, the cluster the sun formed in is highly dispersed. Should we look for stars with a similar history (path around the galaxy's center) ?

- after the forming of complex ecosystems the development took on speed and diversity, and quickly recovered after several extinction events. Evolution is quite effective once it starts. Is that repeatable elsewhere ?

- to support a big brain the body needs a lot of spare energy. No species developed such a "useless" mass before. But without that brain we wouldn't ask ourselves why our landing legs explode. Is it likely that there is a similar development elsewhere, is it an outcome of evolution or just an incident (they happen) ?

 

Was trying to avoid a wall of text. To make it even shorter: i don't think we can solve the problem until positive discovery (edit), because the development of a more or less intelligent species able to communicate was a succession / development (gimmi the right word) and i don't even faintly know the probabilities for any of the steps involved being successful.

Edited June 5, 2016 by Green Baron

[PB666]

2 hours ago, Green Baron said:

trying to get back to the Fermi Paradox:

- the chemical basis for life(tm) is not rare in the universe (do we agree on that ?)

- the emergence of microbial life is no big deal, given a few hundred million years and reasonable conditions (liquid water, not too hard radiation, stable environment) (agreed ?)

- the further development of ecosystems is another thing: it took the earth >3 billion years from microbes to the ediacaran. What about nearby radiation events like supernovae, gamma ray bursts ? A highly active sun ? Would they reset the process ? I don't know, probably not. Our neighbor stars have a similar history as the sun, the cluster the sun formed in is highly dispersed. Should we look for stars with a similar history (path around the galaxy's center) ?

- after the forming of complex ecosystems the development took on speed and diversity, and quickly recovered after several extinction events. Evolution is quite effective once it starts. Is that repeatable elsewhere ?

- to support a big brain the body needs a lot of spare energy. No species developed such a "useless" mass before. But without that brain we wouldn't ask ourselves why our landing legs explode. Is it likely that there is a similar development elsewhere, is it an outcome of evolution or just an incident (they happen) ?

 

Was trying to avoid a wall of text. To make it even shorter: i don't think we can solve the problem until positive discovery (edit), because the development of a more or less intelligent species able to communicate was a succession / development (gimmi the right word) and i don't even faintly know the probabilities for any of the steps involved being successful.

I think emergence of microbes is a big deal, it just looks like it isn't because we carry as stong bias. 

[PB666]

2 hours ago, KerikBalm said:

you seem to be talking post-cell, whereas I'm talking about evolving self replicating molecules that pre-date cellular life.

and I'm not saying its a certainty.

I'm just saying there are plausible explanation for how the road to life got started that don't involve glycine... so we shouldn't get all excisted when we see glycine all over the place.

 

"Second, you are guessing, its just about as bad as Aetheon and his bias. Nothing has changed, noone has created life from the sterile chaotic culture in a laboratory. The error of disbelief in science is the creation of the overstated case. "

You are guessing as well when you bring up bilayers and such. We don't know what order things happened... We don't know if the first replicating nucleic acid sequences had proteins associated with them or not.

We can't even agree what life is, or when pre-biotic chemistry could be said to cross the line and become life. Did the the bilayer come first encapsulating important metabolic reactions, did nucleic acid enzymes come first? did a DNA/RNA polymerase come before encapsulated in a bilayer?

We don't know, and this all started because your statement about glycine implied an order that we are entirely unsure of.

You sure implied alot from a passing mention of glycine. I made no recipe for life, i did not opposite, I said I didn't know how life arose on Earth, only the process that occurred afterwards. People who say otherwise are liberally guessing.