Rare Earth

[otseng]

Imagine there's no spacemen except the ones we launch
No alien rock n' rollers to listen to Sagan's hunch
Imagine we're all stuck here and must confront ourselves

.. uh oh!

Imagine now that Star Trek is just a TV show
No cosmos full of life forms just earthlings here below
Imagine there's no 'contact' to make 'cause no one's there

... uh oh!

You may say I'm a realist but I'm not the only one
Who knows there's zero data from SETI - or anyone!
Imagine your dream's over no Yoda to soothe you
And your only choices left then boil down to two
Imagine you're unique here and must opt for love or hate

... uh oh!

You may say I'm religious but I'm not the only one to say if you seek communion
it's the heart that must be won!

From the Rare Earth Song

In the book Rare Earth, the authors make two main points:
- Microbial life is common in planetary systems.
- Advanced life (animals) is rare in the Universe.

The arguments they give can be found at wikipedia.

But, in the book, they don't really explore the implications of their hypothesis.

So, what I'd like to ask is:

What are the implications if earth is the only planet with advanced life on it?

[Furrowed Brow]

Hi Osteng,

Look! You are so wrong. Star Trek not true!! I can't even go there with you.

Ok I will.

Lets assume we get out among the stars, and we don't even find a microbe. Everywhere we go. Planet after planet. A dead universe.

Under that scenario, the Abrahamic religions will find comfort and will probably become more confident and vocal.

Ok say we find microbes, and low level organisms. Well the longer that goes on and nothing a bit more complicated is found, then that will be a kick in the pants for evolution.

If an earth like planet is is found i.e. not too warm not too cold, water, oxygen, nitrogen atmosphere etc, and there is nothing greater than a microbe then evolutionists are gonna have a lot of explaining to do.

I'm going to stick my neck and predict if a Goldilock planet is found its going to be full of life. Maybe not the kind of life that can build radios or have gone through any technological revolution, but there will be life.

Technological civilizations? Well they have to be true. I've seen them on Star Trek!


FB

[Cathar1950]

I'm going to stick my neck and predict if a Goldilock planet is found its going to be full of life. Maybe not the kind of life that can build radios or have gone through any technological revolution, but there will be life.

Will they be good to eat?
Did anyone see the Futuroma episode where they found poppers?
Until their parents showed up they were great.

[QED]

Also, I don't want to argue too much about the possibility of other life on other planets. But just simply assume that if the hypothesis is true and remains true for the end of time, then what are the implications?

That last caveat makes no real difference. I provided an explanation along the lines of "someone has to be first". That's valid for our current situation and it holds true until the end of time.

Something has to become the first living structure (by whatever definition we choose). That something may first have arisen on this planet somewhere between a quarter to a third of the age of the universe ago. Our exploration or any unintentional transfer of biological material has the potential to spread life far into and maybe beyond our galaxy in the vast stretches of time ahead of us, so our loneliness could lose much of its meaning.

[otseng]

Under that scenario, the Abrahamic religions will find comfort and will probably become more confident and vocal.

Actually, I don't think it'll make much of a difference to Abrahamic religions, but only to a small subset who argue about philosophy or astrobiology.

If an earth like planet is is found i.e. not too warm not too cold, water, oxygen, nitrogen atmosphere etc, and there is nothing greater than a microbe then evolutionists are gonna have a lot of explaining to do.

I can predict what evolutionists will say, "Not enough time has passed. Just wait another billion years."

Also, I don't want to argue too much about the possibility of other life on other planets. But just simply assume that if the hypothesis is true and remains true for the end of time, then what are the implications?

That last caveat makes no real difference. I provided an explanation along the lines of "someone has to be first". That's valid for our current situation and it holds true until the end of time.

But, it's not just "someone", but "us". So, it's more like, "We are the only ones to be first. And we are the only ones to be last."

Our exploration or any unintentional transfer of biological material has the potential to spread life far into and maybe beyond our galaxy in the vast stretches of time ahead of us, so our loneliness could lose much of its meaning.

But, even if life spreads out from Earth, they would still be "us".

We can't just populate the planet Mars and then say, "well, we don't feel lonely here on Earth anymore because we've populated Mars."

[otseng]

Another implication is that the Copernican Principle would not be true.

"The Copernican principle is the philosophical statement that no 'special' observers should be proposed."

We would be special because we would be the only observers.

[otseng]

Oh, additionally, it would mean the Mediocrity Principle would also not be true.

"The mediocrity principle is the notion in the philosophy of science that there is nothing special about Earth, and by implication the human race."

There would be something very special about Earth since it would be the only planet in the universe with advanced life.

[Furrowed Brow]

Hi Osteng,

Under that scenario, the Abrahamic religions will find comfort and will probably become more confident and vocal.

Actually, I don't think it'll make much of a difference to Abrahamic religions, but only to a small subset who argue about philosophy or astrobiology

Take your point. But I suspect that subset will grow in confidence and numbers too.

[otseng]

Take your point. But I suspect that subset will grow in confidence and numbers too.

That leads to another point.

Is another implication that this points to the reality of a Creator? And that this is evidence for its existence?

[QED]

I provided an explanation along the lines of "someone has to be first". That's valid for our current situation and it holds true until the end of time.

But, it's not just "someone", but "us". So, it's more like, "We are the only ones to be first. And we are the only ones to be last."

Hypothetically, yes, we could be the ones. But just like the Queen of England, when she considers her situation, we shouldn't conclude that there must be something special about why it happened to be us. Any suggestion that it should would equally give justification for the Queen to see herself as being a special person, over and above the luck of the draw.

Our exploration or any unintentional transfer of biological material has the potential to spread life far into and maybe beyond our galaxy in the vast stretches of time ahead of us, so our loneliness could lose much of its meaning.

But, even if life spreads out from Earth, they would still be "us".

We can't just populate the planet Mars and then say, "well, we don't feel lonely here on Earth anymore because we've populated Mars."

Notice that I said loneliness loses much of its meaning. There is a distinction here between being surrounded by silence and being the only example of sentience. The latter could simply be a fact (I think life needs to be qualified by sentience because I see little else to distinguish single celled life from nanomachinery).

[Furrowed Brow]

Hi Osteng,

Take your point. But I suspect that subset will grow in confidence and numbers too.

That leads to another point.

Is another implication that this points to the reality of a Creator? And that this is evidence for its existence?

Frankly if the rest of the universe turned out to be dead, as an ahteist I'd be sitting very uncomfortably in my seat, and start to get really tetchy with all those thiests humming confidently to themselves.

Likewise an empty Goldilock's planets goes against evolution.