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this post was submitted on 26 Jul 2023
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I get why you feel this way but that’s not really how stats works.
Ok can you please point to the part that I was factually wrong about? I did take the time and energy to use real numbers and the probabilities that people in this field use.
The chances of winning a lottery is astronomically low, yet there is a winner every week.
Yes which is my point. There should have been a winner and there wasn't.
We are. We are the winner. The chances of someone winning the cosmic lottery is astronomically low. The chances that there is another winner nearby is (astronomically low)^2^.
Right so as I pointed out the distances don't really matter all that much. A galaxy infestation of sentients doesn't require FTL. A nuclear propelled ship could bring the nearest star systems within range in under a century. Additionally we are at the edge of the solar system which means it would be slightly harder for us than it would be on average for sentient life forms.
The 15k doubling time I gave includes travel time. We can make the numbers worse if you would like. Make it a 45k doubling time and it takes 1.5 million years. About 3 orders of magnitude more time than is needed. You would need a double time of roughly half a million years to break it. Which would mean that earth sends out a colony ship once every 50x the duration of human civilization. The first one goes out in say 2030 the next one goes out in 500,002,030, the third 1million 2030 AD.
You vastly underestimate the distances and the timescale. And as far as we can tell, you overestimate the chances of life emerging. Right now it looks like our situation is extremely freaky, and we were very lucky to get it. And the chances that there is another civilization of this type nearby (and a million light years is nothing compared to the size of observable universe, so even on non-relativistic speeds million or two years is a very small timeframe and milion or two light years is a very small distance) is extremely slow. So yes, we were very lucky, we won the lottery, go us.
Ok. Would you kindly revise my numbers based on what the true situation is?
I would like to point out that my 20% comes from the literature on the topic and the dataset that we have right now. What is the true number?
I am not sure the issue is clear here but I’ll put it another way.
If I roll a D100 and get a number - any number - there was a 1% chance I’d get that number. Whether that number has value to me, such as rolling a 100 for a good outcome or a 1 for a terrible one, is immaterial. Every single outcome is 1% likely to happen.
Should I discount the 1% chance outcome just because i got the exact outcome I did or didn’t want?
The numbers aren’t the issue. You can’t say “something happened that was very unlikely therefore the number saying it’s unlikely was wrong.”
Ok so it is likely? You know exactly what I said.
No but to be blunt it has little to no bearing on the discussion to decide if it is or isn’t likely. Whether it’s likely or not is immaterial unless you’re gambling or building policy/making decisions around it. It doesn’t impact the results.
Thinking about this discussion some more, and I would like to share an example with you.
If I roll a D100 there is a 1% chance it’ll land on any given number. What I want it to land on, such as a 100, does not change the likelihood. Yet we have this natural inclination to see 100 as “impossible on the first try,” but not say, 34. Because 34 is not a number we generally care about when rolling a D100. We usually want a 100, we usually don’t want a 1. But they’re as likely as anything else and our feelings on the issue, as well as the result, will never change the fact that it’s 1% every single time for every single result, so each result is equally “special.” This goes for a coin flip, a D100, or a D1000000000. Every result is equally likely and special. We had an insanely unlikely chance of being here, but stats says “whelp it can happen so shrug.”
Right so you aren't telling me stuff I don't know here. Sorry to be blunt. I been dealing with atheist-theist arguments about the Fine tuning problem for years at this point. I know about survivor bias, I know about the misassignment of probability.
I gave you actual numbers. Based on what we know life like us should have predated us by billions of years. We have the first few terms of the equation solved. Number of stars, number of planets, number of liquid water zone planets, and we have a dataset that gives a hint at the odds of life starting. As I also pointed out any kinda barrier you throw up (passed sentient stage) gets crushed by the amount of time we are discussing.
So something is very wrong. Maybe planet formation happened much later than we think (no evidence for this), maybe the two star systems identified with Goldilocks zone planets were black swan events (given the data size of over 5,000 very unlikely), maybe life just about never gets going.
I am leaning towards the life formation stage being hard based on the data we are not seeing from Europa.
That’s fine, I feel you. I’m not sure I’m onboard with your takeaway but ultimately we’re just approaching this and coming away with different takes. Have a good one!