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Comment by nobrains | Hacker News Reader

To my simple mind, unless we find another case of life in this universe, there is no way to determine/estimate/calculate the frequency/probability of origin of life. Unless someone can convince me, in a simple way, that it is possible to determine.

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I took a course from the Complexity Explorer on the origins of life. It made the point that although understanding life is hard, life is actually seemingly easy when considered in terms of it showing up or starting. It pointed to evidence that life began basically as soon as Earth formed, basically as soon as the oceans arrived.

The Solar System itself has plenty of examples of water. For example, Enceladus is surmised to be completely covered in an ocean below its icy crust. As far as I know, there's not much evidence that points to life as being special. Earth is certainly special in the time window that we are experiencing it in given its balances of energy, heat, water, etc.

Utilizing models to predict what's out there doesn't seem all that controversial when evidence points to life not being all that hard cosmically. We just don't have strong enough binoculars yet.

We might never know with complete certainty, but then what can we know? Exploring the limits of the theories we pose is the only way to gain knowledge. The physical world is after all fairly predictable. Even if we will never know anything with certainty.

Well this article/study talks about the likelihood by looking at the likelihood that an RNA sequence randomly forms long enough enough number of times until a self replicating sequence exists. Such a probabilistic approach indicates that life, while not necessarily rare in the universe, might be rare enough that it is unlikely for it to occur twice in a volume that is observable from one occurrence, or that there is some unknown mechanism that makes it more likely.

> Unless someone can convince me, in a simple way

Seems like you're happy with your own theories.

I have the same take. The probability of emergence is 1 because the universe continues forever. Yet there is no evidence of it outside this planet. Until we find evidence of another instance, it is foolish to state anything with certainty.

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