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Comment by yarg | Hacker News Reader

I'm starting to think that given enough time and space any context in which self replicating structures can occur will give rise to some form of life (as a statistical inevitability).

(I've probably been reading too much sci-fi.)

Alien life does not need to be restricted to matter as we know it; if space itself can give rise to self replicating structures, then it too could be alive.

Beyond that, life could occur in any medium and at any scale (in either space or time).

Even regarding terrestrial life, how long did it take for us to notice microbes (as something other than a curse from god)?

There could even be macroscopic lifeforms moving so quickly that we are unable to see them.

So the answer, as far as I can tell, is really that it depends on the kind of life we're referring too.

And if it's too far outside the human context of understanding or perception, then the answer is no.

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By looking at what happened in earth judging it is a normal likelihood for a cell to form within billion year and evolve to us within 4 billion years, is nuts. Scientists thinks this way because they have no idea about what statistical possibility of this to happen in such time. What happened and happening in Earth even if not a miracle to one then it is result of a luck statistically impossible to find anywhere in cosmos. It is worth to mention that all living beings in earth are descendants of same cell. Even in earth there is no sign of multiple different cell formation which shows how lucky we were.

You’re confusing the odds of a specific lottery ticket hitting the jackpot with any ticket winning. Someone will win fairly regularly.

So yea, the odds of life evolving to something genetically compatible with humanity when we did might be tiny, but we aren’t the only possible form of intelligent multicellular tool using life and it could have happened +/- a few billion years. Given earth starting 5 billion years ago the odds of some intelligent civilization eventually showing up might actually be fairly high, we just don’t have enough data to know.

I think you totally missed my point. I am literally saying there are Aliens only if GOD created them and it seems like there aren't. Even though i tried to be very indirect for obvious reasons. I think it was clear enough.

Not who you responded to, but I thought you described your case elegantly neutral to the God question. I suspected you were coming from that perspective, but your argument stood on its own.

Now that said, if we did find alien life, how would your feelings about God change?

I don't base existence of GOD on this. Simply GOD is only thing that does not need anything to be based on so it is possible to explain existence. I was trying to point that evolution is statistically close to impossible (from my understanding) and GOD made it possible. Thus aliens are unlikely. And it seems like there is no sign of aliens in holly books. If there was aliens and it was conflicting with holly books then it would mean that holly books i believe are fake however i am not saying that existence of Aliens would conflict with Holly books either (I am not sure about that). The explanation of this existence to you is what GOD means to you. And you need to define some element to explain this existence. And what would you define eventually means GOD to you.

Which logically means your definition of GOD would include a non sentient physical processes that lacks a free will etc. At that point why label it GOD rather than say space time or whatever?

Existence of universe has nothing to do with something about universe. Or at leas not have to. You cannot explain existence of space time with space time

Why not? If GOD has always existed why can’t space and time?

That is the thing if you are talking about space-time it didn't existed before the Big Bang.

That’s one model, but we really don’t know what happened before the Big Bang.

Still labeling pre Big Bang as SpaceTimeTime or calling that Space Time and relabeling what we experience as local space time doesn’t really matter here. The point is our Big Bang could be happening infinite times in a multiverse without beginning or end. That’s one possibility where there isn’t anything conscious to point to as a GOD just the same kind of things which make up physical reality.

Every book, holy or otherwise, that was ever written was written by humans. What makes you think they are “real” in the first place?

There’s no mention of a ton of very significant things we now know to be real in any holy book. Why isn’t that stuff enough “proof” they’re “fake”?

I don't believe you have read your "holly" books. There are plenty of alien beings described in detail in that book.

I also reject your out-of-hand assertion that whatever one thinks about the world's existence has the same meaning to someone as your mythical being has to you.

How blown would your mind be if I posited to you that what you call "GOD" is the universe? Your holly book says he is everywhere and everything all at once, does it not? That "He is within all of us", and yet we are the universe observing itself. He came about out of nowhere with no trace of origin? We don't know what caused the big bang, it just happened.

If aliens exist, it's because the universe "allowed" it to happen (aka the statistical probability is high enough for it to occur or we would not be alive having this conversation) not some conscious divine being.

Sure, that belief isn’t backed up by existing evidence but it’s hardly worth rehashing again.

Anyway something more interesting you said was the belief that all life came from a single cell. It’s unclear if all life ever to exist on earth had cells or if they evolved later. Also, we can’t tell if life showed up independently fairly frequently but was out competed or just once.

This is somewhat dependent on how life is defined. Prions replicate, but aren’t generally considered alive, yet being fairly simple they should have shown up quite frequently due to random chance. The more complex self replicating matter must be to be considered alive the higher the hurdle for life to have formed randomly but the more likely for simpler self replicating matter to evolve into life. Yet, saying evolution of non living mater results in life seems to twist the meaning around unpleasantly.

PS: Perhaps we should have a new definition between dead matter and living matter which is self catalyzing in the right environment. With viruses or prions siting at the complex side and crystals at the simple end.

Even if it doesn't define life obviously replication is the thing here. Without capability of replication there is no continuation and even if some matter is alive it has limited time to obtain this ability. Which is actually seems like slightly more possible than impossible to me. Not saying straightforward impossible just because we exist.

Any non infinitessimal probability leads to certainty given enough time.

Consider it in terms of reactions per second - take the likelyhood of non-formation of replicators (call it 99.999999999% - because it actually does not matter), to the power of the number of reactors, to the power of the number of seconds since the universe began.

The likelyhood that no self-replicators form rapidly plummets to a vanishing value.

By that standard there hasn't been much time.

I may have added too many nines, but the point stands.

Just once for the initial self-replicators would be my guess.

Not in a cell, but in porous rock around the hydrothermal vents (at the bottom of the ocean).

Given the exponentialish 'population' growth of chemical soup, coupled with the fact that the very low likelyhood of a localised self-replicator forming, by the time second place came about the game would already be over.

Far more likely is preserved 'mutations' to chemical replicators leading to divergent forms of demi-life.

> by the time second place came about the game would already be over.

That’s presumably true, but it means there could have been a very large number of losers not just 1. Aka if extremely primitive life showed up once on earth then it might be a rare event, if it happened 100 trillion times then most planets with the right conditions will have some form of life.

It'll be a Poisson distribution.

If the spread is too wide then the chance of spatiotemporally cohabiting civilizations of distinct origins will be diminishingly small.

But I don't actually think that the planetary parameters that allow for replication are (in any way) specific to earth.

Do we really need to bring the invisible sky-wizard into this?

Also, the fact that you think a being of unfathomable complexity can just be, but everything else needs a source is rather silly.

(The other possibility being infinite regression, which is equally silly.)

OK, let's look at earth's oceanic heat vents.

A chemical soup and enough porous rocks down at the bottom of the ocean to operate as reactors powering endothermic reactions.

These are spread across the entire surface of the earth.

If, by chance, some set of reactions occur forming molecules (or groups of molecules) that catalyse their own formation, then you have constrained self-replication.

Once you have this - and you only need it once, there's an exponential (s-curve really) boom in the prevalence of the chemicals in question.

Any changes to these molecules that preserve the self-replicating nature of the soup will be preserved to an extent and those changes that improve self-replication will not only be preserved but will begin to outpace the parents.

If, for example, I stick a little hydrogen on the front of a structure it'll develop the ability to trace along ion lines.

A chemical soup that hunts its own food.

Of course, these mutations can lead to divergence - which eventually leads to a pseudo-competition.

Step by step, piece by piece, complexity builds up.

Structures integrate and develop the ability to funnel 'food' to where it needs to go for transformation.

And if it is possible for this to happen, then given enough time and enough distinct reactors, it is not simply possible - it is absolutely inevitable.

I don't know much but i think you are jumping too much. I don't think it is possible for a self-catalysing molecule to achieve enough complexity to begin with. When you jump to structure obviously it becomes pretty much irrelevent.

self-replicating*

I'd note that nothing in this statement is particularly compelling one way or the other. Sure, things are inevitable given enough space and enough time. But we had a finite amount of space and a finite amount of time. Both were pretty big numbers. But do we have evidence to say that the timelines of life on Earth were inevitable? Probably not. Maybe, but I would guess no.

Yet all living beings in earth are descendants of same cell, as far as we know. So if the above can happen once -- even if only "needs" to happen once, why would it not occur more than once, and lead to different "lines" of life, so to speak?

I suspect that the less evolved and less efficient replicators would not fare well against older and more robust forms - especially once those forms develop the ability to hunt and direct their food.

Basically, in an emergent adversarial environment running late to the party gets you eaten.

> It is worth to mention that all living beings in earth are descendants of same cell. Even in earth there is no sign of multiple different cell formation which shows how lucky we were.

I don't see why this has to be the case. If unlikely conditions are correct for something unlikely to occur, then it's not longer unlikely to occur multiple times.

E.g. if you play around with chemical reactions and you hit the right conditions, it usually happens all over the place, and not just one molecule combining.

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