Tenacity of Life
It is now a commonly held belief within the scientific community, supported by much evidence, that life (at least in its basic bacterial stages) is in fact quite common throughout the galaxy, and by extention the Universe.
There is a certain tenacity with which all life exists. What is true on our own planet is this: life will find a way. If it can exist it will exist, in whatever form is most conducive to its existence. Life therefore, is not rare at all. It is safe to say life exists everywhere in the galaxy where it possibly can exist.
It seems safe to assume (and this is an assumption, with no evidence yet mind you) that since life exists everywhere it can, and life takes the forms which are conducive to its continued existence that complex life will exist where it will flourish. This means complex life elsewhere in the galaxy is not only possible, but likely.
--The Law of Large Numbers--
Quite simply, the law is this: any event, no matter how improbable becomes likely given a large enough set. If the odds of intelligent life forming are one in a billion, then it is highly likely that it will exist several times over if you have one hundred billion possible locations for it to exist.
This still leaves the difficulty of any of these still relatively few and scattered intelligent races finding and communicating with each other. Programs such as SETI have spawned such considerations as people try to determine just how likely it is that we'd successfully make contact with another intelligent species.
You may want to check this out for related reading (although opposed to the idea of complex life appearing widespread) I haven't read the book but the article is interesting.
http://www.forum2.org/tal/books/rare.html
There is a certain tenacity with which all life exists. What is true on our own planet is this: life will find a way. If it can exist it will exist, in whatever form is most conducive to its existence. Life therefore, is not rare at all. It is safe to say life exists everywhere in the galaxy where it possibly can exist.
It seems safe to assume (and this is an assumption, with no evidence yet mind you) that since life exists everywhere it can, and life takes the forms which are conducive to its continued existence that complex life will exist where it will flourish. This means complex life elsewhere in the galaxy is not only possible, but likely.
--The Law of Large Numbers--
Quite simply, the law is this: any event, no matter how improbable becomes likely given a large enough set. If the odds of intelligent life forming are one in a billion, then it is highly likely that it will exist several times over if you have one hundred billion possible locations for it to exist.
This still leaves the difficulty of any of these still relatively few and scattered intelligent races finding and communicating with each other. Programs such as SETI have spawned such considerations as people try to determine just how likely it is that we'd successfully make contact with another intelligent species.
You may want to check this out for related reading (although opposed to the idea of complex life appearing widespread) I haven't read the book but the article is interesting.
http://www.forum2.org/tal/books/rare.html
posted by cyber-mountain guru at 10:32 AM
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