Tilted Forum Project Discussion Community - View Single Post

stingc · 07-05-2003, 08:17 PM

I have a lot of comments on this, so here goes...

I see no reason that this requires invoking quantum mechanics. Quantum mechanical measurement arguments should be avoided in any complex situation, especially far away from zero temperature. None of it is very consistent (should I explain further?).

As far as I can tell, the author just is saying that the probability for some process is larger than the naive estimate because all paths are not equally likely. I don't see this as profound, and it doesn't require talking about quantum mechanics. I do agree with it though. Anyone who's ever played with chemistry should agree that there are good and bad ways of synthesizing things. Also, molecules with the same groups stuck in different places are not in any way "almost the same."

The probabilistic arguments that I have seen arguing that life shouldn't have been spontaneous are all bunk to me. Why? We don't know enough to make any reasonably estimate of the probability. Let's assume for simplicity that "life," whatever that will be defined as, is based on more or less the usual biochemistry we know about. This is a huge assumption, but everyone makes it.

Now what is the minimal starting point for life? People can maybe come up with individual possibilities, but nobody can describe the entire space of possibilities. It is irrelevant to say that something will only exist on one of 10^32 earths if there are 10^35 such objects that could spawn life. A lot of this problem is simply because we only know about the form of life that we have here. There are surely other possibilities that work on very different principles. All of this has to be included to produce a good answer.

Even if we could write down all of these possiblities, we'd then have to know all reasonable ways that each of them could be produced, and the probability for each path (they aren't equal!). I think this is impossible for practical purposes.

People generally go ahead and make up a number anyways, which I think this is dishonest. A random number is not better than saying "we don't have a clue."

07-05-2003, 08:17 PM	#9 (permalink)
stingc Psycho Location: PA	I have a lot of comments on this, so here goes... I see no reason that this requires invoking quantum mechanics. Quantum mechanical measurement arguments should be avoided in any complex situation, especially far away from zero temperature. None of it is very consistent (should I explain further?). As far as I can tell, the author just is saying that the probability for some process is larger than the naive estimate because all paths are not equally likely. I don't see this as profound, and it doesn't require talking about quantum mechanics. I do agree with it though. Anyone who's ever played with chemistry should agree that there are good and bad ways of synthesizing things. Also, molecules with the same groups stuck in different places are not in any way "almost the same." The probabilistic arguments that I have seen arguing that life shouldn't have been spontaneous are all bunk to me. Why? We don't know enough to make any reasonably estimate of the probability. Let's assume for simplicity that "life," whatever that will be defined as, is based on more or less the usual biochemistry we know about. This is a huge assumption, but everyone makes it. Now what is the minimal starting point for life? People can maybe come up with individual possibilities, but nobody can describe the entire space of possibilities. It is irrelevant to say that something will only exist on one of 10^32 earths if there are 10^35 such objects that could spawn life. A lot of this problem is simply because we only know about the form of life that we have here. There are surely other possibilities that work on very different principles. All of this has to be included to produce a good answer. Even if we could write down all of these possiblities, we'd then have to know all reasonable ways that each of them could be produced, and the probability for each path (they aren't equal!). I think this is impossible for practical purposes. People generally go ahead and make up a number anyways, which I think this is dishonest. A random number is not better than saying "we don't have a clue."