Of course, but there are also bunch of reasons to suppose that human scale complexity of body and brain and mind, is exceedingly rare, if not singular.
For more on that google: “Humans might be rare in the universe - Google Search”
I should not of made a comment on religion it wasn’t relevant to my post even if life is rare do the math its estimated that there are 2.2 trillion galaxies 1 star out of all those stars in all those galaxies only has life - impossible. Even if its rare there would be millions of worlds. If it was only one star that had life for every estimated galaxy that would be 2.2 trillion worlds. That would be considered rare.
It’s okay Bill, comment, agree, disagree, debate, share your perspective, it’s all good. Just be civil and intelligent.
I used to be totally convinced of that simple premise - but as I’ve learned more about the incredible events in Earth’s history that turned out just so, … without whom our complexity would have been impossible, I become less and less sure.
Also, I’m not suggesting it’s impossible, just that we might do good to look at it from the other direction.
Though, without studying Earth’s incredible Evolutionary history we’ll never gather the pieces of evidence that support our planet’s exceptionalism.
Check out some of the articles under that link I shared, way smarter minds than mine have been working on outlining the reasons why our Earth, and we, may perhaps be an exceptional one off. Hard to believe though it may seem.
We do know that we haven’t caught a whiff of it and our observations keep taking in more of the night sky.
The “Fermi’s Paradox” riddle is an interesting one, we had a thread on that once. Bigbill seems to think he knows the numbers, but nobody really does. My favorite explanation for why we haven’t contacted intelligent life, is that intelligent life hides itself, cloaking it’s electronic signals behind a filter. I think once we get past being smart and also being dangerous, to just being smart, we will also want to hide from the other smart/dangerous worlds. Maybe there is a private network of the smart ones that we will then be invited to join.
I didn’t come up with the numbers its accepted by Astro physicist that there are an estimated 2.2 trillion galaxies how the heck could I come up with that number do you think I pulled out of thin air.Please don’t speak for me like I came up with the numbers… I’m simply going on what science knows or suspects today if thats too hard for you to deal with then so be it.
Share a recent article you found convincing. Though, focusing on the stars, isn’t going to help anyone understand the unbelievable series of events that made complex life, and then humans possible on this planet. Not to mention the short window of opportunity. Earth’s has been around for four and a half billion years. Human’s have been but the most recent blink of an eye, during a short period of optimal climate conditions, after a long long period of developing.
Come back in a hundred years and the odds are better than not, that there won’t be any of us around anymore.
Besides, whether life exists in other galaxies, seems rather irrelevant to our situation here on Earth. It’s like looking for god, makes for a fun head game, but in the end is beside the point.
Well some of us want to know so its not irrelevant its just irreverent to some maybe you don’t care but I would like to know. I’m not the only one its not irreverent to me. To criticize because others want to look further is not for you to do. I always wanted to be a Astro Physicist so it within my interest obviously yours are else where it doesn’t make it wrong. Why do you need to criticize the interests of others?We sure are spending a lot of money on finding terrestrial planets heck were sending the James Web for that exact reason so no its not irreverent its the great unanswered question of man.
Only been here two days and I have run into a group who want to control the narrative I think I will pass.
You have been here only two days and you feel qualified to pass judgement on the posters here? Should we hang on your every word of wisdom? Perhaps you want to control the narrative, but we are withholding judgement on you!
Why don’t you read a few pages on subjects that interest you in order to get a “feel” for the quality of posts. As an aspiring astronomer you show remarkably little patience.
Are yo u prepared to sit for days and weeks waiting for the cosmos to reveal something that interests you? Sounds to me you are more suited to product testing. Immediate results indicating utility. Instant gratification. That is the attitude you have just displayed here.
Have you familiarized yourself with CFI’s Mission statement? Are you prepared to accept these premises? If not, are you willing to discuss or debate the merits?
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What do you think of Anil Seth’s hypothesis of “controlled hallucinations”, where the mind creates an expectation based on incoming data, and confirms or rejects it when the expectation is projected on the external patterns?
As he posits: " We create our reality as much from the inside out as from the outside in"
We’ve been down that road. On one level I agree there’s much to be learned from Anil Seth. On another hand, I still think his “controlled hallucination” analogy does the topic an injustice - even if it’s sexy and sells. If he’d have conjured a sharper more telling analogy, I’d probably be singing his praises at my blog.
RE your quote: Don’t lose sight of “as much …” - Which brings us back to the notion that we can’t understand an organism, without also understanding its environment.
The problem with Seth’s rhetoric is that I see the sloppiness lead to the utterly counterproductive tripe that Donald Hoffman peddle’s with “rigorous math” and theorems and “Conscious Agents” interpreting our reality for us. Then next thing lecturers are getting great money for promising that Reality and Time/Space as we know it is doomed.
In short, it drifts into the delusional lalaland of escapism. Don’t get me wrong, I’m not knocking physics and the study of scales and dimensions beyond our senses - it’s keeping it in perspective that I’m talking about.
Most don’t even understand our own bodies, let alone how intimately tied those bodies are to this planet Earth and its evolution. No a clue, worst they think, so what, why does it matter. I mean people can be taught an awful lot - but not if there’s no curiosity, no passion for doing something with your beating heart while you’ve got it.
The concept seem so beyond most. So let’s spend all our energy looking to the heavens and consuming mountains of stuff they don’t need.
Reality is here and now and there’s so much to it, folds within folds of harmonic poetry in motion, I mean how many times can a person scratch their heads over Schrödinger’s cat, while life is happening here and now.
Yes you and I have been here before. I’m not sure if BigBill is familiar with Anil Seth.
I’m sure you understand the analogy, else you would not critique the choice of that term. Your tacit acknowledgement that if a different analogy was used you might sing Seth’s praises tells me you are more than a little interested… 
Did you check out the long formal presentation of the synopsis in the Ted Talks video. This is where Seth goes into great detail of the mechanisms that allow us to experience our (limited) reality? He also explains exactly why he believes “controlled hallucination” is the precise definition. Note that hallucination does not necessarily indicate a mental deficit or affliction. Anyone who can imagine him/herself in a different place than what they occupy at that moment is creating a “controlled hallucination” (imagining), the keyword being “controlled”.
But I am interested in your interpretation of sensory observation and mental classification of what the sensory data represents. The “best guess” the brain makes from memory about what the new data appears to represent.
What term would you use? Spiritualism?
Is religion a controlled hallucination?
Here’s where you made up numbers. We have no other data on intelligent life forming on other planets.The paradox is, if life should be out there, why don’t we have evidence of it? You give one answer to this, if there is only one star per galaxy with life on it, then we can’t detect it, or none of them are capable of inter-galactic travel.
The questions that posters are asking are the questions that have been asked for about 100 years. It doesn’t appear you have spent much time with this, just looked at a Hubble image and thought about how big the universe is. That’s cool. So, how long should it take for intelligent appear? Should it take 10 billion years? that sound reasonable. So it could have been around for 3 billion years already, but we have yet to find a piece of space junk that floated away from their planet. How do you explain that? That isn’t criticism, that’s forming a scientific question to test the hypothesis. It doesn’t mean I will stop looking for evidence or that I have declared the topic irrelevant.
Dictionary reads: “an experience involving the apparent perception of something not present.”
It’s simply an inappropriate word for what’s being described. I know other convoluted definitions expand that limited definition, but I don’t buy it.
Come up with a better term for what we understand is happening when we perceive Physical Reality.
Spiritualism is also a slippery word. That’s best defined before tossing around. I my own way I’m more spiritual most, but it’s more an empathic thing, than trying to grasp an all pervading ultimate force, or something like god like.
I don’t know enough for those kinds of grand conclusions. I’m still in the soaking it up phase. Plus, another work day in front of me, but it involves working with my daughter and her husband so it’s what I call quality bonding time. Today it’s time to replace the scary window.
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The appearance of intelligence is truly a mystery. When did intelligence appear on earth, what were the circumstances, and how long did it take for “sensitivity” to evolve into “experience”.
As to life, Robert Hazen believes that considering the ordinary size, properties, and chemical resources of the earth, life is almost certain to exist elsewhere.
As to highly intelligent life…? I believe that the fusion of chromosome 2 in humans is the marker.
Humans are the only hominid with 23 chromosomes, but with chromosome 2 being twice as long as normal (fusion of 2 chromosomes into 1).
All other hominids have 24 normal sized chromosomes.
First, the keyword is “controlled” hallucinations. IOW, imagining, best guessing.
How does the brain know something is present? A series of electro-chemical neural impulses is all that the brain ever experiences. This has given rise to the hypothesis that our brains create our reality. Optical and auditory illusions are false controlled hallucinations. We know what we are seeing or hearing, but it isn’t really there.
“the brain in a vat” is a typical brain . All it does is hallucinate from processing secondary data
That is why it is so easy for the brain to accept the notion of a non-existent God.
Religion is a controlled hallucinatory experience based on the teachings in scripture.
[“write4u, post:39, topic:8112”]
How does the brain know something is present?
A series of electro-chemical neural impulses is all that the brain ever experiences.This has given rise to the hypothesis that our brains create our reality.
Optical and auditory illusions are false controlled hallucinations.
An optical illusion, is just that an illusion. Misapprehending an optical trick isn’t really a hallucination. D. Hoffman loves talking about his Mobius “Cube” - but it is not cube, it’s an artfully contrived series of lines intended to trick the eye. An eye who’s job it is to make quick assessments in a rapidly changing world.
We know what we are seeing or hearing, but it isn’t really there.
I think that quote gets to the heart of what literally enrages my Earth Centrist heart. What do you mean it’s not there?!?!?
We humans are embedded within a material world, the product of over four billion years of evolution, that material is more real than heaven, hell, god, our glorious human imaginations, all put together.
We are evolved creatures, that developed better senses in order to better assess an amazingly complex, dynamic physical reality, that had to be dealt with in an appropriate manner, if one wanted to survive.
It matters to be accurate, not perfectly accurate, close works plenty well enough.
Where the heck do we get this sense of intellectual entitlement from? To think that your brain is smarter than our dynamic biosphere and the natural laws that created us. Second guessing physical reality really does say it all about human hubris and helps explain why we are making such a disaster out of our stewardship of Earth and humanity’s future.
It’s like comparing the visual and intellectual experience a master contractor has when walking through a house with a client.
Tell me who’s experience of the house is an illusion, or better yet a hallucination, and who’s looking at the real house?
The contractor who sees all things structural and technical details -
Or the client who’s all about living space, and what guests will be thinking when they walk in, etc.
What’s with the expectation we deserve some perfect ultimate answer to anything. What is the desperate search looking for? The perfect mathematical formula and what’s that going to help us understand? Then what?
Keep in mind when we sense anything, it starts with that object, sound waves and light waves need to first bounce off of said object - before you can perceive it.
Making your ‘best guess’, is not the same as having a hallucination.
Hallucination is something altogether different!