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this post was submitted on 13 Jul 2023
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science
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There’s definitely been life in other places beyond earth. That’s an unfathomable amount of time for matter not to have self-organised in the unfathomable amount of space that exists before it happened here. It may all be dead by now and we may never see it, but this feels like game over for any earth-centric model that still exists.
It seems likely, even highly likely, but not "definitely". Making absolute claims without supporting evidence is the sort of thing that antivaxers do.
I’m not a scientist, I’m a writer. Throwing words around is what I do, which hopefully gets other people talking. That’s kinda my point.
Don’t get real opinions from random internet comments.
That sounds much like the "just asking questions" excuse. As a writer you should know the power of words and how the nuances of their meaning affect the message. Dismissing the meaning of your words with the excuse of just "throwing words around" is dangerous and frankly shameful for any writer who isn't a hack.
Edit: maybe I got out of the wrong side of the bed this morning. You're good, but that did not resonate well with me.
I’m still sticking with ‘definitely’.
Regardless of whether I meant it as a doorway into conversation – and that wasn’t an excuse, but a threshold to conversation – if you’re going to pin me on it, I’ll say yes, I think the odds are nearly 100% life exists not just elsewhere, but everywhere.
I personally think that’s the inevitable conclusion of 3-dimensional space. That’s just my personal opinion, though.
Call me a hack if you like.
(e: removed unnecessary snark.)
I'm not convinced of this. It could also be that it's also that unfathomably likely to like to develop and evolve.
Then how are we here?
What are the odds of us being here to talk about the odds of us being here talking about this versus fungus or bacteria literally everywhere?
Simple life being everywhere is more likely than complex life being anywhere, yet here we are.
I'm not following why you think that's in contrast with what I've said. I agree that simple life being everywhere is more likely than complex being anywhere.
It seems to me that simple life being anywhere could be unlikely enough.
Maybe we don’t disagree. I just think that if complex life like us could evolve in a relatively (to the overall universe) time, and the elements to make up life are everywhere (based on recent studies), it would be weird if simpler life forms didn’t evolve in such a vast amount of time.
It seems to me the only reason we think it’s unlikely is because of our earth- and human-centric beliefs. We want to believe we’re special, to the point we’re hostile to the idea.
We’re discovering that Mars and Venus have complex structures that likely break our concept of life, and some people are reacting badly to that. I didn’t necessarily think you were against what I said, but others were hostile towards my comment.
I was just commenting on a random thread, and I wasn’t directing anything at you. I’m sorry if it came across that way.