EXPOSE-E(d) life in space!

[Selfsim]

The "butterfly effect" refers to meteorology, if I remember correctly... Phenomena like thunderstorms may be chaotic, and (in a sense) unpredictable, but they happen here on Earth, and on other planets as well. I think it was the Venera program that demonstrated existence of lightning on Venus.

The butterfly effect was a lesson for Physics. The literal interpretation you make, is missing the main point to be learned.

Before it was discovered in physics, the 'universal' assumption was that physics is deterministic and therefore the mathematics one uses in physics, should always give a predictable result. This was clearly falsified when the differential equations used in describing weather forecasts, demonstrated extreme sensitivity to initial conditions and prevented prediction. That is the butterfly effect.

Until Lorenz, no Physicist realized that such unpredictable behaviour would show up in a phase space that was relevant to physics, and that it was generated by such a simple and physically motivated differential equation.

In your lightning example, no-one could predict from atmospherical physical theory, that lighting would occur on Venus, Jupiter etc - at all ! 'Twas entirely up to empirical science (direct probe observations), to make this discovery. That it actually did occur, is irrelevant when one could not predict it from constrained theory in the first place.

There is no reason to assume that the same would not apply in the case of the belief about extra(exo)-terrestrial life. There is nothing science can say which validates any belief based on speculative 'predictions'.

Complex systems are a complex topic, no doubt. And life is the most complex of systems, and there is lot we still don't understand about how it got started, and how it has developed to where we are now. But what element in the theories of complexity would lead us to expect less of it on other worlds than here?

… That it is a complex system in theory, which includes chaotic behaviours and the reality that comes with them ie: unpredictability !

It doesn't matter what anyone conjures up, the reality is that the presence/absence of it elsewhere, is entirely unpredictable. Everything implying that life might have emerged elsewhere, is nothing more than wild imaginings, and nothing better than sci-fi. This is not merely my opinion ...(!!)… this is a consequence of the lack of empirical evidence from which prediction must be based.

Such beliefs are tantamount to outright denial of the known general behaviours of the broader class of physical systems, which accurately characterise biology !!
'Believers' should explain why life, (and its origins), should be specifically excluded from these !!??

[R.A.F.]

There is nothing science can say which validates any belief based on speculative 'predictions'.

I like that phrase...it would make a good sig.

[Selfsim]

I like that phrase...it would make a good sig.

Gee, R.A.F.;
Its sooo hard to get such a simple message across !
My head has brick imprints all over it !

Cheers

[Colin Robinson]

It doesn't matter what anyone conjures up, the reality is that the presence/absence of it elsewhere, is entirely unpredictable. Everything implying that life might have emerged elsewhere, is nothing more than wild imaginings, and nothing better than sci-fi.

???

How can it be "wild imaginings" to say that life even might have emerged elsewhere, if (as you say) the reality of its presence/absence is "entirely unpredictable"?

Logically speaking, if you deny that something might have emerged, you are implying that its emergence is impossible. You are predicting its absence.

[MaDeR]

unpredictability !
It doesn't matter what anyone conjures up, the reality is that the presence/absence of it elsewhere, is entirely unpredictable. Everything implying that life might have emerged elsewhere, is nothing more than wild imaginings, and nothing better than sci-fi.

Unpredictableness (if this word does not exists, it should!) do not have anything with chances of occurence. You find life impossible to happen elsewhere just because it is unpredictable? Somehow you are sure it does not exist despite its unpredictability. Logical error.

There are systems that are unpredictable, yet they create themself by every opportunity. Weather is unpredictable, yet every planet with any amount of atmosphere will have weather. Planet configuration emerging from protoplanet disk is unpredictable, yet almost always planets will happen (not happening require unusual circumstances, for example nearby very massive star that would blast away disk before anything could form).

So no, you cannot deny possibility of existence of system just because this system have property "unpredictable", be it weather, planet formation or exolife.

[Selfsim]

??? How can it be "wild imaginings" to say that life even might have emerged elsewhere, if (as you say) the reality of its presence/absence is "entirely unpredictable"?

If you accept that the reality of unpredictability, (for sound scientific reasons), then the statement: "it might have emerged elsewhere", is a speculative prediction. Speculation is generated by human imagination (imaginings), which by no means, has to be reflected in reality. (For example: most of science is counterintuitive, which interestingly, demonstrates how limited our imaginations really are, and also demonstrates the non-reality upon which it is based).
Anything unconstrained may be 'possible' ... but we know this is not how nature works .. there are always constraints and tradeoffs. Unconstrained speculation therefore, can easily lead one one astray from reality.

Logically speaking, if you deny that something might have emerged, you are implying that its emergence is impossible. You are predicting its absence.

Sure ... but I am not denying anything. 'Unknown' is a valid state ... it doesn't need qualification by statements of what might or might not, be 'possible'. Sometimes when arguing from the 'unknown' perspective, it looks as if one is denying the speculative case for 'exo-life exists'. To balance this out, sometimes it also looks like one is denying the speculative case for 'exo-life doesn't exist'. At other times, one can appear to be supporting both cases.

But it only looks that way.

This is why the 'unknown' perspective is appropriate .. because it allows for any case variants of either of the 'exists' or 'doesn't exist', considerations.

Another aspect to this is that there is:

i) what we know;
ii) what we know we don't know;
iii) what we don't know that we don't know.

Making speculative statements about what might be possible, comes at the cost of making assumptions about what we don't know (ie: items (ii) and (iii)). Once these assumptions are formed, it is very difficult to back-track and undo them, when and if, falsifying evidence is found. This can even lead to scientific paradoxes, especially if the assumptions cease to be present in the discussion. I find the assumptions underpinning the 'exo-life exists' arguments made in this forum, to be largely absent. (Note: I'm not necessarily saying you necessarily do this, either … but I do reserve the right to call anyone on it, if I see it being done).

I assert that making assumptions and logical arguments about what we know is unknown, is ultimately self-defeating. It detracts from making unbiased observations of the unknown if and when it appears, (caused by the act of exploration).

Regards

[Selfsim]

Unpredictableness (if this word does not exists, it should!) do not have anything with chances of occurence. You find life impossible to happen elsewhere just because it is unpredictable? Somehow you are sure it does not exist despite its unpredictability. Logical error.

Nope .. see my last post #66.
Theory is our only insight into what may be presently unobserved. Theories make predictions. If there is no empirical data that allows the formation of a speculative conclusion, then there can be no construction of a premise. If there is no premise, then there can be no theory and therefore no prediction. When this happens there is not much which can be said. So be it.

When you use the phrase 'chances of occurrence' you are speaking statistically, and you should be able to derive the 'chances of occurrence' you speak of. Please proceed .. I'm eager to see it done. Making statements about 'chances of occurrence' is a statement of prediction .. eg: "the event has not yet occurred, but the chances of it occurring in the future are 'x' chances out of 'y' random trials". This is a scientifically based, mathematical definition. If you are not speaking scientifically or mathematically, then please use some other language to distinguish the basis from which you are speaking.

There are systems that are unpredictable, yet they create themself by every opportunity. Weather is unpredictable, yet every planet with any amount of atmosphere will have weather. Planet configuration emerging from protoplanet disk is unpredictable, yet almost always planets will happen (not happening require unusual circumstances, for example nearby very massive star that would blast away disk before anything could form).

Note that you can assert the planetary atmospheric/protoplanetary disk statements as 'real', because of the vast amount of evidence underpinning the real causes, and their effects.

Where is the same evidence for exo-life ?
Absent, eh ?

I do not see any correlation between planetary atmospheric/protoplanetary disks, and the emergence of exo-life. Life as we know it, exists at vastly different scales, (many orders of magnitude smaller), and has sensitivities at vastly different scales, and is way more complex than the examples you cite. It is subject to vastly different influences. It has entirely different and more complex behaviours. What is the relevance of your analogy ?

So no, you cannot deny possibility of existence of system just because this system have property "unpredictable", be it weather, planet formation or exolife.

Once again, I am not denying the existence of such a generalised system. If a complex system is defined, parts of it at certain scales and points in time, can possess degrees of freedom which can move it from stability to instability, especially when perturbed. Such behaviour will result in unpredictability at certain scales. Because of this, the emergence of viable life is not a simple 'given', and it will remain that way until we have another example of non-terrestrial emergence. Until we have such data, its occurrence elsewhere cannot be predicted from theory.

[Colin Robinson]

If you accept that the reality of unpredictability, (for sound scientific reasons), then the statement: "it might have emerged elsewhere", is a speculative prediction....I assert that making assumptions and logical arguments about what we know is unknown, is ultimately self-defeating. It detracts from making unbiased observations of the unknown if and when it appears, (caused by the act of exploration).

Is it an instance of "logical arguments about what we know is unknown", to suggest that ancient Earth might have been uniquely affected by some cosmic equivalent of a butterfly wing-flap, in just such a way that life got started here but nowhere else?

[MaDeR]

I do not see any correlation between planetary atmospheric/protoplanetary disks, and the emergence of exo-life. (...) What is the relevance of your analogy ?

All of my examples have property "unpredictable". You were trying to dismiss existence of system just because it have this property - and only this property was entirely enough.
You cannot dismiss system called "exolife" because of this property only and ignore existence of other systems with this property.

It doesn't matter what anyone conjures up, the reality is that the presence/absence of it elsewhere, is entirely unpredictable. Everything implying that life might have emerged elsewhere, is nothing more than wild imaginings, and nothing better than sci-fi.

This older quote shows clearly that you claimed having "unpredictable" property is enough to deny existence of system. You unintentionally made generalization, but you meant to apply it to exolife only. Sorry, but denying possibility of exolife will need something more specific than merely having "unpredictable" property. It is not enough.

[Selfsim]

MaDeR;

In principle, I accept the generalised point you make, although it was not applicable to where I was coming from. (Admittedly, I didn't explicitly state exactly where I was originally coming from, however).

Have you considered what the outcome would be in the case where parts of the emergence process itself, are subject to complex chaotic behaviours ? Try predicting a viable life outcome from such a process …

This would not necessarily be a basis for dismissing other 'possibilities', and is not presented for such purposes. Consideration of such a case however, broadens one's focus from a deterministically driven model .. (which is the minority case in nature, and one which rarely occurs in biological systems).

[KABOOM]

MaDeR;

In principle, I accept the generalised point you make, although it was not applicable to where I was coming from. (Admittedly, I didn't explicitly state exactly where I was originally coming from, however).

Have you considered what the outcome would be in the case where parts of the emergence process itself, are subject to complex chaotic behaviours ? Try predicting a viable life outcome from such a process …

This would not necessarily be a basis for dismissing other 'possibilities', and is not presented for such purposes. Consideration of such a case however, broadens one's focus from a deterministically driven model .. (which is the minority case in nature, and one which rarely occurs in biological systems).

I think that too much emphasis is being given to the need for "predictability" whence the "proper ingredients" and "condtions" for abiogenesis are present. In fact, one can opine (and either side of this points is only that, an opinion) that to the exent that "unpredictability" is a facet of pre-biotic complex organic chemisty that such a property may well indeed increase (rather than decrease) the possibility of abiogenesis eventually materializing and taking afoot in a given location.

Most chemical reactions happens quickly. To the extent that a given location has the right ingredients and conditions, the duration of such conditions would be typically measured on a cosmic timescale (tens of millions of years). So subject all of the individual occurences of pre-biotic organic chemical reactions, presumably occuring at various locations within a given exo-planet, to "chaos" with regards to phase changes and results. Yes, the ability to "predict" any individual outcome would be impossible (similar to predicting when or where lightning would strike in the atmosphere in Venus). However, this system would have billions and billions of individual chemical reactions amongst these "proper ingredients", many of which would occur under slightly different conditions. So while we can never predict when and where lightning will strike, we can assert with high confidence that over the next 1 year lightning is likely to strike in a visible manner when observed from my lounge chair on my back deck. Weather may be a simpler process than abiogenesis but that does not mean that with enough data similar overall predictions can't be made with increased levels of confidence over time.

[MaDeR]

In principle, I accept the generalised point you make,

Then you must think up something else than "unpredictability". I do not think you will have easy time thinking up something that life posses, other systems (that have no problem with existence in large numbers) doesn't and thus you could claim that having ithis property for some reason will restrict life to Earth only.

In fact, I think your cursade against exolife is doomed even before it began. In other threads you try to preemptively dismiss potential future discoveries of certain spectra from certain planets. I am sorry if it is too personal, but I do not understand this kind of thought. You clearly think there is no extraterrestial life, yet you think (fear?) there will be many discoveries of planets that will be similar to Earth (down to similar spectra indicating atmospheric imbalance unexplainable with known purely abiological mechanisms). This is illogical for me.

If I thought there is no exolife, I would predict no life signatures. No biological traces. Just dead husks, sterile planets, gray rocks, empty spectra. Not something that pretends to have life, but obviously it cannot be it cannot be proven to be exolife.

Try predicting a viable life outcome from such a process …

I do not have to predict if today will be raining methane on Titan to prove claim that Titan have weather. In other words, requirement to predict some particular "viable life" is red heering and it is not needed to prove that some kind of exolife exists.