Inhabited Planets

[jonathan180iq]

If by agree you mean that we do not assume that life elsewhere is a guarantee then yes.

Possibility is the only word I'm looking for

 

[Guy Threepwood]

once again that would showcase the extreme inefficiency of God so called perfect creation.
He basically would have wasted all the time and the energy in the effort to create not only this galaxy but all the other galaxies in the universe, and they would all be dead places except from this planet.
at the same time he is not even able to create a cellular self replicating mechanism good enough that it would make us cancer free.

by the way i've yet to come up with the decision about what would pi$$ me off more:

- the idea that we're the only life form in the universe
- the idea that it's full of places like earth in the universe and we will never be able to overcome the distance and take a look at them.

remember that the universe came from a primeval atom, a tiny seed, it's size was determined by the math used in the design, not extra 'time and energy'

So if for the same 'price' you can have a minimalist space-saver universe, a Truman show dome

or a vast awe inspiring cosmos, which incredibly we can observe, investigate, marvel at- drawing us out beyond ourselves, testing our curiosity to it's limits.. what better way to appreciate anything?

The latter would seem far more consistent with a divine creation would it not?

 

[Rick O'Shez]

I rather like the idea of space aliens so I am going to believe in them anyway. So there.

 

[LegionOnomaMoi]

I'll agree with that all day long - but in all fairness don't we have to assume that the chance of it happening is also much higher than we're speculating? I mean, if we use an infinitesimal chance of it happening because of the unknown then it's just as likely that the number could be much larger, right?

No. Hence Bayesian (and similar) approaches to probability. Given what we know, it's actually incredibly unlikely that any form of complex life (i.e., multicellular) exists anywhere, and we have more evidence for the fact that it doesn't than that it does. The arguments of a vast, ancient universe with the "laws of physics" are defeated quite simply by the very need for such a universe for life to exist even once:
“No one should be surprised to find the Universe to be as large as it is. We could not exist in one that was significantly smaller. Moreover, the argument that the Universe should be teeming with civilisations on account of its vastness loses much of its persuasiveness: the Universe has to be as big as it is in order to support just one lonely outpost of life.”
Barrow, J. D. & Tipler, F. J. (1986).The Anthropic Cosmological Principle.Oxford University Press.

"If the electromagnetic force were to be even slightly stronger relative to the other fundamental forces, all stars would be red dwarfs, and planets would not form. Or if it were a little weaker, all stars would be very hot, and thus short-lived."
McMullin, E. (2008). Tuning fine-tuning. Fitness of the Cosmos for Life: Biochemistry and Fine-Tuning (Cambridge Astrobiology). Cambridge University Press.

A key issue with respect to time is the number of ways in which a planet capable of supporting life can be devastated by things like asteroid collisions. Complex life on this planet has been almost entirely wiped out before, and we're extremely lucky. Our position relative to the sun (which is of a rather fortunate size and nature) means we have a shield from cosmic rays. Galactic cosmic rays influence everything from atmospheric make-up to climate change. In fact, a number of studies have indicated that solar magnetic fluctuations can have a substantial effect on global climate. Other changes which may be potentially catastrophic occur thanks to the early development of life itself (in our case, the drastic change in the atmosphere which might have wiped out life turned out to enable far more complex life, as it vastly increased oxygen levels).

Time actually works against the development of complex life, at least for the most part. Not only is there more that can go "wrong" than can go right, but there is no general reason to suppose that the highly successful forms of life found everywhere on Earth would evolve into multicellular life forms which would continue to increase in complexity. The longer the span of time, the more chances for catastrophe caused by external forces (supernovae, comets, cosmic rays, etc.), internal (changes brought about by new life forms, surface and/or atmospheric variations, etc.), and then the simple fact that there isn't any good reason to suppose that microbial life would, over time, imitate the trend which happened on Earth.



The optimisim tends to be more with physicists than biologists, and with individuals like Sagan in particular:

​

They are the ones responsible for the skepticism. Astrobiology, the main field related to SETI, uses biologists mostly as consultants of sorts. Even mathematical physicists are more likely to publish on this issue (and do, in e.g., a 2012 study published in PNAS) than are biologists. It is astrophysicists behind articles like "Alone in the Universe: Despite the growing catalog of extrasolar planets, data so far do not alter estimates that we are effectively on our own"

etc.

 

[Rick O'Shez]

So if for the same 'price' you can have a minimalist space-saver universe, a Truman show dome
or a vast awe inspiring cosmos, which incredibly we can observe, investigate, marvel at- drawing us out beyond ourselves, testing our curiosity to it's limits.. what better way to appreciate anything?
The latter would seem far more consistent with a divine creation would it not?

I don't follow your logic. Why create an infinite universe and then only use an infinitesimal part of it? It would make more sense if there are a trillion other planets with sentient creatures as part of of God's grand design or experiment or whatever it is.

Actually the universe is too vast and awesome to be confined by limited human notions about "God".

 

[Akivah]

So then let's just agree on a likely percentage. That should be pretty easy, right? How small of a percentage are we willing to accept when discussing the possibility of life arising on other planets.

Right now, the percentage is 1/'number of planets in the universe'.

 

[cambridge79]

remember that the universe came from a primeval atom, a tiny seed, it's size was determined by the math used in the design, not extra 'time and energy'

it doesn't come from an atom, it comes from a singularity. And It's not that it comes from that. We can model it until that point. for what we know before the big bang anything could have happened.

So if for the same 'price' you can have a minimalist space-saver universe, a Truman show dome
or a vast awe inspiring cosmos, which incredibly we can observe, investigate, marvel at- drawing us out beyond ourselves, testing our curiosity to it's limits.. what better way to appreciate anything?
The latter would seem far more consistent with a divine creation would it not?

What i said is:
if you have unlimited resources and you have the ability to create the whole cosmos, how can't you come up also with a cellular replication process that wouldn't involve the chance to develop cancer?
and if you have limited resources, than why waste them in creating an empty cosmos that we will never be able to explore when you could have in fact created a better cellular replication process that wouldn't involve the chance to develop cancer.
wouldn't avoid having children with brain tumors be a priority over the shape of a tiny rock on a tiny galaxy so far from us our telescopes can't even see ?

you may say "because people can see the magnificence of the cosmos and be inspired into thinking god made it all" but at that point i may say "yes but people like me see a 2 months old with brain cancer and think that god can't be there or if he is there is evil or doesn't care"

 

[Akivah]

Sure. That's fine. All I'm arguing is that it's a very reasonable conclusion, even if you pick the smallest percentage you can think of. Do you disagree?

Like I said, we're 1-in-8 and possibly 2-8 in just our Solar System, which orbits 1 of 100 Billion stars in the Milky Way alone... There's at least 100 Billion Galaxies out there.... Is anyone really going to argue that there's absolutely no chance of life having arisen anywhere else in the entire Universe?

If we assume that life exists elsewhere, even intelligent life exists elsewhere, then what's your conclusion?

 

[Guy Threepwood]

it doesn't come from an atom, it comes from a singularity. And It's not that it comes from that. We can model it until that point. for what we know before the big bang anything could have happened.

The primeval atom was the label the priest George Lemaitre used for what atheists like Hoyle mocked as 'Big Bang' at the time- for the overt implications of a specific creation event. They all preferred static models for the opposite rationale: "no creation = no creator"

What i said is: if you have unlimited resources and you have the ability to create the whole cosmos, how can't you come up also with a cellular replication process that wouldn't involve the chance to develop cancer?
and if you have limited resources, that why waste them in creating an empty cosmos that we will never be able to explore when you could have in fact created a better cellular replication process that wouldn't involve the chance to develop cancer.

But we can explore it, investigate it, appreciate it, and that's the point. Many cosmologists including atheists have remarked on how curious it is, that the universe so lends itself to our investigation.
Some including Hawking see it as our destiny to colonize the stars.

God created a world with no fear, no pain, no suffering, no grief, no challenges whatsoever- which still exists today.. for Jellyfish. and hence no joy, love, triumph, learning, appreciation either. Would you trade?

 

[Parsimony]

Possibility is the only word I'm looking for

Oh sure, I'll concede to possibility.

 

[jonathan180iq]

Right now, the percentage is 1/'number of planets in the universe'.

How do you reckon, given that we've only taken samples from 3 planets and a couple of moons? At the very least, it's 1 in 8 (at the moment) That's the most factually accurate statement that we can make given our range of knowledge.

We are completely ignorant on almost all of the 1,059 Extra Solar planets that have been discovered to date.

 

[jonathan180iq]

If we assume that life exists elsewhere, even intelligent life exists elsewhere, then what's your conclusion?

There's no other conclusion that needs to be made other than, so far, everything that we've posited about biology, chemistry, physics, and so on are accurate on the Universal scale. If even a single colony of microbial life is found anywhere else in the Universe it would solidify everything we've come to understand so far about the natural sciences. Our understanding of existence will no longer be confined to just our corner of the Milky Way. (Granted, life found on Mars would still be relegated only to this Solar System and we don't currently possess the technology to explore beyond the Heliosphere. But still...)

 

[Skwim]

• Not every statement made by a Church leader, past or present, necessarily constitutes doctrine. A single statement made by a single leader on a single occasion often represents a personal, though well-considered, opinion, but is not meant to be officially binding for the whole Church. With divine inspiration, the First Presidency (the prophet and his two counselors) and the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles (the second-highest governing body of the Church) counsel together to establish doctrine that is consistently proclaimed in official Church publications. This doctrine resides in the four “standard works” of scripture (the Holy Bible, the Book of Mormon, the Doctrine and Covenants and the Pearl of Great Price, official declarations and proclamations, and the Articles of Faith. Isolated statements are often taken out of context, leaving their original meaning distorted. See The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints Newsroom -- the official resource for news media, opinion leaders and the public.

source

Ah ha, the escape clause. Every religion should have one.

I have just one question for you, Skwim. Do you believe I

(a) don't know my Church's doctrines or

(b) am being dishonest in explaining Mormon doctrine?​

It's got to be one or the other. So which is it?

I believe you were unaware that Joseph Fielding Smith said Kolob is "the great governing star of our universe" and "the residence of God." But now you're saying that not everything JFS said about your faith is true, which compels me to ask, how do you know your church has disavowed this particular statement? If it isn't merely your guess that it has please show us your evidence.


.

 

[cambridge79]

The primeval atom was the label the priest George Lemaitre used for what atheists like Hoyle mocked as 'Big Bang' at the time- for the overt implications of a specific creation event. They all preferred static models for the opposite rationale: "no creation = no creator"

science has moved on since Lemaitre's time. Nobody denies his great contribution, it's just a little outdated by today standards.

But we can explore it, investigate it, appreciate it, and that's the point. Many cosmologists including atheists have remarked on how curious it is, that the universe so lends itself to our investigation.
Some including Hawking see it as our destiny to colonize the stars.

so god made the universe for us to explore it, scrutinize it, and study it. But when we apply the same mindset to study god himself, and we realize that he is an highly unplausible entity, that very mindset is not good anymore. pretty peculiar.

God created a world with no fear, no pain, no suffering, no grief, no challenges whatsoever- which still exists today.. for Jellyfish. and hence no joy, love, triumph, learning, appreciation either. Would you trade?

still he wasn't able to produce a self replicating cells process that could keep us safe from the risks of cancer. I mean i keep hearing about the perfection of god design and the universe as an example of this perfection, but cancer is exactly something that derives from a lack of perfection.

 

[Katzpur]

Ah ha, the escape clause. Every religion should have one.

It's nothing of the sort. Every religion has the right to establish its own doctrines and Mormonism is no exception. The Church has been entirely forthright in setting forth a clear statement of what constitutes official doctrine and what doesn't. You don't have to like the fact that you can't just arbitrarily say what constitutes official doctrine and have it be an accurate statement, but that's how it is.

I believe you were unaware that Joseph Fielding Smith said Kolob is "the great governing star of our universe" and "the residence of God."

You are assuming I know far less about my religion than is actually the case. If you think you can come up with anything I haven't heard a dozen times from some non-LDS source, you've got another think coming.

But now you're saying that not everything JFS said about your faith is true, which compels me to ask, how do you know your church has disavowed this particular statement? If it isn't merely your guess that it has please show us your evidence.

Of course, I'm saying that not everything JFS said about Mormonism is correct. He was, as all LDS leaders are, a human being with his own personal opinions and interpretation. Nobody has to "disavow" anything he or any other LDS leader has to say on a subject. What he said is different from what the scriptures (the official source of doctrine) say, and they are the definitive source of accurate information. If he said that God lives on Kolob, and I can name a couple of hundred LDS leaders who have said God lives in Heaven, that ought to be enough to satisfy inquiring minds such as your own.

By the way, were your going to answer the one question I asked you or were you just going to ignore it?

 

[jonathan180iq]

No. Hence Bayesian (and similar) approaches to probability. Given what we know, it's actually incredibly unlikely that any form of complex life (i.e., multicellular) exists anywhere, and we have more evidence for the fact that it doesn't than that it does. The arguments of a vast, ancient universe with the "laws of physics" are defeated quite simply by the very need for such a universe for life to exist even once:
“No one should be surprised to find the Universe to be as large as it is. We could not exist in one that was significantly smaller. Moreover, the argument that the Universe should be teeming with civilisations on account of its vastness loses much of its persuasiveness: the Universe has to be as big as it is in order to support just one lonely outpost of life.”
Barrow, J. D. & Tipler, F. J. (1986).The Anthropic Cosmological Principle.Oxford University Press.

"If the electromagnetic force were to be even slightly stronger relative to the other fundamental forces, all stars would be red dwarfs, and planets would not form. Or if it were a little weaker, all stars would be very hot, and thus short-lived."
McMullin, E. (2008). Tuning fine-tuning. Fitness of the Cosmos for Life: Biochemistry and Fine-Tuning (Cambridge Astrobiology). Cambridge University Press.



etc.

I just don't see how any of the applies. Granted, all of these men have degrees above my head, but why would the Universe need to be this large to simply produce one planet worth of life? There's little-to-no influence impressed upon our Solar System by any external forces in our own galaxy, let alone the rest of the Universe. Everything that was ever needed to create us was found in the dust cloud prior to the Sun's accretion. And we know from direct observation that there are hundreds of nearby stars that have developed systems similar to ours. We know from direct observation that the same forces that created this Solar System have created other ones. I mean, are we really arguing that our Solar System somehow has an effect on the yearly orbits or routines of other systems thousands of light years away? If we're not, then the argument that the whole of the Universe has to exist just for us to be here is pretty weak, don't you think?

 

[columbus]

I rather like the idea of space aliens so I am going to believe in them anyway. So there.

As long as everybody understands that space aliens are entertaining, mind expanding, speculation I'm good with that.
But it is rather like religious fiction. When somebody starts making truth claims about it they've crossed a line. Like Deist Mentor's claim about what is a "conservative" number concerning odds.
Tom

 

[Guy Threepwood]

science has moved on since Lemaitre's time. Nobody denies his great contribution, it's just a little outdated by today standards.

Hoyle denied it to his dying day not so long ago.. and Lemaitre was never awarded a Nobel prize for arguably the greatest scientific breakthrough in the history of science, in fact his name is relatively obscure.

The rationale used to oppose the primeval atom lived on in steady state for a while and 'makes God redundant' was Hawking's own rationale for the 'Big Crunch'- also debunked.

Atheist theories then moved entirely beyond the inconvenience of scientific scrutiny, M Theory, Multiverses etc

Yet Lemaitre's discovery still remains today the extent of observable cosmogony - an utterly unique creation event of literally all space/time/matter/energy as we can possibly know or investigate it.

so god made the universe for us to explore it, scrutinize it, and study it. But when we apply the same mindset to study god himself, and we realize that he is an highly unplausible entity, that very mindset is not good anymore. pretty peculiar.


still he wasn't able to produce a self replicating cells process that could keep us safe from the risks of cancer. I mean i keep hearing about the perfection of god design and the universe as an example of this perfection, but cancer is exactly something that derives from a lack of perfection.

art, beauty, meaning, motivation, purpose, everything we love about life derives from the lack of perfection does it not?

we are drifting from this thread though. The point was:

The fact that we can know the extents of the universe, to it's point of origin, demonstrates that it was not a redundant creation from our perspective. That it serves a divine purpose without being populated by ETs.

And the fact that it's awe inspiring scale was determined by math, not limits of time and energy, demonstrates that it's not a 'waste' of anything

I don't think it's a coincidence that it took a skeptic of atheism to make this and other great scientific breakthroughs

 

[Kilgore Trout]

Does anyone else find it unsettling that it's highly unlikely that we exist? I expect we'll all up and disappear once enough people realize this.

 

[Skwim]

You are assuming I know far less about my religion than is actually the case.

I'm assuming you didn't know about JFS's remark about Kolob.

Of course, I'm saying that not everything JFS said about Mormonism is accurate. He was, as all LDS leaders are, a human being with his own personal opinions and interpretation. Nobody has to "disavow" anything he or any other LDS leader has to say on a subject.

But you've just implied his statement is false. Your church doesn't believe JFS's statement, Kolob is "the great governing star of our universe" and "the residence of God," is true.

What he said is different from what the scriptures (the official source of doctrine) say. If he said that God lives on Kolob, and I can name a couple of hundred LDS leaders who have said God lives in Heaven, that ought to be enough to satisfy inquiring minds such as your own.

So the assertions of the first general authority of his time, who had ecclesiastical authority over the church, takes a back seat to the opinions of other leaders, far lesser than himself, who disagree. Okay. JFS lied when he claimed Kolob is "the great governing star of our universe" and "the residence of God.

In any case, even if he got it wrong about where god resides there's still the matter of where Kolob is, this universe or some other. You said " Did I say it was somewhere within our universe? I don't believe I did. As a matter of fact, if God created our universe, and existed prior to its creation, it would be more logical to assume that He resides elsewhere." Strongly Implying that Kolob is not in this universe. However, we have the following Mormon writings

Jah-oh-eh The earth under the governing power of oliblish, Enish go on dosh, and Kai e van rash, which are grand Key or in other words, the governing power, which governs the fifteen fixed stars (twelve [unclear words]) that belong governs the earth, sun & moon, (which have their power in one) with the other twelve moving planets of this system. Oliblish - Enish go on dosh, and Kaii ven rash, are the three grand central powers that govern all the other creations, which have been sought out by the most aged of all the fathers, since the beginning of the creation, by means of the Urim and Thummim: The names of the other twelve of the fixed stars are: Kolob, Limdi, Zip, Vusel, Venisti, Waine, Wayoh=ox=oan, oansli, Shible, Shineflis, flis, os. The Egyptian names of the fifteen moving planest are: Oanisis, Flosisis, floese: Abbesels, Eleash, Subble, Slundlo, Carroam, Crashmakraw, obblesisim, Izinsbah, missel
Source: page 24 of Joseph Smith's Egyptian Alphabet & Grammar,
(My emphasis)​

And

1 And I, Abraham, had the Urim and Thummim, which the Lord my God had given unto me, in Ur of the Chaldees;

2 And I saw the stars, that they were very great, and that one of them was nearest unto the throne of God; and there were many great ones which were near unto it;

3 And the Lord said unto me: These are the governing ones; and the name of the great one is Kolob, because it is near unto me, for I am the Lord thy God: I have set this one to govern all those which belong to the same order as that upon which thou standest.
Source: Pearl of Great Price / Abraham 3: 1-3
​

By the way, were your going to answer the one question I asked you or were you just going to ignore it?

Okay, I guess it was difficult to extrapolate my answer from what I said: "I believe you were unaware that Joseph Fielding Smith said. . . . ."

If what he said is doctrine then it's apparent you don't know your doctrine---the answer then would be (a). And being unaware would preclude lying about it---so (b) would be an inappropriate choice. If what he said isn't doctrine then your question is moot.[/QUOTE]