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From: Dennis Stacy <dstacy@texas.net>
Date: Sat, 13 Nov 1999 13:10:52 -0600
Fwd Date: Sun, 14 Nov 1999 08:05:50 -0500
Subject: Re: Are We Alone? 


 >From: David Rudiak <DRudiak@aol.com>
 >Date: Fri, 12 Nov 1999 20:02:08 EST
 >Subject: Re: Are We Alone?
 >To: updates@globalserve.net

 >>From: Dennis Stacy <dstacy@texas.net>
 >>Date: Thu, 11 Nov 1999 10:20:33 -0600
 >>Fwd Date: Fri, 12 Nov 1999 09:45:26 -0500
 >>Subject: Re: British Ufology Has Been Reborn!

<large snip>

 >Truisms, Dennis, truisms.  Just about EVERYTHING, everywhere is
 >a culmination of a long series of utter accidents -- you, me,
 >the rock you kick on the street, my delapidated Volvo.  That's
 >not the point.  The question remains whether only one unique
 >sequence leads to intelligent life or whether a vast multitude
 >of sequences can get you there.  I think the former position is
 >unbelievably parochial.  There isn't just my delapidated Volvo.
 >There are delapidated Volvos everywhere, each with its own
 >unique history.

I'll type real slow.

Of course your delapidated Volvo has a unique history (and
congratulations on your choice of car, too), but it has a shared
history as well. It went in one end of the manufacturing plant
as a bunch of raw materials and came out the other end as a
finished product. Up to that point, all  Volvos shared (more or
less) the same history. What happened inbetween the iron ore,
the silicon that went into the windows, and the chemicals that
became the seat covers is that someone _designed_ same, someone
_manufactured_ same, and someone _assembled_ same, all
non-contingent factors, btw, although it wasn't alway so with
American cars.

Now think of the universe as a giant car factory, with raw
materials going in one end, and finished product coming out the
other. The question is, how many Volvos (that is Earth-sized
planets capable of sustaining primitive life forms through their
evolution into higher lifeforms) will the plant assemble, and
how many of those will ultimately "run" or live long enough to
reach the cosmic equivalent of, say, 300,000 highway miles?

Neither of us _knows_. No one on the surface of the planet
knows. We can be pretty sure, though, that the number of
eventual lottery winners is a smaller number than the beginning
number. Drake and other astronomers have approached the problem
by the Very Large Number argument. In effect, the argument says
that start with a Very Large Number, discount a Large Number,
and you're still left with a Pretty Big Darn Big number. Talk
about your truisms!

Metaphorically, the history of your individual Volvo begins the
moment you drive it out of the relative safety of the dealer's
lot and onto the Interstate Highway. To make matters
interesting, let's say that your car came equipped with a small
aquarium in the trunk in which you're trying to raise, nurture
and evolve algae. And you run headon into an 18-wheeler (can you
say supernova, etc?) in the first few blocks. Oops! Your Volvo
just had a unique history moment, but one that will be
ultimately shared to some degree by _some_ number of other
"unique" Volvos, like the one with the coffee stain on the front
seat.

I have never said that you have to repeat the Earth's unique
history at every stage in order to produce intelligent life.
What I've said is that there are also very large numbers arrayed
against Drake's very large numbers, and no one has any way of
knowing who's right.

But to continue the metaphor. Once all the Volvos have reached
300,000 miles on their odometers or already stopped running
altogether due to their unfortunate, unique, individual
histories, we open their hoods and look inside, or their trunks,
rather. The question now is: How many of those aquariums contain
life, or more importantly, intelligent life?

Oops, here one developed a crack in the glass and is all dried
up. Oops, there carbon monoxide leaked in from the exhaust pipe
and killed everything off. Maybe another has really good algae
in it. Maybe a flying saucer flies out of one (there, are you
happy now?).

The point is, the end product is entirely dependent on a
contingent history. There is no planetary "driver" who can pull
into a gas station every few thousand miles, check the oil in
the crankcase, and, if needed, add water (or air) to the
aquarium.

So how many Volvos finished the race and won the lottery? The
number could be very large, but there is no rule that says it
has to be. Sturgeon, I think it is, lay hundreds of thousands of
eggs in the "hope" or expectation that one will survive. There
are probably any number of examples of nature beginning with
very large numbers and ending with very small ones. We simply
don't know what the planetary production and survival rates of
the universe are.

At the moment I've got an oak tree outside dropping acorns by
the bushel. I haven't had the heart to tell it that it's
surrounded by a concrete driveway, never mind a small army of
surly squirrels, and a yardman that periodically comes around
and sweeps them up.


In the abstract, each one of those acorns has the potential to
become a mighty oak (if I may wax poetic for a moment). But
potential is just that -- an abstract concept incapable of
shaping or determining events. Potential is only realized after
the fact. Chaos and contingency have a nasty way of turning
large numbers into small ones without much reflection.

In fact, I suppose, you could argue, if one were so inclined,
that the presence of so many stars (and presumably Earth-sized
planets in a favorable neighborhood) is necessary precisely
because the survival rate is so low. Think of it as an insurance
policy against contingency.

 >>Unless, of course, you want to invoke a Creator. But that's
 >>another post.

 >No need.  The law of large numbers and rolling the dice seems to
 >do pretty much the same thing.  Eventually somebody always wins
 >the lottery.

 >David Rudiak


Well, we know the planet Earth did, don't we?

By the way, Texas has a lottery. Tickets are $1 each. Send me a
thousand dollars and I'll send you a thousand tickets. Of course
if you would prefer to send me a much larger number of dollars
(the more zeros after the one, the better!), thereby increasing
your odds, that would be fine, too. I only ask 10% of anything
you win.

Dennis Stacy
http://www.anomalist.com