POV-Ray : Newsgroups : povray.off-topic : Senator Asks Official Why He's Giving More Money To People Who Break The Law. He Answers Poorly. : Re: Senator Asks Official Why He's Giving More Money ToPeopleWhoBreakTheLaw. He Answers Poorly. Server Time
28 Jul 2024 16:16:39 EDT (-0400)
  Re: Senator Asks Official Why He's Giving More Money ToPeopleWhoBreakTheLaw. He Answers Poorly.  
From: clipka
Date: 27 Sep 2014 11:16:36
Message: <5426d4d4$1@news.povray.org>
Am 27.09.2014 16:31, schrieb Saul Luizaga:

> Well I think that Anthropic Principle is presumptuous to assume that
> we'll be the first, as humans has the habit to do so,

The anthropic principle doen't /assume/ that. The anthropic principle is 
a simple axiom on which theories can be built; and while it may 
superficially sound like a revival of the anthropocentric view of the 
world of old times, it is an entirely scientific thing, which is in no 
way presumptuous in itself.

But it is a fully valid question to ask, "Why are we the only life form 
in the galaxy to ever leave their home world that we know of for 
certain?" And, applying occam's razor (which is a method deep in the 
heart of science), we find that the most rational, scientific answers 
are: (A) Interstellar travel is not feasible, or (B) Interstellar travel 
has not been discovered yet, by /any/ species in our galaxy whatsoever.

> there is not a
> philosophical but a mathematical probability of alien intelligent life,

And I perfectly agree with you on this one. I just consider it moot for 
our life on planet Earth, because so far the evidence that they have 
come anywhere close to us is anecdotal at best.

> I don't remember what was called but the idea was take the number of
> galaxies and stars and planets around them and gave a really low
> probability by process of elimination gave you a number, it's formula,
> based on astrophysics observations, but this formula is old, so won't be
> in tune with the finding of Keppler (I think ) is the name of the
> satellite dedicated to find planets.

There is such a formula indeed, but no need to re-tune it: The formula 
delibaretly only names the coefficients to tune, not the values - 
because virtually all of them are entirely unknown. The number of 
habitable worlds is the first one we're /starting/ to get a grasp on.

(So far, we're only able to figure out to guesstimate how many planets 
lie in the habitable region of their respective system; there are plenty 
more factors to figure out - and in various cases even start to 
understand how they may or may not affect the habitability of a world - 
before we can really put a number to this coefficient: The planet's 
gravitation, presence of water, atmospheric conditions, stability of the 
orbit, axial tilt and stability thereof, presence of a magnetic field, 
et cetera.)


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