Re: A _Rare Earth_ review (was: Scientific American article on GHZ)

From: Eliezer S. Yudkowsky (sentience@pobox.com)
Date: Sun Oct 28 2001 - 15:29:07 MST


Amara, is there any Rare Earth theory that has been proposed for good
prior reasons, but which involves such massive improbability that nobody
would take seriously the assertion that it happened to Earth? Say, Sol
needed to swing past four simultaneous supernovas? Is anyone looking for
a hypothesis under which intelligent life would happen, not once in a
galaxy, but once in a Universe, or once in every 10^8 Universes? Because
a rarity of once in a galaxy isn't enough to explain the Fermi Paradox,
not nearly.

-- -- -- -- --
Eliezer S. Yudkowsky http://singinst.org/
Research Fellow, Singularity Institute for Artificial Intelligence



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