Re: Our rocky solar system may be rare

From: Chris Watkins (Chris@timelikeinfinity.freeserve.co.uk)
Date: Sun Sep 12 1999 - 17:31:29 MDT


----- Original Message -----
From: Robert J. Bradbury <bradbury@www.aeiveos.com>
To: <extropians@extropy.com>
Sent: Saturday, September 11, 1999 9:39 AM
Subject: Re: Our rocky solar system may be rare

>
>
> On Sat, 11 Sep 1999 hal@finney.org wrote:
>
> >
> > But actually assembling some kind of self-replicating
> > system or cycle is still not well understood.
>
> Given that we get a stable crust ~4 billion years ago and life seems
> to appear at 3.86 billion years ago, that says that (a) it either
> came from space (panspermia); or (b) it is easy.

Hi,

How about (c) it is the first of a long series of improbable events, and
given that we exist now to wonder about it, it must have happened early in
the history of Earth? In other words, observer selection. I don't see that
we've got enough evidence to distinguish between (a), (b) and (c) yet, at
least until we've checked out Mars, Europa, Titan....

Regards,

Chris.



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