[~ot] why is programming so fun?

[Gregor Richards]

BCS wrote:
> Reply to Simen,
> 
>> Chris Wright Wrote:
>>
>>> BCS wrote:
>>>
>>>> The chances of life happening by chance are something like that, if
>>>> not worse. You could probably calculated a relative number for it
>>>> with quantum physics and/or information theory and/or string theory
>>>> or some such. IIRC there is a theory about how much info can be in a
>>>> given volume.
>>>>
>>> I don't think anyone has come close to describing the odds of
>>> abiogenesis.
>>>
>> I did some fun calculations after being given a book by Jehovah's
>> Witnesses, as I've always been of the opinion that life being created
>> by some higher being is less probable than it occuring naturally.
>>
>> Way I figured was, I get 1 cubic centimetre of the simplest,
>> carbon-based, self-replicating molecules, on this planet of 1 trillion
>> cubic kilometers (one cubic centimetre was chosen as some arbitrary
>> amount that might come into being by chance). Not by any chance a big
>> chunk, but is it enough for life to survive? Let's first see how many
>> self-replicating molecules we can fit into my small cube - 1.6
>> quintillion. That ain't half bad. (Actually, I think the number was
>> 1000 times bigger, but I don't remember the name of that number
>> [Hexillion?], plus you can think of it as a bit of safety :p)
>>
>> Now, spread that evenly across the world (258 billion square
>> kilometers), and you get 162 such molecule for every square meter.
>> With enough resources nearby, I'd give it a fairly good chance of
>> survival.
>>
> 
> Someone once told me that if you take all the ways that you can assemble 
> the parts of the simplest form of life and put them in once place, the 
> ball would be something like the size of earth. (I havn't checked the 
> math or anything like that)
> 
> 

I love that all arguments against natural abiogenesis come down to an 
argument from ignorance. The fact is that we haven't got the foggiest 
bit of a clue what the entire range of things that could have 
/potentially/ formed life are, we just happen to have been formed from a 
particular set of amino acids. We like to believe that only amino acids, 
or even only the set of amino acids life on Earth are based on, could 
form life, but that's just stupid. Given the uncountably many planets in 
the universe, life has probably come into existence and evolved in ways 
we could never remotely predict, and idiots on their planets are saying 
"The chances that a simple life based on hexavalent chromium would form 
naturally are so unlikely, we must have been created by some higher 
intelligence!" As it turns out, when you consider your very low but 
extremely ignorant statistic given the number of planets in the 
universe, and the potentially huge number of possible ways life could 
form (a number we can't even begin to fathom), it turns into 
99.9999999999%. Unfortunately, the general populous doesn't understand 
statistics even in the slightest, and so they think "Wow, given the 
extremely low odds that a protozoan would appear by random chance, we 
must have been created by a higher power!" Idiots.

  - Gregor Richards