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tobbe2064 | 2 years ago

This reminds me. There was a paper published a couple of years ago and posted here on HN that actually calculated the probability of life aminoacid-based life emerging. Based on the complexity of the chain needed to start replicating. The conclusion was that it was vanishingly small in the observable universe but only close to 0 in the full universe.

I've since tried to find it without luck. Does anybody here know where I can read it or remember the article I'm talking about?

discuss

order

gus_massa|2 years ago

"Darwinian evolution is not a sufficient theory of life (claremont.org)" https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20568692

I posted a comment there. They are using a very long protein instead of a short one. Nobody expect that the first functional protein is so long.

Also, they are generating the protein using a "random dice" instead of assuming a short crapppy version and using "branch and prune" to find a longer and more efficient one.

imworkingrn|2 years ago

Not sure if there what the term for this is, but rather than looking at the probability of X happening we should rather look at the "inevitability" of X happening in the context of the environment.

In my experience, even though nature looks chaotic there is a very strict order to things which has evolved over millions of years and is a result of looking for the "most optimal way" to achieve a goal. A good example might be mycelium optimizing routes to nearby resources. Another might be ant colonies creating tunnels that are effective to navigate.

The problem is, in my opinion, that we do not know what the final goal is. Therefore we cannot begin to analyze the inevitability of something as us, or life in general, happening. The answer may be perhaps found in religion or some similar "greater than life" endeavor.