NoNukes writes:
Tangle writes:
For example, to get back to trivial statistics, inorder to know whether the 3 sixes that have just turned up on the 3 dice is an occasion for excitement we need to know how many times the dice have been thrown.
That's got to be wrong.
I don't understand your perspective on this.
If rarities demand explanation, how can we proceed without determining whether it is, indeed, a rarity?
This universe permits life; if it were different, it might not.
So?
How rare is life? I don't know, and I don't think anyone else does, either. But assuming that the appearance of life is a natural process, and that the same physics apply universally, I find it extraordinarily difficult to believe it hasn't happened elsewhere: if only one planet per galaxy gives rise to life, how many planets is that? Could 100-200 billion planets with life constitute rarity?
Is the proposition that our universe is fine tuned for life AND that life within it is extremely rare? That seems odd.
We still don't know if other planets and moons in our own solar system do or did harbor life.
At any rate, the sand trap of "fine tuning" is that it implies agency.
I think the fact that our universe contains life requires no more explanation than the fact that our universe exists at all, and neither fact requires agency.
"If you can keep your head while those around you are losing theirs, you can collect a lot of heads."