Life on Earth has existed for billions of years without experiencing a terminal snowball or greenhouse scenario. It also recovered from several snowball periods once they ended.
So the fact that intelligence took this long to evolve − 4-5 billions of years after biogenesis, and 600-700 million years after the first multicellular animals—must be important.
If it were the case that the Great Filter was the short average lifespan of habitable planets before they became iceballs or greenhouses, then we should expect to appear much much earlier in our planet’s history.
We don’t know if speed of evolution was maximum possible speed or not.
We could derive some limitations on ice ball probability from the fact that we are late, using the same line of reasoning as was used by Bostrom and Tegmark in their article : http://arxiv.org/pdf/astro-ph/0512204.pdf
If it was the maximum possible speed, then it must have involved very unlikely events that took billions of years to happen maybe just once, and that’s evidence of a Great Filter in our past.
If it wasn’t the maximum possible speed, then there should be many planets where intelligence evolved much earlier in the Universe’s lifetime, and the fact we don’t see aliens is evidence of a Great Filter in the future.
Most of the space of possible great filters in the past have been ruled out. Rare planets is out. Tectonics is out. Rare bio origins is out. The mediocrity of earth’s temporal rank rules out past disaster scenarios, ala Bostrom/Tegmark’s article.
and the fact we don’t see aliens is evidence of a Great Filter in the future.
Mediocrity of temporal rank rules out any great filter in the future that has anything to do with other civs, because in scenarios where that is the filter, surviving observers necessarily find themselves on early planets.
Furthermore, natural disasters are already ruled out as a past filter, and thus as a future filter as well.
So all that remains is this narrow space of possibilities that relate to the timescale of evolution, where earth is rare in that evolution runs unusually fast here. Given that there are many billions of planets in the galaxy in habitable zones, earth has to be 10^10 rare or so, which seems pretty unlikely at this point.
Also, ‘seeing aliens’ depends on our model of what aliens should look like—which really is just our model for the future of post-biological civs. Our observations currently can only rule out the stellavore expansionist model. The transcend model predicts small, cold, compact civs that would be very difficult to detect directly.
That being said, if aliens exist, the evidence may already be here, we just haven’t interpreted it correctly.
We keep finding earlier and earlier fossil evidence for life on earth, which has finally shrunk the time window for abiogenesis on earth down to near zero.
The late heavy bombardment sterilized earth repeatedly until about 4.1 billion years ago, and our earliest fossil evidence for life is also now (probably) 4.1 billion years old. Thus life probably either evolved from inorganics near instantly, or more likely, it was already present in the comet/dust cloud from the earth’s formation. (panspermia)
With panspermia, abiogenesis may be rare, but the effect is similar to abiogenesis being common.
I think Robin Hanson has a mathematical model kicking around that shows that, given anthropic selection bias, early life on earth is not evidence that life is an easy step.
I think the argument is that if you need (say) five hard steps in sequence to happen for technological civilization to arise, and each step succeeds very rarely, then if you look at the set of all planets where the first step succeeded, you will see that it is unlikely to happen early.
However, if you look at the set of planets where ALL five steps happened, you always tend to find that the first step happened early! Why? Well, because those were the only ones where there was even a chance for the other four steps to happen.
Anthopics then comes in and says that we are guaranteed to find ourselves on a planet where all five steps happened, so seeing the first step happen quickly isn’t really evidence of anything in particular.
“Anthropic selection bias” just filters out observations that aren’t compatible with our evidence. The idea that “anthropic selection bias” somehow equalizes the probability of any models which explain the evidence is provably wrong. Just wrong. (There are legitimate uses of anthropic selection bias effects, but they come up in exotic scenarios such as simulations.)
If you start from the perspective of an ideal bayesian reasoner—ala Solomonoff, you only consider theories/models that are compatible with your observations anyway.
So there are models where abiogenesis is ‘easy’ (which is really too vague—so let’s define that as a high transition probability per unit time, over a wide range of planetary parameters.)
There are also models where abiogenesis is ‘hard’ - low probability per unit time, and generally more ‘sparse’ over the range of planetary parameters.
By Baye’s Rule, we have: P(H|E) = P(E|H)P(H) / P(E)
We are comparing two hypothesises, H1, and H2, so we can ignore P(E) - the prior of the evidence, and we have:
P(H1|E) )= P(E|H1) P(H1)
P(H2|E) )= P(E|H2) P(H2)
)= here means ‘proportional’
Assume for argument’s sake that the model priors are the same. The posterior then just depends on the likelihood—P(E|H1) - the probability of observing the evidence, given that the hypothesis is true.
By definition, the model which predicts abiogenesis is rare has a lower likelihood.
One way of thinking about this: Abiogenesis could be rare or common. There are entire sets of universes where it is rare, and entire sets of universes where it is common. Absent any other specific evidence, it is obviously more likely that we live in a universe where it is more common, as those regions of the multiverse have more total observers like us.
Now it could be that abiogenesis is rare, but reaching that conclusion would require integrating evidence from more than earth—enough to overcome the low initial probability of rarity.
The posterior then just depends on the likelihood—P(E|H1) - the probability of observing the evidence, given that the hypothesis is true. By definition, the model which predicts abiogenesis is rare has a lower likelihood.
We are in a vast, seemingly-empty universe. Models which predict the universe should be full of life should be penalised with a lower likelihood.
Abiogenesis could be rare or common … it is obviously more likely that we live in a universe where it is more common, as those regions of the multiverse have more total observers like us.
Those regions of the multiverse contain mainly observers who see universes teeming with other intelligent life, and probably very few observers who find themselves alone in a hubble volume.
But this is all a bit off-topic now because we are ignoring the issue I was responding to: the evidence from the timing of the origin of life on earth
We are in a vast, seemingly-empty universe. Models which predict the universe should be full of life should be penalised with a lower likelihood.
The only models which we can rule out are those which predict the universe is full of life which leads to long lasting civs which expand physically, use lots of energy, and rearrange on stellar scales. That’s an enormous number of conjunctions/assumptions about future civs. Models where the universe is full of life, but life leads to tech singularities which end physical expansion (transcension) perfectly predict our observations, as do models where civs die out, as do models where life/civs are rare, and so on. . ..
But this is all a bit off-topic now because we are ignoring the issue I was responding to: the evidence from the timing of the origin of life on earth
If we find that life arose instantly, that is evidence which we can update our models on, and leads to different likelihoods then finding that life took 2 billion years to evolve on earth. The latter indicates that abiogenesis is an extremely rare chemical event that requires a huge amount of random molecular computations. The former indicates—otherwise.
Imagine creating a bunch of huge simulations that generate universes, and exploring the parameter space until you get something that matches earth’s history. The time taken for some evolutionary event reveals information about the rarity of that event.
“anthropic selection bias” somehow equalizes the probability of any models which explain the evidence is provably wrong.
Of course! That would be ridiculous! There are infinitely many models that can explain any given evidence set!!! I have no idea where you got that from though—not from me I hope!
So the fact that intelligence took this long to evolve − 4-5 billions of years after biogenesis, and 600-700 million years after the first multicellular animals—must be important.
~5 billion years out of an expected ~10 billion year lifespan for a star like the sun—mediocrity all the way down!
Correct. We are somewhere between 250 megayears and 2 gigayears away from the Earth becoming another Venus depending on whose models you look at (the runaway greenhouse being one of 2 or 3 endpoint outcomes for a terrestrial planet given enough time).
This being said, the whole of earth’s history might not be relevant to look at for complex life. Eukaryotes are OLD, gigayears old, but there’s a set of paleontologists who think that the Cambrian diversification of macroscopic animals 550+ megayears ago might have been CAUSED by increasing oxygen concentrations which might have something to do with the running down of Earth’s geology. More on this in another post; for now I recommend the book “Oxygen: A 4 Billion Year History.” If one uses this notion of a windowed subset of time when complex life is possible we could be roughly in the middle of THAT.
I think that intelligent life tends to find itself not in the middle but near the end of any “a windowed subset of time when complex life is possible”. One reason for it is observation selection and some considration about distribution of peroids of stability. The longer periods of stability should be more rare. The large catastrophe may be overdue and could be easily triggered by our actions.
Another reason is more speculative (if anything could be more speculative here). It suggest that large changes in climate helps human evolution as they favour more universal ways of fitness, that is human intelligence. But such unstable environment may be near the end of stability period needed for evolution of complex life. (Think about recent Ice ages in last several millions years that coincide with development of Homo.)
Wouldn’t mediocrity imply intelligence evolving many times in the Earth’s past, which would imply a Great Filter in our near future? See also my other comment.
If you mean tech/culture/language capable, well it isn’t surprising that has only happened once, because it is so recent, and the first tech species tends to takeover the planet and preclude others.
If you mean something more like “near human problem solving capability”, then that has evolved robustly in multiple separate vertebrate lineages: - corvids, primates, cetaceans, proboscids. It also evolved in an invertebrate lineage (octopi) with a very different brain plan. I think that qualifies as extremely robust, and it suggests that evolution of culturual intelligence is probably inevitable, given enough time/energy/etc.
Life on Earth has existed for billions of years without experiencing a terminal snowball or greenhouse scenario. It also recovered from several snowball periods once they ended.
So the fact that intelligence took this long to evolve − 4-5 billions of years after biogenesis, and 600-700 million years after the first multicellular animals—must be important.
If it were the case that the Great Filter was the short average lifespan of habitable planets before they became iceballs or greenhouses, then we should expect to appear much much earlier in our planet’s history.
We don’t know if speed of evolution was maximum possible speed or not.
We could derive some limitations on ice ball probability from the fact that we are late, using the same line of reasoning as was used by Bostrom and Tegmark in their article : http://arxiv.org/pdf/astro-ph/0512204.pdf
If it was the maximum possible speed, then it must have involved very unlikely events that took billions of years to happen maybe just once, and that’s evidence of a Great Filter in our past.
If it wasn’t the maximum possible speed, then there should be many planets where intelligence evolved much earlier in the Universe’s lifetime, and the fact we don’t see aliens is evidence of a Great Filter in the future.
Most of the space of possible great filters in the past have been ruled out. Rare planets is out. Tectonics is out. Rare bio origins is out. The mediocrity of earth’s temporal rank rules out past disaster scenarios, ala Bostrom/Tegmark’s article.
Mediocrity of temporal rank rules out any great filter in the future that has anything to do with other civs, because in scenarios where that is the filter, surviving observers necessarily find themselves on early planets.
Furthermore, natural disasters are already ruled out as a past filter, and thus as a future filter as well.
So all that remains is this narrow space of possibilities that relate to the timescale of evolution, where earth is rare in that evolution runs unusually fast here. Given that there are many billions of planets in the galaxy in habitable zones, earth has to be 10^10 rare or so, which seems pretty unlikely at this point.
Also, ‘seeing aliens’ depends on our model of what aliens should look like—which really is just our model for the future of post-biological civs. Our observations currently can only rule out the stellavore expansionist model. The transcend model predicts small, cold, compact civs that would be very difficult to detect directly.
That being said, if aliens exist, the evidence may already be here, we just haven’t interpreted it correctly.
Really? Why?
We keep finding earlier and earlier fossil evidence for life on earth, which has finally shrunk the time window for abiogenesis on earth down to near zero.
The late heavy bombardment sterilized earth repeatedly until about 4.1 billion years ago, and our earliest fossil evidence for life is also now (probably) 4.1 billion years old. Thus life probably either evolved from inorganics near instantly, or more likely, it was already present in the comet/dust cloud from the earth’s formation. (panspermia)
With panspermia, abiogenesis may be rare, but the effect is similar to abiogenesis being common.
I think Robin Hanson has a mathematical model kicking around that shows that, given anthropic selection bias, early life on earth is not evidence that life is an easy step.
I think the argument is that if you need (say) five hard steps in sequence to happen for technological civilization to arise, and each step succeeds very rarely, then if you look at the set of all planets where the first step succeeded, you will see that it is unlikely to happen early.
However, if you look at the set of planets where ALL five steps happened, you always tend to find that the first step happened early! Why? Well, because those were the only ones where there was even a chance for the other four steps to happen.
Anthopics then comes in and says that we are guaranteed to find ourselves on a planet where all five steps happened, so seeing the first step happen quickly isn’t really evidence of anything in particular.
“Anthropic selection bias” just filters out observations that aren’t compatible with our evidence. The idea that “anthropic selection bias” somehow equalizes the probability of any models which explain the evidence is provably wrong. Just wrong. (There are legitimate uses of anthropic selection bias effects, but they come up in exotic scenarios such as simulations.)
If you start from the perspective of an ideal bayesian reasoner—ala Solomonoff, you only consider theories/models that are compatible with your observations anyway.
So there are models where abiogenesis is ‘easy’ (which is really too vague—so let’s define that as a high transition probability per unit time, over a wide range of planetary parameters.)
There are also models where abiogenesis is ‘hard’ - low probability per unit time, and generally more ‘sparse’ over the range of planetary parameters.
By Baye’s Rule, we have: P(H|E) = P(E|H)P(H) / P(E)
We are comparing two hypothesises, H1, and H2, so we can ignore P(E) - the prior of the evidence, and we have:
P(H1|E) )= P(E|H1) P(H1)
P(H2|E) )= P(E|H2) P(H2)
)= here means ‘proportional’
Assume for argument’s sake that the model priors are the same. The posterior then just depends on the likelihood—P(E|H1) - the probability of observing the evidence, given that the hypothesis is true.
By definition, the model which predicts abiogenesis is rare has a lower likelihood.
One way of thinking about this: Abiogenesis could be rare or common. There are entire sets of universes where it is rare, and entire sets of universes where it is common. Absent any other specific evidence, it is obviously more likely that we live in a universe where it is more common, as those regions of the multiverse have more total observers like us.
Now it could be that abiogenesis is rare, but reaching that conclusion would require integrating evidence from more than earth—enough to overcome the low initial probability of rarity.
We are in a vast, seemingly-empty universe. Models which predict the universe should be full of life should be penalised with a lower likelihood.
Those regions of the multiverse contain mainly observers who see universes teeming with other intelligent life, and probably very few observers who find themselves alone in a hubble volume.
But this is all a bit off-topic now because we are ignoring the issue I was responding to: the evidence from the timing of the origin of life on earth
The only models which we can rule out are those which predict the universe is full of life which leads to long lasting civs which expand physically, use lots of energy, and rearrange on stellar scales. That’s an enormous number of conjunctions/assumptions about future civs. Models where the universe is full of life, but life leads to tech singularities which end physical expansion (transcension) perfectly predict our observations, as do models where civs die out, as do models where life/civs are rare, and so on. . ..
If we find that life arose instantly, that is evidence which we can update our models on, and leads to different likelihoods then finding that life took 2 billion years to evolve on earth. The latter indicates that abiogenesis is an extremely rare chemical event that requires a huge amount of random molecular computations. The former indicates—otherwise.
Imagine creating a bunch of huge simulations that generate universes, and exploring the parameter space until you get something that matches earth’s history. The time taken for some evolutionary event reveals information about the rarity of that event.
Of course! That would be ridiculous! There are infinitely many models that can explain any given evidence set!!! I have no idea where you got that from though—not from me I hope!
~5 billion years out of an expected ~10 billion year lifespan for a star like the sun—mediocrity all the way down!
Sun luminosity is increasing and oceans will boil down in 1 billion years or sooner.
Correct. We are somewhere between 250 megayears and 2 gigayears away from the Earth becoming another Venus depending on whose models you look at (the runaway greenhouse being one of 2 or 3 endpoint outcomes for a terrestrial planet given enough time).
This being said, the whole of earth’s history might not be relevant to look at for complex life. Eukaryotes are OLD, gigayears old, but there’s a set of paleontologists who think that the Cambrian diversification of macroscopic animals 550+ megayears ago might have been CAUSED by increasing oxygen concentrations which might have something to do with the running down of Earth’s geology. More on this in another post; for now I recommend the book “Oxygen: A 4 Billion Year History.” If one uses this notion of a windowed subset of time when complex life is possible we could be roughly in the middle of THAT.
Thanks for the link on the book.
I think that intelligent life tends to find itself not in the middle but near the end of any “a windowed subset of time when complex life is possible”. One reason for it is observation selection and some considration about distribution of peroids of stability. The longer periods of stability should be more rare. The large catastrophe may be overdue and could be easily triggered by our actions.
Another reason is more speculative (if anything could be more speculative here). It suggest that large changes in climate helps human evolution as they favour more universal ways of fitness, that is human intelligence. But such unstable environment may be near the end of stability period needed for evolution of complex life. (Think about recent Ice ages in last several millions years that coincide with development of Homo.)
My earlier article on the topic is here (need to be retranslated and rewriten):https://www.scribd.com/doc/8729933/Why-anthropic-principle-stopped-to-defend-us-Observation-selection-and-fragility-of-our-environment
Wouldn’t mediocrity imply intelligence evolving many times in the Earth’s past, which would imply a Great Filter in our near future? See also my other comment.
Depends on what you mean by ‘intelligence’.
If you mean tech/culture/language capable, well it isn’t surprising that has only happened once, because it is so recent, and the first tech species tends to takeover the planet and preclude others.
If you mean something more like “near human problem solving capability”, then that has evolved robustly in multiple separate vertebrate lineages: - corvids, primates, cetaceans, proboscids. It also evolved in an invertebrate lineage (octopi) with a very different brain plan. I think that qualifies as extremely robust, and it suggests that evolution of culturual intelligence is probably inevitable, given enough time/energy/etc.