Are Humans the First Technologically Advanced Species in the Universe?

[Vmedvil]

6 minutes ago, Moontanman said:

Think of this for a moment, the Earth exists, it has life, how is the Earth unique from every other planet in the universe? Even if you claim that only one in a trillion planets have technological civilizations there are mostly likely Trillions of technological civilizations in the universe because there are Trillions of Trillions of planets in the universe. We can arrive at these numbers just by extrapolating the number of stars and planets in the milky way. 

I have my doubts that a one in a trillion rarity is accurate, one in a million seems a bit off the hook but even at one in a million we are likely to have hundreds of technological civilizations just in the Milky Way. 

And I have taken the opposite side in previous threads, I just wanted to explore what this line of thinking would yield. I agree, that most likely that we aren't the first civilization that is technological advanced in the universe, the likelihood of being the only civilization that exists is very slim.

Edited April 3 by Vmedvil

[Moontanman]

1 minute ago, Vmedvil said:

And I have taken the opposite side in previous threads, I just wanted to explore what this line of thinking would yield. I agree, that most likely that we aren't the first civilization that is technological advanced in the universe, the likelihood of being the only civilization that exists is very slim.

Well in this case it yielded nonsense.  

[Vmedvil]

6 minutes ago, Moontanman said:

Think of this for a moment, the Earth exists, it has life, how is the Earth unique from every other planet in the universe? Even if you claim that only one in a trillion planets have technological civilizations there are mostly likely Trillions of technological civilizations in the universe because there are Trillions of Trillions of planets in the universe. We can arrive at these numbers just by extrapolating the number of stars and planets in the milky way. 

I have my doubts that a one in a trillion rarity is accurate, one in a million seems a bit off the hook but even at one in a million we are likely to have hundreds of technological civilizations just in the Milky Way. 

Let's touch on this, why aren't there any Dyson spheres then out in the milky way galaxy?

[Moontanman]

3 minutes ago, Vmedvil said:

Let's touch on this, why aren't there any Dyson spheres then out in the milky way galaxy?

Well... I can think of several possible reasons, Civilizations tend to fail before they get to that stage due to some great filter we are unaware of... or there is some other energy source we do not currently know of that negate the necessity of Dyson spheres... or some other reason we are unaware of at this time. Do you know of the Issac Arthur channel on YouTube?    

[Vmedvil]

1 hour ago, Moontanman said:

Well... I can think of several possible reasons, Civilizations tend to fail before they get to that stage due to some great filter we are unaware of... or there is some other energy source we do not currently know of that negate the necessity of Dyson spheres... or some other reason we are unaware of at this time. Do you know of the Issac Arthur channel on YouTube?    

I don't watch videos on youtube.

Edited April 3 by Vmedvil

[Moontanman]

6 minutes ago, Vmedvil said:

I don't watch video on youtube.

You should, lots of good science videos being produced, you do have to be careful but the ones that provide sources and scientific papers to support what they assert can be used as spring boards to investigating the ideas at the very least. 

Quite often cutting edge science is being discussed more and more in video format. 

If there is any doubt I'd be glad to give you some clues about specific videos but videos from pbs are generally pretty solid but the idea that YouTube is by definition unreliable is simply not true.  

Edited April 3 by Moontanman

[oldpaddoboy]

6 hours ago, Vmedvil said:

Let's touch on this, why aren't there any Dyson spheres then out in the milky way galaxy?

The Kardashev scale of technological advancement, is nothing more then a futuristic thought experiment  prediction, based on the energy needs of a civilisation. from Wiki.... "Dyson did not detail how such a system could be constructed, simply referring to it in the paper as a 'shell' or 'biosphere'. He later clarified that he did not have in mind a solid structure, saying "A solid shell or ring surrounding a star is mechanically impossible. The form of 'biosphere' which I envisaged consists of a loose collection or swarm of objects traveling on independent orbits around the star".^[6] Such a concept has often been referred to as a Dyson swarm;^[7] however, in 2013, Dyson said that he had come to regret that the concept had been named after him."

 

^{on't get me wrong. I'm not putting a damper on ]}

[OceanBreeze]

On 4/3/2024 at 5:48 AM, Moontanman said:

I have a feeling we are talking past each other here, life having a common source on the Earth doesn't indicate there was at one time a single life form that all life descended from is like saying there was once one human who all humans descended from. The first life form was like the first human a process that occured in populations not in individuals. The chemicals that make up life on earth didn't suddenly from a complete modern microbe and everything descended from that. It was a process that occured over a large bit of both time and space. 

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Abiogenesis

I don't wish to belabor the point, but the last universal common ancestor (LUCA) theory states that the most recent common ancestor of all current life on Earth, is estimated to have lived some 3.5 to 3.8 billion years ago. This theory does not insist on the LUCA being one single organism, but can be one single population of organisms. It really does not matter how anyone chooses to interpret that. The point is the DNA/RNA evidence indicates that all life on earth is descended from only one particular organism or population of those organisms.

Far from being considered as an outdated idea, LUCA is very widely accepted today as a viable theory that even astrobiologists at NASA take seriously.

 

 

 

 

Edited April 4 by OceanBreeze

[Moontanman]

10 hours ago, OceanBreeze said:

I don't wish to belabor the point, but the last universal common ancestor (LUCA) theory states that the most recent common ancestor of all current life on Earth, is estimated to have lived some 3.5 to 3.8 billion years ago. This theory does not insist on the LUCA being one single organism, but can be one single population of organisms. It really does not matter how anyone chooses to interpret that. The point is the DNA/RNA evidence indicates that all life on earth is descended from only one particular organism or population of those organisms.

Far from being considered as an outdated idea, LUCA is very widely accepted today as a viable theory that even astrobiologists at NASA take seriously.

 

 

 

 

Again we are talking past each other, LUCA doesn't indicate an individual microbe anymore than the idea of a first human indicates an individual, LUCA represents, if anything, the first populations of what we would call microbes before that there were self replicating molecules, and quite a few almost living micelles, and other bits and pieces of life that required each other to reproduce (viruses might have been part of this originally) eventually we ended up with real microbes but the roots of those microbes reach into the past beyond LUCA into FUCA

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Last_universal_common_ancestor

Quote

The last universal common ancestor (LUCA) is the hypothesized common ancestral cell from which the three domains of life, the Bacteria, the Archaea, and the Eukarya originated. It is suggested to have been a "cellular organism that had a lipid bilayer and used DNA, RNA, and protein".[2] The LUCA has also been defined as "a hypothetical organism ancestral to all three domains".[3] The LUCA is the point or stage at which the three domains of life diverged from preexisting forms of life (about 3.5–3.8 billion years ago). The nature of this point or stage of divergence remains a topic of research.

All earlier forms of life preceding this divergence and all extant organisms are generally thought to share common ancestry. On the basis of a formal statistical test, this theory of a universal common ancestry (UCA) is supported versus competing multiple-ancestry hypotheses. The first universal common ancestor (FUCA) is a hypothetical non-cellular ancestor to LUCA and other now-extinct sister lineages.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/First_universal_common_ancestor

Quote

The first universal common ancestor (FUCA) is a proposed non-cellular entity that is the earliest ancestor of the last universal common ancestor (LUCA) and its descendants, including every modern cell.[1][2] FUCA would also be the ancestor of ancient sister lineages of LUCA, none of which have modern descendants.[2]

FUCA is thought to have been composed of progenotes, proposed ancient biological systems that would have used RNA for their genome and self-replication, in place of DNA.[3][4][5] By comparison, LUCA would have had a complex metabolism and genome with hundreds of genes and gene families.[1]

The now-extinct sister lineages descended from FUCA are thought to have horizontally transferred some of their genes into the genome of early descendants of LUCA.[2]

 

[OceanBreeze]

42 minutes ago, Moontanman said:

Again we are talking past each other, LUCA doesn't indicate an individual microbe anymore than the idea of a first human indicates an individual,

 

I agree we are talking past each other, because I said basically the exact same thing that you seem to be disagreeing with.

Quote:

"the last universal common ancestor (LUCA) theory states that the most recent common ancestor of all current life on Earth, is estimated to have lived some 3.5 to 3.8 billion years ago. This theory does not insist on the LUCA being one single organism, but can be one single population of organisms. "

This isn't my opinion, it is what the LUCA theory is all about.

Why you insist on going further back than LUCA baffles me, but I think it best that I drop the subject because we definitely are failing to communicate!

As in cool hand LUCA

[Moontanman]

6 minutes ago, OceanBreeze said:

I agree we are talking past each other, because I said basically the exact same thing that you seem to be disagreeing with.

Quote:

"the last universal common ancestor (LUCA) theory states that the most recent common ancestor of all current life on Earth, is estimated to have lived some 3.5 to 3.8 billion years ago. This theory does not insist on the LUCA being one single organism, but can be one single population of organisms. "

This isn't my opinion, it is what the LUCA theory is all about.

Why you insist on going further back than LUCA baffles me, but I think it best that I drop the subject because we definitely are failing to communicate!

As in cool hand LUCA

This is sad, both of us are smart enough to figure this out, my take on this is that life didn't start at LUCA, but you seem to think that anything before LUCA is irrelevant but FUCA is as important as our great great grandfather is to our lives. You can't get to LUCA without FUCA anymore than we can get to us without our ancestors.   

Eventually it comes down to where you draw the line, I don't accept lines, you could line up the skulls of every one of our ancestors and go down the line and never be able to pick out the LUCA of humans. At no point could you pick out a skull and say all before it were not human and all after it are human. 

Same thing applies to LUCA of Microbes, at no point could you point to a microbe and say all that come after are alive and all who came before were not, its a process not an event.

Now that is my take, I am open to being shown I am wrong. 

[oldpaddoboy]

3 hours ago, OceanBreeze said:

I agree we are talking past each other, because I said basically the exact same thing that you seem to be disagreeing with.

Quote:

"the last universal common ancestor (LUCA) theory states that the most recent common ancestor of all current life on Earth, is estimated to have lived some 3.5 to 3.8 billion years ago. This theory does not insist on the LUCA being one single organism, but can be one single population of organisms. "

This isn't my opinion, it is what the LUCA theory is all about.

Why you insist on going further back than LUCA baffles me, but I think it best that I drop the subject because we definitely are failing to communicate!

As in cool hand LUCA

 

3 hours ago, Moontanman said:

This is sad, both of us are smart enough to figure this out, my take on this is that life didn't start at LUCA, but you seem to think that anything before LUCA is irrelevant but FUCA is as important as our great great grandfather is to our lives. You can't get to LUCA without FUCA anymore than we can get to us without our ancestors.   

Eventually it comes down to where you draw the line, I don't accept lines, you could line up the skulls of every one of our ancestors and go down the line and never be able to pick out the LUCA of humans. At no point could you pick out a skull and say all before it were not human and all after it are human. 

Same thing applies to LUCA of Microbes, at no point could you point to a microbe and say all that come after are alive and all who came before were not, its a process not an event.

Now that is my take, I am open to being shown I am wrong. 

OK, firstly I'm not that well up with the processes of Evolution, other then of course, that it is a fact. You pair remind me that it is the "theory of evolution "that is a work in progress. My question concerns the debate on where viruses fit into all this. I have seen various papers discussing whether they are even  life for Christ's sake! Yet the world spent more then 2 years trying to kill the little bastards. So how do we kill something that isn't alive in the first place? Two questions there now, (1) Where viruses fit in, and (2) Any further research on whether they are or are not life.  

[Moontanman]

16 minutes ago, oldpaddoboy said:

 

OK, firstly I'm not that well up with the processes of Evolution, other then of course, that it is a fact. You pair remind me that it is the "theory of evolution "that is a work in progress. My question concerns the debate on where viruses fit into all this. I have seen various papers discussing whether they are even  life for Christ's sake! Yet the world spent more then 2 years trying to kill the little bastards. So how do we kill something that isn't alive in the first place? Two questions there now, (1) Where viruses fit in, and (2) Any further research on whether they are or are not life.  

Start a new thread about viruses and we will see what we can sort out! As a bit of a spoiler I can say that the virus is thought to predate LUCA and may very well be part of FUCA but its not a consensus yet. 

[OceanBreeze]

19 hours ago, Moontanman said:

This is sad, both of us are smart enough to figure this out, my take on this is that life didn't start at LUCA, but you seem to think that anything before LUCA is irrelevant but FUCA is as important as our great great grandfather is to our lives. You can't get to LUCA without FUCA anymore than we can get to us without our ancestors.   

Eventually it comes down to where you draw the line, I don't accept lines, you could line up the skulls of every one of our ancestors and go down the line and never be able to pick out the LUCA of humans. At no point could you pick out a skull and say all before it were not human and all after it are human. 

Same thing applies to LUCA of Microbes, at no point could you point to a microbe and say all that come after are alive and all who came before were not, its a process not an event.

Now that is my take, I am open to being shown I am wrong. 

"I don't accept lines"

You have an aversion to drawing lines?

Well that explains why we are having so much difficulty communicating!

Any discussion about LUCA, or any other organism which lies on the evolutionary tree of life should be done within the framework of cladistics, and cladistics is all about drawing lines.

In fact, I posted a very simple cladogram in the post you are replying to and here is another:

 

The reason why LUCA is important:  It is believed that LUCA is the latest ancestor to all current existing life on Earth.

And no, it is not the first form of life on Earth.

Biologists consider this long-vanished organism important enough work on reconstructing a rough genetic blueprint of LUCA. The work involved studying the six million or so genes common to both bacteria and other single-celled organisms known as archaea—which are similar to bacteria but differ in shape, membrane chemistry, metabolism and more. Grouping those genes into categories defined by age, function and other characteristics, they came up with just 335 sequences that are thought to have the deepest routes in the bacteria and archaea lines—and, by extension, in all of the multi-celled organisms that followed. It was those 335, then, that formed the basis of LUCA.

Naturally, just as has happened here on this forum, the genetic reconstruction provoked an academic cat-fight—a healthy if sometimes snarky part of scientific progress—to break out, with most of the debate centering on whether the organism had enough genetic robustness to qualify as a living thing yet or was only sort of quasi-alive. And no one knows either if this really is the LUCA, or just a LUCA, an early life form that was followed by something a tiny bit later.

None of that should detract from the importance of this sort of research to people who wonder where they came from and invent acronyms and cladograms of lines to sort it all out.

However, you have made it clear you are not interested in drawing lines, since that is your stated position, I can see there is no point in discussing this any further with you.

 

 

 

[Moontanman]

4 hours ago, OceanBreeze said:

"I don't accept lines"

You have an aversion to drawing lines?

 

Well that explains why we are having so much difficulty communicating!

 

Any discussion about LUCA, or any other organism which lies on the evolutionary tree of life should be done within the framework of cladistics, and cladistics is all about drawing lines.

 

In fact, I posted a very simple cladogram in the post you are replying to and here is another:

 

 

 

The reason why LUCA is important:  It is believed that LUCA is the latest ancestor to all current existing life on Earth.

 

And no, it is not the first form of life on Earth.

 

Biologists consider this long-vanished organism important enough work on reconstructing a rough genetic blueprint of LUCA. The work involved studying the six million or so genes common to both bacteria and other single-celled organisms known as archaea—which are similar to bacteria but differ in shape, membrane chemistry, metabolism and more. Grouping those genes into categories defined by age, function and other characteristics, they came up with just 335 sequences that are thought to have the deepest routes in the bacteria and archaea lines—and, by extension, in all of the multi-celled organisms that followed. It was those 335, then, that formed the basis of LUCA.

 

Naturally, just as has happened here on this forum, the genetic reconstruction provoked an academic cat-fight—a healthy if sometimes snarky part of scientific progress—to break out, with most of the debate centering on whether the organism had enough genetic robustness to qualify as a living thing yet or was only sort of quasi-alive. And no one knows either if this really is the LUCA, or just a LUCA, an early life form that was followed by something a tiny bit later.

 

None of that should detract from the importance of this sort of research to people who wonder where they came from and invent acronyms and cladograms of lines to sort it all out.

 

However, you have made it clear you are not interested in drawing lines, since that is your stated position, I can see there is no point in discussing this any further with you.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

You are misrepresenting me, the "line"  am talking about is the line that separates one organism from another, not the "line" drawn on that diagram that connect species through common ancestry, the line between species is quite a bit less than a line and more of a smear not to mention made up by humans.

LUCA was not an actual microbe but has to be, at the very least, a population of microbes (more likely a population of many different microbes that through gene swapping attained a benefit that allowed them to dominate the genome from that time on) and the idea of separate species has little meaning in microbes since even significantly different microbes swap genes like keys at a wife swapping party.

I don't think it's useful to draw lines between species as though the lines were part of the natural world. The idea of lines being drawn between species is as artificial as the lines themselves.   

Edited April 5 by Moontanman