[henry quirk]

"The way I figure it, it's not important for us to be able to understand it. Insomuch as it's difficult to understand, the details may be easily explainable at a level that's beyond our grasp. That is to say-- we don't understand how biology could produce consciousness, but that's not important."

Oh, I can't disagree more. it's foundational: Who am I? What am I? What is my place in the Grand Scheme? Is there a Grand Scheme?

Existentially, practically, the (search for the) accurate and complete description of the individual and his place is what drives all endeavor.

#

"What we DO know is that water and amino acids are ubiquitous, the conditions for life aren't as delicate as we once believed, and the one place we've seen it arise, it happened almost immediately. And this is the flaw in reasoning that we can't avoid-- we're looking at a small sample size. Although there's a nearly infinite number of chances for life to arise, we only know the details about this ONE instance. There's no conclusion we can really draw from that."

Sure, we have ice in deep space and at least one example of complex, self-replicating organic molecules (though we have no real understanding of abiogenesis...simply: we don't know why amino acids, and everything built atop them, exists), but having piles of bricks everywhere doesn't mean houses are sure to follow.

#

"The odds, the way a bookie would figure them, that our planet is the "winning lottery ticket" are as likely as, well, winning the lottery."

Jus now: I googled the following...

*what are the odds humankind is alone in the universe?
*what are the odds humankind is not alone in the universe?
*what are the odds the universe is teeming with life?

Try it. And try you're own versions of the questions.

#

"The bet I'm taking is the conservative, "play it safe" bet. The odds are that matter organizes into life almost everywhere, and when it does it has consciousness by default, because consciousness is just a biological operating system. Does that demean the value of a human life? I don't think it does. And even if it did, it doesn't influence the odds one way or the other."

Me: I say matter is rare, complex matter is rarer, living matter is rarer still, and self-aware matter is the rarest of all. As I say: with only 4 (or 5) percent of the universe bein' matter, and most of that just hydrogen in one state or another, how can self-aware matter be considered as anything but rare (and special)?