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by bduerst 2771 days ago
Except the universe isn't infinite.

It's true the universe is very large and feels infinite, but we know that it's about 25 billion galaxies (the size of the Milky Way) and that it has finite mass.

Sure, these numbers are incredibly large, but like you said, we're dealing with probabilities that are also incredibly small. There should be a cutoff somewhere for the observable universe as to what it is probable or improbable of producing.
1 comments
hndamien 2771 days ago
The universe and the observable universe are different things. As far as we can measure, the universe appears to be flat (by measuring the observable universe). With finite mass, but expanding space, how is it not infinite?
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bduerst 2771 days ago
You just said it yourself - infinite space but finite mass. "Life" by most definitions is made of mass, not space.

Claiming infinite space has infinite possibilities for life is quite literally a Celestial Teapot argument.

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hndamien 2771 days ago
I didn't make any claim about life. I just wanted to challenge the statement about the universe being finite. I also agree with the other commenter that I'm not sure we can even be sure the mass is finite, but also happy to be enlightened.
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bduerst 2771 days ago
The context of this conversation is probability of generating life. Debating theories on dark energy isn't relevant since it's not dense enough to generate life.
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hndamien 2770 days ago
The context isn't relevant when I'm correcting a fact, at least as we/I currently understand it - the universe is infinite. I'm wasn't making a statement about dark energy, or life.
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bduerst 2770 days ago
You're misinterpreting the semantics of finite mass in this conversation about abiogenesis by taking it out of context of conversation.
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eloff 2771 days ago
Is it that simple? Empty space has energy (dark energy) and E=MC^2 means energy and mass are interchangeable. Hence infinite space does imply infinite mass.

Not a physicist, so I'm probably dead wrong. But I would like to be enlightened.

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bduerst 2771 days ago
It is that simple, unless you think dark energy is dense enough to create a single celled organism (it's not).
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