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0 pointsmdp20211y ago0 comments

Anyway, it was apparently Dirac's view that there is an argument around it:

> It could be that it is extremely difficult to start life. It might be that it is so difficult to start a life that it has happened only once among all the planets... Let us consider, just as a conjecture, that the chance of life starting when we have got suitable physical conditions is 10^-100. I don't have any logical reason for proposing this figure, I just want you to consider it as a possibility. Under those conditions ... it is almost certain that life would not have started. And I feel that under those conditions it will be necessary to assume the existence...

This from the Kragh (1990), Dirac: A Scientific Biography. When the Archive will make books in the Library available again, it's there; otherwise, the paragraph is copied on Wikipedia.

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jqpabc1231y ago

"It could be ... it might be ... I don't have any logical reason, etc.."

Doesn't sounds like much of an argument to me.

What it does sound like is someone who has already accepted a conclusion and is grasping for some way, any way to justify it.

mdp2021OP1y ago

Given the quote, and given your interpretation of the quote, it seems that you are feeling instead of thinking (you have no hook there to suggest a conclusion is taken). Look at it rationally and it is just that: "If phenomenon P inclines to non-autonomous than adjutant A suggested". Dirac was hardly a feeler - definitely a thinker.

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