What Life on Mars Could Mean

I am optimistic that some time in the coming 30 years we will discover strong evidence that life once existed on Mars, or even exists now.  If you ask Gilbert Levin, he'll tell you we already have that evidence from the Viking lander's Labeled Release experiment.

This is nothing new to those who follow the discussion on Mars life,  but if we do find Martian life, past or present, it could have any of four possible implications for the origin of life, in ascending order of fascination:

1. Life originated on Earth and migrated to Mars on Meteorites.
2. Life originated on Mars, and migrated to Earth on Meteorites
3. Life originated somewhere else (probably Venus), and migrated to both Earth and Mars.
4. Life originated independently on both Earth and Mars.

Number 4 is by far the most interesting of the four possibilities.  It implies that the origin of life is not a rare event.

If not Mars, then we hope to reach this conclusion by studying Enceladus, Titan or Europa.  The odds of cross-contamination there are much reduced.  Is it possible, that whenever you have a sufficiently diverse mix of ingredients in sufficient amounts, and a stable flux of energy through a system for a long time, that the chemistry progressively gets more complex and eventually some of it becomes self replicating?

If so, then probably then entire universe is teeming with life, and some of it is looking at us and wondering; who's there?

Searching for a Co-blogger

I am interested in finding an open-minded but skeptical person to contribute to this blog.

Should have a keen interest in life in the cosmos and some demonstrable knowledge in a relevant area, such as evolutionary biology, space science, SETI, transhumanism, psychology, machine intelligence or physics.

Should be more interested in asking better questions than declaring answers.

There is the possibility of doing a related podcast as well.

Should be willing to submit relevant posts to me for pre-publication commentary and editing. At least 1 post per month in English. Many potential topics are out of scope for this blog, as you should be able to ascertain from reading it.

Need a Google+ account, a Google Drive ( free acct will suffice) and preferably a Twitter account as well. Podcasting or Blogger skills are a plus.

You don't need to be young, famous, photogenic or American, although it is fine if you are any of those things.

Please don't take it personally if I turn you down. This search could take a year or more.

Update: You don't have to get involved in the Wow! Signal Podcast to join the blog, or vice versa. While the two activities are coupled for me, they don't have to be in general. However, if you are interested in participating in both, that is fine.

Clarke's Third Law

Clarke's Third Law is really just a sage observation, and no one knows if it is truly a law, or just seems to work in the domain we're familiar with.  The most common statement of the law is:

Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic.

If you've ever seen a good magician perform, then you know it just takes a little technology to achieve the effect of magic: something completely unexpected and even absurd happens right before your eyes.  A good illusion makes you laugh out loud, as your realize how incongruous your perceptions are.  You might well experience a moment of humility when it hits you how well and thoroughly you have been fooled.  If the illusion is especially good, you could well experience deep admiration for the skill and intelligence of the illusionist, and in the worst case, you might ascribe supernatural powers to him or her.

The Shy Psychics

You will believe he's psychic.  He's not.

Derren Brown is an elite mentalist. He makes a comfortable living theatrically exhibiting what appear to be psychic powers, and he is very, very good at it. He can make you believe; he can make you feel faint, and he can convince you of nearly anything. He can walk up to a perfect a stranger, chat for a moment, and then make off with his mark's wallet and car keys, freely handed over.  He is not the only mentalist who can do what he does.  He is the first to tell you, however, that he has no real psychic powers.

Some mentalists have even completely deceived academic researchers under what those researchers were sure were carefully controlled conditions.  People who believe that their academic credentials shield them from being fooled are among the most vulnerable.

Do we know that there are people who possess psychic powers?  No.  We know that there are countless people who pretend to have such powers, but are easily exposed by those with the requisite skills. To convince me, a genuine psychic would have to be able to do what showmen like Brown can not do, and under conditions that they do not control.  That's a high standard.  The usual tricks with cold reading and spoon bending don't hold up to even casual scrutiny. The question arises, how would we go about finding these people?

If genuine psychics do exist, we only know what they are not. They are not eager for publicity, or we would know of at least a few.  In fact, just the opposite, they are extremely reluctant to reveal their abilities to anyone.  This makes sense.

If you could predict the stock market, or read a poker opponent's mind, or heal the sick, or track troop movements without leaving your chair, imagine the disaster that would befall you if anyone knew this.  Millions would hound you, many would want to exploit you, and some would want you done away with.  With your skills you could easily make a good living quietly, so the Million Dollar Challenge would not draw you out.

The secrecy of the knowledge that someone was genuinely, repeatably psychic would be so unstable that such persons must not only be highly reticent to expose their abilities but extremely rare.  So rare, neither science not the financial industry has identified even one.

If you believe you are genuinely psychic, I would encourage you to first attempt to objectively test yourself.  For example, have a friend shuffle a deck of cards thoroughly some distance away from you (miles, preferably), have them look at them one by one and write them down as you write down what your perceive.

If that works, contact me and I can put you in touch with sincere investigators who will not reveal your identity or attempt to exploit your abilities for their own gain.  Maybe the answer will be that your gifts are not available to you on-demand as you thought, but wouldn't that be a relief?

The Dream of an Open Channel by Paul Carr is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution- ShareAlike 3.0 Unported License.

What's not wrong with the ETH

Gort is not pleased with us

OK, I just got through slamming the ETH to the deck, and I have it in a sleeper hold, waiting for it to go limp.  Why would I defend it?

Recall that my main problem with the Extraterrestrial Hypothesis (ETH) is the "Hypothesis" part.  It's not so much the answers it offers, but that it fails to ask useful questions that we can answer with real data.  However, I feel that I must also address some the attacks the ETH has unjustly suffered, as well as some of the false distinctions it is included in.