Lucky Us: Turning the Copernican Principle on Its Head

“I think you are clearly a visionary genius.”

Save the sarcasm, because the existence of undiscovered exo-planets was an easily foregone prediction.

The question now is whether or not the existence of life elsewhere in the Milky War Galaxy and the Universe is likewise an easily forgone conclusion as well? Given the commonality of the components and conditions necessary for the existence of life in the Milky Way Galaxy and the Universe beyond, the probable answer appears to a virtual certainty in much the same way as the existence of the exo-planets proved to be.

“Yes, definitely. We must all dogmatically accept multiple life elsewhere unless it can be disproven.”

It is yourself who is being dogmatic by rejecting the massive evidence favoring life without reasonable evidence and cause to do so.

“Life appears to be very rare in our own Solar System, and even rare on Earth if you use an objective measurement like a ratio of biomass to mass.”

1. We don’t know yet whether or life is in our own Solar System, because we have barely begun to search all of the places where life can be found.

2. Except for the forms of life we are already familiar with on the Earth, we may not be able to immediately recognize some forms of life, because those forms of life differ so much from anything we know about now. Researchers have already postulated lifeforms which use silicon as a key substitute for carbon in potential alien biology.

3. The Jovian planets represent nearly all of the planetary mass of our Solar System. The Jovian planets have environments which make frozen water under deep pressure stronger than steel. Discovering alien lifeforms living in such wildly different and hostile conditions may be a severe challenge for some lifetimes to come.

4. Hydrogen, Helium, and Lithium compose some 98 percent of the elements of the Universe. The remaining 2 percent of the elements of the Universe are therefore rare in our Solar System and the rest of the Universe. It just so happens that planets, especially terrestrial planets, have significantly higher concentrations of these elements which are otherwise rare in the Universe.

5. Given how lifeforms as we presently know and recognize them happen to be composed of Hydrogen, a common element, and a long list of other elements which are rare in the Universe, it should be no surprise life has been found on the Earth which has an extraordinary concentration of the elements which are relatively rare in the Universe. This observable situation suggests other lifeforms are more likely to be found elsewhere in the Universe where there are comparable concentrations of the same rare elements.

6. Elements commonly found in presently known lifeforms such as Carbon, Nitrogen, Oxygen, Calcium, Iron, Manganese, Phosphorus, and others constitute a rare percentage of the mass of the Universe, yet they are observable wherever you look throughout the Universe. Likewise, the biomass of the Earth’s lifeforms constitute a very miniscule percentage of the Earth’s mass, yet the microscopic lifeforms are found to be present everywhere you look from the top of the Earth’s atmosphere in space to the deepest bottoms of the oceans to the insides of rocks buried miles deep within the Earth itself. Nearly everywhere you look in the Earth’s environment, life can be found to survive.

7. There is currently no way of excluding the potential existence of a lifeform, possibly using a silicon based biology, which converted nearly all of its planet’s silicon and iron mass into its own biomass. This lifeform would essentially qualify as a living planet. In such a case, the “ratio of biomass to mass” might approach a 99:1 ratio.

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