Alt text: They’re up there with coral islands, lightning, and caterpillars turning into butterflies.

  • w3dd1e@lemmy.zip
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    2 months ago

    I don’t recall what I was reading, but I once read about a lot of things lined up perfectly for evolution on Earth.

    • In Sol’s habitable zone
    • Has a moon
    • Rotates on tilted axis
    • Stable rotation and orbit
    • Has magnetic field
    • Has Ozone Layer
    • Big planet (Jupiter) close enough to catch random asteroids, but not close enough to harm Earth

    It’s bonkers that it all worked out that way so that I could be here, right now, reading your post and responding. It really boggles the mind and I don’t want to waste my time.

    Welp, guess I’m gonna go look up random curse words in the dictionary. ಠᴗಠ

    • chuymatt@startrek.website
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      1 month ago

      Look up Douglas Adams’ puddle analogy?

      “If you imagine a puddle waking up one morning and thinking, 'This is an interesting world I find myself in — an interesting hole I find myself in — fits me rather neatly, doesn’t it? In fact it fits me staggeringly well, must have been made to have me in it!"

    • n0respect@lemmy.world
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      2 months ago

      This is rather as if you imagine a puddle waking up one morning and thinking, ‘This is an interesting world I find myself in — an interesting hole I find myself in — fits me rather neatly, doesn’t it? In fact it fits me staggeringly well, must have been made to have me in it!’ -Douglas Adams

      Lines up perfectly … for life as we know it. See also: The Anthropic Principle

    • Moidialectica [he/him, comrade/them]@hexbear.net
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      2 months ago

      ‘lined up perfectly’ is a stretch, considering it’s safe to assume these ‘perfect’ conditions have appeared more than quadrillions of times within the universe

      …and of course we’re in the darkest parts of that universe, so we will never be able to experience other similar worlds. Damn.

      • w3dd1e@lemmy.zip
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        2 months ago

        Oh for sure. The universe is too big for it to not have happened elsewhere. I’m not saying it’s unique, just rare.

        For me, it was the fact that the Earth is tilted at just the right angle that sort of blew my mind. Too much one way or another, we wouldn’t have seasons or day/night cycles.

        From under, other planets have been identified with the potential for life, but don’t have the tilt or the moon.