I've always assumed that the universe has been exanding for aeons, and millions of universes have been born and died on the way.
Shouldn't that be: "millions of galaxies have been born and died on the way"?
Ooops! Yes, I got carried away by hyperbole. I'm sure it might be possible for millions of universes to have been born and to have died in millions of bangs and crashes, but that wasn't what I was trying to say.
It's a bit tenuous to conclude anything about the likelihood of life from our only known example of it. Suppose there is a vase with red and blue marbles in it, in unknown quantities. You draw one marble. Upon finding that your marble is red, can you conclude anything about the likelihood of drawing a red marble?
No, of course not. And I didn't consider the fact that this star system is just one amongst millions (or is it billions?) that have developed since the beginning of the universe.
But ... it still intrigues me that there has been life for 1/4 of the lifetime of the universe. It's not really a scientific thing, and I'm sure if you do a statistical job on it it won't seem very surprising at all. But personally I don't view the world through a statistical prism - it's really the way this information changes the way I view the universe that interests me.
'I can't even fit all my wife's clothes into a suitcase for travelling. So you want me to believe we're going to put all of the planets and stars and everything into a sandwich bag?' - q3psycho on the Big Bang