Our subjective judgement of what is possible, probable and certain is dependent on how long we live. We humans typically live to about 70 years of age (on average). Thus, our entire subjective (subjective = how things appear to us. Objective = what things are in themselves independent of how they appear to us) experience of probability is shaped by our lifespan. It is shaped by how long humans live in general.
Let me explain. Because we only live for about seventy years the likelihood of us, as individuals, being run over by a car on the road is very slim. Most of us will never get run over by a car (fingers crossed). This is because in a life-span of 70 years we will cross the road 'x' number of times. Because 'x' is so small, so the risk of dying on the road is also very small. But what if 'x' is larger? i.e. what if we crossed the road a 'y' number of times? 'Y' being a number several orders of magnitude greater than 'x'. Under what circumstances would 'y' be so large? Answer: If we lived much much longer. Imagine an alien race for whom the average life-span is a million years. Imagine that this alien race has roads. Also imagine that there are alien cars on these roads. Do you think the people of this long-living hypothetical alien race would cross roads? Of course not!
Why not?
Because, If they did, after a few thousand years, most of them would have perished in road accidents. How many times do you have to cross a road before it becomes more or less certain that you will get run over? Such million year living aliens would never cross roads. They would not take such silly risks. Nor would they for that matter sunbathe, or eat fatty foods, or fly in aeroplanes, or go for a swim, or smoke. Their subjective judgment of what is probable and possible would be very different to ours. We live for 70 years whereas they live for a million. This makes all the difference.
We humans cross roads because we only live for seventy years or so. Thus the probability of us dying in road accidents is very very small. But there is a reason I am discussing this. And a very telling reason too. Our whole subjective apparatus that allows us to calculate probabilities and feeds into our judgment of what is probable over vast expanses of time, over vast stretches of space, over many planetary solar syatems, in a galaxy of billions and billions of stars, in a multiverse of many universes; this subjective judgment of ours is wrong by huge error margins. When it comes to what we think is probable over such expanses of time - we will always be staggeringly wrong. On smaller scales of shorter distances and time - our subjective judgement is fairly accurate. The reason it is accurate is because this is the middle earth we live and have evolved in. If our judgement was wrong for events occurring in our 70 year life spans - i.e. if we couldn't make an accurate judgement of whether something was risky we'd probably not live long. We'd more likely die of accidents. But when it comes to larger numbers; when it comes to immensely long geological epochs, interstellar distances - we have no clue. Because we don't live for such long times and our brains don't need to make risk assessments for such long times.
Life, our existing, our living, is a statistical improbability on a colossal scale. Life's emergence is hugely improbable. But it requires no miracles. It requires no sleight of mind nor sleight of hand. It requires no spark of divinity. It requires nothing but time - time - time, and worlds - worlds - worlds. You are staggeringly improbable. So am I. So is that flower. So is that turgid bee hovering above it. So it is with our wonderful brains, and our wonderful eyes, and our fleshy ears, and our pointy bulbous noses and our disarming smiles. It's all so wonderful. And it's all so fucking improbable. Yet given plenty of time, and given plenty of worlds, it's more or less inevitable,
Well at-least once anyway. And we are not equipped to see it.
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