Universal Life - Is all - complex life in the universe similar?

Auqakah · 2002-12-22 17:12:34

Please add any thoughts or comments, or answers that you think should have been included.

soph · 2002-12-22 21:23:16

its hard to say. based on my limited knowledge, i would have to infer that life would take whatever form is best for the environment it takes shape in.

AltToWar · 2002-12-22 22:21:56

Havent we already discovered silicon based life here on earth?

*edit- nope.

here's a good read on the subject.

http://www.sciam.com/askexpert_question … ...catID=3

Auqakah · 2002-12-26 14:32:38

Hmm.

Could energy itself be a form of life, do you think?

Does an atom have a small amount of consciousness, maybe? Is everything conscious, to a degree? Thats the sort of questions that I had in mind.

Nirgal82 · 2002-12-26 15:30:28

Perhaps intelligent species eventually augment themselves using whatever procedures to become free-existing energy entities
Undying things with no needs other than experience to be gained by existing.
Maybe
Maybe something else, Alls I know is that we aren't ever going to get a chance to find out if we stay on Earth forever...
-Matt

Auqakah · 2002-12-26 15:43:08

I don't know. Becoming energy beings through choice would be something of a risk, wouldn't it? There would be no real way of knowing whether there would be success at the 'other side' or not, as far as I can see.

After all; how would a being of matter converse with a being of energy? So there'd be no way to find out.

Would be an awfully risky procedure for a species as a whole to take, or so it seems to me.

dickbill · 2003-07-11 13:54:41

After all; how would a being of matter converse with a being of energy? So there'd be no way to find out.

He could use internet, wireless...just kidding.

These are very good questions, but few good answers. We could say that based on the Erwin Schrodinger definition of life, explained in his "what is life" book, any system, micro (like the neutron-based life in another thread) or macroscopic, able to increase its complexity and its negantropy, which implies some form of metabolism to get rid of the entropy this system generates, would become alive. Although Schrodinger would probably reject an atomic microscopic system because of quantum uncertainty and undetermination problems ( does the entropy means something for a single atom ?), but perhaps he would accept a giant system, like a stellar molecular cloud ?
Personnaly, I see no reason why computers (actually the softwares, like internet) could not become closer and closer to something like life in the future, providing these programs become autoreplicative and evolutive by themself.
I even wonder if some computer virus produced in the 90's could still be found todday, slightly modified, in some computers.

So I would say YES for silicium life, but in the sense of silicium in the computer CPU, not silicium based instead of carbon based, metabolism or chemistry.

prometheusunbound · 2003-07-16 07:07:55

I voted for complex life on earth only. . . .I defined complex life as life that is steinent. The odds of other stientit (arg cant spell right) occuring is absolutly absymal if you take into consideration the factor of time.

rustyplanet · 2003-07-20 22:33:52

I used to know a ton about silicon based life and its weaknesses, but I forgot everything. However, I did make a story on phosphorus based creatures somewhere on my computer. I think the best base would be boron. No actually the best base would be carbon.

alokmohan · 2003-09-28 04:19:44

I dont understand who dicovered silicon life on earth and when.For the present we should talk about life as we know it and not life as we do not know it.

Shaun Barrett · 2003-09-28 07:13:15

Hi Alokmohan!
Just in case there's any confusion here regarding silicon based life, none has been discovered here on Earth, or anywhere else yet either.
Some people here are talking about a possible new form of life, created by humans, in the form of smart computers. Since computers use silicon chips, they are saying you might label such life (if and when it ever eventuates) as silicon based. This is a highly specialised case and is not strictly an accurate use of the term 'silicon based life'.

As most people probably know, carbon is remarkable in that one carbon atom can simultaneously bond with up to 4 other atoms, thus making highly complex structures possible. This allows for the creation of an almost unlimited array of intricate compounds, an ideal situation for producing something as complicated as life.
Silicon also has this property of quadruple bonding and has therefore featured in science fiction as an alternative element on which to base life. But there are differences between carbon and silicon which undermine the analogy in fairly fundamental ways. Like Rustyplanet, I can't remember all the differences but there is one which springs to mind: Among aerobic, terrestrial, carbon based life forms, carbon in compounds like sugar is 'burned' in oxygen to provide energy and gaseous carbon dioxide is the respiration by-product. Being a gas, this by-product can be dissolved in circulatory fluids and quickly and efficiently carried away from the cells to where it can be exhaled.
The product of 'burning' silicon in oxygen is silicon dioxide, which in granular form is better known as sand!
I'm not saying that marked chemical differences like this one automatically mean that silicon based life cannot exist, but it does put considerable constraints on such life. While I suppose we can imagine a silicon based humanoid (called Rocky, perhaps! ) breathing in oxygen and coughing out clouds of gritty sand, we're still left with the question of how to transport an insoluble solid away from the countless silicon based cellular units in Rocky's body to a place where it can be expelled.
While slow-moving or stationary silicon based life might exist, undergoing a kind of slow-motion type of life by our standards, it may be harder to visualise it as a high energy, fast metabolising form of life.

Although silicon may form the basis of life somewhere in the universe, I think the advantages of carbon and its phenomenally diverse range of compounds will always make it the 'element of choice' in the life stakes.
But then, that's just what I think!!

alokmohan · 2003-10-08 05:51:39

tHANK YOU.yOU ARE KNOLEDGEABLE.

Rxke · 2003-12-13 16:39:29

Have to agree with Shaun, at least origin of life-forms...

C-H is potentially the most interesting stuff to build organic life forms, so the chances that life evolves out of C-H compounds is mahematically much greater than for other combinations.

But that's not to say there are no other possibilities...

If you define life as a self replicating system, you could argue silicon (computers) are close to life. For the moment it's still people that do a significant bit of work building them, but that's changing rapidly. Most modern computer-chips are being designed for a big percentage by *other* computers, the computer-hardware is being built in factories that are getting automated to a fairly big degree (Japan, for instance) So who knows what the future will bring?

(Don't get me started about nano again, )

~Eternal~ · 2004-01-15 08:38:05

Sorry to bump up an old topic but what all elements could be the basis of life other than Silicon and Carbon?
And what if a Silicon based lifeform didn't have a respatory system, or didn't breathe oxygen?

jadeheart · 2004-01-30 14:57:17

My own flaky, oddball viewpoint, for what it's worth:

I'm putting my money on panspermia, especially as put forth in "Entering Space." I think the Galaxy is old enough that life has developed elsewhere previous to Earth, in microbial form at least, and that there has been time for this life to seed the rest of the Galaxy-- via launching from meteor impacts if not by outright intelligence-directed dissemination. It's my hunch (and what else do we have to go on here, really?) that we are descended from these microbes.

An interesting question is whether life has developed more than once and whether or not independently-developed life would be able to compete with the panspermic microbes raining down onto its home planet from space.

For this reason I have a lot of interest in investigating comets (and Mars), as I think they will help provide insight into the panspermia question.

BTW, my definition of complex life does not require sentience, just advancement past the microbial stage.

The galaxy is incredibly huge, and incredibly old, and we are utter newcomers (modern humans are only ~100,000 years old, vs. a galaxy that is on the order of 10 billion years old). I would be really surprised if sentient life has not arisen several times already. (This does not necessarily mean that it exists currently anywhere other than Earth, but I have a hunch that it does.)

Humanity may be unique, but it isn't alone. The only real question in my mind is how long sentient life lasts-- does it keep evolving into greater intelligence, or does it regress or die out over time?

rstones8 · 2004-04-18 00:56:26

I would have to say that extraterrestrial life definetly does exist. It is just a matter if we will ever find it, of if it will find us. Im sure that if such life is "intelligent" life, it wants to make contact with someone else just as much as we do. It would be very egocentric to think that we are the only ones in this entire universe, I mean look at the size of it! Other life has to exist. The glorious night sky is proof enough of this for me, and to think that what is visible to the eye is only a tiny fraction of what is out there is completely mind boggling.

I am sure we are not alone, and IMO we should be putting more resources into finding and making contact with those who share our gift of life in this universe. I cannot think of a more profound discovery.

MarsDog · 2004-05-22 17:05:40

Primitive life might be very common. Intelligent life takes a long time to evolve, might require special events such as the death of the dinosaurs, seasons, ice ages for natural selection etc. We are almost at the life design stage, ready to adapt quickly.
-
However, a nearby supernova could restart life, on Earth, at the microbe level.

Trebuchet · 2004-06-01 18:41:00

My own thoughts on this are that, once intelligent life hits a certain technological point, and once it starts spreading out, the presence of intelligent life in the galaxy will become continuous even if the intelligent species in question is wiped out, because I consider speciation due to genetic engineering pretty much a foregone conclusion at some point in the future for us and figure that things would be similar for other species.

The question then becomes the old Fermi Paradox: where are they?

My answer to this is simple: Just because you can be everywhere doesn't mean you will be everywhere, or even most places.

Pretend you are species X, a mystery species from 1,000,000 years ago. You have progressed in technology to the point where you're basically immortal, barring accidents. The likelihood of you having large families is fairly low (we see this on Earth, the more advanced the society, the less children). Your species is barely going to use all the resources of your solar system - it's a big place, after all, and your population is fairly stable. Maybe you colonize a few nearby stars, but it's unlikely. Like Hawaii before it was stumbled across by Europeans, everything you need is near at hand, and setting up a colony around a distant star is difficult. There are billions of years left on your sun's clock.

Why colonize distant stars yet? (assuming FTL travel is truly impossible, and no wormholes/Alcubierre drive is possible)

Now, they very well might have sent probes to everyone nearby, and that could be quite extensive even if they only send probes to nearby stars, as over a million years you will be near new stars as you orbit the galaxy. So the answer is probably "Their probes are here, they aren't, and it's unlikely that they'll spread"

Dook · 2004-06-03 08:50:21

I believe all highly intelligent life is similar in form, torso, head, arms with hands, and legs. Why? Take the dolphins, they are intelligent and might even be able to communicate with some sort of ESP but they are not highly intelligent because they cannot perform experiments to learn more simply because they do not have arms with hands, and legs. You need mobility-legs, you need hands with fingers, and you need a large brain.

In fact if I were to make a bet I would say that since all life on this planet is based upon the same DNA then likely the universe is also and that means that any life form on the earth that has those three things above has probably, somewhere, evolved enough to be highly intelligent. There are probably humanoid types, insectoid types, maybe avian forms, and reptilian as well. Not so sure about the reptillian, but maybe. Probably not some form of highly intelligent fish though, too dependant on water. Imagine trying to do an experiment under water.

Trebuchet · 2004-06-03 16:58:55

Actually, octopi are rather intelligent, and are pretty damn alien looking compared to the other species we think of as 'smart'. They also have manipulatory organs. So not all intelligent creatures will look similar.

http://www.dal.ca/~ceph/TCP/smarts.html]Octopus Smarts

Dook · 2004-06-03 17:56:20

I guess it depends on how you interpret the question. If you want to know whether intelligent species are all similar in form then the answer is no because elephants and dolphins are intelligent.

If you ask whether highly intelligent species, those with the ability to learn about the physical laws that govern the universe, then I would say they must be similar in form.

I guess it is possible for some intelligent octopus to evolve with giant brains and over millions of years develop a language. Then build seafarms where fish are raised. And manufacture tools out of seashells. Maybe they could build a science facility that has an airtight chamber for conducting experiments to learn about gasses and chemical properties. When they go into space they would wear a space suit full of circulating seawater.

MarsDog · 2004-06-09 23:42:32

Interesting will be if life is found inside one of the gas giant planets. With pressure so high that hydrogen becomes a conductor, their nerve cells might not be able to operate high above the solid core of the planet. Even if extremely intelligent, forever trapped.

Gennaro · 2004-06-11 20:40:48

Carbon based oxygene breathing intelligent life exclusively or almost might seem dull, but actually I like it. Think of all the various shapes, textures and colours they might have, since carbon can be used for the base of almost any colour.

Plant life on Earth seems predominantly green, but I've read that's only a coincidence, Green doesn't absorb light very well. On an alien world what goes for plants might be bright red, cyan blue or even black.

Aside from bilateral symmetry, a radial symmetry, like starfish and urchins might be as successful, I think.
On the other hand I don't believe aquatic lifeforms will ever develop a technology, at least not on their own. It seems to demand the use of fire and how is that supposed to happen?

I'm sure they are out there. Maybe 43,5 lightyears from here. Now, where's my photon rocket?

~Eternal~ · 2004-06-13 11:58:39

Carbon based oxygene breathing intelligent life exclusively or almost might seem dull, but actually I like it. Think of all the various shapes, textures and colours they might have, since carbon can be used for the base of almost any colour.
Plant life on Earth seems predominantly green, but I've read that's only a coincidence, Green doesn't absorb light very well. On an alien world what goes for plants might be bright red, cyan blue or even black.
Aside from bilateral symmetry, a radial symmetry, like starfish and urchins might be as successful, I think.
On the other hand I don't believe aquatic lifeforms will ever develop a technology, at least not on their own. It seems to demand the use of fire and how is that supposed to happen?
I'm sure they are out there. Maybe 43,5 lightyears from here. Now, where's my photon rocket?

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#1 2002-12-22 17:12:34

Re: Universal Life - Is all - complex life in the universe similar?

#2 2002-12-22 21:23:16

Re: Universal Life - Is all - complex life in the universe similar?

#3 2002-12-22 22:21:56

Re: Universal Life - Is all - complex life in the universe similar?

#4 2002-12-26 14:32:38

Re: Universal Life - Is all - complex life in the universe similar?

#5 2002-12-26 15:30:28

Re: Universal Life - Is all - complex life in the universe similar?

#6 2002-12-26 15:43:08

Re: Universal Life - Is all - complex life in the universe similar?

#7 2003-07-11 13:54:41

Re: Universal Life - Is all - complex life in the universe similar?

#8 2003-07-16 07:07:55

Re: Universal Life - Is all - complex life in the universe similar?

#9 2003-07-20 22:33:52

Re: Universal Life - Is all - complex life in the universe similar?

#10 2003-09-28 04:19:44

Re: Universal Life - Is all - complex life in the universe similar?

#11 2003-09-28 07:13:15

Re: Universal Life - Is all - complex life in the universe similar?

#12 2003-10-08 05:51:39

Re: Universal Life - Is all - complex life in the universe similar?

#13 2003-12-13 16:39:29

Re: Universal Life - Is all - complex life in the universe similar?

#14 2004-01-15 08:38:05

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#15 2004-01-30 14:57:17

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#16 2004-04-18 00:56:26

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#17 2004-05-22 17:05:40

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#18 2004-06-01 18:41:00

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#19 2004-06-03 08:50:21

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#20 2004-06-03 16:58:55

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#21 2004-06-03 17:56:20

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#22 2004-06-09 23:42:32

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#23 2004-06-11 20:40:48

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#24 2004-06-13 11:58:39

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