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mackenga · May 20th, 2006, 5:43 PM

Until we come up with a workable common definition of the word "life" we can't expect to answer this question. I say that any entity that reproduces itself is living - I think this is a fair working definition. This includes all of us, animals, plants and other such commonsensical life-forms, as well as some interesting and potentially controversial ones like crystals and computer viruses. These controversial special cases might suggest I need to change my definition, but I think that would be a backward move and would rather carry the analytical knife forward and change my attitude to these few, accept them as life forms and continue considering the question posed. After all, crystals have been shown to randomly mutate and be subject to natural selection, and it's even been suggested that they produced the first organic materials and kicked off life as we know it (See "Genetic Takeover" by AG Cairns-Smith). Computer viruses may not do a lot of actual evolving out there, but their environment is very different and they exist therefore very much outside the familiar rules we can readily apply to living entities in the 'real world' so such a slight difference is nothing to get over-excited about.

Personally, I think that if we forget about the computer virus thing, the clay minerals are really what I'm after to help with this question about life elsewhere in the universe. The circumstances that biological life-forms like ourselves require for our development and survival might be very specific, which would imply that it would be very unlikely that it would have come about elsewhere, but what people often forget is that it was very unlikely that something like us would just 'come about' out of some primodial soup here, too. The self-replicating crystals in clay minerals are a bit more flexible when it comes to their lifestyles.

The chances that there is mineral life elsewhere seem pretty good to me. Biological life feels less likely, but I'm aware that it's a big place and anyway if genetic takeover can happen here then something analagous could happen elsewhere. I don't believe there is intelligent life here or elsewhere. Intelligence is an indefinable abstraction; a predictable rationalisation of a fundamentally deterministic machine. I'm working on proving it (give me a year or two).

I think my answer to this question is this: whether there is life out there depends more on what you class as life than anything else. By my definition, I think it is highly likely that there is life out there. Whether it would be classed as life if I had more than one criterion is anybody's guess.

May 20th, 2006, 5:43 PM	#33
mackenga Professional Programmer Join Date: Mar 2005 Location: Glasgow, Scotland Posts: 314 Rep Power: 4	Until we come up with a workable common definition of the word "life" we can't expect to answer this question. I say that any entity that reproduces itself is living - I think this is a fair working definition. This includes all of us, animals, plants and other such commonsensical life-forms, as well as some interesting and potentially controversial ones like crystals and computer viruses. These controversial special cases might suggest I need to change my definition, but I think that would be a backward move and would rather carry the analytical knife forward and change my attitude to these few, accept them as life forms and continue considering the question posed. After all, crystals have been shown to randomly mutate and be subject to natural selection, and it's even been suggested that they produced the first organic materials and kicked off life as we know it (See "Genetic Takeover" by AG Cairns-Smith). Computer viruses may not do a lot of actual evolving out there, but their environment is very different and they exist therefore very much outside the familiar rules we can readily apply to living entities in the 'real world' so such a slight difference is nothing to get over-excited about. Personally, I think that if we forget about the computer virus thing, the clay minerals are really what I'm after to help with this question about life elsewhere in the universe. The circumstances that biological life-forms like ourselves require for our development and survival might be very specific, which would imply that it would be very unlikely that it would have come about elsewhere, but what people often forget is that it was very unlikely that something like us would just 'come about' out of some primodial soup here, too. The self-replicating crystals in clay minerals are a bit more flexible when it comes to their lifestyles. The chances that there is mineral life elsewhere seem pretty good to me. Biological life feels less likely, but I'm aware that it's a big place and anyway if genetic takeover can happen here then something analagous could happen elsewhere. I don't believe there is intelligent life here or elsewhere. Intelligence is an indefinable abstraction; a predictable rationalisation of a fundamentally deterministic machine. I'm working on proving it (give me a year or two). I think my answer to this question is this: whether there is life out there depends more on what you class as life than anything else. By my definition, I think it is highly likely that there is life out there. Whether it would be classed as life if I had more than one criterion is anybody's guess. __________________ "I'm not a genius. Why do I have to suffer?"