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Author Topic:   New life, and new life forms
AZPaul3
Member
Posts: 8513
From: Phoenix
Joined: 11-06-2006
Member Rating: 5.3


Message 46 of 59 (580685)
09-10-2010 4:44 PM
Reply to: Message 39 by caffeine
09-10-2010 4:17 AM


Fermi's Loss
This thread has given the two major resolutions to the Fermi paradox.
Let's keep this just to our galaxy. The universe is just too much at this point.
I like Crash Frog's idea that we are the first to the party. I would alter this to we are one of the first to the party but we are all still so young our EM bubbles have not even come close to crossing paths. It's a big, big galaxy.
The other resolution is Coyote's idea that we haven't been looking in the right place. It is quite probable that a somewhat older more sophisticated civilization has abandoned spewing their energy out into the galaxy in the form of EM waves and their EM bubble passed us by quite some time ago never to be seen again.
I would alter this one to speculate they could be using all their resources building their Dyson sphere today and we wouldn't know it since they are on the other side of the galaxy. Or yet a second civilization that has also abandoned wasting EM energy and is now invisible to us put out self-replicating von Neumann probes a few million years ago but those probes have yet to venture beyond the few hundred million of their nearest stellar neighbors let alone ventured anywhere close to us some 200 billion stars further on. It is a big, big, big galaxy.
And these two resolutions are not mutually exclusive. We can come up with thousands of variations on these themes all quite probable.
The one thing we can say with certainty (well ... as certain as we can be without holding it in our hands) is that, given the numbers involved (just in our galaxy) and the chemistry and physics that is universal, there is life out there even if just microbial.
Intelligent mega structures similar to us are not so certain but are very probable indeed. There is a whole big bunch of opportunity for even the remotest flukes in chemistry and intellect to be repeated many times over, and this just in our galaxy.
And these numbers and the scale of the galaxy give us many plausible reasons why we have not yet seen them and probably will not see them for a very, very long time.

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jar
Member (Idle past 394 days)
Posts: 34026
From: Texas!!
Joined: 04-20-2004


Message 47 of 59 (580693)
09-10-2010 5:46 PM
Reply to: Message 46 by AZPaul3
09-10-2010 4:44 PM


Re: Fermi's Loss
Or they already arrived here, found out about Lite Beer and simply wrote this place off the return list.

Anyone so limited that they can only spell a word one way is severely handicapped!

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xongsmith
Member
Posts: 2578
From: massachusetts US
Joined: 01-01-2009
Member Rating: 6.8


Message 48 of 59 (580718)
09-10-2010 8:37 PM
Reply to: Message 47 by jar
09-10-2010 5:46 PM


Re: Fermi's Loss
jar conjectures:
Or they already arrived here, found out about Lite Beer and simply wrote this place off the return list.
...or, at some point, their right wingers cut taxes to the point where they couldn't fund space exploration anymore and since then any notion to revive it has always died in committee.

- xongsmith, 5.7d

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frako
Member (Idle past 305 days)
Posts: 2932
From: slovenija
Joined: 09-04-2010


Message 49 of 59 (580774)
09-11-2010 2:23 AM
Reply to: Message 47 by jar
09-10-2010 5:46 PM


Re: Fermi's Loss
or they could have arrived and estimated that it would be best to not show themselves because it would have profound inplications to most religius aspects of humanety and their arrival would have probably started another world ware. so they said lets give them another milenium so these apes can root out their silly belifs.

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Just being real
Member (Idle past 3935 days)
Posts: 369
Joined: 08-26-2010


Message 50 of 59 (580776)
09-11-2010 2:58 AM



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Larni
Member (Idle past 164 days)
Posts: 4000
From: Liverpool
Joined: 09-16-2005


Message 51 of 59 (580788)
09-11-2010 9:04 AM
Reply to: Message 50 by Just being real
09-11-2010 2:58 AM


No idea what that is supposed to mean: could you clarify?

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AZPaul3
Member
Posts: 8513
From: Phoenix
Joined: 11-06-2006
Member Rating: 5.3


Message 52 of 59 (580794)
09-11-2010 10:38 AM
Reply to: Message 51 by Larni
09-11-2010 9:04 AM


Christian Excuse
No idea what that is supposed to mean: could you clarify?
I took this as being one of those excuses christians use to explain why they are not so well respected in the rest of society.
If they were loving toward others, empathic at heart, helped those less fortunate and sought to comfort humanity, then other people would love them back.
But, since they are the chosen of god with a place in the after life, intolerant of other creeds, torture those who disagree, stone babies and make war in his name, all as he has directed, then, the rest of the world, jealous of the christians' special status with god, will hate them.
Another cross the poor mis-understood christian must bear in this life.

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 Message 53 by Blue Jay, posted 09-11-2010 5:08 PM AZPaul3 has replied

  
Blue Jay
Member (Idle past 2697 days)
Posts: 2843
From: You couldn't pronounce it with your mouthparts
Joined: 02-04-2008


Message 53 of 59 (580839)
09-11-2010 5:08 PM
Reply to: Message 52 by AZPaul3
09-11-2010 10:38 AM


Re: Christian Excuse
Hi, Paul.
AZPaul3 writes:
...intolerant of other creeds, torture those who disagree, stone babies and make war in his name...
I don't want to derail the thread, but, "stone babies"? Really?

-Bluejay (a.k.a. Mantis, Thylacosmilus)
Darwin loves you.

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Larni
Member (Idle past 164 days)
Posts: 4000
From: Liverpool
Joined: 09-16-2005


Message 54 of 59 (580856)
09-11-2010 6:52 PM
Reply to: Message 53 by Blue Jay
09-11-2010 5:08 PM


Re: Christian Excuse
stone babies
Babies made of stone.

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AZPaul3
Member
Posts: 8513
From: Phoenix
Joined: 11-06-2006
Member Rating: 5.3


Message 55 of 59 (580881)
09-12-2010 1:35 AM
Reply to: Message 53 by Blue Jay
09-11-2010 5:08 PM


Re: Christian Excuse
I don't want to derail the thread, but, "stone babies"? Really?
Oh, was that supposed to be "eat babies"?
I'm always behind on these things.
Sorry.

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Blue Jay
Member (Idle past 2697 days)
Posts: 2843
From: You couldn't pronounce it with your mouthparts
Joined: 02-04-2008


Message 56 of 59 (580959)
09-12-2010 4:59 PM
Reply to: Message 55 by AZPaul3
09-12-2010 1:35 AM


Re: Christian Excuse
Hi, Paul.
AZPaul3 writes:
Oh, was that supposed to be "eat babies"?
I'm always behind on these things.
Sorry.
Maybe they would threaten to cut a baby in half, but only to settle a dispute about who the real mother is.
But, not a baby made of stone, of course (which would constitute a new type of life, and thus, get us back to the topic).

-Bluejay (a.k.a. Mantis, Thylacosmilus)
Darwin loves you.

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CosmicChimp
Member
Posts: 311
From: Muenchen Bayern Deutschland
Joined: 06-15-2007


Message 57 of 59 (580979)
09-12-2010 6:42 PM
Reply to: Message 41 by AZPaul3
09-10-2010 2:15 PM


Yes I agree, "highly unlikely." But let's try to feel for the edges. I want to explore what could be the extremely unlikely possibilities as well as carbon based forms. Oddly this topic crops up frequently in my day dreaming. Years ago, I happened upon an article in an online encyclopedia concerning various schemes for life-like complexity based upon a scale of higher/lower temperatures pressures/densities, and 'solvents'. Sadly I can't access the article anymore. From it I recall that Hydrogen bonding (and I suppose ionic bonding) plays a greater structural role at lower temps. Carbon carbon double and triple bonding at higher temps and pressures etc. Liquid methane, sulfuric acid and ammonia could easily be used under cold world conditions as solvent. Much to my chagrin the details of whatever I used to know from Chem eludes me.
Also to Subbie:
I'm not so sure reproduction should limit the scope of our definition of life as maintaining and adapting an existing 'body' or structure could also be seen as life/living.
Edited by CosmicChimp, : clarity

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 Message 58 by subbie, posted 09-12-2010 7:21 PM CosmicChimp has replied

  
subbie
Member (Idle past 1254 days)
Posts: 3509
Joined: 02-26-2006


Message 58 of 59 (580988)
09-12-2010 7:21 PM
Reply to: Message 57 by CosmicChimp
09-12-2010 6:42 PM


I'm not so sure reproduction should limit the scope of our definition of life as maintaining and adapting an existing 'body' or structure could also be seen as life/living.
I didn't intend my comment about life to limit the discussion. It was simply my opening salvo about minimum requirements.
I don't disagree with your suggestion in the abstract. But in the context of this thread, I'd like to see a description of how such a condition could be reached. Perhaps an example of a single such life form would be V'Ger from Star Trek: the Motion Picture. Can you imagine a way for a civilization of such beings to come into existence in the absence of any reproduction?

Ridicule is the only weapon which can be used against unintelligible propositions. -- Thomas Jefferson
We see monsters where science shows us windmills. -- Phat
It has always struck me as odd that fundies devote so much time and effort into trying to find a naturalistic explanation for their mythical flood, while looking for magical explanations for things that actually happened. -- Dr. Adequate
...creationists have a great way to detect fraud and it doesn't take 8 or 40 years or even a scientific degree to spot the fraud--'if it disagrees with the bible then it is wrong'.... -- archaeologist

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CosmicChimp
Member
Posts: 311
From: Muenchen Bayern Deutschland
Joined: 06-15-2007


Message 59 of 59 (581001)
09-12-2010 9:23 PM
Reply to: Message 58 by subbie
09-12-2010 7:21 PM


Yeah I think at all levels to acquire the complexity of life you need to have a process of innovation supplying whatever variables are possible and selection from among those. The innovation part is, I would think, iterative and similar to reproduction. However, the reproduction we know with DNA etc and the incomplete copying during it in order to achieve the 'innovation' may not be absolutely necessary, especially under very stable and unchanging environmental conditions.
The innovation could come from some other source. I keep envisioning crystal growth or something like silicone chip manufacturing processes where only the extremities are modified. New layers to the lattice would have to vary and thus supply the novelty which would then be kept or not kept. Obviously a leap has to occur somewhere in that process to get the kind of huge chain reaction life that we know.
The machine planet that perfected Voyager and made it V'Ger I can only imagine had to start out much simpler, and gain its high level of complexity via reproduction, which you might call iterative innovation.

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