pmaust Posted December 30, 2004 Report Share Posted December 30, 2004 We assume that there must be life everywhere. Why not? However, we have no evidence of it. At least not yet that I know about. So, as of right now, WE are the only "known" life in the Universe. :) Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Aki Posted December 30, 2004 Report Share Posted December 30, 2004 Hey Razeroth, welcome to the forums! I like your idea how the "universe never did anything just once". Maybe other life forms are just too far away from us. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
BlameTheEx Posted December 30, 2004 Report Share Posted December 30, 2004 Aki Then again maybe they are watching and waiting for intelligence to evolve on Earth. It could be a long wait. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Tormod Posted December 30, 2004 Report Share Posted December 30, 2004 Aki Then again maybe they are watching and waiting for intelligence to evolve on Earth. It could be a long wait. :) Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Tormod Posted December 30, 2004 Report Share Posted December 30, 2004 We assume that there must be life everywhere. Why not? However, we have no evidence of it. At least not yet that I know about. So, as of right now, WE are the only "known" life in the Universe. :) Well...how about dolphins, gorillas, chimps, whales...? Do they fit under "we"? :) Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Tormod Posted December 30, 2004 Report Share Posted December 30, 2004 the universe never did anything just once. :) A very good way to state it. Difficult to back up with evidence but (and some dislike me for saying this) but we do have the probability on our side, I'd say. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Freethinker Posted December 30, 2004 Report Share Posted December 30, 2004 Aki Then again maybe they are watching and waiting for intelligence to evolve on Earth. It could be a long wait.Er, which side to play.... Let's hope they are not watching this site for evidence! or Let's hope they find this site! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Freethinker Posted December 30, 2004 Report Share Posted December 30, 2004 the universe never did anything just once. :)Me? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
pmaust Posted December 30, 2004 Report Share Posted December 30, 2004 Well...how about dolphins, gorillas, chimps, whales...? Do they fit under "we"? :) Oh yeah. I used the term generically. :) Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Aquagem Posted December 30, 2004 Report Share Posted December 30, 2004 We assume that there must be life everywhere. Why not? However, we have no evidence of it. At least not yet that I know about. So, as of right now, WE are the only "known" life in the Universe. :) What would we accept as evidence of the existence of life on an alien world? Here's one engaging idea, summarized from The Web of Life by Fitjof Capra (1996), pp. 100-110. This is a good book to read about what makes life life and how it relates to fractals, chaos theory, and self-organization in the biotic and abiotic world. James Lovelock, best known popularly for the "Gaia Hypothesis", that Earth as a whole is a functioning organism, a self-organizing system, predicted in the 1960's that we will find no life on Mars as a result of his work at the Jet Propulsion Lab (JPL) designing instruments for first Viking probe. He was particularly interested in figuring out how we could even identify something as living if it didn't have the same carbon basis as life on Earth. This led him to ask the question, "What processes would be found in any system that would allow us to recognize something as living?" (My paraphrase, for illustration only.) The answer he settled on was that living things ingest matter and energy, incorporate them into their own systems, and excrete waste products. That is, they would alter the composition of their surroundings, a fact that would leave a "signature" in the atmosphere. If there were no organisms to process and modify the chemical and thermodynamic equilibrium of their resident planet, then one could predict with confidence how spontaneous chemical reactions would resolve themselves. Moreover, given the antiquity of the solar system, all possible reactions would have come and gone long ago. Changes induced by solar radiation, collisions with cosmic debris, or other perturbations of the planetary environment would, likewise, resolve themselves over time, with the result that, on average, thermodynamic equilibrium would be reached and maintained. An atmospheric scientist, he then analyzed the Martian atmospheric spectrographs, and compared it to that of Earth. With the instrumentation then available, it quickly became clear that the atmosphere of Mars was in thermodynamic equilibrium, while that of Earth is FAR from equilibrium. For example, oxygen is highly reactive, and would never exist for long as O2 in the absence of constant maintenance. Its lowest energy state is that of CO2, which is the major component of the atmosphere of Mars (and of Venus, for the same reason). To maintain O2 in Earth's atmosphere results from the fact that it's a waste product from photosynthesis. The presence of free oxygen is thus diagnostic of an organismic process that has pushed the atmosphere out of balance chemically. Now, it wouldn't have to be oxygen that would indicate the presence of life, assuming life had a basis different from our own (e.g., silicon vs carbon, or some other carbon arrangement). But whatever the indicator might be, we could predict that the atmosphere would not be thermodynamic equilibrium. And that is a condition we can, with adequate instrumentation, measure from light years away. To date, most of the work on identifying other solar systems relies on solar wobble induced by gravitational cycles of planets circling their respective suns, but spectrometry may be able in time to detect potential candidates for living systems across vast distances. I don't know where this line of research has gone recently, but I find it useful and interesting to think of life in thermodynamic terms. We are NOT in equilibrium. We MUST ingest energy and matter and excrete wastes to stay alive. This was Lovelock's starting point - if a system doesn't do at least these two things, it wouldn't qualify as "life". These basic physical needs pull the rest of life's qualities into existence (which is the subject matter of evolution), all of the characteristics necessary to maintain a stable identity at a place very far from the minimum energy condition of equilibrium. This would include competition, predation, a mechanism for trapping energy, using it to build structures, and so on. (The environment of Earth appears to have a razor-thin balance of those factors necessary to allow the initiation and continuation of the myriad interlocking cycles of matter and energy to support evolution, a fact many people interpret from a religious perspective to mean there is a willful intelligence sustaining the system. That's an unresolve debate, for later posts.) A parting thought-- What would Earth look like if life had never begun? Or, what would Earth look like in a few millions of years, if all life ceased at this second? Probable answer: It would look like Venus, blistering hot from the greenhouse effect that would increase unchecked as oxygen moved into equilibrium as carbon dioxide through spontaneous chemical reactions. What makes the difference? What makes the planet a beautiful blue speck in a darkling sky? Life! Life makes all the difference in the world! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Freethinker Posted December 30, 2004 Report Share Posted December 30, 2004 James Lovelock,... predicted in the 1960's that we will find no life on Mars as a result of his work at the Jet Propulsion Lab (JPL) designing instruments for first Viking probe. He was particularly interested in figuring out how we could even identify something as living if it didn't have the same carbon basis as life on Earth. This led him to ask the question, "What processes would be found in any system that would allow us to recognize something as living?" (My paraphrase, for illustration only.) The answer he settled on was that living things ingest matter and energy, incorporate them into their own systems, and excrete waste products. That is, they would alter the composition of their surroundings, a fact that would leave a "signature" in the atmosphere.... An atmospheric scientist, he then analyzed the Martian atmospheric spectrographs, and compared it to that of Earth. With the instrumentation then available, it quickly became clear that the atmosphere of Mars was in thermodynamic equilibrium, while that of Earth is FAR from equilibrium.How interesting. Not just your post, but the results when I Googled for the answer. Knowing that we are now suggesting that gasses found on Mars indicate a possible active life for exactly the reasons given above. Gasses that would not stay in their discovered local for any period of time and their existence there indicates current production. Most likely as a waste product. and guess what was the 7th item on Google? Scientist: Mars Data Shows Life Signs http://www.hypography.com/article.cfm?id=31476 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Aquagem Posted December 30, 2004 Report Share Posted December 30, 2004 How interesting. Not just your post, but the results when I Googled for the answer. Knowing that we are now suggesting that gasses found on Mars indicate a possible active life for exactly the reasons given above. Gasses that would not stay in their discovered local for any period of time and their existence there indicates current production. Most likely as a waste product. and guess what was the 7th item on Google? http://www.hypography.com/article.cfm?id=31476What a kick! I haven't thought about Lovelock's work for a loooong time. Maybe the synchronous appearance of two documents (my post and the news article) was written in the stars... :) Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Razeroth Posted January 1, 2005 Report Share Posted January 1, 2005 Me? the statement was in reference to units of mater, stars, gallaxies, planets, and life bearing planets. none of which are identical but conform to certain standards that discribe them as sysems of structure. so yes, as a personality, you are unique, but as a human, a life form, and a dynamic system in this universe, you are not alone. :) Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Razeroth Posted January 1, 2005 Report Share Posted January 1, 2005 as for the standard which constitues "life", understood by the consumption and convertion of matter and energy and the giving off of waste products, i'd say even simple fire fullfills these criteria. as a kind of anti-life, not only does it consume and excrete but also breathes and reproduces. it excetes, interestingly enough, both water and carbon dioxide, both vital to plant life. i would say that any planet capable of life needs first be capable of sustaining an open flame, making open fire a kind of pre-requasit to life formation. givin the abundance of ustable fuel sources such as hydrogen in the universe, i'd say the probability of systems suporting open flames is abundantly secure. all pre-requisits for life being harnest and flame providing the conditions increasingly favorable to the emergance of life, "I" would say the probability of the whole universe being litteraly dripping with life is extremely high. seeing how fire can be extinguished in one form and spontiously emerge elsewhere also increases this likelyhood. so in my eyes the evidence is there and the proof exists, if you are willing to except it for what is is, and not misrepresent it for what it isn't. also the resent discoverys of many gas giant planets in earth like orbits increases, not decreases the probability of life in the universe, seeing as how in this planetary system at lease, gas giants have an abundance of moons distributing a broad range of conditions, and at least with the case of europa and titan, being in earth like orbits would make conditions VERY faverable to the eventual emergance of life forms. beyond all this what reasons do you have in NOT wanting to beleive in other life? do you WANT to be alone? do you WISH for humankind to expand out into the cosmos, and NEVER find anything? givin a choice of what to beleive, i recieve a sence of security in the idea that thier are others out there seeking the answers to the same questions we ourselves have been asking. that in all the known universe nobody is truely alone, not as a person, planet, star, gallaxy, or even universe. peace. :) Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ant Posted January 2, 2005 Report Share Posted January 2, 2005 In my personal opinion, it is very self rightoues to think that of all the solar systems in our universe that our planet is the only one with life...bye life i mean any organism whether it be single celled, colony multicellular..whatever, it just seems so crazy to believe it is just us! :) Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Law_Freak Posted January 3, 2005 Report Share Posted January 3, 2005 I doubt it because i thought i heard about some foosils of bateria were found on mars. So if there isnt life than there must of been. And also over millions of years havnt some bacteria left the atmosphere. And what about our contamination of the moon and mars and other planets with bacteria that got onto/into our rockets/shuttles Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Aquagem Posted January 4, 2005 Report Share Posted January 4, 2005 as for the standard which constitues "life", understood by the consumption and convertion of matter and energy and the giving off of waste products, i'd say even simple fire fullfills these criteria. as a kind of anti-life, not only does it consume and excrete but also breathes and reproduces. it excetes, interestingly enough, both water and carbon dioxide, both vital to plant life. Hi, Razeroth -- Your post is full of points I want to respond to, but for the sake brevity, I'll start with this one. The identification of life and fire is one of our most ancient symbols, along with the Tree of Life, the path of life, and the trial of life. All of these are metaphors that capture one or more of the basic features of life as seen from a folk perspective. But, like all metaphors, they are valid to some degree and yet never capture the whole. "If life is just a bowl of cherries, then it gets all sticky when you drop it on the sidewalk." They only go so far. How many calories are in a sugar cube? About 20. How many are released if you set it on fire? The same 20. And how many are released in going through the metabolism of a living creature? The same 20, again. So far, everything is equal. But there is a whole list of differences between the two (catalytic enzyme reactions, production of catalytic proteins to perform those reactions, templates and process to produce the proteins, reproduction of the organism required to build the proteins, and so on to many levels). We feel it intuitively, and science has tried a number of times to pin down where an open fire and the fire of life are different. The one that seems most pertinent here is that life processes are REGULATED by internal systems (cybernetically), whereas open fire is a thermodynamic event "regulated" only by thermodynamic circumstances. Fire can jump from tree to ground to tree again, but this is not "reproduction" by anyone's terms. As a basic phenomenon of Earth, it's no more alive than water, atmosphere, or dirt, the other three of the old Four Element System. I would say that your parallel between life and fire extends the metaphor about as far as it can go, unless you do truly believe that everything is alive, which many do. I don't, because I see orders of magnitude of differences between the simplest things recognized as living and the pre-biotic elements living things incorporate to maintain and pass along heritable changes through a vastly complex set of metabolic operations. The clearest difference in this regard is that life swims against the current of the Second Law of Thermodynamics, reverses entropy in the short run, locally. The existence of fire ALWAYS increase entropy, and itself represents the ultimate simplification of complex systems. The escape of fire, as you note, is anti-life. Which brings us to the next point -- how likely is it that life-friendly conditions exist elsewhere. Is the universe "dripping" with life? And what about that open flame requirement? I just have to include something about the open flame idea. Life was probably over a billion years old before the first flame could have been lit on Earth, and by the time oxygen reached a level that could have sustained fire, it (oxygen) had driven most of the rest of life to extinction. Oxygen was then (as it is now), a waste product of photosynthesis, nasty, reactive stuff that can only stay in the atmosphere BECAUSE LIFE PUTS IT THERE. Today, we know that anaerobic bacteria are destroyed in the presence of oxygen, and in the last three years or so, gigantic quantities of sulfur-fixing bacteria have been found thousands of feet underground, where they have probably been washing about in the silence and darkness for the last billion years. (This was in an article in Discover Magazine about two years ago. The author estimates that if all the bacteria in pore spaces like those he researched could be pumped to the surface, they would cover every square inch of the planet's surface to the depth of about 6 feet! That's a lot of life living where the sun don't shine, making its living off entirely abiotic energy sources tracing to the formation of Earth, independent of anything that could sustain a flame.) More later, and on to some bigger points from your post. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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