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His article completely ignores the possibility of engineered life. Engineered life can bypass evolution and natural selection, even if the species responsible f

His article completely ignores the possibility of engineered life. Engineered life can bypass evolution and natural selection, even if the species responsible for the engineering was a product of evolution.

piyh 5y ago
Strong arguments can be made that the ability to become a multi-planetary civilization requires you to master the tech tree that includes engineered life.
xwolfi 5y ago
Heh and what if the engineer even introduces evolution and what he truly engineers is code-based chemical cells that can conquer, survive, evolve and expand from anywhere ? :D I'd do a life myself, I'd make it post-metallic, post-silicon, post static: I'd make it use water and carbon, so that it can exist everywhere. I would make it so that it can become intelligent on a small time scale, say a few billion years, all on its own, from scratch, on any rock :D Not saying we have an engineer, but you think of engineered life as you are now as a simple software programmer. But an engineer in 500k years trying to expand more, would probably think of chemical automata that can evolve and adapt in harsh conditions. Say for instance if humanity decided it would be enjoyable for life to exist on Jupiter. It'd have to make something that can try a lot of variations with a very simple first formula to consume whatever gas there is there and survive whatever pressure.
- piyh 5y ago
  It'd be like explorers dropping goats on islands to come back to harvest them later.
  - jacquesm 5y ago
    There are quite a few SF stories around this theme.
- jacquesm 5y ago
  Creationists may be on to something after all ;)
  - Koshkin 5y ago
    But, the usual: Is the creator a lifeform?
dogma1138 5y ago
Engineered life still follows evolutionary pressure and natural selection it just might not hit the same walls as life that is only driven forth by random mutations and opportunistic gene exchange does.
bmitc 5y ago
> Engineered life can bypass evolution and natural selection Is there any example that backs this up?

piyh 5y ago

Strong arguments can be made that the ability to become a multi-planetary civilization requires you to master the tech tree that includes engineered life.

xwolfi 5y ago

Heh and what if the engineer even introduces evolution and what he truly engineers is code-based chemical cells that can conquer, survive, evolve and expand from anywhere ? :D I'd do a life myself, I'd make it post-metallic, post-silicon, post static: I'd make it use water and carbon, so that it can exist everywhere. I would make it so that it can become intelligent on a small time scale, say a few billion years, all on its own, from scratch, on any rock :D Not saying we have an engineer, but you think of engineered life as you are now as a simple software programmer. But an engineer in 500k years trying to expand more, would probably think of chemical automata that can evolve and adapt in harsh conditions. Say for instance if humanity decided it would be enjoyable for life to exist on Jupiter. It'd have to make something that can try a lot of variations with a very simple first formula to consume whatever gas there is there and survive whatever pressure.

piyh 5y ago
It'd be like explorers dropping goats on islands to come back to harvest them later.
- jacquesm 5y ago
  There are quite a few SF stories around this theme.
jacquesm 5y ago
Creationists may be on to something after all ;)
- Koshkin 5y ago
  But, the usual: Is the creator a lifeform?

dogma1138 5y ago

Engineered life still follows evolutionary pressure and natural selection it just might not hit the same walls as life that is only driven forth by random mutations and opportunistic gene exchange does.

bmitc 5y ago

> Engineered life can bypass evolution and natural selection Is there any example that backs this up?