3 ms·

Maybe solid-phase life wouldn't mainly depend on what we normally think of as chemistry, but instead some other physical processes. Perhaps radiation making pat

Maybe solid-phase life wouldn't mainly depend on what we normally think of as chemistry, but instead some other physical processes. Perhaps radiation making patterns in a crystal that somehow manage to utilize an energy gradient in the material to self-reproduce, with the radiation causing imperfections, or mutations, in the patterns. Or some completely different physical process we can't even conceive of because we haven't observed anything like it on earth.

jerf 3y ago
I like to distinguish between "science fiction theories" and science we actually understand. In science fiction, anything goes. If you want to talk about physical processes we've never even heard of, hey, go nuts. I've got my own pet theories. If we want to stick to science, we can in fact use science to put some bounds on things. We don't have to know everything. Physical reproduction in the case you are talking about would have to be incredibly, incredible slow, plural orders of magnitude slower than Earth life. Reproduction of some energy signature might be possible, but without the ability to increase the physical substrate it can run on, that's all it would be. We actually have examples of that today; basically a laser fits the bill here, a crystal (in at least some cases) that can give a particular energy pattern the ability to reproduce. Clearly not life, though. It actually reminds me of theories about life arising on Pluto or something. While we can't necessarily prove it is impossible, I've seen theories about using superfluid Helium as a base liquid for life, we can say it would have to be by necessity excruciatingly slow by Earth standards by the obvious ways the temperature affects chemistry speed. I can't prove a solid is completely impossible to be alive, but it is so, so much slower that it has some serious problems with its sun burning out in the metabolic equivalent of just a few thousand years of Earth metabolism. I like both modes of thought. I do not like people mixing them willy-nilly. It wrecks them both and you very much get a worst of both worlds.
- astrobe_ 3y ago
  I don't think the speed of the process is really relevant, outside of the pace (or risk) of change of the environment. In animal life as we know it, lifespan ranges from a few days to centuries.
- macrolime 3y ago
  The point wasn’t that what I came up with is necessarily likely or possible though, just that maybe it will turn out there's life, i.e. some self-reproducing evolving thing that doesn't store its instructions for self-reproduction in a molecule in a solution. As for physical processes we haven't heard of, I was thinking of things that's not chemistry, but could reproduce some patterns. Some examples we have in technology is photography or photolithography.

jerf 3y ago

I like to distinguish between "science fiction theories" and science we actually understand. In science fiction, anything goes. If you want to talk about physical processes we've never even heard of, hey, go nuts. I've got my own pet theories. If we want to stick to science, we can in fact use science to put some bounds on things. We don't have to know everything. Physical reproduction in the case you are talking about would have to be incredibly, incredible slow, plural orders of magnitude slower than Earth life. Reproduction of some energy signature might be possible, but without the ability to increase the physical substrate it can run on, that's all it would be. We actually have examples of that today; basically a laser fits the bill here, a crystal (in at least some cases) that can give a particular energy pattern the ability to reproduce. Clearly not life, though. It actually reminds me of theories about life arising on Pluto or something. While we can't necessarily prove it is impossible, I've seen theories about using superfluid Helium as a base liquid for life, we can say it would have to be by necessity excruciatingly slow by Earth standards by the obvious ways the temperature affects chemistry speed. I can't prove a solid is completely impossible to be alive, but it is so, so much slower that it has some serious problems with its sun burning out in the metabolic equivalent of just a few thousand years of Earth metabolism. I like both modes of thought. I do not like people mixing them willy-nilly. It wrecks them both and you very much get a worst of both worlds.

astrobe_ 3y ago
I don't think the speed of the process is really relevant, outside of the pace (or risk) of change of the environment. In animal life as we know it, lifespan ranges from a few days to centuries.
macrolime 3y ago
The point wasn’t that what I came up with is necessarily likely or possible though, just that maybe it will turn out there's life, i.e. some self-reproducing evolving thing that doesn't store its instructions for self-reproduction in a molecule in a solution. As for physical processes we haven't heard of, I was thinking of things that's not chemistry, but could reproduce some patterns. Some examples we have in technology is photography or photolithography.