8 ms·

The sun is so large I bet all kinds of unlikely phenomena are possible at small scales. If there was life on the sun, would be know it or recognize it?

by causi 3y ago

escapecharacter 3y ago
Using a looser definition of the solar boundary, we are all “in” the sun’s atmosphere, the density of which is ~3-10 particles per cm*3 near Earth.
__MatrixMan__ 3y ago
It's easy to notice carbon/water life because we are it, but most of our complexity exist within a rather narrow energy band (molecular electron orbitals with energy greater than a C-O and less than a C-H), so I think you're right to doubt that we'd recognize if there were a similarly narrow window into surprising complexity in the nuclear reactions that take place within the sun. I expect there's quite a lot of "life" that we're overlooking, and that we're going to feel quite silly when we have whatever encounter causes us to broaden our definitions to include the rest of it. Although to be pedantic, most definitions of life require that it be made of cells, and I doubt there are anything like cells in the sun.
- jnxx 3y ago
  > most definitions of life require that it be made of cells Is there a deeper reason for that?
  - lemaitre 3y ago
    Most definitions of life are very arbitrary. When it comes to astrobiology, we mostly look for things that look like us because if we didn't, the search space would be incomprehensibly large and frankly there's not a lot we could say.
  - __MatrixMan__ 3y ago
    My guess is that it had to do with avoiding a definition under which things like fire were alive. I'd rather exclude fire on the basis that it's "reproduction" involves nothing like heritability.
    - _a_a_a_ 3y ago
      Should it? Doesn't it inherit 'fireness'? I do know what you're saying but it's so easy to argue the other way too
      - __MatrixMan__ 3y ago
        Yeah definitions are tricky. If you saw a house consumed with fire, you might look at the circumstances and conclude that it was likely the offspring of the fire that consumed the house across the street, but there wouldn't be anything about the fire's phenotype that would help you come to that conclusion. If the flames carried the characteristic shape of their parents fire, and they could be distinguished as not the offspring of some other fire by their features alone, then I'd be arguing that fire is alive. I feel like I'm at risk of classifying certain periodic crystals as alive here, but they wouldn't meet the thermodynamic requirements that I have in mind (which fire does meet).
        _a_a_a_ 3y ago
        Not to be a dick (oh, go on then!): > but there wouldn't be anything about the fire's phenotype that would help you come to that conclusion but... but... cloning! But yes, we could do this all day and still get nowhere. We, collectively, are missing something but I don't know what.
  - jschrf 3y ago
    Complexity theory comes to mind. Self-similar encapsulates that combine to create emergent behaviors.
- nachomg 3y ago
  You made me remember how I was ridiculed by my teacher by asking if there was a possibility that life could be based on other thing than carbon. Granted, as I grew older and learnt a little bit more about the chemistry of carbon I realized that it had almost magic properties for life, but I wondered for long time why he reacted that way.
  - cmccart 3y ago
    Ridiculing genuine curiosity is a terrible behavior from teachers... why stifle inquisitive minds? Anyway, you may already be familiar with these proposed biochemistries, but there has been a lot of speculation on this exact question over the years: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hypothetical_types_of_biochemistry https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hypothetical_types_of_biochemi...
    - booleandilemma 3y ago
      I think it's simply that the teacher feels insecure.
  - brabel 3y ago
    You probably triggered some memory. Perhaps, a student who insisted they knew more than the teacher and pushed some ignorant argument too far... so when you suggested the idea, and perhaps tried to push a bit more consideration, the teacher found himself re-living that bad experience and treated you like you were the other student, even if you yourself didn't push the matter beyond an acceptable level. It happens to the best of us.
  - 0x00_NULL 3y ago
    Silicon has almost the exact same properties as carbon. At high temperatures, carbon chains can’t form, but silicon chains can. In a high-temperature or high-pressure range, silicon might for a basis for life, analogous to carbon for us. So, not only was that question not stupid, it was profound. Look at silicon on the periodic table. All of the things that make carbon great, basically silicon has almost exactly, except it needs a high temperature for most of those properties to be expressible. That teacher didn’t know what he was talking about. Ridiculing a student for questions is such detestable behavior. The silliest questions can end up being the most insightful. I really despise teachers like that. Here is a paper all about how your question was actually wonderful. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7345352/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7345352/
- gus_massa 3y ago
  > most definitions of life require that it be made of cells Does this animal has cells? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Xenophyophorea https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Xenophyophorea I feel like answering yes and calling it "unicelular" is cheating, but it's clear that it evolved from animals with cells and it has only "one".
  - gamepsys 3y ago
    > A coenocyte (/ˈsiːnəˌsaɪt/) is a multinucleate cell which can result from multiple nuclear divisions without their accompanying cytokinesis. Seems like a cell to me? How is it clear that it evolved from animals? It seems like clear protist to me.
    - gus_massa 3y ago
      > Seems like a cell to me? It's a cell, but the (informal) idea is that a big living thing is made of a lot of small cells. If there is a catastrofic extintion and only these things survive, would and alien biologist clasify them as a huge cell or as a blob? > How is it clear that it evolved from animals? It seems like clear protist to me. My bad. You are right. I probaly mean from a normal living thing with small cells with only one nuclei. --- Side note: I'm not sure it's related, but as a curiosity, our muscles have cells with multiple nuclei https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Muscle_cell https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Muscle_cell > Skeletal muscle fibers are made when myoblasts fuse together; muscle fibers therefore are cells with multiple nuclei, known as myonuclei, with each cell nucleus originating from a single myoblast. The fusion of myoblasts is specific to skeletal muscle, and not cardiac muscle or smooth muscle.
jnxx 3y ago
Maybe it would have a heartbeat period of 11 years?

The sun is so large I bet all kinds of unlikely phenomena are possible at small scales. If there was life on the sun, would be know it or recognize it?

by causi 3y ago

The sun is so large I bet all kinds of unlikely phenomena are possible at small scales. If there was life on the sun, would be know it or recognize it?

escapecharacter 3y ago

Using a looser definition of the solar boundary, we are all “in” the sun’s atmosphere, the density of which is ~3-10 particles per cm*3 near Earth.

__MatrixMan__ 3y ago

It's easy to notice carbon/water life because we are it, but most of our complexity exist within a rather narrow energy band (molecular electron orbitals with energy greater than a C-O and less than a C-H), so I think you're right to doubt that we'd recognize if there were a similarly narrow window into surprising complexity in the nuclear reactions that take place within the sun. I expect there's quite a lot of "life" that we're overlooking, and that we're going to feel quite silly when we have whatever encounter causes us to broaden our definitions to include the rest of it. Although to be pedantic, most definitions of life require that it be made of cells, and I doubt there are anything like cells in the sun.

jnxx 3y ago
> most definitions of life require that it be made of cells Is there a deeper reason for that?
- lemaitre 3y ago
  Most definitions of life are very arbitrary. When it comes to astrobiology, we mostly look for things that look like us because if we didn't, the search space would be incomprehensibly large and frankly there's not a lot we could say.
- __MatrixMan__ 3y ago
  My guess is that it had to do with avoiding a definition under which things like fire were alive. I'd rather exclude fire on the basis that it's "reproduction" involves nothing like heritability.
  - _a_a_a_ 3y ago
    Should it? Doesn't it inherit 'fireness'? I do know what you're saying but it's so easy to argue the other way too
    - __MatrixMan__ 3y ago
      Yeah definitions are tricky. If you saw a house consumed with fire, you might look at the circumstances and conclude that it was likely the offspring of the fire that consumed the house across the street, but there wouldn't be anything about the fire's phenotype that would help you come to that conclusion. If the flames carried the characteristic shape of their parents fire, and they could be distinguished as not the offspring of some other fire by their features alone, then I'd be arguing that fire is alive. I feel like I'm at risk of classifying certain periodic crystals as alive here, but they wouldn't meet the thermodynamic requirements that I have in mind (which fire does meet).
      - _a_a_a_ 3y ago
        Not to be a dick (oh, go on then!): > but there wouldn't be anything about the fire's phenotype that would help you come to that conclusion but... but... cloning! But yes, we could do this all day and still get nowhere. We, collectively, are missing something but I don't know what.
- jschrf 3y ago
  Complexity theory comes to mind. Self-similar encapsulates that combine to create emergent behaviors.
nachomg 3y ago
You made me remember how I was ridiculed by my teacher by asking if there was a possibility that life could be based on other thing than carbon. Granted, as I grew older and learnt a little bit more about the chemistry of carbon I realized that it had almost magic properties for life, but I wondered for long time why he reacted that way.
- cmccart 3y ago
  Ridiculing genuine curiosity is a terrible behavior from teachers... why stifle inquisitive minds? Anyway, you may already be familiar with these proposed biochemistries, but there has been a lot of speculation on this exact question over the years: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hypothetical_types_of_biochemistry https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hypothetical_types_of_biochemi...
  - booleandilemma 3y ago
    I think it's simply that the teacher feels insecure.
- brabel 3y ago
  You probably triggered some memory. Perhaps, a student who insisted they knew more than the teacher and pushed some ignorant argument too far... so when you suggested the idea, and perhaps tried to push a bit more consideration, the teacher found himself re-living that bad experience and treated you like you were the other student, even if you yourself didn't push the matter beyond an acceptable level. It happens to the best of us.
- 0x00_NULL 3y ago
  Silicon has almost the exact same properties as carbon. At high temperatures, carbon chains can’t form, but silicon chains can. In a high-temperature or high-pressure range, silicon might for a basis for life, analogous to carbon for us. So, not only was that question not stupid, it was profound. Look at silicon on the periodic table. All of the things that make carbon great, basically silicon has almost exactly, except it needs a high temperature for most of those properties to be expressible. That teacher didn’t know what he was talking about. Ridiculing a student for questions is such detestable behavior. The silliest questions can end up being the most insightful. I really despise teachers like that. Here is a paper all about how your question was actually wonderful. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7345352/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7345352/
gus_massa 3y ago
> most definitions of life require that it be made of cells Does this animal has cells? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Xenophyophorea https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Xenophyophorea I feel like answering yes and calling it "unicelular" is cheating, but it's clear that it evolved from animals with cells and it has only "one".
- gamepsys 3y ago
  > A coenocyte (/ˈsiːnəˌsaɪt/) is a multinucleate cell which can result from multiple nuclear divisions without their accompanying cytokinesis. Seems like a cell to me? How is it clear that it evolved from animals? It seems like clear protist to me.
  - gus_massa 3y ago
    > Seems like a cell to me? It's a cell, but the (informal) idea is that a big living thing is made of a lot of small cells. If there is a catastrofic extintion and only these things survive, would and alien biologist clasify them as a huge cell or as a blob? > How is it clear that it evolved from animals? It seems like clear protist to me. My bad. You are right. I probaly mean from a normal living thing with small cells with only one nuclei. --- Side note: I'm not sure it's related, but as a curiosity, our muscles have cells with multiple nuclei https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Muscle_cell https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Muscle_cell > Skeletal muscle fibers are made when myoblasts fuse together; muscle fibers therefore are cells with multiple nuclei, known as myonuclei, with each cell nucleus originating from a single myoblast. The fusion of myoblasts is specific to skeletal muscle, and not cardiac muscle or smooth muscle.

jnxx 3y ago

Maybe it would have a heartbeat period of 11 years?