5 ms·
Yeah that make sense, but still very much earthlike biology perspective. I mean almost everyone here also believes in digital intelligence at some point. Are t
by wouldbecouldbe 3y ago
Yeah that make sense, but still very much earthlike biology perspective. I mean almost everyone here also believes in digital intelligence at some point.
Are there elements that are more stable under high pressure or heat? Or opposite?
- mr_mitm 3y agoI can buy the argument that there might be "digital life" that has been built by carbon-based biological life which has since ceased to be.
- wouldbecouldbe 3y agoHahah that's just the human scenario played out before us, let's be a bit more creative!
- mr_mitm 3y agoI'm up for it, but since you are the one who proposed we could have unimaginable forms of life, and I'm coming up short, I'm relying on you (or anyone who holds your position) here to be the creative one.
- wouldbecouldbe 3y ago[flagged]
- XorNot 3y agoWorth noting that even "digital" doesn't mean "not carbon". The current likely end-state of electronics is likely moving from silicon back to carbon due to abundance and durability. People are working on diamond-based semiconductor devices, and organic-transistors are built experimentally all the time (nothing commercial but it's an area of active research). An advanced bit of nanotechnology that could self-repair would likely consist of a computer chip which fabbed up replacement organic components for itself and could transport and replace them in-situ, even if it was still just a computer otherwise being digital - after all, that's how our cells do it.
- DrFalkyn 3y agoSillicon is actually significantly more common, so relative abundance isn't a good reason to use carbon. Carbon would be used because it performs better
- XorNot 3y agoI would argue abundance based on CO2 being a fairly common gas and "easily" processed. Silicon in silicate minerals is common, but it's much harder to crack out of them.
- mr_mitm 3y agoMaybe in earth's crust, but on a galactic scale carbon is more common. But they're both one of the most common elements either way, so I think other properties would be more important. The way the GP comment describes carbon-based technological life made out of transistors doesn't sound like the metabolize carbon to CO2 or would require a lot of water, though, which are two important markers when searching for life.
- palata 3y ago> I mean almost everyone here also believes in digital intelligence at some point. I don't think I do. Or maybe I misunderstand what "digital intelligence" means.
- wouldbecouldbe 3y agoI also don't, but here conciousness is often seen as a side effect of statistical analysis
- lo_zamoyski 3y ago> Yeah that make sense, but still very much earthlike biology perspective. What does that mean? The parent’s point was that this isn’t just a matter of looking for what is already familiar, but a matter of through the lens of what affordances the elements have and therefore what, in principle, is likely or even possible, to the best of our physical/chemical knowledge. There’s a rational middle ground between parochialism and anything goes.
- naasking 3y agoWhat's more likely is finding carbon-based life of opposite chirality from the left handed kind native to Earth. This would make life from each planet fundamentally incompatible with each other in numerous surprising ways.