Can a Living Creature Be as Big as a Galaxy? • Hacker News Board

Re: Can a Living Creature Be as Big as a Galaxy?

#91

Post by ztjio » Sat, Aug 05, 2017, 9:32 PM UTC

tsunamifury wrote: post #39

It's answer of "No" is predicated on two assumptions: that the lifeform is not colonial in nature and that time is not a localized phenomenon. While on the surface that later assumption might sound absurd, our universe could very well be a Local Bubble of time. Time could even be a biological function of a higher dimensional being that is the size of the universe. There is also no way to disprove that without observi…

The position that time is not a localized phenomenon is preposterous. Given the observations of relativity and the effect that local gravitational force has on passage of time, and more recent experiment and theory about time actually arising as an effect of quantum entanglement (https://arxiv.org/abs/1310.4691), to presume in the context of such a big, extremely-theoretical idea that time is not local is plain nuts.

It's not so hard to imagine that the rules of relativity are imposed and that outside of that imposition, they don't exist or are discontinuous to some degree. Indeed, it doesn't even take any imagination if one considers the theories and research related to what I linked above.

So personally I'd dismiss the conclusion given its predication on this idea. To me, time not being local is the controversial position.

Re: Can a Living Creature Be as Big as a Galaxy?

#92

Post by ztjio » Sat, Aug 05, 2017, 9:38 PM UTC

komali2 wrote: post #67

eljimmy wrote: post #50

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Thinking about what exists outside the universe always makes my brain feel weird. It seems impossible for your thoughts to imagine anything because your thoughts themselves are bound by the universe itself.

Well even worse, our thoughts are bound by some maximum distance of comprehension. We can abstract the stellar scale but we can't understand it like we understand the distance across the street or whatever. I find this frustrating :(

Well I think the implication that we can't understand/comprehend these things is itself frustrating and also wrong. Why does one assume that the scale of the universe and the scale of that street you refer to are any different? In both cases you are experiencing and considering an estimation of potentially infinite space at an almost metaphorical level as it relates to your experience, plans, and actions.

Indeed, you can consider the universe as this thing which is maybe boundless and has so much stuff and might go on forever but for some reason you think it's any harder than realizing that the street may be infinite in space as well, by virtue of continuous subdivision. Before trying to dive in on any estimate of the smallest thing, do remember that smart people once thought atoms were the smallest thing, and then particles, and so on. And remember that the street itself, even just the stretch you're concerned about, is composed of a ludicrously large number of the "smallest" things we current are aware of.

If we let go of this idea that at our own size, things are just some number of things that we can reason about (since that's clearly false, do you reason about the billions of living organisms in your own body right now? Could you?) then we can start to realize that smaller or bigger, we're merely consider a continuum at different scales and it's perfectly reasonable for the human mind to do so, it does so every day all the time.

Re: Can a Living Creature Be as Big as a Galaxy?

#93

Post by Swizec » Sat, Aug 05, 2017, 9:42 PM UTC

alansammarone wrote: post #69

Swizec wrote: post #66

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Universe is our local observable space-time So if we observe something beyond what is currently observable, would that not become observable and thus part of the universe?

Yes, but it might also be the case that we don't observe something outside of it, but rather infer the existence of something outside of it through some other phenomenon (which is much more probable - observing something outside of the visible universe as we know it would violate relativity). In that sense, it would be there, but would never be visible.

That's a really interesting question. If something is indirectly observable (you can observe/measure its effect), does that make it observable or not?

Transitivit would say yes. If A implies B and B implies C then A implies C. That is, if you can observe A and that implies B, then you can observe B. Which makes it observable, no?

Re: Can a Living Creature Be as Big as a Galaxy?

#94

Post by Koshkin » Sat, Aug 05, 2017, 9:42 PM UTC

alextheparrot wrote: post #85

Koshkin wrote: post #78

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Well, your sterile human appears to be a strawman. Obviously, a person may be sterile, but the organism cannot stay alive if the continual process of reproduction (of cells, their organelles, and molecules) inside it ever stops. A multi-cell organism is an emergent phenomenon that helps protein-based molecular structures to do their thing ("life").

No, it isn't. Imagine a hypothetical sterile human that was single celled - suddenly we've reached the same conclusion without the sub-organism reproduction issue. Making reproduction a core premise of being alive really drives to the idea of mortality, as reproduction is a way of overcoming our mortal coils. Yet, it is truly reasonable to classify reproduction as the only way? It also assumes a lineage, which is not…

Somehow I am having hard time imagining a single-celled, synthetically created, non-water-based, sterile human being...

I am not sure I understand the drive to redefine life beyond the life as we know it (i.e. what it actually is, as a fact), the drive that leaves one in what can only be seen as the domain of fiction at best (and pseudo-science at worst).

Re: Can a Living Creature Be as Big as a Galaxy?

#95

Post by [deleted] » Sat, Aug 05, 2017, 9:42 PM UTC

alextheparrot wrote: post #85

Koshkin wrote: post #78

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Well, your sterile human appears to be a strawman. Obviously, a person may be sterile, but the organism cannot stay alive if the continual process of reproduction (of cells, their organelles, and molecules) inside it ever stops. A multi-cell organism is an emergent phenomenon that helps protein-based molecular structures to do their thing ("life").

No, it isn't. Imagine a hypothetical sterile human that was single celled - suddenly we've reached the same conclusion without the sub-organism reproduction issue. Making reproduction a core premise of being alive really drives to the idea of mortality, as reproduction is a way of overcoming our mortal coils. Yet, it is truly reasonable to classify reproduction as the only way? It also assumes a lineage, which is not…

[deleted]

Re: Can a Living Creature Be as Big as a Galaxy?

#96

Post by 21 » Sat, Aug 05, 2017, 9:49 PM UTC

Koshkin wrote: post #94

alextheparrot wrote: post #85

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No, it isn't. Imagine a hypothetical sterile human that was single celled - suddenly we've reached the same conclusion without the sub-organism reproduction issue. Making reproduction a core premise of being alive really drives to the idea of mortality, as reproduction is a way of overcoming our mortal coils. Yet, it is truly reasonable to classify reproduction as the only way? It also assumes a lineage, which is not…

Somehow I am having hard time imagining a single-celled, synthetically created, non-water-based, sterile human being... I am not sure I understand the drive to redefine life beyond the life as we know it (i.e. what it actually is, as a fact), the drive that leaves one in what can only be seen as the domain of fiction at best (and pseudo-science at worst).

Do you believe its possible for a computer, more specifically an Artificial General Intelligence, to be "alive" (if one such thing ever gets built)?

Re: Can a Living Creature Be as Big as a Galaxy?

#97

Post by honestoHeminway » Sat, Aug 05, 2017, 9:51 PM UTC

Falling3 wrote: post #83

alextheparrot wrote: post #70

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Proteins (Or the ability to make them) is not requisite for life, nor are nerve impulses, nor is evolution. If we encountered an immortal (Does not evolve), sterile (Does not reproduce), silicon-based alien (No proteins), that would most certainly be heralded as finding extraterrestrial life. Reasoning about much large systems than our own is difficult. Imagine a bacteria attempting to reason about a human - the exis…

I'm not necessarily disagreeing, but what's the definition of life you're saying that would satisfy?

What if a stable exotic location exist, where chemisty is able to form boolean processes.. is that live, if it computes and thinks, and is still just a huge state machine.

Re: Can a Living Creature Be as Big as a Galaxy?

#98

Post by 21 » Sat, Aug 05, 2017, 9:52 PM UTC

Koshkin wrote: post #89

laumars wrote: post #68

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There are animals on Earth with a decentralised nervous systems (most famously the octopus) and there isn't any confusion about whether they're classed as one animal or multiple ones.

Octopus does have the "central brain" though - which, I guess, may account for making it "one animal". On the other hand, an animal with a truly decentralized nervous system often can regenerate from its pieces, which makes the question of it being "one animal" in the first place a bit fuzzy.

There was an article just yesterday on HN about such a creature, with a decentralized nervous system:

> Ctenophores have no brain or central nervous system, but instead have a nerve net (rather like a cobweb) that forms a ring round the mouth and is densest near structures such as the comb rows, pharynx, tentacles (if present) and the sensory complex furthest from the mouth ... Ctenophore nerve cells and nervous system evolved separately from other animals and have a different biochemistry.

Re: Can a Living Creature Be as Big as a Galaxy?

#99

Post by Koshkin » Sat, Aug 05, 2017, 9:53 PM UTC

Retra wrote: post #20

devoply wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's funny with all the downvotes, first I never said that anything violated the laws of physics, I said that they don't follow the physics as life on earth. Second, there are many downvotes, but no actual evidence of what I said being wrong. I feel as if I am arguing with self-reassured people.

You're arguing with a physicist. There's no such thing as "quantum phenomenon" that is distinct from any other phenomena. All phenomena are quantum. You're using that word the same way any other woo-peddler uses it: to worship ignorance and preserve the 'majesty' of the unknown.

> All phenomena are quantum.

This sounds rather reductionist. (I am not sure if all "physicists" are prone to making this mistake.) Surely, the French Revolution was not a quantum phenomenon.

Re: Can a Living Creature Be as Big as a Galaxy?

#100

Post by diminish » Sat, Aug 05, 2017, 9:55 PM UTC

stareatgoats wrote: post #88

The question is not correctly formed: what we really want to know is if there are life-like beings that could operate on a totally different scale than ours (both time and size wise, including viruses and whales here). Self centered thinking, i.e. restricting our inquiry to only include protein-based lifeforms or other qualities required on our scale obviously prevents us from having the required open minded mindset.

states, companies, religious communities, planets as whole ecosystems can all be construed as "single being"s.