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NASA study finds life-sparking energy source and molecule at Enceladus

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Re: NASA study finds life-sparking energy source and molecule at Enceladus

#131

Post by xorbax »

donny2018 wrote: post #123
idlewords wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I would turn your logic around and say, everywhere we are able to look, we find evidence that life is more likely than expected. Until the 1990's it was an open question whether any other star had planets; as soon as we got the tools to test that, we found they were ubiquitous. As soon as we got the right instruments to Mars, we found signs of moving water, methane sources, and complex organic molecules in what is ba…

“England has developed a hypothesis of the physics of the origins of life, that he calls "dissipation-driven adaptation."[3][5] The hypothesis holds that random groups of molecules can self-organize to more efficiently absorb and dissipate heat from the environment. His hypothesis states that such self-organizing systems are an inherent part of the physical world.[7]” If Jeremy England’s hypothesis is true, then life…

I don't think that's Jeremy England's idea.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Entropy_and_life

Henry Adams first put it to print in the 1910s, and Schrödinger did a fine turn on it and wrote a whole book in the 40s.

The idea that life exists as the most efficient method to facilitate thermodynamic equilibrium is older than the neutron.

Re: NASA study finds life-sparking energy source and molecule at Enceladus

#132

Post by superposeur »

qqtt wrote: post #117
superposeur wrote: post #6

This is intriguing and I’m very happy this exploration is being done. But, for decades, I’ve been reading reports of the discovery of evidence for the trappings of life elsewhere: water and organics and “habitable” exoplanets. These are valuable discoveries, but the tone of the reports suggest they imply life is about to turn up. It’s worth remembering that there is not one single shred of evidence that life has ever…

> Moreover, no one has succeeded in hatching living matter from non living matter and we must honestly say we do not know how this process came about or the faintest estimate of how likely it is to occur (despite much speculation Just want to comment on this point. The research in this field is pretty esoteric. It doesn't really benefit us to understand how this process came about (ie, there is little practical gain…

It is “important to remember” precisely because these days people are not remembering this and speak with a sense of inevitability about discovering life elsewhere, which sense of inevitability is totally unsupported. I may gently point out, your own post says “it is only a matter of time before science can connect the dots”, reflecting this (in my view) distorted sense. The abiogenesis research you cite is absolutely worthwhile, but it is not even clear if it is in the right direction and certainly far, far from successfully sparking the sustained chain reaction of life. To my eye, equally consistent (as some different research may suggest) is that a combinatorial needle must be threaded to the tune of p Edit: to cite just the one “combinatorial abiogenesis” reference, see for instance https://www.nature.com/articles/s41598-020-58060-0

Re: NASA study finds life-sparking energy source and molecule at Enceladus

#133

Post by mongoosled »

wingspar wrote: post #105
seszett wrote: post #99

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The universe is about 15 billion years old, and chemistry didn't start with the formation of Earth.

Chemistry in earth certainly started with the formation of earth. Are you suggesting that abiogenesis didn’t start on earth, but self-replicating molecules started evolving in earths protoplanetary disc? Serious question, haven’t encountered that theory before. It’s kinda panspermia-lite.

Kurzgesagt did a video on this recently https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=JOiGEI9pQBs

Re: NASA study finds life-sparking energy source and molecule at Enceladus

#136

Post by echelon »

rqtwteye wrote: post #135

I really, really, really hope we will discover life on another planet, preferably in another solar system. Right now we have a sample size of one so a lot of thinking about the origin is speculation. I hope this will change.

I always like to daydream about the various solutions to the Fermi Paradox.

If we're not early, if life isn't rare, and there are intelligent species [1], what might most of it look like?

I don't think most of them would match the techno signatures we're familiar with. Factories, gas emissions, etc. are an industrial age thing.

What if they're really smart? What does that look like? What kind of signals might we detect? What kinds of energy might they be harnessing?

Are there any good reads or papers that posit these things?

[1] I also imagine they've found a way to escape the limitations of intelligence and death, perhaps by becoming computers of some kind.

Re: NASA study finds life-sparking energy source and molecule at Enceladus

#138

Post by hotpotamus »

echelon wrote: post #136
rqtwteye wrote: post #135

I really, really, really hope we will discover life on another planet, preferably in another solar system. Right now we have a sample size of one so a lot of thinking about the origin is speculation. I hope this will change.

I always like to daydream about the various solutions to the Fermi Paradox. If we're not early, if life isn't rare, and there are intelligent species [1], what might most of it look like? I don't think most of them would match the techno signatures we're familiar with. Factories, gas emissions, etc. are an industrial age thing. What if they're really smart? What does that look like? What kind of signals might we dete…

I wonder if any sentient being would really want to live forever. What would there be to look forward to as the galaxies recede out past the cosmic horizon and all the stars shutdown? What would be the point? Just wait around in the dark until the heat death gets you? I sometimes suspect that simple nihilism is the answer to the Fermi Paradox.

Re: NASA study finds life-sparking energy source and molecule at Enceladus

#139

Post by echelon »

hotpotamus wrote: post #138
echelon wrote: post #136

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I always like to daydream about the various solutions to the Fermi Paradox. If we're not early, if life isn't rare, and there are intelligent species [1], what might most of it look like? I don't think most of them would match the techno signatures we're familiar with. Factories, gas emissions, etc. are an industrial age thing. What if they're really smart? What does that look like? What kind of signals might we dete…

I wonder if any sentient being would really want to live forever. What would there be to look forward to as the galaxies recede out past the cosmic horizon and all the stars shutdown? What would be the point? Just wait around in the dark until the heat death gets you? I sometimes suspect that simple nihilism is the answer to the Fermi Paradox.

With all the compute and energy available at that stage, perhaps there are more possibilities than we can currently see or imagine?

I sometimes like to think that we ourselves are actually the memories of a distant descendant. Maybe it reversed the light cone and was able to replay everything with exacting precision. Maybe it's studying and musing over its humble beginnings. (It might get a laugh that we're communicating this to one another.)

Re: NASA study finds life-sparking energy source and molecule at Enceladus

#140

Post by mdavidn »

superposeur wrote: post #6

This is intriguing and I’m very happy this exploration is being done. But, for decades, I’ve been reading reports of the discovery of evidence for the trappings of life elsewhere: water and organics and “habitable” exoplanets. These are valuable discoveries, but the tone of the reports suggest they imply life is about to turn up. It’s worth remembering that there is not one single shred of evidence that life has ever…

What you say is true, but thinking of ourselves as the only life feels like hubris. It reminds me of geocentrism.
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