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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

#141

Post by hotpotamus »

echelon wrote: post #139
hotpotamus wrote: post #138

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 communica…

I used to be a bit perturbed by the thought of living in an ancestor simulation, but then I figured if that's my reality, then I suppose it is what it is.

It seems like a long time since there have been any really game-changing breakthroughs in theoretical physics. I'd be a fool to say that that means that there aren't any more to be had, but it does seem more like we're just sort of fiddling around with a few refinements and there might not be anything huge left. As you say, maybe a greater intelligence than what we've got can figure it out, but that does go back to Fermi - if they could do amazing things like enclose a star or travel interstellar distances, then why haven't we seen them?

What if it's all just protons, neutrons, and electrons (and some other less important particles presumably) plus a bunch of energy out there? Would a super-intelligence really be interested in seeing more of them?

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

#142

Post by mensetmanusman »

wredue wrote: post #97
edgyquant wrote: post #83

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What is this probability based upon?

The probability is based on the fact that everywhere we look, we find building blocks of life, life started on earth basically as soon as it could have, life exists at all and is capable of asking said question, life is remarkably adaptable, we estimate billions of earth like planets just in our galaxy. I know that there is a burning desire to think we’re special, but the truth of the matter is that we’re almost defi…

We are the universe though. I.e. the universe has at least one mind (yours) and it thinks that it is special :)

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

#143

Post by mensetmanusman »

holoduke wrote: post #84

The fact that there is something, just something can drive me crazy. Why is there something and not just nothing.

It’s a beautiful question. You can reason a bit from knowing there is something instead of nothing, when nothing is clearly an option :)

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

#144

Post by mensetmanusman »

TeMPOraL wrote: post #35
intrasight wrote: post #5

I don't much like the spark and fire analogy with life. Not sure what analogy works. We don't yet really understand life well enough to have a good one.

What oxygen-breathing cells do is pretty much nanoscale combustion, so the analogy seems apt.

The proton gradients are quite different from combustion though…

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

#145

Post by addicted »

idlewords wrote: post #22
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…

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…

We’ve also found water on the moon.

And we know at least one Jupiter satellite has water.

So that’s at least 4 bodies in the solar system that have water and all the bodies where we have successfully landed more than 1 rover have or had water (earth, moon, mars).

Every body where we could have discovered water, we have discovered water. Seems like bayes theorem indicates that water is also probably highly available in the universe.

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

#146

Post by addicted »

idlewords wrote: post #63
superposeur wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

These factors are what I call the “trappings of life”. It is a completely open question (and I mean completely ) how likely life is to arise spontaneously when these factors are present. One single instance of life elsewhere or successful abiogenesis in the lab would change that, but we have neither.

The other part of the open question is how easily life is able to spread across worlds. This is why it's so vital to go look at Mars without contaminating the search. If life spreads easily (whether within the solar system or more widely), then we'll likely find traces of life there that look a lot like our own. If life arises easily, but doesn't spread easily, we may find traces of very un-earthlike biochemistry. An…

At this point isn’t Mars already contaminated?

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

#147

Post by adolph »

scythe wrote: post #109
ghaff wrote: post #60

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>Our type of society is probably much much rarer because you need access to mineral and energy deposits to go through each technological phase. For example, because of all the mining we’ve done, if humanity were to disappear it’s highly likely the Earth would not sustain another technological society because all the “easy to get to” deposits of crucial metals & things like oil are gone and there’s no way to bootstrap…

Wouldn't the next civilization just find itself mining the remains of human cities? IIRC, the majority of the copper ever extracted is still in use .

Cue Indiana Jones voice: you can’t just mine that—it belongs in a museum!

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

#148

Post by idlewords »

addicted wrote: post #146
idlewords wrote: post #63

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The other part of the open question is how easily life is able to spread across worlds. This is why it's so vital to go look at Mars without contaminating the search. If life spreads easily (whether within the solar system or more widely), then we'll likely find traces of life there that look a lot like our own. If life arises easily, but doesn't spread easily, we may find traces of very un-earthlike biochemistry. An…

At this point isn’t Mars already contaminated?

No, almost certainly not. There are individual living microbes and spores on the various landers, but unlike the microbiome that would travel with a human mission, they're not viable and have no mechanism to get to somewhere where they'd be viable.

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

#149

Post by idlewords »

addicted wrote: post #145
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…

We’ve also found water on the moon. And we know at least one Jupiter satellite has water. So that’s at least 4 bodies in the solar system that have water and all the bodies where we have successfully landed more than 1 rover have or had water (earth, moon, mars). Every body where we could have discovered water, we have discovered water. Seems like bayes theorem indicates that water is also probably highly available i…

[flagged]

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

#150

Post by brians »

throwaway0b1 wrote: post #77
vlovich123 wrote: post #54

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I agree it’s an open question, but I think it’s highly likely with lots of circumstantial evidence that life is an evolutionary emergent phenomenon where inorganic material reactions create life. We already know that’s the case in highly controlled environments. We don’t yet have confidence about the exact mechanism on Earth but based on those experiments it’s likely (& generally currently accepted as the most likely…

> I think it’s highly likely with lots of circumstantial evidence that life is an evolutionary emergent phenomenon where inorganic material reactions create life Out of curiosity, if you reject religion, what other possibilities are there?

Simulation hypothesis: all this may be much younger than we expect.

Nonuniform physics—call it colliding universes or whatever, but the processes that gave rise to life on Earth may not be possible anywhere in this universe now. Including labs on Earth!

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