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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

#201

Post by jtr1 »

NineStarPoint wrote: post #162
ryanSrich wrote: post #130

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If we're just having fun here, then I'd say it doesn't have a creator. Which is not a concept humans are capable of understanding. It could be the demiurge is eternal, forever and always. The concept of time may have been an invention by such a creator.

Sure, but time isn’t necessary for a causal chain. Even if from the perspective of the demigurge it has always existed, in some causal (or anti-causal depending on the laws outside our reality) way it must have spontaneously come in to being (Or, if the demiurge was created from another being, eventually the chain of causation comes back to some being spontaneously coming into existence). You can’t avoid the “somethi…

It’s difficult to talk about this when the concept of time is so deeply embedded in our language. To a timeless being (or universe or whatever), there would be no concept of “first”. “Always existed” would only make sense to a time-bound creature, as would a chain of causation. Even to call it a timeless “being” is to use a word that is in some sense chained to time.

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

#202

Post by AlexanderTheGr8 »

I have a related question : if we set up sensors a few light years away capturing every signal it is possible to capture by our tech (the full electromagnetic spectrum).

And then if we put all this data into an anomaly detection algorithm, will the Earth stand out? Based on the data that we capture, are we actually special?

The reason for anomaly detection (unsupervised) alg is that it doesn't have any of our subjective biases.

The answer can give evidence for whether seeing signs of interesting planets is actually sign of life or not.

Thoughts? I don't think Earth will stand out based on the information that will reach tens of light years away.

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

#203

Post by LargoLasskhyfv »

ANewFormation wrote: post #155
vlovich123 wrote: post #126

Earlier quoted context omitted.

To me the simpler question is “if life didn’t originate from inorganic conditions somehow, what other explanation is there? Life came into being with the creation of the universe?”. It’s possible the latter explanation is what happened, it just feels extremely unlikely. So the more likely explanation is that life originates from inorganic conditions. Then the question is where? Is it on a planet or in space? Pansperm…

Taking a slight sidetrack to relativity, consider just how absurd our universe is. To maintain the consistency of the speed of light from all reference frames, time (and 'real' distance) are instead the variables, and there is every reason to believe this is correct. If you didn't know this to be the actual case, it'd feel absurd to even consider it. Trying to intuitively and logically reason about something with no…

The Turtle way down is called 'Rechnender Raum' also known as

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Calculating_Space

And if the turtles feel bored out of their minds, they go full

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ouroboros and eat their own behinds.

Which solves the problem of recursion, hen&egg nicely.

Consider black holes, white holes, wisely.

The question of free will? Just checksum errors in the substrate.

Because entropy, of course!

Chill...

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

#205

Post by Mithriil »

Mithriil wrote: post #204

I'm just going to leave this here: https://chemapps.stolaf.edu/jmol/jmol.php?model=C%23N

It's the Hydrogen Cyanide molecule [1], also available on Titan [2].

[1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hydrogen_cyanide

[2]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hydrogen_cyanide#On_Titan

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

#206

Post by TheGRS »

superposeur wrote: post #98
TheGRS wrote: post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sure, I don’t think that’s lost on anyone. The headline of “life found outside earth” is going to be a big deal. But I also think we are zeroing in on the inevitable outcome. The math of probability and the simple components to life make it seem pretty likely we’ll get there unless there is something more fundamental that hasn’t been seen yet. We haven’t reproduced proto-life yet, but we also don’t have millions of y…

Don't mean to pick on words, but your statement that "the math of probability and the simple components to life" makes life elsewhere an "inevitable outcome" proves my point that the dialogue around this topic is currently distorted. The probability of life arising from simple components is totally unknown. Equally likely, sparking life requires a combinatoric threading of a needle to the tune of 10^-25 even when all…

I prefer the glass half full view of possibility is all. No one has 100% certainty that life exists elsewhere, but its certainly higher than 0% certainty.

For me this is nothing but a mental perspective. Historically we trended toward a very strict heliocentric view of the known universe, to the point that evidence was ignored. I would like to stay away from that side of scientific curiosity and keep wondering and exploring. It doesn't negate what you're saying at all, but its certainly more optimistic.

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

#207

Post by [deleted] »

NateEag wrote: post #17
staplers wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The discovery of even the most base simple lifeform outside Earth would be forever world-changing. Society, religion, mass institutions would be forced to reconcile with this fact. I don't think it's necessarily about money.

What do you think would change about religions? The only one I know well is evangelical Christianity, having been raised in it. I've read through the Protestant Bible several times, and I'm not aware of anything in it that changes meaningfully if there's other life forms in the universe.

[deleted]

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

#208

Post by staplers »

martin-t wrote: post #20
staplers wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The discovery of even the most base simple lifeform outside Earth would be forever world-changing. Society, religion, mass institutions would be forced to reconcile with this fact. I don't think it's necessarily about money.

You overestimate people. Most wouldn't care at all, a few would say that's cool and move on. Religious people would just say their favorite god created those too. Unless the aliens were more advanced than us, nothing would change.

In the short term yes. The church accepted Galileo's heliocentric theory at first because it helped fix their calendars, later they realized what it truly meant as the general public started connecting the dots.

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

#209

Post by staplers »

cwillu wrote: post #73
staplers wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The discovery of even the most base simple lifeform outside Earth would be forever world-changing. Society, religion, mass institutions would be forced to reconcile with this fact. I don't think it's necessarily about money.

The struggle with the religious types is forever that they can't be pinned down in the details: it's not that new information can't be assimilated because it conflicts with doctrine, it's that doctrine, aside from a few very core concepts, is extremely fluid and will seamlessly flow and change to admit the conflicting information without affecting anything of importance.

I never said religion would disappear

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

#210

Post by qvrjuec »

borissk wrote: post #95
725686 wrote: post #24

For anyone interested in the origin of life, and the origin of complex life I highly recommend Nick Lane's Books. You can start with "The Vital Question". There are also some fantastic videos of him online.

Yes, Nick Lane has done a great job of popularizing the metabolism first hypothesis of origin of life. What his books and videos don't address is the biggest problem of metabolism first - once there's a proto cell (say inside a pore within a white smoker) with working metabolism that turns H2 and CO2 gases into sugars and other organic molecules - how are the proteins that make the metabolism work translated and enco…

His book The Vital Question does actually address this. He says the RNA world hypothesis doesn't perfectly explain early catalysis, as RNA is a sophisticated polymer. It was most likely more simple things like metal sulphides or other inorganic complexes were primarily responsible. Amino acids and nucleotides also have catalytic activity.
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