REH, quoting an unnamed author:
> Why Life Is Physics, Not Chemistry
>
> The idea that life boils down to chemistry is being usurped by a
> much more ambitious idea, says two of the world's leading
> biophysicists.
>
> [snip]
>
> That hints at the possibility that life as it has evolved on Earth
> is but a local minima [sic] in a vast landscape of evolutionary
> possibilities. If that's the case, biologists are studying a
> pitifully small fraction of something bigger. Much bigger.
I'm not sure what this is trying to get at. There have been numerous
science fiction explorations of what might happen if sentient life --
something we could recognize [1] as sentient life -- were to arise
under dramatically different physical conditions: in the core of a
star, on the surface (if there is one) of Jupiter, where silicon
polymers upstage carbon polymers etc.
What biologists study is life as we know it. The only serious thought
that I know of (but I'm a bit out of the loop and severely rusticated)
that goes beyond chemistry is Roger Penrose's hypothesis that
consciousness emerges from the quantum level. (And, after two tries,
I still don't have a firm grasp of his thoughts on this.)
Actually, to make a WAG, now that we know that Mars and Venus can't
possibly support life as we know it, the next best place to look for
intelligence in our solar system might well be Jupiter. There, the
physics, deep in the stupendous gravitational well of such a massive
ball of stuff, will set conditions for chemistry utterly different
from what happens in our narrow band of terrestrial conditions.
Of course, we might never be able to communicate with any
self-organizing system(s) that managed to achieve cognition in/on
Jupiter.
- Mike
[1] Recognize: Or even observe. Getting look at the Jovian surface is
problematical. If we *could* observe complex, self-organizing
hyper-plasmic-foo events there or on the sun, we still have no way
of addressing the question, (pace Thomas Nagel) What is it Like to
be a Hyper-Plasmic-Foo?
--
Michael Spencer Nova Scotia, Canada .~.
/V\
[email protected] /( )\
http://home.tallships.ca/mspencer/ ^^-^^
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