This is interesting. It hints at the idea that life need not be organic. Anyone have any thoughts about it?
http://www.sciencedaily....2007/08/070814150630.htm

Well... carbon is just an element. So under different circumstances I don't know why any other element shouldn't be plausible to create and sustain life.

Read about this possibility a few times but quite what kind of 'life forms' it might imply is apparently too weird to conceive of. Entities existing in the coronas of stars? WTF doesn't even begin to cover it.

Here's a recent TED lecture that is somewhat related.
Mindblowing! If it turns out to be true that is...

Lee Cronin: Making matter come alive
[/quote]

I have always been shocked when others are shocked that we may not be the only kind of life possible, on the only planet possible, in the only universe possible. (I don't mean you, Hyperspace Fool!)

For some reason this makes me think of a conversation I had with an engineer friend of mine today. I was telling him about the antiprotons found in a belt around Earth by the PAMELA craft. (I had read about it here. )

I asked him, as I did in the thread here, if the other antimatter theoretically created during the big bang but so far not apparent, might not be in similar aggregations elsewhere where we can't detect them. He didn't seem to think so, and I asked him if we had any way of detecting such a thing elsewhere in the universe. I mean, if we didn't know there was a belt of antiprotons around our own planet... He said, he didn't know.

So then I asked him, if you had antiprotons and antineutrons and positrons all floating around, couldn't they form anti-atoms?

And he said no, that was impossible, they only occur as particles.

But, you know, why not?

Antimatter exerts gravitational force just like regular baryonic matter, so there shouldn't be any reason we can't detect it (or infer its presence) assuming large enough masses of it exist. The reason the antiprotons in the Van Allen belts went unnoticed until only recently is because they are still incredibly diffuse throughout highly localised bands of the uppermost atmosphere - you could be floating in the middle of the stream and not know anything about it.



They're still pondering that one. Anti-particles are generally thought to be less prone to molecular formation, plainly evidenced by the fact that there just ain't that much of it around...

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Baryon_asymmetry

Wow, good answer! I love those long leapfrog wikipedia sessions, where one page leads to another and another. I am left once again with the feeling that we are figuring out our own microcosm pretty well; but we should not be extrapolating, and trying to apply that data to everything (everywhere) else.

Getting back to the inorganic dust part, I was interested by this paragraph:

"Until now, physicists assumed that there could be little organisation in such a cloud of particles. However, Tsytovich and his colleagues demonstrated, using a computer model of molecular dynamics, that particles in a plasma can undergo self-organization as electronic charges become separated and the plasma becomes polarized. This effect results in microscopic strands of solid particles that twist into corkscrew shapes, or helical structures. These helical strands are themselves electronically charged and are attracted to each other."

You know, if you tie half a square knot (left over right and under), and then keep tying only half square knots, you will get a "helical structure." Perhaps that form is a natural expression of charged particle interaction in plasma.

I think that they're alive in the same sense that a strand of DNA is alive: they're a set of instructions for life, for building tissue out of whatever is at hand. I wonder what would happen if they took a bacterium, removed its own DNA, and inserted one of these "inorganic helical structures?" (Or, uh, two I guess.)

^^ These formations actually reproduce. And their offspring also reproduce.

Going past our carbon based life form bias is nothing new, really. Sci-Fi has been positing life based on other elements for a long time. This kind of thing, though, leaves the way open for vast cosmic beings that don't even require planets. I debated with a friend about this kind of thing years and years ago, and he said if beings could exist in plasma and nebulae, then the Universe could be filled with such life forms... and I said "Um... yeah, that's kinda the point."

Of course, pure beings of consciousness... and the kind of non-material beings we all know and love in Hyperspace don't even require inorganic matter to exist.

Hmmm... the next paragraph describes DNA-like behavior:

"Quite bizarrely, not only do these helical strands interact in a counterintuitive way in which like can attract like, but they also undergo changes that are normally associated with biological molecules, such as DNA and proteins, say the researchers. They can, for instance, divide, or bifurcate, to form two copies of the original structure. These new structures can also interact to induce changes in their neighbours and they can even evolve into yet more structures as less stable ones break down, leaving behind only the fittest structures in the plasma."

Perhaps our own DNA started out as just such a creature; perhaps such creatures contain instructions for building bodies should they make landfall. (Bodies, after all, facilitate various kinds of activity that you just can't pull off hanging around an interstellar cloud.)

Perhaps all our elaborate mating behaviors and all the drama and Jerry Springer segments and courtly love and everything are really just organic helical structures trying to optimize their structures.

Or, you know how many people have a sort of belief that we are each of us a fragment of God, seeking to one day reunite? Maybe the Ineffable shattered itself into countless particles, to observe the whole process of reunifying unfold?

Fascinating! I've been kind of playing with this idea of the inseparability of matter and consciousness for a little while now. It seems to make a sense to me; I mean, at what point did the atoms, forming compounds, forming crystals and and other reactions out of Earth's primordial gunk suddenly 'turn' into life? And I'm not looking for a date here, I'm more looking for a designation or criteria that can separate life from 'nonlife' (the carbons, the gypsums, the gases), as it is still the stuff of 'nonlife' that makes up our whole body. I used to think matter as inert so to speak and consciousness was intent, but anyone who knows chemistry or even geology knows that unstable elements certainly have an 'intent' to react with other elements, or a gypsum crystal certainly has an intent to form.
A quote I've always liked, not sure if I read it on here, I think it was a peter russell lecture
In the rocks consciousness sleeps
In the plants it dreams
In the animals it stirs
And in man it awakens.

really cool article. I spend a lot of time thinking about the role of life in the organization of matter in the universe over time compared to the fundamental forces.

One thing that seems to be overlooked here - the researcher saw self organizing structures in his *computer simulation* based on his physical approximation of plasma behavior. Lifelike behavior may have only developed because a living creature was writing the code for how it behaves.

Nice point. I read that twice and sort of let it slip.

A lot of what we think we know or observe could be the result of the models we use and assumptions we make. Like with dreaming or Hyperspace.

This story from last week dovetails loosely. http://www.sciencedaily....2011/09/110915091625.htm
The thing about the scientist trying to make inorganic life in Glasgow.

That's the same guy (Lee Cronin) from the TED lecture I posted earlier.
His team are trying to come up with a "general" theory of evolution that tries to explain
how organic life arose from inorganic matter.

That TED talk is wonderful. I'd never admit to taking McKenna's 2012 Timewave theories deadly seriously, but I often find myself daydreaming about what form the prophesied transcendental breakthrough could take, and 'inorganic biology' hits pretty close to the mark: the convergence of geosphere and biosphere was Whitehead's great prophecy. And as Terence put it, "Time will perfect matter."

The article reminded me of David Wilcocks Source Field theory. (He's not the only, nor the first to suggest such things obviously.)

The theory is that there is a field conciousness underlying all of existence that causes life to "spontaneously" emerge.

Source Field Theory is just a way for atheists and agnostics to be able to talk about G*d, Buddha Field, Tao, Dreamtime etc. without losing their "too smart for that superstition" cred. Most of the time anyway.

Perhaps some theoreticians will work out some of how it works. Mystics tend to know how to show it to themselves without necessarily understanding it. Meanwhile most scientists will continue to imagine that consciousness grew out of cold inanimate matter. That the progression from raw energy to elements and fusion, to RNA, proteins DNA, cells and evolution was a random accident... kind of unthinkable, really. The pattern is too ingrained into matter itself to be some incredibly rare event.

And then to think that only after billions of years of life, consciousness arose as a mere survival mechanism... it stretches credulity. Intelligence is everywhere we look. You have to be trying real hard and be very attached to the concept that humanity is the pinnacle of creation in an otherwise lonely and chaotic Universe to even entertain the notion.

As Lee Cronin describes it, life either arose via Intelligent Design or via the emergence of chemical complexity. Anyone who thinks about can see that this is not an either or proposition as he makes it out to be.

Like it or not, science is just the antithesis of spirituality and religion. It will not provide all the answers. Eventually a true synthesis will emerge, but then it will have transcended anything we could refer to as science or religion. Some of you already know what I am hinting at.

So what kind of answers do you suggest religion and spirituality answer and how?

Religion and Spirituality on their own answer very few questions. However, within the traditions of most religions lie mystic sects and secret teachings that have profound ability to pierce the veil and give one direct experience of universal consciousness as well as seemingly supernatural powers.

These things are often hidden from the rank and file religious people, but then basic chemistry students generally can not synthesize novel tryptamines either.

The experiential wisdom of spiritual traditions include OOBE techniques, consciousness expansion, lucid dreaming, precognition, telepathy, control over autonomic processes, suspended animation, hypnosis and more. A lot of the truly incredible stuff is unbelievable to science, and generally ridiculed. But such things include mind over matter feats, levitation, breathless states, intangibility, and even immortality and things we refer to as miracles.

Whether someone believes in the power of these techniques and technologies or not is irrelevant. A scientist trying to understand the abilities of a Taoist hermit or vice versa is unlikely to result in either being able to replicate the achievements of the other. Just like a shaman can not build a rocket and send a space probe to Venus (probably would doubt that such things are even possible)... a physicist can not simply read a book about astral projection and master it in his free time.

The cross-pollination is already occurring. At this point, science understands that Lucid Dreaming is a reality. It was in the realm of esoteric mysticism up until rather recent times. Many Kung Fu schools guarded the secrets of Lucid Dreaming (Dreamwork) as among their highest arts. Kung Fu means hard work. All of the branches are called work. (i.e. Chi Kung is Energy Work, Shen Kung is Spirit or Aura Work and so on) Anyone who thinks that science is more rigorous, advanced or results-oriented than Kung Fu is fooling themselves.