Existence As A Self Propogating Entity Across Space, Just As Life Is On Earth?

[pagetheoracle]

Firstly, are you aware that Fred Hoyle and an Indian Colleague of his, had the theory that life was seeded from space via a comet?

 

What if micro-organisms that feed directly on minerals and have been found to live in areas lacking oxygen, are the ancestors of all life on this planet and therefore could prove this theory true?

 

What if the idea that aliens genetically altered cells to survive in deep space isn't correct but that it was nature's idea alone? What if civilizations are nature's ultimate goal through us as the highest life form available, to propagate existence on a planet? What if humanoid life forms then are drawn to instinctively create robots, to probe deep space because they can go where oxygen breathing organisms can't? What if nano technology then leads to self-repairing androids, that can go on forever and in turn manufacture cells.

 

I'm just a layman and this is just a theory extrapolated from the facts available, so is this a possibility or just science fiction do you think?

[ErlyRisa]

Sadly its science fact.

[Eclogite]

Sadly its science fact.

It most assuredly is not.

 

Fred Hoyle and Chandra Wickramasinghe were promoting the hypothesis of pan spermia since the 1970s. They argued that the spectral properties of interstellar dust matched that of organic molecules, or - later - of specific micro-organisms. They proposed also that some novel diseases were a consequence of such organisms making a 'soft landing' on the atmosphere and subsequently infecting people.

 

The hypothesis has not been well received by the rest of the science community. The failure to detect any such organisms in the Wilde II Stardust capture mission supports this scepticism.

 

What if micro-organisms that feed directly on minerals and have been found to live in areas lacking oxygen, are the ancestors of all life on this planet and therefore could prove this theory true?

It is almost certain that the first life forms were chemotrophs, as you suggest. However, this in no way proves an extra-terrestrial origin for life.

 

What if the idea that aliens genetically altered cells to survive in deep space isn't correct but that it was nature's idea alone?

 

No such idea is held by any reputable scientist.

 

What if civilizations are nature's ultimate goal through us as the highest life form available, to propagate existence on a planet?

The consensus view of science is that Nature has no ultimate goal.

 

What if humanoid life forms then are drawn to instinctively create robots, to probe deep space because they can go where oxygen breathing organisms can't? What if nano technology then leads to self-repairing androids, that can go on forever and in turn manufacture cells.

What if green unicorns are discovered swimming the Atlantic? The idea you propose is decent science fiction, but currently very poor science.

[ErlyRisa]

What if Green Unicorns are found? Here is where the PROBLEM lies. Humans are the creatures that CAN make Green Unicorns. Much like the movie Jurassic Park. Society needs a controlling body that says no to this. Problem, technology/knowledge is not exactly controllable. What is controllable though is co-operative stifling. eg. Anti Terrorism. Future terrorism may not be about creating pathetic bombs and the such, but rather convincing entire populations that Green Unicorns really do exist...imagine the chaos (With respect to your current mindset).

 

Now if we extrapolate the ability too create Green Unicorns, then it is completely arguable that WE are the Green Unicorns, in some-one(alien/god) else's sick joke.

[Eclogite]

The points in your first paragraph are off-topic. They represent political views and opinions. These may be valid, they may not, but they are not relevant to the OP.

 

Now you can argue that in the future we may be able to create green unicorns by genetic manipulation, but we certainly cannot do so at present. And we may, at some future date seed other planets with life. You can certainly argue that. However, there is no substantive evidence to support the speculation that we are the product of such an action. 

 

And your conclusion that if we were such a 'created' product it would the result of a sick joke is, again a political opinion, with no significant supporting evidence.

[pagetheoracle]

It most assuredly is not.

 

Fred Hoyle and Chandra Wickramasinghe were promoting the hypothesis of pan spermia since the 1970s. They argued that the spectral properties of interstellar dust matched that of organic molecules, or - later - of specific micro-organisms. They proposed also that some novel diseases were a consequence of such organisms making a 'soft landing' on the atmosphere and subsequently infecting people.

 

The hypothesis has not been well received by the rest of the science community. The failure to detect any such organisms in the Wilde II Stardust capture mission supports this scepticism.

 

It is almost certain that the first life forms were chemotrophs, as you suggest. However, this in no way proves an extra-terrestrial origin for life.

 

No such idea is held by any reputable scientist.

 

The consensus view of science is that Nature has no ultimate goal.

 

What if green unicorns are discovered swimming the Atlantic? The idea you propose is decent science fiction, but currently very poor science.

Well I can't argue with the Wilde II evidence but weren't meterorites ostensibly from Mars carrying what looked like possible fossil micro-organisms?  No it doesn't prove it but look at the really inhospitable places chemotrophs live (volcanoes, deep sea chasms, places where no oxygen exists), so perhaps you can see where I'm coming from on this and Hoyle and Wickramasinghe before me?  Perhaps reputable scientists lack the imagination to connect the two for whatever reason?  The consensus view of science could be wrong.  A lot of people thought flight was impossible for Man and that train journeys faster than ten miles an hour would suffocate passengers.  Is their any evidence of green unicorns or anything suggesting this is possible on Earth at this time? No but what I suggest is possible, even if not proven, isn't it (not so far fetched as green unicorns)?

[CraigD]

 

What if humanoid life forms then are drawn to instinctively create robots, to probe deep space because they can go where oxygen breathing organisms can't? What if nano technology then leads to self-repairing androids, that can go on forever and in turn manufacture cells.

What if green unicorns are discovered swimming the Atlantic? The idea you propose is decent science fiction, but currently very poor science.

 

I agree with Eclogite, and as a pretty avid SF reader, would say the subject of biological organisms building robots that someday build biological organisms is a fairly established and mature, if somewhat esoteric, SG genre (eg: the work of Greg Egan and Gregory Binford)

 

I think it’s important to have your science BS detector on high alert when exploring the subject of “nanotechnology”, specifically the sort I term “Drexlarian” (after K. Eric Drexler, who popularized it in the 1980s), a key feature of which being the postulated possibility of “universal assemblers” – machines smaller than typical biological cells, capable of precisely assembling individual atoms, including making identical or specialized copies of themselves. There’s a pretty strong scientific consensus that this is simply not possible. The 2001-2003 Drexler–Smalley debate on molecular nanotechnology is one of the seminal discussions of this.

 

In short, naturally evolved biological cells and other material may be close to the best possible “nanomachines”. Any artificially made machine of this size may need to be so similar to biological material that the only practical difference is it artificial. Rather than mechanical robot engineering, nanotechnology approaching what Feynman and Drexler imagined may involve genetic engineering – designing DNA sequences to make cells that do special tasks

 

What if humanoid life forms then are drawn to instinctively create robots

Some animals – I’m not sure if humans and other apes are among them or not – appear to have an instinctive ability to use simple tools. Robots are very complicated tools, which I thing we are capable of building only because of our ability to use language and “time binding” – the ability to pass knowledge across many generations. So I wouldn’t use “instinctive” to describe our ability to build robots.

 

Nearly all animals, including humans, appear to have an innate drive to reproduce. Combined with our language-based technological ability, one might argue that we have a drive to create artificial people arises from a combination of instincts and culture. This drive predates our technical ability to even begin to do so – consider the 16th century supernatural golem folktale, or the 1770 Mechanical Turk, which was a hoax (it was operated by a person hidden in the desk that was connected to it).

 

Some scientists have suggested that it would be better if our species’ name. Homo sapiens, meaning “man the thinker”, were “homo faber”, meaning “man the toolmaker”, or “Homo technologicus”.

 

What if nano technology then leads to self-repairing androids, that can go on forever and in turn manufacture cells.

Such an invention, even if in principle possible, is arguable a case of reinventing the wheel, because some biological cells can do this very well now, and have been for millions of years. Those of “higher animals” such as mammals, including humans, aren’t among them – our cells become senile, cease to self-repair, causing us to die of old age. Though it’s a complicated biological problem, it’s not scientifically inconceivable that advances in understanding of genetic engineering and other medical therapies might change this, allow us to prevent our bodies from growing old and dying. Ray Kurzweil is perhaps the best known proponent of this.

 

Drexlerian nanotech is, I think, more attractive to our imagination than “Kurzweilian” biological approaches because machines appear intuitively to us to be simpler, more likely to be successful, and in some sense less threatening, than genetic engineered life. Scientifically, however, we have clear evidence that biological cells can work, while we have none that similar size and function nanomachines can, and some compelling arguments that they cannot, in principle.

 

This is not to say that biological life can’t be artificially created by non-biological machines. We can’t at present create a cell “from scratch” from raw elements, but as of 2008, we can create an entire DNA genome, which, inserted into the nucleus of a cell that has had its DNA extracted, develops into the organism it encodes. The machines that do this, however, are not nanotechnological, but large chemical handling machines, full of valves, tubes, and trays. Although recent “nanofludic” allow many of the components of these machines to be made nanoscopic, these components don’t operate independently, but as part of macroscopic machines.

 

The well-established SF scenario of tiny robotic spacecraft being sent to other planets, building larger machines that build biological humans and other animals, and the machines they need to live, thought far beyond our present-day technology, isn’t to the best of my understanding scientifically implausible.

 

Give this conclusion, an obvious question is whether Earth’s biosystem is such an artifact.

 

We know with high certainty that, if this is the case, currently existing genomes have evolved naturally, and are little like the earliest know life, about 3.5, or possibly as much as 4.4 billion years ago (25% to 33% the age of the universe). Given that the subsequent evolution of life on Earth is more important to most biologists than its origin, and given that we’ve found no evidence of “life seeding” spacecraft like those described in science fiction, the principle of the least complicated explanation sides with mainstream biological origin of life theories, first abiogenesis, then non-artificial panspermia.

[ErlyRisa]

 

 

Innate drive to reproduce: You can count me out.

 

Arty Facts are fun!

Edited July 21, 2014 by ErlyRisa

[pagetheoracle]

Well argued Craig - I'm surprised you didn't mention stem cell research as that indeed is repairing body parts and might lead to increased longevity this way, wear and tear wise.

 

Ecologite, thanks for the evidence - I thought it interesting and logical speculation but you can close the subject down if you want.

[pagetheoracle]

Oh one last point (or two) don't microbes exist on the edge of the atmosphere and couldn't they drift off into space (in theory at least) and create a cyst or be freeze dried and revive in a warmer atmosphere (viruses would be able to survive I'm sure as they are not quite alive I understand, in the same way other life forms are)?

 

If they were up there then most things travel in packs, not singly, so again in theory might they not get missed unless a space exploration vessel went through a 'cloud' of them (again just theoretical speculation)?