Are Non-Carbon Based Life Forms Really Possible?

[Gold Barz]

What do you think?

Is it impossible? highly unlikely? unlikely?

I've heard of silicon-based life-forms, electromagnetic-based life-forms and flourine-based life-forms, they sure would make for some awesome and interesting creatures huh?

But the majority of life out there would probably be carbon-based.

 

[Link]

I think its highly unlikley. At least no advanced life forms. Flourine is too reactive to be stable.

 

[Gold Barz]

How about not in a planet like Earth, somewhere where it fit the needs of non-carbon based life-forms of forming?

 

[marcus]

It is inevitable

Non-carbon based life-forms?

What do you think?

Is it impossible? highly unlikely? unlikely?
...

It is inevitable. Water and carbon lifeforms like us will eventually
construct surrogates adapted to live in vacuum and in cold
and these cold-vacuum-capable beings will be able to reproduce somehow
and that will be life

there will be a Britney Spears model made of metal and polymers and she will be able to float around in space without a spacesuit and go to Mars or Titan if she wants and she will really enjoy having recreational sex with ordinary carbon-based guys like me, but the serious reproduction business will be back at the hive

 

[marcus]

But the majority of life out there would probably be carbon-based

GoldBarz,
you seem to be making some assumption I don't understand.

most of space is cold gravityless vacuum, or anyway low temp/pressure

like aboard all the comets in the oort cloud
like on Callisto surface, etc

LIFE EVOLVES TO FILL NICHES, i.e. to take up livingspace

so you can even prove as a kind of theorem that
carbon-life is a STAGE IN THE EVOLUTION of lifeforms adapted to cold vacuum.

personally I am not so interested in mere lifeforms, what interests me is lifeforms that can write poems and music, maybe dance the polka too.
I assume that things made of metal and plastic and rubber can do these things, and can reproduce themselves and modify their own programming as well.

Given a few millennia any intelligent carbon species ought to be able to launch an intelligent metallic species able to maintain a high civilization, mine asteroids, and take care of business in vacuo.

So if there are any carbon species out there (besides us) then i would guess there would likely be even more widely dispersed noncarbon species as well. One follows from the other---given a little time to develop

 

[Gold Barz]

But it is proved that carbon is the best to make life out of, other ones like silicon, ammonia, flourine, or even electromagnetic is possible but unlikely. That is why I said it is possible but carbon-based life forms would surely outnumber non-carbon-based life forms.

EDIT: I am not talking about man-made ones, I am talking about natural made ones

 

[marcus]

But it is proved that carbon is the best to make life out of, other ones like silicon, ammonia, flourine, or even electromagnetic is possible but unlikely. That is why I said it is possible but carbon-based life forms would surely outnumber non-carbon-based life forms.

EDIT: I am not talking about man-made ones, I am talking about natural made ones

I am talking about NATURE-made self-reproducing forms of life.

intelligent carbon lifeforms can be considered part of nature
and part of an evolutionary process.

it does not matter to me how the first organism comes into existence if it can reproduce itself, I think that carbon-lifeforms are apt to produce noncarbon forms
just as seadwelling species are apt to give rise to species that can live on land

I think you are making arbitrary and unnecessary distinctions.
You seem to think that carbon and noncarbon are absolutely separate categories of life. I see no reason to suppose that. I think that one can emerge from the other, one can give rise to the other.
Once it has intelligence, life can change its chemistry

as an analogy: mosquito larvae live in the water as wrigglers and eat algae
and at a certain point they pupate and what emerges from them can live in the air and eat your blood, one form has given rise to another.
so likewise I believe that carbon forms can give rise to noncarbon forms of life and that making the distinction too sharply will dull and restrict the thoughtprocess

 

[marcus]

But it is proved that carbon is the best to make life out of, ...

I don't believe this has been proved. I do not even think you have a well-defined meaning for "best".

If I personally was designing a species of self-reproducing organism to live in the asteroid belt, or on comets, I might choose to have them make themselves out of metal. It might be the "best" material for a lifeform to be made of, under the circumstances. they might look like large battery-driven insects. they might tend potted plants with photovoltaic leaves.

I would insist that they be able to live comfortably in the vacuum and that they be able to write beautiful sonnets (a type of poem I like) to each other.

 

[Gold Barz]

Oh, so you do believe non-carbon based lifeform (natural made and not made by some advanced alien civilization, like life here on Earth except not carbon-based) can emerge and develop intelligence, I don't know why we are arguing since I agree.

 

[marcus]

Oh, so you do believe non-carbon based lifeform (natural made and not made by some advanced alien civilization, like life here on Earth except not carbon-based) can emerge...

that is not what I said

I believe from what you say that we don't have a common basis of concepts. I don't want to argue, and have no interest in trying to persuade you of anything.

At this point all I want to do is present my viewpoint in case anyone else is listening.

Living organisms are selfreplicating machines that can modify themselves by various evolutionary processes. they replicate but they can also split off into different species and change.

Humans are part of nature. the machines that humans design and build are natural occurences and part of nature.
Humans can build intelligent selfreplicating machines capable of modifying themselves. And they will very likely do that. those machines will be living organisms and they will be part of nature. They will have arisen naturally.

Carbon life can spawn non-carbon life, obviously. It is part of how life works that carbon life forms can evolve enough intelligence to initiate non-carbon life forms.

the non-carbon life forms that emerge will be true, natural, living organisms. they will reproduce. they will evolve. they will come to occupy niches in the environment where they have some advantage over carbon-type life. this is just how nature works.

One may speculate that the non-carbon life forms will thrive in low pressure and temperature environments-----cold vacuum. there is a lot of cold dry vacuum around for them to populate. the warm wet pressurized environment we need is comparatively rare.

My private opinion is that it is harmful to the mind to make too sharp a distinction between carbon life and non-carbon life. It is all life and ONE CAN EMERGE FROM THE OTHER. Life and nature do not recognize this distinction. It is not a natural division. One can even say that noncarbon life can EVOLVE from carbon life since a man can "give birth" to a machine that is in certain special senses like himself but composed of different materials.

Therefore I surmise that either we are alone in the galaxy and the Earth is the only planet with a technical civilization, or else there are other technical civilizations---in which case I consider it likely that there are cold vacuum environments inhabited by non-carbon lifeforms.

It may well be that there is no planet in this galaxy where noncarbon life has evolved from primordial clay or soup. It may well be that the only life that ever evolves early in a planet's history is carbon life. I am not interested in whether that is true or not. Even if the only life that ever emerges from primordial conditions is carbonbase, it can still be the case that the main type of life populating the galaxy is noncarbon. this would merely mean that the carbon life would OLDER than the noncarbon. it would not, by that token, be more natural or more life-like

in my view, noncarbon lifeforms will tend to arise from carbon lifeforms, as we already see beginning to happen

 

[ohwilleke]

Silicon is as plausible of any of the non-carbon possibilities, primarily due to its chemical similarity to carbon, as it is another non-metal in the same column of the periodic table. Carbon is more common in the universe, so one would expect carbon based life to be more common, but as noted above, life forms in a niche, and a silicon rich niche would hardly be surprising. Also, once life establishes itself, it would tend to squeeze out competition.

Life with a methane based chemistry seems more likely than a Flourine cased chemistry, simply because we know of many places where there is abundant atmospheric methane.

 

[cronxeh]

The question is way too complex. Firstly you go about finding alternatives to C-12 in a following way:

1- how many bonds can alternative base chemical make? what if you have multiple base chemicals - which would those be, how many possible combinations do you want?

2- how does our brain work in terms of perception, memory, data acquisition/analysis, etc - what is the exact mechanics so that we can look for alternatives from there and see exactly what the properties of alternative chemical compounds should be - it would go into the solid state discussion from there

3- how does the 'organism' make sure it's survival? if its not some vast array of interconnected matter that feeds upon some cloud of matter - how long would it live? how many chemical compounds and which one would it need to sustain?

this questions is so complex that there are about hundreds of unknown if even you wanted to answer one simple one - which one of the chemical elements could be an alternative?

it could be Uranium-235, or some radioactive element that decays fast, and then you have an even more complex system, etc. Or the answer could be far simpler - that out of all the chemical compounds in the Universe, our organic life form is the most stable one.

 

[Link]

There is two other possibilities i can think of theoretically.

First Dark Matter take up a lot of the mass of the universe and cosists of stuff we don't even know of. There is a high probability that some unknown element exists there that could form "life"

The other thing is that theoretically, anti matter carbon could be used to create life in a anti matter dominated place of the universe...

 

[Mean-Hippy]

Link
First Dark Matter take up a lot of the mass of the universe and cosists of stuff we don't even know of. There is a high probability that some unknown element exists there that could form "life"

The other thing is that theoretically, anti matter carbon could be used to create life in a anti matter dominated place of the universe...

Well . . . my understanding is that dark matter is very weakly interactive
( hence the W.I.M.P denomination ) Ìts dark for a reason... so the chances of something complex emerging from it is... well, wimpy .
This is by coincidence equivalent to the chance of finding an area of the universe dominated by antimatter. Such an area would have so humongous of a firework at its border that we would certainly have found it at this point.

cronxeh
1- how many bonds can alternative base chemical make? what if you have multiple base chemicals - which would those be, how many possible combinations do you want?

2- how does our brain work in terms of perception, memory, data acquisition/analysis, etc - what is the exact mechanics so that we can look for alternatives from there and see exactly what the properties of alternative chemical compounds should be - it would go into the solid state discussion from there

3- how does the 'organism' make sure it's survival? if its not some vast array of interconnected matter that feeds upon some cloud of matter - how long would it live? how many chemical compounds and which one would it need to sustain?

Was there ever any serious studys on possible alternative chemistrys for life or anything taking these elements in account ?

Marcus
in my view, noncarbon lifeforms will tend to arise from carbon lifeforms, as we already see beginning to happen

Another interesting outshot of this concept is the possibility of those carbon based life transforming themselves into metal life forms. The idea of "downloading" ourselves into cyber-brains has been out there for awhile but I believe it is more likely than people think. Think about what actually separates us from the possibility. A- Computers with computing power equivalent to the human brain. That should be attained within a couple decades.
B- A deep understanding of the neuropsychology i.e the neurological structure of thought and consciousness. From what I understood of vulgarized neuropsych. texts, this is within reach as well. C- A suitable brain/computer interface to accomplish the transfer. This also is an area where extensive research is being accomplished and where impressive results have been attained.*

This would have enormous consequences in every aspects of human life but the impact on space exploration would be particularly interesting. Anyone up to climb aboard the next Voyager, Mars Rover or Casini ? I say yeeha !


* On a side note, I strongly recommend the Sci-Fi novel DIASPORA by Greg Egan. It deals with the subject of the future of human life form in a truly mindblowing way !

 

[Gold Barz]

What I am trying to say is that we shouldn't just think that there are only carbon-based life out there, yeah we should focus on carbon-based life but we shouldn't rule out the non-carbon based life.

Computers arent nature made, you are misunderstanding something marcus, I am saying silicon-based lifeforms emerging the way that we emerged

So is the idea of non-carbon based life forms plausible?

 

[marcus]

Another interesting outshot of this concept is the possibility of those carbon based life transforming themselves into metal life forms. The idea of "downloading" ourselves into cyber-brains...

...This would have enormous consequences in every aspects of human life but the impact on space exploration would be particularly interesting. Anyone up to climb aboard the next Voyager, Mars Rover or Casini ? I say yeeha !

I also say yeehaah!

Furthermore humans are just as natural as primeval slime and broth and for humans to "download" themselves into metal lifeforms is as natural
as singlecell organisms arising from the primal goo.
therefore we can regard the emergence of metallic (or other noncarbon) lifeforms from us, if it happens, as a STEP IN THE NATURAL EVOLUTION OF LIFE

by the principle of mediocrity, if it looks likely to happen here with us (which it does to me and I think from what you say also to you, Meanhippy) then the same natural evolutionary step is apt to have occurred in other places.

So if there is anytype life at all out there, and it has evolved intelligence (with the ability to implement itself in alternative materials) then one can argue that there is going to be a bunch of non-carbon life-forms.

It is also possible that silicon turkeys have evolved directly from the primal goo. People used to speculate about that in the Seventies, I believe. Like Carl Sagan speculating about alternative non-carbon chemistry biota. This is interesting too, in a limited way and up to a point.

but in visualizing the future it is kind of irrelevant. i think one has to look at the available niches for life and say that metallic lifeforms are destined to be more widespread and numerous.
Organisms which can thrive and multiply in cold dry vacuum environments in other words.

and i think in the long run it is irrelevant whether such organisms arose from primal goo or had carbon-base ancestors who constructed them and downloaded their civilization into them.

things that can spawn and multiply in the big niches, whatever their longago origins, are destined to be predominant forms of life.

this is why I hope that in years to come the Aluminum Chickens of the Asteroids will have learned from us how to compose sonnets and sonatas.

 

[Nacho]

Come on marcus ..

You're slipping a bit here in your categorizations. I remember one time in a response to one of my topics you categorized the CMB Radiation as a "Perky Curve". Can't get any better than that! LOL!

 

[Chronos]

Agreed. I don't think there is any such thing as artificial life, just life and non-life. If it can replicate and evolve, it's life by any reasonable definition. Possessing a traditional biological heritage is irrelevant. If my life form can encode and execute its replication program more efficiently than yours, I am the dominant life form.

 

[marcus]

Agreed. I don't think there is any such thing as artificial life, just life and non-life. If it can replicate and evolve, it's life by any reasonable definition. Possessing a traditional biological heritage is irrelevant. If my life form can encode and execute its replication program more efficiently than yours, I am the dominant life form.

thanks for coming to my support
its a minority POV, and I have no interest in arguing so it could be about time to bail

for me (Chronos, Meanhippy, anyone who can sympathize with this viewpoint) the important thing is not philosophical distinctions but
practical consequences in the form of expectations of what you find out there.

maybe there is no other life in the galaxy besides us
but if there is some, then i think it is quite likely to have evolved to live comfortably in the big niche----the dry pressureless emptiness.

maybe I am missing something obvious
my expectation is that humans will create self-replicating intelligent organisms able to live in space, they might look like a cross between a contemporary spacecraft and an insect, or like something else entirely. they will be at least partly metallic, and they will practice some form of metallurgy to get material to make more of their kind. they might be very small, or they might not. they might, at least at first, have implanted human personalities in them.
once something like that is created, it can evolve on its own according to the usual rules of evolution, possibly becoming more diverse and specialized

because I expect humans to create vacuum-dwelling lifeforms, I think it is likely that other soft wet intelligent organisms (if they exist) will also produce them. it is part of a tendency that life has to fill available niches.

so THE KIND OF LIFE I EXPECT we shall find, if we find any at all, is life which is adapted to the biggest environoment: the cold dry vacuum, and the kind of life adapted to those environments is apt to be non-carbon
and indeed not constantly dependent on liquid water either

I haven't considered carbonbase forms with an exoskeleton, maybe I should, the immediate drawback is the tendency of their organic fluids to boil at low pressure.

 

[Nereid]

Who knows? Maybe the most 'common' form of 'life' in the universe is based on hyper-super-symmetric particles, which have a characteristic life of 10^-35 s? Measured in terms of our carbon-based characteristic time, these critters have already gone through zillions of 'universal generations'! Or perhaps it's dark matter ets which 'energise' their 'cells' by extracting third-order perturbations from neutrino oscillations? Or - per marcus and Chronos - the 'original' carbon-based life of ESO 998877-12345 Bax long since downloaded into strangelets, and are living happily ever after in the cores of magnetars and the trillions of white dwarfs throughout the universe?

If we take a scientific approach - how could we tell?

 

[marcus]

so THE KIND OF LIFE I EXPECT we shall find, if we find any at all, is life which is adapted to the biggest environoment: the cold dry vacuum, and the kind of life adapted to those environments is apt to be non-carbon
and indeed not constantly dependent on liquid water either
...

Note that I am not talking about life forms which might be predominant but which we cannot observe. I only wish to predict what kind of life we MAY EXPECT TO FIND, if we find any at all, as we probe outside the solar system.

 

[steampunk]

they will be at least partly metallic, and they will practice some form of metallurgy to get material to make more of their kind. they might be very small, or they might not. they might, at least at first, have implanted human personalities in them.
once something like that is created, it can evolve on its own according to the usual rules of evolution, possibly becoming more diverse and specialized

If an organic or biological lifeform (such as ourselves) "downloaded" our minds into a computer* and subsequently became a non carbon based intelligent lifeform, then we would virtually be immortal. Would we even have the need to reproduce? Since reproduction is simply a way to propagate our genes in order to diversify it and thus creating wider chances of maintaining our existence as a species. If we were to consist of metal, or that our bodies are akin to that of a robot with our minds somehow directing it (after being downloaded into a medium), we distance ourselves from the hinders of biological decomposition (i.e. rotting and the degeneration of cells), the need to feed and nourish our cells and therefore eliminate death itself. So there is no longer a need to reproduce, or eat, but only to find resources to repair the mechanical damage which we suffer and to find a power source. If a part is malfunctioning due to poor manufacturing etc, then it can be replaced. If power is low, there are many ways to generate power. Such versatility would almost ensure immortality.

*If that is at all possible, since it is not as simple as just getting a computer with high processessing power, as factors such as quantum physics and the nature of the workings of our brains or minds or even if there is a distinction between "brain" and "mind" needs to be considered in order to fathom how our thoughts work. Quantum physics and consciousness has been recently found to have links, and the concepts of having 'souls' are not out of the scientific question.

 

[Entropy]

While we're in fantasy land shall we discuss space dragons and magical pixy fairies? Sorry, but this thread is beyond the realm of even science-fiction.

But if someone put a gun to my head I'd have to say silcon based life is probably the most-likely Canadate next to carbon. But it would have to be on a planet where most of the carbon was locked away in the planet's crust. This because carbon is much more reactive than silcon and would just take over if given the chance. But I personally believe silcon-based life arising naturally is impossible.

 

[Entropy]

If an organic or biological lifeform (such as ourselves) "downloaded" our minds into a computer* and subsequently became a non carbon based intelligent lifeform, then we would virtually be immortal.

*my opinion*

Not a chance, the ravages of entropy increases with complexity. Why do you think quantum computers are so vulnerable to interferance? Meaning once computers reach our level of complexity it is likely they will be just as fragile as we are, and their minds will decay just as quickly as ours. My reasoning for this is that if it were possible to get sufficently more complex than the human mind without such extreme drawbacks, nature would have done so already (meaning increasing the power of the brain without increasing it's size.)

 

[DaveC426913]

because I expect humans to create vacuum-dwelling lifeforms ... it is part of a tendency that life has to fill available niches.

Hold on a second there...

Filling niches is not the end goal for lifeforms, it is merely a way to get an edge. A niche is useless if it has no resources to take advantage of - there is no REASON for life to fill it. Hard vacuum is the best example of this.

Yes, intelligent life can build ways to get from niche (read: planet or other body) to another, but it's not going to evolve that way.

 

[|Orion's Thought|]

So is the idea of non-carbon based life forms plausible?

Sure, why isn't it plausible? There are probably atoms on other planets that don't exist on Earth that can form the basis of life quite well for those beings and their planetary conditions.

 

[daveb]

Um...atoms on other planets that don't exist on earth? Yeah, in the transuranic elements maybe, which are pretty much all manmade, not to mention extremely radioactive with a super short half-life (we'll wait and see how stable element 126 is, once it's discovered).

 

[Ivan Seeking]

It is also possible that silicon turkeys have evolved directly from the primal goo. People used to speculate about that in the Seventies, I believe. Like Carl Sagan speculating about alternative non-carbon chemistry biota. This is interesting too, in a limited way and up to a point.

This came up recently with an added twist in the last post.
https://www.physicsforums.com/showthread.php?t=110427

 

[Entropy]

Sure, why isn't it plausible? There are probably atoms on other planets that don't exist on Earth that can form the basis of life quite well for those beings and their planetary conditions.

Your confusing plausible with possible. Plausible means it is likely to happen, but their is no evidence for that assertion. And planets in other solar systems have virtually the same atoms as Earth.

 

[theForthD?]

And planets in other solar systems have virtually the same atoms as Earth.

How do you know that? You say it as if it is a proven fact. I know this may sound completely science-fiction, but is it possible that other galaxies have atoms composed of complete other sub-atomic particles and such so that the atoms are not characterized by protons and therefore, are completely different? What if the rotation of our galaxies and solar systems create a form of suction to our atoms so that they can't escape our galaxy, which would be the same for other galaxies as well. We would never know, we would only be able to assume. And where has the human race got from assuming? It only makes an @ss out of u and me, lol.

If you have proof that the atoms all around the universe are the same as on earth, then correct me if I'm wrong, but come on. Just think about it. Saying that really restricts how your mind can think.

 

[Vanadium 50]

Saying that really restricts how your mind can think.

As it's supposed to. Science is about restricting the number of things you need to look at to only relevant models - and by relevant I mean "agrees with the data".

We know that the atomic and molecular spectra are the same from stars and gas clouds in other galaxies as they are here. That's very powerful evidence that they are the same as here.

 

[Arch2008]

Well, these are the folks actually looking for exobiology:
http://astrobiology.nasa.gov/documents-and-reports/
and this is what they are hoping to find:
http://books.nap.edu/catalog.php?record_id=11919#toc

NASA is considering all possibilities and the search is no longer Earth-centric/carbon only.

 

[harvellt]

I think it falls to the fact carbon is so much more reactive than silicon that in any environment that would support silicon life it would also support carbon life. Natural processes tend to the path of least resistance the chances of silicon based life are extremely low. As for filling a niche I think we are just beginning to see the extremes that carbon based life can survive. Look at Extremophiles, carbon based organisms that not only survive at temperatures grater than 100 C but flourish, or in a environment with a PH>3, or my favorite are radio resistant bacteria organisms capable of resisting nuclear radiation.