Life..... everywhere?

Jayam has a point

I understand what you're saying Streen but I think stretching the definition of life to cover the sun or the earth is a bit far...

Then what is the Sun? What is the Earth? Does not the Force reside in both? The Force is Life. The Force is everywhere, so by use of logic, Life is everywhere. So again I ask, what are they? A star? A planet? How do they function or come into being? By accident?

Surely not. There is Life in all things, whether you believe in God, the Force, the Tao, or even if you're an atheist. "Life" is simply a word and we've assumed we know what that means. Life is a process, a function, a cycle, a form, a construct, a pattern, a behavior, a progression...

everywhere you look, there it is.

Streen wrote: Jayam has a point

I understand what you're saying Streen but I think stretching the definition of life to cover the sun or the earth is a bit far...

Then what is the Sun? What is the Earth? Does not the Force reside in both? The Force is Life. The Force is everywhere, so by use of logic, Life is everywhere. So again I ask, what are they? A star? A planet? How do they function or come into being? By accident?

Surely not. There is Life in all things, whether you believe in God, the Force, the Tao, or even if you're an atheist. "Life" is simply a word and we've assumed we know what that means. Life is a process, a function, a cycle, a form, a construct, a pattern, a behavior, a progression...

everywhere you look, there it is.

Everything is true in metaphor

Akkarin wrote: Everything is true in metaphor

Metaphorically speaking...

This is Don Juan Pond, It is located in one of the "dry valleys", very cold, windy valleys in antarctica, with wind speeds up to 300 kph. It is the saltiest body of water on earth, with about 40% salinity. It almost never freezes.
And even there, there's life in form of bacteria. Or at least there was until recently.

I think it's fantastic how every day new life forms are discovered, even in the harshest of habitats. Every day, the threshhold for possible life lowers.

Anyway - i think it's prety hard to define "life". What does a thing, or a system have to be to be classified as "alive"? Is it metalbolism? Reproduction? growth? Everything at once? Does it have to have dna? what about viruses? What about computer viruses? What about the earth as a system?

For me, life is movement. I consider the planet (also, the universe) as a whole as much alive as any of us.
For example, the human body isn't just one big, complex organism. Not all of our DNA is our own, if you will. We are a conglomeration of many organisms, most of them bacteria that formed a symbiosis with the rest of our body.

Br. John wrote: I'll be taking this course from the University of Edinburgh. It's free and starts January 28, 2013. Students who successfully complete the class will receive a certificate signed by the instructor (Charles Cockell).

Astrobiology and the Search for Extraterrestrial Life

https://www.coursera.org/course/astrobio

About Coursera https://www.coursera.org/about

Bumpity bump (not sure if it's too late, I just remembered this

I also hold the (romantic?) view that planets & stars have a kind of life-force of their own, simply in terms of their massive amounts of matter and energy. It's the sort of idea that ties in well with my current (limited) understanding of the Force.

I think It's important to distinguish organic life (humans, bacteria, fungi, tapeworms) from inorganic, though. There are very well defined parameters for what constitutes organic life (not even viruses make the grade).

An interesting question is whether we would even recognise microscopic alien life if its composition differed greatly to our expectations. Life on Titan, for example, could use liquid hydrocarbons instead of water as their solvent. This simple exchange would have exponential changes to a life-form's composition, metabolism, etc.

I just wanted to clarify something. Someone mentioned tardigrades awhile back in relation to things living in space. That's not really what the essence of that research was about. It's very hard to imagine anything living (growing/reproducing) in space.

Tardigrades are a life form that go into hibernation when dehydrated.The experiment with tardigrades investigated whether life forms (in hibernation) exposed to the extreme temperature fluctuations and radiation of space could survive and reproduce once they returned to Earth. Scientists found that tardigrades, when rehydrated, seemed to actually repair DNA damage caused by radiation. The experiment supported a separate strand of astrobiology called panspermia, basically that life itself was brought to Earth from another panet on the back of a comet/asteroid/x-wing.

I think the reason scientists are looking so hard for an Earth-like planet is because it would be hospitable to us humans and we could colonize it or go there after an asteroid hits earth or we wipe ourselves out from nukes or whatever.

Mars once had an atmosphere, rivers, and oceans so it probably had plenty of life. We will probably find fossils and may even find some worms or snails or other life living under the soil or in subterranean aqueducts. The work is long and tedious which is why they sent robots to do it.

There is probably life on Saturn's moon Titan...

Fear is of the unknown. As far as I know the sun
has a expiry date. Before it blows up in scientific
logic. If life was created on earth and we all see
million of stars (suns). My answer would stand yes, untilled
proven otherwise. Proven by actually visiting, the millions
of planets. Like the sailors visiting continents in 1500's - 1600's,
then I'd expect some caution.

Mkone wrote: As far as I know the sun has a expiry date.

Exactly. They're born, they use energy, they die. I currently can't think of anything that doesn't apply to that.

Br. John wrote:

Alexandre Orion wrote: This course looks absolutely brilliant !

Could someone please talk me into doing this too ?

You can register now. There's no background requirements.

https://www.coursera.org/course/astrobio

How was the course?