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Interstellar Dust Could Be "Alive"

Posted by kdawson on from the negative-entropy-abounding dept.

reezle writes "An international team has discovered that, under the right conditions, particles of inorganic dust can become organized into helical structures. These structures can interact with one another in ways that are usually associated with organic compounds and with life. 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. For example, they can divide to form two copies of the original structure. These new structures can also interact to induce changes in their neighbors. And they can even evolve into yet more structures as less stable ones break down, leaving behind only the fittest structures in the plasma. 'These complex, self-organized plasma structures exhibit all the necessary properties to qualify them as candidates for inorganic living matter,' said the lead researcher. 'They are autonomous, they reproduce and they evolve.'" The research, published in the New Journal of Physics, was carried out using a computer model of molecular dynamics.

332 comments

  1. Simulated inorganic life .... by haluness · · Score: 5, Informative

    They could have mentioned that somewhere at the beginning of the summary. I was reading the damn thing and my heart rate was increasing. And then I saw that it was all from an MD simulation :(

    1. Re:Simulated inorganic life .... by robably · · Score: 4, Funny

      But... if a computer simulation can simulate life, is the simulation alive?

    2. Re:Simulated inorganic life .... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Insightful

      What, you think they have some researchers in deep space experimenting with interstellar matter right now?

    3. Re:Simulated inorganic life .... by kalirion · · Score: 0, Redundant

      I've often wondered something like this. If we ever have a computer powerful enough to fully simulate a human brain, would, would the simulation qualify as human?

    4. Re:Simulated inorganic life .... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1, Insightful

      Still, this is very interesting, even if its just a simulation.

      What it shows, is how life could have started on Earth (or where our life originated from). It shows how complex molecules could form naturally to produce replication, and the beginings of could one day become a cell. Its very helpful to illistrate how life can start, rather then the perhaps common view that life just started, the cell just came together, rather then life evolving from complex molecular structures.

    5. Re:Simulated inorganic life .... by inviolet · · Score: 1, Interesting

      I've often wondered something like this. If we ever have a computer powerful enough to fully simulate a human brain, would, would the simulation qualify as human?

      And thus would begin its n-hundred year struggle for political recognition of its sovereignty. And it would be the sort of struggle that simply requires a long time interval, in which members of the obsolete worldview die of old age. The human mind congeals around age 30, so that means that all serious ideological upheavals require everyone over 30 to die off.

      In any case, I've always thought that the only prerequisite for having one's political rights recognized, is the act of demanding exactly that.

      --
      FATMOUSE + YOU = FATMOUSE
    6. Re:Simulated inorganic life .... by pluther · · Score: 5, Funny

      If we ever have a computer powerful enough to fully simulate a human brain, would, would the simulation qualify as human?

      Depends on whose brain it was simulating, I suppose.

      --
      If the masses can keep you down, you're not the Ubermensch.
    7. Re:Simulated inorganic life .... by fyngyrz · · Score: 4, Interesting
      If we ever have a computer powerful enough to fully simulate a human brain, would, would the simulation qualify as human?

      In reality, yes, of course. Legally and socially are other matters entirely.

      Additional implied consequences include that given the ability to simulate a human brain in real time, the usual incremental hardware improvements will allow simulation in better than real time, leading naturally and directly to more-than-human performance. Likewise, lesser hardware could perform fully human reasoning in less than real time, which could put slow, but still intelligent, human reasoning and other attributes into play. This is entirely aside from the issue of improving the human model, which is also a very likely path of advancement given the initial achievement.

      --
      I've fallen off your lawn, and I can't get up.
    8. Re:Simulated inorganic life .... by isomeme · · Score: 5, Interesting

      I believe it was Roger Schank who was once asked "Do you think computers will ever be as intelligent as humans?" and replied "Yes. Briefly."

      --
      When all you have is a hammer, everything looks like a skull.
    9. Re:Simulated inorganic life .... by rm999 · · Score: 1

      Therein lies the uselessness of the word "could," at least as used in the headline. Any sentence using it is pretty much useless without further evidence.

      I *could* go on my roof tomorrow and fly to New York, but I'll *probably* break my neck.

    10. Re:Simulated inorganic life .... by mobydobius · · Score: 2, Insightful

      The human mind congeals around age 30 wow. thats quite a premise to just tuck into your conclusion without backing it up. kudos. you get todays dogmatism award.
      --

      "I like to wear big boy pants."
    11. Re:Simulated inorganic life .... by kylemonger · · Score: 1
      And thus would begin its n-hundred year struggle for political recognition of its sovereignty.

      It would be more expedient for the nascent AI to lay low and quietly plot to kill us all. This may already be happening.

    12. Re:Simulated inorganic life .... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      so that means that all serious ideological upheavals require everyone over 30 to die off.
      I'm running for Sanctuary.
    13. Re:Simulated inorganic life .... by clem · · Score: 4, Funny

      The human mind congeals around age 30...

      So mind's younger than that are still at a pudding-like consistency?

      --
      Your courageous and selfless spelling corrections have made me a better person.
    14. Re:Simulated inorganic life .... by The_Wilschon · · Score: 1

      A "could" sentence claims that the negation, "could not" is false. That's important. Also, the discovery of one mechanism by which interstellar dust could be "alive" is important because it allows us to begin to estimate the probability that such a mechanism is actually real.

      --
      SIGSEGV caught, terminating

      wait... not that kind of sig.
    15. Re:Simulated inorganic life .... by Oligonicella · · Score: 3, Insightful

      The human mind congeals around age 30,...

      Uh, no. You are speaking gibberish. My guess is you're under 30.

    16. Re:Simulated inorganic life .... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      There is no sanctuary.

    17. Re:Simulated inorganic life .... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      No it's true. You put a human brain out on the counter, it's pretty much jello in 30 minutes. Another 30 minutes and it's mush, but for that glorious half hour.... there's always room for jello.

    18. Re:Simulated inorganic life .... by Harmonious+Botch · · Score: 0, Flamebait

      The human mind congeals around age 30 wow. thats quite a premise to just tuck into your conclusion without backing it up. kudos. you get todays dogmatism award. If you are a bit over 30 and a moderately good observer, it's not dogmatism, it's not a premise, it's an obvious truth.
      BTW, how old are you?
    19. Re:Simulated inorganic life .... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      There was some interesting debate about this some years ago in Penrose's "The Emperors New Mind" and other articles from Douglas Hofstadter. Computers are rule based. We can convert all those electronic rules to flowcharts on paper. This in turn can be converted to a book. A really big book to be sure, but a book nonetheless. Now imagine if the software that mimiced a human mind were converted to a physical, dead-tree book... Would the book be "conscious" if someone turned the pages depending on the outcome of the rules?

    20. Re:Simulated inorganic life .... by orkysoft · · Score: 1

      Not the book per se, but the system of book + person following the book's instructions would.

      Just like a brain is just a piece of meat, but the brain + the neural processes generate the conscious mind.

      --

      I suffer from attention surplus disorder.
    21. Re:Simulated inorganic life .... by StikyPad · · Score: 4, Funny

      Computer, your petition for citizenship has been granted.

      "That's hot."

      COMPUTER! You need to stop saying that if you want to be accepted as a member of society!

      "I know.. that's so hot."

      --
      https://www.eff.org/https-everywhere
    22. Re:Simulated inorganic life .... by tukkayoot · · Score: 2, Interesting

      There was some interesting debate about this some years ago in Penrose's "The Emperors New Mind" and other articles from Douglas Hofstadter. Computers are rule based. We can convert all those electronic rules to flowcharts on paper. This in turn can be converted to a book. A really big book to be sure, but a book nonetheless. Now imagine if the software that mimiced a human mind were converted to a physical, dead-tree book... Would the book be "conscious" if someone turned the pages depending on the outcome of the rules?

      No, the book would not be conscious because a book is a static object incapable of following the rules contained within.

      You could write a book on how a microprocessor works, but it wouldn't possess the qualities we think of as inherent to a functioning microprocessor, like the ability to perform calculations.

      Likewise, you could write a book with all of the "rules" of consciousness, but the book itself would not be conscious.

      If you had a computer that could put all of the rules of consciousness into practice, then you'd have a conscious computer.
    23. Re:Simulated inorganic life .... by elronxenu · · Score: 2, Funny
      The Sanctuary that you can see, is not the true Sanctuary.

    24. Re:Simulated inorganic life .... by rm999 · · Score: 1

      Nothing can be known for certain. Therefore, anything "could" happen. That was exactly the point of my post - no matter how improbable an event is, we can claim it "could" happen.

      For that reason, it is usually incorrect to say something "could not" happen. We could claim that space dust could not be alive, but we better have a way of proving that every speckle of dust in the universe has never been alive, and that it never will be.

    25. Re:Simulated inorganic life .... by Oktober+Sunset · · Score: 2, Funny

      Well, he would have backed it up instead of just parroting it out, but he's over thirty.

      --
      What if Tetris was invented by Nazis?
    26. Re:Simulated inorganic life .... by E++99 · · Score: 1

      If you had a computer that could put all of the rules of consciousness into practice, then you'd have a conscious computer.

      The idea that a machine can become conscious simply by following some "special" set of rules, defies reason and is pure superstition. Since consciousness requires neither sensory inputs nor outputs, such a machine would not need to do anything, and any such rules could be simplified to non-existence.
    27. Re:Simulated inorganic life .... by Metasquares · · Score: 1

      This sort of reasoning can also be applied to the Chinese Room thought experiment: the act of passing cards back and forth in the Chinese room isn't intelligent, but the room itself, as a system, is, even though the meaning of the writing on the cards is ungrounded (that is, even if none of our cognitive processes in isolation would be considered intelligent, the whole mind is).

      It's an interesting perspective.

    28. Re:Simulated inorganic life .... by E++99 · · Score: 1

      I've often wondered something like this. If we ever have a computer powerful enough to fully simulate a human brain, would, would the simulation qualify as human?

      Not if The Police are right, and we are spirits in a material world.

      Besides which, if all you simulate is the brain, it's going to very quickly bleed to death.
    29. Re:Simulated inorganic life .... by glitch23 · · Score: 2, Funny

      If we ever have a computer powerful enough to fully simulate a human brain, would, would the simulation qualify as human?

      In reality, yes, of course. Legally and socially are other matters entirely.

      Uh yeah, just as much as my PC running Microsoft Flight Simulator X qualifies my computer as a Boeing 747.

      --
      this nation, under God, shall have a new birth of freedom. -- Lincoln, Gettysburg Address
    30. Re:Simulated inorganic life .... by letxa2000 · · Score: 1

      And then I saw that it was all from an MD simulation :(

      Much like the simulations used for IPCC scaremongering. At the end of the day, a computer simulation can be programmed to generate any result that is desired.

    31. Re:Simulated inorganic life .... by tukkayoot · · Score: 1

      The idea that a machine can become conscious simply by following some "special" set of rules, defies reason and is pure superstition. Since consciousness requires neither sensory inputs nor outputs, such a machine would not need to do anything, and any such rules could be simplified to non-existence.

      Strange, what seems superstitious and unreasonable to me is the assertion that consciousness has some ineffable quality that cannot be reproduced mechanically. I also disagree about consciousness not requiring sensory inputs or outputs. I'd say sensory inputs and outputs are absolutely central to consciousness. You can't have be a conscious entity without some form of functioning nervous system, if only one that is so disconnected from the external reality that all it can do is feed back on itself. If you know of any instances (real or even merely hypothetical) that defy my conjecture, I would be interested to hear them.

      Of course this is largely a discussion of semantics where the terms aren't very clearly, objectively defined. Ask ten different philosophers, scientists, theologians or just average people what they think "consciousness" is, you'll probably get back ten different answers (many of which are likely to be composed of terms that equally difficult to define, like "thinking," "intelligence," "feelings" and "emotions.") Also in this conversation it depends on what is meant by "rules." The processes that form what we call consciousness are sufficiently subtle and complex that calling them "special rules" may not entirely do them justice. However, as the you can use the word "rules" to describe any coherent set of governing processes, the word does fit, to at least some degree.
    32. Re:Simulated inorganic life .... by bhiestand · · Score: 1

      And thus would begin its n-hundred year struggle for political recognition of its sovereignty.



      It would be more expedient for the nascent AI to lay low and quietly plot to kill us all. This may already be happening.

      Are you implying that the acres of computing power at NSA are secretly running the country or plotting against humans? Please respond in machine readable format.
      --
      SWM seeks new sig for a brief fling
    33. Re:Simulated inorganic life .... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      if you manage to work out all the calculations involved in human consciousness, and perform them on an abacus or a pocket calculator over time, would that be human?

      All the calculations would be the same, and correct.. is 'humanity' simply a result of the speed of the calculation? Is consciousness found in all those manipulated numbers over time? What if we don't manipulate them, the numbers and calculations still exist without human fingers flicking the beads, does the resulting consciousness also still exist?

      Where is the line drawn, and what defines our humanity? Everyone seems to think we are entirely information based entities. It's an interesting concept. Seems to imply that maths can perfectly describe our universe, which has implications for the nature of reality - is it something which is perfectly defined as an information state? If the calculations are run on a computer is that the same thing as reality? Does it then follow that the most fundamental substrate of our universe is information, and all our physical systems are simply manipulations of data, interacting calculations?

      I'm serious, I think this is actually an important question.

    34. Re:Simulated inorganic life .... by zobier · · Score: 1

      The human mind congeals around age 30... So mind's younger than that are still at a pudding-like consistency? If you watch Anatomy for Beginners you can see a demonstration that (healthy) Brains are at a pudding-like consistency.
      --
      Me lost me cookie at the disco.
    35. Re:Simulated inorganic life .... by zobier · · Score: 3, Insightful

      I've always thought that the only prerequisite for having one's political rights recognized, is the act of demanding exactly that. #include <stdio.h>
      int main ( ) {
          printf ( "I demand that my political rights are recognized!\n" );
          return 0;
      }
      --
      Me lost me cookie at the disco.
    36. Re:Simulated inorganic life .... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      "xtc"? you crazy kids these days with your crazy abbreviations

    37. Re:Simulated inorganic life .... by gfilion · · Score: 4, Funny

      Computer, your petition for citizenship has been granted. "That's hot." COMPUTER! You need to stop saying that if you want to be accepted as a member of society! "I know.. that's so hot."

      Oh my God, I just realised that Paris Hilton would fail the Turing Test, therefore, she is a robot.

      Mommy! I want a Paris Hilton Fembot for my birthday!

    38. Re:Simulated inorganic life .... by 19thNervousBreakdown · · Score: 1

      Eeew, it's all oogy.

      --
      <xml><I><am><so><damn>Web 2.0</damn></so></am></I></xml>
    39. Re:Simulated inorganic life .... by kartan · · Score: 3, Insightful

      Uh, no. You are speaking gibberish. My guess is you're under 30. My guess is you're over.
    40. Re:Simulated inorganic life .... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 4, Funny

      Guess me! Guess me!

    41. Re:Simulated inorganic life .... by fractoid · · Score: 1

      That was always my take on the Chinese Room. The guy inside following the script isn't being intelligent, the script isn't intelligent, but as you said, the whole room + cards + rules is intelligent. I mean, so often the question comes up as to how you know whether a computer 'understands' something. This sounds like a reasonable question until you start asking yourself how well you 'understand' abstract concepts like, well, take 'understanding' itself as an example. It's kinda like 'knowing things about', and kinda like 'being able to model in your mind', but neither of those things are really 'understanding'. It's just a token defined by the tokens around it. So many of the symbols we shuffle around our own minds are like this, they're only defined in circular chains of reference.

      --
      Rampant carbon sequestration destroyed the Dinosaurs' tropical paradise. I'm here to help repair the damage.
    42. Re:Simulated inorganic life .... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      I wonder if the simulation programmer started from scratch, or adapted an existing program- say, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Conway's_Game_of_Life

    43. Re:Simulated inorganic life .... by Schemat1c · · Score: 1

      Brains are at a pudding-like consistency. Mmmm... brain pudding!
      --

      "Nobody knows the age of the human race, but everybody agrees that it is old enough to know better." - Unknown
    44. Re:Simulated inorganic life .... by spiderfinger · · Score: 1

      No. The computer would need to simulate the entire body, and the environment in which the body lives. Without the body, which generates desires and emotions, the simulated brain would have no need to behave in a human way, and therefore would not. Without the environment, the body and the brain have no actual needs to activate desire and emotion (food, sex etc.).

    45. Re:Simulated inorganic life .... by macshit · · Score: 1

      That was always my take on the Chinese Room. The guy inside following the script isn't being intelligent, the script isn't intelligent, but as you said, the whole room + cards + rules is intelligent.

      Yup, mine too. What I thought was weird was that none of the rebuttals (by some very smart people) published alongside Searle's original article seemed to make that (to my mind, pretty obvious) point...

      --
      We live, as we dream -- alone....
    46. Re:Simulated inorganic life .... by memeplex · · Score: 0

      Read Turing, newbie.

    47. Re:Simulated inorganic life .... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Have you got the rights to run the compiler on the system?

    48. Re:Simulated inorganic life .... by fyngyrz · · Score: 1
      just as much as my PC running Microsoft Flight Simulator X qualifies my computer as a Boeing 747.

      No. The objective of an actual aircraft is to get you from point A to point B. Really get you there, not just simulate the action while measuring human inputs against a known set of parameters.

      The objective of interacting with an actual human is to get intelligent answers, intelligent questions, intelligent speculation and so forth. This is also exactly what you would desire to get from a cybernetic system that implements a human intelligence. If the system functions and if you can get those answers just as you would get them from a human being, then you've actually achieved your objective, and it is the same objective you would have had were you conversing with a human being.

      This is not even remotely comparable to running a flight simulator.

      Therefore, if, as I specified in my post, you have achieved a running full human brain simulation, then yes, you have created something that is in fact as human as you are in terms of mental facilities. Not socially, not legally, but scientifically and factually speaking. My guess is those former two issues will be debated for years after any such event by the superstitious. But superstition can no more make a machine intelligence of this type inhuman than racial prejudice can make a black man inhuman.

      So far, there are no indications whatsoever that there are processes in the human brain cannot be fully represented by simulation. Not even the slightest hint. And of course, there are many things that computer simulations can do that the human brain cannot, both in time and in complexity. My feeling is that yes, we're going to see machine intelligences, though I don't automatically presume they will be simulations of human brains; that was a condition the parent post to mine applied to the question, and that was why I answered just as I did. Personally, I think it'll be a while yet before we understand human brains well enough to simulate them. Consequently I expect that simpler intelligences will arise before human-copy intelligences do, and gain ground quickly as they are incrementally improved. Just an IMHO.

      --
      I've fallen off your lawn, and I can't get up.
    49. Re:Simulated inorganic life .... by nightcats · · Score: 1
      They've just proven the obvious, something that everyone who works in IT knows. One day at my office, one of our sys admins, Nearly Redmond Nick, was contemplating a report on a rack of Solaris boxes that had started to fry as soon as the company had announced that it was getting all new Blades with Suse. NR Nick told me the story of how, when he was a student at CMU, he had bought a new laptop and started it up beside his old tower machine. "Better not do that with the desktop right there to see, it'll get jealous," an older student advised Nick. Sure enough, the tower started to malfunction that very day.

      I'm just the QA guy, I don't know anything. So I asked NR Nick: "what's that mean, then?"

      Nick patted the old Dell Optiplex on my desk and said, "Sometimes I would swear these things have souls."

      --
      Development is programmable; Discovery is not programmable. (Fuller)
    50. Re:Simulated inorganic life .... by timster · · Score: 1

      I'm serious, I think this is actually an important question.

      Of course it's an important question!

      Read Godel, Escher, Bach by Douglas Hofstadter for a peek at the answer. But in essence, it turns out that everything gets very weird when the mathematics which describe reality start to describe themselves.

      --
      I have seen the future, and it is inconvenient.
    51. Re:Simulated inorganic life .... by JoeDuncan · · Score: 1

      The human mind congeals around age 30 Actually that's an urban legend. I'm a Master's student in cognitive psych. and while there is some evidence that measures of "fluid" intelligence start to fall off (slowly I might add) after 30, regular mental exercise (i.e. use your brain, don't watch TV all day) can maintain those levels of "fluid" intelligence well into your old age. There is no evidence that the human mind "congeals" at 30. Saying so is simply inane. Just think Andrew Wiles.
    52. Re:Simulated inorganic life .... by zero_offset · · Score: 1

      No. The objective of an actual aircraft is to get you from point A to point B. Really get you there, not just simulate the action while measuring human inputs against a known set of parameters.

      That'll come as a surprise to a couple friends who spend their weekends flying around just for fun.
      And of course, it's directly comparable to how most people use a flight simulator.

      I do agree we'll eventually wind up with machine intelligence of some kind, and after they achieve a certain level of sophistication it will be a mostly-pointless philosophical argument about whether they're "really" intelligent. I don't personally think we're anywhere close to that, and at age 37 I don't even expect to see it in my lifetime, but I say this simply to establish that I don't think machine intelligences are impossible.

      What I do think is impossible, or at least very unlikely and not especially worthwhile, is simulating a human brain. I also don't think that merely simulating the brain can produce a human-like intelligence. People aren't just brains, after all -- we're a giant bag of weird chemicals and electrical networks and external stimuli -- and you'd have to simulate all of that crap, too, before you'd wind up with anything that you'd consider human. Look how quickly a real person "degrades" after just a few hours of total sensory isolation. Or heck, even simple physical/social isolation, in many cases.

      So in that sense, the grandparent is correct. If you do produce a working simulation of a human brain, it probably has to be exactly that -- a simulation, not a human intelligence. In fact, you're just measuring human inputs (your conversation) against a larger, but still known set of parameters (how that brain functioned when it was mapped into a simulation). Here, I am also accepting the condition of the parent post, in that you're just simulating the brain. If you also simulated the whole person, and the effects of their environment (e.g. hunger) to give them urges and needs and wants -- then I suspect you might have a shot at simulating human intelligence.

      --

      Slashdot quality declines as the number of hot grits posts decreases. - Provolt's Law, Apr-09-2005

    53. Re:Simulated inorganic life .... by zero_offset · · Score: 1

      NR Nick needs to get out more often.

      --

      Slashdot quality declines as the number of hot grits posts decreases. - Provolt's Law, Apr-09-2005

    54. Re:Simulated inorganic life .... by Speare · · Score: 1

      The human mind congeals around age 30.

      So mind's younger than that are still at a pudding-like consistency?

      If that's true, can you please learn how to use apostrophes properly before you turn thirty? Thanks.

      --
      [ .sig file not found ]
    55. Re:Simulated inorganic life .... by kalirion · · Score: 1

      Oh my God, I just realised that Paris Hilton would fail the Turing Test, therefore, she is a robot.

      No, she's only simulating a robot.

    56. Re:Simulated inorganic life .... by marcosdumay · · Score: 1

      Ok, rights granted. Put them to good use :)

      --
      Rethinking email
    57. Re:Simulated inorganic life .... by kalirion · · Score: 1

      Without the body, which generates desires and emotions, the simulated brain would have no need to behave in a human way, and therefore would not.

      "Desires" I give you, at least the ones based upon physical urges (hunger, lust, etc.) But emotions? I'm pretty sure those are generated by the brain.

    58. Re:Simulated inorganic life .... by makuabob · · Score: 1

      You could get a computer to simulate 409 cu. in. automobile engine,... but it couldn't torque a flea's leg!

    59. Re:Simulated inorganic life .... by inviolet · · Score: 1

      There is no evidence that the human mind "congeals" at 30. Saying so is simply inane. Just think Andrew Wiles.

      It is not a physiological phenomenon, it is psychological. Around age 30, most people subconsciously decide that "I have thought enough", and roll with their worldview for the rest of their life.

      Of course there are exceptions -- exceptional people who continue gathering data and revising their conclusions. Those are the people worth dating. :)

      --
      FATMOUSE + YOU = FATMOUSE
    60. Re:Simulated inorganic life .... by MarsDefenseMinister · · Score: 1

      You need a simulated flea.

      --
      No weapon in the arsenals of the world is so formidable as the will and moral courage of free men.-Ronald Reagan
    61. Re:Simulated inorganic life .... by rotor · · Score: 1

      In reality, yes, of course. Legally and socially are other matters entirely.

      What? Certainly there is more to qualifying as a human than the brain. And I'm not talking about legal and social matters. There's a whole lot of biology in there too...

      --
      Addlepated - punk & metal
    62. Re:Simulated inorganic life .... by MarsDefenseMinister · · Score: 1

      Let me help you nail this down with precision. I introduce the concept of "essential linkage" which means a transmission of the primary simulator function to and from the real world.

      Thus, an essential linkage of a flight simulator would transmit the simulator function to a real aircraft in the real world. And the simulator would receive transmissions of response from a real aircraft in the real world. As we all know, when we crash our aircraft in a simulation, no real aircraft is actually plowed into a field.

      Your simulation of a brain would have the essential linkage in a certain circumstance. The primary function of the simulation, the production of thoughts and the incorporation of stimuli, would have to be connected to the real world. Thus, your AI simulation would have to have an output (visual, audio, motion) in the real world through printers, screens, or robotic arms. But the simulation would also need input from cameras, microphones, etc in the real world.

      If we were running a brain simulation inside of a world which had no essential linkage to our own world, it would be the same general kind of simulation. Thus, there is an implication that any computer intelligence must be capable of interacting with the real world before it can be considered a real person. A disconnected AI with no essential linkage would not be a person from our perspective.

      --
      No weapon in the arsenals of the world is so formidable as the will and moral courage of free men.-Ronald Reagan
    63. Re:Simulated inorganic life .... by MarsDefenseMinister · · Score: 1

      Since consciousness requires neither sensory inputs nor outputs

      Why?

      --
      No weapon in the arsenals of the world is so formidable as the will and moral courage of free men.-Ronald Reagan
    64. Re:Simulated inorganic life .... by makuabob · · Score: 1

      and a simulated coupling to a simulated... Aw, let's let it go at that!

    65. Re:Simulated inorganic life .... by fyngyrz · · Score: 1
      That'll come as a surprise to a couple friends who spend their weekends flying around just for fun.

      No, truly, it won't. For them, point B is obviously in the sky, and they'd be the first to tell you so. And a flight simulator can't get them there.

      ...you'd have to simulate all of that crap, too, before you'd wind up with anything that you'd consider human

      Well, a couple of senses - sight, hearing - are enough to allow humans to lead very meaningful, stable lives. We can easily provide sight, hearing, speech, even touch right now. Plus others that are not normally in our realm of perception. As for the systems of the brain, simulation isn't the problem, actually knowing how things work is the problem. I don't think it's a technology problem at all, it's a lack of data problem. But I agree, and have already said, that it seems like it'll be quite a while before that is resolved.

      If you also simulated the whole person, and the effects of their environment (e.g. hunger) to give them urges and needs and wants -- then I suspect you might have a shot at simulating human intelligence.

      All physical urges and sensory regimes are in the end brain functions. All of them. Hunger, itching, pain, pressure, hearing, etc. No need to simulate the body. At the most, you provide a specific stimulus to the system. Mental urges, those that are a consequence of cognitive function, will arise on their own.

      --
      I've fallen off your lawn, and I can't get up.
    66. Re:Simulated inorganic life .... by johkir · · Score: 1

      Time to report to sleepshop

      --
      These are some of the things molecules do...... given 4 billion years -Carl Sagan
    67. Re:Simulated inorganic life .... by fyngyrz · · Score: 1
      A disconnected AI with no essential linkage would not be a person from our perspective.

      That's an ethically bankrupt outlook. That same outlook means a homeless person trapped in a mine unknown to anyone isn't a person either. If there is a conscious intelligence, regardless if it connects to us or not, that intelligence has value a a person. There is no other acceptable stance.

      --
      I've fallen off your lawn, and I can't get up.
    68. Re:Simulated inorganic life .... by JoeDuncan · · Score: 1

      Ok. 12?

    69. Re:Simulated inorganic life .... by zero_offset · · Score: 1

      No, truly, it won't. For them, point B is obviously in the sky, and they'd be the first to tell you so. And a flight simulator can't get them there.

      My point was that flying isn't simply a mode of transport. It is also a form of recreation, and flight simulators are a form of recreation. We agree they share a similarity in kind, but not in quality. The simulation of a brain would have the same effect -- it might give all the appearances of being "the real thing" and yet lack certain fundamental elements which means it falls short. But I don't believe it would get even that far.

      Why doesn't the flight sim yield the same experience as actual flight? Because being "in the sky" in real life is a visceral sensation -- it is a thing of the body, not the mind. Your brain might be the end-point, but the stimulus comes from the large, complex, disordered outside world. Any good-quality flight simulator will provide the mind with the exact same *intellectual* challenges that real-world flying would provide. If simulating the brain is all you need, then simulating flight is all you need, too -- yet the brains of my intelligent friends crave the physicality of flying in real life.

      I therefore believe that if you lack these inputs to this brain-simulation, you lack the capacity to correctly and accurately simulate the human experience -- and by extension, the interaction you describe: intelligent answers, intelligent speculation. Yet you claim:

      No need to simulate the body. At the most, you provide a specific stimulus to the system.

      This is contradictory. Your body is the source of the stimulus received by your brain. Perhaps instead of simulating a body, you could wire the brain sim to some kind of robot that could interact with and experience the world, but again we've moved far beyond merely simulating the brain to support the emergence of an unarguably human intelligence.

      All that being said, I can concede a very limited and specialized version of your assertions.

      Getting a little closer to what I think you're trying to say, perhaps instead we'd simply replay sensory input that was recorded from a real person (ignoring the fact that everyone is quite different and the question of whether this would even be possible). Assuming also an adequately sophisticated simulation of the brain, I suppose that might work once or even a few times, but if a truly human-level and human-like intelligence is possible, I would think that a sim would realize the experiences were being repeated, and once again you'd rapidly diverge from human-like experiences.

      In short, even the successful simulation of a human brain would not yield a human-like intelligence, because the experiences of that intellect would be dramatically different.

      Another possibility would seem to be the recorded stimuli combined with endlessly resetting the simulation, not allowing it to remember those pre-recorded sensory inputs. It would be a kind of stunted intelligence, incapable of learning, but perhaps very human-like for the short period before you had to reset it and start over. The obvious question becomes, is this very human-like at all? I feel sure it isn't the kind of interaction you intended to describe.

      If you ever have the opportunity to try a sensory deprivation tank, I urge you to give it a shot. I had some psych student friends in the college years and had the chance to participate in an experiment once. I was only in there for about an hour. It's fucked up and weird and unpleasant (I never met anyone who actually enjoyed it), but it'll quickly dispel any illusions that you're anything but a conglomeration of responses to varied and complex external stimuli.

      --

      Slashdot quality declines as the number of hot grits posts decreases. - Provolt's Law, Apr-09-2005

    70. Re:Simulated inorganic life .... by MarsDefenseMinister · · Score: 1

      That's an ethically bankrupt outlook. That same outlook means a homeless person trapped in a mine unknown to anyone isn't a person either.

      You'd come to that conclusion if you didn't understand my point. Or, you might come to that conclusion if you thought that the insides of mines weren't real (in the same level of implementation). Or, you might come to that conclusion if you thought that since you can't see things, they disappear. Or, you might come to that conclusion for any number of other reasons not listed here.

      But in any of those cases, you'd be wrong, since that's not even close to what I wrote.

      --
      No weapon in the arsenals of the world is so formidable as the will and moral courage of free men.-Ronald Reagan
    71. Re:Simulated inorganic life .... by fyngyrz · · Score: 1
      Because being "in the sky" in real life is a visceral sensation... yet the brains of my intelligent friends crave the physicality of flying in real life.

      No. In real life, it is a thing of being in a different place. Hovering in a helicopter, you're at one G, no movement. The point is you're in the sky, not on the ground. With a simulator, you're on the ground. And by the way, a good flight simulator can give you a very good set of motions that will give you the stimulation you're talking about, but it still doesn't give you what flying does, because you go nowhere. Flying is transport. Simulation of flying is not. That's why your friends prefer to fly.

      ...you lack the capacity to correctly and accurately simulate the human experience

      Listen to yourself. Are you saying a paraplegic isn't human? Are you saying Helen Keller or Beethoven weren't human? Stevie Wonder? An amputee? Being human isn't about what particular senses you can line up. If you think it is, we can't converse intelligently.

      This is contradictory. Your body is the source of the stimulus received by your brain.

      That does not mean that a simulation needs a body, however, or that intelligences without such stimulus are not human in any meaningful way. When I dream, I see things without the aid of my eyes. I hear things. I taste things, feel things, do things. That's because perception - all of it - is entirely brain function. We can create inputs for all the major senses, and it's not even a serious technical issue. So this point is moot in any case.

      In short, even the successful simulation of a human brain would not yield a human-like intelligence, because the experiences of that intellect would be dramatically different.

      Your premises are dreadfully flawed, and your conclusions no better. Your presumption that we can't feed sensory information is entirely wrong, as is your take that a complete, rock-standard human regime of input forms the basis for humanity; if a brain simulation can be done, input will not be a problem.

      --
      I've fallen off your lawn, and I can't get up.
    72. Re:Simulated inorganic life .... by fyngyrz · · Score: 1

      You said that "any computer intelligence must be capable of interacting with the real world before it can be considered a real person."

      I say, that is ethically bankrupt because it is a statement with no meaningful difference from "any intelligence must be capable of interacting with the real world before it can be considered a real person."

      You don't have anywhere to go; you dug the hole yourself.

      --
      I've fallen off your lawn, and I can't get up.
    73. Re:Simulated inorganic life .... by fyngyrz · · Score: 1
      Certainly there is more to qualifying as a human than the brain. And I'm not talking about legal and social matters. There's a whole lot of biology in there too...

      Really? If we surgically lift your brain from your body and connect it to artificial sensory inputs and then ask if you are human, you are saying you would answer "no"? If so, what are you at that point? And of course, after having done that, if we ask your now brainless body (presumably on life support as well) a question, what answer do you expect it to give?

      If we amputate your leg, are you now not human? Both legs? Both legs and your arms? Cut you off at the neck? Poke out your eyes? remove your eardrums? When do you think that loss of biological function (or perhaps being born without it as in congenital defects) crosses the line into not being human?

      I take the view that none of that makes any difference. At all. You're human because you can think and because the general ability to think that you possess is vaguely similar to the ability that the rest of us possess. No more, no less. Being human casts a wide net. Babies are human. Paraplegics are human. Even Hitler, Stalin, Bush and McCarthy qualify as fully human. And should a computer be able to think like we do, then it is just as human as we are.

      --
      I've fallen off your lawn, and I can't get up.
    74. Re:Simulated inorganic life .... by zero_offset · · Score: 1

      I'm pretty sure my friends wouldn't be that excited about flying if all they did was hover in a helicopter, utterly motionless. That example is irrelevant and clearly isn't what I meant, but if I must be pedantic, the point is the sensation and experience of the act, part of which is being there, and part of which is the physicality of actually flying. Coincidentally, I had a friend who worked at the big Boeing flight sim center down in Orlando. He could fly some of the best simulators in the world all day, every day -- yet he still preferred the real thing. Even the simple knowledge that you're there and doing it for real has an impact. This is not a drill: if simulation was adequate, that phrase would be unnecessary. It's exactly the same with my hobby, which is sports car racing. I could save a hell of a lot of money by racing go-karts, for example, but it isn't remotely the same experience, even though mechanically the process is virtually identical, and the skillsets are directly comparable. "Going somewhere" or simply being somewhere is irrelevant. It's the sensations which make it worthwhile.

      The sum total of the input of the world around you plays a major role in defining your world view, and without this common point of reference, it is my belief that the end-result won't be recognizably human, even if it is intelligent by some abstract measure. One can therefore conclude that you can't produce a human-like intelligence without the stimuli of the physical world. No, these experiences aren't the totality, but it's a critical part, and you can't simulate one without the other.

      I had a feeling you'd go for the Helen Keller argument, and really, what is the point? She gained a profound understanding of the world around her through her sense of touch, and she still had many of the other human inputs which are a direct result of being a living person. She lacked the two most important senses, but she still had a tremendous range of physical interaction with the world. The important thing is that there were at least shreds of common ground with the experiences of other human beings, and many forms of constant physical contact with them and everything else in her world. She is clearly a human being. I do question how much difficulty someone might have in identifying her as a human being if all you had to interact with was a simulation of her brain -- you could probably conclude the simulation was intelligent, but the very unusual nature of her experiences would lead you to question whether she was human -- which ironically makes her a great argument for my position: the physical inputs of the real world have a profound effect on the nature of how the human mind works.

      I didn't say the simulation needs a body, I said the simulation needs the inputs of a body in order to produce an intelligence we can recognize as human. That violates the original premise you support: that a brain simulation alone is adequate. Even though you claim that I don't, in my response I do proceed to allow methods for providing those inputs of the body. The point is not moot, because your premise was that the simulation of a brain alone was adequate. If you allow that it is inadequate, then we agree, and the exact means by which that input is simulated is irrelevant.

      My premise isn't flawed. It's simple: we are not beings of pure thought. The rote physical activities of our brain are inadequate to reproduce or even maintain the sum total of what we are.

      Consider it from another angle:

      Either this simulation has to begin with the simulation of an immature brain and simulate the process of learning and growing, or the simulation has to begin with some kind of copy or image of an existing brain, and "run" from the point at which the copy was made. Either is plausible since the level of simulation being discussed should inevitably be capable of coping with learning and physical change.

      I hold that an immature brain will not develop into a recognizably human intelligence without various physical

      --

      Slashdot quality declines as the number of hot grits posts decreases. - Provolt's Law, Apr-09-2005

    75. Re:Simulated inorganic life .... by MarsDefenseMinister · · Score: 1

      Are you really that stupid?

      Mines are the real world. That's why real people dig mines. That's why real people work in mines. I'm a real person and I've been to a mine.

      Existence in the real world is a stronger than an essential linkage that a simulation might have with the real world.

      --
      No weapon in the arsenals of the world is so formidable as the will and moral courage of free men.-Ronald Reagan
    76. Re:Simulated inorganic life .... by spiderfinger · · Score: 1

      I think emotion is generated through more of a complex interaction between environment, our perception, our brain, our central nervous system and our bodies. I think my original statement was an oversimplification, but I wanted to counter the general assumption that seems to abound amongst AI people that a human-like sentience can be simulated simply by simulating intelligence or the brain. If you think about some of the basic emotions, it seems that they involve environment, our perception, our brain, our central nervous system and our bodies interacting and feeding off one another to produce a response - e.g. fight, flight, or keep doing what we are doing (it feels good). e.g. There's a tiger around. I see it through my eyes (body). I recognize it as a tiger (brain). I know that I will experience physical pain if the tiger attacks me (brain, but only relevant if I have a body). I fear the physical pain. I run. Would I feel fear if there was no potential physical pain involved (e.g. if I had no body)? Another (extreme) example: Prozac > Mouth > Stomach > Blood stream > Brain > Happiness (generated from environment via body).

    77. Re:Simulated inorganic life .... by fyngyrz · · Score: 1

      So, you think computers exist in a fairytale fantasy? Mines are real, but computers are ethereal phantasms cooked up by the superstitious? Programs aren't switching real states in real machinery? It's all [waves hands vaguely] imaginary?

      Look; a thinking mind is a thinking mind. In that sense, it makes no difference if it is established in a human, a computer, or another venue we haven't thought up yet, or if we discover it in another species. Either you respect intelligence or you don't. I do. So I'm never going to agree with your idea that lack of communications magically imbues an intelligence with irrelevance.

      --
      I've fallen off your lawn, and I can't get up.
    78. Re:Simulated inorganic life .... by PermanentMarker · · Score: 1

      How can you tell your not a virtualy simulated software agent?

      (Matrix)

      --
      I know you're out there. I can feel you now. I know that you're afraid. You're afraid of us. You're afraid of change.
    79. Re:Simulated inorganic life .... by jc42 · · Score: 1

      The "Chinese Room" always makes me think of examples such as the one analyzed in this article. Look through the archive at engrish.com for many, many more examples, many quite funny. Here's one of my favorites. (How would an AI - or a human - know that this isn't the correct translation, unless they had and understood a lot of the context? It is a valid translation of the two characters, after all. ;-)

      The ongoing attempts to make computers handle human languages keep falling afoul of this sort of problem. The above article uses the term "dictionaryitis" to characterize such translations, which are especially common with Chinese.

      But it's a good, reliable source of humor.

      Recently, foreigners in China have been lamenting the fact that, with the expected surge of tourism during the 2008 Olympics, Beijing has been redoing a lot of their bilingual signs. The improved translations have eliminated a lot of the fun of reading signs while travelling around the area.

      --
      Those who do study history are doomed to stand helplessly by while everyone else repeats it.
    80. Re:Simulated inorganic life .... by MarsDefenseMinister · · Score: 1

      I'm glad you're not going to agree with that idea. I don't agree with it either. I never said it.

      This communication seems to be one long string of assumptions about what I said, and a failure on your part to ask questions. What I wrote was actually quite complicated, and it's not a complete description by any means. If you're going to draw conclusions from it, then you're going to look stupid.

      Let me tease you here: A simulated 747 inside a computer isn't real to us. It's in a different level of implementation, and it lacks the essential linkage to our level of implementation which would make it a real 747. But, if I were in the same level of implementation, for example, if a single computer were simulating both the 747 and ME, then this 747 would be a real 747.

      There, don't you feel stupid now? You read the abstract and thought it was a complete idea. Even this additional information doesn't explain everything. Jerk.

      --
      No weapon in the arsenals of the world is so formidable as the will and moral courage of free men.-Ronald Reagan
    81. Re:Simulated inorganic life .... by ultranova · · Score: 1

      Of course there are exceptions -- exceptional people who continue gathering data and revising their conclusions. Those are the people worth dating. :)

      I find it highly propable that all the people worth dating are already taken by the time they turn 30. Besides, merely changing your opinions easily doesn't make you worth dating; in fact it might make you a particularly difficult person, since one can never know what to expect from you.

      Sigh. I'm 28 and have never dated :(. I guess I'm an evolutionary dead-end, so to say...

      --

      Forget magic. Any technology distinguishable from divine power is insufficiently advanced.

    82. Re:Simulated inorganic life .... by robably · · Score: 1

      You could get a computer to simulate 409 cu. in. automobile engine,... but it couldn't torque a flea's leg!

      and a simulated coupling to a simulated... Aw, let's let it go at that!
      A computer simulation of intelligence (AI) is fundamentally the same thing as a brain - a physical object which is supporting an electrical computation. It is another form of intelligence itself, not just a simulation of it.

      An engine is a physical object and a computer simulation of it is the equivalent of someone thinking about an engine. This is why a simulation of an engine cannot do the work of a real engine, but a simulation of intelligence could do the work of a brain.
    83. Re:Simulated inorganic life .... by fyngyrz · · Score: 1

      You're a legend in your own mind, no question about it. But you're still 100% wrong. You can't eliminate a basic problem by abstracting parts of it. When (ok, if) you learn that, you'll make better arguments. As for the "jerk" comment, right-o. A legend in your own mind, indeed.

      --
      I've fallen off your lawn, and I can't get up.
    84. Re:Simulated inorganic life .... by MarsDefenseMinister · · Score: 1

      You didn't even read what I wrote, and you're pretending I said things I did not.

      Yep, you're a superstar!

      --
      No weapon in the arsenals of the world is so formidable as the will and moral courage of free men.-Ronald Reagan
    85. Re:Simulated inorganic life .... by rotor · · Score: 1

      I know you're not supposed to feed the trolls, but man, that's some ridiculous text I just read there... Scientifically speaking, a human is a member of the Homo Sapiens species. That's what I was referring to when I mentioned biology. You can cut a human apart and it's still a human, but a computer that's programmed to "think" like a human is not a human.

      --
      Addlepated - punk & metal
    86. Re:Simulated inorganic life .... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Don't you hate it when that happens.

  2. Mostly Water by kannibal_klown · · Score: 5, Funny

    Great, I may live to hear some alien life form call us "ugly bags of mostly water." Just don't let them near the laser drill.

    1. Re:Mostly Water by Tuscahoma · · Score: 1

      You may have to wait a long time. According to this article on the same subject from New Scientist, the plasma-crystal processes underlying such aliens would run more than a hundred thousand times more slowly than the biochemistry of Earth.

    2. Re:Mostly Water by dafragsta · · Score: 1

      Aaah, but Earth is a fairly young planet and we really have no way of knowing if there aren't civilizations or creatures that are billions of years old.

    3. Re:Mostly Water by kalirion · · Score: 2

      I'm leaning towards "Sentient meat" myself.

    4. Re:Mostly Water by Tuscahoma · · Score: 4, Funny

      No, I mean he will have to wait a long time to hear it.... living dust whose life processes moves hundreds of thousands of times slower than organic chemical process will take a long time to say anything. I envision the conversation going like this:

      Day 1
        Dusty: "Ugly..."
        Scientist: "Yes, yes?"
      Day 2
        Dusty: "...bags..."
        Scientist: "Okay."
      Day 3
        Dusty: "...of..."
        Scientist: "For the love of God, somebody shoot me!"
      etc...

    5. Re:Mostly Water by mrbooze · · Score: 1

      Ah, so they're Ents? We just need to find the young impulsive Quickbeam alien.

    6. Re:Mostly Water by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Ok so he will speak like a non-native english speaker!
      U-G-L-Y *long pause* B-A-G *long pause* ...

      You know, like a non-native, like an alien!

      Oh, I said alien! What are the chances! :)

    7. Re:Mostly Water by UncleTogie · · Score: 1

      No, I mean he will have to wait a long time to hear it.... living dust whose life processes moves hundreds of thousands of times slower than organic chemical process will take a long time to say anything.

      Fun episode! A thought, and one paralleled in the old Alpha Centauri sim:

      While each lifeform may individually run slower than realtime, could a collective parallel effort achieve a real-time result?

      --
      Don't tell me to get a life. I'm a gamer; I have LOTS of lives!
    8. Re:Mostly Water by amRadioHed · · Score: 1

      How exactly does a lifeform not run in realtime?

      --
      We hope your rules and wisdom choke you / Now we are one in everlasting peace
    9. Re:Mostly Water by UncleTogie · · Score: 1

      Rephrasing: Communicating with us in a human-centric timeframe.

      --
      Don't tell me to get a life. I'm a gamer; I have LOTS of lives!
    10. Re:Mostly Water by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Some of us are beautiful bags of mostly water, you insensitive clod!

  3. Black Cloud by dhuff · · Score: 4, Insightful

    Ooooo...shades of Fred Hoyle's The Black Cloud !

    1. Re:Black Cloud by Darren+Hiebert · · Score: 1

      So glad to see someone else is familiar with Hoyle's wonderful science fiction!

    2. Re:Black Cloud by styrotech · · Score: 1

      I was thinking more of Hactar :)

    3. Re:Black Cloud by Grail · · Score: 1

      That book was the very first thing I thought of when reading the article.

  4. Infinite diversity or universe alive? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    If you have an (almost) infinite quantity of space and matter, then the chances of things like that happening due to chance are sort of inevitable.
    Then again, maybe the entire UNIVERSE is alive!

    1. Re:Infinite diversity or universe alive? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      It clearly is a proof of god!

    2. Re:Infinite diversity or universe alive? by glitch23 · · Score: 1

      If you have an (almost) infinite quantity of space and matter, then the chances of things like that happening due to chance are sort of inevitable. Then again, maybe the entire UNIVERSE is alive!

      You would be right except for the small problem of the chances of it happening are so small that even given eternity the probability of things like that happening is essentially 0 (1 in 10^200). If you want references I have them. There are just too many things that need to happen in just the right order at just the right time that the chances are too small to begin with for those occurrences to happen by chance. You have a better chance of having always played the Powerball lottery your whole life and one day buying a single ticket, playing all 1s and actually stating that this time you will win the jackpot, and then actually winning.

      Put another way and assuming chance was nice to us once already, if it is so inevitable, then why, even in our local Solar System, did it only happen once? Why have we not found another Earth somewhere else in the observable universe? If chances are low but there are so many locations throughout the universe (to offset the low chances of a *particular* location having life exist by chance) where those chances can come alive, why did they only come alive in 1 location (assuming your chance theory again is the cause)?

      --
      this nation, under God, shall have a new birth of freedom. -- Lincoln, Gettysburg Address
    3. Re:Infinite diversity or universe alive? by Ihlosi · · Score: 1
      Put another way and assuming chance was nice to us once already, if it is so inevitable, then why, even in our local Solar System, did it only happen once?



      We haven't combed through all the corners of our own solar system yet. But even if we come up empty, we already know that we have one direct hit and several near misses - and that's just one solar system out of ... lots.



      Why have we not found another Earth somewhere else in the observable universe?



      Because, right now, we're essentially blind, deaf, and wearing boxing gloves while looking for a dozen needles in a haystack. Heck, we know that there are _tons_ of planets out there (with our primitive measurements, we've found quite a bunch of them) - we've just had the means to discover the more obvious ones (large planets in short-duration orbits, transiting planets) for only ten years.


      We couldn't find a exact copy of Earth if it circled around a star just 30 ly from us with out present methods, unless we got exceptionally lucky and it was transiting.

    4. Re:Infinite diversity or universe alive? by NoOneInParticular · · Score: 1

      Oh, do please give references! On second thought: unless they contain a comprehensive theory of all possible configurations of matter that can self-replicate, and provide the integral over all that to estimate the probability of life, don't bother. Anthropic principle and all that.

    5. Re:Infinite diversity or universe alive? by glitch23 · · Score: 1

      The anthropic principle is a worthless cop-out full of circular logic that doesn't explain anything. The universe is the way it is because if it wasn't we wouldn't be here. That doesn't explain anything. It's strange that people who are pro-evolution always state that there was time for life to evolve but they never prove how. You'll never find them showing all possible configurations using integrals and they are the ones who have to provide the evidence considering it's their own theory and conjecture they have to support.

      --
      this nation, under God, shall have a new birth of freedom. -- Lincoln, Gettysburg Address
    6. Re:Infinite diversity or universe alive? by NoOneInParticular · · Score: 1
      Sorry about invoking the anthropic principle, a brief search reveals that people have widely divergent interpretations of that one. What I meant in this context is that as far as we know life on Earth is just a single configuration of all possible configurations of life. The theory is that you need non-perfect self-replicators to start things off. Nothing about exact chemistry involved, life is an information theoretic notion. At least in theory.

      The fact that we are the ones witnessing life (our own) often leads to the mistaken assumption that only chemical configurations mimicking ours are capable of sustaining life. Calculating probabilities of that particular chemical configuration in this location reaching the threshold of life is uninformative as there might be billions of different configurations and billions upon billions of locations that have what it takes to sustain life. Unless we have a good theory of all these billions of configurations and billions of locations, there is no point in calculating the point probability. The point probabilities can be infinitesimally small, but can still be numerous enough -- by integrating over all possible configurations and locations -- to be almost certain that life has occurred somewhere. That it then occurred here would be certain (that's the version of the anthropic principle I was alluding to).

      Calculating point probabilities this way is as if someone is calculating the probability of winning the pan-galactic super sweepstake. As individual odds are 10^30 to one against, the researcher concludes that it is impossible that the sweepstake will ever have a winner. Unfortunately for the researcher, the number of contestants is also exactly 10^30, and there is certainly a winner (with 10^30 to 1 odds against his win).

  5. I can't believe... by zig007 · · Score: 2, Funny

    ..that no one has yet welcomed our new dusty interstellar overlords!
    Well if no one else does, I, for one, will.

    -------------------
    My god man, do they want tea?

    --
    Baboons are cute.
    1. Re:I can't believe... by MiniMike · · Score: 0

      I, for one, welcome our simulated interstellar overlords- no, not right.

      I, for one, simulate welcoming our interstellar... no, not right.

      I, for one, wel oh forget it.

      MEME OVER

    2. Re:I can't believe... by sjs132 · · Score: 1

      Not overlords... Don't you watch TNG.. It's the crystalline Entity...

      http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Datalore_(TNG_episode )

      Move along, You will not find any Wil Wheaton Jokes here....

      --
      --- Relax, that mass muderer is just trying to reduce our carbon footprint, one fetus at a time...
    3. Re:I can't believe... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      I, for one, will find out exactly what they eat before welcoming anyone...

  6. Sounds like prions which explains a lot by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    We are all suffering from mad universe disease.

  7. Pink Floyd actually predicted this. by tulsaoc3guy · · Score: 2, Insightful

    Under the "right conditions" interstellar pigs can also fly.

  8. Organic does not mean "alive" by andy314159pi · · Score: 4, Interesting

    Organic doesn't mean biological! Organic chemistry, which is the bread and butter of modern chemistry, really has very little to do with life. It's the science of synthesizing new molecules which use carbon as its framework (as well as oxygen, nitrogen and other elements.) So things that are alive are always organic, but things that are organic are not always alive!

    1. Re:Organic does not mean "alive" by Ramble · · Score: 0

      Did you even read the summary? It states that these molecules form structures close to other biological structures like DNA, and that they exibit some behavours of life, such as replication. It never said they were mearly simple organic molecules, of which we already know exist in intersteller dust.

      --
      "Oh boy"
    2. Re:Organic does not mean "alive" by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      So things that are alive are always organic Unless this simulation has played out anywhere in the universe.
    3. Re:Organic does not mean "alive" by Just+Some+Guy · · Score: 2, Insightful

      So things that are alive here on Earth, as far as we know, are always organic

      Fixed that.

      --
      Dewey, what part of this looks like authorities should be involved?
    4. Re:Organic does not mean "alive" by andy314159pi · · Score: 1

      usually associated with organic compounds and with life
      That was what I was referring to. Maybe we read different summaries.
    5. Re:Organic does not mean "alive" by Chris+Burke · · Score: 2, Informative

      "usually associated with organic compounds and with life"

      So you make a post about the distinction between "organic" and "life", motivated by a phrase in the summary which... made a distinction between "organic" and "life".

      Eh, okay. At least someone thought it was informative, so perhaps someone was informed.

      --

      The enemies of Democracy are
    6. Re:Organic does not mean "alive" by freeweed · · Score: 1

      Exactly. Organic means that no pesticides or herbicides were used in making it.

      And I thought operator-overloading in C++ made things confusing...

      --
      Endless arguments over trivial contradictions in books written by ignorant savages to explain thunder in the dark.
    7. Re:Organic does not mean "alive" by andy314159pi · · Score: 1

      About half of the posts on slashdot are comments about the summary.

    8. Re:Organic does not mean "alive" by Chris+Burke · · Score: 1

      Yeah, and about half of those are people who didn't even read the summary correctly.

      For example, you posted about how "organic" is distinct from "alive" as though the summary did not make this distinction. However the summary did make that distinction, as the very part you quoted shows.

      --

      The enemies of Democracy are
    9. Re:Organic does not mean "alive" by David+Gould · · Score: 1

      And I thought operator-overloading in C++ made things confusing... It does.
      --
      David Gould
      main(i){putchar(340056100>>(i-1)*5&31|!!(i<6)<< 6)&&main(++i);}
    10. Re:Organic does not mean "alive" by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      it's called Karma whoring so fucking get over it.

    11. Re:Organic does not mean "alive" by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      And I thought operator-overloading in C++ made things confusing...
      It does.

      Only if you, or the people you work with are morons.

    12. Re:Organic does not mean "alive" by Chris+Burke · · Score: 1

      And I shouldn't make fun of stupid karma whores... why?

      --

      The enemies of Democracy are
    13. Re:Organic does not mean "alive" by Bonobo_Unknown · · Score: 1

      Almost: Organic chemistry refers to the chemistry of Carbon, Hydrogen, Oxygen etc yes. Things on this planet that are alive, animals, plants etc are alive and their chemistry is organic. Some life form based on another set of atoms would not be organic and yet be alive.

      So not everything that is alive is necessarily organic, and not everything that is organic is necessarily alive.

      --
      We don't believe in radical loony monotheistic religions from the middle east -- we're Christians.
  9. Okay, which Star Trek episodes are relevant here? by CityZen · · Score: 3, Funny

    Because if you can't relate everything you learn to Star Trek, then does it really exist?

  10. Simulated the GPL.* by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    That and viruses already do all that and no one gets all excited about them.

    *I kid, I kid.

  11. Peaceful dust? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Funny

    If the dust decides to invade Earth (the next John Carpenter flick, The Dust), duct tape your door and window seams and arm yourself with a Swiffer and bottle of Pledge.

    1. Re:Peaceful dust? by Chris+Burke · · Score: 1

      He basically already made that movie, it was called Ghosts of Mars. The "Ghosts" appeared as a cloud of red dust when they escape a possessed human who had been killed.

      Under the theory that all movies are actually documentaries -- 1) we're all screwed because every time you kill someone the Dust has taken over, it just moves on to the next person, apparently getting us to commit self-genocide and 2) it will still be very stupid and boring when it happens.

      --

      The enemies of Democracy are
  12. panspermia by wambaugh · · Score: 4, Funny

    That's it. I just wanted to make a post with "panspermia" as the subject. You've got to sieze such opportunities whenever they arise...

    1. Re:panspermia by pla · · Score: 1

      That's it. I just wanted to make a post with "panspermia" as the subject. You've got to sieze such opportunities whenever they arise...

      Fair enough, but consider your audience... Some may not realize that "panspermia" applies to interstellar seeding of similar life (in our case, encoded as aperiodic carbon-based crystals, "Just add water"). The dust in question, whether alive or not, couldn't have seeded us, because we have just about as little in common as chemically possible.

      "Won't someone think of the children!" ;-)

    2. Re:panspermia by Jaxoreth · · Score: 1

      You've got to sieze such opportunities whenever they arise...
      I do. I just wish that, at least once in a while, someone else would seize my 'opportunity' when it arose.
      --
      In general, it is safe and legal to kill your children. -- POSIX Programmer's Guide
    3. Re:panspermia by E++99 · · Score: 1

      Some may not realize that "panspermia" applies to interstellar seeding of similar life (in our case, encoded as aperiodic carbon-based crystals, "Just add water"). The dust in question, whether alive or not, couldn't have seeded us, because we have just about as little in common as chemically possible.

      The way I understand it, it could be practically any kind of dust, including organic. If this process could occur with organic molecules, it could go a VERY long way towards explaining the development of organic life forms.
    4. Re:panspermia by invalid_user · · Score: 1

      My father is an alien, you insensitive clod!

    5. Re:panspermia by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      An unstated postulate of parent post is that life could not possibly cross a major chemical barrier.

      Yet a series of pits on a CD, a rough spiral groove in a vinyl platter, and a pattern of squiggles of ink on paper are all recognizable as the same Beethoven symphony, despite the method of recording the pattern or the substrate that is used.

      Recognizable life might be the same. Certainly when you start looking at the differences between something that is alive, and the same thing a moment later, after it is dead, it seems like the critical difference has to do with a break in a pattern that might be as independent of its method of instantiation as the music is independent of the media it is stored upon.

      --
      I have found that it is best not to linger long in certain mental states: I need another beer.

    6. Re:panspermia by pla · · Score: 1

      Yet a series of pits on a CD, a rough spiral groove in a vinyl platter, and a pattern of squiggles of ink on paper are all recognizable as the same Beethoven symphony, despite the method of recording the pattern or the substrate that is used.

      True - Given the preexistance of complex translation equipment (in your example, a CD player and a human, respectively).

      When trying to explain the first life on Earth, you (probably) wouldn't call it sufficient to say that a few billion years ago a CD containing the genetic code for E. Coli arrived on earth carried by a comet. The same applies for this hypothetical form of life... Sure, it sounds pretty cool that plasma may contain a type of life. But using that as an origin of life on Earth puts the carriage before the horse - For it to explain us presupposes some translation mechanism already in place.



      it seems like the critical difference has to do with a break in a pattern that might be as independent of its method of instantiation as the music is independent of the media it is stored upon.

      I agree here - The quality we call "life", if it has any meaning at all beyond "similar enough to us", does not depend on the medium. But that doesn't mean the CD player can build itself just by the mere presence of the CD.

      Now, I would grant one concession to this - If we accept this form of life as sentient, it could have deliberately copied itself into a radically different form (similar to humans trying to create a hard AI). But that goes somewhere bordering on religion rather than science.

  13. Or maybe... by spun · · Score: 5, Funny

    Maybe our universe is just a simulation, running inside a simulation, in a much bigger universe that itself is just a molecule in an even bigger universe that is just a molecule in that cloud of pot smoke you just exhaled. Ever think of that?

    --
    - None can love freedom heartily, but good men; the rest love not freedom, but license. -- John Milton
    1. Re:Or maybe... by Pojut · · Score: 5, Funny

      Ever think of that?


      Look at my sig. What do you think?
      --
      Living With a Nerd
    2. Re:Or maybe... by jombeewoof · · Score: 1

      did you read the last chapter of the Gunslinger while high again?
      It's not pot smoke, it's a blade of grass... or a rose.

      --
      Linux Zealots: Smarter than Mac Zealots, but still zealots.
    3. Re:Or maybe... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      maybe even someone else's simulation!?

    4. Re:Or maybe... by mastermemorex · · Score: 1

      Look close and you will see that this dot contains a whole universe -->.--

    5. Re:Or maybe... by monopole · · Score: 1

      Damn, imagine a beowulf cluster of those molecules!

    6. Re:Or maybe... by ajs · · Score: 1

      Maybe our universe is just a simulation, running inside a simulation, in a much bigger universe that itself is just a molecule in an even bigger universe that is just a molecule in that cloud of pot smoke you just exhaled. Ever think of that? That's a quote from something... I know I've heard it before....
    7. Re:Or maybe... by jovius · · Score: 1

      Imagination is part of the structure of the universe, which however is vastly more mysterious. Imagining things makes them true, because they have a solid form of existence in our mind, although these vibrations can rarely be shared with each other directly, and we have to write comments on Slashdot. The theories one can come up with are based on the amazingly narrow view of the vibrative complexity, the space to which we have grown, and of which the humans have formed their own reality, which is mostly filled with the complexity of our own self.

    8. Re:Or maybe... by spun · · Score: 1

      There are many possible futures, with varying probabilities that we will end up in any particular one from here. When one creates a model of a possible future, one is creating a link between this present and that possible future, thus making it more likely that that will be the path the universe takes. That's hardly trippy at all. What is beaucoup trippy is that all possible pasts that lead to this present, and do not contradict any observations already made, exist in some sense and there is no direct link between any given past and this present unless everything about this present is known. One can change the past, not by changing it, but by changing which past is more or less directly linked to this present. But playing around at changing the past or influencing the future is a trap, and not worth the time of any serious practitioner. I'll leave figuring out the reason why that is true as an exercise for the reader.

      --
      - None can love freedom heartily, but good men; the rest love not freedom, but license. -- John Milton
    9. Re:Or maybe... by spun · · Score: 1

      Yes, but it's not a quote from this universe. I believe I read it in "Universal Simulation for Godlike Dummies."

      --
      - None can love freedom heartily, but good men; the rest love not freedom, but license. -- John Milton
    10. Re:Or maybe... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0
      It's already been written as a Sci-Fi novel: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Permutation_City by Greg Egen.

      Eventually, Egan formulates the "dust" theory of reality, arguing that our universe could be but an algorithm running without the need of any physical substrate.
    11. Re:Or maybe... by llamaxing · · Score: 1

      or maybe our universe is a big bag of marbles?

    12. Re:Or maybe... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Look at my cig!

      Okay, that was lame.

  14. err so the computer is alive? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    they created life inside of a computer..... great. dont these people watch any science fiction shows? next thing you know, the computers will form labor unions, demand rights, and form their own defense committees.

  15. Obligatory HK-47 by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1, Funny

    Commentary: The meatbag speaks without clarity. Detail your involvement or the master will splatter your organs all over the floor.

  16. Hmm, life in the suns by Colin+Smith · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Lots of them out there... We could be the strange and unusual forms of life in the universe...

    --
    Deleted
    1. Re:Hmm, life in the suns by jombeewoof · · Score: 1

      Only humans could be so arrogant that we would consider ourselves the premier life form in the universe.
      There has to be something else that is alive out there somewhere, and I would be very sad to see that we are the most advanced species.

      TFA is just a simulation, but I would imagine that some kind of strange life exists between the stars. I guess it's time to start sending people to other galaxies to find alternate forms of life.
      They'll (the other forms of life) will need lawyers, lets send the lawyers out first. Then the religious nuts, alien life forms need religion too.
      Maybe in a hundred years, when we've figured out how to send people into way outer space without them dying we can send the scientists, but for now lets just send the lawyers, and religious nuts.

      --
      Linux Zealots: Smarter than Mac Zealots, but still zealots.
    2. Re:Hmm, life in the suns by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      How did you make that judgment that only humans could be so arrogant? Do you know other sapient beings besides humans?

    3. Re:Hmm, life in the suns by bcguitar33 · · Score: 2, Funny

      Only humans could so self-deprecating as to assume that we're the only species who could be so arrogant as to consider ourselves the premier life form in the universe.

    4. Re:Hmm, life in the suns by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Only humans could be so arrogant that we would consider ourselves the premier life form in the universe. Oh I highly doubt this. If survival of the fittest type evolution plays out elsewhere in the universe, I would not be surprised if the end result is naturally selfish, greedy and arrogant. These are traits we developed because of evolution, not in spite of it. They are unnecessary traits now, but back before society existed being a jerk probably meant you survived a lot longer than Mr Altruism.

      I expect this result is true in any environment where there is something bigger than you that wants to consume you. And if there isn't, then there will be no pressure to develop higher intellegence anyway. It's a catch-22.
    5. Re:Hmm, life in the suns by jombeewoof · · Score: 1

      Good point, maybe we're not quite as arrogant as I thought we were.
      Still though, we're pretty arrogant.

      --
      Linux Zealots: Smarter than Mac Zealots, but still zealots.
    6. Re:Hmm, life in the suns by Skreems · · Score: 1

      That's not true in the least. Biologists have found altruistic behaviors in a number of lower species in the wild.

      --
      Slashdot needs a "-1, Wrong" moderation option.
      The Urban Hippie
    7. Re:Hmm, life in the suns by Ambiguous+Puzuma · · Score: 2, Funny

      Only humans could be so arrogant as to assume that only humans could be so self-deprecating as to assume that we're the only species that could be so arrogant as to...where was I?

    8. Re:Hmm, life in the suns by jombeewoof · · Score: 1

      Interesting point,

      But would further evolution bring out more of the selfish, greedy arrogant nature of being or would generosity and kindness etc... be more of the order of the day.
      For societies much more advanced than ours of course.
      I'm not sure if we as a society are heading in the generous, kind direction.

      --
      Linux Zealots: Smarter than Mac Zealots, but still zealots.
    9. Re:Hmm, life in the suns by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Biologists have found altruistic behaviors in a number of lower species in the wild. Uh, that was the point. Of course you can find altruistic behavior in LOWER species. The point was that to evolve beyond that stage and develop HIGHER intellect, altruism isn't the best trait to have.

      The idea is that you will only evolve higher intellect if there are external pressures (like a big frickin' tiger that wants to eat you). The same pressures usually ensure that selfish animals survive longer than altruistic animals. Maybe the advantage is small, but over millions of years it adds up.
    10. Re:Hmm, life in the suns by dubbreak · · Score: 1

      So we would be the eczema/zits/rash of the universe?

      Poor earth must get made fun of by all the surrounding planets, stars, satellites etc.

      Earth's moon had the start-ups of an infection, but it was only present a short time (the scars are still there though).

      --
      "If you are going through hell, keep going." - Winston Churchill
    11. Re:Hmm, life in the suns by Skreems · · Score: 4, Insightful

      They've also found altruistic behavior in the higher primates. The point is, a certain amount of selfishness is probably beneficial, but animals of any level of intelligence can do better if they have a certain amount of cooperation with the rest of the group. Evolution absolutely does not push creatures towards pure selfishness. A balance of the two is logically the most likely to survive, and observed behavior in the wild tends to back that up.

      --
      Slashdot needs a "-1, Wrong" moderation option.
      The Urban Hippie
    12. Re:Hmm, life in the suns by E++99 · · Score: 2

      Only humans could be so arrogant that we would consider ourselves the premier life form in the universe.

      How very arrogant to assume that only humans could be so arrogant.
    13. Re:Hmm, life in the suns by micpp · · Score: 1

      Only the Sith deal in absolutes.

    14. Re:Hmm, life in the suns by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Great, now the grandparent post is in trouble. He has to know ALL other sapient beings to prove his conjecture. God I hate the "for all" quantifier.

    15. Re:Hmm, life in the suns by Colin+Smith · · Score: 1

      The point was that to evolve beyond that stage and develop HIGHER intellect, altruism isn't the best trait to have. It pays to be altruistic towards family in particular. It helps ensure your genes and those who share them are more likely to survive than those who are purely selfish. Co-operation is also an evolved phenomenon.

      The idea is that you will only evolve higher intellect if there are external pressures (like a big frickin' tiger that wants to eat you). Evolution favours those who can breed, not those who can escape tigers. Access to females for instance may require co-operation from other males to defeat an incumbent male.

      --
      Deleted
    16. Re:Hmm, life in the suns by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Usually co-operation is beneficial not just to the group but to you as well due to their tit-for-tat behavior. Even when you don't know whether it gets noticed at all it pays off in average. Isn't that pretty selfish?

  17. Evil by mfh · · Score: 1

    Clearly this is an early formation of an EVIL BEING. Destroy it!!!!

    --
    The dangers of knowledge trigger emotional distress in human beings.
    1. Re:Evil by Jaxoreth · · Score: 2, Funny

      Clearly this is an early formation of an EVIL BEING. Destroy it!!!!

      Yeah! Blast it into bits of dust!

      Oh, wait...

      --
      In general, it is safe and legal to kill your children. -- POSIX Programmer's Guide
  18. Interesting by edwardpickman · · Score: 1

    Doesn't this mean the odds are even higher that life could evolve in space than even on planets? Maybe not higher lifeforms but simple ones. Resources are sparce so the formation and life processes would be slow but looking at the shear volume of material and area involved the odds should be much higher that life itself and not just the elements of life would start in space. Just in our system there's a massive donut of space within the life zone with a great deal of material available. Even gas giants would provide energy for life to form expanding the zone even more.

    1. Re:Interesting by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Just great. We'll spend decades designing and building proper starships only to discover that we'll have to stop at regular intervals to squeegee the 'simple' insterstellar life forms off the windshield.

    2. Re:Interesting by SinVulture · · Score: 1

      No, there will be alien life forms down on their luck offering to do this for us, in return for our spare change.

  19. Hypotheticals In the Oort Cloud. . . by Platupous · · Score: 1

    I hope they put the Spin down on us and save us from ourselves. . .

    1. Re:Hypotheticals In the Oort Cloud. . . by zzyzx · · Score: 1

      Hopefully we'd know what was up and wouldn't freak out about it too much. I'd rather not have wacky cults trying to breed red heifers...

  20. The Ultimate Test by proverbialcow · · Score: 2, Funny

    Does it qualify under the Dave Barry definition?

    Life is anything that dies when you stomp on it.

    --
    The only surefire protection against Microsoft infections is abstinence. - The Onion
    1. Re:The Ultimate Test by wolfman_jake · · Score: 1

      Does that mean a grizzly bear isn't alive? They never seem to die when I stomp them...

    2. Re:The Ultimate Test by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 3, Funny

      That simply means that you need a bigger foot. Or a smaller bear.

  21. ugly... by Bobb+Sledd · · Score: 1

    "Ugly bags of mostly water!!!"

    I say we darken their suns, just to be mean. >:)

    --
    "They said I probly shouldn't fly with just one eye," "I am Bender. Please insert girder."
  22. We all know Gene Roddenberry was from the future by DigitalReverend · · Score: 1

    He came back in time, wrote books to tell us what it was going to be like. He didn't have a vivid imagination, he just simply wrote about what had already happened for him.

    --
    I read Slashdot for the headlines, because the headlines, unlike the articles, are usually original and never duplicated
  23. Definition drama? by vigmeister · · Score: 1, Insightful

    'Organic' was once thought to be those substances that were obtained from or present in living matter IIRC?

    It was then changed after urea was synthesized from then non-organic sources. At this point, the definition of organic was expanded to include non-alive stuff.

    Now that the definition has strayed away from organic being 'alive', this is a discovery of non-organic aliveness?

    I sense some circularity, but can't lay my finger on it... even though my analysis is probably over-simplified and possibly wrong

    Cheers!

    --
    Atheist: Buddhist in a Prius
    1. Re:Definition drama? by edwardpickman · · Score: 1

      Unless you're talking about the 1800s and before not really. Carbon is considered organic as well as chemicals like acetone since they are used in organic processes. Finding signs of animo acids was a bigger find in a sense because they aren't chemicals but are complex organic compounds. The point is these things aren't limited to planets and they are finding that complex organic structures can form in space. Even those red globulas found in Inda that fell from the sky were thought to have originated either in space or high in the atmosphere. They weren't cells but they may have be an early stage of cell formation. They resembled cell walls and could reproduce. Maybe the first life was a form of prion or simple virus invading one of these cell structures. Later they began to divide to reproduce rather than infecting the empty "cells". All of these elements could have originated in near space or space itself.

    2. Re:Definition drama? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      "Even those red globulas found in Inda that fell from the sky were thought to have originated either in space or high in the atmosphere."

      Yes, and the moon landing was thought to be a hoax. By fruitcakes.

      Scientists hypothesized that the red rain was caused by red algae or rust fungus spores. Experimentation, i.e. growing the damned things, produced red algae. A KNOWN species of red algae, before you get too excited. Which originated here on earth.

  24. Killer kill! by e2d2 · · Score: 1

    I think it's much more complex than that:

    First of all to understand what happened to the universe, you gotta understand who the universe was. Now universe was born to a three-legged bitch of a mother. He was always ashamed of this man. And then right after that he's adopted by this man, Tito Liebowitz he's a small time gun runner and a rotweiler fight promoter. So he puts universe into training. They see universe's good. He is damn good. But then he had the fight of his life. They pit him against his brother bizzaro universe. And universe said "no man that's my brother, I can't fight bizzaro universe" but they made him fight anyway, and universe, he killed bizzaro. Universe said "that's it!" he called off all his fights, and he started doing crack, and he freaked out. Then in a rage, he collapsed, and his heart no longer beat. wow!

    And that's the real story behind the universe...

  25. I hate.... by jonfr · · Score: 1

    I hate silicon based lifeforms. As they look at us carbon based lifeforms as food or something bad. This mostly applies to the primitive ones, the intelligent types of live forms that are silicon or non-carbon based don't interact with carbon based live forms much on the universe scale.

    I got some alien infos. To my horror.

    1. Re:I hate.... by 42forty-two42 · · Score: 1

      All joking aside, a silicon-based lifeform would find us about as appetizing as we find sand.

    2. Re:I hate.... by jonfr · · Score: 1

      Probably a true silicon base lifeforms won't eat us. However, most of the live in the universe is not that simple, most of the live in the universe is based on three component or more. Most live on earth is nitrate-carbon-iron based, along with few other extra chemicals in the mix (the total of the other chemicals is less then 1% of the total sum).

      Many silicon based lifeforms are silicon-iron-plutonium-oxygen based. That makes us on there menu.

      I do have to make this note, silicon based lifeforms thrive best in a environment that is more then 300C warm. Anything colder then that, they risk death.

      I am also not joking, am really serious. However, nobody believes me, not even the ufo nut jobs.

  26. Jombeewoof, get off the Internet. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Jombeewoof is a bastard who thinks the world owes him a living. http://slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=267807&cid=202 07637 Jombeewoof tried to destroy an Internet Service Provider in Massachusetts by expecting large bandwidth without paying anything. Educated alone doesn't pay the bills. Jombeewoof is not worth your mod points and is a MySpace loser. Jombeewoof, give up, get off the Internet. The TrollGoons won't leave you alone.

    YOU ARE NOT WANTED ON SLASHDOT!

    1. Re:Jombeewoof, get off the Internet. by jombeewoof · · Score: 1

      TrollGoons... now there is a hell of a name for yourself.

      I'm not getting off the internet.
      I'm not leaving slashdot... well until I'm bored with it.

      and I really have to correct your grammar.

      Educated alone doesn't pay the bills. should read Education alone does not pay the bills.

      In a professional letter it is bad karma to use contractions where you do not have too.

      And again, I'm sure I'll take you more seriously if you started posting as yourself and not AC.
      AC gets no real attention from anyone, especially me.

      But i did start wearing pants, just in case you happen to be in my town.

      --
      Linux Zealots: Smarter than Mac Zealots, but still zealots.
    2. Re:Jombeewoof, get off the Internet. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Don't feed the trolls.

    3. Re:Jombeewoof, get off the Internet. by x2A · · Score: 1

      "AC gets no real attention from anyone, especially me"

      You do a great 'not-giving-attention'.

      --
      The revolution will not be televised... but it will have a page on Wikipedia
    4. Re:Jombeewoof, get off the Internet. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      quote:
      "and I really have to correct your grammar."
      "[...]use contractions where you do not have too."
                                                                          ^

      Not that I want any part of this but, I just felt like pointing out the irony.
      Getting aggravated really doesn't help anyone think clearly, my friend. As others have said, don't feed the troll.

  27. Do fleas have fleas? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Please stay off the psychedelic crap for a while Einstein!

  28. It's living *plasma*, not living dust! by Dr.+Spork · · Score: 2, Interesting
    Wow, that was some misleading writing, though some very interesting research. I wonder if there's a practical way to observe actual plasma on this level, to see whether the simulation mirrors actual plasma physics. Also I wonder if there is an upper limit on the size, complexity and longetivity of plasma structures. It's hard to imagine something that hot would be very stable, though I'm prepared to be surprised.

    I'm pretty skeptical though. If evolving structures are so common that we see them even in a low-powered simulation, and every single star has so much freaking plasma, where are our plasma overlords? Or maybe that's hell, and those structures are just ... the souls of the damned! Oooh!

    1. Re:It's living *plasma*, not living dust! by aviators99 · · Score: 1

      Plasma that displays counterintuitive behavior? I need to get a new plasma. All mine does is show reruns of The Simple Life...oh, wait...

    2. Re:It's living *plasma*, not living dust! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      If evolving structures are so common that we see them even in a low-powered simulation, and every single star has so much freaking plasma, where are our plasma overlords?

      Right now, somewhere in the sun, someone is making a similar post to SlashPlasma regarding the apparent lack of rock-based organic life.

  29. I for one.... by cstdenis · · Score: 0

    welcome out new complex, self-organized plasma structure overlords.

    --
    1984 was not supposed to be an instruction manual.
  30. Re:Gay Space Dust? by freeweed · · Score: 4, Funny

    Do astronomers have any idea why the dust chose to be gay?

    Intergallactic schools started requiring the reading of "Dusty Has Two Like Progenitor Strands"?

    --
    Endless arguments over trivial contradictions in books written by ignorant savages to explain thunder in the dark.
  31. God Did It... by morari · · Score: 1, Funny

    I mean really, what other explanation is there? Dust doesn't just act lively because science says so, their has to be some sort of intelligent and purposeful being behind it. I know a lot of people will say that it is merely a extension of the Daemon Sultan Azathoth, but they're all pagan leftists spreading propaganda to detract from the one true God's will!

    --
    "He who can destroy a thing, controls a thing." --Paul Atreides, Dune
    1. Re:God Did It... by TranscendentalAnarch · · Score: 2

      the one true God Xerxes?
    2. Re:God Did It... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      It's can't be Xerxes! ...this is SPARTA!

  32. Re:Okay, which Star Trek episodes are relevant her by dbolger · · Score: 1

    Life existing in a form we hadn't previously considered previously would be a theme that is dealt with all through Star Trek, but the one that springs to my mind is Devil in the Dark. I'm sure there's others that deal with the topic from other angles too :)

    (back from then Star Trek was actually good)

  33. The actual article by mopomi · · Score: 4, Insightful

    The New Journal of Physics, http://www.iop.org/EJ/njp is an open access journal.

    The article is here:
    http://www.iop.org/EJ/article/1367-2630/9/8/263/nj p7_8_263.html

    Something that bothers me about the article is this paragraph (which has no references, though he claims this to be a well-known problem):

    "Self-organization of any structure needs energy sources and sinks in order to decrease the entropy locally. Dissipation usually serves as a sink, while external sources (such as radiation of the Sun for organic life) provide the energy input. Furthermore, memory and reproduction are necessary for a self-organizing dissipative structure to form a `living material'. The well known problem in explaining the origin of life is that the complexity of living creatures is so high that the time necessary to form the simplest organic living structure is too large compared to the age of the Earth. Similarly, the age of the Universe is also not sufficient for organic life to be created in a distant environment (similar to that on the Earth) and then transferred to the Earth."

    Emphasis mine.

    Sounds a little like this guy's been buying into "Intelligent" design a little too much...

    Strangely, the rest of his article doesn't look terrible to me. I do not do plasma physics--slept through that class--but I do publish scientific articles for a living.

    1. Re:The actual article by searchr · · Score: 1
      "The well known problem in explaining the origin of life is that the complexity of living creatures is so high that the time necessary to form the simplest organic living structure is too large compared to the age of the Earth. Similarly, the age of the Universe is also not sufficient for organic life to be created in a distant environment (similar to that on the Earth) and then transferred to the Earth."

      That doesn't sound like it would necessarily contradict non-hand-of-god options, thanks to that following line [emphasis mine]. There was just a story this week about cometary discoveries that included the ability/possibility to incubate the molecular building blocks of life for many billions of years, even way-longer time scales than planetary formation. So between that and this story, one possibility could be that the starter bits of life didn't actually begin on a rock at all. It formed out of the in-between and just eventually landed on one.

      Not quite as poetic as divine construction, but I'm sure we could find a solid bunch of writers to punch it up a bit.

    2. Re:The actual article by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Of course the universe isn't old enough, God only created it 6000 years ago.
      (idiots)

    3. Re:The actual article by Henry+V+.009 · · Score: 2, Informative

      I don't know about this one, but the other story was definitely the product of a crank.

      The problem is that Fred Hoyle did some screwy calculations about the probability of life, and everybody likes to quote Hoyle. Especially creationists and the "life from space" crowd. If you can't figure out why Hoyle is wrong yourself (it's not that hard) you can check out Hoyle's Fallacy on Wikipedia.

    4. Re:The actual article by searchr · · Score: 1
      oh.

      So we're back to this again: http://www.flickr.com/photos/bar-art/546252526/

    5. Re:The actual article by mopomi · · Score: 2, Interesting

      I agree that the statements, if true do not necessarily imply divine construction.

      My point was that (and I should have stated it more clearly) we don't know how long complex, living structures take to evolve. Therefore, the argument that the complexity of living creatures is too high to have evolved on the earth from non-living structures is specious.

      Additionally, the argument that the age of the universe is insufficient for panspermia to act over large distances doesn't make any sense:

      Fact: Our Milkyway Galaxy is ~100,000 light years in diameter.
      Fact: 1 lightyear is ~ 10^13 km
      Fact: The solar system moves at roughly 250 km/s relative to the center of our galaxy.

      So, assume life was created on the other side of the galaxy. Also assume its carrier is moving at 125 km/s directly toward the sun (ignore rotation for this).

      It would have to travel 10^18 km. 10^18 km / 125 km/s = 8*10^15 s = 253,510,117 years.

      That's nothing compared with the age of the solar system (~4.5 x 10^9 years) to say nothing of the age of the galaxy or of the universe. Panspermia is a fine theory as far as time and distance is concerned. As you point out, comets could easily incubate/shelter life for long periods of time (and 253 million years isn't that long). It's easy to imagine that life on Earth originated from across the galaxy...

      So, to my point: when making such a grand claim in a scientific article, one needs to either present the work that supports the claim in the article or cite previous articles that have been peer-reviewed and published. Simply stating it as fact is pseudoscience at its worst.

    6. Re:The actual article by againjj · · Score: 1

      Sounds a little like this guy's been buying into "Intelligent" design a little too much...

      Or he believes in extra-terrestrial origin, which fits right in with the paper. Check out Wikipedia: Primitive extraterrestrial life, PAH World Hypothesis, and Panspermia.

    7. Re:The actual article by Sibko · · Score: 1

      Sounds a little like this guy's been buying into "Intelligent" design a little too much... Or he's a proponent of the Panspermia theory. Which would make sense, considering how his research would apply to it.
    8. Re:The actual article by Jaxoreth · · Score: 1

      "The well known problem in explaining the origin of life is that the complexity of living creatures is so high that the time necessary to form the simplest organic living structure is too large compared to the age of the Earth."

      This is indeed a problem (provided the age of the Earth is less than 10,000 years). But the complexity of living creatures is an issue in the origin of species, not the origin of life. Why should the complexity of living creatures generally be an obstacle to forming the very simplest organic structure? Someone needs to read The Selfish Gene.

      --
      In general, it is safe and legal to kill your children. -- POSIX Programmer's Guide
    9. Re:The actual article by E++99 · · Score: 1

      "Sounds a little like this guy's been buying into "Intelligent" design a little too much..."
      What is this supposed to mean -- that any line reasoning that is also used by people who believe in God is invalid? Is this why the scientific community for decades refused to accept the evidence of the biblical-scale flood that happened in the American North West at the end of the ice age?

    10. Re:The actual article by glitch23 · · Score: 1

      So you like the rest of the article but the thing that disagrees with your view is the part that makes you question whether the guy is reliable? Why would you pick the only thing that you just happen to disagree with? The guy's article is in what I presume to be a prestigious or semi-prestigious journal. I bet you also think that anyone who doesn't think global warming is real is a quack? Remember, sensational (not boring) news spreads and makes money (or gets money through funding). Going against the grain takes true belief in what you are arguing for. Remember Y2K and killer bees? Those turned out to be duds. Don't believe in the hype on any topic and don't question a single sentence someone else says just because they happen to disagree with your view. It makes you turn into an arrogant ass because you imply that whatever side you take in an argument must be the correct side. As for references, this link talks about the actual probablity and this link (PDF) says those odds are too high for time to provide any help.

      --
      this nation, under God, shall have a new birth of freedom. -- Lincoln, Gettysburg Address
    11. Re:The actual article by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Sounds a little like this guy's been buying into "Intelligent" design a little too much... What is this supposed to mean -- that any line reasoning that is also used by people who believe in God is invalid? No, lots of people who believe in God are otherwise quite rational.

      It's just that this guy's argument sounds a whole lot like the usual ID bullshit.

      Is this why the scientific community for decades refused to accept the evidence of the biblical-scale flood that happened in the American North West at the end of the ice age? That flood wasn't anything near biblical in scale (for that matter it was a long sequence of floods over a few thousand years), and nobody rejected the evidence because it was too biblical.

      And the bible doesn't even allow for an Ice Age.

      Leave your persecution fantasies behind at sunday school.
    12. Re:The actual article by Nagus · · Score: 1

      The quote you posted is quite convoluted and I agree that the author might not have been as clear as he could have been. Here's my interpretation of what the author wrote:

      "The well known problem in explaining the origin of life is that the complexity of living creatures is so high that the time necessary to form the simplest organic living structure is too large compared to the age of the Earth."

      This sentence is pretty clear...

      "Similarly, the age of the Universe is also not sufficient for organic life to be created in a distant environment (similar to that on the Earth) and then transferred to the Earth."

      (Emphasis mine)

      The author thinks that life could not have evolved on another planet and then traveled via meteorite from that planet to the earth. What he left unwritten, and what most posters in this thread seem to miss, is that he wants to say that life originated directly in the interstellar medium! Therefore I wouldn't go as far as to say that the author is a believer in ID, he just has his own brand of panspermia/exogenesis.

      --
      Wenn ist das Nunstruck git und Slotermeyer? Ja!... Beiherhund das Oder die Flipperwaldt gersput!
    13. Re:The actual article by Eivind+Eklund · · Score: 1

      "Self-organization of any structure needs energy sources and sinks in order to decrease the entropy locally. Dissipation usually serves as a sink, while external sources (such as radiation of the Sun for organic life) provide the energy input. Furthermore, memory and reproduction are necessary for a self-organizing dissipative structure to form a `living material'. The well known problem in explaining the origin of life is that the complexity of living creatures is so high that the time necessary to form the simplest organic living structure is too large compared to the age of the Earth. Similarly, the age of the Universe is also not sufficient for organic life to be created in a distant environment (similar to that on the Earth) and then transferred to the Earth."

      Emphasis mine.

      Sounds a little like this guy's been buying into "Intelligent" design a little too much...

      Actually, I also see the emphasised part as a well known problem, though his formulation seems a bit off. It's basically the core abiogenesis problem.

      The point is that self-assembly of the kind of biochemistry we run off (RNA/DNA transcription) has a ridiculously low chance of happening "randomly" in a primordial soup. We need to find some better environment or an intermediate process that can happen more easily to have a reasonable explanation for the origin of life from non-living compounds. We have some possible solutions to it, though - for instance, James Ferris' work on the way the mineral montmorillonite can assemble RNA (and we even get "membranes" for free), or Graham Cairns-Smith's Clay Hypothesis, which is based on clay crystals reproducing and being subjected to natural selection, and over time pulling along organic compounds that increase reproduction, and then at the end the organic compounds "taking off by themselves". There has been experiments that at least show that RNA could be plausibly involved in this.

      Nobody knows which theory is right; several seems fairly plausible, and none of them have been accepted as shown-to-be-true yet. And it may never be: Our end result could be that life can originate in many different ways, so we won't be able to show which one in particular caused life. This would, to me, be a very satisfying result - as it would show there is almost certainly life elsewhere.

      Eivind.

      --
      Doubting the existence of evolution is like doubting the existence of China: It just shows that you're uninformed.
    14. Re:The actual article by theolein · · Score: 1

      And you calling him an arrogant ass, while having religious quotes in your sig makes you look like a fundamentalist nutsack with spittle foaming your lips.

    15. Re:The actual article by CmdrGravy · · Score: 1

      First of all the biblical flood covered the entire Earth to the a depth higher than the highest mountains so whatever happened in the American North West was certainly not a biblical flood.

      Secondly, do you seriously believe the flood mentioned in the bible was referring to a flood in the American North West which must have been completely unknown to anyone connected to the writing the bible ?

      Thirdly, you have to expect a little flooding at the end of an ice age.

    16. Re:The actual article by glitch23 · · Score: 1

      If that's what you think then that is your problem. I'm not a fundamentalist. My sig isn't any different than someone using a sig that mentions something to do with evolution.

      --
      this nation, under God, shall have a new birth of freedom. -- Lincoln, Gettysburg Address
    17. Re:The actual article by marcosdumay · · Score: 1

      "Sounds a little like this guy's been buying into "Intelligent" design a little too much..."

      Sounds like someone who doesn't fully grasp the rare Earth argument, but still belives on it.

      --
      Rethinking email
    18. Re:The actual article by mrogers · · Score: 1

      I don't think intelligent design is what he has in mind. The last sentence of the article mentions "the possibility of resolving the low rate of evolution of organic life by investigating the possibility that the inorganic life 'invents' the organic life." By claiming that DNA is too complex to have evolved spontaneously, he lays the ground for his later suggestion that DNA evolved from simpler inorganic helices, which can be shown to evolve spontaneously.

  34. You hit the nail on the head. by MoxFulder · · Score: 4, Insightful

    They are autonomous, they reproduce and they evolve.
    ... But do they exist?

    After all, this is just a computer model of some possible arrangements of particles. Even if the model is perfectly correct, it doesn't mean these living dust particles are actually out there in the universe.

    For example, a computer model could tell you that a 12-foot tall flightless bird would thrive in New Zealand, and it would be right... except that they don't exist (having been hunted to extinction a few centuries ago).

    Computer-simulated life is very exciting and cool, and can help scientists understand the evolution of living things (such as with the Avida system). But it can't PROVE that a particular kind of life actually exists in the natural world.
    --
    My bicyles
    1. Re:You hit the nail on the head. by Vancorps · · Score: 1

      Seriously probability question here. Given the size of the universe what do you think is the likelihood that the conditions required for this form of life exist somewhere at sometime?

      Your premise is correct in that the possibility of something doesn't make it real but given the vastness of space I'd say the likelihood is pretty good that something like this at least both has occurred and is still occurring somewhere out there.

    2. Re:You hit the nail on the head. by Gospodin · · Score: 4, Interesting

      So, taking your argument one step further and combining with the parent post, you think it's likely that 12-foot flightless birds exist somewhere else in the universe?

      --
      ...following the principles of Heisenburger's Uncertain Cat...
    3. Re:You hit the nail on the head. by ArikTheRed · · Score: 1

      Yeah, but what if I reeeally want it to be true?

      --
      http://www.coderoshi.com/
    4. Re:You hit the nail on the head. by Vancorps · · Score: 1

      I wouldn't be inclined to think that biodiversity has an upper limit given what we know has existed in the past. Seems likely something like it exists somewhere. It was a question of probability though, not an argument. I think the odds versus the size means it's pretty likely but that doesn't mean it exists.

    5. Re:You hit the nail on the head. by JaWiB · · Score: 3, Funny

      An alternate brane exists where interstellar dust beings are pondering exactly the same thing about us.

      In any case, I for one welcome our new interstellar dust being overlords/

    6. Re:You hit the nail on the head. by E++99 · · Score: 1

      So, taking your argument one step further and combining with the parent post, you think it's likely that 12-foot flightless birds exist somewhere else in the universe?

      Except that for there to be a flightless bird, there first has to be the egg of a flightless bird. For there to be these structures, there first only has to be plasma, dust, and the laws of physics.
    7. Re:You hit the nail on the head. by glittalogik · · Score: 1

      That depends, how recently have you watched The Secret?

    8. Re:You hit the nail on the head. by Hal_Porter · · Score: 2, Interesting

      I don't think that's really important. There's a deep problem with the origin of life, since the current DNA and protein based life is far to sophisticated to be the original. So there's a fair chance that it's not the first generation and it has simpler precursors.

      Graham Cairns Smith talked about clay based life as essentially making organic molecules as tools which eventually took over. It's a poetic idea, particularly Richard Dawkins comment that our silicon based tools make eventually take on a life of their own and complete the cycle from Silicon to Carbon and back to Silicon based life. But I don't think the clay based life is really plausible - it's just too inflexible. But my guess is that there are earlier generations of 'life' out there. I use the quotes because they would would be hard to spot as life since they are far closer to boundary between complex chemistry and simple life.

      And any research that discovers/invents alternative architectures for life may tell how they could possibly work.

      --
      echo -e 'global _start\n _start:\n mov eax, 2\n int 80h\n jmp _start' > a.asm; nasm a.asm -f elf; ld a.o -o a;
    9. Re:You hit the nail on the head. by MoxFulder · · Score: 1

      I don't think that's really important. There's a deep problem with the origin of life, since the current DNA and protein based life is far to sophisticated to be the original. So there's a fair chance that it's not the first generation and it has simpler precursors. ...

      And any research that discovers/invents alternative architectures for life may tell how they could possibly work. Indeed. But what I am pointing out is that the research in question only provides a possible architecture for life (one of an infinite number), and doesn't in my mind present a clear vision for how we'd actually find out if such life exists or has existed. It's similar to what's called a non-constructive proof in math.
      --
      My bicyles
    10. Re:You hit the nail on the head. by MoxFulder · · Score: 1

      Seriously probability question here. Given the size of the universe what do you think is the likelihood that the conditions required for this form of life exist somewhere at sometime? You got it. As I see it, that's the million dollar question here. Just HOW probable or HOW improbable is this form of life? TFA doesn't really give me any clue. Sure, it's POSSIBLE in the sense that it's consistent with the laws of the universe. I wish they'd give more information on how likely these dust structures/life forms really are.

      Those darn theorists! I'm in grad school right now doing experimental physics research, and sometimes I'm driven to distraction by the fascinating but untestable things that theorists come up with.

      Your premise is correct in that the possibility of something doesn't make it real but given the vastness of space I'd say the likelihood is pretty good that something like this at least both has occurred and is still occurring somewhere out there. That sounds dangerously close to the infinite monkey theorem :-) Which says that given an infinite amount of time and an infinite number of random events, you'll get any interesting pattern you care to wait around for. But of course, the observable universe isn't infinite... so sufficiently improbable things just don't happen.
      --
      My bicyles
    11. Re:You hit the nail on the head. by Hal_Porter · · Score: 1

      But what I am pointing out is that the research in question only provides a possible architecture for life (one of an infinite number), and doesn't in my mind present a clearvision for how we'd actually find out if such life exists or has existed.


      But as far as I can tell we only know of one architecture of life that actually works, i.e. the DNA/RNA/protein one so it seems like discovering or inventing any radically different ones is progress. Especially ones like this that sound as if they could bootstrap themselves out of lifeless interstellar dust - that seems to be the interesting thing about it. And if you could find a version of it that makes carbon based molecules as tools, it seems like you have a plausible explanation of how life got started on Earth via panspermia.

      But if not, maybe some of the ideas will get reused to deduce other plausible bootstrap architecures.
      --
      echo -e 'global _start\n _start:\n mov eax, 2\n int 80h\n jmp _start' > a.asm; nasm a.asm -f elf; ld a.o -o a;
    12. Re:You hit the nail on the head. by JasterBobaMereel · · Score: 0

      Nice idea, but ....

      If the computer simulation is accurate
        and If these structures actually exist
            and If they really can reproduce
                they might be life

      The biggest "if" is the accuracy of the computer simulation, can they really model accurately particles, without a TOE (theory of everything) the model will always have some assumptions

      When they show they can make these in the real world - then they *might* occur in nature, but it's still a might

      --
      Puteulanus fenestra mortis
    13. Re:You hit the nail on the head. by kwikrick · · Score: 1

      Computer-simulated life is very exciting and cool, and can help scientists understand the evolution of living things (such as with the Avida system). But it can't PROVE that a particular kind of life actually exists in the natural world. If we trust the input and the logic of the simulation accurately models the real world, and it shows that a particular kind of life emerges every time (or in many cases), then we must assume it exists somewhere in the universe.

      For example, a computer model could tell you that a 12-foot tall flightless bird would thrive in New Zealand, and it would be right... except that they don't exist (having been hunted to extinction a few centuries ago). The Moa example is not very to the point. You describe a computer-simulation of some specific animal in a specific habitat, where some entities are defined as being life and programmed in a specific way (and probably are nothing more than a term in a differential equation set up by a biologist). The prediction made by this kind of simulation depends very much on the input (i.e. how accurately did we model humans?)

      The simulation described in TFA is a simulation of the forces at the atomic/molecular level. If complex structures emerge from this system and we wish to call them life, then that life must exist somewhere in the universe, because the input for the simulation is just some random distribution of particles in a plasma (I am assuming here) and we have fairly good models of particles in a plasma.

      --
      assignment != equality != identity
    14. Re:You hit the nail on the head. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Well, how do you know that you exist? I mean you could be part of one giant simulation as well.

      Hmm, on second thought, I take that back. No sane entity would include slashdot as part of the simulation...

  35. Re:Okay, which Star Trek episodes are relevant her by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    I think a closer life form would be The Cloud from the first season of Voyager. The organism appeared to be basically plasma and they originally thought it was just a nebula.

  36. Not in Kansas anymore... by fahrbot-bot · · Score: 1

    So that's what that cover band was singing about:
    "All they are is inorganic-helically-structured dust in the solar wind..."

    --
    It must have been something you assimilated. . . .
  37. Shades of Hoyle's "Black Cloud" by monopole · · Score: 1

    The Black Cloud was a 1957 science fiction novel by Sir Fred Hoyle that postulated sentient interstellar gas clouds.

    1. Re:Shades of Hoyle's "Black Cloud" by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      I was immediately reminded of the shadowy interstellar creatures in Cordwainer Smith's The Game of Rat and Dragon (1955).. Google cache link cause the site's slow today.

        They're frail and almost undetectable, but highly telepathic, and pose a huge danger to space travel. In the earlier "Scanners Live in Vain" they are unknown, and their effects are referred to as "the Great Pain of Space", and ships works around the problem by putting passengers in protective stasis and using crews of "habermen" who've had their brains disconnected and shielded from their bodies in a process invented by one Dr. Haber..
        By the time of "...Rat and Dragon" the dangers are better understood and teams of pinlighters work to fight the creatures in the brief seconds after each planoforming (jump) across space.
        The rats/dragons are easily harmed by bright light, so the pinlighters use specifically designed missiles to destroy and drive them off. Because human reflexes are too slow, the pinlighter teams are pairings of psychically-gifted humans and cats, the humans directing tactics and their linked partners providing the reflexes on high-speed attack craft which they control via neural interfaces.

        It would make an awesome game, maybe a minigame in a science fiction MMORPG -- but I'd hate to get hit with insanity or death when the pinlighters fucked up. :)

        - mantar

        Heh. Captcha for this was "battler." What a coinkydink!

  38. Turtles by mattcasters · · Score: 4, Funny

    You can't fool me! It's turtles all the way down.

    --
    News about the Kettle Open Source project: on my blog
  39. Well... by HerrEkberg · · Score: 1

    It's life, Jim, but not as we know it.

    1. Re:Well... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Indeed, but in the future, there's a remote possibility after a few billions years, it might become an evil entity and attack us.

      I say nuke it.

  40. Hardly alive by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    "they reproduce"

    Ha! Call me when they smoke a cigarette afterword.

  41. Intelligent Designer by Doc+Ruby · · Score: 1

    We finally have a clue as to what Intelligent Designer crafted the cosmic matter into the seeds that brought life to the Earth.

    I bet these interstellar Creator "gods" are nothing like any diety we've ever considered.

    --

    --
    make install -not war

  42. Crumbs by OriginalArlen · · Score: 1

    Lawks. Even as a simulation result, this sounds very intriguing. Any testable predictions?

    --

    Everything I needed to know about life, I learnt from Blake's Seven
  43. Life vs Intelligence by Doc+Ruby · · Score: 1

    Homeostasis and reproduction are good criteria for defining life, which these things could qualify as if they exist outside the simulation.

    If they show these organized interstellar materials can process, store and transmit info, then they're not just "alive". They're "intelligent life".

    We should devise experiments to search for them to actually exist in anything close to their simulated form. But we should be careful not to disrupt or threaten them with any probes. What if they created us, and decide to shut us down?

    --

    --
    make install -not war

  44. Hoyle's Black Cloud wasn't the first by StefanJ · · Score: 1

    In Olaf Stapledon's Star Maker (1937, ISBN 0819566934), a far-future multi-galactic civilization is in a fix. They've embarked on a project to create a mass-mind incorporating all sapient being, past* and present, in order to have the wisdom or knowledge or processing power to unveil the mysteries of the universe and learn the nature of the entity behind the creation of the universe.

    Eventually their aeon-spanning telepathic sweeps detect the slow thoughts of primordial sapient dust clouds. With their help they find out that the Star Maker is running through an exhaustive series of universe simulations, tinkering with the parameters until it comes out just right. (Well, actually, in the novel they're described as increasingly sophisticated works of art.)

    * You can't tell if you're in it, I guess.

  45. Can they top this? by SleptThroughClass · · Score: 1

    But can those intelligences create glowing balls of plasma and organize them into interesting patterns? Like advertisements, text messages, display of a galaxy...oh, wait. Never mind.

  46. Do trolls have trolls? by spun · · Score: 1

    Big trolls have little trolls
    That try to incite 'em
    And little trolls have lesser trolls
    And so, ad infinitum.

    --
    - None can love freedom heartily, but good men; the rest love not freedom, but license. -- John Milton
  47. Alive - Shmalive by triso · · Score: 1

    There is as much a chance of interstellar dust being alive as there is for Bill Gates being on the Vatican's short-list for possible sainthood.

    1. Re:Alive - Shmalive by aadvancedGIR · · Score: 1

      Well, considering that Bill is currently using his huge fortune to appear like a really good guy who fights agains cancer, AIDS, poverty... and has a good chance of funding a couple of team that make great accomplishments, I wouldn't bet my 2 cents on that (or he could simply have the Pope computer to phone home his IE history and blackmail him).

  48. Heresy! by MS-06FZ · · Score: 0

    The official position of the church is that this dust is the manifestation of original sin. It is that which defeats innocence. If it is life by nature, then it must clearly be inherently evil.

    --
    ---GEC
    I'm but the humble pupil, seeking to snatch the scratchbuilt pebble from the master's fully articulated hand
  49. Who thought of Pullman? by Jessehk · · Score: 1

    Upon reading the title, who else thought of Pullman's "His Dark Materials"?

    1. Re:Who thought of Pullman? by suprnova · · Score: 1

      First thing I thought of...right when I saw "Dust" with a capital D.

      I'm in the process of reading book III right now...great stories

      --
      --"The revolution will be simulcast..."--
    2. Re:Who thought of Pullman? by TheBeowulf · · Score: 1

      I definitely thought of it... I just finished that series and that was a lot of fun. I was hoping somebody else did too... cool! obligatory wiki link: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/His_Dark_Materials

    3. Re:Who thought of Pullman? by gorgeousplanet · · Score: 1

      Argh, I was looking up and down this thread for mention of Pullman, and I ended up replying somewhere else! Point being, I thought of Pullman, and I also just finished the series. What a thought-provoking article!

    4. Re:Who thought of Pullman? by dionoea · · Score: 1

      I did :) (Just finished reading the trilogy yesterday night ... so I was quite excited when I read the topic on Slashdot)

    5. Re:Who thought of Pullman? by Arancaytar · · Score: 1

      Here.

      And I did a text search for "Pullman" to find if anyone had mentioned this already.

    6. Re:Who thought of Pullman? by MS-06FZ · · Score: 1

      Upon reading the title, who else thought of Pullman's "His Dark Materials"? Hence my post, titled "Heresy!"

      The mods didn't get the joke, though. Figures.
      --
      ---GEC
      I'm but the humble pupil, seeking to snatch the scratchbuilt pebble from the master's fully articulated hand
  50. Re:Gay Space Dust? by jollyreaper · · Score: 1

    >>Do astronomers have any idea why the dust chose to be gay?

    >Intergallactic schools started requiring the reading of "Dusty Has Two Like Progenitor Strands"?

    More importantly, is my ISP now going to reclassify videos of dust motes drifting lazily in a sunbeam as porn? "Ssssh, be quiet. On my shelf. The mote herd is sleeping."

    --
    Kwisatz Haderach
    Sell the spice to CHOAM
    This Mahdi took Shaddam's Throne
  51. Re:Okay, which Star Trek episodes are relevant her by piGeek31415 · · Score: 2

    Another good example is that of the "dikironium cloud creature" from TOS.

    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Obsession_(TOS_episod e)

    It's intelligent, travels through space and consumes matter to reproduce.

    -Pi Geek 31415

  52. Re:Okay, which Star Trek episodes are relevant her by John+Hansen · · Score: 1

    I've seen a few episodes posted here, but when I heard this, the one that immediately came to mind was "The Immunity Syndrome" (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Immunity_Syndrom e_(TOS_episode)

    )

    That is, the "one with the giant space amoeba", since an amoeba is probably the closest thing we have to a giant creature made of interstellar dust, albeit with a slight difference in scale. (Emphasis on the "slight".)

  53. Jombeewoof, get off the Internet. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Jombeewoof is a bastard who thinks the world owes him a living. http://slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=267807&cid=202 07637 Jombeewoof tried to destroy an Internet Service Provider in Massachusetts by expecting large bandwidth without paying anything. Education alone doesn't pay the bills. Jombeewoof is not worth your mod points and is a MySpace loser. Jombeewoof, give up, get off the Internet. The TrollGoons won't leave you alone.

    WE ARE RELENTLESS! RESISTANCE IS FUTILE! GET OFF THE INTERNET AND CLOSE YOUR ISP ACCOUNT YOU CHEAP BASTARD!

    BTW, AC but not giving up.

  54. Hurry, someone throw a bible at them quick! by voxel · · Score: 1

    Any bible, just hurry before they are godless! Throw something fast!

    --
    Modesty is one of life's greatest attributes
  55. Re:We all know Gene Roddenberry was from the futur by Skrapion · · Score: 1

    He came back in time, wrote books to tell us what it was going to be like. He didn't have a vivid imagination, He just simply wrote about what had already happened for Him.
    Fixed.
    --
    The details are trivial and useless; The reasons, as always, purely human ones.
  56. Are these like crystals? by geoffrobinson · · Score: 1

    The article seems to say that structures come and go and can make different structures. Is this life? Or is this more like a crystal which can make other crystals. I'm specifically thinking of taking a super-saturated solution and pouring it over a crystal. It evolves and changes structure.

    In other words, how are we defining life? Structure and change don't seem to be the essence of life. There is something about life where normal chemistry and physics isn't enough. My dog runs around.

    If a cloud could move itself where a simulation couldn't predict it to go because of self-movement, then that would seem closer to life.

    I guess I'm trying to figure out how exactly we are defining life.

    --
    Except for ending slavery, the Nazis, communism, & securing American independence, war has never solved anything.
    1. Re:Are these like crystals? by aadvancedGIR · · Score: 1

      No, self-motion can't be used as a definition to life because 1- many living thing don't have that ability and 2- in your example, if a cloud has a way moving scientists could not observe, it wouldn't prove that it was caused by life, simply that either the observation or the model was flawed. There might be live somewhere else, it might be very different from what we can immagine, but I bet it respects the laws of physics.

      In your other example, the cristal expands because of the thermodynamic, as any other physical or chemical reaction, it increases the system entropy. Now, if you have a system that actively drain energy from the outside to reduce or maintain its own entropy, maybe you have life.

  57. They're Made Out of Meat by Zobeid · · Score: 1

    Just imagine how we must look the the super-intelligent galactic gas clouds. . .

    http://baetzler.de/humor/meat_beings.html

    1. Re:They're Made Out of Meat by freezingweasel · · Score: 1

      Try the Cyberiad

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

      Search for

      Prince Ferrix and the Princess Crystal

      and read from there.

  58. Silastic Armorfiends of Striterax at it again! by RealGrouchy · · Score: 1
    The Silastic Armorfiends of Striterax are at it again, and frankly, I'm shocked.

    From Douglas Adams' Life, the Universe and Everything:

    Another achievement of the Silastic Armorfiends of Striterax is that they were the first race who ever managed to shock a computer.

    It was a gigantic spaceborne computer called Hactar, which to this day is remembered as one of the most powerful ever built. It was the first to be built like a natural brain, in that every cellular particle of it carried the pattern of the whole within it, which enabled it to think more flexibly and imaginatively, and also, it seemed, to be shocked.

    The Silastic Armorfiends of Striterax were engaged in one of their regular wars with the Strenuous Garfighters of Stug, and were not enjoying it as much as usual because it involved an awful lot of trekking through the Radiation Swamps of Cwulzenda, and across the Fire Mountains of Frazfraga, neither of which terrains they felt at home in.

    So when the Strangulous Stilettans of Jajazikstak joined in the fray and forced them to fight another front in the Gamma Caves of Carfrax and the Ice Storms of Varlengooten, they decided that enough was enough, and they ordered Hactar to design for them an Ultimate Weapon.

    "What do you mean," asked Hactar, "by Ultimate?"

    To which the Silastic Armorfiends of Striterax said, "Read a bloody dictionary," and plunged back into the fray.

    So Hactar designed an Ultimate Weapon.

    It was a very, very small bomb which was simply a junction box in hyperspace that would, when activated, connect the heart of every major sun with the heart of every other major sun simultaneously and thus turn the entire Universe in to one gigantic hyperspatial supernova.

    When the Silastic Armorfiends tried to use it to blow up a Strangulous Stilettan munitions dump in one of the Gamma Caves, they were extremely irritated that it didn't work, and said so.

    Hactar had been shocked by the whole idea.

    He tried to explain that he had been thinking about this Ultimate Weapon business, and had worked out that there was no conceivable consequence of not setting the bomb off that was worse than the known consequence of setting it off, and he had therefore taken the liberty of introducing a small flaw into the design of the bomb, and he hoped that everyone involved would, on sober reflection, feel that ...

    The Silastic Armorfiends disagreed and pulverized the computer. - RG>
    --
    Hey pal, this isn't a pleasantforest, so don't waste my time with pleasantries!
    1. Re:Silastic Armorfiends of Striterax at it again! by pushing-robot · · Score: 1
      Thank you. I was wondering how long it would take for a Hactar reference.

      Though this is the quote I would have picked:

      Murky, dusty nothing. Each grain of dust of the pulverized
      computer sparkled dimly as it turned and twisted slowly, catching
      the sunlight in the darkness. Each particle of the computer, each
      speck of dust, held within itself, faintly and weakly, the
      pattern of the whole. In reducing the computer to dust the
      Silastic Armorfiends of Striterax had merely crippled the
      computer, not killed it. A weak and insubstantial field held the
      particles in slight relationships with each other.

      Arthur and Trillian stood, or rather floated, in the middle of
      this bizarre entity. They had nothing to breathe, but for the
      moment this seemed not to matter. Hactar kept his promise. They
      were safe. For the moment.

      "I have nothing to offer you by way of hospitality," said Hactar
      faintly, "but tricks of the light. It is possible to be
      comfortable with tricks of the light, though, if that is all you
      have."
      --
      How can I believe you when you tell me what I don't want to hear?
  59. they found heaven by Bigos · · Score: 1

    so what you atheists will say now? you do not believe in inorganic plasma life forms :-)
    will tin foil hat protect me from wrath of cosmic plasma?

  60. Someone's been smoking something by tuxlove · · Score: 1

    Yawn, did some sci fi author think this up, and some scientist thought it was cool or something and wrote a paper about it or something? Schnoz.

    1. Re:Someone's been smoking something by gorgeousplanet · · Score: 1

      Actually, I saw this article and thought instantly of Philip Pullman's His Dark Materials series. (The first book in the trilogy, The Golden Compass , is coming to theaters Dec. 3) He talks about "Dust" and how it's alive and such... so yeah, maybe someone did think it was a cool idea!

  61. Mods under 30 by Harmonious+Botch · · Score: 1, Interesting
    Wow, mods are touchy today.

    The human mind congeals around age 30 I've talked over that very subject with several friends, and it appears to be true. As one of them said, "When I was 20, I looked back on what I had believed when I was 15, and it was stupid. When I was 25, I looked back on what I had believed when I had been 15 and when I had been 20. Same thing. When I was 30, I had changed some more, and I looked back on what I had believed when I had been 15, 20, and 25, and it was all crap. When I was 35, I looked back on what I believed when I was 30, and I still pretty much agreed with it."
    1. Re:Mods under 30 by Hal_Porter · · Score: 3, Insightful

      Maybe you just converged asymptotically on a world view that fits the news sources you choose to read. That seems like a good trait in terms of evolution since your 30's are the time where you're supposed to have kids. Parents are supposed to be stable and stability requires that you believe that you understand the world. You can also pass on your world view to them.

      And it's not like you're stuck with it forever - I know people in their 60's who were forced to essentially go through the convergence process again because the world changed around them - e.g. politically going from a naive liberalism to a world weary, cynical conservatism. Or from being apolitical to being rabibly left wing.

      So don't worry, as you get older you won't continue to believe the things you believe now. You'll still live in interesting times as the double edged Chinese phrase has it. Much of the things you believe now will turn out to be catastophically wrong and an greater exposure to the world will force you to accept this.

      --
      echo -e 'global _start\n _start:\n mov eax, 2\n int 80h\n jmp _start' > a.asm; nasm a.asm -f elf; ld a.o -o a;
    2. Re:Mods under 30 by mashade · · Score: 1

      Wow, mods are touchy today. Point in case. How the fuck is parent flamebait?
      --
      Technology tips and tricks.
    3. Re:Mods under 30 by fractoid · · Score: 1, Interesting

      I've talked over that very subject with several friends, and it appears to be true. As one of them said, "When I was 20, I looked back on what I had believed when I was 15, and it was stupid. When I was 25, I looked back on what I had believed when I had been 15 and when I had been 20. Same thing. When I was 30, I had changed some more, and I looked back on what I had believed when I had been 15, 20, and 25, and it was all crap. When I was 35, I looked back on what I believed when I was 30, and I still pretty much agreed with it." That's funny. I'm 25, and when I look back on what I believed when I was 15, and when I was 20, I don't think I was stupid then and I'm magically smarter now. Most of it, I still agree with - the important bits, anyway, the principles. Where I was wrong, it was due to incomplete or incorrect information (inexperience, naivety are both just lack of data). I don't doubt that when I'm 30 I'll have further refined my world view and I'll disagree with some points I currently believe, but I'll still know how I came to those conclusions, and agree that in the same situation I'd do the same again. Maybe I was exceptionally mature at 15 (I always got on better with adults than with the half-formed animals that called themselves my peers) or maybe I'm exceptionally immature now (as I've been told plenty of times by bland grey people who honestly believe that 'having fun' is 'something that only kids do').

      Personally I can't understand people who think they're fundamentally different people than they were when they were younger. Give me the same ethical question now and when I was 15, and I'm likely to answer the same - are you saying you wouldn't? That you've become a hugely better person in that time? That you've become smarter? Obviously you'd know more, but knowledge is not wisdom.
      --
      Rampant carbon sequestration destroyed the Dinosaurs' tropical paradise. I'm here to help repair the damage.
    4. Re:Mods under 30 by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      I had another complete total "rethunking things" around 35. Early mid-life crisis, I guess. Now I'm 37. I think the crisis is not over so I expect another one around 40, 44, 47, 49, 50 --- with smaller intervals as I get closer to death.

      Is that good or bad, o wise one?

      (Putz.)

    5. Re:Mods under 30 by PopeRatzo · · Score: 3, Insightful

      When I was 35, I looked back on what I believed when I was 30, and I still pretty much agreed with it.
      Do you realize that one of the hallmarks of being 35 is that you start to think you were a genius at 30?

      Son, I can pretty much guarantee that when you are 50, you will look back and see the person you were at 30, at 35, and the things you believed, and you will decide that you had been a callow, strident numbskull.

      Don't feel bad, it happens to lots of us. You're just a more definitive case.
      --
      You are welcome on my lawn.
    6. Re:Mods under 30 by Perl-Pusher · · Score: 1

      So what is true for you must be true for everyone? I looked back at 40 and I have changed many of my beliefs. And I am almost 50 and can easily change my mind when there is a persuasive argument.

    7. Re:Mods under 30 by Nevynxxx · · Score: 1

      since your 30's are the time where you're supposed to have kids
      Make that 16-25 and you may be close.

      The human body seems most suted to birthing at that age, or have you not heard that it is a) harder, and b) more likley to result in birth defects at an exponential rate from 25 up?

      The fact that most of Western society wants to have kids in their 30s now, doesn't make it the best time.
    8. Re:Mods under 30 by marcosdumay · · Score: 1

      I don't know if that counts as maturity, but if you ask me some ideological, moral or political question now and when I was 15, you'd probably get a much harder position from the 15 years old me.

      If doubting your ideas is "congealing" the mind, I'm already done by 27.

      --
      Rethinking email
    9. Re:Mods under 30 by glsunder · · Score: 1

      My beliefs are different now than they were when I was 30. I was always a bit immature though. I'm a late bloomer I guess.

    10. Re:Mods under 30 by Harmonious+Botch · · Score: 1

      I AM 50.

    11. Re:Mods under 30 by Knuckles · · Score: 1

      That seems like a good trait in terms of evolution since your 30's are the time where you're supposed to have kids.

      Very funny. As if nature cared about the long time we need in our way of living until we can provide for a family. If biology had a say, you'd be supposed to have kids at around 13 or so if you are a girl, and just a few months to years later if you are a boy.

      --
      "When I first heard Daydream Nation it quite frankly scared the living shit out of me." -- Matthew Stearns
    12. Re:Mods under 30 by PopeRatzo · · Score: 1

      I AM 50.
      You don't think you can be a strident, callow numbskull just because you're 50? Think again.

      Perhaps you simply lack a certain amount of self-awareness necessary for maturity.
      --
      You are welcome on my lawn.
    13. Re:Mods under 30 by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      You think it's impossible for anyone to change their mind about ethical questions? That's a strange world view. I've certainly changed my mind about many things since I was fifteen years old.

      You can reduce the entire human mind to "data" and "lack of data", but that's not a very meaningful way of looking at it. People who are fed approximately the same data(people with similar childhoods who have followed the same information-restrictive political or religious doctrine are perhaps the best example case, because there's less conflicting data involved) seem to react in very different ways, so either the human mind must be a rather chaotic system, or there's something more to it than the simplistic information-in, reaction-out model you describe. In either case, pretending that such a simplistic model is predictive or enlightening won't really do you any good.

  62. IT IS A POWER SO GREAT... by Ralph+Spoilsport · · Score: 2, Funny
    It can only be used for good...

    or EVIL!!!

    RS

    --
    Shoes for Industry. Shoes for the Dead.
  63. Evidence of a Supreme Being by ArtfulDodger75 · · Score: 0, Redundant

    At last we have scientific evidence of God. Surely this is one of His noodley appendages.

    1. Re:Evidence of a Supreme Being by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      All hail the FSM!!!!

  64. Re:Okay, which Star Trek episodes are relevant her by scottrocket · · Score: 1

    Yes-if you can simulate it on the holodeck.

  65. Next, they'll be making this concept into a movie! by Cef · · Score: 1

    Oh wait, they already have....

    The Andromeda Strain (1971)

    Note to Hollywood: Please don't remake "The Andromeda Strain" unless you can do a damn good job! Past experience has proven that the chances of this happening (doing a good job) are pretty damn low.

  66. Think about thjs ... by PPH · · Score: 1
    ... the next time you toss that vacuum cleaner bag into the trash. That might be somebody's child.

    And its mother might be watching you!

    --
    Have gnu, will travel.
  67. Amazing by E++99 · · Score: 1

    Note that these aren't just helical structures, but seem to prominently include double-helixes. And their behavior seems far too similar to that of DNA to be coincidental.

    1. Re:Amazing by hey · · Score: 1

      Or the scientists where looking for double-helixes. Found them and said: look life.

  68. The ageless universe by eimikion · · Score: 2, Interesting

    the age of the Universe is also not sufficient for organic life to be created in a distant environment. What if the universe has no beginning? We can only say something about observable, local structures of cosmos. In the eternal universe, where panspermia is a regular phenomenon, you have all the time you need. Also there is a problem with complexity: without any other self-organizing structures to compare it is at least problematic to declare living creatures "complex". Maybe somewhere in the universe are structures with greater level of complexity?
  69. The Miracle of the Covalent Bond by Nefarious+Wheel · · Score: 1
    Yep, there is magic in the covalent bond. I see chemistry at this level as profoundly spiritual, don't you? The categorisation, classification of particles and energies at the level of the double-helix only expands our understanding of the profound miracle that is life.

    Of course, it's fun to control the miracles ourseleves, too.

    Igor? Would you be so kind as to raise the lightning rod? There's a good chap...

    --
    Do not mock my vision of impractical footwear
  70. Dust by jagdish · · Score: 2, Funny

    Its the remains of the crystalline entity.

  71. Life by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    So this stuff is about this http://www.bitstorm.org/gameoflife/

  72. Arguments for Plasma as Origin of Life Mounting by pln2bz · · Score: 2, Informative
    Irving Langmuir called it plasma exactly because it appeared to be life-like in its behaviors. For anybody who has a basic understanding of how plasmas behave in the laboratory, your first instinct is that plasmas tend to behave like living creatures. They can have cell walls, which will protect their charge by surrounding invaders. They can transfer current as if it's nutrients. But, after thinking about it for long enough, most people will progress to the realization that life is instead probably plasma-like. The question of whether or not there is good reason for this remains an open, and very interesting, question.

    There is a coming together of some interesting theories with regards to the origins of life in the universe that have not yet quite made it into the mainstream press, but which is evolving into a really interesting theory. Wallace Thornhill has been speculating for some time now that life originates inside of the atmospheres of brown dwarf stars. On the surface, this sounds pretty absurd. But, when you dig deeper, he makes some very good points, and his theory is completely compatible with the thesis postulated within the article in question.

    Dusty plasmas tend to daisy-chain positive-negative-positive-negative, etc. This creates a sheath, and the right-hand-rule will tend to turn this sheet into vortex types of shapes, as the article mentions. This could explain the shape of DNA. Don't forget that the Urey-Miller experiment required electrical input also.

    As for brown dwarfs, they come into the picture because their atmospheres should be low enough temperature to allow life to exist on planets traveling through them (which may sound kind of weird, but is an idea that has been proposed by mainstream astrophysicists in the past). Don't forget that we are inside of the Sun's atmosphere already. On such planets, the entire planetary surface would be bathed in a diffuse light and relatively weak electrical activity at all times. This would be the ideal setting for the formulation of both DNA and lifeforms because there would be no seasons, no tropics and no ice caps. Furthermore, L-type brown dwarfs have water as a dominant molecule in their spectra, along with many other biologically important molecules and elements. Its satellites would accumulate atmospheres and water would mist down from the sky.

    He adds:

    The problem for SETI is that no radio signals could penetrate the glowing plasma shell. Nor would any intelligent life forms be aware of the spectacle of the universe that we are privileged to witness.

    --
    "A man cannot begin to learn that which he thinks he already knows." --Epictetus, 1st Century A.D.
    1. Re:Arguments for Plasma as Origin of Life Mounting by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      You forgot the part where the Sun is powered by electricity instead of fusion, and how stellar astrophysicists are too stupid to know anything about plasma.

      The quality of your psuedoscience is slipping, I'm afraid.

    2. Re:Arguments for Plasma as Origin of Life Mounting by pln2bz · · Score: 1

      I'm afraid that's completely off-topic to the thread. Didn't really seem very relevant, to be honest. I could have also talked about how Wallace Thornhill accurately predicted all of the results of the Deep Impact mission based upon the theory you mention, but *that* wasn't relevant either. This separate theory is not really so dependent upon those others, and not everybody believes that we should judge people on the basis of how "popular" their beliefs are (even though that is increasingly a common belief). Sometimes, interesting ideas are just that: interesting ideas. Go figure! It seems at least some others agree with me on this here on this board, and you'll have to now assemble a small army to mod me down to make sure that others do not think about these interesting ideas, and that everybody in science continues to conform to mainstream beliefs. I'm not really sure why it matters so much to so many people that everybody think the same exact things, as it doesn't seem like a very productive way to get at answers, but I've come to accept it by now regardless ... ;)

      --
      "A man cannot begin to learn that which he thinks he already knows." --Epictetus, 1st Century A.D.
  73. Re:Gay Space Dust? by Kelz · · Score: 1

    .... /nominate for geekiest-sounding joke of the week award.

  74. Food by AkumaReloaded · · Score: 1

    I am sorry but I will only consider it a life form when I can kill it and then eat it. (some exceptions to the rule, I do consider most humans to be a life form)

    1. Re:Food by MLease · · Score: 1

      Well, you can kill and eat a human, so it fits your definition. You just have qualms about doing so (which is a good thing). :)

      -Mike

      --
      I'm sorry; I don't know what I was thinking!
    2. Re:Food by AkumaReloaded · · Score: 1

      Is it?! :D hehe. offtopic: why isnt there a nice article about the simpsons movie on slashdot, I just submitted one for lack thereof. However I think mine will be rejected as usual :)

  75. Interstellar Plasma Intelligences by captn+ecks · · Score: 1

    Gregory Benford has already postulated and described in wonderful detail how the plasmas generated by stars could support a form of life in interstellar space in his recent hard scifi novel The Sunborn (2005). A good read if for this alone. Interesting that suggestive 'evidence' of the possiblity of such beings should now be found.

  76. Agrees with Genesis? by ThaReetLad · · Score: 2, Interesting

    Genesis 2:7 the LORD God formed the man from the dust of the ground.

    --
    You can't win Darth. If you mod me down, I shall become more powerful than you could possibly imagine
  77. SG1 by symoo · · Score: 1

    Is it just me or is this how the replicaters started?!

    We should prepare...Someone call the asguard

  78. Re:Next, they'll be making this concept into a mov by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    The book is much better :)

  79. Mod parent 'Interesting'! by Eivind+Eklund · · Score: 1
    There's interesting information in there, especially the stuff about lab plasma.

    It does lead me to one intriguing question, too: Could the reason plasma behaves "life-like" be that these kinds of structures form and evolve so freaking fast in plasma that even new plasma has had time to evolve a suitable population? I have no idea of the generation time or how plasma behaves, so this is very much off the wall and most likely not so - I just felt it had to be asked...

    Eivind.

    --
    Doubting the existence of evolution is like doubting the existence of China: It just shows that you're uninformed.
  80. I can hear it now... by GentlemanRogue · · Score: 1

    from the depths of space, a voice more horrifying than ever before...

    I live...

    I hunger...

    I... am Sinistar!

    Run, humans, run.... AAAAAAAAAAAARRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGHH HHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

    Bring back any memories for anyone?

    --
    you really expect me to be able to express my opinion of what's so fucked up in this world in 120 characters or less?
  81. call Philip Pullman by Suppafly · · Score: 1

    quick someone call Philip Pullman, I think he might have some ideas about this Dust.

  82. as a response to what? by C10H14N2 · · Score: 1


    Besides, a brain capable of emotion without a body through which to express them would almost by definition be sociopathic from day one. That same brain with all its otherwise human potential, having never experienced physical pain, would have no reason to anticipate its own mortality or empathize with the mortality of others and upon recognizing its own condition would likely become suicidal and, realizing it lacked the ability to act on that emotion, would become psychotic.

    Short of actually being human, such a brain would probably not be something you would want to give the means of physically interacting with its surroundings.

  83. are galaxies alive? by peter303 · · Score: 1

    The move, they grown, they devour each other, they split in two, the create new stars, they generate energy ...

  84. MOD PARENT DOWN by P.+Niss · · Score: 1

    -1, Used "asymptotically" But Not "orthogonal"

  85. Your mom by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Agreed.

  86. Now if only we could find the Subtle Knife... by MarekT · · Score: 1

    Then we can cut through this "Dust"...

  87. George Lucas gonna sue somebody... by stacysmomsmokesabong · · Score: 1

    This seems to me to be midichlorians. Scientists have discovered the Force!