Looking For Life on Other Worlds

This was SUCH a good article. So easy to read and understand, and so very interesting! I hope Chowk continues to features articles like this.

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Salman Sahib,

I commend you for writing such an informative article on a subject, that so far has not found too much interest in the general public of the subcontinent. Hopefully you will continue to share you knowledge with us in future.

Regarding the futile search for alien life so far, I believe, it is still to early to give up hope. Considering the vast distances between stars and the short time that humans have been paying attention to this area, it would have been surprising if we had found something. It like a bunch of ants on a remote island in the middle of the ocean wondering if there are other ants in the world. In fact they would have a better chance at finding out.

However as you pointed the ingrediants to produce life are so common and the number of star and their planets is so huge that the odds that there is life out there are astronomical. Finding them out or communicating with them however is another matter. Until we come up with a way to travel many times the speed of light, it will remain a dream and science fiction.

Thanks for a very good article on a fascinating subject. You have certainly chosen a wonderful field (astronomy, and that mixed with biology thus giving it a human touch) for a career. Two question: (a) Any news on the SETI project? are they still as eagerly and hopefully trying to find new life as they were some years back? (b) You seem focussed on the Solar system. But once we multiply this by a factor of a few billions times a few billions (the number of stars in the known universe), wouldnt it be very odd indeed if we were indeed the only planet with a life in the universe?
Finally, one bogus question: Any signs of intelligent life on earth yet?

Correction: it is the Drake Equation not the Hoyle Equation:
``
N = R* fp ne fl fi fc L

where,

N = The number of communicative civilizations
R* = The rate of formation of suitable stars (stars such as our Sun)
fp = The fraction of those stars with planets. (Current evidence indicates that planetary systems may be common for stars like the Sun.)
ne = The number of Earth-like worlds per planetary system
fl = The fraction of those Earth-like planets where life actually develops
fi = The fraction of life sites where intelligence develops
fc = The fraction of communicative planets (those on which electromagnetic communications technology develops)
L = The ``lifetime`` of communicating civilizations
Frank Drake`s own current solution to the Drake Equation estimates 10,000 communicative civilizations in the Milky Way. Dr. Drake, who serves on the SETI League`s advisory board, has personally endorsed SETI`s planned all-sky survey.

(from QST, August 1995, page 38)``

``Praise be to Allah, Rabb of the WORLDS`` (Quran: 1:1)

Here Allah clearly tells us that He is the Rabb (Creator, Sustainer, Lord etc.) of the `alameen--notice the PLURAL in the Arabic (`alameen = plural of `alam). Thus if science finds life--even intelligent life on other worlds--what is the big deal? Muslims wont be surprised!

The great Sufi of Andalusia, Muhyuddin Ibn Arabi--may his secret be sanctified!--describes worlds and other civilisations which he visited spiritually in his work al Futuhat al Makkiyahh! He lived in the 12th/13th century!

**

From a scientific point of view I was very interested--obsessed even!--with the SETI projects as a teenager and read extensively on it. Carl Sagan was THE authority...see his books such as Cosmos, Pale Blue Dot and his brilliant novel Contact. Fred Hoyle is another...

There is the famous Hoyle Equation....which puts the possible number of intelligent civilisations with advanced technologies at anything between 1 to tens of millions! It is a probabilistic equation which depends on many factors..

Then again the well-known paradox by -can`t remember!--that if they are out there--then why aren`t they here already.? exists. Of course the speed of light limiting factor for travel may well be a major factor here (though the latest research in cosmology has questioned this most fundamental of scientifically received wisdom!!) ...

**

Most people in the Subcontinent have more important things to worry about than (possible) Little Green Men..like where is my next meal going to come from...

****

As an aside...the MMA is doing surprisingly well in these elections! (hurrah!) I think most ppl on Chowk are going to be shocked at this.

Allahu Akbar! :-)

Mawlana Noorani for PM?...

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Whatever happened to `the world was created in six days`? Sigh.

The problem isn`t finding ``life``, because I am pretty sure life in some form exists somewhere in the Solar system/Galaxy or Universe, it`s finding Intelligent life.

Personally I find it hard enough to find intelligent life on Earth lol..

Layman #8 Six days? Actually, as we used to say in college, God goofed off for 5 days, and then pulled an allnighter. Took him only one night. And of course the Big Bang occurred in a split second and created the entire universe in that split second (and this is not some stupid religious nut, but science speaking). Took God a split second! (``And God said `Be`. And it was``, as the Quran puts it when describing the Creation).

...let`s first find intelligent life on earth, then we can worry about finding intelligent life elsewhere...

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Dear Salman,

Lovely little article, mate.

Dear Asif and Layman,

I can`t speak on behalf of other religions but yaum in Arabic means ages as well as days so it all depends on interpretation. But how many times have we heard Muslims quote Humans as Ashraf-ul-makhluqaat (the greatest of the creations or something to that effect) and use it to mean that there is no life anywhere else? As far as life on other terrains is concerned, it is, so far, an act of faith. Strangly enough, people who refuse to believe in God (because they can`t see him/her/it) also happen to believe in Aliens and they seem to use science to confirm their beliefs. Strange that?

But moving on, no modern day Muslim would have ever even hinted towards using the `Lord of the worlds` line to denote ET. life hadn`t it been for the media push.

Umer M.

Mr. Hameed

First of all thank you for writing this article - a nice change from the meaningless political chatter.

I think we are limiting ourselves by ascribing life only to DNA based organisms. Life may also exist in the energy form or a rapidly changing unpredictable form between matter and energy. So far all the scietific tools (equipment) that we have developed are just the enhancement of our five senses - for example microscopes and telescopes are an extension of our sense of seeing; headphones, microphones are that of sense of hearing and so on and so forth. We have yet to discover more senses than the 5 that we already have to sense the presence of another life form. I think quantum and sub-particle physics may help in future to develope a sixth sense as our understanding of the relationship between matter and energy will improve. May be at this very moment another race that exists cannot feel our presence because they dont have senses to feel the DNA or matter based life form.

here it comes.. Islam and Science... :rolleyes:. Jeez .. why can`t we just keep things simple. btw, nakshbandi & AAmir - good cut/paste jobs! I didn`t understand a word of `em. That`s why I liked the Mr. Hameed`s article in the 1st place.. it makes sense to ordinary laypeople.

``Despite the outlandish claims of unidentified flying objects (UFOs), humans have yet to detect even a single microscopic organism of extra-terrestrial origin.``

Actually such organisms were announced a few years ago coming from meteors which hit the arctic. And because some UFO claims are outlandish doesnt mean they ALL are. The ``Disclosure Project`` currently is aiming for a congressional hearing on UFO as it has evidence from Presidents to military leaders, radars, video, photos etc.

``Our neighbor Mars provides one of the best places to look for life. Over 3.5 billion years ago Mars had a thick atmosphere and there is ample evidence that water flowed freely on the surface.``

There is significant evidence that Mars was once populated. theorists point to artificial structures on its surface in cydonia.

Umer: The ``mad arab`` who wrote the mystical ``necronomicon`` described alien looking beings from other worlds centuries ago.

Saxena,

he he.

Drumz,

Repeat that again, mate. You`ve lost me. Was your post aimed at Asif? Mad Arab? Necronomicon? What, what, what?

Umer M.

Salman Hameed,
Thanks for providing a breath of fresh air in this otherwise ad nauseum discussion of politics and religion.
Maharana

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drumz--you are such a hypocrite! You always go on about Sufism and stuff and yet you dismiss the spiritual visions of Shaykh Ibn Arabi, known amongst Sufis throughout the Muslim world, as ``al-Shaykh al Akbar`` (The Greatest (Sufi) Master) as a ``mad Arab`` and his magnus opus--the Futuhat e Makkiyyah Sharif --an absolute massive masterpiece--15,000 pages in its latest edition covering all aspects of Islam and Sufism and much more as his `necromonicon`.

Just because it goes against the views which have been conditioned into your servile mind by the magicians of modern science and your mind`s own limited, logic. And you always clamour on about being a free thinker!!!

below cut/paste for yr understanding pleasure of ensuing debate twix dervaish and nihilist ...

[b]What is the Necronomicon?[/b]

The Necronomicon of Alhazred, (literally: ``Book of Dead Names``) is not, as is popularly believed, a grimoire, or sorcerer`s spell-book. It was conceived as a history, and hence ``a book of things now dead and gone``. An alternative derivation of the word Necronomicon gives as its meaning ``the book of the customs of the dead``, but again this is consistent with the book`s original conception as a history, not as a work of necromancy.

The author of the book shared with Madame Blavatsky a magpie-like tendency to garner and stitch together fact, rumour, speculation, and complete balderdash, and the result is a vast and almost unreadable compendium of near-nonsense which bears more than a superficial resemblance to Blavatsky`s The Secret Doctrine.

In times past the book has been referred to guardedly as Al Azif , and also The Book of the Arab. Azif is a word the Arabs use to refer to nocturnal insects, but it is also a reference to the howling of demons (Djinn). The Necronomicon was written in seven volumes, and runs to over 900 pages in the Latin edition.

[b]Where and when was the Necronomicon written? [/b]
The Necronomicon was written in Damascus in 730 A.D. by Abdul Alhazred.

[b]Who was Abdul Alhazred?[/b]
Little is known. What we do know about him is largely derived from the small amount of biographical information in the Necronomicon itself. He was born in Sanaa in the Yemen. We know that he travelled widely, from Alexandria to the Punjab, and was well read. He spent many years alone in the uninhabited wilderness to the south of Arabia. He had a flair for languages, and boasts on many occasions of his ability to read and translate manuscripts which defied lesser scholars. His research methodology however smacked more of Nostradamus than Herodotus.

Just as Nostradamus used ceremonial magic to probe the future, so Alhazred used similar techniques (and an incense composed of olibanum, storax, dictamnus, opium and hashish) to clarify the past, and it is this, combined with a lack of references, which has resulted in the Necronomicon being dismissed as largely worthless by historians.

He is often referred to as ``the mad Arab`` or ``the mad Poet``, and while he was certainly eccentric by modern standards, there is no evidence to substantiate a claim of madness (other than his chronic inability to sustain a train of thought for more than a few paragraphs before leaping off at a tangent). It is interesting that the word for madness (``majnun``) has an older meaning of ``djinn possessed``. Alhazred is better compared with figures such as the Greek neoplatonist philosopher Proclus (410 - 485 A.D.). Proclus was completely at home in astronomy, mathematics, philosophy, and metaphysics, but was sufficiently well-versed in the magical techniques of theurgy to evoke Hekate to visible appearance. Proclus was also an initiate of Egyptian and Chaldean mystery religions. It is no accident that Alhazred was intimately familar with the works of Proclus.

more at: http://www.digital-brilliance.com/necron/necron.htm#What

Asif: ``Just because it goes against the views which have been conditioned into your servile mind by the magicians of modern science and your mind`s own limited, logic. And you always clamour on about being a free thinker!!!``

I didnt say he was mad. Learn to read and not read INTO what is written.

t, #22

You know how you once said that Hydra wasn`t the only person with multi heads...;) Plink!

Umer M.

And further to my previous post, I see the word is not even necromicron as I spelt it, but necronomicon (Book of Dead Names). Perhaps it is like the Domesday Book (Book of the Dead). More hmmmmmmm.....

I had heard of the necromancer (in lord of the rings), and also read about necrophilia. But necromicron is a new one. I thought we started discussing life on other planets, and here we are fascinated like necromaniacs. Is this this necrosis to be the fate of discussion on this article? hmmmmmmmm....

#23 by UmerMurtaza:

sorry to disappoint you but #22 is not mine...chalk this to some cyber glitch...

..t

Correction: post 22 is mine, all mine. Temp wouldnt have that much soul if he owned shares in Nike.

Alhazred was a mystic in yemen. Some say he was invened by HP Lovecraft (a european mystic whose stories on the necronomicon were featured in the movie ``Evil Dead)`` However, the necronomicon describes the (jinn filled) city of pillars (Irem/Iram) which was until a few decades back believed to not exist. He was in a 8 year trance in which he wrote the necronomicon which described his travels to other dimensions. He described `other worlds/beings` and that is his relevence to this topic. He was said to have been devoured by an invisible monster, thus his story is told to emphasize the dangers of entering other (mental) states. He was called the ``mad Arab`` for mad refers to him speaking with jinns. The necronomicon was originally called ``al azif`` refering to an insect-like sound which came form demons. His book contained several spells used to invoke demons this is why is strongly ties into the mystical arts/wicca/sufism etc.

``This gift i leave the humanty:
Here is the keys.
It tries the lock; be satisfied.
But listen to what Abdul Alhazred says:
For first I have tried to them: and I am mad.``
-Al Azif.


Lady: I will warn u to not look to Europeans for a breakdown of OUR history.

Their scholarcism for the past 500 years has been predominately left brain centered. Alhazred is not something one can `logically` understand.

Thanks for the positive feedback.

Regarding SETI (tahmed32, ajeet and others...):
I totally agree that its too early to give up on the SETI program. I`m a big fan of the SETI program and I certainly hope that we find a signal within our lifetime. However, so far there has been to ``verifiable`` signal to date. The most famous one is the ``Vow!`` signal from 1977, but it has never repeated...and since this is such a big claim that astronomers have to be absolutely sure that they have detected a signal from an another civilization.

Incidently, this is exactly the kind of scrutiny thats missing from UFO claims and ``artificial monuments`` on Mars. In order to make such large claims you have to rule out all other possibilities and then should have a very strong evidence regarding that particular interpretation. Keep Carl Sagan`s words in mind: ``Extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence``.

Re: #14 (Urstruly)
You are right that life may have some form that we don`t know or can`t imagine. However, we can`t look for something that we have no idea about. So, we have to be conservative in our search criterion, but of course if we find, simply by chance, something totally exotic, that will be cool. But, as I tried to point out in the article, there are good reasons to believe (thought they can be wrong) that life most likely will need a replicating molecule, DNA or some other combination using carbon atoms.

Re: #15 (Drumz):
Yes, in 1996 there was a suggestion that a meteorite from early Mars (a few billion year old piece of Mars) may have signatures of microbial life forms. However, research since then have cast doubt on the early claims. There are chemical processes that can also produce similar features. There is no evidence for Martian cities and there is no evidence for alien spaceships. These are a mixture of conspiracy theories and paranormal beliefs. Belief in ``incubi`` and witches from the middle ages has been replaced with spacecrafts and alien abductions. But a detailed discussion of this will require a different article.

#26 drumz - pls refrain from telling me what I can and cannot read.

temporal -- my post #20 and its biting comments were directed at drumz NOT you. Sorry if you thought so!

I don`t know why based on my earlier post drumz thought i was referring to this abdul hazred person when i explicitly said in my earlier posts [#5 or 6] that the mystical visions i referred to of other civilisations were by Shaykh al Akbar Ibn Arabi (rahmatullah alayhi) and the book was the Futuhat al Makkiyah NOT the Necromonicon!! Ibn Arabi was from Mursiyah in Andalusia in the period when Muslims ruled Spain c. 12th century was his time. He was never called the `mad Arab` and was in fact a great Muslim Sufi saint!

Heaven knows why drumz started talking of this hazred character!! i think he is confused...

Hameed:

1. `Casting doubt` does not mean disprove. The onus is on u since u said `there is no evidence.`

2. Are u familiar with any UFO or Mars` cases? If not it would be pointless and quite unscientific for us to build. Both Arther Clarke and Sagan were very interested in the mars case (im assuming ur aware of all this)...

3. absense of evidence is not evidence of absense.

Lady: Did i hurt ur feelings?

Asif: Your wimpy azz couldnt make `biting comments` with a gun.

``drumz: you dismiss the spiritual visions of Ibn Arabi...as a ``mad Arab`` and his...Futuhat e Makkiyyah Sharif ...as his `necromonicon.``

Here u stated that i called Ibn Arabi a ``mad arab.`` When did i mention Ibn Arabi? I said ``The ``mad arab`` who wrote the mystical ``necronomicon`` described alien looking beings.`` U assumed ``mad arab`` reffered to Arabi when i was talking about Al Hazred (I even named his book). Theres a reason ``read`` was the first revealed word.

If there is anyplace where pseudo-science is confused with real science, it is in this field of ETs. In the US, there are people who are convinced that a flying saucer crash-landed at Roswell, NM in 1947, and the bodies of a couple of space aliens were secretly recovered and sent to a government lab. Rumors have lingered on, and Roswell remains today, I understand, a tourist attraction complete with museum and so forth. The US airforce a couple of years ago had to issue a formal report denying that it ever got hold of dead space aliens. Then we have all sorts of theories of the Egyptian pyramids being some kind of space ports for aliens who visited earth long ago. And of course there was the famous radio show of the 1930`s about an attack from invaders from mars that was so realistic a number of listeners committed suicide rather than submit to a life of servitude to martians.
Science, which I think is far more interesting even if it has yet to report its first finding a extra-terrestrial life, seems too profound for these half-brained idiots who dread being kidnapped by space aliens to understand. Now, Drumz is of course too smart to ever worry about being abducted by space aliens, but just to be sure I understand he keeps his cell phone handy...

Tahmed: PSEUDO-SCIENCE?????? Whom is the bullsh1t supposed to fool? 500 years ago, the western scientific revolution began because intelligent people got tired of believing things without evidence. Thus the scientific method was formed to discern truth from fiction.

Fast forward to today when we have people like you and the writer of this piece who under the name of science DISMISS things they havent analyzed and know NOTHING about. Nothing logical or analytical going on here, just the opinion of you all who are too lazy to do any research.

You and the writer IGNORANTLY group all UFO reports together and then diminish them by linking them to ``half-brained idiots who dread being kidnapped by space aliens.`` Where do u get the audacity to speak on science?

Im about looking at a case with an open mind, collecting and analyzing the evidence and making synthesized conclusions. I never said `the majority of ufo reports are true` or anything to that effect. I said there are some strong claims (of course u know nuthing about the subject so whats the point)?

I know 17 year olds who can debate the bullsh1t outta 98% of the people on this joke of a site.

#32 drumz - it`s arrite. :).

#29 Amex - Well. 1st of, not everyone knows what a necronomicon is (I didn`t). So I just put that in for readers to understand what y`all were jabbering about so much. necronomicon necromonicon necroconinon necroposidon etc etc etc... It IS related to the discussions. :p

O cool.. now I read everyone`s comments, I know what y`all r talking about. Shaikh naksahbandijamaatiofbarevliibnhisabbi is talking about some sufi fellow that he believes in, and drumzy is talking about a hazard dude who wrote about UFOs and jinns he`d interviewed. Cool. :)

But I thought the topic was finding DNA on other planets, hmmm???
What happened to that?

btw... why do we assume that we need to find DNA on other planets? Maybe it could be something else - something more basic or maybe more advanced. Why only DNA?

it made a wonderful read.
thank u.
``Life on other worlds, most likely, will not be driven by DNA, but perhaps by some other molecule with similar properties. What an astonishing discovery would that be to find such a molecule! ``

Lady: Since we`re talking about `science,` well some of us are... and other types of life, why not look rite here. There is nuthin in science which disproves the existence of other dimensions. Last I heard, they believe there may be at least 12 dimensions...

Extra terrestrial life may just be at a quicker vibrating dimension (one which we can`t see). Thats how Hazred and the jinn tie in.

Salman Hameed has my vote for PM... (that is Post-Master, an infinitely more useful job)

The very fact that someone has broken away from the usual moronic BULL5HIT (be it Pak-Bharat dushmani, or good vs bad Religion, or that awful mindless waste-of-time version of gulli-danda called Crook-it) and started another discussion is a highly commendable undertaking. I wish there were more of you on Chowk than is presently the case.

Now, turning to SETI, it is such a tragedy that the war mongering nit-wits in the US Congress have yet again refused to provide any funding for it. Thanks to funds from Paul Allen and some other private groups the few dedicated exobiologists are holding the fortress. But then I sometimes think that maybe these people should first go S (search) for TI before they can worry about ETI...

(Kirk said into his communicator, ``Beem me up, Scotty``? sigh, sigh, rolling eyeballs, ``There is no intelligent life form on this planet``. I wonder if he meant Earth??)

Finding life on other planets is not such a big deal. Now if we find intelligence, intelligent life that`ll be something. Take for example Pakistan, a lot of life, population growing like crazy, but very little intelligent life to speak of.

Drumz #36 I am delighted to see you feel so strongly about flying saucers. My mission to chowk is now accomplished! Since you are clearly a devout believer, I can now speak freely to you:
You see, I come from the planet Zorga (beep) From a galaxy far...far...away. My mission is to find strong believers in flying saucers...believers like you. You are chosen to help us green-skinned aliens rule earth (beep! beep!) As a first step towards your future glory...you are to pack one bag (no more, sorry), and go stand in the middle of your backyard on one leg, arms outstretched and with your eyes closed (never mind the neigbors). A flying saucer will hover over you, and beam you up...(beep)...You will then be appointed ``Local Police Chief on Planet Earth`` by the Grand Marshall of the Imperial Zorgan Starfleet himself (beep! beep!), in an impressive ceremony on board the flying saucer. So, get moving, soldier! You flying saucer awaits you!!

American: But i accept what my ancestors believe. I have a picture of muhammed`s flying horse in my room; its next to my painting of the ant who spoke to soloman...

tahmed: LOL, im not even gonna lie.

Salman, Welcome back to CHOWK!

A big change from our usual lineup here.

Ras Siddiqui

Best thing about research is not just dedication but obsession to probing. The desire of human mind to be curious leading to probing has created and destroyed many myths and theories. The life in any form elsewhere is one of the most fascination area after classifying all life forms on earth. Beyond fascination, finding life in any form anywhere else will be a major breakthrough in understanding the evolution of life on earth also.
Salman has laid out the case for carbon based life nicely based on the distinct propoerty of carbon to make extensive length of bonding with other carbon atoms, not only leading to the complexity and diversity of chemistry, life and functioning of life, also to sustaining of life by utilizing the stored energy in C-C bonds and (sadly) the destruction of life through oxidation.
For carbon based life to sustain, beside liquid environment, the rate of reproducing or making copies from simple molecular forms to complex life must be comparable to than of oxidation. The conditions on earth are possible, without any doubt, at many other plabets and moons, depending on the distance from the heating source - sun/ star and the gravity to keep an atmosphere. The possiblity of producing basic organic chemicals is also beyond doubt. It is the presence of certain ctatalyst to start giving a certain set of chemical edge over others, followed by a synergy or federation of a group of molecules to look after each other`s interests.
That is where not just the structure but also stereochemistry (shape and orientation of molecule in space) starts playing significant role. Basically a particular shape has to to have a slight edge over its rivals in cooperation from others molecules of the federation who are better defended living in walled cities or creating cell-walls. Given the billion of years, favorable conditions and availabilty of basic ingredients, the chance of selfishness among an exclusive group of molecules to behave for a common goal of protecting their federation at all cost is very probable. Similarly having many kind of life forms in competition with each other and developing a food chain is also natural outcome of limited lifetime of carbon based life in the presence of worst poison, oxygen - can`t live without suicidal dependence on oxygen, thanks to triplet biradical nature of oxygen.
Within carbon based life, the possibility of having life forms similar to the ones on earth would be a rare possibility. given so many things in the gistory of evolution to follow exactly same path as on earth, down to extinction of dianosaurs. This is very unlikely even if planets with similar to earth atmosphere exist.

Hameed # 28

What I meant was that at philosophical level, at least, at this stage we must broaden our definition of ``life``. Currently, our computer generated virtual characters are perfectly capable of exhibiting the chracteristics defined by calssical definitions, in virtual reality. A man-machine-man interface is also possible through robots- this is a step further from virtual reality. Intelligent prosthetics are capable of interfacing with organic cells.

SameerJB #48 Glad to see your post that does justice to the article which deals with an aspect that represents humanity at its best - i.e. in the persuit of science, with open minds and stout hearts. (I refer to stout hearts, given the timid manner in which most of us - particularly among us muslims as we pass through our days of degeneration and decay nowadays - cling to preconceived notions on the one hand, and lash out on the other hand at the West for daring to use their God-given minds and eyes).
Coming to the subject...
I find it fascinating that carbon-based life on earth - including us humans - is made up of atoms that were (as someone once put it) ``forged in the couldron of some long-dead stars``. And we know that such atoms have been continuously forged ever since for perhaps the past 16 billion years. And we also know that these atoms can then assembled into molecules, and ``confederations`` of molecules (aka living cells) in conditions that are not particularly extreme (relative to the extremes of pressures and heat and radiation and so forth that can be found in the universe). So, by all indications, the question seems not ``whether there is life outside planet earth``, but: ``when will we discover it``, or ``when will it discover us``, or ``have we already been discovered, and are being observed unbeknownst to us?``.
While we seem to be at a dead-end for now in the search for ET life, we are on a superhighway nowadays (thanks to genetic research) wrt to life on earth. We are discovering (as per a recent book by Pinker on the subject) that there are indeed genetic differences between humans. That we are different from animals only in quantitative terms, not qualitative. That things like immortality are not beyond our reach, given reasonalbe time and scientific effort. I have no doubt that this search of understanding life on earth (as opposed to ET life) will in a few decades from now totally change our notions of the past few thousand years on what it means to be human.

Drumz

The guy who wrote post #44 is lying. He is no alien. And if he has already probed you while you were asleep, then that wasn`t a probe either ok? Just don`t beleive anything, anyone says to you especially the strangers who wanna give you a candy ok.

Urstruly #49 Drumz, do not believe this poster who calls himself Urstruly. He is a Klingon in reality. He was disgracefully discharged from the Imperial Starfleet eons ago. He now tries to avenge himself by misleading starfleet recruits like you into thinking that flying saucers do not exist.
As for Urstruly, or should I say Urstruly of Uranus, you can run but you cannot hide from our flying saucers.

tahmed321: The vastness of the universe as a big empty space dotted here and there with stars and stars having their own federation of planets. This fact is usually not internalized by seeing the beautiful sky filled with stars and having 100 billion stars in the universe. It is a situation similar to seeing matter and understanding, in terms of mass, that it is really an empty space dotted very sparcely with very tiny or condensed mass of nuclei of atoms because electrons really do not have comparable mass (1/1875th of a proton).
Once that fact is well understood about very great distances between stars than the diameters or weight of the stars, the exploding dead star matter does not really spread all over the universe but mostly sucked in by the neighboring stars with their gravity. Therefore the wealth of carbon and other elements on earth has been pretty much the same as at the time of earth formation from some other exploding star and matter created as a result of big bang. By the time life came to earth, by any mean, earth was technically complete of its share of elements and except for later addition of small amount from meteorites and comets which were part of our federation (solar system) anyway.
So when we talk about discovering life in other places in the universe, we are really talking about knowing its existance rather than seeing it, meeting/ interacting it or finding ET. Nearest star outside solar system is more than 3 light years away. A person posting on chowk from alpha centuri will reach the server in october 20005 earliest of travelling through space at the speed of light. So really contact with anybody outside the solar system is just a dream or fiction right now. We will need many fold increase in the speed than the speed of light unless talking about folding hypotheses/ theories of time and space. All we want to know is that if life exists anywhere else.
It is not easy to define in one sentence what constitute life and where to draw the line. Urstruly does have valid philosophical reasons to include artifically intelligence based machines as well as part natural life-part machine as in transpalnts of artificial organs.
I have not read Pinker`s book but I do agree completely with you that except for accidental death, natural death can be and being delayed more and more until is is no different than conquering death. This is going to be achieved in more than one way. One is to have access to your own cloned spare organs, particularly the ones who fail more often. Then more and more artificial permanent organ transplants who understand the chemical signals the way nervous system works. Once human brain is made compatible to over the counter overhaul kits in communication, one can screw and unscrew parts with screw drivers, preferably Philips (?). Can you imagine a couple shopping for legs, penis, breasts, lips and so on. Hmmmmm what will be left of Miss World beauty contests. All one need will be a functioning brain which could also be serviced and taught in a hurry than regular schooling. Just attach electrodes and transfer 30 gegabytes of information within 15 minutes. Too bad none of us will be around by the time humanity will reach this stage. At the same time the danger of something going wrong leading to decimation of human race is also possible. Imagine once it becomes very easy to produce deadly viruses causing epidemics and some OBL type persons getting their hands on it. Except for the tightly held core technologies, rest will as they do now, will keep leaking to everybody interested in it. Right now the leakage leading to creating bootlegging material (such as CDs, DVDs and some medicines) is limited, but in genetic engineering this is the real danger, once OBL types start playing with it.

Hameed, Sameer, urstruly,


My 5 cents:

Here`s a point most people seem to be overlooking in this discussion:

--------------------------------------------------------
``DNA drives life on Earth. But DNA itself is not ``alive``. To replicate itself DNA requires a complex and specialized environment that is provided within living cells.``

Key phrase: ****DNA IS NOT ALIVE****

Everybody seems to be assuming DNA = life. But DNA is NOT life. DNA is just a `floppy disk` for life. Something useful to store information.

So, before we think of finding life in outer space we should find out what we mean by `life`.

What IS this intelligent, mysterious thing called `life` that so cleverly uses DNA to propagate itself???
-----------------------------------------------------------

Clearly this is a subject that needs to be dealt with at high (abstract) levels first. Since we hardly have any low-level data about it.

Since we have little idea what life is...can we define `life` by its qualities???

Some people say life is a manifestation of intelligence.

To that I would add...life has a sense of ``I-ness``...a sense of identity.
Which came first - intelligence or identity ??? Does one produce the other automatically???

The simplest cell `knows` it boundaries, its needs, its enemies...ITSELF.

-------------------------------------------

Say a programmer writes a clever program that plays chess. Does the program have intelligence ?

It does, in a sense...and it doesn`t in another sense...since the intelligence of the program is simply the extended intelligence of the programmer...the creator.

So intelligence can create further intelligence...no big deal in that.


THE KEY question is:
****Can intelligence be created out of Non-intelligence? ****


Any ideas anyone???

anarayan

I agree with your logic. That was exactly my point. The life itself and the its matter form through which it exhibits itself must be considered two separate entities. When life ``leaves`` its matter form the matter becomes dead like all the matter in the universe - so a question arises where did that life come from in the first place. Extended this logic further we must concentrate our efforts to understand this phenomenon by observing the viruses - since a virus is the simplest non-cellular organism that exists on the cusp of lifeless matter and alive matter. It can be crystallized like matter and remain live. But it can also be ``killed`` i.e. its ``life`` component can be separated from it.

infact, the exact no. of genes has not yet been discerned.
as for chromosomes, potatoes have more than humans!

tahmed32 #50 ``That we are different from animals only in quantitative terms, not qualitative``
on genetic terms, that is not completely true. there are qualitative differences.

I think the discussion below by urstruly, anarayan, sameerJB raise some fascinating issues:
First: What is life? Is a virus (which I understand lacks even a cell nucleus, and is essentially a glorified protein in many ways) a living creature as urstruly says? It can reproduce, but by hijacking the DNA of its host; and it can be killed. So perhaps a virus is a kind of a terrorist ``mini me``. If a prosthetic arm responds to a man`s nerve cell commands (as I believe is being done experimentally nowadays), and (as no doubt will be the case) looks and feels like a human arm, is that robot arm now a living part of the man? Is the famous ``Turing Test`` for life (namely, that a computer can be considered to have become a living being when it can carry on a conversation with a human from behind a curtain without the human being able to tell whether it is a human or a computer he is talking to) a valid test? (and indeed we will then probably have our first living computer over the next couple of decades per current projections). Closer home, is Chowk (or the internet) a ``brain`` a new kind of a living entity that is made up of many interacting living individuals in the same way a human brain is a living entity that is made up of many interacting nerve cells?
I dont have answers to this, other than the way urstruly put it: we need to broaden our definition of life. Not for nothing is the earth called the ``living planet``.
Second: Can intelligence be created from non-intelligence? The answer is simple (as science has indicated) and incredibly complex (if one questions the assumptions that science is based on). Take your pick.
Third: SameerJB raises the question of psychopaths (like OBL) using the vast destructive power of modern societies to attack these societies themselves. I think this is a far bigger potential danger to the existence of mankind than people realize. About 3-4 years ago, Bill Joy (the former VP of Sun Microsystems, and a leader in the development of cutting edge technologies) made a speech on the subject that received much attention at the time, but has been strangely forgotten now that some of what he predicted at the time seems to be coming true. Indeed, a half-century ago Toynbee made a similar prediction, which in a nutshell was: Mankind`s technological prowess now vastly exceeds its emotional maturity. This is a recipe for a disaster. He was thinking of nuclear weapons. We can only pray for tremendous good fortune for our human race to make it safely through these critical times. Since the odds seem against it: we have primitive emotions and hatreds that were harmless (and probably beneficial) in stone age societies and in our animal past, but which now can translate into mass destruction. And beyond that are the unintended consequences for the environment and so forth that we have no clue about (the first nuclear test in the US was delayed, I understand, due to fears that it could start a chain reaction that would ignite the world`s atmosphere - the scientists were not very sure, so we basically got lucky that time).
On this cheery note, I end my two bits on some of the points raised in the discussion below.

shajar #56 Qualitative differences between living things would, (to my mind at least), require something much more fundamental than the number of genes. These would require the absence of genes altogether in other living things, and a totally different mechanism instead for their design and development.
Interesting about the potato having a larger number of chromosomes than a human - I assume that the total number of genes in a potato is much less though than in a human (the latter being estimated at between 30,000 and 150,000, per my quick google search on Nature magazine). In other words, while the potato has more chapters, the total number of pages required to create us humans (who are definitely superior to potatoes, or so we think) is much greater.

Urstruly,

``The life itself and the its matter form through which it exhibits itself must be considered two separate entities.``

I think so too. Wish we knew more on this.

We go back to the anceint belief that the universe comprises two things - matter and mind.


regs,

To: tahmed321, Urstruly, anarayan, shajar
Now we are in an area where I feel more comfortable discussing due to having little background in chemistry, biochemistry and microbiology. First of all, I will disagree with the separation of life from matter. The chemical basis of the functions of all aspects of life is beyond doubt, though many of them we have not yet fully comprehended. All the medicines, drugs and even spiritual healing like meditation, prayers or cognition work through chemical basis. Once chemistry in every step of life and living is not denied, the matter can not be excluded from any discussion of chemistry. Chemistry is the understanding of the properties of matter. So life is a manifestation of matter in a very organized, synchronized, collaborative, complex and not yet totally understood way of a chemical based machines that was in the making for the last 3 billion or so years.
A car is still a car when its transmission fails and junked because its parts can be used to make other cars work. A life fails at death but eyes, heart, liver and with further development in surgery and overcoming the rejection by immune system, are usable living parts after death for transplantation. This is possible because part of the machines or matter is deemed useful and alive enough to work as living parts of the machine.
The question really boils down to that a car does not yearn to make its copies but computer viruses and viruses do just as other forms of life; not only making copies but also making sure that the copies survive until they are capable of reproducing. Just like computer viruses, it is built into the machines. Why do machines evolved to do this proliferation of self?
This is a famous turning point for philosophers of purposeful design and therefore a designer. However, a self propelled and selfish machine does not need a designer; it creates and modifies design to optimize its survival, ability to reproduce and various techniques to maximize the survival of copies. But why?
Water flows downstream for a reason, called gravity. Same thing if explained in terms of chemistry would be called entropy. Decreasing the entropy (usually mean disorderliness fir laymen) or lowering of energy is thermodynamically spontaneous process. This is exactly what happens when crystals start to grow on their own. The growth of a particular shape of crystal by water or other chemicals/ molecules is a matter of energetics and not design/ designer. They are just obeying the laws of nature to live in a most comfortable lowest possible energy state. Energetics is the reason for oxygen to behave as biradical triplet (sort of teo joined free radicals) than behaving a doubly bonded singlet state drawn in science books; living as biradical is more comfortable for oxygen.
Similarly the properties of carbon predate the life on earth. One of the properties leads to destruction of organic (carbon based or living) molecules in time most commonly due to the reaction with oxygen called oxidation. It means there will be a lifetime for organic based machine – life. Machines have to develop design to overcome this property of carbon in many ways. One is to keep replacing the dead chemicals/ cells with the help of feeding sources of energy and basic material for replacement and other is reproduction. In terms of thermodynamics or energetics, none of these is uphill battle, once machine is working properly.
The property to reproduce in a selfish way requires certain patents or specialties (such as optimal microenvironment in vivo) so that the proliferation is controlled by the machine and not in vitro. The DNA is just a chemical without that microenvironment of viscosity, density, salinity, pH, polarity etc to make DNA work in desirable and optimum way – basically providing the right activation energy for the preferred transformation. The energetics at every step from day one to death can not be over looked. The conditions within allow the chemistry to take place desirably without breaking any laws of energetics or nature.
More we understand chemistry of bodily functions, more we understand life. What is non-material part (if any) of life will remain mystery because of unavailability of techniques to measure/ analyze it on scientific basis. Non-scientific basis is very subjective and world could only be born into believing only one universally acceptable answer.
The discussion between qualitative and quantitative differences of human DNA from other primates is more appropriate in creation versus evolution debate. Here, it is more appropriate to understand (I think we have not yet identified those genes clearly) the human genes responsible for larger brain memory than primates. I believe that somewhere in the distant past, the memory of certain primates started increasing slowly and continued for a long time before it started making a visible difference, something like memorizing scenes, skills and moving scenes. Once this happens, memory increase accelerated until enough memory space was available to store data about acquired skills, intelligence and wisdom (sort of artificial intelligence). Rest is human history of last half a million to today. Really the difference between other primates and us is in brain ability setting in motion a fast track evolution and perhaps genes associated with it. The fast track evolution of mind related activities has left primates so far behind that for many it difficult and sometime insulting to relate humans to primate in a world where even a rich or a tribe tries to distance as much as possible from poor and other tribes.

sameerJB #61 The statement ``The chemical basis of the functions of all aspects of life is beyond doubt`` leaves no room for the soul as traditionally conceived. So, once the chemical reactions stop, that is the end of life as we understand it. ALthough not a scientist like you, from all indications your statement is probably true - since we know that neurotransmitters allow cells to communicate (thus bringing them together to form a brain). And there seems to be a vast number of neurotransmitters in the brain, ranging from small molecules like Dopamine (which gives the ``racer`s high``) and Serotonin to larger amino acids), and a minor imbalance between them can have devastating affects in terms of mental disorders. For ages mental disorders have been considered to be the result of the devil taking over the human mind - and now we know it is tiny bits of chemicals, and the imbalance is often rectified relatively easily with simple pills. It does not therefore require much leap of imagination to consider consciousness itself to be the result of these intricate chemical interactions spread over trillions of nerve cells.
But where does this leave religion? I think it simply indicates that things like ``soul`` and the ``Almighty`` are well beyond our understanding - since we will probably never know where these chemicals came from in the first place (since science also tells us that all matter in the universe came into existence in a flash out of essentially ``nowhere``). And as long as we dont know what happened before the Big Bang, how the laws of nature were formed to begin with, and other such basic questions, there will always be room for religion, I think. Only, it wont be the empty ritualistic religion as we know it today, which is essentially a projection of life on earth as we know it (complete with great sex and so forth, as we muslims are reminded often by our detractors). Rather this religion is a much more profound one which essentially represents the Great Unknown in space and time that will always lie outside the boundary of our scientific knowledge. And the key actionable item for us is to keep on extending this boundary. That is why we were created, or so we believe.

sameer,

If I may speak for others also...we welcome your thoughts, especially in your field of expertise.

However...I think urstruly and yourstruly...were on a somewhat diffrent wavelength. By `life` we meant the ultra-subtle intelligence that seems beyond grasp and not its material manifestations.

Lets take it point by point.

----------------------------

You say: ``I will disagree with the separation of life from matter. The chemical basis of the functions of all aspects of life is beyond doubt ...So life is a manifestation of matter in a very organized, synchronized, collaborative, complex and not yet totally understood way of a chemical based machines that was in the making for the last 3 billion or so years.``

Off course, there`s no doubt about that. But if `life` was mere chemical reactions, then there would be no problem in creating it in the laboratory.

Naturally evolved life may be several billion years old, but today we have taken it apart...we know life chemically. So why should it be difficult to reproduce a cell in the lab?? Maybe you can throw some ligth on that.

To my knowledge, no life has ever been created artifically by man. All the scientiests have done is the `play` with living cells by injecting them with DNA made externally, etc.

--------------------------

Your other point was with respect to `entropy`...which is VERY central to this question of `what is life`...and which I felt would creep into this discussion...were it to get serious.

All naturally occuring `movements` or `reactions` are due to the entropy principle. Matter and energy seem to seek the most stable, most disorderly state.

Now, the million $$ question is...did life first evolve due to this principle??? Is life in its present state based on this principle???

If yes...then you are correct...`life` is nothing but a bunch of chemicals trying to find its lowest state.

If no...then we are forced to accept that there is something non-materialistic in life. Something we may call `will` or `intelligence` or `desire`... which is not material.


Borrowing your example...water flows downhill. If at some place we observed it flowing uphill...we would conclude that it is NOT NATURAL...that therefore there was some `will`or `intelligence` at work here that developed a `mechanism` to make it go uphill.

Similarly...you know very well (as a scientist) that the simplest living cell is tremendously complex. DNA chains are (I believe) several hundred-thousand molecules long.

There is ORDER...not little...but TREMENDOUS, repeat TREMENDOUS order in `life`. You would agree to this I think.

Therefore...`life` is a NEGATION of the entropy principle.

On its own, the entropy principle would NEVER allow the first cell to ever be constructed.

What do you think?

cheers,

tahmed321 and anarayan:
Let me first handle before Big Bang and soul before getting into entropy and life beyond chemistry.
What was before Big Bang can not be explained with our current understanding because that is beyond time and space. That is, though, no reason to believe a designer on one side and nothingness on the other. However, if in time we are able to answer history 100 years before Big Bang, Christian and Muslim fundamentalists and other believers in designer hypothesis will immediately ask: haha, but what was 200 years before Big Bang. See, in this way a believer could never be convinced despite absolute failure on jis part to answer the making of designer himself except that he was always there. Billions of dollars and a million scientists around the world are not doing reasearch to answer a mullah or a priest somewhere in the world. The adamant hangover with the creation hypothesis on part of these people is detrimental to their religions because religions are more than just about creation or god. Buddhism for example has no opinion about either.
Extramaterial part of life called soul or something else also falls because whether it is or not, it is totally in control of human, excluding everything outside human mind. If I do not want to participate in creating a soul (fathering a child), the god`s participation is terminated. With it falls all the concepts of hell, heaven, morality and everything that were to be applicable to this future human being - all because of me and my decision not to bring this human being into the world. If you believe slightly differently that we create the chemical part and designer adds the non-material one is also dependant on us because chemical one is independent (X-axis) and non-material is dependent (Y-axis). The point I am trying to make is that even if there is to be something beyind material form to life, it is so minor (insignificant) - discarded or ignored in scientific calculatioins.
Entropy is a minor component in determining the fate of a reaction, measured in cal/ deg/ mole unless at very high temperatures because it is per degree temperature dependent. The right term is free energy commonly known as deltaG which is related to equilibrium at every step of a reaction. For a series of reactions taking place over 3 billion years, all the intermediate steps with equilibrium constants have to be known to find out overall free energy as downhill or uphill for all the processes leading toa cell formation. Along the way, entropic loss or gain has to be calculated factoring in the pre-association or pre-organization (orderliness) of the previous step(s). Sorry to be too scientific here but what it means is that a comparison of living cell in energetics could not be compared with the large number of chemicals that it is made up of and neither with the basic elements of the cell as C, H, O, N, S.
An random agglomeratioin of watch, car or human cell components will not start function as a watch, car or human cell respectively. There is an order to put them together to get to a watch, car or human cell. If you know the right order exactly in detail, having the availability if all chemicals involved in a cell, knowledge of exact conditions for every reaction and several million years of time at hand, a living cell could be produced from its chemical constituents. This is called principle of microreversibility in chemistry, something similar to reverse engineering. Did life took all the right steps to get to this point?
Depends what do you means by wrong steps. Wrong step would have tajen us to different shapes and forms of life and if intelligent would have considered them right steps. The right and wrong is thus subjective once we consider us to be the only right outcome. At every step, life and chemistry associated with it tinkered with large number of competing reactions and they still do but thet lose out through the complex selection process. None of the reaction in body produces 100 percent desired product, some are actually very poor yield processes. That is why we excrete, sweat, fart and ultimately die. It is optimum and not the most efficient overall chemical result. An efficient would have left no waste, taking in exact amount of fat, protein and carbohydrate calories in the form of pills three times daily and living happily ever after.
anarayan, I think I have answered your question as to why we have not created a living cell in laboratory. For microscopic reversibility, all details at micro levels must be known and time at hand. Many chemicals previously thought to be natural part of living cells are now produced in the labs. The vitamin C is no longer dependent upon exepnsive and time consuming extraction from lemons and lime. The Jasmine scent used in perfumes as well as many other perfume ingredients are chemically synthesized with ease. These are just couple of examples from top of my head.

Unfortunately, the discussion that could have been a good learning experience has turned into religion bashing. This discussion was never about religious doctrines. Science is all about possibilities and not impossibilities. I am out.

SameerJB #64 The point I was making was not that science was ``proves`` or ``disproves`` God`s existence. It is as irrational to think that science proves Gods existence as it is to think that science disproves it. All I said was that there will always be a boundary to human knowledge. Indeed, the more we know, the more we realize how much more there is to know. So, if anyone wishes to BELIEVE that there is a overarching consciousness of some kind that we can never fully understand (i.e. God as understood through religious teachings) then I think that is his/her business. If anyone wishes to BELIEVE otherwise that is fine too. Neither belief comes in the way of the scientist as he/she persues what I consider to be the finest occupation of all for a human being - expanding the knowledge frontier. I hope this clarifies my point.
PS: Incidentally, on the question of SETI, I understand they are now putting up a new telescope named the Allen Telescope Array (after Paul Allen, of microsoft fame, who is a major donor along with another microsoft almuni, Myrhrvold) in California which is expected to increase the capacity for the SETI search 100 times over the present telescope array (the Arecibo Telescope Array). This, per the SETI website, is considered a very significant (and not an incremental one only) over the ability to search for a ``needle`` (i.e. artificially generated signals, which would indicate the presence of ET) in a haystack (the vast amount of ``noise`` generated by the trillions of heavenly bodies, some stretching back to Creation - excuse me, Big Bang - itself).

Urstruly #65 Dont go, please. On this board we have some glimmerings of EU (Extra-Usual-stuff-about-politics-and-stuff), and your posts have raised some interesting issues. I think I brought up the religion angle myself, but I did not mean to detract from the main discussion.

tahmed321: I did not start discussion about the definition of life. I merely disagreed to a statement that made a suggestion to treat life different than the constituents it is dependent upon. How could SETI or any other technique find life somewhere out there when we do not believe that the identifiable material is not life. What will the telescope be looking at? Something different than the constituents? I guess if I had agreed with head down to something other than chemical basis it would not have been religion bashing but then forget about telescope and SETI and any known technique to detect life in the universe and discard this article.
I hope you understand that it is no use looking for life out there if we do not know what life is.
We are looking for traces of gases, temperature, pressure, water and things necesssary for life. However if they communnicate with us, then it is life and forget about the constituents because anybody able to contact will be more than able to explain what they are in all respect. If we are to detect something in the outer space at current level of skills, it is going to be constituents much before seeing an ET.
I was not familiar with Paul Allen`s recent contribution but now I do, thanks to you. As we are able to magnify outer space more and more and able to have better view of stars whose light have already reached us, we might have better idea. But still the difficulty is that stars are too hot and the planets around them almost invisible due to glare from their parent star. The moons are almost out of question to see.
W hat we are looking at are the signatures in the form of specific wavelength emission radiations that are specific for different elements and compounds. I am not sure but I think they are radiowaves region and thus very weak signals.
All we need is convincing evidence from just one source, that break the uniqueness of life limited to earth. As soon as it is 2, the possibilities in the universe mean large numbers. Wouldn`t it be nice to be hit by a small meterorite that brings the clues from the outer reaches of solar system of life on Europa or some other moon.
Do you know the date this new telescope will become operational?

sameer,

(1)

You write:
``Extramaterial part of life called soul or something else also falls because whether it is or not, it is totally in control of human, excluding everything outside human mind. If I do not want to participate in creating a soul (fathering a child), the god`s participation is terminated. With it falls all the concepts of hell, heaven, morality and everything that were to be applicable to this future human being - all because of me and my decision not to bring this human being into the world.``

I understand what you are trying to convey. But I feel the `God` concept should not enter this discussion...since what we (me and urstruly) are talking about is simply something non-material which we may call `intelligence`...not God in the usual sense of an all-powerful entity that can influence worldly events, that passes commandments, etc.

This intelligence would be something subler than the subtlest...permeating all life...not gross enough to change our daily thinking (which arises out of our conditioning, experiences, etc)...but the essence of life.



(2)
``The point I am trying to make is that even if there is to be something beyind material form to life, it is so minor (insignificant) - discarded or ignored in scientific calculatioins.``
``Entropy is a minor component in determining the fate of a reaction, measured in cal/ deg/ mole unless at very high temperatures because it is per degree temperature dependent. The right term is free energy commonly known as deltaG which is related to equilibrium at every step of a reaction. For a series of reactions taking place over 3 billion years, all the intermediate steps with equilibrium constants have to be known to find out overall free energy as downhill or uphill for all the processes leading toa cell formation.``


I have 2 things to say here:
a)
Once a reaction starts, then, you are correct...entropy doesn`t figure much in the calculations. But here we are debating something else...whether the process WILL START AT ALL.

In this question (whether the process will start at all)...entropy is the ONLY player.

A reaction will never EVEN START if in the net result it will add to the `orderliness` of the universe.



b)
Do you really feel that the first cell `SOMEHOW` came into being (by chance) ???? Many scholars believe so and that is something that always surprises me.

Take a DNA...many hundred thousand molecules...perfectly placed.

Now consider this:
Say an event has 1/10 chance of hapenning. Consider a series of ONLY 20 such events.
If one event takes 1 second...then for the event series to defintely take place...we will have to wait for 100 billion years...more than the age of the universe!

And to make a cell is a million times more complex than 20 simple events. The intricate cell wall, the fluid interior with perfect pH, the nucleus, the tremendously tight-coiled DNA, etc, etc, etc.

You would agree that a `chance` cell is indeed laughable!

---------------------------------------------

Let me now explain what I meant in my previous post on `life` and `entropy`:

Consider a tree. It takes in raw minerals and converts them to living matter. It captures and stores the energy of sunlight. This action goes against the `entropy principle`. This action of capturing light and storing as chemical energy. It adds to the order in the universe.

Can you name any natural process which does this???

The opposite of this action...extracting the checmical energy of plants (burning petroleum)...happens spontaneously...because that is in line with the `entropy principle`. Burning petrol increase the entropy of the universe.

Thus my statement that `life` is a NEGATION of the `entropy principle`.

No natural process can negate this principle.

tahmed, sameer, anarayan, urstruly:

Sorry for the delayed participation. Quick comments regarding SETI: Allen Telescope is expected to be operational by 2005 and will also modify the way radio astronomy is done. In fact, there is another project, The Square Kilometer Array (SKA), that is being designed based on the Allen Telescope project.

However, another interesting area is ``Optical SETI``. Recently (in the last couple of years) astronomers have started looking for strong laser flashes (pulses) near sun-like stars. As it turns out, searching for ``intelligent`` signals in the optical have tremendous advantages. First, you don`t have to search (and guess) through millions of frequency channels since optical spectrum is much smaller. Second, as it turns out, its quite easy to outshine a star at a particular wavelength. For example, we are at a point where we have the technology to build a laser that can outshine our Sun at Red wavelengths (of course we should not try that around the yellow region of the spectrum) for a short period of time. Optical SETI (or OSETI) is going on at Harvard, Ohio, and couple of other places.

There is also a satellite planned ``The Terrestrial Planet Finder (TPF)`` that is going to search and image earth-like planets (scheduled for 2009-2010). It will also be able to take spectra of the planets to see if we can detect oxygen or not. All primordial atmospheres of planets (including Earth`s) were devoid of free oxygen. Only life changed the composition of our atmosphere, and made it relatively oxygen-rich. So one idea is that if we detect sufficient oxygen on an earth-like planet, then there is a very good chance that there is life (probably very simple) out there. Of course, this is from the perspective of life as we know it, not life as we don`t know it.

-Salman.

I thought you might find the following quote from Arthur C. Clarke (the famous British science fiction writer who lives in sri lanka) interesting: ``There are two possibilities: Either we are alone in the universe or we are not. Both are equally terrifying``.
Another aspect of course is the SETI@home program. Started by the University of Berkeley in 1999, this program by now has extends distributed computing to a growing number of PCs (about 4 million now) so they work in parallel to provide the power of supercomputers costing $300 million. The program basically takes radio transmission captured by the Arecibo telescope in Puerto Rico (the largest radio telescope in the world today), and looks for radio signals of a kind that ET is currently expected to most likely be using. These are then sent to these various PCs, where the screen saver analyzes the signal when the PC is not being used, and sends in the results. This program run essentially on a voluntary basis, has been of interest not only in SETI but also in the more mundane field of computing where it is the leading example of harnessing the power of the internet for distributed computing that represents a serious alternative to the traditional use of the ``Big Iron`` approach for supercomputing. And you can be a part of it by simply downloading from Berkeleys SETI@home program.
PS: Incidenatlly, the types kind of signals they are looking for in this distributed computing aspect of SETI indicates the thoughtfullness and cooperation of voluntary efforts of individuals as well as of universities and even some international agencies that has gone into this entire effort: They are looking for signals that are within a narrow band - since broadband signals would require too much bandwith for the distances involved between stars. Similarly, they would form a bell-shaped curve lasting about 15-20 seconds, resulting from the movement of the telescope due to the earth`s rotation first towards and then away from the pont of signal origination. And they are looking for a very narrow band - around 1420 Mhrz I think - which is a relatively quiet part of the tower of babel created by the trillions of heavenly bodies as well as signals from man-made satellites etc. since FCC and international agencies have also lent a helping hand to SETI by disallowing use of this frequency for commercial or other purposes.

anarayan #69 Actually, I think the conditions that triggered the transformation of a bunch of chemicals into what ultimately became living creatures are simple enough - they were replicated in the lab over half a century ago when the first amino acids were formed after simulating conditions of earth 4 billion years ago (with electrical discharges to represent the tremendous lightening storms of that time). And amino acids become proteins and the rest is history.
I agree with you though that to think that something as complex as a cell (Let alone the human eye, or the even more complex eagle eye, or the even more complex human mind, or the incredible wings of the common housefly whose complex motions scientists are trying to mimic nowadays, and the list goes on) could happen by chance. Darwin`s theories are on the right track, but are not sufficient to answer this question - a significant enhancement to this theory has been made earlier this year in the book ``The structure of evolutionary theory`` which replaces the one dimensional struggle for survival of the individual with a multi-dimensional struggle at various levels - the DNA, the individual, the species, and so on. The implications for human society are profound.
And even this advance begs the ultimate question - what is behind all this? One guess (e.g. an overarching intelligence) is as good as another (i.e. ``mechanical`` interactions), as long as one does not confuse what we believe with what we know. We just dont know the answer to this question.

Darwin`s theory, though named, ``origin of species``, hardly describe the `origin`; evolution or evolutionary process is not origin. And even evolution component of it is speculative. On the other hand a new theory is emerging regarding the origin - it is not based on religious doctrines, but despite that it has acclaimed support from both religious and non-religious points of view. The theory is called ``Intelligent design``. The basic logic of this theory is simple - as in archeology and anthropology when a piece of stone/metal/wood is found in the shape of arrowhead the the set of assumptions go like this:

- In nature, such a shape hardly occurs by itself, therefore, it must be made by someone and since such shapes are usually made by humans, therfore, humans must have made them.

- Or when an archeologist finds the ruins of a building- the assumptions are made that since such shape does not occur by chance, therefore, someone must have made them; and since such structures are usually made by humans, therefore, humans must have made it.

Like I said - science is about possibilities and not about impossibilities.

Thanks Hameed for updating about high power new telescope and advances in the optical spectral techniques in the region where intensuty of shiniing stars is relatively low. The red color monochromatic is very advantageous here because of lesser diffusion of red color and laser being monochromatic does not require scanning very wide area. Here on earth, the red laser is often associated with ruby and similar material can be found at other places, although I do not know why it would be pulsed on its own and not continuous. Of course, pulsed has many analytical advantages.
anaratan and tahmed: I do not understand the logic og insistance of extramaterial component of life when it is just a philosophical question dealing with meaning of life and socialy purpose of life. I will continue to disagree with universal consiousness in any name. It is more of a logic developed by thinking individuals in the absense of modern understanding of life, chemistry and evolution - some 2-3 thousands years ago. I do not mean to reject it mainly because it is old concept becasue many old concepts such as family, marriage and wheel are still useful and accepted. However, more we understand life, as I previously mentioned in terms of medicine instead of remedies. Even the universal consiousness also has chemical basis in terms of neurotransmitters communicating through oxidation-reductioin of acetylcholine. The complexity of interaction methodology is mainly due to the time it took to ``perfect`` the system to the advantage of its carrier. For each individual, intelligence develops with age depending upon opportunities, dedication, perspiration, inspiration and not inventing the wheel for every individual. We do not have to begin life in the stone age any more because of surrounding but if a child is kept away in total isolation from surroundings and interaction completely, the universal consiousness will not manifest itself automatically to put that life in 21st century.
The living cell or photosynthesis in plants is perfectly logical for a scientist. But you have to understand the genesis of each step reaching to a cell. Each reaction is either spontaneous or non-spontaneous. Once bond formation of bond breaking is involved, entropicla contribution is negligible. Entropy contributes in bimiolcular reactions effecting the probability of productive collisions leading to activation towards a reaction. The product from one reaction can be more disorderly than the reactants if the equilibrium to falling back to reactants is overcomed such as in static equilibrium. A chair placed on rooftop has more entropy than at placed on the floor but a chair can be as easily put toether on rooftop as on floor because once it`s formation due to static equilibrium is not reversible process. In chemistry, if the product precipitates out, the reversibility is stalled or slowed to make the reaction proceed according to LeChatlier principle. This is also termed as product of thermodynamic control. The energy from heat, solvation, bond formation, light and many other forms of energy becomes part of the product. When the product of Ist reaction goes into second reaction, the high entropy of ist product helps the second reaction. For example in enzymatic reaction, the strained pre-organization of catalyst becomes nore comfortable, or decreasing entropy by forming lock and key type intermediates and transition states.
In kinetic control reaction, the product stability and irreversibe equilibrium of rate determining step dominates the fate of the reaction. Similarly in dynamic equilibrium processes, the rate of product comsumption in the next step determines the equilibrium. A faster second reaction shifts the first reaction to the forward direction. Better scientific understanding of reactions went into evolving a cell is inversely related to extramaterial contribution. The chemistry of photosynthesis is well established in the presence of catalyst chlorophyll. The electronic energy f