Re: Other Life Forms - what to expect?

[John M <***>]

Dan,
I was raised and researching for ½ century in the awe of the
extraordinaryness of water. My main occupation with the polymers I made was
water treatment (purif).
I valued the +4C max. density immensely, but what is it worth in an
environment with -120  - -210 C?  We know precious little of stuff even
existing at that cold level, not peculaiarities. Your "pairs" are "ours,
here",
reminds me of the stupid joke when a man  dropped his carkeys at a dark
street- and searches for them around the corner where there is a streetlamp
and he can search much better in the light.
Say are there 3 or more genders? is proliferation a 2 way street? The
densness at that temperature may affect the nucleic rub into different
energy-phenomena from those what  our physicists might have thought about in
some esotericly cold-experiments of our ambient world-facts.
Is there ideation as we think about it, is a mechanism for it (if yes) like
our neuronics? Or the apolar dispersion forces play ideational games over
there? I do have an imagination - but want to control it for awhile.

Yes, it is still 'our' world, but the circumstances arise in a (maybe)
different pattern from what we CAN know.
Should we call it 'life'? What is beauty for a hydrocarbon?
We even don't know details about 'that' kind of life here on earth, which
fleurishes in the very high pressure very high temp volcanic areas in the
depth of the oceans - chemically quite differently built from our
bio-materials.

John M

----- Original Message -----
From: "Dan Fiscus" <***>
To: <***>
Sent: Wednesday, February 02, 2005 9:41 AM
Subject: Re: Other Life Forms - what to expect?


> John,
>
> So water may be specific rather than general. I am not
> sure of the details but will look at the article. Water is
> pretty darn special in terms of its properties - heat
> capacity (specific heat), latent heat of fusion, latent heat
> of evaporation, density (with maximum at 4 deg. C),
> surface tension, dielectric constant, dipole moment,
> viscosity, transparency (these from a class I took on
> Enviro. Geochem., one that almost killed me by the way
> so I am no expert). Many of these properties help and
> even co-conspire to help with environment in terms of
> Henderson's Fitness of the Environment for life. I'd be
> curious to see how other solvents, media, thermal
> masses might compare.
>
> But, even if water is optional, variable, non-generic...
> what properties, qualities, relations, associations of life
> might be more generic? My top nominee is coupled
> complementary process. I think life anywhere - even if
> hydrocarbon based instead of water - would have pairs
> of interdependent, impredicative (causal loopy with no
> primacy, like chicken and egg) processes/functions
> analogous to these:
>
> 1. autotroph with heterotroph - composer with
> decomposer
>
> 2. male-female
>
> 3. dual hemispheres of brain - rational with emotional
>
> 4. binocular parallax - to see that third dimension
>
> 5. bilateral symmetry - with ears, nostrils, limbs,
> organs, etc.
>
> Some ideas...partly borrowed from Bateson among
> others.
>
> Dan
>
>
> John M wrote:
> >  believe we have to prepare for serious re-thinking on "life" unless we
> > restrict ourselves to the wet Earth.
> > Nature's recent article (excerpts only):
> >
> >
> >     Titanic life may bloom without water
> >
> > Philip Ball
> >
> > *Hydrocarbon seas on Saturn's moon could be a solvent for biological
> > molecules.*
> > ...does life depend on water? Or could it be that Earth life has evolved
> > to suit its watery home? Anything we might recognize as life probably
> > needs a liquid solvent to transport molecules and bring them together.
> > But who says the solvent must be water?
> > ...Benner and his colleagues argue (Organisms should be comfortable in a
> > hydrocarbon ocean) in /Current Opinion in Chemical Biology/ that
> > water-free environments on other worlds might fulfil the conditions for
> > life^1 <http://www.nature.com/news/2005/050131/full/050131-2.html#B1>
> > . (Benner S. A., Ricardo A. & Carrigan M. A. /Curr. Opin. Chem. Biol./,
> > *8*. 672 - 689 (2004).
> > ...Titan looks like the best candidate for non-aqueous life. It seems to
> > have rivers and oceans (of hydro-carbons), and its sticky surface is
> > apparently made partly from organic molecules. (reactive nitrils).
> > ...So it's not obvious that water is special, apart from the fact that
> > it exists in large quantities on Earth.
> > *
> > Nasa restricted its plans to bodies with water for life.
> > Our ways of thinking about biology seem to need a rather fundamental
> > refurbishing.
> >
> > John M
> >