The article really broadens the definition of life into self replicating structures that dissipate entropy. England's point is that there may be lots of self replicating mechanisms but we haven't looked for them. Life as we know it is really a subclass of what he is trying to describe.
Absolutely. We're not even certain if life exists (or ever previously existed) on planets that we have hardware on.
The criteria in the article were input energy and a "bath" into which that energy can be dissipated. Perhaps there is a minimum potential difference before structures will self-organize--or perhaps the probability of self-organization is proportional to the difference.
Speculating along this line of reasoning: On Mercury, you have plenty of input energy, but few options for dissipating it. On Europa, you may have the reverse problem.
For all we know, however, Europa may actually have life. Our sample set is too small.
We don't know when and where life might have existed or currently exists ...even on the planets that we know about. Some interesting things to read if you wonder about such things:
Although entropy must increase over time in an isolated or “closed” system, an “open” system can keep its entropy low — that is, divide energy unevenly among its atoms — by greatly increasing the entropy of its surroundings.
Perhaps the Earth biosphere is the only "open" system in the Universe that keeps its entropy low by increasing the entropy of its surroundings, i.e. the rest of the Universe.
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I remember reading this before and thinking, if this is so obvious how come life doesn't exist on any other planets we know of?
The article really broadens the definition of life into self replicating structures that dissipate entropy. England's point is that there may be lots of self replicating mechanisms but we haven't looked for them. Life as we know it is really a subclass of what he is trying to describe.
Possibly because we don't actually know very much about other planets.
Absolutely. We're not even certain if life exists (or ever previously existed) on planets that we have hardware on.
The criteria in the article were input energy and a "bath" into which that energy can be dissipated. Perhaps there is a minimum potential difference before structures will self-organize--or perhaps the probability of self-organization is proportional to the difference.
Speculating along this line of reasoning: On Mercury, you have plenty of input energy, but few options for dissipating it. On Europa, you may have the reverse problem.
For all we know, however, Europa may actually have life. Our sample set is too small.
Stars have almost all of the characteristics of living creatures.
They are stable, emit heat and replicate ...
On that exact note -- I can recommend "Whipping star", a sci-fi novel by Frank Herbert (of Dune fame).
We don't know when and where life might have existed or currently exists ...even on the planets that we know about. Some interesting things to read if you wonder about such things:
Perhaps the Earth biosphere is the only "open" system in the Universe that keeps its entropy low by increasing the entropy of its surroundings, i.e. the rest of the Universe.
I think you'll find that every planet in existence is forcibly receiving light and has entropy to spare.