silicon-based life

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4th Rock From the Sun: The Story of Mars by Nicky Jenner

3D printing, Alfred Russel Wallace, Apollo 11, Apollo 13, Astronomia nova, cuban missile crisis, Dennis Tito, Elon Musk, fake news, game design, Golden age of television, hive mind, invention of the telescope, Johannes Kepler, Kickstarter, Kim Stanley Robinson, Late Heavy Bombardment, low earth orbit, Mars Society, Neil Armstrong, On the Revolutions of the Heavenly Spheres, overview effect, placebo effect, Pluto: dwarf planet, retrograde motion, selection bias, silicon-based life, Skype, Stephen Hawking, technoutopianism, TED Talk, Virgin Galactic

It bonds to itself more weakly than carbon does, is more reactive, and would be unable to use water as a solvent, so there’d need to be another present (methane would work, but any environment would thus require both abundant silicon and methane). It’s possible that extraterrestrial life could be silicon-based, but it wouldn’t be a case of simply replacing the carbon within us with silicon. Silicon-based life would be truly alien: the entire structure and system of life would need to be reimagined to suit the properties and chemistry of the silicon atom. We also look for ‘out-of-equilibrium’ gases as possible markers of life. These are gases that would usually naturally degrade or combine to form another substance, but exist in a planet’s atmosphere in higher-than-expected levels because they are regularly replenished by some ongoing process occurring on the planet.

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Artificial You: AI and the Future of Your Mind by Susan Schneider

artificial general intelligence, brain emulation, deep learning, Elon Musk, Extropian, heat death of the universe, hive mind, life extension, megastructure, Nick Bostrom, pattern recognition, precautionary principle, radical life extension, Ray Kurzweil, Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence, silicon-based life, Stephen Hawking, superintelligent machines, technological singularity, TED Talk, The Coming Technological Singularity, theory of mind, traumatic brain injury, Turing machine, Turing test, Whole Earth Review, wikimedia commons

At the most demanding level, we might see if the machine invents and uses consciousness-based concepts on its own, without our prompts. Perhaps it is curious about whether we are conscious, even though we are biological. The following example illustrates the general idea. Suppose we find a planet that has a highly sophisticated silicon-based life form (call them the “Zetas”). Scientists observing them begin to ask whether the Zetas are conscious. What would be convincing proof of their consciousness? If the Zetas express curiosity about whether there is an afterlife or ponder whether they are more than just their bodies, it would be reasonable to judge them as conscious.

Life in the Universe: A Beginner's Guide by Lewis Dartnell

anthropic principle, biofilm, carbon-based life, double helix, Kickstarter, Late Heavy Bombardment, Mars Rover, place-making, Pluto: dwarf planet, silicon-based life

Index accretion disc acetylene acidity acidophiles aerobes aerobic respiration algae ALH84001 alien life alkaliphiles Alpha Centauri amino acids ammonia amono-peptides anaerobes anaerobic respiration Andromeda Galaxy Anomalocaris Antarctic Dry Valleys anthropic principle aquifers artificial life asteroids astrobiology definition astrometry atmosphere of Earth of Mars of Titan ATP ATP synthase autocatalysis autotrophs bacteria barophiles Betelgeuse Big Bang biofilms biosignature/biosign biosphere black smoker see hydrothermal vents blue shift bombardment Callisto (moon of Jupiter) Cambrian Explosion 55 Cancri A carbohydrate carbon isotopes carbonaceous chondrites carbonate-silicate cycle carbon dioxide carbon fixation carbonic acid cell membrane cells cryopreserved chemoautotrophs chemosynthesis chirality (handedness) chitin chlorophyll chloroplasts climate collagen comets complex life continental crust convergence co-rotation cycle cosmic radiation craters cryo-volcanism cryptoendoliths cyanide cyanobacteria cytoplasm Darwinian definition Darwin space telescope Darwin’s pond deep basalt aquifers Deimos (moon of Mars) denaturation Devon Island DNA Doppler effect Earth Earthshine EcoSphere ecosystem enantiomers Enceladus (moon of Saturn) endolithic environments endosymbiosis energy extraction inorganic environment enzymes Epsilon Eri Eridanus eukaryotes Europa (moon of Jupiter) evolution extinction extra-solar planets extremophiles eye fixation carbon methane nitrogen flight formaldehyde formamide fossil record free radicals Gaia galaxies Andromeda Galaxy metallicity Milky Way Galileo Galilei Galileo probe Ganymede (moon of Jupiter) glaciation, runaway glucose Goldilocks Principle Golgi body gravitational microlensing greenhouse effect grylloblattid insects habitable zone haemoglobin halophiles handedness see chirality Haughton Crater HD28185 HD209458b Herschel, William heterotrophs homeobox genes Hot Jupiters Hubble Space Telescope Huygens lander hydrogen hydrogen cyanide hydrosphere hydrothermal vents hyperthermophiles icebugs impact impact frustration inorganic energy interference patterns interferometry Io (moon of Jupiter) iron ferrous isotope jarosite Jupiter moons Kepler spacecraft Krebs cycle life artificial emergence of as energy disequilibrium as information transmission on Mars lithoheterotrophs lithosphere Lowell, Percival LUCA (last universal common ancestor) magnetic fields Mars atmosphere canals environmental collapse evolution of life on geography Hellas impact basin Meridiani Planum Olympus Mons survival of life Valles Marineris volcanoes water on M-class dwarves Mercury Meridiani Planum metabolism metallicity metamorphosis meteorites methane methane fixation methanogens Milky Way mitochondria Moon formation of mRNA multicellular organisms Murchison meteorite myxobacteria natural selection nebulae Neptune nitrogen nitrogen fixation nucleotides nucleus oceanic crust Opportunity Mars Rover organelles organics on Mars synthesis organisms multicellular organoheterotrophs Orion osmosis oxidation oxygen oxygenic processes ozone PAH see polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons panspermia, permafrost Phobos (moon of Mars) photoautotrophs photosynthesis planetary orbits planet formation plate tectonics Pluto polarity polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons polymers porphyrins potential difference prebiotic chemistry primordial soup progenote collective prokaryotes proteins protein synthesis protons Proxima Centauri psychrophiles pulsars radial velocity technique red dwarves see M-class dwarves redox redox couples redox potential red shift reduction respiration reverse transcriptase ribose ribosomes ribozymes Rio Tinto RNA RNA world rockcrawlers Rubisco enzyme salinity Saturn moons Schiaparelli, Giovanni sight silicon-based life Sirius SLiMEs Snowball Earth snow line Space Interferometry Mission spallation zone Spirit Mars rover stars birth of Sun-like stromatolites subduction zones subsurface lithotrophic microbial ecosystems see SLiMEs sugars Sun supernovae symbiosis tardigrades (water bears) Tau Bootis Tau Ceti temperature Terrestrial Planet Finder thermophiles threose/TNA tidal heating tidal locking Titan (moon of Saturn) transit method tree of life triple alpha process tRNA ultraviolet (UV) radiation uranium Uranus Urey-Miller reactions vegetation Venus Viking probes viruses volatiles volcanism Vostok, Lake water on Mars phase diagram

Ten Billion Tomorrows: How Science Fiction Technology Became Reality and Shapes the Future by Brian Clegg

Albert Einstein, Alvin Toffler, anthropic principle, Apollo 11, Brownian motion, call centre, Carrington event, Charles Babbage, combinatorial explosion, don't be evil, Dr. Strangelove, Ernest Rutherford, experimental subject, Future Shock, game design, gravity well, Higgs boson, hive mind, invisible hand, Isaac Newton, Johannes Kepler, John von Neumann, Kickstarter, Large Hadron Collider, machine translation, Neil Armstrong, Nick Bostrom, nuclear winter, pattern recognition, quantum entanglement, RAND corporation, Ray Kurzweil, RFID, Richard Feynman, Schrödinger's Cat, Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence, silicon-based life, speech recognition, stem cell, Stephen Hawking, Steve Jobs, Turing test

So, extremely large aliens would need much chunkier limbs than they are usually portrayed as having. One possible way around this would be if the aliens didn’t have the same composition as us. It is possible to imagine that they could have skeletal structures based on much stronger equivalents of bone, or could be silicon-based life (see here) with a greater ability to withstand the pull of gravity, perhaps needed for a high mass planet. Gravity itself is a variable that needs consideration when we come to aliens. Could an alien life-form develop on planets with a much higher gravitational pull than Earth—probably requiring a totally different approach to movement, as legs would inevitably suffer—or in gravity fields so weak that they could float in the atmosphere like the balloon creatures in Ray Bradbury’s Martian Chronicles?

The Soul of a New Machine by Tracy Kidder

carbon-based life, Jarndyce and Jarndyce, Mason jar, military-industrial complex, Multics, Norbert Wiener, pattern recognition, post-industrial society, silicon-based life

Maybe in promoting the metaphorical relationship between people and machines, cybernetics tended to cheapen and corrupt human perceptions of human intelligence. Or perhaps this science promised to advance the intelligence of people as well as of machines and to imbue the species with a new, exciting power. "Silicon-based life would have a lot of advantages over carbon- based life," a young engineer told me once. He said he believed in a time when the machines would "take over." He snapped his fingers and said, "Just like that." He seemed immensely pleased with that thought. To me, though, the prospects for truly intelligent computers looked comfortably dim.

The Blind Watchmaker; Why the Evidence of Evolution Reveals a Universe Without Design by Richard Dawkins

Boeing 747, epigenetics, Eratosthenes, Fellow of the Royal Society, Gregor Mendel, lateral thinking, Menlo Park, pattern recognition, phenotype, random walk, silicon-based life, Steven Pinker, the long tail

Will he go into detail and reconstruct DNA as a plausible early replicator, victim of electronic usurpation? And will he be far-sighted enough to guess that even DNA may itself have been a usurper of yet more remote and primitive replicators, crystals of inorganic silicates? If he is of a poetic turn of mind, will he even see a kind of justice in the eventual return to silicon-based life, with DNA no more than an interlude, albeit one that lasted longer than three aeons? That is science fiction, and it probably sounds far-fetched. That doesn’t matter. Of more immediate moment is that Cairns-Smith’s own theory, and indeed all other theories of the origin of life, may sound far-fetched to you and hard to believe.

What Technology Wants by Kevin Kelly

Albert Einstein, Alfred Russel Wallace, Apollo 13, Boeing 747, Buckminster Fuller, c2.com, carbon-based life, Cass Sunstein, charter city, classic study, Clayton Christensen, cloud computing, computer vision, cotton gin, Danny Hillis, dematerialisation, demographic transition, digital divide, double entry bookkeeping, Douglas Engelbart, Edward Jenner, en.wikipedia.org, Exxon Valdez, Fairchild Semiconductor, Ford Model T, George Gilder, gravity well, Great Leap Forward, Gregor Mendel, hive mind, Howard Rheingold, interchangeable parts, invention of air conditioning, invention of writing, Isaac Newton, Jaron Lanier, Joan Didion, John Conway, John Markoff, John von Neumann, Kevin Kelly, knowledge economy, Lao Tzu, life extension, Louis Daguerre, Marshall McLuhan, megacity, meta-analysis, new economy, off grid, off-the-grid, out of africa, Paradox of Choice, performance metric, personalized medicine, phenotype, Picturephone, planetary scale, precautionary principle, quantum entanglement, RAND corporation, random walk, Ray Kurzweil, recommendation engine, refrigerator car, rewilding, Richard Florida, Rubik’s Cube, Silicon Valley, silicon-based life, skeuomorphism, Skype, speech recognition, Stephen Hawking, Steve Jobs, Stewart Brand, Stuart Kauffman, technological determinism, Ted Kaczynski, the built environment, the long tail, the scientific method, Thomas Malthus, Vernor Vinge, wealth creators, Whole Earth Catalog, Y2K, yottabyte

And when silicon is oxidized, its respiratory output is a mineral precipitate, rather than the gaslike carbon dioxide. That makes it hard to dissipate. A silicon creature would exhale gritty grains of sand. Basically, silicon produces dry life. Without a liquid matrix it’s hard to imagine how complex molecules are transported around to interact. Perhaps silicon-based life inhabits a fiery world and the silicates are molten. Or perhaps the matrix is very cold liquid ammonia. But unlike ice, which floats and insulates the unfrozen liquid, frozen ammonia sinks, allowing the oceans to freeze whole. These concerns are not hypothetical but are based on experiments to produce alternatives to carbon-based life.

The Transhumanist Reader by Max More, Natasha Vita-More

"World Economic Forum" Davos, 23andMe, Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic, artificial general intelligence, augmented reality, Bill Joy: nanobots, bioinformatics, brain emulation, Buckminster Fuller, cellular automata, clean water, cloud computing, cognitive bias, cognitive dissonance, combinatorial explosion, Computing Machinery and Intelligence, conceptual framework, Conway's Game of Life, cosmological principle, data acquisition, discovery of DNA, Douglas Engelbart, Drosophila, en.wikipedia.org, endogenous growth, experimental subject, Extropian, fault tolerance, Flynn Effect, Francis Fukuyama: the end of history, Frank Gehry, friendly AI, Future Shock, game design, germ theory of disease, Hans Moravec, hypertext link, impulse control, index fund, John von Neumann, joint-stock company, Kevin Kelly, Law of Accelerating Returns, life extension, lifelogging, Louis Pasteur, Menlo Park, meta-analysis, moral hazard, Network effects, Nick Bostrom, Norbert Wiener, pattern recognition, Pepto Bismol, phenotype, positional goods, power law, precautionary principle, prediction markets, presumed consent, Project Xanadu, public intellectual, radical life extension, Ray Kurzweil, reversible computing, RFID, Ronald Reagan, scientific worldview, silicon-based life, Singularitarianism, social intelligence, stem cell, stochastic process, superintelligent machines, supply-chain management, supply-chain management software, synthetic biology, systems thinking, technological determinism, technological singularity, Ted Nelson, telepresence, telepresence robot, telerobotics, the built environment, The Coming Technological Singularity, the scientific method, The Wisdom of Crowds, transaction costs, Turing machine, Turing test, Upton Sinclair, Vernor Vinge, Von Neumann architecture, VTOL, Whole Earth Review, women in the workforce, zero-sum game

In this process, human presence becomes virtualized and the individual self is distributed, space becomes virtualized and place becomes distributed. Moreover, there is inherent in all the research which currently surrounds the sciences of mind, advanced AI, AL, molecular engineering, robotics, and complex systems, the potential for consciousness to evolve beyond the human organism, and to a degree which perhaps only silicon-based life could accommodate, in “entities as complex as ourselves, and eventually into something transcending everything we know – in whom we can take pride when they refer to themselves as our descendants” (Moravec 1988). Art in the twenty-first century may come to constitute a form of mediation between human and post-human consciousness, just as in past cultures it has been used to mediate between mankind and the gods.