Re:Observable Universe contains 10x more galaxies than previ...
by laumars on Thursday January 04, 2018 @08:57AM
(#16070313)
> That's right! So how would you define life? Or the meta-question, why bother? We gain nothing from figuring out what's "alive" and what has "merely" a rich complexity.
> "Search for life" is a category error.
To be honest I think you're over thinking the whole "life" thing. It's just a label. You could replace that term and still have the same arguments. eg "What would someone define as 'interesting'? What does that category even mean?". Or "complex", or "intelligent" or any other label.
> Why hope to find life, when we know life is already possible?
Possible, yeah. But it's unique in that we are constantly finding a multitude of other phenomena in the universe yet we've only ever observed life on our own planet. That alone makes this topic interesting in my opinion.
I don't see why it has to be an either / or though. Nobody is suggesting we search for life at the sacrifice of learning more about black holes...or whatever.
> "Search for life" is a category error.
To be honest I think you're over thinking the whole "life" thing. It's just a label. You could replace that term and still have the same arguments. eg "What would someone define as 'interesting'? What does that category even mean?". Or "complex", or "intelligent" or any other label.
> Why hope to find life, when we know life is already possible?
Possible, yeah. But it's unique in that we are constantly finding a multitude of other phenomena in the universe yet we've only ever observed life on our own planet. That alone makes this topic interesting in my opinion.
I don't see why it has to be an either / or though. Nobody is suggesting we search for life at the sacrifice of learning more about black holes...or whatever.