Search humanoids based on silicon.

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Pop Horea-Vasile
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Message 1258021 - Posted: 9 Jul 2012, 12:48:52 UTC

Hi,
I'm Horea from Romania.
I run BOINC on the local machine (i3-390M, 310M) and Azure (1CPU at 1.5 GFlops, 768 MB RAM).
Yesterday 8.julie.2012, I was looking silicates in the visible universe.
I mean, I searched the net visible universe map and I started looking for information about the map extremes in my search of humanoids based on silicon.
I had only negative results yet, but hope I succeed with your help.
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Message 1258059 - Posted: 9 Jul 2012, 15:42:40 UTC - in response to Message 1258041.  

perhaps he watched an old X files episode


In a rich man's house there is no place to spit but his face.
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Message 1258080 - Posted: 9 Jul 2012, 16:45:48 UTC
Last modified: 9 Jul 2012, 16:46:25 UTC

Guess we happen to be so intelligent, all of us.

Guess why?

Silicon.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Silicon

Alien, the movie.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alien_(film)

The Terminator.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Terminator

Or possibly Predator?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Predator_(film)

Anyway, Arnold Schwarzenegger being the "mean and ugly thing" in both of the two movies last mentioned.

But what were these figures supposed to be consisting of.

Perhaps a policeman concealed as a fluid (or the opposite way?). Oh, he was hostile, wasn't he?

Everything here is based on the fictional abilities of humans. No proof of aliens here.

Should aliens be thought of as being hostile if they were found to exist?

What if they in the end are friendly instead?
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Profile Bob DeWoody
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Message 1258121 - Posted: 9 Jul 2012, 18:05:20 UTC

So far we have found no evidence of life at any level using silicon instead of carbon for it's basic structure. I would think that if silicon is a viable alternative for life's basic building block evidence could be found here on earth since there is so much silicon available.

I didn't study very much biology in school but I do recall learning that the properties of carbon alone make it suitable as the basic element of life. No other element is capable of making the necessary chemical bonds and the transport of energy that is necessary to support life.

Now if you want to count super intelligent computers as a life form then you still have to consider who made them initially.
Bob DeWoody

My motto: Never do today what you can put off until tomorrow as it may not be required. This no longer applies in light of current events.
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Message 1258300 - Posted: 10 Jul 2012, 3:07:25 UTC
Last modified: 10 Jul 2012, 3:08:57 UTC

Machines are sometimes supposed to be smart. At times they may even cheat us or fool us into believing in something which is not true.

Therefore they may beat us when it comes to our senses. Can we trust our brain intuition in the end?

You may possibly remember Linda Hamilton as Sarah Connor in the first of the Terminator movies.

Apparently she gave her mother a telephone call. Remember who picked up the phone and answered the call with her mother's voice.

Which words are we using for describing or naming such types of creatures?

Possibly they are Androids, or maybe Cyborgs (Battleship Galactica), etc.

Or maybe they are robots?
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Profile Bob DeWoody
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Message 1258429 - Posted: 10 Jul 2012, 6:37:10 UTC

Music player has left the building. Come to think of it, maybe the planet.
Bob DeWoody

My motto: Never do today what you can put off until tomorrow as it may not be required. This no longer applies in light of current events.
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Message 1258551 - Posted: 10 Jul 2012, 14:50:17 UTC

Many are based on silicones, which journalists often confuse with silicon.
Tullio
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Message 1259178 - Posted: 11 Jul 2012, 23:59:06 UTC
Last modified: 12 Jul 2012, 0:02:02 UTC

As us, the human race, has just found out, Silicon is an excellent substance for recording digital information on. We use it for our CD's because its easy to manipulate the atomic structure of silicon. And for electronics applications.

But silicon has extremely limited uses in biology. Even if our very best doctors, biologists and geneticists all sat down together and tried to invent a new genetic code based on silicon to create living things, it would be almost impossible. Silicon "sticks" very easily to oxygen in nature, we find it as Silicone dioxide, or Quartz. And because this silicon dioxide bond is so strong, it would make it near impossible to design any type of reproducing life with it.

Silicon is very good for building machines. But very bad for building living things that need to reproduce.

John.
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Message 1259188 - Posted: 12 Jul 2012, 0:59:31 UTC
Last modified: 12 Jul 2012, 1:41:53 UTC

Perhaps a robot with a silicon Brain ( hugely fast mini-super computer) could behave as if human and also be capable of building others of his kind out of silicon and steel with the knowledge stored in his brain. Would this be a silicon-based life form. Definitition of life is now called into question.

At what point do you say he is an intelligent life form. This may revive the argument over whether or not machines can think. I think we would agree they can act intelligent in familiar circumstances and perhaps can exhibit adaptive behavior right now.
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Message 1259334 - Posted: 12 Jul 2012, 12:28:41 UTC
Last modified: 12 Jul 2012, 12:35:22 UTC

Daddio,
I think the more we learn about how "living things" work, at a molecular level, we will defiantly change our definition of what a "living thing" actually is.

Lets take a simple toy robot you buy for $20 in a children's toy shop. You put batteries in the robot, you switch on the robot, and it walks around the room and bumps into things. Maybe its an advanced programmable robot, so when its batteries run low, it looks for a wall socket to plug itself in to charge its batteries.

So is the toy robot a living thing? It does lots of things that a simple creature does? It walks around, it could make noises, and it looks for "food" in the form of an electric power point when its batteries are low. So for all intensive purposes, it might as well be classed as a living thing. The only real or apparent difference between it and an Ant or a Spider or a Beetle, is that it can't reproduce. And to someone who does not understand how electronics works, it might as well be a living thing.

Lets pretend for a moment that that toy robot could reproduce and create a new robot. And that new child robot could, in turn, reproduce again. Then it would continue on indefinitely. The truth is, its would be a living thing if it could keep reproducing.

Food for thought, do you agree?

John.
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Message 1260085 - Posted: 14 Jul 2012, 1:07:40 UTC
Last modified: 14 Jul 2012, 1:11:26 UTC

On other dual star systems which accounts majority in the galaxy there might be little bit different natural forces can affect to bio materials chemical compositions process differently because the Earth's star is single star possibly certain forces affect differently on bio-chemical construction process over the millions of years.
Mandtugai!
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Message 1260101 - Posted: 14 Jul 2012, 1:51:02 UTC - in response to Message 1260085.  

I assume a binary star system would have planets in very strange orbits which would not allow a stable range of temperatures to support life.
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Message 1260113 - Posted: 14 Jul 2012, 2:45:34 UTC
Last modified: 14 Jul 2012, 3:01:12 UTC

Plus it is kind of naive that assuming other stars must shed similar hydrogen based dust particles as our star. Because many different stars might shed different hydrogen compositions over the billion years hence could cause very different bio chemistry construction base for their local nature build up on a given planet.

It is already known that in different star cluster zones there are little bit different range of natural forces exist. In our case it is the carbon happen to have dominantly playing condition so this nature is created over 1 billion years of planetary bio lab condition.

Each day there is 100 000 tons of cosmic dust rains down to this planet so every lung based animals and breathing plants probably took daily cosmic fertilization dosage over the last billion years or the star shed materials.
Mandtugai!
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Message 1261743 - Posted: 18 Jul 2012, 9:15:16 UTC

Hello Pop Horea-Vasile,


why carbon?
- we only know life-forms based on carbon
- carbon can create single-, double-,triple-bonds. (even with other carbon atoms)
- there can be hydrophilic and hydrophobic regions (- amphiphilic molecules- these molecules are very important for life in liquid solutin (h2o)- biomembrane- lipid-bilayer)
- alkanes, alkene, alkyne... long chains
- carbon compounds can create cycles, even heterocycles (with N eg.-> DNA, RNA, important for carrying the genetic information. maybe this information can be also saved on an aperiodic crystal..)


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Message 1262045 - Posted: 19 Jul 2012, 0:17:23 UTC - in response to Message 1260113.  

Plus it is kind of naive that assuming other stars must shed similar hydrogen based dust particles as our star. Because many different stars might shed different hydrogen compositions over the billion years hence could cause very different bio chemistry construction base for their local nature build up on a given planet.

It is already known that in different star cluster zones there are little bit different range of natural forces exist. In our case it is the carbon happen to have dominantly playing condition so this nature is created over 1 billion years of planetary bio lab condition.

Each day there is 100 000 tons of cosmic dust rains down to this planet so every lung based animals and breathing plants probably took daily cosmic fertilization dosage over the last billion years or the star shed materials.

Actually earth's magnetosphere prevents most of the cosmic dust and harmful radiation from entering the atmosphere and reaching the ground. The rest of what enters the atmosphere is not known to have any effect on our DNA or any other part of our biology.
Bob DeWoody

My motto: Never do today what you can put off until tomorrow as it may not be required. This no longer applies in light of current events.
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Message 1262047 - Posted: 19 Jul 2012, 0:26:54 UTC - in response to Message 1262045.  
Last modified: 19 Jul 2012, 0:29:22 UTC

Plus it is kind of naive that assuming other stars must shed similar hydrogen based dust particles as our star. Because many different stars might shed different hydrogen compositions over the billion years hence could cause very different bio chemistry construction base for their local nature build up on a given planet.

It is already known that in different star cluster zones there are little bit different range of natural forces exist. In our case it is the carbon happen to have dominantly playing condition so this nature is created over 1 billion years of planetary bio lab condition.

Each day there is 100 000 tons of cosmic dust rains down to this planet so every lung based animals and breathing plants probably took daily cosmic fertilization dosage over the last billion years or the star shed materials.

Actually earth's magnetosphere prevents most of the cosmic dust and harmful radiation from entering the atmosphere and reaching the ground. The rest of what enters the atmosphere is not known to have any effect on our DNA or any other part of our biology.


Because that entering dust was coming from space at least for 4 billion years which in last 1 billion years the earth's live nature bio-chemical construction process took place meaning we are made of that dust which every lung based beings breathed that throughout their evolution period.

Maybe that is 100 000 tons per year not per day but still huge material come from space into earth nature.
Mandtugai!
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Message 1267886 - Posted: 5 Aug 2012, 12:37:09 UTC - in response to Message 1258021.  

Fascinating conversation.

Silicates are worth thinking about.


In simplified form, the clay hypothesis runs as follows: Clays form naturally from silicates in solution. Clay crystals, as other crystals, preserve their external formal arrangement as they grow, snap and grow further. Masses of clay crystals of a particular external form may happen to affect their environment in ways which affect their chances of further replication — for example, a 'stickier' clay crystal is more likely to silt a stream bed, creating an environment conducive to further sedimentation. It is conceivable that such effects could extend to the creation of flat areas likely to be exposed to air, dry and turn to wind-borne dust, which could fall at random in other streams. Thus by simple, inorganic, physical processes, a selection environment might exist for the reproduction of clay crystals of the 'stickier' shape.
There follows a process of natural selection for clay crystals which trap certain forms of molecules to their surfaces (those which enhance their replication potential). Quite complex proto-organic molecules can be catalysed by the surface properties of silicates. The final step occurs when these complex molecules perform a 'Genetic Takeover' from their clay 'vehicle', becoming an independent locus of replication - an evolutionary moment that might be understood as the first exaptation.
Despite its frequent citation as a useful model of the kind of process that might have been involved in the prehistory of DNA, the 'clay hypothesis' of abiogenesis has not been widely accepted. As it was current and fashionable at that time, Richard Dawkins used it as the example model of abiogenesis in his 1986 book The Blind Watchmaker.



The odds of crystals being all over the universe is very high.

However this adds yet more numbers on the Fermi paradox, and may mean organic life is even more rarer than we thought.

What I mean is, what if it take 100 million years for a lump of clay to spit out a simple replicating carbon based something.

Then of course it has to be a a system that has silicone and carbon.

Then it has to be in the right region from the sun etc.

It opens many more questions but I think its plausible.


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Message 1297236 - Posted: 20 Oct 2012, 16:58:59 UTC

Hello all my responders,
maybe in the right conditions it can be possible. Perhaps we don't know, we are too carbon based.
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Message 1297927 - Posted: 22 Oct 2012, 17:41:59 UTC
Last modified: 22 Oct 2012, 17:42:24 UTC

On earth, can only recall one type of creature/plant that uses Silica in any form. That is the sponge. Not exactly the intelligent lifeform we were looking for


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Message 1303122 - Posted: 7 Nov 2012, 14:27:05 UTC

a funny thing:

a silicon-based organismen maybe would exhale fire and SiO2 on a planet with O2 in the atmosphere.

They may produce Silane (SiH4)as end product of their metabolism.

SiH4 + 2O2 ---> SiO2 + 2H2O +ΔT

-------------
Note.
a anaerobic metabolism wouldn't create enough energy for intellingent lifeforms.
So these fire-spitting aliens are just fiction.


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