Stainless Steel Threads -- locking and galling?

wayneh

Joined Sep 9, 2010
17,496
Of course, this can be explained away by the antrhopic principle: life exists in such a narrow range only because we exist here in that range to ask the question.
I think that's a part of it. I'm a biochemist and because of what I've learned, it's very hard to imagine things any other way. DNA and proteins and all that just flies apart at temperatures we can find around us, let alone at 1000° or more. Our whole existence falls within a narrow range of energy and mass densities. There could be other solutions and it'll be hard for us to find them.

But everywhere on this planet we have enough time to look carefully, we find life. I think that will extend to any environment we are capable of exploring. Energy gradients are widespread, and anywhere you can extract energy by running a chemical reaction downhill, something will evolve to do that.
 

GopherT

Joined Nov 23, 2012
8,009
Interesting you bring up energy.

Another of my fascinations is that life only exists at very low energies -- equivalent to temperatures between, roughly, 273K to 325K in a universe where temperatures span from close to 0K to millions of K.

In fact, in my estimation, most matter in the universe exists either very close to 0K or at temperatures much greater than 10,000K. This makes it surprising that life happens in such a narrow band.

Of course, this can be explained away by the antrhopic principle: life exists in such a narrow range only because we exist here in that range to ask the question.

More substantially, the binding energies of the organic molecules that support life are so small that they could not organize to support life at higher temperatures. Even more so are the all important weak hydrogen bonds that mediate the interactions between, and govern the processes performed by, such organic molecules.

Still, you'd think the universe would come up with another class of "organic" molecules that could organize at the higher temperatures and energies at which most matter in the universe exists.

Sorry for pulling this thread so far off topic!
When the aliens come with some boron-nitride alternative to carbon, we can add a bit to your life-sustaining temp range. It would outlive top he C-C bond but any weaker forces that would be required for replication will be the tricky part to identify an alternative.
 

Thread Starter

cmartinez

Joined Jan 17, 2007
8,220
Of course, this can be explained away by the antrhopic principle: life exists in such a narrow range only because we exist here in that range to ask the question.
The antrhopic principle is something that I once gave lots of thought to, but in the end I concluded that it only amounts to circular reasoning... maybe the complete truth, and the reason for our existence, is beyond us simply because it cannot be logically proven... very much like Gödel's incompleteness theorem.
 

Thread Starter

cmartinez

Joined Jan 17, 2007
8,220
The complete truth is that we are here to observe only because conditions exist to permit it.
If you're saying that we can observe things because conditions allow it, then I agree. But if you're affirming that the reason that we're here is because we can observe, then I'm not so sure about that...

As I said, that pretty much sounds like circular reasoning to me... disguised as an axiomatic truth.
Maybe it would be impossible to build a reasonable argument either in favor or against the anthropic principle.

The reason I don't like it, is because it's like saying that consciousness exists because we have the proper level of consciousness to be aware of it in the first place. It's like fusing cause and effect in a single entity... almost turning us into gods (lowercase "g")... which we're most definitely not
 
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