living organisms made of non living elements

[marine(uc)]

okay, i was thinking of this today and we are essentially just elements in a living form. if we were taken apart atom by atom, all it would be is a pile of water and various other elements.

 

Now i was thinking of this, and does that mean we are simply an evolution of elements?? think of it, all we are is a living form. under certain conditions is an evolution of elements to create life and expand it, and try and make it as advanced as possible to extend itself and expand.a

 

is our elemental make-up each of those elements trying to manifest itself for a reason i don't understand. because think about it, life was created from nothing.. from heat, water electricity w.e. ect. it was created from basic elements which expanded into the creature. us humans are mostly water and so was our starting enviornment.

 

does that mean water used cells to evolve and since we were always around water from an early stage, it has made us into mostly water creatures and made it a necessary element of our survival... I don't believe that on every planet you need water to live. i've heard plenty of times, there won't be many planets like earth and they will be extremely hard to find due to correct conditions needed.

 

but i don't believe every planet will need water to sustain life.

if i am correct and we are element evolution, life could grow anywhere, and use widely available liquid as its source of life. and evolve from that element

i also think that mabey, elements need energy to create life. All we are is energized elements.. is this what they do when they combine?? non-living material + energy = living material, elements that move and expand.

 

What do you guys think about this?

[Gilded]

Elements having some fundamental need to create life sounds almost as silly as water having memory and feelings etc. But sure, there are theories about alternative biochemistries. For example silicon and ammonia seem like possible substitutes for carbon and water, respectively.

 

Actually since our understanding of life in general is a bit lacking, the presumption that all life is quite similar to life on Earth is sometimes thought to be a bit ignorant and is referred to as "carbon chauvinism".

[marine(uc)]

yah, it's foolish to think you need a replicate earth for an alien speices to be created. the only species that would need a replicate earth to live on, is us.

 

well. you can't say thats silly. how can a one cell organim learn to live and expand?? it has 1 cell. nobody knows how the first cells were created.

 

i can't imagine how they did the cross-over from element to organism.

 

BUT i garantee it has to do something with energy, heat and water.

 

energy being the key ingredient. i think that elements with energy make life. because in the end all we are is lifeless elements filled with energy. take us apart atom by atom and we are just elements. I believe we are just an evolution of elements.

[alanrocks]

why would an element need to evolve

 

it has no perdetors

 

it needs no food

 

we are more likely the product of probability

 

in other words a mistake

[scmatema]

Firstly, we are cetainly not a product of probability... if that was the case, nothing in the world would be as logical as it is.I mean, ever heard of the 'golden ratio' 1:1.618?Research has revealed that all things perceived by most as attractive somehow have that ratio, e.g. Egyyptian pyramids, Mona Lisa, David [sculpture by Michaelangelo] etc.

 

Also, the last book of the bible [Revelations] was written by one of the 12 apostles John. He was in hiding from the Romans on the island of Patmos when he wrote it.According to his writings, John had visions of what would happen just before Judgement Day.Psychologists argued that he was alone oon this island and was, therefore, mad.However, other psychologists looked at the book of revelations and realised that it was too logical to have been written by a madman.Thus the book of Revelations is in fact true and as it states that the rest of the Bible is true, the world must have been created by a Spirit far more superior and wise than the wisest philosopher could ever be.

 

Another thing is that elements did not evolve - if they did, then why are they not still evolving?

Edited July 20, 2008 by scmatema

[swansont]

Mod note: We will not be discussion religion here.

 

 

——————

 

 

At a crude level of analysis, life needs replication and variation. Chemistry can give you the replication, but simple molecules can't give you the variation. Water is water.

[alanrocks]

when i said we were more likely the product of probability i should have elaborated more

 

probability would only have a real impact in an organism until some form of survival mechanism took hold, evolved into decision making, and eventually intelligent thought

 

sorry for the confusion

[marine(uc)]

i just thought that mabey since we are mostly water, and life starts in hot water. that mabey lightning may have struck teh water, and the energy lached onto an element. and by doing this, it was able to create a single cell of an orgasnism. mabey it used a few elements

[Sisyphus]

marine(uc):

 

As SwansonT said, in order for evolution to take place, you need replication and variation. In other words, something which recreates itself, contains the possibility to change, and which can pass on those changes into future generations. With those conditions satisfied, evolution is basically inevitable, but without them it just doesn't occur. All living things possess those qualities, but something like water does not.

 

Where the first life came from was not the result of evolution, but from different processes. And going from water straight to a living cell is skipping a lot of steps. Water by itself is never going to be anything but water. However, things like complex organic molecules, enclosed cell-like structures, and even sections of RNA do form spontaneously under the right conditions, and those are the sorts of places to start looking. The line between "non-living matter" and "a living organism" is pretty fuzzy.

 

As for substances besides water being the basis for life, you're right. There's nothing in the definition of life about water, and there's nothing about the process of evolution that requires water be present. There almost certainly is life on other planets that uses other chemical structures instead. However, water is extremely good at nurturing life, and is probably as good or better than anything else. Also, the only life we've actually seen (all the life on Earth) comes from water-based environments, and everything else is just guesswork, so it's natural that we'd look for liquid water when we're looking for life on other planets.

 

Anyway, the beginning of life is not yet fully understood, but there are some plausible hypotheses floating around. Look up "abiogenesis" for more information.

[Edtharan]

our elemental make-up each of those elements trying to manifest itself

This is skirting the long disproved "Elan Vital" concept. It was a concept that there was something other than the matter in living organisms. They said that there was a "Vital Force" (which is what Elan Vital means ), that made non living matter into living matter.

 

Have a look at this

(on youtube). It is an example of how life might have got started (it is one out of many plausible ways, we just can't be sure that this was the way it actually happened).

[frosch45]

if you wanted to play the religion card....

 

1 Corinthians 3:18-19 should provide some clarification

 

but if you want to look at it scientifically

 

 

my personal thoughts are that if any one person claims that he or she can comprehend the vastness of the universe

 

then

 

they should be able to understand that it is incredibly ignorant and foolish of us to think that earth holds the only living organisims anywhere. there are literally

 

countless

 

numbers of stars and

 

even more

 

planets surrounding them. seriously, there is not one person on this earth that can imagine the number of stars out there. I think if you took the number of grains of sand on the earth and took that to the power of a mole (6.02 * 10^23), I think that then someone might just barely begin to understand the vastness of our universe (a mole of pencils standard hexagonal pencils in layers would cover the entire surface of the earth 12 feet deep)

 

that being said, I think that it would be incredibly foolish to think that if life could somehow develop here on earth then life could not develop elsewhere

 

life could somehow develop on a planet under similar conditions

 

because there is certainly a planet that is under similar conditions somewhere in the universe

Edited July 24, 2008 by frosch45

[anomaly]

at my last meeting my collegues and i got into and argument about his very thing. there is very strong evidence that supports that a living creature on a different planet could be made out of (im just throwing stuff out im only making a point) a cyanide solution and silicon and breaths sulfur. im not saying that this creature is out there im merely stating the fact that there are many compunds and elements othere than water that can sustain life.

[frosch45]

right, but its even simpler than that! why can't there be organisms very similar to our own. think of the extremely vast (it is incredibly uncomprehendable!) number of planets in our universe. there is no way that there is no other planet with a similar environment, and I would dare suggest that there are even many planets with a climate such as ours! so, one with water, one with oxygen (because if there is water then there is probably oxygen and hydrogen) and one with nitrogen and other metals and nonmetals created by radioactive decay....

 

I strongly believe that there are even organisms that are similar to us humans out there. If not humans, that certainly other organisms are reflected by similar species on other planets...

[Sisyphus]

if you wanted to play the religion card....

 

The "religion card" is just ignored here. This policy was arrived at by long and painful experience.

[frosch45]

I am not trying to be rude at all when I'm saying this, please understand that, but I was meaning for that comment to be directed to scmatema, and not for the general thread

[Gilded]

At least the discovery of radically different alternate biochemistries would be a bit of a smack in the face of the Rare Earth hypothesis, which admittedly has a point but relies heavily on narrow temperature ranges, water availability and other habitability factors with mainly Earth-like life in mind.

[Klaynos]

at my last meeting my collegues and i got into and argument about his very thing. there is very strong evidence that supports that a living creature on a different planet could be made out of (im just throwing stuff out im only making a point) a cyanide solution and silicon and breaths sulfur. im not saying that this creature is out there im merely stating the fact that there are many compunds and elements othere than water that can sustain life.

 

What's the temp range over which this is feasible?

[insane_alien]

silicon based life has a lot of issues. especially at temperature where sulphur would be in a breathable form(liquid or gas).

 

silanes are way too unstable and can form the long complex molecules carbon can. (they are limited to around 10.