Ask Lemmy

This is one possible answer to the Fermi paradox.

I think a tendency for intelligent life to destroy itself would make it more rare than it already is, but doesn't do enough to account for the unlikelihood of never encountering it. Once a species is spread across more than one planet, I would think it would be very unlikely for an extinction event to wipe all of it out before some survivors can bounce back. So all you would need is one or more civilizations beating the odds up to that point to become basically unstoppable.

Also, intelligent life might frequently kill itself off, but that doesn't mean intelligence is a disadvantage to long term survival. The vast majority of unintelligent species also go extinct. It's more that reaching stability is quite hard, with or without intelligence.

You ever hear about the real weird shit where consciousness predates biological life and wife it will arise everywhere that a form of life could be supported?

Theory goes there's there's "aromatic rings" of simple chemicals that will naturally arrange into a structure that is 100% not alive. Kind of like a virus, but completely immobile and can't directly interact with something as big as a cell, these are literally a dozen or so atoms strapped together.

These proto-consciousness can only experience two sensations, and due to arrangement will "prefer" one and avoid the other arrangement. They're super basic and it's really that binary.

However because they can act like a virus on an atomic level, they change things with the only drive to make things that look like them on an atomic level, because the only thing they experience is that is "good".

It's sounds nuts because I'm just going off memory, but shits a pretty big theory.

And is backed up with stuff like how when a crystalline structure is first synthesised, it will eventually be replaced by a different structure that took more initial energy to be produced initially. But after a "seed crystal" (again, atomic level) is present, it will quickly and effectively destroy any synthesis of the original polymorph.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ritonavir#Polymorphism_and_temporary_market_withdrawal

And fuck me if that isn't the missing link between basic aromatic rings and viruses towards the evolution of life as we define it.

And I'm not saying "missing link" as just an expression...

They were intrigued by a molecule called ribo-aminooxazoline (RAO), which they discovered could react to form two of RNA’s nucleotide building blocks. RAO is among a rare class of crystals that enforce a single chirality: Once a crystal starts to grow from either right- or left-handed versions of the molecule, only molecules with the same chirality can bind to the structure. Such crystals, if they started with an initial bias, could have caused chiral RAO to build up.

https://www.science.org/content/article/breakthrough-could-explain-why-life-molecules-are-left-or-right-handed/

We need a good explanation for why a bunch of random shit lines up in one of two distinct and binary alignments because life needs that. And that's what this this

Meaning life could spring up anywhere at any moment which is what you're talking about.

Bonus pessimism:

https://www.sciencefriday.com/segments/mirror-life-risks-molecular-chirality/

Just because "our" side won the alignment war here on Earth, doesn't mean that's true everywhere. It could just have easily went the other way and developed what we call "mirror life" and scientists are actively trying to create it right now even tho that could wipe out everything bigger than basic bacteria...

Reminds me of Bruce Sterling's Swarm. (It was adapted into a Love, Death, and Robots episode.)

“You are a young race and lay great stock by your own cleverness,” Swarm said. “As usual, you fail to see that intelligence is not a survival trait.”