Just listened to Lex Fridman and Sara Walker talk about the origins of life, the search for life, what is life, etc. It was a wonderfully refreshing, nourishing conversation.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wwhTfyX9J34
It made me want to spill out some random thoughts on the subject. I’m unqualified, but I’m curious.
Our search for life off this planet is inherently primitive. We search for life based on our definitions, using instruments designed to detect what we already know. And who can blame us? It would be impossible to look for what we wouldn’t recognize in a way that we can’t realize.
It wasn’t until the 17th century that we even discovered microbial life. And microbial life is the most plentiful life on earth, far surpassing the biomass of plant, animal, and fungal life combined. There’s more of it than anything, and we’ve always been living among it, yet we didn’t know it was here.
But it wasn’t just that. Since we share a common ancestor with microbial life, we didn’t find new life, we found an earlier version of who we were.
Imagine a microbe evolving so much intelligence that it forgot where it came from, only to invent instruments billions of years later to find itself again. That’s what happened. How beautiful is that?
Maybe it will happen again. If we find life elsewhere, we might be discovering a more advanced version of ourselves. Or if life finds us, it might rediscover its primitive origins. If we can forget and lose our history once, why couldn't we forget and lose our future again?
It makes me think about what other forms life could take. And how we might never be able to detect it.
Let’s imagine that thoughts were a form of life. They feel like it. They mate, they multiply, they evolve, they consume us, they drive us, they make us move, they seem to be born, they seem to die. They seem to have their own agency, appearing in your mind whether welcome or not.
But you can't see thoughts. You don't even know a thought exists until you, or someone else, has it. Maybe thoughts are location-based, waiting in every place. To discover one, you can’t look for it. Rather, you have to be where it is.
Imagine what it would be like to stand on Mars, looking back at Earth. But if you were actually there, you’d almost certainly have a thought you couldn’t have here. Insights incompatible with any earthly experience. Questions that couldn’t be contemplated without standing on Martian sand.
From Mars, the Earth is mirror. From Earth, Mars is a mirror. Both mirrors, but each perspective reflecting entirely different thoughts. You can’t see the same view or have the same thought from the other place. You must be there to meet thoughts living there.
Maybe thoughts don't exist in time and space but in mind and place. This specific mind, in that specific place.
Then imagine trying to look for thoughts with our instruments and techniques. Nothing would register. Trillions of thoughts unnoticed, unaware. They can’t be measured, they can only be experienced. How could we ever find them without having them, without being there, without being them?
We search for life as if it's something to be found. But perhaps there's something even more alive, beyond our current understanding.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wwhTfyX9J34
It made me want to spill out some random thoughts on the subject. I’m unqualified, but I’m curious.
Our search for life off this planet is inherently primitive. We search for life based on our definitions, using instruments designed to detect what we already know. And who can blame us? It would be impossible to look for what we wouldn’t recognize in a way that we can’t realize.
It wasn’t until the 17th century that we even discovered microbial life. And microbial life is the most plentiful life on earth, far surpassing the biomass of plant, animal, and fungal life combined. There’s more of it than anything, and we’ve always been living among it, yet we didn’t know it was here.
But it wasn’t just that. Since we share a common ancestor with microbial life, we didn’t find new life, we found an earlier version of who we were.
Imagine a microbe evolving so much intelligence that it forgot where it came from, only to invent instruments billions of years later to find itself again. That’s what happened. How beautiful is that?
Maybe it will happen again. If we find life elsewhere, we might be discovering a more advanced version of ourselves. Or if life finds us, it might rediscover its primitive origins. If we can forget and lose our history once, why couldn't we forget and lose our future again?
It makes me think about what other forms life could take. And how we might never be able to detect it.
Let’s imagine that thoughts were a form of life. They feel like it. They mate, they multiply, they evolve, they consume us, they drive us, they make us move, they seem to be born, they seem to die. They seem to have their own agency, appearing in your mind whether welcome or not.
But you can't see thoughts. You don't even know a thought exists until you, or someone else, has it. Maybe thoughts are location-based, waiting in every place. To discover one, you can’t look for it. Rather, you have to be where it is.
Imagine what it would be like to stand on Mars, looking back at Earth. But if you were actually there, you’d almost certainly have a thought you couldn’t have here. Insights incompatible with any earthly experience. Questions that couldn’t be contemplated without standing on Martian sand.
From Mars, the Earth is mirror. From Earth, Mars is a mirror. Both mirrors, but each perspective reflecting entirely different thoughts. You can’t see the same view or have the same thought from the other place. You must be there to meet thoughts living there.
Maybe thoughts don't exist in time and space but in mind and place. This specific mind, in that specific place.
Then imagine trying to look for thoughts with our instruments and techniques. Nothing would register. Trillions of thoughts unnoticed, unaware. They can’t be measured, they can only be experienced. How could we ever find them without having them, without being there, without being them?
We search for life as if it's something to be found. But perhaps there's something even more alive, beyond our current understanding.
-Jason