[off topic?]
I’m reminded of a very old science fiction story.
Earthman crash lands on Mars. He wanders around and finds a village. It’s fully automated to provide the residents with anything they need. But because it was built by Martians everything is toxic to the human.
The village tries to adapt, but his biochemistry is too alien. Finally, starving, unable to go on, the just lays down in one of the beds and gives up.
When he wakes up, everything has changed. The village smells wonderful, the music sounds great and the bowl of food next to the bed is the best thing he ever ate. The astronaut is so happy that he can’t stop wagging all three tails.
Wow, I was prepared for Martian Chronicles or maybe a PKD story, but I love it! <3
Ironically it doesn’t matter what the form looks like, there’s a 50/50 shot everytime life develops if it’s right (us) of left (not us) biochemistry.
It literally doesn’t matter which happens, functionally the life could be 100% same except a mirror image.
Anytime two actually separate lines of life encounter each other, there’s a fight on the bacterial level of the ecosystem, and the “new” one will win 100% of the time due to stuff that would make this comment too long to read.
I’m gonna need a little more than that.
It’s not too long to read. I dare you.
Think of it kind of like small pox blankets. A violent anomaly introduced to an environment that can’t defend against it. I’d imagine that’s the kind of thing OP is talking about, but I may have misinterpreted their comment.
Thats a really fun concept but I came here to tell you that your username is great
Fuck yeah thanks. Dig that rabid shit
This is why Signs was stupid.
Ugly bags of mostly water!
Here, water is mostly a liquid but there’s a ton in the gaseous state in the air.
A lot of places, water is just another type of rock.
This. The window in which water isn’t solid or a gas is very, very small.
But that’s also the window where life is likely to form and be possible, so it’s unlikely there are aliens who think it’s weird.
[H2O as plasma has entered the chat]
Ooh, there’s a great Asimov short story about this! Victory Unintentional (1942)
Water is extreemly common in the universe. It also enables a lot of useful chemistry that complex molecules need. In turn it is reasonable to expect water is part of all life - not a given but most of the other options rely on something far less likely to occure.
This assumes there is life. Not a debate I’m touching. Although if there is physics is against us ever discovering it. Even if earth is an extreem outlier in taking so long to develop intelligent life and every other star has it in a few hundred years few will ever detect another lifeform
aren’t we biased we study so much water based chemistry because that’s basically the planet’s solvent.
I imagine amonia could also have complex and distinct chemistry, or basically any polar fluid.
or is there a chemical reason why water is better?
Water is very common. Others might or might not work. Most ofthe others are rare. (Amonia is not rare, I have no idea how useful it might be)
