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Could Life Be Older Than Earth Itself? [merged]


Insanity

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Applying a maxim from computer science to biology raises the intriguing possibility that life existed before Earth did and may have originated outside our solar system, scientists say.

Moore's Law is the observation that computers increase exponentially in complexity, at a rate of about double the transistors per integrated circuit every two years. If you apply Moore's Law to just the last few years' rate of computational complexity and work backward, you'll get back to the 1960s, when the first microchip was, indeed, invented.

Now, two geneticists have applied Moore's Law to the rate at which life on Earth grows in complexity — and the results suggest organic life first came into existence long before Earth itself.

http://www.livescien...rth-itself.html

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A lot of the universe is way older than us so it wouldn't surprise me. That's also a reason to believe there are beings out there far older and more advanced than us.

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Considering that amino acids have been found in remains of meteorites it highly likely that some form of life exists elsewhere. As to what that life is or how advanced it may be we can only speculate.

cormac

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It answers a lot of tough questions regarding how complex life could possibly begin on this planet.

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It also ensures that the origins of life remain elusive. Sure it could have travelled here on a hunk of rock, but where did it origionate from?

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Well, of course it could. That's not to say that it would be any form of life we might recognize, but obviously since there are the building blocks of life throughout the universe and most likely way beyond, there has been some form of life out there, somewhere, for a very long time.

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Moore's law relates to the number of Transistors that can be built into an IC. This doe not actually relate to complexity (in Biological terms) as such, because complexity in Biology refers more usually to evolutionary processes.

Latest estimates for the number of Gates than can be fitted into an IC show the trend levelling out by end of 2013 to a doubling every 3 years instead of 2. This will become even slower based on current technology as the abilty to manipulate storage on the nanometre scale becomes increasingly difficult.

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Interesting. I believe that Life is older than Earth because even religion states that God created the Earth and everything on it. And God can mean a lot of things to different people but even God has to be considered some form of Life since he created us,..

Edited by stevemagegod
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uummm i thought this was already kinda proven...or a strong theory from the late 90s, not sure how we would of developed instantly during the big bang.....

Edited by MidKn13ght
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at first i was confused because i am not a expert with computer terms and don't really care much but then i got some of it though not the terms but what they applied to the age of life then i got it.anyway yeah i believe that life did come from another place not from earth and that life was carried over here.its more than possible and does make sense to me anyway it makes more than sense to me though.

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life did originate from another place not earth though it was seeded there not originally started there.

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While this may be an interesting exercise in mathematics, there are such an unlimited number of variables that I would not bet the farm that this is remotely correct. Panspermia is a popular sci-fi idea (Prometheus being the latest example) but proof of same is another matter, and this would suggest life came from elsewhere and then seeded the earth. If they find a single living cell in any meteorite then you might have something.

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I guess I have just always assumed this. Chances are that there have been many extinctions universally before Earth was even formed. The Universe is supposed to be 13.7 billion years, and the Earth 4.5 billion. A lot could happen in 9.2 billion years. 9.2 billion years is incomprehensable to us.

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Of course it could. It is absolutely not inconceivable that the seeds for life came flying in from somewhere else. The earth gets bombarded with things every day.

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"Contamination with

bacterial spores from space

appears the most plausible

hypothesis''

.

really?

bacteria?

in space....?

.

then that would be classed as an 'extraterrestrial life-form', and it would be the biggest news story since moses got down from Mt sinai and said, 'ere, have a read of these'.

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If they find a single living cell in any meteorite then you might have something.

.

you don't need to find living cells for panspermia to work, just amino acids, time does the rest, and just about everything that comes through our atmosphere has them!

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fun idea.

Although, I shudder to think how you can feel on solid ground applying moores law to the very complex and not so well understood history of the complexity of biology, and all it's evolutionary stalls and cul-de-sacs. But, apparently they feel they've got an element that acts in a somewhat reliable way over time.

Cool idea in any case.

this thing-

For one, "life before earth" debunks the long-held science-fiction trope of the scientifically advanced alien species. If genetic complexity progresses at a steady rate, then the social and scientific development of any other alien life form in the Milky Way galaxy would be roughly equivalent to those of humans.

I don't think that's true. Up until this point, an important question has been the likelihood of life to arising out of the primordial soup from scratch. That question doesn't just disappear because you managed to prove one lineage had undergone panspermia.

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Could life be older than Earth itself?

I dunno, let's ask Joan Rivers.

Taken a look at her lately? She's so old, she probably had pet trilobites!

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Over the years science has had to rewrite their books by finding new discoveries and new techniques that changes everything. What is told today could be outdated in a few decades.

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Moore's law relates to the number of Transistors that can be built into an IC. This doe not actually relate to complexity (in Biological terms) as such, because complexity in Biology refers more usually to evolutionary processes.

Latest estimates for the number of Gates than can be fitted into an IC show the trend levelling out by end of 2013 to a doubling every 3 years instead of 2. This will become even slower based on current technology as the abilty to manipulate storage on the nanometre scale becomes increasingly difficult.

Tell that to Ray Kurzweil

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