Life, Murder, and Balance : can there be life without "killing"?

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Sorry for the Cosmo style thread title.. this is meant to be more of a sci-techie question..

But can a life model exist that doesn't involve any need to actively "terminate" another living thing? Obviously, there must be death to retain the "balance", but this would always happen naturally and painlessly (physically speaking).

Can there be a model such that a living thing can survive only off non-living resources? If so, how complex could this life form ever get to be? Would life be incredibly boring?

I realize there are several wrenches you can throw into this hypothesis: mother nature, accidents, fatal consquences en masse of otherwise innocent lifestyle practices...

Anyway, chewing gum for the mind. Have a stick!

― donut bitch (donut), Friday, 30 May 2003 18:31 (twenty-three years ago)

Dear F'in lord.. actually, that thread title looks like a title for a Reader's Digest article. I just made myself extremely nauseous.

― donut bitch (donut), Friday, 30 May 2003 18:32 (twenty-three years ago)

Oh, and sci-fi hippies to thread.

― donut bitch (donut), Friday, 30 May 2003 18:33 (twenty-three years ago)

Yes, provided you define everyone but yourself as a lifeless automaton. Note that animals already do this w/respect to plants.

― kieran, Friday, 30 May 2003 18:43 (twenty-three years ago)

There are living things that don't live off others, I believe. Search the ecology of deep sea volcanic vents.

― Martin Skidmore (Martin Skidmore), Friday, 30 May 2003 19:03 (twenty-three years ago)

Can there be a model such that a living thing can survive only off non-living resources? If so, how complex could this life form ever get to be?

mind uploading comes to mind

Would life be incredibly boring?
the singularity fun theory is a good conversation starter on this question.

― Sébastien Chikara (Sébastien Chikara), Saturday, 31 May 2003 03:54 (twenty-three years ago)

But can a life model exist that doesn't involve any need to actively "terminate" another living thing?

The 'cycle of life' exists exactly because something new is created from something 'old': otherwise how would new stars get created in the cosmos? Of course, it depends on whether an "inanimate" object can truly die (as we humans think of the process.)

― Nichole Graham (Nichole Graham), Sunday, 1 June 2003 19:54 (twenty-three years ago)

Does anyone know anything of those deep-sea volcanic vents? Does live not survive there based on heat and minerals and stuff and not on consuming any other life? I am far from expert and may have this wrong. Also, are there not bacteria living deep in rock where water and the stone's minerals are all they have?

― Martin Skidmore (Martin Skidmore), Sunday, 1 June 2003 20:52 (twenty-three years ago)

DONUT BITCH STARTS THREAD TO WOO SÉBASTIEN

"Get a room!" cry ILXors worldwide

― Chris P (Chris P), Monday, 2 June 2003 00:29 (twenty-three years ago)

Yes, they're chemosynthetic archaebacteria. Possibly some of the oldest lifeforms on Earth.

― Curt1s St3ph3ns, Monday, 2 June 2003 00:43 (twenty-three years ago)

Anything which is an autotroph. Plants etc.

― isadora (isadora), Monday, 2 June 2003 01:43 (twenty-three years ago)

Martin you should read _a deepness in the sky_ by vernor vinge for a sci-fi take on ecology of deep sea volcanic vents. It got a cameo somewhere + I love the story . I was about to network for more info but lo chris was like, lol then curtis came up with hot info, I'll have to do a couple of google @ isadora's info. I don't have much more to improvise on the subject but I know I could data mine @ it, maybe I will. Somehow it is one of my priorities because this primitive life form = nietzschean existential introspection. I know it's been done before but try to get yr' head around this one y'all and tell me about it. This is .. ah I'll shut up for now lol

― Sébastien Chikara (Sébastien Chikara), Monday, 2 June 2003 05:36 (twenty-three years ago)

Anything which is an autotroph. Plants etc.

They still rely on nitrogen-fixing bacteria.

― Curt1s St3ph3ns, Monday, 2 June 2003 14:44 (twenty-three years ago)

Ill fix your bacteria.

― Brian Mowrey (Brian Mowrey), Tuesday, 3 June 2003 00:46 (twenty-three years ago)

If we make from rocks all the molecules that we need from the food we eat, then humans can become autotrophes. It would take a lot of electricity though, making those molecules. So it would be a simpler thing to have us run off electricity. And for the first thing it would be helpful if everything else was already dead, except for big things like dogs and emus that can't get accidently stuck in your rock-food machines. But you could never kill all the bacterial. That is why they win.

― Brian Mowrey (Brian Mowrey), Tuesday, 3 June 2003 00:50 (twenty-three years ago)

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