The research, which straddles the line between science fiction and scientific law, explores the potential limits of life as we know it and beyond. It draws on a variety of scientific disciplines to propose fundamental constraints on the forms of life that can arise, both on Earth and elsewhere.
Research into extraterrestrial and artificial life
Extraterrestrial and artificial life has always fascinated humanity. Can we predict how life might exist on other planets, given our knowledge of the building blocks of Earth's biosphere? What natural laws or constraints might shape the Frankenstein-like life forms we hope to create in laboratories?
Scientific boundaries of life forms
A study published in Interface Focus by several researchers at the Santa Fe Institute, takes these questions from the realm of science fiction into the realm of science. By examining case studies in thermodynamics, computing, genetics, cellular development, brain science, ecology, and evolution, the researchers have identified fundamental constraints that make certain forms of life impossible.
These constraints include the need for systems that reduce entropy (such as the ability to heal or regenerate), the inevitability of closed cells as the building blocks of life, and decision-making systems such as the brain, which process information through neurons. similar components.
Universal logic in living systems
The authors point to historical examples of people predicting some of the complex features of life that biologists later confirmed. Examples include Schrödinger's view of information molecules as "aperiodic crystals" or mid-century simulations that predicted that parasites were inevitable when complex life evolved. That such correct predictions were possible with little available evidence suggests that all living systems follow a universal logic that underlies them.