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It seems that mirror life is too big a risk to allow it to happen, which maybe puts paid to my right-handed leather idea on here. The danger is well-known, but in case it isn't here, the problem is that it may be undetectable to immune systems and reproduce unstoppably, removing possibly all of the
biomasse, but the benefits are the likes of manufacturing medication of a particular chirality without producing a racemic mixture. I mean, I'm sure I'm preaching to the converted here.
I'm convinced that silicon-based life could never arise without technological intervention, but I also strongly suspect that once it started, it could be feasible in very carefully controlled conditions. It would need to be kept away from water and free oxygen, which is a very tall order on Earth. In order for it to survive at all, it would have to be in a sealed environment, possibly require something other than water as a solvent (maybe ammonia?) and also need nutrients which are themselves not very common or stable such as silanes. Nonetheless, I do believe that in highly artificial circumstances, it could be synthesised and persist. The crucial difference, as I see it, with carbon-based life is that the variety of compounds is much smaller but this could be compensated for by using larger polymers and macromolecules.
Now the thing is, the same results could be achieved with hypothetical silicon-based life as are currently being considered with mirror life, if it can exist. However, unlike mirror life, it could not persist outside of the aforementioned highly controlled environments. If it needs ammonia, the outside would be too hot. Atmospheric oxygen and water would quickly destroy it. There would be missing vital nutrients, such as the aforementioned silanes and perhaps others. There's no risk, in this case, of the artificial organisms escaping and spreading because Earth is such a hostile place for them.
The big "if" here is whether it's possible at all. I only suspect it is. I can't think of an alternative to amino acids and this, I think, is the big stumbling block. But just maybe this is the answer to mirror life, without the risks.
Silicon-based Life
https://www.youtube...watch?v=we6oH72_MZU
Isaac Arthur's I think inaccurate take on the possibility of silicon-based life [nineteenthly, Sep 03 2025]
7 Websites where you can upload your research papers
https://www.re-thin...ur-research-papers/
[doctorremulac3, Sep 04 2025]
My theory on the subject.
Atomic_20Level_20Li...een_20Us_20And_20AI
[doctorremulac3, Sep 04 2025]
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Not sure about this though;
//I'm convinced that silicon-based life could never arise without technological intervention// |
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why? Could it not arise spontaneously? |
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I don't see how it could. An oxygen-free atmosphere is not problematic, but there would also have to be no water and a ready supply of silicon compounds other than silica and silicates, probably silanes, which are unstable to ultraviolet light iirc, so there's that. I suppose the best bet is a cavern underground or the bottom of an ammonia ocean. But TBH I can't think of an alternative to amino acids, so where's the actual "machinery" going to come from? I can very much see that siloxanes are useful but the energy needed to produce them exceeds the kind of energy found in biochemical reactions by quite a long way. |
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I do believe there could be another kind of "silicon-based" life though, which uses silicon compounds more extensively than life on this planet but has a carbon-based core, but again this would need kick-starting unless it only used silica and silicates. It's the energy of the enzymatic reactions which is the problem. |
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hmmm, I have to now look up a bunch of what you just said. |
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Thanks. Isaac Arthur has made a video on the subject but I don't really agree with him. I'll post a link. |
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I too had to do a bunch of research to figure out what you were talking about. |
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I have no idea if this would work, but there's a level of knowledge here that's kind of staggering. Could this actually work? If so you should absolutely get some kind of funding to research this. |
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THIS is why I come to the Halfbakery. Just when I'm marveling at the fact that fully 1/3rd of the ideas up currently are political hate dribble, I see this to restore my faith. [+] |
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Thanks. I mean, I haven't been around for a long time at this point, and wanted to renew my, well, life here, so here I am doing what I've always done here :-) . |
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I mean, I've been thinking about it a long time and I was supposed to be a biochemist before it all went peculiar in my teens and I annoyed my school - top of the class in chemistry followed by giving it up completely. But in theory terms, I've kept my hand in. |
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Can you get a grant or something? I'm so ignorant on this subject I wouldn't know where to start so being a worth path of exploration or not would be way above my knowledge about such things, but if this has possibilities I'd say you HAVE to explore them. |
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Write a pier reviewed thesis. That's free, and once you publish it if you have intellectual property to protect you have 12 months to at least file a provisional patent that gives you another 12 months to file a utility patent or patents. |
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I'd love to see you do this and keep us posted. Let's bring the Halfbakery back to life! |
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Hmm, I could try. It would be highly hypothetical, but fair enough, I'll give it a go and see what happens. |
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Check out the link. Don't know if any of these are any good but I'd check them out. |
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Silicon-based life has long been theorized. I'm not sure how mirror life is relevant to that discussion. I'm not seeing an idea here. |
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Well there you go, you can weigh in on the published paper. |
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Maybe I have not had enough coffee yet ... |
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Is there an idea appropriate for the 'bakery here? |
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[Voice] and [normzone], the idea is to find a safer alternative to mirror life. Mirror life could synthesise chiral compounds rather than the usual racemic mixtures produced by non-biological means. Drug manufacture, for example, at the moment usually produces 50% right-handed and 50% left-handed molecules, and one half is only removed if it's significantly toxic. This means twice the resources are used to produce them and we end up taking, in a sense, twice the necessary dose. Mirror life, like "life as we know it", would synthesise only one chiral form of a compound, so it could make it more energy-efficient, economical and safer to produce the compounds in question. However, it might also lead to a grey goo scenario like nanotech might, and can't be held in check because there would be no competitors and no organisms to prevent its spread, and the immune system wouldn't recognise pathogens, so they could also spread in the body without provoking an immune response. By contrast, silicon-based life would be inherently vulnerable to the usual terrestrial environment, since it would die if it came in contact with water or free oxygen, no nutrients would be available for it and if it used ammonia as a solvent wouldn't be able to survive above -33°C. However, if it could be created, it would have the same advantages as mirror life with none of the risks. That's the half-baked idea. The half-baked part is that whereas solvents, energy sources, membranes and possibly genes are available, as far as anyone seems to know, amino acids and proteins are not, so that's the gap as far as feasibility is concerned. |
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So to my mind this is a half-baked idea. And I'd repeat my founded assertion that silicon-based life would never arise spontaneously. It needs technology to build it, and probably to maintain a hospitable environment. |
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Was this at all inspired by my life force enabled / sentience being built in at the atomic level that I had posted previously? I've discussed it with AI and it agreed. Currently AI is just processed rocks arranged in a grid of on off switches, at the atomic level it's very simple. Something at the atomic level caused the first life to come out of the various elements and turn to life with its innate built in motivation to live, to reproduce and to expand. |
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I was thinking of publishing a paper on that theory myself. See link. Got a little bone-storm going though. |
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//the idea is to find a safer alternative to mirror life//[+] |
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I hadn't seen that, [doctorremulac3], but I will take a look now. |
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