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[Hungry]

And reproducing space organisms are an odd idea.

Like us?
[/quote]
More like whales in function, but a modified group and mate social trigger to be more like humans would be best...for reproductive chances anyways (it'd keep them near enough in space to find mates, but if you do you'd have to build everything the organism would require off a genetic molecule...)(imagines space porn for some odd reason...)and the gestation period would have to last long enough to develope it properly as well...and that leads to a slew of vacume related problems...

[alway]

There just isn't the material in deep space for macroscopic, sexually reproducing organisms to exist. Bacteria-like organisms, perhaps. And they would likely be primitive in form, since their reproduction rate would be many orders of magnitude slower than earth bacteria (due to the lack of materials to work with). For an energy source, if they were able to somehow harness high energy cosmic rays they would be probably be able to continue living.

[fenrif]

There just isn't the material in deep space for macroscopic, sexually reproducing organisms to exist.

Considering we know so little about deep space, that's a rather bold statement. Not to mention the fact that you're assuming those organisms would be the same kind of life as us, and need the same kind of things we do to survive.

[Soadreqm]

...You are suggesting that right outside the visible universe, gravity starts working differently and you get things like asteroid thickets and space rivers? And over there we would find some kind of energy beings that reproduce sexually?

Sounds plausible.

But what is this nonsense about your clone being you? We could clone people RIGHT NOW if we put our minds to it, and the clone would be a completely different person, with the same genetic material, who probably dies of cloning process complications before its fifteenth birthday. It's not identical to you, and even if it would be, it would still not BE you.

For example, if you have a cake, and I have a completely identical cake, and then I toss some gravel on your cake, I have not tossed gravel on my cake. And then you'll probably get mad at me for ruining a cake, but that's beside the point. Two objects being similar does not mean that they are the same object.

[fenrif]

...You are suggesting that right outside the visible universe, gravity starts working differently and you get things like asteroid thickets and space rivers? And over there we would find some kind of energy beings that reproduce sexually?

No, that's not what I said at all. I'm suggesting that since we don't know what's out there, that saying sweeping statements such as "so and so can't ever possibly happen!" is a bit silly.

[Soadreqm]

But we know that (biological) life needs matter. And for it to be SPACE, that matter couldn't be organized into huge spheres. And, according to the theories on gravity, so far confirmed by observatory evidence, matter has a tendency to organize itself into huge spheres. And we can see pretty well in space, stars are visible at almost any distance, and even dark, cold, dead lumps of rock would probably show up if there was a star behind it. Or enough mass and a star somewhere near to directly behind it. It's also a reasonably assumption that life would need a star near it, so dark, cold, dead lumps of rock wouldn't matter anyway. All in all, we DO know how space works pretty well.

Also, water has a lot of nifty properties that make it real easy to have water-based life, compared to a lot of other things. It reacts as both an acid AND a base, it expands when it freezes, and it dissolves things really well. So, we can also make some assumptions about what kind of life we should expect to find.

Perhaps saying that off-planet life can't ever possibly happen is technically incorrect, or at least unprovable, but I can't really imagine how it would happen. If you have some theory on how space animals would work, please, do share.

[Cthulhu]

...You are suggesting that right outside the visible universe, gravity starts working differently and you get things like asteroid thickets and space rivers? And over there we would find some kind of energy beings that reproduce sexually?

No, that's not what I said at all. I'm suggesting that since we don't know what's out there, that saying sweeping statements such as "so and so can't ever possibly happen!" is a bit silly.

However, saying "according to everything we know about life and the nature of space, so and so can't ever possibly happen!" is perfectly reasonable.

[Hungry]

...You are suggesting that right outside the visible universe, gravity starts working differently and you get things like asteroid thickets and space rivers? And over there we would find some kind of energy beings that reproduce sexually?

No, that's not what I said at all. I'm suggesting that since we don't know what's out there, that saying sweeping statements such as "so and so can't ever possibly happen!" is a bit silly.

However, saying "according to everything we know about life and the nature of space, so and so can't ever possibly happen!" is perfectly reasonable.

no from what we know of space life can and has survived in it...(look up the lunar mission where they found that lunar probe that had life in it...(not sure which one)

[fenrif]

...You are suggesting that right outside the visible universe, gravity starts working differently and you get things like asteroid thickets and space rivers? And over there we would find some kind of energy beings that reproduce sexually?

No, that's not what I said at all. I'm suggesting that since we don't know what's out there, that saying sweeping statements such as "so and so can't ever possibly happen!" is a bit silly.

However, saying "according to everything we know about life and the nature of space, so and so can't ever possibly happen!" is perfectly reasonable.

Yeah, but thats different from ruling it out compeltely. I was just trying to make the point that we don't know everything, and could discover something that's completely alien and outside of our understanding.

But we know that (biological) life needs matter. And for it to be SPACE, that matter couldn't be organized into huge spheres. And, according to the theories on gravity, so far confirmed by observatory evidence, matter has a tendency to organize itself into huge spheres. And we can see pretty well in space, stars are visible at almost any distance, and even dark, cold, dead lumps of rock would probably show up if there was a star behind it. Or enough mass and a star somewhere near to directly behind it. It's also a reasonably assumption that life would need a star near it, so dark, cold, dead lumps of rock wouldn't matter anyway. All in all, we DO know how space works pretty well.

Also, water has a lot of nifty properties that make it real easy to have water-based life, compared to a lot of other things. It reacts as both an acid AND a base, it expands when it freezes, and it dissolves things really well. So, we can also make some assumptions about what kind of life we should expect to find.

Perhaps saying that off-planet life can't ever possibly happen is technically incorrect, or at least unprovable, but I can't really imagine how it would happen. If you have some theory on how space animals would work, please, do share.

I don't have any theory, I'm just saying that the entire sum of human knowledge up to this point in history isn't perfect. All these things we know could be rendered incorrect by some discovery that'll be made in a thousand years from now. And then all those facts will be proven incorrect a thousand years after that.

We don't know what's out in deep space, we can make educated guesses based on what we know, and what we can observe from our planet.

As Tommy Lee Jones once said: "Five hundred years ago, everybody knew the Earth was flat."

[Soadreqm]

Well, if you don't have a better theory than my "macroscopic space-borne life is stupid"-theory, then you can't really complain about it. Insert comment comparing you to young-Earth creationists here.

Astronavigation assumes a spherical earth, by the way, and sailors were quite capable of using it five hundred years ago, suggesting that they did in fact NOT think the earth was flat. You can actually SEE the curvature of the earth if you live in a coastal city. Approaching ships appear on the horizon mast first. I think there were around two or so medieval scholars who seriously suggested the earth was flat.

Not that you're not right about people bashing ridiculous theories. Like continental drift. It took quite a lot of time and experimentation before anyone believed THAT. Good thing too, it DOES sound absolutely ridiculous, and if scientists went around taking every useless fraud seriously, they'd never get anything done.

[fenrif]

I don't need a better theory to complain about something. All I'm saying is that science isn't absolute. The concept that we don't know everything is built-in to science anyway. If science knew everything it'd stop (Can't remember which comedian said that, its on an advert all the time). Theres a huge difference between young earth creationists, who come up with demonstrably false theories, and me simply saying we don't know everything about a place where no human has ever been, or even interacted with in any real way. Stop using strawmen, I'm not trying to argue with you, I'm just pointing out that we aren't omniscient.

And yeah, 500 years ago people didn't think the earth was flat, I was just quoting the film. But people did think the earth was flat for a long time. Up untill the time ancient greeks started doin their thing. I know for a fact that the flat earth is referenced in the Epic of Gilgamesh.

I'm not saying anything about ridiculous theories. I'm just saying that the sum knowledge of humankind isn't perfect. We don't know everything. The nature of science is that new discoveries are made that can sometimes shake the very foundations of what we thought we knew to be true. It hasn't happened in a while beacuse we've got very good at understanding and predicting how things work on our little rock, but I think it's inevitable that were we to explore deep space we'd discover some things that would shake up our understanding of the universe.

[Soadreqm]

I'm just saying that the sum knowledge of humankind isn't perfect. We don't know everything.

Yes, this is true. I still hold that macroscopic space-borne life is silly. Should I word it differently? "There probably just isn't the material in deep space for macroscopic, sexually reproducing organisms to exist"? What exactly am I allowed to treat as unquestionable facts? Indeed, how do you know we don't know everything? Isn't it a bit bold to suggest it certainty that all the current theories about the universe aren't true?

You think it inevitable that if we just explore space enough, we'll find something truly baffling. How do you figure that? What if there's nothing out there but big spheres of already known substances? How can you know for certain that the universe is more complex than you thought?

[smigenboger]

tl;dr

life is just repeating fractal pattern, right? With enough magnetic force, there could be a different kind of life out there

[Soadreqm]

Well, with enough magnetic force, sure. That's just a fact of life.

[Mikko]

Anyways, life is funny. It's purpose is to use energy to gather material in a certain order. It resist entropy so it must be awesome.