What if the forum was a D&D campaign?

[Smitty-48]

Bear in mind, we're not even the only intelligent mammal on this planet, and Homo Sapiens Sapiens is only 200,000 years old, that's a blink of an eye, we're just the first mammalian to reach this point, and didn't take that long, so entirely plausible another species comparable to us will evolve in the wake of us, just on this planet alone.

[heydaralon]

Smitty, do you think life began or Earth, or that it came in on an asteroid? These might be retarded as stoner questions I'm asking you, but I do ponder this shit, often when I'm stuck in traffic or doing mindless nonsense tasks at work.

[Smitty-48]

Smitty, do you think life began or Earth, or that it came in on an asteroid? These might be retarded as stoner questions I'm asking you, but I do ponder this shit, often when I'm stuck in traffic or doing mindless nonsense tasks at work.

The whole thing came from asteroids, the asteroids crashed into each other until they formed a critical mass, that's how planets happen. The building blocks of life are in the elements, the elements were all trapped in asteroids at some point.

Your ultimate origin is in the fusion engine of the suns, that's where you were made, when those suns go nova, those building blocks are released. Two hydrogen one oxygen; you've got ice. Get the ice together in a gravity well, someplace warm enough to melt it; shit happens.

[heydaralon]

Smitty, do you think life began or Earth, or that it came in on an asteroid? These might be retarded as stoner questions I'm asking you, but I do ponder this shit, often when I'm stuck in traffic or doing mindless nonsense tasks at work.

The whole thing came from asteroids, the asteroids crashed into each other until they formed a critical mass, that's how planets happen. The building blocks of life are in the elements, the elements were all trapped in asteroids at some point.

Your ultimate origin is in the fusion engine of the suns, that's where you were made, when those suns go nova, those building blocks are released. Two hydrogen one oxygen; you've got ice. Get the ice together in a gravity well, someplace warm enough to melt it; shit happens.

Well by that logic, we should be able to make life in a lab at some point right? We know the ratios of various elements like Nitrogren Oxygen Hydrogen Carbon Phosphorous calcium etc in the human body, so do you think we can actually make life out of them? Why have scientists been unable to do this? Is there some trace thing we are missing?

[Smitty-48]

I think the issue with intelligent life is simply timing, I'd bet there's tons of life about, but again, mostly slugs, to get two Homo Sapiens Sapiens type things together, at the same time, that seems less likely, we've only been around for 200k years, we've only had civilization for a few thousand years, two civilizations like this, at the same time, within a short distance, now that seems like a long shot, the aliens could be around, but maybe they died off a million years ago, or maybe they are a million years in the future away, the window for two of them to be getting together at the same time, within a few lightyears of one another, that would be quite the coincidence.

[heydaralon]

I think the issue with intelligent life is simply timing, I'd bet there's tons of life about, but again, mostly slugs, to get two Homo Sapiens Sapiens type things together, at the same time, that seem less likely, we've only been around for 200k years, we've only had civilization for a few thousand years, two civilizations like this, at the same time, within a short distance, now that seems like a long shot, the aliens could be around, but maybe they died off a million years ago, or maybe they are a million years in the future away, the window for two of them to be getting together at the same time, that would be quite the coincidence indeed.

Do you think it will soon be possible to make life in a lab using elements?

[Smitty-48]

I think the issue with intelligent life is simply timing, I'd bet there's tons of life about, but again, mostly slugs, to get two Homo Sapiens Sapiens type things together, at the same time, that seem less likely, we've only been around for 200k years, we've only had civilization for a few thousand years, two civilizations like this, at the same time, within a short distance, now that seems like a long shot, the aliens could be around, but maybe they died off a million years ago, or maybe they are a million years in the future away, the window for two of them to be getting together at the same time, that would be quite the coincidence indeed.

Do you think it will soon be possible to make life in a lab using elements?

That's easy, you don't need a lab, just leave some food out on the counter; presto, bacteria.

[heydaralon]

I think the issue with intelligent life is simply timing, I'd bet there's tons of life about, but again, mostly slugs, to get two Homo Sapiens Sapiens type things together, at the same time, that seem less likely, we've only been around for 200k years, we've only had civilization for a few thousand years, two civilizations like this, at the same time, within a short distance, now that seems like a long shot, the aliens could be around, but maybe they died off a million years ago, or maybe they are a million years in the future away, the window for two of them to be getting together at the same time, that would be quite the coincidence indeed.

Do you think it will soon be possible to make life in a lab using elements?

That's easy, you don't need a lab, just leave some food out on the counter; presto, bacteria.

lol I know you are trolling, but I'm talking about using what we know about the ratios of Carbon Hydrogen Nitrogen and Oxygen in living animals and creating a living thing by combining these elements. We don't know how to do that, so what are we missing? So far, we have only managed to make life out of existing life, as you say, but not just from scratch. I wonder what important piece or step eludes us.

[Smitty-48]

Do you think it will soon be possible to make life in a lab using elements?

That's easy, you don't need a lab, just leave some food out on the counter; presto, bacteria.

lol I know you are trolling, but I'm talking about using what we know about the ratios of Carbon Hydrogen Nitrogen and Oxygen in living animals and creating a living thing by combining these elements. We don't know how to do that, so what are we missing? So far, we have only managed to make life out of existing life, as you say, but not just from scratch. I wonder what important piece or step eludes us.

Well, if you use molybdenum, or tungsten oxide, you can probably cluster those metallic elements together and eventually, given some time, they'll probably figure out how to incite structures like membranes and enzymes, and then it will be like artificial RNA.

Cellular replication is probably not that far off, although more likely to be quite metallic at first, more like self replicating nanites.

[heydaralon]

That's easy, you don't need a lab, just leave some food out on the counter; presto, bacteria.

lol I know you are trolling, but I'm talking about using what we know about the ratios of Carbon Hydrogen Nitrogen and Oxygen in living animals and creating a living thing by combining these elements. We don't know how to do that, so what are we missing? So far, we have only managed to make life out of existing life, as you say, but not just from scratch. I wonder what important piece or step eludes us.

Well, if you use molybdenum, or tungsten oxide, you can probably cluster those metallic elements together and eventually, given some time, they'll probably figure out how to incite structures like membranes and enzymes, and then it will be like artificial RNA.

Cellular replication is probably not that far off, although more likely to be quite metallic at first, more like self replicating nanites.

I am quite jealous of your ability to just casually talk about shit as diverse as physics, bio, econ, and history. That guy speaker is the same way. He knows a lot about physics and humanities stuff. Where did you learn about this stuff? Are you self-taught?