Life as a Physical Process
7th June 2025
All this while, we have been fixated on different manifestations of life as we find it on Earth. We see bacteria, zebra fish, or fruit fly and start wondering whether we got lucky here on Earth, or whether our universe contains many more similar instances of life.
But, is this even the right question to ask? If we’re identifying life as we know it on Earth, we’re blinding ourselves to the only instance of life as we know it (with self-replication, cells, DNA, etc.). But, why should we expect life to be the same way in the rest of the universe?
Are cells fundamental? Does life have to be necessarily carbon-based? Sure, we can define life as anything. It’s an overloaded term. But if we keep defining it with traits we observe on Earth, we will be like that guy who only searches for his keys under the street light because that’s the only thing he can see.
Of course, to discover alien life, we need to first know what we’re looking for. But defining all life as being Earth-like is too myopic. What should we do?