Silicon Based Life

[AlexanderSen]

I wonder about sentient life, as it might be very simple life organisms such an algae type organism which we might take for granted. For it to be considered a life form it must be able to gather food/resources from the environment and self replicate. But my thoughts so far feel that silicon based life forms might react much slower such as plants or slow metabolism creatures. If so then what is a proper measure of time for such creatures? They might take much longer to change that carbon based life forms.

 

[Ray McCarthy]

Speed of action has no effect on definitions of life or intelligence. Obviously we would be like may flies to a creature that takes a year to utter one word, or 100 years to have breakfast. But there is obviously a risk we might mistake a VERY slow sentient creature for a plant or rock till we notice the context (tools & structures would give pause for thought, an inhabited city might at first seem abandoned to us.)

Water bears seem to be able to have a very slow metabolism as do some animals hibernating. Some trees live 1000s of years, but very unlikely to be sentient. It seems unlikely that algae, bacteria etc could be sentient. But we don't know what surprises there may be elsewhere also we have no idea why we (and seemingly Elephants, Crows etc) are intelligent and self aware. Crows make dolphins seem a bit dumb, so obviously it's not just about brain size. I think the common rook in UK has now been shown to be as smart as the Caledonian Crow, but simply doesn't need to "use tools" creatively in the wild. Or else like Gary Larsen's cows, only does it when we are not looking. So far the smallest creative tool user found appears to be the crow. It's no wonder it's in so many myth and legends.

 

[Vertigo]

Some say that for 'sentient' life it must be able to make decisions about its existence, gathering resources and such like but I think the generally held idea of sentience is self awareness which is far less common.

As to metabolism, I'm not sure that silicon based life would necessarily be slower than carbon based. You'd need a biochemist to speculate on the kind of reactions that would have to be involved and whether they would be slower than the reactions in involved with carbon life. And even then there is huge variation with some very fast high metabolism carbon based animals that live very short high speed lives and others that have much slower metabolisms, like sloths for example. And then in the plant world some plants, particularly in very low rainfall environments, that grow and reproduce in incredibly short time periods after rare rainfall and others, often in similar environments or very cold ones, that develop incredibly slowly and live exceptionally long lives. Without knowing the 'bio'chemistry my guess would be that, just like carbon, silicon life would have both slow and fast examples.