[extropy-chat] FWD (UFO UpDate) Re: Limboids

Terry W. Colvin fortean1 at mindspring.com
Tue Nov 2 21:20:41 UTC 2004


From: Bruce Maccabee <brumac at compuserve.com>
To: <ufoupdates at virtuallystrange.net>
Date: Mon, 1 Nov 2004 23:46:26 -0500
Subject: Re: Limboids


>From: Terry W. Colvin <fortean1 at mindspring.com>
>To: UFO UpDates - Toronto <ufoupdates at virtuallystrange.net>
>Date: Sun, 31 Oct 2004 17:56:22 -0700
>Subject: Limboids


>Forwarding permission was given by William R. Corliss.

>Science Frontiers, No. 156, Nov-Dec, 2004, p. 2

>http://www.science-frontiers.com


>Biology

>Limboids

>What, if anything, separates life from non-life? To be alive, it 
i>s widely promulgated that such entities must metabolize, 
>reproduce, and evolve in the Darwinian sense. It is also 
>popularly believed that living matter is intrinsically different 
>from nonliving matter, although one no longer speaks of "the 
>breath of life" or of an "elan vital". Even so, knowing all we 
>now know, there does still 'seem' to be a fundamental gap 
>between life and non-life. Is this gap illusory or perhaps 
>filled by entities of which we are not yet aware?

<snip>

>Comments. But humans and their instruments do not observe 
>everything. There may be an unappreciated limbo separating life 
>from non-life. This limbo could be occupied by entities that 
>we'll call "limboids." Science may not yet recognize this 
>hypothesized realm of the natural world because:

>(1) The limboids are too small - smaller than the controversial 
>nonolife and still inaccessible to today's science.

>(2) The limboids are too large for us to grasp intellectually or 
>instrument-wise.

>F. Hoyle's fictional "black cloud" would be an example.

>(3) The metabolisms of limboids are too slow and their lifetimes 
>too long (millions of years) for us to discern them. In other 
>words, they 'seem' inanimate. (This potential attribute was 
>suggested by P. Gunkel.)

>(4) The lifetimes of limboids may be too short for us to 
>register them.

>(5) The limboids live outside the ranges of our eyes and 
>instruments.

>(6) The limboids may incorporate considerable dark matter and be 
>hard to detect. Conceivably some manifestations of dark matter 
>could exist in recognized visible organisms and perform 
>organizing functions that "breathe life" into inanimate matter!

These speculations as to why "limboids" have not been discovered 
parallel the comments I have made regarding the "search for the 
intellecton", where the intellecton is defined as the minimum-
sized (whatever that "size" means) element of inteligence or 
intellect. For example, I ask the question, what if an electron 
is intelligent?

Would we ever know?

Only by its actions I suppose.

But what if it did something intelligent in a femtosecond. It's 
action would be over before we could measure it.

What is an electron only did an intelligent act over a period of 
millions of seconds. Would it be so slow as to be undetectable? 
These comments wouldn't apply just to an electron, but to any 
subunit (including complex combinations of atoms) that might 
exhibit elementary intelligence. Is a protein that changes shape 
"intelligent"? For further amusing details see:

< http://brumac.8k.com/AbductionInLife/INTELLECTON.html >


-- 
"Only a zit on the wart on the heinie of progress." Copyright 1992, Frank Rice


Terry W. Colvin, Sierra Vista, Arizona (USA) < fortean1 at mindspring.com >
     Alternate: < fortean1 at msn.com >
Home Page: < http://www.geocities.com/Area51/Stargate/8958/index.html >
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