The Transhumanist Reader
by Max More and Natasha Vita-More · 4 Mar 2013 · 798pp · 240,182 words
AI, AL, molecular engineering, robotics, and complex systems, the potential for consciousness to evolve beyond the human organism, and to a degree which perhaps only silicon-based life could accommodate, in “entities as complex as ourselves, and eventually into something transcending everything we know – in whom we can take pride when they refer
What Technology Wants
by Kevin Kelly · 14 Jul 2010 · 476pp · 132,042 words
of sand. Basically, silicon produces dry life. Without a liquid matrix it’s hard to imagine how complex molecules are transported around to interact. Perhaps silicon-based life inhabits a fiery world and the silicates are molten. Or perhaps the matrix is very cold liquid ammonia. But unlike ice, which floats and insulates
Ten Billion Tomorrows: How Science Fiction Technology Became Reality and Shapes the Future
by Brian Clegg · 8 Dec 2015 · 315pp · 92,151 words
same composition as us. It is possible to imagine that they could have skeletal structures based on much stronger equivalents of bone, or could be silicon-based life (see here) with a greater ability to withstand the pull of gravity, perhaps needed for a high mass planet. Gravity itself is a variable that
Where Good Ideas Come from: The Natural History of Innovation
by Steven Johnson · 5 Oct 2010 · 298pp · 81,200 words
contains over a hundred times as much silicon as it does carbon, and yet Mother Nature decided to base life on the much rarer element. Silicon-based life may be impossible for one other reason: silicon bonds readily dissolve in water. Most theories of life’s origin depend on H20 not merely because
…
Life on Earth.” The original Miller-Urey experiment was published in Science in the essay “A Production of Amino Acids Under Possible Primitive Earth Conditions.” Silicon-based life appears in multiple science fictions, including Stanley Weinbaum’s A Martian Odyssey and in the form of the Horta, a silicon-based creature discovered in
Artificial You: AI and the Future of Your Mind
by Susan Schneider · 1 Oct 2019 · 331pp · 47,993 words
we are conscious, even though we are biological. The following example illustrates the general idea. Suppose we find a planet that has a highly sophisticated silicon-based life form (call them the “Zetas”). Scientists observing them begin to ask whether the Zetas are conscious. What would be convincing proof of their consciousness? If
4th Rock From the Sun: The Story of Mars
by Nicky Jenner · 5 Apr 2017 · 294pp · 87,986 words
’s possible that extraterrestrial life could be silicon-based, but it wouldn’t be a case of simply replacing the carbon within us with silicon. Silicon-based life would be truly alien: the entire structure and system of life would need to be reimagined to suit the properties and chemistry of the silicon
…
here–here comics here–here films here–here television here–here video games here–here Scott, Ridley here, here Shepard, Alan here Shklovsky, Iosif here silicon-based life here–here Sinton, William here, here Skylab 4 here soil here, here–here Sojourner here–here, here, here, here Solar System here, here, here, here
Life in the Universe: A Beginner's Guide
by Lewis Dartnell · 1 Mar 2007 · 223pp · 62,564 words
redox potential red shift reduction respiration reverse transcriptase ribose ribosomes ribozymes Rio Tinto RNA RNA world rockcrawlers Rubisco enzyme salinity Saturn moons Schiaparelli, Giovanni sight silicon-based life Sirius SLiMEs Snowball Earth snow line Space Interferometry Mission spallation zone Spirit Mars rover stars birth of Sun-like stromatolites subduction zones subsurface lithotrophic microbial
The Blind Watchmaker; Why the Evidence of Evolution Reveals a Universe Without Design
by Richard Dawkins · 1 Jan 1986 · 420pp · 143,881 words
of inorganic silicates? If he is of a poetic turn of mind, will he even see a kind of justice in the eventual return to silicon-based life, with DNA no more than an interlude, albeit one that lasted longer than three aeons? That is science fiction, and it probably sounds far-fetched
The Soul of a New Machine
by Tracy Kidder · 1 Jan 1981 · 299pp · 99,080 words
perhaps this science promised to advance the intelligence of people as well as of machines and to imbue the species with a new, exciting power. "Silicon-based life would have a lot of advantages over carbon- based life," a young engineer told me once. He said he believed in a time when the