>a single corpse will sustain an entire population of deep sea creatures for months, sometimes even yearsDeep sea ecosystems are so fascinating. I wish it wasn't a gigantic pain in the ass to explore and document.
>>5087094Imagine what marine dino-falls were like
yum
>>5087094>There is no life outside of EarthPeople used to say this too about the deepest parts or our ocean or every inhospitable place but we've found it close to everywhere. I wouldn't be surprised if it's all over our solar system! Life finds a way.
>>5087094>I wish it wasn't a gigantic pain in the ass to explore and document.As soon as this happens, people are drilling for oil, mining, developing and generally trashing the place. All those cool critters are fleeing, dying or adapting.
>>5087859I think that all life on the planet being traced to a single event points to life even beginning as an extremely rare occurrence. There might be another filter ahead of us but a really big one seems to be behind us
>>5087094I'm reading a book about it nowyou may enjoy it, the author (Peter Watts) was a marine biologist and he's a good writerhttps://www.rifters.com/real/STARFISH.htm
>>5087137Oh it was probably amazing.>am i retarded? The new captcha is horrible
>>5087912even if its a rare occurrence, theres millions of billions of planets in the this galaxy alone, the amount habitable planets with a similar composition as ours is several million>>5087956theyre pretty much the same, hagfish and bone worms have been around forever
>>5087912I think the big filter is the evolution of sapience. As it currently stands, humanity is the only self aware species in the universe. We also have what is essentially the perfect body shape to make the most out of our awareness and intelligence. I'm willing to believe that life is relatively common in the universe, given the fact that we've found RNA molecules on asteroids. We can also synthesize amino acids in the lab through what equate to lightning strikes. So unicellular life is probably everywhere, multicellular life is considerably less common, and intelligent self aware life is impossibly rare.
>>5088490Basically every mammal is self aware. Self awareness isnt a big deal. Its actually the simplest path to developing a lot of basic behaviors, vs painstaking evolution as dedicated circuits. I think you meant creating and transmitting (not just understanding) abstract language intergenerationally (which enables groups of humans who are objectively dumber than orangutans to be highly successful) but you use moving target sci-fi terms like sapient instead of proper words so its hard to tell
>>5087094If you want a similar vibe, get some pond mud and water in a jar. Add a piece of raw meat. Planaria city. You can build it out even more with snails and even crustaceons if you want to get wild.
