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by simonh
2138 days ago
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Where I think most of the proposed alternate forms of life in SF fail is they focus on complexity but disregard the need to maintain order. Vortices are a good example, theres plenty of complexity there, but also a huge amount of entropy and no real way to maintain ordered, purposeful changes in structure, or isolation of function. Complexity just isn't enough, so until some of those ideas get a lot more clearly developed, and solve some fundamental issues I just don't find them compelling. Great for fiction and speculation, but not really relevant in real world investigations. Yes, I know that makes me sound like the boring, hide bound characters in such novels that are incapable of understanding this new amazing form of life, but frankly in the real world those guys would be absolutely right. The protagonists who contact the amazing new life forms just make far too many fundamental errors and intellectual shortcuts to really be credible. |
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Specifically for your point on entropy and stability of vortices, I don't disagree totally though I'd like to call your attention on what is known with magnetic skyrmions. They are stable because to change spin the particles would need to overcome huge energy barriers. Then, the only difference with fluid vortices is that in a fluid there is friction that can bring the fluid elements to gradually shed their angular momentum at the contact of other elements with a different momentum. But in superfluid states that you could encounter at very low temperatures (like on some distant planet etc), it is plausible that there would exist analogous energy barriers preventing the fluid elements to directly shed their momentum! And even though, you can of course imagine fluidic circuits and rotational computations, which would have some stability thanks to the superfluid state.
Of course all of that is baseless speculation, but the point of SF is precisely to appreciate the vastness of the world of plausible phenomena...