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Cyril Ponnamperuma
This nOde last updated December 1st, 2001 and is permanently morphing...
(9 Ik (Wind) / 0 Mak - 12.19.8.14.2)

"The pan-spermia theory was formulated by Cyril Ponnamperuma, who was the discoverer, along with James Watson and Francis Crick, of DNA.  Ponnamperuma and Crick are proposing a much more radical theory than what I put forth, at least in terms relative to biology.  They are saying that prebiotic molecules arise in the greatest numbers in deep space, not on the surfaces of planets.  The planets are only biologically important at a late stage in the development of complex polymers and prebiotic compounds.  I'm sure you know the old adage that we each are made of stars, that the atoms in your bodies were once cooked in the hearts of stars. This is true, but an unremarked accompanying necessity of that fact would be that there must, therefore, be some atoms in your body that were not cooked in the heart of stars but were part of the planets that circled around those stars before they exploded.  It's very interesting that in a book called _Scientific Perspectives on Extraterrestrial Communication_ by Cyril Ponnamperuma, there is an article by R.N. Bracewell, an astrophysicist, who talks about the logic of searches for intelligent life.  He concludes that no matter what kind of life form you are, no matter what kind of technology you have, if you are seriously going to search space by physically sending probes from one star to another, then the only strategy that would work would be what is called a von Neumann machine, meaning a machine that can reproduce itself.  Four of these machines are sent out in four opposed directions from a parent star.  At a certain distance from the parent star, each machine replicates, giving eight machines.  At double that distance, they replicate again, giving sixteen machines, and so on.  The notion is that only by this process of replication can all bets be covered.  And then what you do is send an initial contact message that says, 'We are searching the galaxy for intelligence by an exhaustive means.  If you read this message, please call the following, toll-free number and we will initiate contact.'  Only in this way could you hope to have contact with all the habitable worlds in the galaxy.  This scenario makes clear that it may be very important to understand what the message is that the mushroom conveys."
  - Terence Mckenna - _Archaic Revival_     TelexExternal LinkInternal LinkInventory Cache