Roger White -- copyright Aug 2026
A benefit of mortality to a species is that it lets the species genome change, and with those changes can come improvements. Mortality allows evolution to happen.
The DNA/RNA system can hold information, change it occasionally (mutation), and pass it on to a protein assembling infrastructure. This is the basis of our life. (and it means that mortality is an essential part of evolution)
Are there other chemical systems that can accomplish this, or something similar? Are there systems in other physical environments (such as star interiors) that can accomplish this? If not, then our DNA-based life system is truly unique. It is a miracle.
If there are other systems they will be hard for humans to recognize. They aren't going to do things the way our life forms do.
One thing that may be recognizable is a vehicle that travels between stars. No matter what the life form is like, a vehicle is a vehicle and can easily be identified as one. An alien space ship may come to the Solar System, but what is on board may be tough to recognize and communicate with. What it wants to talk about, and the way it wants to talk, may be unrecognizable to humans. And, likewise, humans may be unrecognizable to the aliens, so they won't try to communicate with us.
Related is time sense: A rock being would take days to say hello, a plasma being would say it in a microsecond.
-- The End --