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shminux comments on Open Thread for February 18-24 2014 - Less Wrong
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Yes, the bar is set low intentionally. I would be pretty happy if we could tell if black-box life is detectable. Again, not relying on pattern-matching to the life on earth, such as DNA, oxygenation for energy, methane release, water presence, or whatever else NASA uses to detect life on Mars. Unless, of course one can prove that some of these are necessary for any life.
There's been quite a bit of speculation regarding alternative biochemistries; however, most of the popular ones seem to have various problems (most often low elemental abundance and inconvenient chemical properties). It's of course difficult to prove that all of them are impossible in a search space the size of the universe, though.