> > perhaps, but who's to say that life cant exist within other parameters?
>
> The catch is that with very minor variations in these physical
> constants it wouldn't be "life" that is impossible, but some more
> basic phenomena.
Yes, but life (in some generalized meaning) could possibly exist in an
universe where there were no elements but instead (say) topological
defects in several weakly interacting fields with nonlinear properties
or something equally alien.
What is really relevant here is the question: what parameter-settings
allow complexity to grow to the level of living systems and possibly
beyond? A very hard and interesting question. Current work in
complexity *might* shed a little light upon if it arrives at some
general rules for the appearance of complex systems.
-- ----------------------------------------------------------------------- Anders Sandberg Towards Ascension! asa@nada.kth.se http://www.nada.kth.se/~asa/ GCS/M/S/O d++ -p+ c++++ !l u+ e++ m++ s+/+ n--- h+/* f+ g+ w++ t+ r+ !y