Philosophical Aspects of Astrobiology Revisited

Abstract

Given the idea that Life as we know it is nothing but a special form of a generically underlying dynamical structure within the physical Universe, we try to introduce a concept of Life that is not only derived from first principles of fundamental physics, but also metaphysically based on philosophical assumptions about the foundations of the world. After clarifying the terminology somewhat, especially with a view to differentiating reality from modality, we give an example for a mathematical representation of what the substance of reality (in the traditional sense of metaphysics) could actually mean today, discussing twistor theory as an example. We then concentrate on the points of structural emergence by discussing the emergence of dynamical systems and of Life as we know it, respectively. Some further consequences as they relate to meaning are discussed in the end.