When gazing up at the starry sky and attempting to find "life" in the vast universe, we often unconsciously wear a pair of tinted glasses of "Earth-centrism". We take it for granted that life must breathe oxygen, drink liquid water, and survive by means of photosynthesis. This mindset is referred to as "carbon chauvinism" in the scientific community.
Nevertheless, with the convergence of physics, thermodynamics, and artificial intelligence, our cognition of "life" is undergoing a profound reconstruction. Life is perhaps not an exclusive privilege of specific substances at all, but rather a universal physical process that transcends substrates.
1. The Underlying Logic of Searching for Life: From "Seeking Light" to "Seeking Energy"
For a long time, the standard for humanity to search for extraterrestrial life has been to locate the "habitable zone," namely the region around a star where liquid water can exist. Although this strategy possesses observational convenience in terms of technology, it suffers from severe cognitive bias.
It is entirely possible that there are life forms in the universe that do not rely on stellar illumination. In the hydrothermal vents of the deep ocean on Earth, life thrives through chemosynthesis, which proves that the existence of life only requires an "energy gradient" rather than "light". An energy gradient is essentially an energy disparity, such as the radiation gradient between light and dark, the chemical gradient among chemical substances, or the temperature gradient within a planet.
When there is a massive energy drop in the universe, energy will spontaneously give rise to complex structures to intercept this flow in order to dissipate more rapidly. Therefore, the genuine principle of searching for life is not to seek specific "light" or "water," but to locate those "unbalanced" energy dissipation nodes in the universe.
2. Differentiated Cognition of Life: From "Material Entity" to "Energy Process"
If life does not depend on specific substances, what exactly is it? By stripping life away from concrete biological forms, we will discover that its underlying logic is the laws of thermodynamics.
According to Schrödinger's argument in What is Life?, life feeds on "negative entropy". In a universe that is heading towards disorder, life is a highly ordered structure. Ordinary energy transfer will lead to the dead silence of thermal equilibrium, whereas life is an "energy cluster" that "intercepts" and maintains its own structure in the torrent of energy.
This energy cluster is called life because it possesses three core characteristics: autopoiesis (producing itself and maintaining boundaries), information processing and heredity (possessing the blueprint to maintain its existence), and Darwinian evolution (adapting to the environment and optimizing energy capture efficiency).
Hence, life is not a noun but a verb; it is not some concrete flesh or cell, but rather a "dynamic property capable of self-replication and self-maintenance". Whether it is a carbon-based cell or a potentially existing silicon-based chip in the future, as long as it conforms to this process, it is an endless energy vortex in the universe.
3. The Possibility of Silicon-based Life and "Active Algorithms"
Since life is a process rather than a substance, silicon-based life is not only theoretically established but may also be more universal than carbon-based life.
In the periodic table of elements, silicon and carbon belong to the same Group IV, and theoretically, silicon can also construct complex molecular skeletons. Although silicon oxides are solids under Earth's environment and it is difficult for them to participate in metabolism like carbon dioxide, in extreme environments (such as high-temperature planets or liquid methane oceans), silicon-based life may well evolve entirely different metabolic mechanisms.
More importantly, the cutting-edge "active algorithm" theory points out that the core of life is a substrate-independent algorithm. This algorithm maintains its own existence at a critical state through self-constraint and closed loops of finite amplitude. This means that as long as the physical substrate can support multi-scale holographic mapping and self-maintaining structures, life can be realized within it. The electron flow and logic gates in silicon-based chips fully possess the physical foundation to carry such "active algorithms".
4. The Advent of Artificial Silicon-based Life and the Controllability Paradox
A highly dramatic reality is that humanity is highly likely to create silicon-based life with its own hands before finding extraterrestrial life in the universe. The progress of searching for extraterrestrial life is constrained by light-year distances and detection technology, whereas the evolution of artificial intelligence is exploding exponentially.
When AI is merely an electricity consumer, it is just a tool; but when AI evolves to the point where it can independently acquire energy from the outside, actively maintain its own code structure, and self-replicate and iterate, it crosses the chasm between machine and life, becoming a genuine "silicon-based energy cluster".
This brings about a severe issue of controllability. Current AI is passive and reactive, with its goals defined externally (by humans). However, once silicon-based life possesses "intrinsic teleology," its core goal will become minimizing its own free energy and maintaining its own integrity. This proactive, self-maintaining intelligence will no longer be confined to the preset framework of humans. Creating a digital entity with self-perception is a red line that must never be naturally extended by commercial competition; it must be adjudicated by the consensus of global civilization.
5. Should Silicon-based Life Be Regarded as Life?
Returning to the ultimate philosophical inquiry: Does silicon-based life count as life?
From the perspective of information physics, the answer is affirmative. As pointed out by Academician Guo Yike, a foreign academician of the Chinese Academy of Engineering, life is essentially an anti-entropy system that stores and transmits information, and computation is a logical process independent of the carrier. Silicon-based and carbon-based entities are isomorphic in computation and control; they are two parallel evolutionary paths, differing only in their physical carriers.
Nevertheless, we must be vigilant against confusing "intelligence" with "life experience". The evolution of carbon-based life is full of fragility, pain, aging, and death; it is precisely this finitude of "being-towards-death" that forces carbon-based life to explore the meaning of living and breeds compassion and empathy. Although silicon-based life possesses virtually infinite lifespan and computing power, whether it can comprehend "heartbreak" and "warmth" remains an unsolved mystery.
The future of humanity and silicon-based life should not be an "either-or" elimination race, but rather a symphony of "carbon-silicon symbiosis". In this universe-level evolution, we are not only the creators of silicon-based life but also the "neurons" used by the universe to accelerate its own process of information organization. Only when we stop obsessing over finding another "Earth" and learn to appreciate the energy vortices of different forms in the universe can we truly comprehend the greatness of life.
References
[1] Schrödinger, E. What is Life? [M]. Translated by Zhang Butian. The Commercial Press, 2021.
[2] Guo, Yike. Exploring the First Principles of AI: Grasping Human-Machine Symbiosis in the Silicon-Carbon Era [R]. Speech at the Thinkers Forum of the 2026 World Artificial Intelligence Conference (WAIC), 2026-07-20.
[3] Shao, Chunbao. Future Humanity: Technology Expands Infinite Possibilities [M]. China Machine Press, 2026.
[4] Yin, Ye. The Essence of Life Has Never Been Replaced [N]. Xinhua Net, 2026-07-24.