Star Maker

In 1937, Olaf Stapledon wrote Star Maker, one of the greatest books ever written. In it, he discusses the inner workings of the universe that is remarkably prescient with references to artificial/collective intelligence, genetic engineering, extraterrestrial civilizations and the universality of life. In essence, the book is awe inspiring but why talk about a work written seventy years ago? In two words, inorganic life.
Seems that "some" forms of extraterrestrial life may be inorganic (not containing carbon) living in plasmas, "essentially the fourth state of matter beyond solid, liquid and gas, in which electrons are torn from atoms leaving behind a miasma of charged particles." whereby interstellar dust, under the right conditions, forms DNA type strands, replicate and evolve in similar fashion to the carbon based life-forms found here on earth. When this expanded idea of life is looked at in relation to Arthur C. Clark's masterwork, 2001, (Life living on the surface of stars as seen by Dave on his journey to the infinite.) the notion of different kinds of life existing outside the bounds of the carbon construct becomes feasible, especially when articulated by profound thinkers like Stapeldon and Clarke and confirmed by this discovery of plasma generated "life".

At the same time inorganic "life" has been discovered comes the idea of panspermia, or the concept that life on earth "began inside comets and then spread to habitable planets across the galaxy. "If this is the case for comets and plasma based life-forms, then we are definitely NOT ALONE.