The standard approach to searching for extraterrestrial life focuses on carbon-based biochemistry, liquid water, and organic molecules. These are the conditions for life as we know it on Earth. But they are not the physical conditions for sensing and consciousness as defined by BFUT Paper 20.
Paper 20 makes a direct, falsifiable prediction for astrobiology.
The Prediction
Life should be defined, for the purpose of detection, as a system satisfying the three sensing conditions of Paper 20: structural coupling to at least one fundamental force channel, information-specific state change in response to signals from that channel, and state persistence allowing integration or action. A system satisfying these conditions is alive in the BFUT sense regardless of its chemical composition.
This means the search for life should look for multi-channel integration with feedback and memory — not specifically for carbon chemistry, not specifically for DNA, not specifically for metabolism as currently defined. A non-carbon-based system that integrates electromagnetic and gravitational signals with persistent state memory and feedback control is alive by the physical definition.
Current Status
No systematic search using these criteria has been conducted. The prediction is open. It would be falsified if life was found that does not satisfy the sensing conditions — or confirmed if non-carbon-based systems satisfying the conditions were identified as living. The prediction changes the observational target from chemical biomarkers to physical sensing signatures.
The Deeper Implication
If every physical system with mass has non-zero CI at the gravitational level, then the universe is not mostly non-living matter from which life emerges as an exception. The universe is a continuously sensing substrate within which some systems achieve sufficient structural complexity to access multiple channels, develop feedback and memory, and organise their sensing into the rich integration we call biological life. Life is not rare in the universe. Simple life — gravitational-channel sensing — is universal.
Download BFUT papers, simulation code, and companion materials: vijayshankarsharma.com/downloads/