And bringing it back full circle with this gem (!) of a quote from Tesla:
"There seems to be no philosophical necessity for food. We can conceive of organised beings living without nourishment, and deriving all the energy they need for the performance of their life-functions from the ambient medium. In a crystal we have the clear evidence of the existence of a formative life principle, and though we cannot understand the life of a crystal, it is non the less a living being.
There may be...other such individualised, material systems of beings, perhaps of gaseous constitution, or composed of a substance even more tenuous. In view of this possibility - nay, probability - we cannot apodictically deny the existence of organised beings on a planet merely because the conditions on the same are unsuitable for the existence of life as we conceive it. We cannot even, with positive assurance, assert that some of them might not be present here, in this our world, in the very midst of us, for their constitution and life-manifestation may be such as we are unable to perceive them."
From : The problem of increasing human energy, Century Illustrated Monthly Magazine, June 1900.
Also, I want to say a big thanks to bgunnars for all the amazing links provided on the forum. I'm just starting to dive into the material you are uploading here. Thanks, mate!