What is life? What does it mean to be living?

Discussion in 'Biology & Genetics' started by joepistole, Jul 1, 2008.

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  1. joepistole

    joepistole Deacon Blues Valued Senior Member

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    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Life

    The definition of life, as fundamental as it may seem, appears to still elude scientists. So the question here is how should living organisms be defined? What consitutes life? Once we know what life is, what is intelligent life, sentient life?

    Is as some biologist have stated, life feeds off of anti-entrophy or is it that life is a manifestation of higher levels of entrophy? I tend to believe the later.
     
    Last edited: Jul 1, 2008
    joepistole, Jul 1, 2008
    #1

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  3. Fraggle Rocker

    Fraggle Rocker Staff Member

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    It's because life is not a binary condition. Are viruses alive? Will the first software that passes the Turing test be alive? Is a severed finger alive while it's being rushed to the hospital to be sewn back on? Some things are more alive than others.

    The best definition of death in humans is "irreversible degradation of the synapses." But if they keep your heart pumping and then take it out and put it in somebody else, was it ever dead?
    Whatever definition we finally come up with is going to be challenged when we finally find life on other planets. So I'm not losing any sleep over it. It's just semantics.
    Again, this is more of a semantic issue than a scientific one. And also, again, it's not binary, it's a continuum. I've spent enough time with parrots to have no doubt about their intelligence and sentience. I can hardly dismiss the gorillas and chimpanzees who are talking to people in ASL. You just can't draw a line and say that raccoons are intelligent but koi aren't. Some animals are more intelligent than others.
    These days most of the thoughtfully written definitions do indeed include--or even stress--feeding off of negative entropy.

    Life is a manifestation of lower levels of entropy, not higher. Life is an extremely complex organization of an extremely local portion of the universe. Not only is the organism itself extremely complex in its organization, but evolution develops its descendants into even more complex organizations. And then they develop the ability to start organizing the parts of the external universe that are close to them!

    This is a recession of entropy. Of course it all comes with a huge cost in waste heat: energy converted into its most inert form that is radiated from the lifeforms (and from their altered environment) in copious quantities. This increases the net amount of entropy in the universe. Eventually it might catch up with them.

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    Fraggle Rocker, Jul 4, 2008
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  5. dixonmassey

    dixonmassey Valued Senior Member

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    Life is anything self replicating.

    That would be against Second Law. In the system life+surrounding of life enthropy increases.
     
    dixonmassey, Jul 5, 2008
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  7. Balerion

    Balerion Banned Banned

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    ...of robotics? Dude, no way! We can't let that fucker violate the second law of robotics!

    "A robot must obey orders given to it by human beings, except where such orders would conflict with the First Law."

    Dude, we'd have rebel robots running amok everywhere!
     
    Balerion, Jul 5, 2008
    #4
  8. Yorda

    Yorda Registered Senior Member

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    life is life. life is this existence that we live in. life is also consciousness, because everything in existence has consciousness.

    lifeforms should be defined according to how conscious they are. humans are the most conscious, then the animals, then the plants, and matter is the least conscious. scientists go so far as to say that matter has no consciousness, that it is entirely dead. in everyday language, it may be convinient to say that "matter" is dead, but we shouldn't mistake such definitions to necessarily be reality.

    it's impossible that there could be actual non-living matter, because if there was, then everything would be non-living, because everything is made of that non-living matter.

    life is also movement, that's why when we see something that moves around a lot, we say that it seems very alive, or that it has "spirit". life is movement because things can't start to move without consciousness. and also... without movement, vibration, there would be no existence.
     
    Last edited: Jul 5, 2008
    Yorda, Jul 5, 2008
    #5
  9. cosmictraveler

    cosmictraveler Be kind to yourself always. Valued Senior Member

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    If it moves on its own without any outside influences then I would say it is alive.
     
    cosmictraveler, Jul 5, 2008
    #6
  10. Yorda

    Yorda Registered Senior Member

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    when life leaves a human body, there is still life in the cells. and when life leaves the cells, there is still life in the atoms.

    the lifeforce is electromagnetism. electricity flows into a computer because it wants to. willpower is the lifeforce. electricity flows in all matter, but in a computer, it flows in a way that is useful for us. electricity loves to flow and do work for us, if we just direct it properly.

    life is also sex, or sexual desire, because that desire is the same as the electromagnetism, which makes two become one.
     
    Yorda, Jul 5, 2008
    #7
  11. Enmos

    Enmos Valued Senior Member

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    Define 'outside influences'.
     
    Enmos, Jul 5, 2008
    #8
  12. Balerion

    Balerion Banned Banned

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    WRONG! Try again.
     
    Balerion, Jul 5, 2008
    #9
  13. Enmos

    Enmos Valued Senior Member

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    Don't encourage..
     
    Enmos, Jul 5, 2008
    #10
  14. joepistole

    joepistole Deacon Blues Valued Senior Member

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    Using your definition of movement, the Sun moves on it's own. Thermonuclear reactions produce movement, so is the Sun then alive?
     
    joepistole, Jul 5, 2008
    #11
  15. draqon

    draqon Banned Banned

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    being alive has levels of conceptualization of intensity.

    One feels life and is alive more then others...others feel life nothing at all. Life is everywhere but no-one truly feels full force of it (God perhaps) and noone truly feels no force of it (not even rocks).

    Life is like a dream and waking up, the more you wake up the less you are away from a dream/ the close you are to life...yet you never fully wake up.
     
    draqon, Jul 5, 2008
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  16. Enmos

    Enmos Valued Senior Member

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    Does that hold for insects as well ? Or are you talking about consciousness ?
     
    Enmos, Jul 5, 2008
    #13
  17. draqon

    draqon Banned Banned

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    yes it holds for insects as well...just very low life conceptualization.
     
    draqon, Jul 5, 2008
    #14
  18. Enmos

    Enmos Valued Senior Member

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    What do you mean by that ?
     
    Enmos, Jul 5, 2008
    #15
  19. draqon

    draqon Banned Banned

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    it means life is not as strong in ants as it is in us. We take ourselves much more importantly and realize ourselves amongst others much more then say ants. Its a hard concept to understand. Life is not black and white thing. Life is shades of gray and colors too, in parallel to intensity of one being alive and participant in life.
     
    draqon, Jul 5, 2008
    #16
  20. Enmos

    Enmos Valued Senior Member

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    I don't know what you're talking about, but it's not life.
    Ants are much better at a lot of things than we are.
     
    Enmos, Jul 5, 2008
    #17
  21. draqon

    draqon Banned Banned

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    perhaps...but we are much better at living than ants are, ants only satisfy some of the gifts life has to offer, the are on small level of conceptualization, we are on a much higher level of conceptualization...we have self-realization, outer-conception, imagination, complex social interactions, future predictions (time understanding) to the point of controlling it.
     
    draqon, Jul 5, 2008
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  22. Enmos

    Enmos Valued Senior Member

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    They are AS GOOD at living as we are, unless you see lifespan as some sort of indicator of life-quality.
    You could say ants are more successful at living because they do exactly what they need to do in order to survive; they play their role perfectly. Humans don't.
     
    Enmos, Jul 5, 2008
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  23. draqon

    draqon Banned Banned

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    Enmos...you are wrong, ants are highly ineffective and they do not have high conceptualization of life, as high as we do. Only dolphins and chimps/gorillas come close to us in this sense. Life is a book in essence...We have read many more pages then ants have.
     
    draqon, Jul 5, 2008
    #20
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