There are over 100 definitions for "life" and all are wrong

[rousseau]

In any case, I wasn't trying to imply that regarding life as special is egregious anyway, I was just pointing out that in the cosmic perspective there is nothing exceptional about life other than the things that distinguish us from non-life, and that's something that almost no human beings alive today have recognized.

I see, it's categorical, as in 'a' or 'not a', and in that sense, there are seemingly unlimited categorical options: things that bite versus things that don't; water or not water. A sun or not a sun. There are two things in this multiverse: ants that crawl onto donuts or not ants that crawl on donuts.

Isn't the prerequisite complexity that thriving new life depends on extraordinarily exceptional? I'm not trying to draw some religious connection. I'm just saying the distinction between life and not life is fantastically different than mundane differences between rock and not a rock, solid or not a solid, naked versus wait, that might not be a good example, lol.

By the way, I didn't mean to suggest you were saying its egregious to regard life as special; I've just noticed where the word, "special" seems to spark inner frustrations. If a theist says "people are special and here is why," a rebuttal could be, "yes people are but no, here is why." Instead, it's almost as if because theists say it and have their reasons, they want to deny the special part but strangely because of the reasons a theist might say so.

I agree that life is special in the sense that we can experience things, and there's something fantastic about that in itself. However we classify ourselves, the human experience is pretty much unchanged, and much more interesting than the cycles of non-living things, at least imo.

 

[T.G.G. Moogly]

I guess that's one way to solve the problem of abiogenesis. Walk away from it.
Life/Non-life. There's no real difference. Hence no need to explain how we got here.

You are absolutely right, for the first time on these boards.

It's such a shame that your first completely accurate and correct post was intended to be facetious.

Life is just a particularly complex instance of cyclic chemistry. Just as we can define red, and define blue, but cannot point to a particular shade of purple and say 'that's the boundary between red and blue', so we can define life, and we can define non-life, but when we go seeking the boundary between the two, we discover that there is none.

Biology is complex chemistry, and chemistry is complex physics.

Categories are often arbitrary, and their usefulness is therefore limited (but non-zero). Life/Non-life is a good example of an arbitrary categorization that is of little value close to the boundary zone between the two sets.

Magic is imaginary, and is not a part of any of this.

Of course, your conclusion is flawed; Understanding the details of the chemistry that gave rise to life is fascinating, and so there is (as with all observable phenomena) a desire to explain how it works - curiosity is a fundamental trait of intelligent people. But it's not strictly a need.

I'm always tempted to go in that direction. A human being is continuously exchanging material with its environment. Does that carbon, for example, go from alive, to not alive, to alive, to not alive, etc. Seems silly and it seems that we're missing something fundamental, something along the lines of what you said.

Perhaps if we consider carbon in the interior of a star it does replicate itself. Or maybe human cells are alive but not finished human beings.

Maybe "alive" and "not alive" is more ingrained cultural bias than anything else.

 

[bilby]

You are absolutely right, for the first time on these boards.

It's such a shame that your first completely accurate and correct post was intended to be facetious.

Life is just a particularly complex instance of cyclic chemistry. Just as we can define red, and define blue, but cannot point to a particular shade of purple and say 'that's the boundary between red and blue', so we can define life, and we can define non-life, but when we go seeking the boundary between the two, we discover that there is none.

Biology is complex chemistry, and chemistry is complex physics.

Categories are often arbitrary, and their usefulness is therefore limited (but non-zero). Life/Non-life is a good example of an arbitrary categorization that is of little value close to the boundary zone between the two sets.

Magic is imaginary, and is not a part of any of this.

Of course, your conclusion is flawed; Understanding the details of the chemistry that gave rise to life is fascinating, and so there is (as with all observable phenomena) a desire to explain how it works - curiosity is a fundamental trait of intelligent people. But it's not strictly a need.

I'm always tempted to go in that direction. A human being is continuously exchanging material with its environment. Does that carbon, for example, go from alive, to not alive, to alive, to not alive, etc. Seems silly and it seems that we're missing something fundamental, something along the lines of what you said.

Perhaps if we consider carbon in the interior of a star it does replicate itself. Or maybe human cells are alive but not finished human beings.

Maybe "alive" and "not alive" is more ingrained cultural bias than anything else.

Well, they are simply arbitrary categories that only vaguely map to reality. LOTS of human ideas are like that. Colour clearly is, as I mentioned above.

'Species' is another good example - the definition of species appears to be clear, but when we attempt to use it in the real world we encounter things like ring-species that demonstrate that the category is just not as definitive as we might have hoped.

Such vague categories can still be useful, within limits; But when we start trying to apply them in situations where they are at odds with reality, we end up in a needless mess, caused by our adherence to an inaccurate model of reality.

Another example is particles - an electron can be considered as a particle, except when it is in a situation where it tunnels through a barrier, or diffracts at a grating. The problem isn't that it isn't a particle - it's that the category 'particle' doesn't map to reality at that scale.

When our descriptive categories don't match reality, it is our categories that need to be abandoned - as the only other option is to follow Lion IRC, and abandon reality.

The question 'At what point does life begin' is meaningless. It only appears meaningful because we can usually get away with dividing items into 'alive' and 'not alive'. But reality doesn't actually do that.

Carbon atoms are never alive - they may or may not form a part of a living system, but the atoms themselves are not alive.

A dance is a real thing, but it is a dynamic pattern, not an object or collection of objects. The dancers are not the dance itself - and when the dancers sit down, there is no need to imagine an 'after dance' to which the dance has now gone. So with life - it is a pattern of interactions, not an attribute of the atoms and molecules that happen at any given time to be involved in that pattern.

 

[rjh01]

This link https://infohost.nmt.edu/~klathrop/7characterisitcs_of_life.htm says that all life is composed of cells. Is there anything that is alive that is not made of cells? That is apart from viruses? I cannot think of one, but that does not mean there are none.
The other question is then what is a cell? Maybe we can define that as something that contains DNA or RNA.

 

[bilby]

This link https://infohost.nmt.edu/~klathrop/7characterisitcs_of_life.htm says that all life is composed of cells. Is there anything that is alive that is not made of cells? That is apart from viruses? I cannot think of one, but that does not mean there are none.
The other question is then what is a cell? Maybe we can define that as something that contains DNA or RNA.

You could define life that way.

It wouldn't eliminate the grey areas though.

You already mentioned viruses; but that's the tip of the iceberg. Not all biological entities surrounded by a membrane qualify as 'alive' - Chloroplasts are not generally considered to be lifeforms, for example. And organelles exist that contain genetic material - such as mitochondria.

But the worst problem with defining life as 'that which is in cells containing nucleic acids' is that it encompasses dead cells - if your definition includes dead bacteria as 'life', then it's clearly not neatly definitive.

This is an intractable problem; and I hypothesise that the reason it is intractable is that it simply doesn't map to reality. 'Life vs non-life' is an arbitrary categorisation that doesn't reflect a real-world division.

If that is true, the whole discussion cannot rest on the definition of life - because there is fundamentally no such clear definition.

A fertilised egg or a blastocyst is no more (and no less) a human life than the white blood cells in a zit. Is Clearacil murder?

Human life doesn't have a beginning. Human consciousness does, but it is very hard to determine when. Personhood has as many beginnings as there are opinions.

The fact is that it is just not sane to define conception as the definitive start of life, rather than choosing gametogenesis, implantation, the development of the CNS, or birth. Take your pick - or pick another. Whatever you choose, and whatever your criteria, there will always be a reasonable argument for a different choice based on the same criteria.

In the absence of any possibility of an objective standard, it seems unreasonable to impose any standard on everyone.

But then, imposing unreasonable standards on everyone is pretty much the specialty of the religious.

 

[Malintent]

Science actually has this pretty much nailed down, except that, as always, there are exceptions which some people can't agree on.

A quick search turned up this article which summarizes the features universal to almost all living organisms.

From my medical biology studies during my undergrad I recall that the 'status' of virii is a bit ambiguous because they need a host to reproduce, but other than them most living things can be defined by the above.

What's interesting, though, is when we get philosophical and start thinking about the differentiation between life and non-life as being arbitrary. In this manner, we stop seeing life as something that's special and rather just an exotic feature of the universe.

What is so egregious about referring to biological entities as special? We don't merely treat many life forms differently than than non-life forms but better. Could that not signal there is something special about life?

I disagree that "we" treat life better than non-life... only SOME life.. .the Life that agrees with your religious positions, or is fury and purrs, or has a very symmetrical face... but NOT the life that infests, that bites, that spreads disease, and not even the life that is almost exactly like you, except believes in a different religious story and follows different political / socioeconomic principles... THOSE lifes can go fuck themselves, right?

Think about if you are being dishonest about saying ALL life is special because it is life, because I am betting you don't act that way.. not even a tiny bit. I bet you have a favorite chair, or some other non-living possession, that you care more deeply for than Samilia Jessesson from Australia... or especially Hussin Ammanid, from Iran... or that icky black hairy thing crawling up your arm! get it!!!

 

[Bomb#20]

I bet you have a favorite chair, or some other non-living possession, that you care more deeply for than Samilia Jessesson from Australia... or especially Hussin Ammanid, from Iran... or that icky black hairy thing crawling up your arm! get it!!!

But, but, I love that icky black hairy thing crawling up my arm! That's just Spot, aka Spotto the Gato, aka Drooly McDroolface!

 

[skepticalbip]

Science actually has this pretty much nailed down, except that, as always, there are exceptions which some people can't agree on.

A quick search turned up this article which summarizes the features universal to almost all living organisms.

From my medical biology studies during my undergrad I recall that the 'status' of virii is a bit ambiguous because they need a host to reproduce, but other than them most living things can be defined by the above.

What's interesting, though, is when we get philosophical and start thinking about the differentiation between life and non-life as being arbitrary. In this manner, we stop seeing life as something that's special and rather just an exotic feature of the universe.

What is so egregious about referring to biological entities as special? We don't merely treat many life forms differently than than non-life forms but better. Could that not signal there is something special about life?

Your assumption here is wrong. It isn't a matter of whether something is a life form or non-life form that determines how we treat it. It is how the thing affects us. If we find it pleasing or useful we treat it differently than if it is displeasing or bothersome and differently again if it is irrelevant. We destroy an ant colony if they bother us and we destroy a boulder that is in our way. We protect critters we see as cute and cuddly or interesting and we protect landscapes we find scenic or interesting. We take care of our pets and we take care of our automobiles.

 

[Keith&Co.]

If we find it pleasing or useful we treat it differently than if it is displeasing or bothersome and differently again if it is irrelevant.

For example, there are five species of great apes. Four of them are on the endangered species lists.
Asphalt, on the other hand, not only is not endangered, but there are huge budgets for its maintenance. I would suspect we spend at lot more money and time on roads than we do on all four species of endangered apes.