It's... ALIVE!!

[vajradhara]

Namaste all,

i've been thinking about something which has struck me as rather odd and i'm curious as to what others may think.

what is, in your view, the most basic definition of life, of something being alive?

for my own part it would seem to be a few foundational attributes; reproduction and the consumption of fuel to perform action.

i may be overlooking something obvious though.

metta,

~v

 

[The Nihilist]

My sweet ride uses fuel to perform action.
A characteristic of life is that entropy tends not to increase within living things over the short term. Ultimately, though, I feel that a definition of life is impossible, because the concept itself is fuzzy.

 

[vajradhara]

Namaste RecoveringPhilosopher,

thank you for the post.

My sweet ride uses fuel to perform action.
A characteristic of life is that entropy tends not to increase within living things over the short term. Ultimately, though, I feel that a definition of life is impossible, because the concept itself is fuzzy.

so what is your concept.. what basics would have to be present for you to consider something alive?

would it need to be able to communicate in some manner?

would it need to be able to reproduce?

in my mind i'm thinking of bacteria and its fuctions.. i'd think we'd all agree that bacteria are alive but does the attributes of a bacteria constitute a viable definition of alive?

metta,

~v

 

[The Nihilist]

That's just it, I don't think the category "alive" is one that can be used to describe new things. I think that, at best, the category is a matter of convention, rather a term that can be used for classification or real description

 

[vajradhara]

That's just it, I don't think the category "alive" is one that can be used to describe new things. I think that, at best, the category is a matter of convention, rather a term that can be used for classification or real description

bacteria are not new things as far as i know.

language is convention so i'm pleased to hear your view.

metta,

~v

 

[Eudaimonist]

what is, in your view, the most basic definition of life, of something being alive?

for my own part it would seem to be a few foundational attributes; reproduction and the consumption of fuel to perform action.

I would not include reproduction.

I think I would describe life roughly as Ayn Rand did, which is "a process of self-generated, self-sustaining action". This is not a formal definition, but an attempt to describe a feature that gets to the heart of what it means for something to be alive.

Life is a kind of activity that sustains more of itself (given the proper causes and conditions) and does so with a dynamic internal function that is geared to make this happen. When the activity stops, then "death" has occurred, and life is no longer present. I suppose the word "metabolism" is a fair way of describing one such activity for the sort of living things we are familiar with.

Perhaps the best way to ask yourself what life is would be to ask yourself what is lost when a living being dies.

in my mind i'm thinking of bacteria and its fuctions.. i'd think we'd all agree that bacteria are alive but does the attributes of a bacteria constitute a viable definition of alive?

Yes, bacteria would be alive according to my view. Viruses, however, would not.


eudaimonia,

Mark

 

[Patashu]

If I had to answer here's my best shot at it:

Life is something which takes in resources from its environment to sustain and ultimately replicate itself. In addition, it acts and functions in such a way to maximize survival and efficiency of both itself, its offspring and its species against detrimental environmental pressures. Life that functions in this way is a natural result of darwinian evolution acting apon more primitive replicators that occur naturally; artificially created life may not, for example, perservere or be driven to propagate the same way natural, evolved life absolutely must.

 

[Wiccan_Child]

Namaste all,

i've been thinking about something which has struck me as rather odd and i'm curious as to what others may think.

what is, in your view, the most basic definition of life, of something being alive?

for my own part it would seem to be a few foundational attributes; reproduction and the consumption of fuel to perform action.

To me, a system is alive if it is capable of self-replication, or is descended from something that self-replicates (e.g., mules and hinnys are traditionally alive, but cannot replicate). No more, no less.

The biggest hurdle with this, I think, is the notion of death: when does a system that by my definition is alive, die?
I'm also aware that my definition includes things like crystal lattices and perhaps even stars, but it's a work in progress

 

[Hnefi]

In my view, a system is alive if all the following are true:
-it is capable of or arose through reproduction assisted only by its peers
-it performs actions
-it has ongoing internal processes that continually consume resources
-it can adapt to its environment, either on the level of the individual through learning or on the level of populations through evolution, or both.

The above definition includes all recognized forms of life AFAIK, but I think it excludes virii (requirement #3). It excludes all forms of software (also due to #3), but not a computer viewed as a whole if it could reproduce - which no computer today can.

This definition is slightly problematic because due to #3, it is conceivable of having intelligence without having life. But if #3 was reformulated to cover that possibility, software that exists today fit the definition yet noone really considers these algorithms to be alive. I see no way out of that problem.

 

[Hnefi]

.

 

[The Nihilist]

I'm pretty sure these are all wrong.
The reason I think so is that to say something is alive probably comes from an older, more metaphysical sort of understanding about the world. It's probably tied up with some kind of concept of a soul, maybe in the way the Greeks imagined it. Thousands of years of linguistic habit have maintained this artifact in our thinking, and 500 years of modernity has effectively stripped this concept of its attributes. So we come up with all these new attributes that are completely unrelated to the original concept, and the whole thing is silly. It is probably more accurate to say that instead of being dead, a person is broken, and instead of being alive, a person still functions.

 

[Hnefi]

Lots of words change meaning as our languages evolve. The word "life" is no different, and it doesn't make modern definitions of the word any less correct.

 

[The Nihilist]

Lots of words change meaning as our languages evolve. The word "life" is no different, and it doesn't make modern definitions of the word any less correct.

Undoubtedly words do change meanings, but for different reasons. This is covered by a word's etymology. It generally has to do with related concepts and subjects, and these can shift over time.
The concept of life is different from this. Our worldview has become less magical, and more naturalistic. The lines between living and nonliving break down, because now we know what makes up the difference and can reproduce it in small ways. Our concept of what it means to be alive consequently becomes imprecise in a way that a new definition will not fix.
In short, the metaphysical concept "life" has been emptied out by science, and our current use of the word serves as a placeholder for what is essentially an invalidated concept.
If I were wrong, we wouldn't have so much trouble with a definition.

 

[Hnefi]

I disagree that the concept of "life" has somehow been "emptied out" by science. It's just one of many terms that, due to a better understanding of the world around us, in certain situations require a more precise definition than it did in times past. Its lack of precision doesn't make the concept any less useful or valid in most situations. Other examples of useful concepts that we can't define properly due to an increased understanding of what the terms entail are "intelligence" and "sentience". There are probably more examples.

What these concepts have in common is that they at first glance appear simple, definite and clear-cut but are in actuality very complex and fuzzy. But most terms in our everyday language are poorly defined; see sorites paradox, for example. These terms are of limited use in some arenas, such as the natural sciences, but they still have plenty of meaning in other scenarios such as everyday life or philosophy.

 

[quatona]

Namaste all,

i've been thinking about something which has struck me as rather odd and i'm curious as to what others may think.

what is, in your view, the most basic definition of life, of something being alive?

for my own part it would seem to be a few foundational attributes; reproduction and the consumption of fuel to perform action.

i may be overlooking something obvious though.

metta,

~v

Seems like this is merely a semantics question.
Words tend to have a lot of different meanings, and oftentimes the definition used depends on the context or the topic and purpose of the conversation.

 

[vajradhara]

Namaste all,

ok.. so two of the respondents think the question is baseless, fair enough.

by and large the rest of the respondents agree that replication and consumption of resources would be basic attributes of life.

perhaps we should narrow the discussion to confine it to biological.. well... life forms.

why i am curious about this is due to my consideration of fire. fire seems to replicate itself, seems to require fuel to sustain an internal reaction and seems to adapt itself to it's conditions.. heck, fire can even burn underwater.. which is just amazingly cool in and of itself.

in my basic criteria it would seem that fire would be alive and, from some of the others, fire would have some characteristics which would be indicative of life though we would not normally consider fire "alive" in the same sense as a biological organism.

metta,

~v

 

[The Nihilist]

Namaste all,

ok.. so two of the respondents think the question is baseless, fair enough.

by and large the rest of the respondents agree that replication and consumption of resources would be basic attributes of life.

perhaps we should narrow the discussion to confine it to biological.. well... life forms.

why i am curious about this is due to my consideration of fire. fire seems to replicate itself, seems to require fuel to sustain an internal reaction and seems to adapt itself to it's conditions.. heck, fire can even burn underwater.. which is just amazingly cool in and of itself.

in my basic criteria it would seem that fire would be alive and, from some of the others, fire would have some characteristics which would be indicative of life though we would not normally consider fire "alive" in the same sense as a biological organism.

metta,

~v

That's fine, but what do you mean by biological?
Also, yes, it is cool that fire burns underwater.

 

[vajradhara]

That's fine, but what do you mean by biological?
Also, yes, it is cool that fire burns underwater.

i mean the adjetive sense of the term specifically #1, to wit:

bi·o·log·i·cal
adj. 1. Of, relating to, caused by, or affecting life or living organisms: biological processes such as growth and digestion.
2. Having to do with biology.
3. Related by blood or genetic lineage: the child's biological parents; his biological sister.

n. A preparation, such as a drug, a vaccine, or an antitoxin, that is synthesized from living organisms or their products and used medically as a diagnostic, preventive, or therapeutic agent.

metta,

~v

 

[The Nihilist]

That's begging the question.
What is life? Well, it's biological. What is biological? Well, it's things that are alive

 

[quatona]

perhaps we should narrow the discussion to confine it to biological.. well... life forms.

Not to be nitpicking, but that "biological life forms" appears to be a tautology ("bios" is greek for "life").