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What is life?
Let the fanatics be out. They aren't worth my effort of prebanning.
So, I answered the question earlier as,
Life is a series of self sustaining chemical reactions.
I added some more stuff to it, but I knew that it was a hollow answer. Any more additions seemed equally worthless, for none of them made it complete and exhaustive.
Can you try defining it? I'm leaving the closest I've got so far in comments.
Life is anything within a class designed to be capable of making close reproductions of itself (whether it opts to do that or not.) The potential of the class to reproduce still makes it life even if that particular unit was flawed in a way to not succeed in that, or opted not to. This covers conventional life forms from single cell to plants and to people. It also covers machines (someday), and leaves the door open for various chemical or energy forms to be life.
How did I do? I didn't do any research to try to hone that one first.
And a unit of a class would mean yes it originated from a living thing, like a mouse hypothetically, and is genetically viable to live as mouse and be recognized as what is considered a mouse, even though for some reason it may itself be unable to reproduce as more mice.
Fair enough. But as you keep blasting at my definition then all you're really left with is the basic chemical reaction definition others already gave. Take your pick.
The closest we have it is anything which performs the living processes, which is a rather well defined empirical set of processes. But it isn't clear enough itself.
So far, mine is anything with a genetic code capable of replication.
I can live with that, provided things with flawed genetic codes which interfere with them reproducing successfully still count as alive. I think that's all I was trying to factor in when I was describing belonging to a class normally capable of reproduction whether they do it or not.
I'm going to go with my geek side and say that St:TNG had an episode about this or something close to it called Measure of a Man. The basic premise is that the rights of an android named Data are threatened by a scientist who wants to take him apart to study how he works to eventually create more. The problem is the process could kill Data and he simply refuses to do it. It's a pretty powerful episode where they have a hearing to determine if Data has life or is alive and isn't just parts and property.
Sorry I think I went off topic but it reminded me of it. I would guess my idea of life is ....well I think the dictionary tends to sum it up best ~ The property or quality that distinguishes living organisms from dead organisms blah blah blah.
I don't think we have a clear definitive answer for it though, what we think as dead can come back, what we think of life can change.
I would say that life is essentially a collection of chemicals which together have clear motivations to do "things". For instance, single celled organisms have motivation to undergo mitosis in order to reproduce, and we usually think of single celled organisms as the lowest form of life because anything less complex doesn't have a motive to "do" anything other than "be". A piece of lead does not have a motive to reproduce itself, but every single life-form does. So I think reproductive aspiration forms the clear margin between life and non-life.
Playing dumb is a poor debate tactic and a total waste of my time and yours. You know the answer to the question you're asking. So do I. Is a walking talking human dead? Why ask stupid questions?
His initial focus was on motivation as such. The self perpetuation of any living thing requires motivation. He ended with reproductive aspiration, perhaps because life as a whole requires it. A particular living thing requires motivation though not necessarily reproductive motivation.
That's my interpretation of what he was saying. I think it's more generous than the narrower interpretation that leads to absurd questions.
“The Straw Man fallacy is committed when a person simply ignores a person's actual position and substitutes a distorted, exaggerated or misrepresented version of that position”
You mean motivation for survival? ... I doubt he'd have meant that.
I also doubt that’s what he meant since his actual words were “motivations to do "things"”, not motivation for survival. Lest his broad definition be confused or taken narrowly, he provided an example of the simplest specimen we understand to be life. One need not presume a reward hormone to understand motivation on this simplistic level. Nor need one assume reproductive aspirations to be the only motivations he was referring to when he said “motivations to do “things””.
Perhaps his words were chosen poorly when he referred to “every single life-form”, but this need not be understood to confuse the rest of his post which, taken as a whole, makes your responding question absurd at best, dishonest at worst. His annoyance at your pretended naivety is understandable.
I know what the strawman fallacy is. It was a clarification anyway - your response is rather strange for what I'd generally expect.
If that's what you want... I don't need to try making sense of your vague notions if all you're gonna say is that it's a strawman.
So, unless you can say what you mean of motivation, it doesn't matter what you think he meant.
I see the responding question as entirely relevant for showing that his claim makes no sense. Anyway, that doesn't matter right now.
In case you have nothing better on your position, like a real claim, you're dismissed as well. Seems pretty probable from the fact that you made none right now.
Then I will assume purpose in your response rather than innocent accident. For example, when you said "if all you're gonna say is that it's a strawman" as if that was all I said, I will assume that you know better.
So, unless you can say what you mean of motivation, it doesn't matter what you think he meant
It does matter actually. I don't think he meant what you pretended he meant. His response, emotional though it may have been, was not unjustified. This is my point.
I see the responding question as entirely relevant for showing that his claim makes no sense.
His claim makes sense. If you truly believe otherwise, then perhaps I have been unfair in assuming your naivety was pretended.
In case you have nothing better on your position, like a real claim, you're dismissed as well
I am not interested in discussing the nature of life with someone who can't even say they experience. You either lack reason or you are dishonest. I have once attempted an intellectual conversation with you. I wouldn't twice make the mistake of wasting such time. I have absolutely no respect for you. As such I may continue to point out the quality of your interaction with others, but only as for a minor distraction for myself. If that's problematic for you, then ban me. You don't suit dismissal.
Old? It finished running in 1994, it's not THAT old. Don't make me take my false teeth out and throw them at you sonny boy. GET OFF MY LAWN......where's my cane? mmmm I want some mush
OHHHHHH ok sorry, one of the three deities, Gaia, Chaos and Tartarus. Out of the three I'd rather chat with Gaia I think. Perhaps it's a kinship with mothers. Dunno.
Chaos is entirely impersonal, Gaia represents Earth itself.
In a same way, Tartarus is the representation of a place much lower than Underworld itself. Or, it is as lower than Underworld as the Earth is than heaven.
I would say that "life" is, in the most basic physical sense, an animated, self-contained series of sustained chemical reactions. Stars, the inorganic elements of the ecosystem, and even (arguably) the Universe itself fall under "a series of self-sustaining chemical reactions", so it's not a great standard.
This is an interesting topic, and as i follow my own custom belief i must join in so I can share my opinion.
1. I think life is a concept we have created, not a myth but not a reality. Life is a word that has a actual affect on mankind but we cannot touch it. When we say what is your life worth, the answer is nothing. Life isn't actually worth anything, in the bigger scheme of the universe what is your life compared to another? we are just mere mortals being moved around the chessboard of life and death.
2. Our definition of life is this; the condition that distinguishes animals and plants from inorganic matter, including the capacity for growth, reproduction, functional activity, and continual change preceding death.
3. My opinion for life; I think life is either a game of chess or just a computer system run by the force that created the universe, we are like bits of data in one huge system and how we die is by a virus in the system, killing us off until the system can find away to eliminate it.
Thank you for reading my opinion for this debate, if this doesn't make sense than I apologise for it, I am not great with making sense, I tend to ramble on.
The life is the fact of to feel, share,love and other things, the life is very ilogic ¿Why?, because we life,we reproduce and we die ¿what is the logic of that? it has not logic, thanks for read my explanation....
life according to me, is the result of many processes that ensure an entity's existence, until the processes are not externally disturbed to a specific extent, allowing the entity to make changes/interact with it's environment.
