Actually we do have a pretty solid biological definition for life.
That which takes in nutrients, processes them to support itself, and expells waste products. Anything that dose those things is life. That’s why viruses aren’t considered alive. They don’t do those things.
The person part you’re right, is more philosophical. I only mention it because it seems to better fit what people are calling “dead” in this case.
which takes in nutrients, processes them to support itself, and expells waste products.
Is fire alive? it takes in nutrients (Hydro carbons+oxygens), reacts them to support itself, and expells waste products (CO2+water), in fact, that’s the same input and output as many organisms. Is fire a living organisms?
you missed growth (also fire)
and reproduction (also fire, but also problematic as it means a single rabbit isn’t alive but a couple are)
BTW, not an appeal to authority, just a notice that I might know what I’m talking about. I have a PhD in biology.
there are more interesting candidates for life definition, Dawkins considered that maybe the question is a waste of time and what matters is the genetic unit, “living things” are just things that spread genetic material.
Others theories are based on chaos theory, thermodynamic cascades,matter/energy waves…
Fire can be thought of as alive, in a sense. I’d hesitate to say it isn’t. But realy, it’s more accurately a chain reaction. Fire isn’t a ‘thing’, it’s not a system of repeatitively interacting parts. That said, I have no problem extending the label “Life” to non-biological systems. A machine that can maintain and repair itself is certainly alive.
Reproduction also isn’t necessary. DNA or other form of heritable instructions aren’t necessary. Muels and Ligers are genetic dead ends, but very much alive themselves.
and we aren’t a thing, we replace our matter constantly, hence the matter wave idea.
The point is that basically every definition will fail in some edge cases.
and it ends up being more about philosophy than biology,
the whole point is that there’s no biological definition for life. we have one for medical context (brain dead, but mostly depending if it can be reversed, as soon as/if we figure how to resuscitate a brain dead person, we will have another threshold for the definition).
I think there’s a really good infinite monkey cage episode about this, one of their best episodes, I think it’s “what is death” from series 8. not 100% sure. but it’s a great listen anyways
that isn’t biology, it’s philosophy.
we don’t have a good definition of What’s alive either
Actually we do have a pretty solid biological definition for life.
That which takes in nutrients, processes them to support itself, and expells waste products. Anything that dose those things is life. That’s why viruses aren’t considered alive. They don’t do those things.
The person part you’re right, is more philosophical. I only mention it because it seems to better fit what people are calling “dead” in this case.
OK, spores aren’t alive. dissecated watebears aren’t alive
the highschool definition isnt used by biologists because it’s oversimplified and doesn’t hold up to the diversity of life.
All of that is true.
None if it refutes anything I’m saying.
the things I mentioned have no metabolism, don’t absorb nutrients, and don’t excrete.
by your definition they are dead.
the things I mentioned have no metabolism, don’t absorb nutrients, and don’t excrete.
by your definition they are dead.
Right. So?
Is fire alive? it takes in nutrients (Hydro carbons+oxygens), reacts them to support itself, and expells waste products (CO2+water), in fact, that’s the same input and output as many organisms. Is fire a living organisms?
you missed growth (also fire)
and reproduction (also fire, but also problematic as it means a single rabbit isn’t alive but a couple are)
BTW, not an appeal to authority, just a notice that I might know what I’m talking about. I have a PhD in biology.
there are more interesting candidates for life definition, Dawkins considered that maybe the question is a waste of time and what matters is the genetic unit, “living things” are just things that spread genetic material.
Others theories are based on chaos theory, thermodynamic cascades,matter/energy waves…
Fire can be thought of as alive, in a sense. I’d hesitate to say it isn’t. But realy, it’s more accurately a chain reaction. Fire isn’t a ‘thing’, it’s not a system of repeatitively interacting parts. That said, I have no problem extending the label “Life” to non-biological systems. A machine that can maintain and repair itself is certainly alive.
Reproduction also isn’t necessary. DNA or other form of heritable instructions aren’t necessary. Muels and Ligers are genetic dead ends, but very much alive themselves.
fire, isn’t alive. it isn’t biologically.
and we aren’t a thing, we replace our matter constantly, hence the matter wave idea.
The point is that basically every definition will fail in some edge cases.
and it ends up being more about philosophy than biology,
the whole point is that there’s no biological definition for life. we have one for medical context (brain dead, but mostly depending if it can be reversed, as soon as/if we figure how to resuscitate a brain dead person, we will have another threshold for the definition).
I think there’s a really good infinite monkey cage episode about this, one of their best episodes, I think it’s “what is death” from series 8. not 100% sure. but it’s a great listen anyways