Can things without bodies live?

i dunno thelessoriron

...... does alive mean the ability to reproduce itself? I suppose rain does when it falls. Or is that a cycle? ......... but then again is reproduction a cycle?

We used to think that when things went through a cycle they went from birth to death and rebirth. Like the sun.

Is the internet cyclical? It hasn't died yet has it?

Birth, growth, decay. death, birth, ...... I suppose some things appear immortal to our time scale.

While I understand the idea of life in natural or bodiless forms, I don't believe that an entity such as the internet can be considered life. Yes the internet may seem alive, it's constantly growing, changing, building and rebuilding itself... but at the same time it did not begin this process itself. The internet is a man made construct. Without user input the internet is both useless and inactive. Certain websites will continue to run without anyone monitoring them, sure, but these aspects of the internet are confined to a server. A box. And each website, each process, the entire internet itself was originally coded, programmed, and created by us. We are but humans, we have not created life. AI is still pending. The internet is not it.
The same goes for rain, fire, wind, and running water. Natural entities in nature which may seem alive but simply aren't. They're processes which run to preserve the life of this planet. These things do seem alive, they have the illusion of life. But ultimately they have no conscious, no sentience, no self-awareness, and no soul.

-James

Hello "theLessorIron" and welcome to this global ship. Let see if I can bring a little clarity to what you are asking?

We effort to duplicate that which we are, so we will be comfortable in the presence of it so we can be less afraid. The problem is we don't know who we are, we've lost touch, as we are taught what others think is most important as we gaze into the mirror to see how we look so others will accept us and that is when we become lost and the mind becomes troubled and begins to search for who we were amid everything else we impose on it; and it gets really confused. If we didn't not tax it so, what could it provide for us? If we only knew? What a relief that would be, huh?

It would select the best for us for in it is everything that is us; all of it all the way back to the beginning of us. If we could just leave it alone, it would do that for us and with pleasure to boot. That's part of it but not all of it.

It's all about war of the mind and peace of them mind and the meeting of the minds. Why is there war ane what will it take to bring that peace? There are so many elements involved, how do we choose? The answer is we don't, the mind will do that for us. Which mind, you ask? The mind! You don't think you have the only one, did you? Each and every one of us is a miniature of a much bigger one as it maintains peace in it, too.

Let's bring it home for a minute and examine our life's blood and the body of that life and the cities that exist between the arteries and veins that connect them and the flow of that blood. It can be imagined the bigger the city the more of a "clot" it becomes and could cause that blood stress for the pressure involved in moving through that chaotic mess. Too many minds competing with one another and no one can think straight. There is just too much to mind with. If we could just have more room, we could. Huh?

We travel or flow for nourishment as we feel those cities can provide as it sucks all the nutrients from other resources to keep it alive until it becomes a clot and stems all flow. If we could just take all those minds and redistribute them more evenly throughout the body it would create less pressure and the clot would dissolve.

Now let's look at it on a more personal level. The brain when it is in distress it calls for blood to empower it to relieve that stress and it swells in a effort to provide relief to that area of the body that needs it and if it can't it hemorrhages until it blows a gasket, so to speak.

Now let's call our larger cities, brains or economic centers to be more precise. There is a flurry, in some cases a "snow storm", going on there that draws blood from the body because there is little blood flowing in much of the other parts of the body and it becomes stagnant, damp, stale, a great place for virus, germs and bacteria to flourish. The arteries and the blood flowing through those arteries have bypassed them in a rush to get to those brains and economic centers to survive. The smaller cities lose there life support and develop entropy, become numb, rot and die as the brain swells with too much blood.

Now think on a little bigger scale and volcanoes, floods, hurricanes, tornados, fires, and warming as it's temperature rises. Think of oil as the earth's lubricant that causes it less friction and the rate we are draining it and the smoke it causes that invades your eyes and lungs in the air we breath and the blurred vision from the tears in our eyes it causes. Wow! Just like the brain and the rusting of the body as the brain becomes more dependent on more blood to keep it functioning.

We have the resources to put life back into those stagnant areas and the create a more even diaspora alleviating the friction that dystemper creates. As we look in the mirror at the word "dog" and realize who man's best friend, the mind, truly is as it will relieve all the spasms and heat caused by rising temperatures. It is the reason to everything it's tiny pieces, us, have every conceived. Believe it or not, that is the way it is.

It's evident everywhere in all we do, and look at what we have done. Wow! And to think............we've just begun. Now we have a global brain, called the internet, yet it's not all in there for there are so many who do not contribute to it. Literal billions who don't, who are not so "literate". Only those who think they know contribute and those in search of what they don't know to find answers to those questions so they will know and those for amusement only. Now what does this global brain have to offer?

That is the search, and the rescue that saves us, when we finely come to our senses and have that peace of mind of all minds working together, flourishing.

What has happened in the past, if we can't find it, we take it, steal it or buy it from others so they will not make us feel guilty because we have lost ours as they become also (all so) lost for they cannot function either. The blind leading the blind, so to speak. We become jealous, envious and angry for no one likes being without, for we fail to realize what is on the inside is so much more important than what is on the outside. It's just that we don't want to give it up, no matter what it is, because we have become dependent on it and feel defenseless without it.

If only others could know how so very rewarding giving truly is? It has rewards that are impossible to understand as you will get back what you truly need that has been with you forever; you just lost it, that's all. It hasn't "disappeared; you just don't know where it is, is all and you are looking for it.

I know this is kind of a nutshell encapsulation or thumbnail, but I hope it will inspire you to apply it to yourself and where you fit in all. It's hard to be yourself with others demanding so much of you, isn't it?

Give it some thought. Again welcome to the forum and enjoy your stay.:bigsmile:

William

The examples all have "bodies" in some form or another, so the question remains undefined. But do any of these fit the criteria we generally use to tell if something is a living organism? If we suppose that a living organism must be capable of "self"-directed physical movement, and must be actual (eliminating friendly dragons), then the answer is negative, and we use "alive" when we talk about these instances in a poetic or analogical way.

Again, cities and the internet may be said to "develop" or to "grow" but they nevertheless remain physical apparatus---highly complex, to be sure---requiring construction by human hands involved in active projects and plans.

Viruses? I'm guessing that you're meaning computer viruses. Otherwise you must have skipped an awful lot of science classes to not know that viruses live. You gave a bit me a bit of a shock first, I'm a scientist o the bone I'm afraid. Anyway, I'm also a philosopher, so, I don't think cities live, they can't die, and they don't reproduce. Internet is a bit more complicated, but to call it alive I think we need to redefine "life". An intresting problem will be in the future, when robots are more evolved. Is it murder to turn one of? I saw a program once, and a robot engineer said quite wisly: "when they can ask us not to turn them of, then we shouldn't". He of course meant robots that aren't programmed to say that.

Hello Jg. I think "living organism", as we define it, and only applying it to those definitions, we will not see the relationship and the real meaning of those inspired words. They came from "somewhere", originally. A more refined version of the Latin, Greek and Roman they were born from by those who also came later in an attempt to reach a better understanding. Now that is western thinking, we cannot forget the eastern point of view and where their language originated.

Granted, much can get "lost" in interpretation. Is that a good thing or a bad thing? That's difficult to tell. What I think the poster is doing, and correct me if you think I am wrong, is trying to establish an association with what we know as living as we define it and what is non-living as we define it. Like a truth that is stranger than that we call fiction as fiction is not such a fiction after all, but a reflection of a truth metaphorically as it does tell a story the author is trying to explain in search for that truth whether he is aware of it or not.

As you say there are all kinds of bodies and when we, short cut, by-bass, loop around and pollute those bodies circulation of life giving blood becomes rare in some areas and hemorrhages in others.

The Earth has temperate zones as do we. To give just one illustration is when blood is of the right consistency and if free to flow, no problem, but when it reaches a bottle neck, like an infection, the temperature rises, like what occurs in "road rage" when the flow of traffic is suddenly cut off, tempers become testy, fever ensues and we vent just as the earth does in it's ocean's/blood; land/body; sun/energy/food; climate/seasons.

The number one life giving force on this planet is water. Without it, we all perish. Now we have an abundance of water, but most of it is held in reserve and it is that salt in it that preserves it. It provides the salt of the earth and it help retain earth's bodily fluids so necessary for life.

In other words, Jg, we are identical to the Earth. When we ail, we get from the Earth that we need to cure us; and visa versa. What we have, intelligence, if well balance will do the same for the Earth to retain it's balance is such a way in which we reach an equilibrium. We need to get back to basics and that is what science is trying to do. We are anti-science in that we did not understand this equilibrium and the common bond we have with this planet we are accustom to. We have always felt we were apart from it to do with as we please. That is immature thinking, but understandable thinking in that we were alien to it's commonality to us.

We evolved because it, the earth, allowed us to evolve. We are a part of it and the elements that make it up. As long as there is balance we grow together peacefully and in harmonic fashion.

Every organ in the body, the Earth has it's equivalent part. It gives us life and we, in return give life and essence to it. Now we have much to offer as we, the human being, though we appear different, carry our contribution as each of the races have their ingredients to bring to the table and it is in that complimentary mix we will solve all of that which cause us, in our youth, to become un-balanced. If not, we will return to our elemental form and it will start all over again; from square one, until we do eventually get it right. Let's just hope we don't all get a mass eviction notice.

Now that is happening now, in what we call life and death. Once the body is used up; exhausted of what it can offer, it returns to the elements that make it up and is born anew less the impurities that caused it's death. The body, like the Earth is fully capable of taking care of itself and is self healing. When the body becomes out of balance it adjusts accordingly using all it facilities in order to do that. We are not aware of all it has to work with to maintain that equilibrium, all we notice is that body as it is presented to us from a very narrow view point and perception. What it is, we call the mind, is the most mysterious and alien to us. We have no idea of what it is or where it comes from. We can only see all that it is responsible for. It is the undefinable signal that connects us with the universe. It is a wave length we are either in tune with, or not in tune with. Once we all are, we will do what is necessary to return to that purity and balance that the universe demands and our nature provides us until we hum in resonance with that of the universe we are a part of.

We have a "signal to noise" ratio that is that impedes this signal. The more noise, the more static and the body cannot fine tune. We created that noise and that is why meditation allows the body to become quiet, only until it walks through the door and is again amid all the noise. If the mind is at ease it can automatically tune out the noise and it will hear what it should hear. Now I know that is difficult to understand and that is because we have become accustom to the noise and deaf to all signals except those we want to hear. If the mind is at peace and at ease, it will do that automatically.

I have what is called Tinnitis, which is a ringing in the ears. I have had it all my life. It is considered by many to be an ailment, but to me, it is music. It's always there and does not bother me in the least bit no matter how loud it gets. It does not affect my hearing ability whatsoever. I have exception hearing if there is not too much noise in the background. If the background noise is pleasing, I welcome it, it not, I will do my best eliminate it; like a television, for instance, or the tone of anyone who I am speaking with as my mind will automatically "tune them out" if they are presenting "noise". Most all do it to some extent, it's just most are not aware they are doing it. I have offered that on numerous occasions. But some are to accustomed to the noise and they will not hear anyone or anything but their own voice and are "egocentric" for their universe and the Earth revolves around them only

Forgive me for getting off topic a bit, but for me, it is common to do that as one thing leads to another and it is hard not to venture out on those various limbs.

Let me finish by saying the Earth has a "crust"; so do we. The Earth has a mantle; so do we. The Earth has a core; so do we. The Earth has it's life giving qualities; so do we. It has it's capillaries, veins, arteries and organs/us, as we "organize" and those individual organs will play beautiful music once we become in tune with each other and perform in complimentary fashion just a the organs of the body "should do".
The Earth has it's storms/tempests/fires/deluges/tremors and so do we.
We have the ability to calm all that, and I think you will find some day when we calm ourselves the Earth will follow suit.

William

So there's a direct correlation between my mood and the natural calamities of the Earth?

If I achieved a zen-like state, could I stop a tornado from forming?

Well.........................yes as far as that area you occupy on that earth and the calamities you allow to enter your mind. You will maintain your calm in the storms of others. As far as the entire earth, it will take group participation; like putting a puzzle together, one piece at a time. One at peace influencing another who is not, so peaceful. You will play your part.

Now in this linear medium of the black and white of written communication, it is difficult. In your plane, one on one, you get to use all the senses that allow you to communicate. Now if this technology advances, as I am sure it will, we will be able to communicate in real time with others provided we conquer the barriers of language that separate us. Not an easy task, but one that can be accomplished. There a lot of bugs that, I am sure, need to be worked out. In more ways than one, ha. No one likes to be bugged or pestered! Huh? As we "clean up the lines of communication" so often full of static, it's hard hear anything anyone has to say, we will the understand what freedom of speech truly means and what that communication has to offer for us all.

Do I know for sure? Hmmm, it just makes sense to me as I see the similarities between us and the Earth. We won't know for sure until we get there. I, personally, think it would be worth the effort. In any case, to aid others in calming their storms, is worth the challenge. For when they calm, it does not endanger others caught in their wake.

How long it will take? Who knows; but the longer we postpone it, the difficult it becomes. I think it is happening now. Let's hope nothing disturbs the progress we have made. That has been known to happen in the past. You will know by those who have a tendency to "quote" it for their own defense and self interest. That's a clue. :bigsmile:

William

As with some other matters which sometimes get ignored for the sake of creative, imaginative thinking and philosophizing, there are quite set definitions/descriptions of the terms related to being alive, and having life. No, non-living things like water molecules, asphalt, sedimentary or volcanic rock, lumber, glass, and steel, do not have life processes, and are thus exactly that, non-life forms. In this exact definition bound setting, the answer to the question is negative.

Now this is interesting. I first was surprised to read that you consider a virus a lifeform because when i went to school i remember precisely that viruses were very close to be such, however did not make the race.
Regarding you call yourself a scientist i did a little research and guess what i found:
There seems to be a significant difference of the understanding of life between the german and the english speech area.
The reason why i find this paricularly interesting is because we certainly agree that the use of the word life is more than just a question of language.
However you can easily find out yourself when you look up the word 'Life' on Wiki that life on the english page clearly makes a distinction between cellular and noncellular life.
On the german page when you look up 'Lebewesen' (life forms) you will read about viruses that they can not be considered life forms because:
First of all they do not have a metabolism (they are not cells), meaning they are ready made chemical products that remain unchanged for the rest of their 'life'.
Second: They do not reproduce independently. Reproduction completely depends on the hosts providing the cells that are actually alive.

This independence is an aspect that might be interesting regarding the following:



Even though all kinds of life that we know of share the property of not being made by human hands this is not a criteria that counts, at least up until now.
You will not find it in any biology book.
In fact "artificial life" is a topic about humans doing precisely this: They are about to create life in maybe decades maybe centuries, regardless how long it takes we should be prepared that man will create life forms that have to be considered alive.

---------- Post added 10-28-2009 at 11:18 PM ----------



I am certainly an enemy of this reappearing picture of the internet growing a secret consciousness that lurks around somewhere in the cables using computers as brain cells.
So i should probably leave things as they are.
However since we are interested in finding truth there is something to be said about things being a bit more complicated.
At school we all have learned about the list of properties that something living must have.
The model of autopoiesis developed by Varela and Maturana in the 70's however changed this view in its basics. Autopoiesis can be seen as an alternative model to the list of properties especially because it gives a much preciser and clearer picturer of life, providing explanations as oppose to just being descriptive.
Having found this principle of life it didn't take much time until someone found out that there are systems functioning based on principles that are very similar.
Autopoiesis of biological life is based on a chemical and physical cycle, autopoiesis itself however can be described as a merely logical one.
So it didn't take much time for Niklas Luhmann who can be considered a highly respected scientist of systems theory to develop his model of society based on the principle of autopoiesis. In other words he explains how modern society in a way functions in the same way as a living organism.
Of course this does not include any intention to claim society was something being alive in a biological sense.
What makes his model interesting however is that it gives you an idea of how and why society is something selfmaintaining and selfreconstructing and in some other points behaves like an organism.

The interesting thing about the internet now is that the principle of selfmaintaining dissipative structures (which is autopoiesis) can be seen all over the place.
To make it clearer:
For example we have no idea how many dead logical bodies there are on the net. Imagine you create an account at some kind of service like a social network. You look at it, don't like it, forget it. Your avatar however remains. It continues receiving email, advertise, etc.
It still interacts passively.
But not only your avatar interacts. Providers exchange information about your avatar. If for example you have an account on one of the world's biggest social networks which i don't want to advertise here, you have no idea that even a long time before you return to your favourite global online bookstore this bookstore will have perceived information about your interests FROM that social network.
The exchange of information takes place without any human activity.
This means the information exchange has reached a human-independend stage.
Now you certainly heard about RSS-feeds. Nowadays we have no idea how many online services exist that collect RSS feed information. The amount of informations collected by feeds and actually never read by any human mind might already be bigger than the information that is actually taken note of. We have RSS-feeds reading RSS-feeds.
We have an increasing number of information being passed from one system to another that exists without any human ever taking note of.
This part of the existing information has something like an intrinsic reason: It exists for itself. Like life.
These information cycles build something like the first informational cells. Wherever informations cycles connect to other cycles they will maintain each other: Just like your avatar sending its latest information about your (not even existing) activity will prevent your adress from being deleted on the other system and causes an email as response.
Take a few feedback loops like that and you get the logical equivalent to a stabile chemical cycle.
This is how little informational bubbles are created having there own life.
Very primitive life, however based on the same principles.

By that, except for the self-heals part, a shirt could be considered "living." I'm pretty sure my shirts are not alive.

Is it not time to revisit the definition of life and look more in the direction of gauging the complexity of something?
While I definitely do not subscribe to the notion of the internet in its current form being 'alive' I see no reason why it or elements of it could not in the future evolve to such a state as the number and the complexity of interactions continues to grow.

More and more interactions and processes are now automated to do their jobs without human interference. Witness computer viruses or google spiderbots. It is only a matter of time before the first self modifying software appears.

There will inevitably be a point when the Internet ceases to be completely comprehensible and controllable by carbon based lifeforms. At that point we will begin to lose control at the microlevel and must redefine our roles to be more macroscopic and abstract in nature while more and more of the evolution of the internet will take place inside rather than outside the net itself.

Ha, I was told that they just about made it. But it seems as if they are something inbetween.

The miracle of life is most definitely defined and any watering down of its ability is not to be tolerated. Wizards of science can make all the claims they like of replicating life but they a million years away from even understanding the concept, let alone recreate it. When my PC starts asking for an early night, i might just get a bit concerned and reevaluate my opinions.

Not to be tolerated...? What is that supposed to mean?

Don't you think making prophecies in a scientific oriented conversation may look a little bit inappropiate? I mean where do you take your predictions from? A higher being?
Your vocabulary calling scientists 'wizards of science' reminds me of priests who call people with non-orthodox ideas heretics.
And on top of that you think you can judge what kind of idea is to be tolerated and which isn't?
How could you reach a reputation of 10 in this forum? Is it simply the number of words that counts?

Do these things not have a body? If one simply assumes that the container is the body for the essence then every noun has a body.

What is a virus? Well, it's a self destruct mechanism we are born with. If all is well, it sleeps...undisturbed..........like dead as it is resting in peace; RIP. What is it that wakes you up when you are sound asleep? NOISE, that's what! No one like noise not even viruses. Notice how cranky you are when you do arise from that, hopefully, comforting slumber, those escapes, we must take from this reality we effort to survive in. We don't take to well to it, do we. No we don't. Neither does the virus.

It will create havoc on that which disturbs it and effort to eliminate it. It sleeps in perfection and raises hell when that perfection is tainted and will destroy that cell it is closest to and mimic's the cell as it invades it to gather strength. Once the cell is dead, it becomes a cancer or rotten apple in the barrel. Now where does this noise originate and how is it distributed.

The virus is systematic. It's a part of the system that is better left alone. It is aroused by "system lapses" synapses, if you will, that it registers when those signals it gets from the brain to repair stuff it was not designed to. Like thoughts imposed on you by others, you were not meant to have. It's the national guard. It has but one objective and that is to search and destroy even if it is a pyrrhic victory, destroying itself in the process.

What created the alarm. something the senses detected that caused it to stress, worry from the outside disturbing the normal flow of that intact peaceful system as it communicates with all it's parts.

Science now is claiming that it has duplicated a virus that has the ability t to destroy cancer sells. Fat chance! The virus will drop back regroup and mutate. you can't out smart it; it's a part of the system. It will sleep forever as long as all goes well and is well.

Polio was a disease created by all the crap in the world and science solve that problem too, but the crap remained. Did the virus disappear. No. It dropped back, regrouped, mutated and disguised itself and appeared with a new name......AIDS. Much stronger and for more formidable. If we cure that, God only knows how it will rear it's head again. Perhaps this will be strike three and we are out of here.

Just a thought.

William

It is witch craft when claims are constantly made without any concern for the reality of the situation. Science is not anywhere near recreating life, and these grand claims are just turning reasoned expectations into fantasy. I get my reputation like every one else by other posters response not the amount of words or the judgement of prophetic wizards.

That is true, but all draw their conclusions based on what they have experienced and we all can find similarities in all those things others offer. All have their story to tell. History is a tale, a parable; all told by others and finding a truth in it all is indeed an arduous task. Many will reach an agreement................someday. Those that don't, won't be a matter to be reckoned with.

William