How would you define something being alive?

Some biologists (Varela and Maturana) define life as "an autpoietic system", i.e one whose products sustain its structural integrity and functioning in order to produce more of those products. "Cognition" is defined as the adaptations such a system makes to perturbations to its structure. The term is not exclusive to what are normally thought of as "higher level" processes.

An autopoietic system is to be contrasted with an allopoietic system, such as a car factory, which uses raw materials (components) to generate a car (an organized structure) which is something other than itself (the factory)

Note in both of these the technical use of the term "system" as a dynamic structure. See also Prigogine's lower level concept of "dissipative structures" as spontaneously arising continuities of chemical processes "far from equilibrium" (i.e. constantly exchanging its molecules with its surroundings), in order to understand the concept that "life" requires no mysterious vitalistic factor to distinguish it from "the inanimate".

Hi Dotrat,

I define being alive as this: Everything is alive.

Kind regards.
Mark

That was far more detailed than I expected, so thank you for the answer.
However I'm finding it hard to understand. I do apologise, and defining words on a search engine doesn't help either.
If possible, could you please put it in layman terms?

Would you regard toys or books alive? Why is everything alive? How would you define something as being alive?
Sorry if I'm asking more questions to answers.
I personally think if something can feel, it's alive. ..Unless it's a robot which can turn it's pain sensors off. Like in A.I.

From Laurie Anderson's United States Live, a performance multimedia show

She said the hardest thing to teach her three-year-old kid was what was alive and what wasn’t. The phone rings and she holds it out to her kid and says, “It’s Grandma. Talk to Grandma.” But she’s holding a piece of plastic. And the kid says to herself: “Wait a minute. Is the phone alive? Is the TV alive? What about that radio? What is alive in this room and what doesn’t have life?” Unfortunately, she doesn’t know how to ask these questions.

That's a very interesting quote, I think knowing what is alive or isn't alive may come with experience. Kinda like (I think either Plato/Aristotles) Forms. You don't know the full extent until you have experience. Like in this case, it's not the inanimate object that is "alive" it's the person on the other end.
Does that make sense? I suppose not.

Hi Dotrat,
I believe that energy is life and that everything feels. It may not be on par with human perception of sense, but all things react to causes. This means that ALL things have reactions.
What object can you state confidently, is there, that does not at some quantum level not have the distinction of being energy-based?

yes, the book or table appears inanimate, but human perception is limited, and cannot perceive beyond the event into the molecular.

Everything, in order to exist, has to be energy based.

Hope this helps Dotrat!
xxx
Mark...

I'm not sure existence is the same as being alive. What is being alive anyway? Is it merely the opposite of death? When a person dies, their body remains, albeit non functioning. If energy is the cause, what if there was a machine that could take dead bodies and generate energy from that. (I know it's not the same type you're talking about). Would that in turn mean it's alive? It functions, the body reacts, and it has energy.
How would you define this energy?

..I hope I'm not rambling, though I have a feeling I am.

P.S, Thank you for taking the time to reply.

Hi Dotrat,
I don't think you are rambling. You are trying to derive meaning.

This is my opinion. All living things ABSORB, EXPAND and DISCHARGE. Anything outside these criteria is not a living thing.

xxx
Mark...

Try this summary of Fritjof Capra's "Web of Life" which is the best introduction I know to autopoiesis.

http://www.tcd.ie/Physics/news/seminars/Schrodinger/Lecture3.html

This is very correct. I think a great example of this are the artificial (non biological) life forms such as those in avida. Not only do these life forms continuously strive for survival but they do so in a manner that actually exceeds that of biological life. They also demonstrate extreme levels of intelligence.

What do you mean here?

I think you may be conflating two different things here. Life and sentience. The two may often co-occur, but not necessarily.

I'll try to give a definition of both and then see where that leaves us.

Life

Some might argue that life is defined as certain biological marker such as respiration, consumption of resources etc. I personally find such definitions unsatisfying since they seem to be arbitrarily based on the resources that we happen to have at our disposal here on earth. If we accept the principle of Darwinian evolution, as I do, then it should be possible, in principle, for life to evolve wherever there is a combination of resources and energy to utilise them. So, the "biological markers" of life might conceivably have a much wider range of expression than we imagine.

However, there is a deeper issue than even the above, I think. What I want to establish is what is the very minimum that we should be able to observe in any given material phenomenon and still be able to recognise it as living. For me it is the most basic properties of all life. These are that is should be able to reproduce itself based on the utilisation of existing resources in its environment. However, the reproductive process is never perfect and so there will inevitably arise variations in any population of replicating entities. Given that there will always be environmental constraints, it will be the case that some variants will be best fitted and some will be less so. Thus, evolution of various forms will occur.

Darwinian evolution, in others words.

Wherever Darwinian evolution occurs, there will be life. In fact I would go further and say that "life" and "Darwinian evolution" are essentially synonymous. It doesn't matter if it is on the surface of the earth and is comprised primarily of carbon and water. It doesn't matter if it is in the RAM of a computer and is comprised of little programs competing for hard drive space. If there is an environment with resources that are limited in supply and type, if there are replicating entities that can make use of those resources, if the replication process is not perfect such that variants arise, there we will see life.

Sentience

Sentience, so far as I understand it, is the capacity to be aware of one’s owns existence and the environment around oneself. Theoretically, we might one day be able to perfectly map the exact state of each and every neuron in a human central nervous system and produce a perfect analogue of them in a computer. Will the computer analogue of the human brain be sentient? My guess is that it would be. I don't see any logical reason to suppose that it wouldn't.

Would such a computer analogue of a brain be alive? For me the answer would be no since it would not fulfil the criteria of life I set out earlier. Does this mean we should offer less protection to such an analogue than we would to a living person? I think not since I consider sentience to be more important than being alive.

By way of illustration of my last point, consider the following question. Which would make you feel guiltier? Cutting the head off a flower, or stimulating the pain sensors in a perfect computer analogue of a human brain?

I think its cool what you said but i'm working on a project in school that need to define living as in being alive in details please help me.

I say that if you believe ancient writings then you would believe we are dead.

God said we would surely die with our knowledge of good and evil. Satin said we wouldn't die but would become as gods. Which would you believe; the king of kings, God, or the king of lies, satin?

I don't think we have came to the knowledge of truth. I don't think we know life. We forever gain knowledge, but knowledge of what? According to our ancestors, not truth.

If the light in you is darkness, how great is that darkness?

When it goes beyond being inert , with self direction

on the contrary if it looks not movin then it could b alive speakin in truth not in form of living
and self direction is the trait of possession
true self is always free from all so never mean a sense, true self is the stable stand

positively i would define smthg being alive, every perspective of individual conscious
conscious by definition is nothing itself, bc conscious is always the result of recognizin objective existence being else, and when conscious is the individual true stand then it must b through living, which mean leanin on objective concept being same, what is commonly called projections n reflections of being done consciously

that is what justify living being wrong and why all is meanin for right existence superior conscious individual realisations of true self so to never lean on others or else conceptions

Explain why this makes sense to you ? Because it doesn't to me

if it looks not movin while u see it as object smthg still, then that constant reason has inner source otherwise it wont b possible