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Fri 9 Dec, 2005 12:58 am
How would you define life? What is it that supposedly separates the deer from the rock? Are there different levels of life? We kill mosquitoes, but risk our lives to save a child. What is the difference according to philosophy and science?
I have several ideas as to what defines life. An ethical dilemma usually causes this question to be asked, so i suggest that the answer should be relevant to ethics and morality for it to have any use. Desire and aspiration, I believe, are the key. One can do anything to a rock because the rock doesn't care. However, to harm a rat is somewhat more unethical because the rat has an innate desire to not be in pain. Desire seems to separates life from ordinary things. I want a ruben. The ants want to protect their queen. So on and so forthÂ…
But there are others:
1. Intelligence
2. The ability to act upon something else
3. The ability to sense the world
4. The ability to reproduce
What do you think?
Although plants have not desire, so it isnt' a very good way of doing things
Adeist wrote:Although plants have not desire, so it isnt' a very good way of doing things
Are you 100% certain of that Adeist?
You're getting a bit "vegetative" there old chap.Steady on.
Now that i think about it, plants do have an innate desire to be in the light (phototropism i think).
However, the more i think about it, the more I come to the opinion that life is just highly organized matter. Can anyone give a reasonable argument against this?
<<The structure of a living system has been described in detail by Ilya Prigogine in his theory of dissipative structures. Like Ludwig von Bertalanffy, Prigogine recognized that living systems are open systems that are able to maintain their life processes under conditions of non-equilibrium. A living organism is characterized by continual flow and change in its metabolism, involving thousands of chemical reactions. Chemical and thermal equilibrium exists when all these processes come to a halt. In other words, an organism in equilibrium is a dead organism. Living organisms continually maintain themselves in a state far from equilibrium, which is the state of life. Although very different from equilibrium, this state is nevertheless stable: the same overall structure is maintained in spite of the ongoing flow and change of components.
Prigogine called the open systems described by his theory "dissipative structures" to emphasize this close interplay between structure on the one hand, and flow and change (or dissipation) on the other.
According to Prigogine's theory, dissipative structures not only maintain themselves in a stable state far from equilibrium, but may even evolve. When the flow of energy and matter through them increases, they may go through points of instability and transform themselves into new structures of increased complexity. This phenomenon - the spontaneous emergence of order - is also known as self-organization. It is the basis of development, learning, and evolution.>> (Fritjof Capra 1997)
Notes:
Spontaneous emergence of order was first observed in laboratory chemical reactions. (No divine origin is required).
Transformation from one level of order to another is predicted by catastrophe theory. (Think of different standing waves on a vibrating string)
"Cognition" is seen as another description of the general life process in which "words" act as "co-ordinators of action". (Including neural activity)
The boundaries of "order" can involve "structures" from micro-chemical reactions, through cells....organisms....societies...and even the planet itself(Gaia). In general no part of a structure can be adequately described without reference to higher level boundaries. (Thus a blood "cell" is referenced to its dynamic function in the "body",etc)
Way too thoughty here - life is anything possesed of a metabolism - without metabolism, no life. Without life, no metabolism. Ya got one, ya got the other; they do not exist independently.
timberlandko
Your definition appears to be tautological.
Since the cell metabolism includes all chemical processes in a cell, this is already contained in the concept of dissipative structures. The difference between "metabolic" descriptions and "dissipative" descriptions involves (a)differing usage of the term "equilibrium" and (b) the applicability by extrapolation to embedded levels of autopoietic structures.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Autopoiesis
So pick that out of your teeth timber.
Still too thoughty, fresco - not that this is something very timber-like :wink: - but no point using a dozen words when 1 will do
Oh-there is timber.
It is much funnier.In after dinner conversations over the port one would almost always hear things like "appears to be tautological" rather than "bullshit".
Of course that doesn't make it superior or more important.Just funnier.A practical man such as yourself possibly has little time to practice amusing conversational styles which is all to the good if we wish to keep the wheels turning.
fresco-could you make a case that the oil industry is tautological.
I like that "appears to be tautological" ... gonna use it - thanks, spendi.
timberlandko + spendius,
Previous to my reading of Capra I would have said that the only definitions of "life" would have been religious or tautological. I may be wrong, but I think some sort of real progress has been made which cannot be described in a few words. As somone else put it "there's no intellectual slumming in this area"....so apologies for the result - its about as brief as I can make it.
I can go with the "no intellectual slumming" deal - often do, to the occasional dismay and consternation of my readers
-just being ornery here for the sake of being ornery. You know me :wink:
So then could Artificial intelligence or God be considered life? What if "life" outside our planet is found devoid of a metabolism and lives in an entirely different way then what we consider normal?
Is my arm alive? When i cut it off is it murder, or is it's life a component of my life? Standard definitions are nice, but they don't work well for ethical situations (which is my focus of the topic) According to your definition a fetus is life, so ending that life could be murder. Got to be someone in here who wants to argue against that.
Is our use of "my life" wrong? Maybe we are just a community of living cells?
Definitions are easy to get, a philosophical standpoint on the definition is not.
AI would not inherently be possessed of a metabolism. Conjecture pertaining to as-yet undiscovered extraterrestrial life, whether metabolic or ametabolic, or pertaining to any aspect or attribute of the paranormal/supernatural is nothing more than angels-dancing-on-the-head-of-a-pin intellectual onanism - gratifying in the short term, perhaps, but ultimately neither productive nor satisfying.
Maybe survival responses could define life. Either survival of the species or life form itself. It would seem most desires originated from this first desire of survival (as evolution would dictate).
Regardless, i don't think anyone has touched on one of the points of the topic. Why do some life forms deserve more respect than others. Why can we kill a colony of ants, and not one dog?
Timeberlandko,
So then AI is not life? I usully like cut and dry responses. However, One day there might be an emotional, compassionate, and creative aritificial intelligence equal to our own humanity. I think its metabolism will not be the question of the media. But, your definition does fit all known cases of life.
Would you say a community is alive, with its collective will and morality?
Thanks Set. Don't take much to entertain some folks, eh :wink:
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