Re: MD what is life?

From: Nathan Pila (pila@sympatico.ca)
Date: Mon Nov 17 2003 - 20:55:55 GMT

  • Next message: Nathan Pila: "MD It is ALIVE!!"

    Wim,

    Think of a microbe swimming in a solution of nutrients. This microbe is made
    of molecules which obey the laws of physics and chemistry. If light is shone
    into the beaker from the bottom, the microbe swims up and away from the
    light because the photons breaks up some chemical bonds within its body and
    this decomposition lowers the density of the microbe and so the thing moves
    up. There is no intentionality here. It is just physics.

    Question: Is this microbe alive? If so, is a thermostat alive?

    Nathan

    ----- Original Message -----
    From: "Wim Nusselder" <wim.nusselder@antenna.nl>
    To: <moq_discuss@moq.org>
    Sent: Monday, November 17, 2003 2:16 AM
    Subject: Re: MD what is life?

    > Dear Trivik and Nathan,
    >
    > Inorganic crystals do NOT fit my definition of life. After having been
    > created, they don't show any behavior that could produce other crystals
    like
    > themselves. They don't reproduce THEMSELVES; they ARE reproduced.
    > Same with the falling action of dominos that spreads through the line.
    It's
    > gravity and no behavior that's 'hard-wired' in a domino that reproduces.
    >
    > Genes are part of a living entity. They cannot exist (i.e. would fall
    apart
    > almost immediately) outside their protecting cell environment. They are
    part
    > of the mechanism that all life (as we know it) uses to reproduce itself.
    >
    > Viruses are the lower borderline case. Their 'behavior' is extremely
    limited
    > to some enzymatic activity that enables them to enter living cells.
    >
    > I HAVE said how living entities reproduce themselves: 'by means of
    > "hard-wired" (instinctual, hormones, nerves, enzymes etc. directed)
    behavior
    > rather than by means of copied behavior (distinction from social level) or
    > motivated behavior (distinction from intellectual level)'. For this
    behavior
    > to have the reproducing effect, interaction with external patterns of
    value
    > is indeed necessary (some form of feeding, at least; even in the case of a
    > virus, that feeds on the cell it enters).
    >
    > A cell taking out of a living body can go on to reproduce itself for some
    > time in the right circumstances (the same kind of protection and feeding
    > that it gets inside the body). So one could legitimately call it 'alive'.
    A
    > gene taken out of a cell can not. It cannot 'feed' itself even if all the
    > separate amino-acids it is compesed of are swimming around. Humans can
    > insert it into another cell (making it part of another living entity),
    > however, but that's something different from calling the gene itself
    alive.
    >
    > With friendly greetings,
    >
    > Wim
    >
    >
    >
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