Define life
This post is about another one of my musings.
Take one string of thought and take it to it's logical conclusion. What do you get? Well - something like the following...
What exactly is life? How do we define what lives and what does not? How complex does a being have to be to qualify as being alive. What special attributes does a being need to have to qualify as life? What exactly IS a being anyway? We'll take a look at some of these questions here. I do not promise any answers, just a few ideas that should hopefully make you think beyond the usual view you may hold.
Looking at a human being, life seems to be defined, in the most basic terms, as a complex biochemical reaction capable of sustaining itself beyond the normally expected duration. I define it thus because that is precisely what we are - an amazingly complex collection incredibly complex biochemical reactions. And we go ahead and sustain this "life" by adding fuel to sustain the biochemical reactors we possess within our body. EVERYTHING about us has to do with chemistry. Complex organic biochemistry, but chemistry none-the-less. This includes simple metabolism to complex feelings, emotions and thoughts (watch out for a blog on the chemical nature of emotions and feelings, coming soon).
By that perspective, we are a walking talking chemical reactor. Nothing more, nothing less. Everything we do, feel or think is nothing more than sets of chemical reactions.
Extending that principle and looking around us for more examples of systems fitting into this definition of life - let's consider a test-tube with 2 reagents undergoing a chemical reaction to form new compounds. Is it life? Probably not, because the reaction can't sustain itself. But who knows... perhaps it's an incredibly short-spanned life - one without comprehension. Perhaps like a newborn infant that's doomed to not live past it's first few minutes. Perhaps it's the boundary of life - and then again, maybe not.
Let's look at the Sun and the stars. Incredible scale. Self-contained systems. Self-sustaining systems (they generate heat because of gravity and nuclead fusion). Giant chemical reactors. They even seem to have an instinct for survival (the whole phenomenon of going "nova" in order to avoid collapsing into a black-hole).
Seems to be closer to our definition of life, doesn't it? So are the stars alive? Are they living beacons of the universe? Have we been looking for life elsewhere in the universe when it was everywhere and we just could not see it? Perhaps.
Let's look at another aspect of life. Consider a human being. Apart from having one single consciousness per body, we are anything but one single being. We have BILLIONS of tiny bacteria, viruses and other organisms living within our body. Most of them are essential for our survival (indeed, for without most of our gut flora, we'd die of gut infections very very quickly). We have very tiny organisms called mitochondria within our cells, which enable our cells to use the energy they get (indeed, and mitochondria are called the powerhouse of an animal cell). These are speculated as being independent organisms which have been integrated into the animal cell a long time ago. Most of the cells of our body have independent life. In our lifetime, we give birth and lose countless cells in our body.
Where is all this leading? Well, I was attempting to demonstrate that the definition of life can also be extended to complex systems comprising of individual life-forms, all functioning together in the system. Some benefitting the system, some harming it. But in all, they stabilize the system so that it gradually sustains itself, and therefore qualifies as a life form.
Looking around us in another attempt to find paralells - some social insects like ants and honey-bees immediately spring to mind. A multitude of individual life forms (as we perceive them) working together for what seems to be a collective. Is an entire beehive or ant colony an individual life form? Possibly so, by the perspective mentioned above.
Are entire eco-systems life-forms? Again possibly.
Is the entire earth a lifeform? Once more, possibly. A life form comprised of countless individual life forms. Are the ocean currents, wind currents, the rain cycle etc akin to blood? Are individual eco-systems organs of this being (with the blue-green algae of the oceans perhaps being the lungs since they generate most of the oxygen of the world)? Perhaps. Are we just cells in one big giant body? Just possibly.
I think this is long enough for a blog post. Watch out for a follow-up post on yet another perspective. Hope you found this one interesting.
Take one string of thought and take it to it's logical conclusion. What do you get? Well - something like the following...
What exactly is life? How do we define what lives and what does not? How complex does a being have to be to qualify as being alive. What special attributes does a being need to have to qualify as life? What exactly IS a being anyway? We'll take a look at some of these questions here. I do not promise any answers, just a few ideas that should hopefully make you think beyond the usual view you may hold.
Looking at a human being, life seems to be defined, in the most basic terms, as a complex biochemical reaction capable of sustaining itself beyond the normally expected duration. I define it thus because that is precisely what we are - an amazingly complex collection incredibly complex biochemical reactions. And we go ahead and sustain this "life" by adding fuel to sustain the biochemical reactors we possess within our body. EVERYTHING about us has to do with chemistry. Complex organic biochemistry, but chemistry none-the-less. This includes simple metabolism to complex feelings, emotions and thoughts (watch out for a blog on the chemical nature of emotions and feelings, coming soon).
By that perspective, we are a walking talking chemical reactor. Nothing more, nothing less. Everything we do, feel or think is nothing more than sets of chemical reactions.
Extending that principle and looking around us for more examples of systems fitting into this definition of life - let's consider a test-tube with 2 reagents undergoing a chemical reaction to form new compounds. Is it life? Probably not, because the reaction can't sustain itself. But who knows... perhaps it's an incredibly short-spanned life - one without comprehension. Perhaps like a newborn infant that's doomed to not live past it's first few minutes. Perhaps it's the boundary of life - and then again, maybe not.
Let's look at the Sun and the stars. Incredible scale. Self-contained systems. Self-sustaining systems (they generate heat because of gravity and nuclead fusion). Giant chemical reactors. They even seem to have an instinct for survival (the whole phenomenon of going "nova" in order to avoid collapsing into a black-hole).
Seems to be closer to our definition of life, doesn't it? So are the stars alive? Are they living beacons of the universe? Have we been looking for life elsewhere in the universe when it was everywhere and we just could not see it? Perhaps.
Let's look at another aspect of life. Consider a human being. Apart from having one single consciousness per body, we are anything but one single being. We have BILLIONS of tiny bacteria, viruses and other organisms living within our body. Most of them are essential for our survival (indeed, for without most of our gut flora, we'd die of gut infections very very quickly). We have very tiny organisms called mitochondria within our cells, which enable our cells to use the energy they get (indeed, and mitochondria are called the powerhouse of an animal cell). These are speculated as being independent organisms which have been integrated into the animal cell a long time ago. Most of the cells of our body have independent life. In our lifetime, we give birth and lose countless cells in our body.
Where is all this leading? Well, I was attempting to demonstrate that the definition of life can also be extended to complex systems comprising of individual life-forms, all functioning together in the system. Some benefitting the system, some harming it. But in all, they stabilize the system so that it gradually sustains itself, and therefore qualifies as a life form.
Looking around us in another attempt to find paralells - some social insects like ants and honey-bees immediately spring to mind. A multitude of individual life forms (as we perceive them) working together for what seems to be a collective. Is an entire beehive or ant colony an individual life form? Possibly so, by the perspective mentioned above.
Are entire eco-systems life-forms? Again possibly.
Is the entire earth a lifeform? Once more, possibly. A life form comprised of countless individual life forms. Are the ocean currents, wind currents, the rain cycle etc akin to blood? Are individual eco-systems organs of this being (with the blue-green algae of the oceans perhaps being the lungs since they generate most of the oxygen of the world)? Perhaps. Are we just cells in one big giant body? Just possibly.
I think this is long enough for a blog post. Watch out for a follow-up post on yet another perspective. Hope you found this one interesting.
posted by the grim sleeper at 6:47 PM
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