112: What is Life?

For some reason, videos I record on my webcam always have a/v sync issues. Sorry. :-(

The pyrrho314 (same number as Mozza) video I refer to:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Xg6BAEgKaHY

As I said, I'm looking for your personal take, not a technical explanation (unless a technical explanation IS your personal take). :-)

Video responses welcome!

Category:

Education

Tags:

• 5madheathens
• cousinomacul
• life
• alive
• philosophy

[Canteatpancakes]

"The definition game is very dangerous. So many people seem to assume there's a right answer that life is a true category in nature and objects carry union cards to declare whether they're alive or not. That's a mistake. The universe is filled with trillions of unique phenomena, some of which we all agree to call alive, some of which we're not so sure. But it's not that they are or aren't alive they're just what they are; no more and no less. Life is an invented concept."

-Steve Grand

[CousinoMacul]

It does get rather complicated, especially when you consider that many of the living systems that remain in the corpse, while not of the "same lineage", are direct descendants of systems that were symbiotic with YOU before the corpse state.

However, I see that objection as moot and irrelevant in the context of "person as metaphor for the universe being alive".

[CousinoMacul]

"PS. Your eyes! "

Then you'll really like my newest video--or "half" like it. ;-)

[CousinoMacul]

I like that.

[CousinoMacul]

Interesting.

[Mjhavok]

"...but a conjunction of related phenomena that different organisms..."

Isn't that a bit like what Hume's conception of consciousness was?

[Mjhavok]

Reading

What is Life? by Erwin Schrodinger (1944)

What is Life? by Ed Regis (2008)

[popebenadict16]

to me it means not being fucking dead.

[pyrrho314]

haha! yes the corpse is alive, the reason YOU are not alive once reduced to a corpse is the living systems in that corpse are not the same lineage, tracing continuity, as you... however, a fresh corpse does still have remnants of your actual living system still alive, so you are not quite dead, I guess, until your last cell goes... and if you procreated... sending a living cell (sperm or egg) into an independant body, it gets rather complicated eh? we are very old indeed.

[xxxchaindrive]

As I said, PERHAPS fire can be considered a form of life. It metabolizes fuel, and responds to stimuli, but it is most definitely not sentient.

I cannot consider plants as sentient either, as their response to stimuli is not a choice, but an automated response based on a genetically encoded need to metabolize fuel, and to a minuscule degree, avoid harm. On the other hand, sentient life, from the lowliest insect to the smartest human, makes certain choices based on either thought and/or instinct