Non-biological "life"? Here on Earth?

[Hee_Zen]

Many people will wonder: “what on Earth does this guy talk about”? Non-carbon based “life”? Well, it depends on how life is “defined”. Biologists define life with some important attributes, namely maintaining their homeostasis in a changing environment, and responding to complex stimuli with complex responses. Sometimes they mention “growth”, “metabolism” and “reproduction”, too. But they are quick to point out that not all of these attributes are necessary to classify an organism as “living”.

Almost all so-called living organisms are DNA based - but not all. There are simple organisms which are RNA based, and they exhibit the necessary attributes for calling them “alive”. Viruses have almost no DNA, yet they are “alive”. They reproduce, they react to outside stimuli, they evolve, they change their internal structure according the needs dictated by the environment. So they are alive.

Well, maybe you just suppressed a big yawn and say, sure, but this is ancient news. What is the big deal? The “big deal” is this: not for nothing are the computer viruses called “viruses”. They exhibit the same behavior as their biological counterparts do: "they stay alive in a hostile environment, they evolve (change) when necessary, they replicate themselves and “infest” new hosts. Sometimes they even “kill” their hosts. So they qualify as “living entities” just like the biological viruses do.

Some people will try to argue, but what if the infested computer is “turned off”? To that the answer is easy: “what if the infested living body is “turned off”?” We all live in a very specific environment, and if the environment changes we all die.

So the conclusion is simple; non-biological life is HERE and it is here to stay. It is able to evolve, to change, to replicate itself it is able to do everything that “life” is supposed to do. So all you naysayers, who assert the impossibility of non-biological life, take notice: “you are wrong”! And this life has no “soul”, needs no “soul”. The concept of “soul” as animating principle is gone, dead and buried.

 

[crumblymunky]

Here’s your sign.

 

[Linusthe2nd]

Many people will wonder: “what on Earth does this guy talk about”? Non-carbon based “life”? Well, it depends on how life is “defined”. Biologists define life with some important attributes, namely maintaining their homeostasis in a changing environment, and responding to complex stimuli with complex responses. Sometimes they mention “growth”, “metabolism” and “reproduction”, too. But they are quick to point out that not all of these attributes are necessary to classify an organism as “living”.

Almost all so-called living organisms are DNA based - but not all. There are simple organisms which are RNA based, and they exhibit the necessary attributes for calling them “alive”. Viruses have almost no DNA, yet they are “alive”. They reproduce, they react to outside stimuli, they evolve, they change their internal structure according the needs dictated by the environment. So they are alive.

Well, maybe you just suppressed a big yawn and say, sure, but this is ancient news. What is the big deal? The “big deal” is this: not for nothing are the computer viruses called “viruses”. They exhibit the same behavior as their biological counterparts do: "they stay alive in a hostile environment, they evolve (change) when necessary, they replicate themselves and “infest” new hosts. Sometimes they even “kill” their hosts. So they qualify as “living entities” just like the biological viruses do.

Some people will try to argue, but what if the infested computer is “turned off”? To that the answer is easy: “what if the infested living body is “turned off”?” We all live in a very specific environment, and if the environment changes we all die.

So the conclusion is simple; non-biological life is HERE and it is here to stay. It is able to evolve, to change, to replicate itself it is able to do everything that “life” is supposed to do. So all you naysayers, who assert the impossibility of non-biological life, take notice: “you are wrong”! And this life has no “soul”, needs no “soul”. The concept of “soul” as animating principle is gone, dead and buried.

Let me know when you find a virus I can buy cheep and train to go out and get my paper on cold, rainy, or snowy days. Then I will agree you may have an intelligent argument.

Linus2nd

 

[KidCatholic1]

Computer viruses are not living. They only exist as computer code, so cannot have DNA or RNA. They also lack cells. Cells are key to life. Cells are the smallest thing that carries out life functions. Also, living things need energy through metabolism to live. Hacking a computer I don’t think counts as obtaining energy in the sense of something natural like glucose. Besides, there is anecdotal evidence that you should consider when addressing the existence of a soul. I know it is not concrete, but it should get you thinking. Ultimately, viruses SEEM alive but ultimately do not have cells or DNA, they are small computer programs to attack.

worldnewsdailyreport.com/german-scientists-prove-there-is-life-after-death/
listverse.com/2014/02/15/10-reasons-there-might-be-an-afterlife/
independent.co.uk/news/science/life-after-death-largestever-study-provides-evidence-that-out-of-body-and-neardeath-experiences-may-actually-be-real-9780195.html

I think there is enough evidence out there to rationally believe in some sort of life or consciousness after one dies.

 

[Hee_Zen]

Let me know when you find a virus I can buy cheep and train to go out and get my paper on cold, rainy, or snowy days. Then I will agree you may have an intelligent argument.

Just turn off your built-in virus protection programs and you will have a lot of nasty viruses attacking our computer. You don’t have to spend a dollar to “buy” them.

Computer viruses are not living, as the cannot evolve without the help of the one programming it.

Sure… so what? You would be a non-thinking idiot if you would not have been raised and educated by your parents and your teachers at school.

They also only exist as computer code, so cannot have DNA or RNA. They also lack cells. Cells are key to life. Cells are the smallest thing that carries out life functions.

Only according to your uneducated preconceptions. I am not talking about “biologically active life”, but about “life” in general. Which is nothing more than exhibiting a complex behavior when faced with complex stimuli, and propagating themselves (replication) and adapting to new environments. As such, computer viruses are alive in the proper sense of the word.

 

[KidCatholic1]

Just turn off your built-in virus protection programs and you will have a lot of nasty viruses attacking our computer. You don’t have to spend a dollar to “buy” them.

Sure… so what? You would be a non-thinking idiot if you would not have been raised and educated by your parents and your teachers at school.

Only according to your uneducated preconceptions. I am not talking about “biologically active life”, but about “life” in general. Which is nothing more than exhibiting a complex behavior when faced with complex stimuli, and propagating themselves (replication) and adapting to new environments. As such, computer viruses are alive in the proper sense of the word.

Definition of life according to dictionary.com: the condition that distinguishes organisms from inorganic objects and dead organisms, being manifested by growth through metabolism, reproduction, and the power of adaptation to environment through changes originating internally. Your criticism does not change the fact that there is a separation of biological and “non-biological life”. Biological life can only have a soul (obviously). Your “life” may have life like qualities but is not life. By your logic, a stream of water is “life.” It can grow, it reacts to the environment, and it adapts to the landscape. Souls are present only in truly living things that ARE CARBON BASED LIFE in the biosphere, AKA the Earth. Good night.

 

[Peter_Plato]

Many people will wonder: “what on Earth does this guy talk about”? Non-carbon based “life”? Well, it depends on how life is “defined”. Biologists define life with some important attributes, namely maintaining their homeostasis in a changing environment, and responding to complex stimuli with complex responses. Sometimes they mention “growth”, “metabolism” and “reproduction”, too. But they are quick to point out that not all of these attributes are necessary to classify an organism as “living”.

Almost all so-called living organisms are DNA based - but not all. There are simple organisms which are RNA based, and they exhibit the necessary attributes for calling them “alive”. Viruses have almost no DNA, yet they are “alive”. They reproduce, they react to outside stimuli, they evolve, they change their internal structure according the needs dictated by the environment. So they are alive.

Well, maybe you just suppressed a big yawn and say, sure, but this is ancient news. What is the big deal? The “big deal” is this: not for nothing are the computer viruses called “viruses”. They exhibit the same behavior as their biological counterparts do: "they stay alive in a hostile environment, they evolve (change) when necessary, they replicate themselves and “infest” new hosts. Sometimes they even “kill” their hosts. So they qualify as “living entities” just like the biological viruses do.

Some people will try to argue, but what if the infested computer is “turned off”? To that the answer is easy: “what if the infested living body is “turned off”?” We all live in a very specific environment, and if the environment changes we all die.

So the conclusion is simple; non-biological life is HERE and it is here to stay. It is able to evolve, to change, to replicate itself it is able to do everything that “life” is supposed to do. So all you naysayers, who assert the impossibility of non-biological life, take notice: “you are wrong”! And this life has no “soul”, needs no “soul”. The concept of “soul” as animating principle is gone, dead and buried.

Either that or your argument is a reductio ad absurdum for the inadequacy of your “functional” definition of life. In spite of the terror I feel at being called a “naysayer” by you, I vote the latter.

What you are doing, I suspect, is using a set of descriptions of what living things do as definitive of what life really is. I don’t think scientists truly understand what it means to be “living” in the full sense of the word, so using descriptors as you have to argue that computer viruses are “living” according to what they do instead of what they are seems somewhat tenuous.

By the way, haven’t ever (well, since 1994, anyway) had virus protection on my computers and have yet to encounter a virus. So count me a “naysayer” on that claim, as well. Shudder.

 

[ThinkingSapien]

By the way, haven’t ever (well, since 1994, anyway) had virus protection on my computers and have yet to encounter a virus. So count me a “naysayer” on that claim, as well. Shudder.

Not that it matters much, but presently ISPs and home personal routers act as a first line of defense against viruses and other uninvited guest. Methods of distribution that don’t require user intervention tend to be more effective within a network (ex: across a school campus’s network or within the network of a business) but have to be introduced to that network by other means (ex: some one with an infected machine carries it to work and plugs it into the network).

Most of the viruses that I encounter (but haven’t been infected by) now days seem to try to get around using social media or are applications that claim to be virus detection. It’s been difficult getting others to understand how to recognize real protection from hoax protection.

 

[inocente]

Computer viruses are not living. They only exist as computer code, so cannot have DNA or RNA. They also lack cells. Cells are key to life. Cells are the smallest thing that carries out life functions. Also, living things need energy through metabolism to live.

By that definition, angels and God must be dead.

Oops, I hear you say.

Many people will wonder: “what on Earth does this guy talk about”?

Suppose a spaceship landed and out walked aliens who could write wonderful poetry, play soulful music, debate deep philosophy, practice a spiritual religion. But then it was found they are not carbon-based, they come from a civilization of machines.

According to previous posts, we know for sure what being alive means, and that means the aliens can’t possibly be alive.

Enslave them! Break them up for spare parts! It’s the Catholic thing to do!

Except that the Catholic Encyclopedia seems more inclined to take your side: “The enigma of life is still one of the two or three most difficult problems that face both scientist and philosopher”

As does the Stanford: “There have been three main philosophical approaches to the problem of defining life that remain relevant today: Aristotle’s view of life as animation, a fundamental, irreducible property of nature; Descartes’s view of life as mechanism; and Kant’s view of life as organization, to which we need to add Darwin’s concept of variation and evolution through natural selection (Gayon 2010; Morange 2008). In addition we may add the idea of defining life as an emergent property of particular kinds of complex systems (Weber 2010).”

Now where could you find a philosophy forum to discuss this philosophical question and not just get pat answers?

 

[KidCatholic1]

By that definition, angels and God must be dead.

Oops, I hear you say.

No, because they are not subject to the laws of our physical universe. Heaven, God, and angels live/exist outside the physical boundaries that bind us, not them. Besides, don’t we have physical bodies in Heaven? And I’m sure a conscious for robot aliens wouldn’t make them biologically living, but living in his sense, without a soul. Perhaps consciousness can exist with out a soul, but only organisms (biological) can have souls.

forums.catholic-questions.org/showthread.php?t=579747

 

[Hee_Zen]

Now where could you find a philosophy forum to discuss this philosophical question and not just get pat answers?

Where indeed?

Even among biologists there is a differing opinion where the line is between the “living” and “inanimate” matter. Some consider the viruses to be “alive”, others do not. But if the biological viruses are “alive”, then so are the “computer viruses”. The only definition for “life” is descriptive: “complex responses to complex stimuli” and “maintaining its homeostasis in a changing environment”.

 

[Amandil]

I’m borrowing from an acquaintance:


A perfect example of soneone who hasn’t been taught how to think.
Hee Zen:

How do you know that the rock is NOT alive?

 

[Peter_Plato]

Where indeed?

The only definition for “life” is descriptive…

The fact that your “descriptive” criteria for life does not allow you to distinguish between rocks and living things means that it fails to be an adequate definition even though it is the only one that ostensibly “intellectual” humans can come up with.

Reductio ad absurdum in action.

If it walks like an absurd definition it is an absurd definition.

 

[Linusthe2nd]

By that definition, angels and God must be dead.

Oops, I hear you say.

Suppose a spaceship landed and out walked aliens who could write wonderful poetry, play soulful music, debate deep philosophy, practice a spiritual religion. But then it was found they are not carbon-based, they come from a civilization of machines.

According to previous posts, we know for sure what being alive means, and that means the aliens can’t possibly be alive.

Enslave them! Break them up for spare parts! It’s the Catholic thing to do!

Except that the Catholic Encyclopedia seems more inclined to take your side: “The enigma of life is still one of the two or three most difficult problems that face both scientist and philosopher”

As does the Stanford: “There have been three main philosophical approaches to the problem of defining life that remain relevant today: Aristotle’s view of life as animation, a fundamental, irreducible property of nature; Descartes’s view of life as mechanism; and Kant’s view of life as organization, to which we need to add Darwin’s concept of variation and evolution through natural selection (Gayon 2010; Morange 2008). In addition we may add the idea of defining life as an emergent property of particular kinds of complex systems (Weber 2010).”

Now where could you find a philosophy forum to discuss this philosophical question and not just get pat answers?

Or a steady stream of negativity ?

Linus2nd

 

[MPat]

The only definition for “life” is descriptive: “complex responses to complex stimuli” and “maintaining its homeostasis in a changing environment”.

No, it it not the only definition. See Feser’s blog - edwardfeser.blogspot.com/2014/03/stop-it-youre-killing-me.html - for another one - “Living things, the Scholastic holds, are those which exhibit immanent causation as well as transeunt (or “transient”) causation; non-living things exhibit transeunt causation alone.” (and “Immanent causal processes are those which terminate within the cause and tend to its good or flourishing (even if they also have effects external to the cause).”).

In fact, it is not even the only definition compatible with Materialism. Engels (yes, the one of the “trinity” “Marx, Engels, Lenin”) has offered another one: “Life is the mode of existence of protein bodies, the essential element of which consists in continual metabolic interchange with the natural environment outside them, and which ceases with the cessation of this metabolism, bringing about the decomposition of the protein.” (marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1883/don/ch07g.htm)…

And neither of these definitions leads to your conclusions…

 

[Hee_Zen]

The fact that your “descriptive” criteria for life does not allow you to distinguish between rocks and living things means that it fails to be an adequate definition even though it is the only one that ostensibly “intellectual” humans can come up with.

You all miss the point. The rock example simply points out the difficulty of defining what life is. I never asserted that the rock is alive, I only asked the question of “how do you know that it is not alive”? How do you find out the lack of metabolism, the lack of motion, the lack of growth, the lack of communication, etc… if that seemingly inanimate matter performs all these actions, but so slowly that during a whole human lifetime its activity is too slow to be recognizable?

The example is unfortunately not mine. I borrowed if from Michael Crichton’s excellent book: “The Andromeda Strain”.

 

[Hee_Zen]

No, it it not the only definition.

Oh, well. People can up with all sorts of definitions. Some make sense, others do not. We are a very inventive species, with a vivid imagination. Just look at the plethora of imaginary beings invented by humans, starting with “false (haha!)” gods, angels, demons, leprechauns, dragons, etc…

 

[Amandil]

You all miss the point. The rock example simply points out the difficulty of defining what life is. I never asserted that the rock is alive, I only asked the question of “how do you know that it is not alive”? How do you find out the lack of metabolism, the lack of motion, the lack of growth, the lack of communication, etc… if that seemingly inanimate matter performs all these actions, but so slowly that during a whole human lifetime its activity is too slow to be recognizable?

The example is unfortunately not mine. I borrowed if from Michael Crichton’s excellent book: “The Andromeda Strain”.

The point of citing your own question is that you apparently don’t understand how logic works; it’s an argument from ignorance.

 

[MPat]

Oh, well. People can up with all sorts of definitions. Some make sense, others do not.

I’m afraid that is not really an answer.

It does not even say if you accept any definitions (offered by you, by Feser, by Engels etc.) as “making sense”, not to mention why would you accept or refuse to accept them…

We are a very inventive species, with a vivid imagination. Just look at the plethora of imaginary beings invented by humans, starting with “false (haha!)” gods, angels, demons, leprechauns, dragons, etc…

Or red herrings…

 

[Hee_Zen]

I’m afraid that is not really an answer.

That is your own problem. It is funny that no one takes the effort to reflect upon the quandary of the biologists, who are unable to come to a consensus about the diving line between the “living” and “inanimate” matter. And it is remarkable, since the very subject of biology is to study “life”, and yet the biologists are unable to define it.