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From: sa209@utb.shv.hb.se (Claes Andersson)
Subject: Re: "What is Life?"
Message-ID: <1995Feb5.130605.29606@gdunix.gd.chalmers.se>
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Date: Sun, 5 Feb 1995 19:24:41 GMT
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Merk <merk@krl.caltech.edu> wrote:
>>
>> Life is the ability to reproduce and evolve.  A more involved
>> definition is required if we want to be able to tell living things
>> from inanimate, unborn, and dead things.  An entity can be
>> considered alive if and only if it 1) is of a kind that usually can
>> reproduce and evolve, and 2) has achieved independence of a parent's
>> direct, continuous, and non-fungible assistance to its environmental
>> interactions, and 3) is able to reproduce or interact with its
>> environment.
>>
>> Thus:
>>
>> - Lt. Cmdr. Data isn't alive.
>
>I'm sorry, i just couldn't let this one pass. By your definitions, Data
>is alive. He can evolve faster then humans (i.e he can build himself a
>better part), he can reproduce (he can build a duplicate, or even an
>improved version of himself), he is no longer dependant upon any parent
>figure, and he can does interact with is enviorment.
>Now, just so i can't be flamed for posting irrelevant stuff, you could
>consider him an extremely advanced self-reproducing machine. And it has
>been debated wether such machines would be alive. And i would say that
>they are alive, once they break away from what we programmed them to do.
>Until they do that, i would just consider them tools. Although to be
>honest, i really dont think there can be a difinitive defintion of life
>for the simple reason that we really dont know what life is. I am not
>even sure if we have the words to express life. As much as it may gaul
>some of you who can't stand the though of not being to rigidly classify
>something, I think life will remain undefinable, at least for a while more.
>sorry

 I think some people, on the contrary, enjoys the thought of that there might
be things that cannot be classified. I think it is somethinh pseudo-theological
that it feels nice if life cannot be classified. However this is the same as
mixing two unmixable theories like creation and evolution to say that God
was the first toucher. This is convenient: You can believe what's obviously
best proved (proved at all) but still avoid to deny God since that wouldn't
be a very nice thing to do. You see it all the time.

 I don't say that you are such a person, absolutely not. I only say the the obvious
joy some people take in saying prophetically "Life cannot be classified!" is
a form of this fear of digging into something that's sort of taboo.

 Is there a reason that life cannot be classified? We can quite clearly see that
a deer lives and a rock doesn't. We have although, one single instance of life
to play with and that's a problem. But still, what is impossible and why would
it be impossible to express?

Claes Andersson. University of Bors. Sweden.
