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From: sa209@utb.shv.hb.se (Claes Andersson)
Subject: Re: "What is Life?"
Message-ID: <1995Feb6.125422.16120@gdunix.gd.chalmers.se>
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References: <3gn75n$f37@saturn.haverford.edu> <1995Feb3.042233.13217@gdunix.gd.chalmers.se> <3gufi0$2ak@engnews2.Eng.Sun.COM>
Date: Mon, 6 Feb 1995 19:13:03 GMT
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holtz@netcord.Eng.Sun.COM (Brian Holtz) wrote:
>In article <1995Feb3.042233.13217@gdunix.gd.chalmers.se>,
>Claes Andersson <sa209@utb.shv.hb.se> wrote:
>
>> I still go for the entropy-definition of life since reproduction isn't
>>something necessary for a living system itself.
>
>It's helpful to distinguish between the problem of describing the
>phenomenon called "life" and the problem of describing why we call a
>particular entity "alive".  An entity can be alive without being able
>to reproduce, but that does not necessarily imply that life is
>possible without reproduction.

What do we know about that, as I've said: Even if it's _highly_ unlikely
that a car just would materialize, it would still function just like a car.
We can therefor not say that construction is one of the definition of
a car. I natrually agree on that reproduction is a very likely feature of
a living system but it is still just a tool to obtain life.

Claes Andersson. University of Bors. Sweden
