|
 Seuss
Error: divide byzero
Registered: 04/27/01
Posts: 23,480
Loc: Caribbean
Last seen: 1 month, 1 day
|
 Define life? 
#3023101 - 08/19/04 11:38 AM (19 years, 3 months ago) |
|
|
I have been trying to come up with a good definition of life. So far, the best definition that I have found is: Life is the opposite of entropy. I am trying to find a definition that works for any form of life, real or imaginary (such as smart machines, alien beings, etc...)
Is this a good definition, or not. Can anybody come up with something better?
--------------------
Just another spore in the wind.
|
 gettinjiggywithit
jiggy
 
Registered: 07/20/04
Posts: 7,469
Loc: Heart of Laughter
|
Re: Define life? [Re: Seuss]
#3023159 - 08/19/04 11:46 AM (19 years, 3 months ago) |
|
|
To me, the opposite of entrophy means growth and expansion and if that be life, then trying to define it will only lead you back into entrophy 
--------------------
Ahuwale ka nane huna.
|
Zoso_UK
Zepoholic
Registered: 08/14/04
Posts: 291
Loc: Neverland
Last seen: 18 years, 7 months
|
Re: Define life? [Re: Seuss]
#3023227 - 08/19/04 11:57 AM (19 years, 3 months ago) |
|
|
Also, the only genetic mutations that have been witnessed by scientists thus far, to my knowledge, have been losses of genetic material suggesting that evolution is entropic too?
|
Seuss
Error: divide byzero
Registered: 04/27/01
Posts: 23,480
Loc: Caribbean
Last seen: 1 month, 1 day
|
Re: Define life? [Re: Zoso_UK]
#3023349 - 08/19/04 12:19 PM (19 years, 3 months ago) |
|
|
> Also, the only genetic mutations that have been witnessed by scientists thus far, to my knowledge, have been losses of genetic material
Most often are replacements... a T instead of a G, for example... seldom is something just dropped out. (from my limited understanding of this field)
--------------------
Just another spore in the wind.
|
Alan Stone
Corpus
Registered: 11/23/02
Posts: 986
Loc: Ten feet up
Last seen: 18 years, 5 months
|
Re: Define life? [Re: Seuss]
#3023991 - 08/19/04 02:44 PM (19 years, 3 months ago) |
|
|
There's a few criteria for life:
- Spontaneous self-reorganisation (production of entropy)
- Reproduction
- Chemical reaction to its environment
I think there's one more, but I forgot.
--------------------
It is the mark of an educated mind to be able to entertain a thought without accepting it.
- Aristotle
|
TODAY
Battletoad
Registered: 09/25/03
Posts: 10,218
Loc: Metropolis City, USA
|
Re: Define life? [Re: Seuss]
#3023994 - 08/19/04 02:46 PM (19 years, 3 months ago) |
|
|
life is a time period of sensory perception.
--------------------
ca'rouse (k-rouz)
intr.v.
To engage in boisterous, drunken merrymaking.
|
psyka
Praetorian
Registered: 06/09/03
Posts: 1,652
|
Re: Define life? [Re: TODAY]
#3024033 - 08/19/04 02:56 PM (19 years, 3 months ago) |
|
|
What constitutes as sensory perception?
--------------------
As the life of a candle,
my wick will burn out.
But, the fire of my mind
shall beam into infinite.
 
|
TODAY
Battletoad
Registered: 09/25/03
Posts: 10,218
Loc: Metropolis City, USA
|
Re: Define life? [Re: psyka]
#3024040 - 08/19/04 02:57 PM (19 years, 3 months ago) |
|
|
sight, sound, touch, and taste. and thought is simply how we organize and make sense of these things.
--------------------
ca'rouse (k-rouz)
intr.v.
To engage in boisterous, drunken merrymaking.
|
psyka
Praetorian
Registered: 06/09/03
Posts: 1,652
|
Re: Define life? [Re: TODAY]
#3024052 - 08/19/04 02:59 PM (19 years, 3 months ago) |
|
|
So are cells alive?
--------------------
As the life of a candle,
my wick will burn out.
But, the fire of my mind
shall beam into infinite.
|
kaiowas
lest we baguette
Registered: 07/14/03
Posts: 5,501
Loc: oz
|
Re: Define life? [Re: Seuss]
#3024053 - 08/19/04 02:59 PM (19 years, 3 months ago) |
|
|
life is the experience of being and dealing with yourself.
--------------------
Annnnnnd I had a light saber and my friend was there and I said "you look like an indian" and he said "you look like satan" and he found a stick and a rock and he named the rock ooga booga and he named the stick Stick and we both thought that was pretty funny. We got eaten alive by mosquitos but didn't notice til the next day. I stepped on some glass while wading in the swamp and cut my foot open, didn't bother me til the next day either....yeah it was a good time, ended the night by buying some liquor for minors and drinking nips and going to he diner and eating chicken fingers, and then I went home and went to bed.
|
TODAY
Battletoad
Registered: 09/25/03
Posts: 10,218
Loc: Metropolis City, USA
|
Re: Define life? [Re: psyka]
#3024088 - 08/19/04 03:07 PM (19 years, 3 months ago) |
|
|
Quote:
psyka said:
So are cells alive?
they are a part of something like a human's being, they are the small bits that make us a whole and alive being.
--------------------
ca'rouse (k-rouz)
intr.v.
To engage in boisterous, drunken merrymaking.
|
trendal
J♠
Registered: 04/17/01
Posts: 20,815
Loc: Ontario, Canada 
|
Re: Define life? [Re: Seuss]
#3024556 - 08/19/04 04:55 PM (19 years, 3 months ago) |
|
|
I like to think of "life" as just an abstracted form of chemistry. A chemical system which has become so complex that it is easier to take a step back in abstraction and call it "Life" than to treat it as just a chemical reaction.
Life: a chemical system of macromolecules which results in reproduction of the system itself.
--------------------
Once, men turned their thinking over to machines in the hope that this would set them free.
But that only permitted other men with machines to enslave them.
|
Strumpling
Neuronaut
Registered: 10/11/02
Posts: 7,571
Loc: Hyperspace
Last seen: 12 years, 6 months
|
Re: Define life? [Re: Seuss]
#3024567 - 08/19/04 05:01 PM (19 years, 3 months ago) |
|
|
"The property or quality that distinguishes living organisms from dead organisms and inanimate matter, manifested in functions such as metabolism, growth, consumption, reproduction, and response to stimuli or adaptation to the environment originating from within the organism."
--------------------
Insert an "I think" mentally in front of eveything I say that seems sketchy, because I certainly don't KNOW much. Also; feel free to yell at me.
In addition: SHPONGLE
|
schmektron
Vainglorious
Registered: 04/25/04
Posts: 263
Loc: Wrapped in an imbroglio
Last seen: 16 years, 10 months
|
Re: Define life? [Re: trendal]
#3024572 - 08/19/04 05:03 PM (19 years, 3 months ago) |
|
|
... "Life" also maintains a stable internal environment (homeostasis) and it also passes on genetic information (within DNA) via reproduction.
|
Zero7a1
Leaving YourWasteland
Registered: 10/23/02
Posts: 3,594
Loc: Passing Cloud
|
Re: Define life? [Re: Seuss]
#3026450 - 08/19/04 11:21 PM (19 years, 3 months ago) |
|
|
Life just is... the being.
--------------------
What?
|
Lightningfractal
Nutcase
Registered: 06/24/03
Posts: 14,899
Loc: Heaven and Hell
Last seen: 10 years, 9 months
|
Re: Define life? [Re: Seuss]
#3026517 - 08/19/04 11:35 PM (19 years, 3 months ago) |
|
|
Life is concious awareness.
--------------------
Hi how's it going, wanna kick Heroin basically painlessly on your own, in your own house, without any government "help" ,or the "help" of a crazy condescending, judgmental medical doctor? Read this:
https://www.shroomery.org/forums/showflat.php?Cat=0&Board=42&Number=7342616&page=0&fpart=all
|
the_phoenix
Stranger
Registered: 07/07/04
Posts: 541
Loc: Montreal, Quebec, Canada
Last seen: 16 years, 11 months
|
Re: Define life? [Re: Seuss]
#3026572 - 08/19/04 11:49 PM (19 years, 3 months ago) |
|
|
Consciousness, manifested.
|
shaggy101
Registered: 08/16/00
Posts: 1,816
Loc: ..still waiting for godot
Last seen: 10 years, 8 months
|
Re: Define life? [Re: Seuss]
#3027246 - 08/20/04 04:03 AM (19 years, 3 months ago) |
|
|
|
deafpanda
Stranger
Registered: 05/07/04
Posts: 984
Loc: Inguland
Last seen: 12 years, 1 month
|
Re: Define life? [Re: Seuss]
#3027302 - 08/20/04 05:13 AM (19 years, 3 months ago) |
|
|
An autonomous information processing system.
|
fredthetree
Stranger
Registered: 09/29/02
Posts: 473
Loc: Canada
Last seen: 18 years, 3 months
|
Re: Define life? [Re: Seuss]
#3027521 - 08/20/04 07:45 AM (19 years, 3 months ago) |
|
|
life is possibility.
actually.. i think there's more to that.
is there any possibility without life? (along the lines of, everything will happen but only by the laws of physics. life can either change things or not? falling tree in a forest with noone to hear?)
|
|
Threaded
Previous
Index
Next
Shop: Unfolding Nature: Being in the Implicate Order
Edit 
Reply 
1 2 3 all )
RRRR
OneWhoHasSeen
trendal
djd586
atomikfunksoldier
OrgoneConclusion
Anonymous
SpecialEd