The Scientific Definition of Life

[RestoringGuy]

Spastic Ink, allow me to feebly attempt to break the tit-for-tat replies and say with a bit of sarcasm that I am not alive by your thinking.  You see, I do not move by myself but to move I must absorb nutrients and breathe air.  I do not act alone, nor do I have a non-environmental or magical source of internal motion.When you throw a rock, there is a sense that the rock moves "all on its own" after it has been thrown.  You will no doubt trace the history of the rock and say something like I would:  "the rock moves only as a byproduct of having been thrown".   But I argue life does not break any laws of gravity or physics, and lifeforms move only as a byproduct of reproduction, food intake, respiration, etc. -- all of which are subtle exchanges with the environment.  When a rock is thrown into the air by a volcano (a natural process), the rock receives energy from the environment.  So do I receive energy when food and air are found near my face causing me to consume them.  Neither the rock nor I can suddenly, and without environmental input, move totally all on our own.  People can trace back their source of motion to some prior environmental exchange, such as eating a hamburger.Now if the rock is not alive because its exchange is so simple, and living motion is complex and unpredictable and involves previously-eaten things like hamburgers,  then that idea is going somewhere (pun intended).  That's why I believe dynamical systems are involved, and why I make the case for prediction as an objective indicator of life.    But my theory makes little sense, if you are alive and can truly move all on your own.  If you move on your own, and nothing whatsoever externally moves your legs, then you should not require more oxygen from the environment when you run at full speed.  You can just breathe at one constant rate.  It is only you doing the moving, and the outside air should have nothing to do with it.

[Spastic Ink]

“ Imake the case for prediction as an objective indicator of life”

 

Circular as itrequires a living thing to predict as explained several times before. A livingthing is not that which requires another living thing to predict. Repetition isnot an argument. Sorry.

 

 

“If you move on yourown, and nothing whatsoever externally moves your legs, then you should notrequire more oxygen from the environment when you run at full speed.”

 

Oxygen does not comein contact with and push/pull (move) your legs. You can move your legs byyourself when you are sealed in a vacuum or floating in outer space. At least I can, even if you refuse to do so in order to advance your claim. Thissimple test refutes your claim that an object is moving your legs on yourbehalf and forcing you to walk to work against your will.

 

 

“You see, I do notmove by myself but to move I must absorb nutrients and breathe air.”

 

 

Before you can absorb(action) or perform any other action you’d like to use as an excuse to avoidthe inevitable, you must move on your own to do it. Before you reproduce youmust move on your own. Before you intake food you must move on your own. Beforeyou respire you must move on your own. Before you X, where X is any verb, youmust move on your own. It’s inescapable no matter how hard you try to weaselyour way out of it. This is so fundamental that it's impossible to argue otherwise. But keep trying, we can do this forever. That’s why you couldn’t provide me with a single example(as I asked) of a living thing that cannot move on its own. Rocks don’t move ontheir own as they require another thing to either push or pull them.

[Guest darkskyabove]

@RestoringGuy: I have noticed your enthusiasm for debate, even with some of the most stubborn people on this forum. (And yes, I can be very stubborn, but I've been improving.) I would just point out that, except for a few bright spots, this thread has the appearance of a darkened troll cave. When you have people advancing wild assertions and defending them with arrogant repetition it does not qualify as debate. But to read someone blame another for fallacious reasoning, and commit the exact same fallacy in the exact same post, borders on being insulting. Case in point: if it is circular reasoning to claim prediction as an objective indicator of life, how much more obvious is the circularity in the claim that to intake food one must move on their own, when there will be no movement without the energy from the food? [head2wall]

[RestoringGuy]

Oxygen does not come in contact with and push/pull (move) your legs. You can move your legs by yourself when you are sealed in a vacuum or floating in outer space. At least I can, even if you refuse to do so in order to advance your claim. This simple test refutes your claim that an object is moving your legs on your behalf and forcing you to walk to work against your will.

No oxygen is in contact with my legs causing them to move?  Oxygen is in my blood delivered by my lungs.  My lungs do not do this on their own, but have stored energy from a previous breath.  Oxygen will come in contact with my legs and, by a regulated chemical reaction delivers force to my legs to move.  Deprived of oxygen my legs go numb and stop moving.  Who said anything about will?  Plants are alive too and you accept them as moving whenever sunshine causes their growth.

Before you intake food you must move on your own. Before you respire you must move on your own. Before you X, where X is any verb, you must move on your own. It’s inescapable no matter how hard you try to weasel your way out of it.

I'll weasel.  Before I did X, a movement W was done to me which provides me the energy to do X.  Before this energetic prior cause W was done (by air pressure, my mother's womb, or who knows what), some movement V was done to cause W to happen.  It is not deterministic, but such movement at least has a necessary flow of energy and prior cause.  In this pattern of tracing history X,W,V,U,... none of these movements were done purely on their own, except maybe the original letter A (the big bang) if there was such a thing.

If you are physically responding on this board on your own, your movements needed to respond are not caused by what you read here.  You do your verbs all on your own and it is sheer coincidence we appear to write about the same topic.  I however, being non-alive (sarcasm again), I am caused to type this reply as one possible consequence of your typed words.  You should have no cause to present further disagreement, because you are not reacting to anything posted here but you're just acting alone.

 

[RestoringGuy]

 

@RestoringGuy: I have noticed your enthusiasm for debate, even with some of the most stubborn people on this forum. (And yes, I can be very stubborn, but I've been improving.) I would just point out that, except for a few bright spots, this thread has the appearance of a darkened troll cave. When you have people advancing wild assertions and defending them with arrogant repetition it does not qualify as debate. But to read someone blame another for fallacious reasoning, and commit the exact same fallacy in the exact same post, borders on being insulting. Case in point: if it is circular reasoning to claim prediction as an objective indicator of life, how much more obvious is the circularity in the claim that to intake food one must move on their own, when there will be no movement without the energy from the food? /emoticons/head2wall.gif

 

I would not try to sway who is responded to.  But when the error is repeated it becomes a set of examples.  I had hoped my idea for "prediction" would be thought of not as "prediction that is actually done by some guy".  Rather I meant "prediction that can, in principle, be done by any machine, apparatus, or arbitrary form or shape (real or possibly real) that can statistically correlate one event with another."  For example, dark clouds predict rain.

[Spastic Ink]

“Oxygen will come incontact with my legs”

 

All you’ve said isthat your leg is comprised of components, like atoms. You are not talking aboutthe leg object anymore, but about what comprises it. You conveniently switchedcontexts to go off in an irrelevant tangent.

Your leg does not comein contact with what comprises it. Contact only happens between externalentities. Oxygen in your blood may come in contact with iron atoms, etc. Butnot with your leg. Only a soccer ball can do that. A house can come in contact witha baseball, but not with the brick that comprises it. The brick is in contactwith other bricks, mortar, etc. You can either point to the house or the brick,but not both at the same time and in the same sense/context. Only a separateentity can come in contact with the house. You are confusing composition (manyentities) with discreteness (a single entity).

In a vacuum no oxygenor other entity is coming in contact with your bare legs and moving them onyour behalf. Your body moves on its own in space without the influence of anyother object. And this is what refutes your claim. You are free to theorize howliving things move, but this is after the fact and irrelevant to actuallydefining what alive means.

 

 

“Deprived of oxygenmy legs go numb and stop moving.”

 

 

Is this yet anotherprediction (other than the knife stabbing the heart) that refutes yourdefinition of what is alive? You said living things react unpredictably, yetnow you are claiming they react predictably. Quite contradictory.

[RestoringGuy]

Spastic, by the conventions you seem to use, atoms (like oxygen) that enter into my leg now must properly constitute my leg itself.   I will accept your definition, so long as you hold non-living compositions to the same standard of considering only what happens, as you say, between external entities.  At the current point in the discussion, an object is said to be alive because it moves on its own and any internal atom inside counts as part of "it".

Now if freeze and thaw cycles over time cause a rock to crack and fall apart, and the rock was not externally impacted by any entity during this process, has the rock not moved on its own?  Is this not atomically a bit like sunlight causing a plant to grow and the plant is therefore said to move on its own?

My answer to your question is no.  I do not believe I ever said living things always react unpredictably.  They have only a limited ability to do so, and I accept my definition as imperfect and worthy of improvement.

[Spastic Ink]

“so long as you holdnon-living compositions to the same standard”

 

Sure we have to.That’s why we also have to point out that a dead man does indeed have oxygenatoms in his body, yet this oxygen is not moving his body. But regardless,theorizing why a thing is alive has to do with the theory of abiogenesis. Youcan theorize how atoms come together to form a living thing, but you need todefine what a living thing is before you can do that, otherwise you have noclue what you are theorizing about.

 

 

“freeze and thawcycles over time cause a rock to crack and fall apart”

 

Sure they do, but theexternal agent responsible is water. All these questions can be answered withsome minimum research on the science, the geology, etc. behind it. Look up“weathering” in wikipedia: “When waterthat has entered the joints freezes, the ice formed strains the walls of thejoints and causes the joints to deepen and widen. When the ice thaws, water canflow further into the rock. Repeated freeze-thaw cycles weaken the rocks which,over time, break up along the joints into angular pieces.”

The rock can be broken downinto sand just as it does at the beach, but the rock didn’t do this by itself,like a human does when he mutilates his body to pieces. Rocks cannot move by themselves.What seems magical (ie. Rock turning into sand) can be understood by doing someresearch on the topic. You should educate yourself on these simple topicsbefore throwing them into the discussion as unknown magical phenomena.

 

 

“I do not believe Iever said living things always react unpredictably.”

“4.  Livingthings react unpredictably and environment provides metabolic indicators neededto maintain this reaction. #4 is my advice I humbly submit for critique.”

 

 

That’s what you saidand I critiqued it as per your request. First you said they react unpredictably.Then you changed your mind after I pointed out that your statements show themas reacting predictably. Now you say they react unpredictably sometimes,whenever you want them depending on your argument. You are being inconsistentwhich leads to contradictions as I pointed out.

[RestoringGuy]

Sure they do, but the
external agent responsible is water. All these questions can be answered with
some minimum research on the science, the geology, etc. behind it. Look up
“weathering” in wikipedia: “When water
that has entered the joints freezes, the ice formed strains the walls of the
joints and causes the joints to deepen and widen. When the ice thaws, water can
flow further into the rock. Repeated freeze-thaw cycles weaken the rocks which,
over time, break up along the joints into angular pieces.”

The water is not external and properly constitutes the rock itself.  Your standard, remember?  Ice chunks can crack too when subjected to temperature change.  If you can treat liquid and solid bits of H2O inside the same chunk as different "external agent" objects causing ice to move, then why do you not agree my blood and internal oxygen are external agents contacting my leg causing it to move?

That’s what you said
and I critiqued it as per your request. First you said they react unpredictably.
Then you changed your mind after I pointed out that your statements show them
as reacting predictably. Now you say they react unpredictably sometimes,
whenever you want them depending on your argument. You are being inconsistent
which leads to contradictions as I pointed out.

Indeed, you assumed I meant "always".  Modify my sentence to "can sometimes react".  Oh, and by the way, I should say "plants can sometimes grow" instead of "plants grow".

[Spastic Ink]

“The water is notexternal and properly constitutes the rock itself.”

 

Then please feel freeto squeeze some water out of rocks. Comes in handy when stuck on an island. Thereis no h2o in the intrinsic composition of any rock. You still have a lot tolearn before you can partake in these discussions.

 

 

“Ice chunks can cracktoo when subjected to temperature change.”

 

Already addressedhere by another member. Google is your friend for all these simple sciencequestions. Repetition does not bring refuted arguments to “life”.

 

 

“my blood andinternal oxygen are external agents contacting my leg causing it to move?”

 

 

Oxygen is intrinsic to flesh (chno). No oxygen, no flesh. Furthermore, oxygen is part of thecarcass of a dead animal. Furthermore, pump any amount of oxygen you want into a dead being. They surely won't get up and start walking again. For that would be a cure for "death". And that killsyour line of argumentation. This has already been addressed. Why do you continue to repeat the same contradictorystatements? You are so done, lol.

[RestoringGuy]

You've now stopped reasoning.  Yes, as you say, I have a lot to learn.  You have nothing to learn.  You know everything you need to:  useful things, such as no rock can contain water.  I am crushed by your infinite wisdom.

[Guest darkskyabove]

I am crushed by your infinite wisdom.

He said, as he slowly backed out of the darkened troll cave.